Page 75 of Just Like That

The sea of expressions turns from crestfallen and dejected to curious and hopeful.

‘This morning, our very own Jess – yes, I consider you one of our own—’ Gwen gives me a meaningful look as she clocks the pleasantly surprised expression on my face ‘—our Jess, who pulled out all the stops to get our amazing fundraiser over the line yesterday, woke up to an anonymous donation on our FundedCauses page.’

‘How much was the donation for?’ calls out a worker who’s clearly getting impatient with Gwen’s elongated announcement.

‘That’s just what I was about to tell you, Byron.’ Gwen stops pacing and kind of semi-crouches down, making her look like she’s having an alfresco pee.

This unfortunately attracts a few stifled sniggers, which thankfully she doesn’t notice.

Gwen reads out the message on the FundedCauses page first, then does the big reveal. ‘We’ve received – wait for it – three hundred and fifty thousand pounds!’ She jumps up and throws her hands in the air to add impact to this revelation.

The crowd of workers is stunned into silence for about half a second, then the place erupts into cheers and cries of disbelief. The atmosphere is electric, with colleagues hugging each other and jumping up and down with excitement, while I make a mental note to strongly advise Gwen never to squat like that in front of an audience again.

Chapter 35

After an hour or so of chatting with an endless stream of park workers, all wanting to thank me for saving their jobs, Nick walks me to my car and we say a cosy goodbye.

‘Thanks for everything, Jess.’ He nuzzles my neck in a manner that makes me want to jump straight into the bushes with him. ‘You really did pull out all the stops for us. We’re so grateful to you.’

I shrug. ‘I was just doing my job.’

‘Come on, it was a lot more than that. If you hadn’t led the way on the fundraiser, there would have been no event and no FundedCauses page for anyone to donate through.’

‘OK, fair enough, but this place is so important to you all, and now it’s important to me too.’

Nick looks thoughtful. ‘Your career is also important to you. Is there anything Gwen or I can do to help you get that back on track? Surely your boss can’t question your capability now. You’ve done way more than was ever asked of you.’

‘Oh, don’t worry.’ I grin at him. ‘There’s no way Craig can ignore this success story. I’ve got a one-to-one with him on Tuesday morning, and I fully intend to make the most of that time.’

We chat for a few moments longer, then say our goodbyes and I get on the road. As the greenery of East Lothian, dampened by a squally shower that’s recently come on, whizzes past me, I realise I need to make a call.

‘Call Amelia,’ I instruct the in-car speech recognition system.

It rings just twice before she answers.

‘Jess, mate, how did yesterday go?’ Amelia’s bubbly voice comes through the car speakers. ‘I’ve been peeing my pants waiting to hear.’

‘There was no need to soil yourself over it,’ I quip. ‘Anyway, since when do you call people “mate”?’

‘Since I’m trying out a new “look”.’

‘Right.’ I navigate my way across a roundabout. ‘So what colour is your hair now?’

‘About five different shades of pink.’

‘Sounds very My Little Pony.’

‘Nah, mate, it’s retro. Think pink pick-and-mix. Anyway, less about that, give me the juice.’

I shake my head at my friend’s fabulous outrageousness and quickly fill her in on the events of the last thirty-six hours.

‘You are shitting me,’ she cries out when I tell her the final piece about the obscene anonymous donation, and she falls about laughing (I think) when I throw in a mention of Gwen’s unfortunate squat.

‘That’s an image I’ll never get out of my head,’ I snigger, enjoying this chat with my bestie. ‘So, there you are. That’s you caught up. Pretty cool stuff, eh?’

‘I’ll say.’

‘Oh, and I need to thank you for all the social media marketing advice you gave me. Without it, we would never have managed any of this.’

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