A Slight Smile Is Very Charming on a Stone Face novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Warmth Plan

Her manager puts her promotion on a warmth review that ends December 4; her friend Joan warns her he has already picked who wins.

I got back to the office at ten, and the Thursday team meeting had been moved up to Wednesday.

Bressler had moved it because of me.

Eleven adjusters sat around the long table on the ninth floor, and every one of them looked up when I came in.

Nobody said anything, which is how an office says everything.

I sat at the end beside Joan Kowal.

She is fifty-eight and wears red reading glasses on a chain, and she has trained half the people in this room.

She slid a tissue packet toward me under the table without looking.

I did not need it, but I understood she meant it kindly.

Bressler stood at the screen with the clicker in his hand.

"Thank you for joining us, Lin," he said. "We were just talking about warmth."

The screen behind him lit up with the sketch.

It was larger than life, and the woman in it smiled at the whole room.

Someone near the door laughed, but not meanly.

"Here is a Lakeshore adjuster at her best," Bressler said.

"Approachable. Human. This is what a claimant needs to see on the worst day of their life."

My face stayed exactly where it was.

I could feel it staying there.

"Unfortunately," he said, "that drawing is the only time anyone has seen it."

Now they laughed, a little.

I looked at the table and counted the grain in the wood.

"So I'm making a change," Bressler said. "The senior adjuster desk opens in January. Lin is a candidate. So is one other candidate."

He nodded at the man across from me, who has perfect teeth and has never been late.

The other candidate smiled at me with great sympathy.

"The decision will be based on a warmth review," Bressler said.

"Three observed claimant visits between now and the end of November."

"And on Friday, December fourth, a claimant panel."

"Real customers will tell us who they would trust with their house."

"What if their house didn't burn down?" asked someone from the back.

"Then they'll tell us who they'd trust with it anyway."

The meeting moved on to a hailstorm in Lakewood.

I did not hear any of it.

Afterward, in the break room, Joan closed the door and leaned on it with her arms folded.

"Sit," she said.

"I'm fine."

"Sit, I said. You look like you've been sentenced."

"That's my face, Joan."

"I know what your face is. I've known it six years. I want to know what you're feeling."

That was the question nobody asks me, because nobody thinks the answer is on my face.

"Sick," I said. "And furious."

"There she is."

She sat across from me and took off her glasses.

"Listen to me, because I'm going to say this once. He has already picked."

"The other candidate."

"Four years of birthday cards and a perfect smile. Bressler likes a grin because a grin tells him he's liked."

"I'm good at the work."

"You're the best I've trained," she said. "Claimants write your name on their thank-you cards. Did you know that?"

"No."

"They send them to me because they're afraid to send them to you."

I stared at her.

She nodded slowly.

"Twenty years ago I was up for that same desk," she said.

"I was too blunt, and Bressler's predecessor wanted pleasant."

"I got the training job instead, and I've been very good at it."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry. Be better than the panel."

She put her glasses on again, which is how Joan ends a conversation.

At my desk I found the napkin still folded in my blazer pocket.

I opened it.

The woman on it looked worried and hopeful and entirely like me.

On the back, in neat small letters, were the words, "Tuesdays and Thursdays, 12:15, courthouse cafeteria. I'm not selling anything. T. Rudd."

I read it twice.

Then I held it up to the window light.

Joan rolled her chair over without being asked.

"What's that?"

"A drawing."

"Of you?"

"Of how I look when I'm worried."

She read it for a long moment, then looked at me over the red frames.

"Who made that?"

"A man who draws people in court."

"Keep him," said Joan.

I folded the napkin and put it back in my pocket.

I had not agreed to anything.

But the next day, at ten minutes to noon, I was walking to the courthouse.

← Chapter 2 · All chapters · Chapter 4 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend