Page 52 of The Secret
Oh God. I don’t have to be in the university for the rest of the afternoon, but I had planned to go home and have a marathon session with ice cream and some boxsets. I purse my lips. I’ll read through it quickly.
But I’m still sitting at my desk four hours later when Letty arrives back, and her eyes widen when she catches sight of me, and I give her a rueful smile.
“Okay,” I say to her as she walks through the door. “I’ve pulled lots of bits into the proposal from previous ones you’ve done, particularly the applications which looked like they’d been successful. I’ve read the criteria, added some sections of my own …”
“Great!” she says, smiling.
“Can you read it?”
She unwinds a scarf from around her neck. “Sure. Leave it with me. I’ll add anything I need to and send it off to them. How complete is it?”
I screw my face up at the words on the screen in front of me. “Probably about 80 percent finished?”
“That’s fantastic, Liss. Thank you so much.”
I grimace. “Don’t thank me until you’ve read it. You might have to rewrite the whole thing. There’s a lot of money up for grabs, though. I’ve put together something similar to a project I worked on in Africa.”
She nods enthusiastically. “Great. Let me take a look.”
“Okay,” I say, getting up and stretching. “If you’re alright to take it from here, I might head off. I could do with some fresh air.” I wave my hand at the screen. “I’m not so happy sitting indoors at a desk for hours.”But somehow, I manage with being chained toCSIjust fine.
“Thanks so much, Liss. I don’t know what I would do without you now.” She smiles at me in the most touching way possible, and my heart squeezes with how much I miss this when I’m home. These committed people who work so hard, day in, day out, to help others. It warms something up inside me that I don’t like to examine too closely nowadays. I enjoy the university, but it doesn’t set me alight like this.
Two hours later when I’m slumped on the sofa, a text appears on my phone:
This is great!
I laugh to myself. I’m sure it isn’t, but it was fun to step out of my comfort zone for an afternoon.
Glad to help.
Then three dots start:
I’m putting it in. Fingers crossed.
24
LISS
Monday, December 9, 2019
Istep out of the front door of the apartment building onto a freezing Manhattan street, and pull my collar around my neck as I head down the sidewalk. The satisfying thing about checking out of life is it’s a cheap way to live. I’ve got money stashed away for a rainy day, something I’ve never achieved in my whole life. Who knew that heartbreak would be so profitable?
As I head off down the street, my phone vibrates in my pocket and when I pull it out, it’s Fabian.
“Hey.”
“Hey, Liss. I don’t know whether what I’ve got to say is good to be honest, but let me tell you where I’ve got to.” He launches straight into it.
My heart sinks. “Why not?”
He hums in my ear. “Because I can’t really explain what I’ve found, if anything. There’s a strange lack of records.”
“A lack of records?”
“Bank records, phone records, immigration. There’snothing.”
“Nothing?” Am I a parrot?
