The Love of My Afterlife(48)

    KNOCK OVER THE GREEN JUICE!



She’s trying to help me! At last! My eyes flick to the glass on Maurice’s desk. Of course! If I knock that onto him, he’ll leave the room to clean himself off and I can get into the filing cabinet!

“Yes!” I say brightly, focus returning. “Pauline de La Roo, croissant. She taught me how to do this.”

I start to do the first dance that occurs to me, which, considering it had been such a hit last night, is once more the hand jive. Maurice sits up in his chair, jaw open as I hand jive across the office towards him. I do an exuberant shimmy forward and, in the midst of a wrist crossing, reach out and knock the green juice onto his chest.

He yelps and jumps up from his chair, glaring down at his striped shirt in dismay.

“I’m so sorry!” I try, but he doesn’t hear me. He’s already scooting his way out of the office door, muttering something about the shirt being a gift from Sir Anthony Hopkins.

Yes! Yes, yes! I dash over to the filing cabinet. I’ll start at the top and work my way down. Only…Fuck. The drawer doesn’t budge. It’s locked. No! Keys. I need the keys to the filing cabinet. I hurry over to Maurice’s desk, opening the top desk drawer and rustling through. No keys. I try the bottom two drawers. Nothing.

“Any more help, Merritt?” I mutter, scanning the walls for key-holding hooks.

Nada.

I rifle across the messy desk, noticing slight flecks of gloopy green juice spotting the screen of the laptop.

“Shit. Come on, keys!” I growl to myself.

Oh no. I can hear Maurice talking outside the office door. He’s coming back. And then, without me even touching it, a blue cardboard folder flies off the desk and onto the floor. “Merritt?!” I whisper. I pick up the folder and see a hot-pink Post-it note stuck onto the corner of it. I squint. The Post-it has Jonah’s name scrawled across it, along with something else that I don’t have time to decipher because the door opens and Maurice flusters in. I swipe the Post-it note off the folder and tuck it quickly into my bra. Maurice dabs at his shirt with a huge wad of kitchen towel.

“I really am sorry, Mr. Alabaster,” I say, darting past him and making a note to myself to send him some money for the dry-cleaning bill as soon as I can.

Outside on the street I catch my breath and lean my head back against the brick wall of the building next door. Then I reach into my bra and pull out the hot-pink Post-it, eyes greedily taking in the information.

    JONAH ELECTRIC DERWENT MANOR ANNUAL GALA



There’s a date scrawled right at the bottom of the Post-it. It’s the day after tomorrow.

Bingo.





24





As soon as I get home, I grab my laptop and look up the Derwent Manor Annual Gala. I’m sent to a website that looks very sleek and secretive. I press the enter button and am taken to an events page, where a gallery of images shows the most insanely glamourous house I’ve ever seen. Underneath, in an elegant typeface, there’s a description of the event:


Join Lady Derwent for her annual fundraising gala in the glorious Derwent Manor ballroom. This year’s theme is Famous Couples Throughout History. We very much hope to top last year’s extravaganza and raise a record sum for this year’s charity— Ditch the Bullies.



Wow. Jonah must be an incredible dancer if he’s going to be performing at something as swish as this. I close my eyes for a moment and imagine Jonah and me at a gala, in a ballroom, twirling around on a polished parquet floor. In this vision there is no hand jive to be found.

I scroll down the page and gasp when I see that the price of the tickets is one thousand five hundred pounds per head.

“Fuck me.”

I could dip into my savings? Money means nothing if I’m dead. I click onto the buy tickets button.


This event is now sold out.



Nooooo. I bury my face in my arms and muffle a scream. I am getting thwarted at every turn. I need to get into this gala! I click on the Facebook event page and tap out a comment.


Hi there! I was wondering if anyone had any spare tickets for the gala? I so want to go and I only need one ticket. I am a solo flyer! Please comment or DM if you can help.



I immediately get three comments. One from a woman called Gloria Montpellier that says, No solo flyers. It’s a couples themed event so you would need a partner. Then a comment from a guy with a picture of a waterfall as his profile pic—that one is just three laughing emojis in a row. The last response is from the event handler themselves.


My gosh, ever so sorry. We are fully booked out and tickets are non-transferable. Feel free to make a donation via our website and add yourself to the mailing list for news of next year’s gala.



“I won’t bloody be here for next year’s gala!” I cry at the screen, slamming my laptop lid closed and rubbing at my temples. A wave of tiredness flops over me. I don’t think I’ve ever had this much happening in my life at one time. It’s exhausting. With a grumble, I open my laptop again and google Jonah’s names both real and stage, narrowing the search to the last twenty-four hours in case anything new has come up. Nothing! For someone who gallivants around London so much, Jonah is a total digital recluse.

“Merritt?” I yell into the air. “Are you there? I am very clearly flailing here! I don’t think I can do this.”