Page 107 of Leaning In

I lean back in my chair, exhaling slowly. “Thank you. Really. I wasn’t sure they’d go for it.”

“Well,” she says, arching an eyebrow. “You did an amazing job with the presentation, and anwering all the questions they threw at you. One of the trustees apparently used the phrase ‘exactly the kind of direction we should be heading in.’”

“Who said that?” I ask, suprised.

She shrugs. “Does it matter?”

Marina’s nearly out the door when she doubles back. “Oh—and these arrived from the printers this morning.” She sets a slim stack of booklets on the desk beside me. They’re the new prospectus, DRAFT stamped across them. On the cover is one of Claire’s photographs, the one from the museum trip we went on. “They’re proofs, you can take a look before you head off.”

The door swings shut behind her and I’m left sitting there, stunned. I pick up the prospectus and flick through, seeing Claire’s touch in it everywhere. The watercolours, the pictures, the themes.

I can’t wait to tell her about today.

Grabbing the final bits of marking, I stuff them into my bag. I’d rather get home and do it at the kitchen table whilst Claire reads her book than sit alone in this office. I’m smiling all the way back to the flat, still not quite able to believe that it’s actually happened. That they actually signed off on the proposal, and now more kids are going to be able to access facilities and get to do the things they love.

Claire’s already home when I get back, and I wonder at what point I started always expecting her to be there at the end of the day. After that first night, she never really went home, and I couldn’t be happier. I love the mundanity of it. Cooking together, reading our books together, curling up in bed every night. Maybe we should talk about it more officially. Work out whether to formally move into one of our flats.

She’s on the phone to someone, and I pause, not wanting to disturb her. “Ok, talk soon. Bye, Mum.”

She looks up from the sofa and I raise my eyebrows. “Everything alright?”

“You know what?” she says. “It was. Fifteen minutes, just chatting about Christmas. She knows I’m spending it with you, but we made plans to meet up on the 27th. It was nice actually.” Claire smiles at me, and I’m relieved by the calm in her expression. I’m glad that now she feels like she can talk to her mum, but doesn’t feel any pressure to do so. The relationship is on her terms, and I’m with her whatever choice she makes.

“Anyway, how was your day?” Claire asks.

I put my bag down and pull out the folder with the mock ups, handing it to her before stealing a quick kiss. “It was very good. Want to look at this?”

She squeaks as she reads the front. “I hadn’t realised they’d sent these out, they look so different out in the world rather than just in the office.” Claire flicks through the pages, eyes bright. “Wow.”

“I know.”

I love seeing how happy this makes her. When she puts it down, having gone through each page, I hand her the proposal acceptance.

“This is amazing, Tom,” she squeals, the moment she reads the front. She vaults over the back of the sofa to give me a hug.

I smile into her hair and lift her into the air. She lets out a huff of laughter before pulling back and giving me another kiss. Her smile lights up my dingy flat. When she’s here I barely notice the faded paint and crooked curtains.

“I’m so proud of you,” she whispers against my lips. “I know how much work you did for this.”

“You helped,” I tell her. “Your slides were revolutionary, Claire. I might have to keep you around.”

She giggles. “You don’t need to thank me. But I will be bragging to everyone I know that my boyfriend just got a school-wide programme approved. And yes, I will be using the phrase ‘school-wide programme’ as often as possible. You’re basically famous now. Even if only among a select group of eleven- to eighteen-year-olds.”

“In that case, Miss Robinson, would you like this minor celebrity to cook you some pasta?”

She grins. “Maybe I should open some champagne.”

“That might be excessive.”

“Nope.” She lightly kisses my cheek. “You deserve to celebrate.”

Chapter 44

Tom

“That was fun,” Kath tells me.

I don’t think I can breathe well enough to give her an answer. Instead, I just sit down and put my head between my knees. It’s freezing outside, and everyone else is in jackets. But I’m hot. Too hot. I’m roasting, and I feel like I’ve sweated out every drop of fluid in my body, along with all the salt. My shirt is sticking to me in a horrifying and highly distressing way and my mouth is like the Sahara.