Disclaimer: none of these characters belong to me; they belong to Shoot the Moon Enterprises and Warner Bros to whom I am eternally grateful for the opportunity to take them out for a spin and bit of light humour.
It was the bellow of sheer frustration coming out of the Personnel office as she passed that made Francine pause and sneak a peek to see what was going on. Her lips twitched at the sight of Beaman, hands flat on the front of Miriam's desk, his lanky body bent almost double so that he could be nose-to-nose with the imperturbable woman staring up at him.
"Four years," he was forcing out between gritted teeth. "I have worked here for FOUR years and it's STILL wrong. How is it possible that everyone else on the planet can get this right and an intelligence agency can't? I've filled in the forms, I've brought you every piece of paper you've ever requested, I could bring in a dozen personal witnesses if necessary – how is it possible that you're still getting this wrong?"
Miriam popped her gum and stared up at him with a bovine expression. "Computer says so. Can only do what the computer tells me."
Beaman's head dropped and his entire body sagged with defeat. "The computer says so, she says," he muttered. He lifted his head to stare at her again. "You do realize computers only tell you what they've been told to tell you, right? That someone somewhere has to enter the information first? So tell me, what demon dog of hell in this damn department is responsible for entering the information into our personnel files?"
Francine bit back a laugh at the vacant expression on Miriam's face. She was used to seeing the slightly goofy drunk Beaman at Christmas parties but this frustrated and enraged version was new. She began to see why Amanda was always just a little bit nervous about getting her assignments right.
Truth to tell, she'd always had a soft spot for him – at one time she'd even thought he might even be her future, but her soulmate mark had put that idea to rest. The name that had shown up along her wrist on her 21st birthday was not Efraim unfortunately and she'd already ignored it once to terrible effect - Jonathan had definitely not been her soulmate either. Still, this current display of machismo from Beaman was kind of attractive. Her curiosity piqued, she lurked in the doorway, waiting to see what was going to happen next.
"Who. Enters. The. Information?" Beaman was grinding out the question again with the look of a man on the brink of a nervous breakdown.
Miriam looked around the otherwise empty room. "Well, I do the original data entry," she admitted.
Francine hadn't thought it was possible for Beaman's face to get any redder but somehow, it had now taken on a purplish hue and the vein on his temple was visibly throbbing. She began to worry that he might actually have an aneurysm right in front of her. She watched as he took a deep breath and began speaking in a careful tone to the dimwitted woman in front of him.
"Well, if you are responsible for the original data entry," he said in a quiet tone that would have been a red flag to anyone with an ounce of intelligence, "why can't you fix it in the computer?"
"Oh, that's easy!" said Miriam in a pleased tone as she finally understood what he was asking. "I'm not allowed to!"
"You're not allowed to?" he repeated in despair.
"Nope! Gotta have an AO-14 level of clearance to edit agent profiles and I'm only an AO-08," she explained as if that finished the conversation.
"Okay then," he said in that same quiet voice. "Who in Personnel has an AO-14 level of clearance and can fix my file?"
"Dolores," replied Miriam with complete confidence.
"Okay, so where's Dolores?" he looked around hopefully, obviously seeing a light at the end of the tunnel of red tape.
"She's on maternity leave," answered Miriam brightly. "Had a baby girl last week. She'll be back in two months!"
Beaman gave off a strangled sound somewhere between a whimper and a sob and dropped his head down onto the desk. Francine decided maybe it was time for an intervention and walked into the office.
"What's up Beaman? Moved on from Roxanne in Payroll at last and trying your luck with Personnel?"
Beaman stiffened like he'd been hit with high voltage, scrambling to get upright and whirl around to face her. "No!" he practically shouted, then visibly calmed himself as she stared at him with a single raised brow. He took in a deep breath and went on in a quieter voice. "I'm trying to get a mortgage for a beach house in Martha's Vineyard and although I'm financially eligible for it, I can't get it because all the paperwork that proves I work here has an error and the bank can't take it as proof."
"You can afford a place in Martha's Vineyard?" Francine couldn't help asking.
"Yeah," he admitted. "I mean it's not near any of the swanky places but it has a private bit of beach and a great place to watch the sunset." He shrugged defensively at her look of disbelief. "Well, I don't have a lot of things to spend my money on, so I've been saving up. And when this place came along in the right price range, it seemed like a perfect investment." He turned to glare at the hapless clerk. "Or it would have been if I'd been able to get my file fixed in time!"
"Well, that's no problem," said Francine, walking around behind Miriam's desk and shooing her out of her chair. "I'm an AO-15 and as Billy's second-in-command, I have access to all the files."
"Really? You can fix this?" Beaman sounded like he could almost cry with relief. "It's been wrong since the day I joined the Agency and I've never been able to get it fixed."
"I can fix it," she answered, quickly swiping her access card and logging in. "So what's the problem?"
"My name's spelled wrong."
Francine looked up at him wide-eyed. "Seriously? You've been here four years and your name's been wrong that whole time?"
"Yes," he ground out in frustration.
"Alright, I'm in. So what's the right spelling? B-E-E?" She began to tab through to the right field in the database.
"Not my last name, my first name," he answered.
Francine's fingers stopped dead on the keyboard. She glanced down the screen to the "Other Information" section and started to grin before looking back up at him and waiting for him to explain.
"All the databases in here say it's E-F-R-A-I-M but it's not. It's E-"
"Wait, let me guess – E-P-H-R-A-I-M?" she finished, with a smile.
"Yes!" he said in a thankful tone. "Finally someone who knows how to spell it! You would not believe how many times I've had to spell it out. Even my parents get it wrong sometimes from being so used to seeing it wrong in other places, you know what I mean? And if people aren't misspelling it E-F-R-A-I-M, they're misspelling it E-F-F-R-O-M." He stopped babbling as she clicked something decisively on the keyboard and stood up.
"All fixed," she said brightly, stepping out from behind Miriam's desk. "And I've sent the EP-191, Proof of Employment to the printer."
He followed in her wake, unable to believe that after all this time, it had taken so little time to correct. They both stared silently as the print head whipped back and forth across the page, and when it was done, Francine carefully ripped the paper along the perforation and signed across the bottom to make it official.
"There you go," she handed it to him with a smile. "All official and correct."
Beaman stared at the sheet of paper in awe. "I could kiss you right now," he said absent-mindedly.
"You could," she agreed.
It took a moment for her words to sink in and he froze for a moment before lifting his head to look at her uncertainly. "Wh-what?"
"Four years and this whole time your name has been wrong on every piece of paper that ever crossed Billy's desk? What a waste of time, Ephraim with a P-H." She was shaking her head sorrowfully but with a small smile that said there was a joke he wasn't getting. She lifted her arm and pushed the wide bangles she always wore out of the way so he could see the fine print along her skin.
"No way," he breathed out, squinting at what was undeniably his name.
"Way," she replied, nodding her head. "I checked out your file the first day when Billy told me about all the new hires – I mean who wouldn't? I'd never run across any other Ephraims in my life, but there it was in black and white right on the personnel list: E-F-R-A-I-M and stupid me, it never occurred to me the list was wrong." She gave a small laugh and shook her head. "I mean we're an Intelligence Agency – we're supposed to get that stuff right, aren't we? But I guess I could have saved some time if I'd ever looked at the distinguishing marks section of your file before today, huh?" She reached over and pushed his cuff back hesitantly, releasing her breath when she saw her name in flowery cursive script.
"You really are – I mean, I wasn't wrong all this time? Because I was seriously beginning to doubt my sanity, the way you kept putting me off." He was back to babbling, almost unable to take it in.
"Well, I was saving myself for the right one. Couldn't just take the first Ephraim that came along now, could I?"
"No, I guess you couldn't," he agreed with a grin, suddenly looking more relaxed than he ever had in her presence.
She slipped her arm through his, letting her wrist rest against his for the first time. "So, let's go grab some lunch and you can tell me all about this place in Martha's Vineyard."
He shook his head in mock sorrow as his wrist warmed against hers. "You're just in this for the real estate opportunities, aren't you?" he teased.
Without a beat, Francine yanked him into an empty office. Grabbing his neck tie, she pulled him down within reach and kissed him. A few seconds and several shorted-out nerve endings later, they pulled apart and stared at each other.
"What was that you were saying?" she asked breathlessly, eyes shining like sapphires.
"Come for lunch and let me tell you about where we're going to honeymoon in Martha's Vineyard," he answered hoarsely.
Francine grabbed his hand and began to lead him out of the room. "Are there goats? You promised me goats."