The Circle

in the country that covered
     an employee’s parents or siblings.
    “Sure, but you know what we say here,” Annie said. “Anything that makes our Circlers’
     lives better …” She seemed to be waiting for Mae to finish the sentence. Mae had no
     idea. “… instantly becomes possible. You should know that!”
    “Sorry.”
    “That was in your intake orientation. Mae! Okay, I’ll get on this.” Annie was typing
     something into her phone. “Probably later tonight. I’m running into a meeting now,
     though.”
    “It’s six o’clock.” She checked her wrist. “No. Six thirty.”
    “This is early! I’ll be here till twelve. Or maybe all night. We’ve got some very
     fun stuff happening.” Her face was aglow, alive to possibility. “Dealing with some
     juicy Russian tax stuff. Those guys do not fuck around.”
    “You sleeping in the dorms?”
    “Nah. I’ll probably just push these two couches together. Oh shit. I better go. Love
     you.”
    Annie squeezed Mae and walked out of the room.
    Mae was alone in Annie’s office, stunned. Was it possible that her father would soon
     have real coverage? That the cruel paradox of her parents’ lives—that their constant
     battles with insurance companies actually diminished her father’s health and prevented
     her mother from working, eliminating her ability to earn money to pay for his care—would
     end?
    Mae’s phone buzzed. It was Annie.
    “And don’t worry. You know I’m a ninja with stuff like this. It’ll be done.” And she
     hung up.
    Mae looked out Annie’s window to San Vincenzo, most of it built or renovated in the
     last few years—restaurants to serve Circlers, hotels to serve visitors to the Circle,
     shops hoping to entice Circlers and their visitors, schools to serve children of the
     Circle. The Circle had taken over fifty buildings in the vicinity, transforming blighted
     warehouses into climbing gyms, schools, server farms, each structure bold, unprecedented,
     well beyond LEED.
    Mae’s phone went off again and again it was Annie.
    “Okay, good news sooner than expected. I checked and it’s not a big deal. We have
     about a dozen other parents on the plan, and even some siblings. I twisted a few arms
     and they say they can get your dad on.”
    Mae looked at her phone. It had been four minutes since she’d first mentioned all
     this to Annie.
    “Oh shit. You’re serious?”
    “You want your mom on the plan, too? Of course you do. She’s healthier, so that’s
     easy. We’ll put both of them on.”
    “When?”
    “I guess immediately.”
    “I can’t believe this.”
    “C’mon, give me some credit,” Annie said, breathless. She was walking briskly, somewhere.
     “This is easy.”
    “So should I tell my parents?”
    “What, you want
me
to tell them?”
    “No, no. I’m just making sure it’s definite.”
    “It is. It’s really not the biggest deal in the world. We have eleven thousand people
     on the plan. We get to dictate terms, right?”
    “Thank you Annie.”
    “Someone from HR will call you tomorrow. You guys can work out the details. Gotta
     go again. Now I’m really late.”
    And she hung up again.
    Mae called her parents, telling her mom first, then her dad, and there was some whooping,
     and there were tears, more praise for Annie as the savior of the family, and some
     very embarrassing talk about how Mae had become a real adult, how her parents were
     ashamed and humbled to be leaning on her, leaning so heavily on their young daughter
     this way, it’s just this messed-up system we’re all stuck in, they said. But thank
     you, they said, we’re so proud of you. And when she was alone on the phone with her
     mother, her mother said, “Mae, you’ve saved not just your father’s life but my life,
     too, I swear to god you have, my sweet Maebelline.”
    At seven Mae found she couldn’t stand it any longer. She couldn’t sit still. She had
     to get up and celebrate in some way. She checked the campus that night. She’d missed
     the Sahara kickoff and already regretted it. There was a poetry slam, in costume,
     and she ranked thatone first and even RSVP’d to it. But then she saw the cooking class in which they
     were going to roast and eat an entire goat. She ranked that second. At nine there
     was an appearance by some activist wanting the Circle’s help in her campaign against
     vaginal mutilation in Malawi. If she tried, Mae could get to at least a few of these
     events, but just