Page 78 of Alice Carver Manifests Her Perfect Life
Manifesting works! It genuinely works.
Just received the following email:
From: [email protected]
Re: touching in
Lunch next Thursday, 12.00. Confirm with Iris.
I am letting go of:
Any misgivings I ever had about manifesting – I am in touching distance of Guy ‘touching in’.
Date: Sunday 22 JanuaryTime: 9.50pm
My thoughts and reflections:
Have spent a dynamic and productive weekend (largely on my own as Astrid was working and Aziz had gone to his parents’ for his mum’s birthday) maximising my new status as an authentic manifester. I finally sat down and worked up some of my ideas for non-fiction into a proper document so that they’re ready for me to start to build on my manifesting successes in the workplace. Okay, it was smug Matthew Lloyd’s suggestion which means I should be ignoring it on principle, but once I’d finished and included my evidence-based research, I did actually feel quite smug myself. These were good ideas that stood to be profitable and popular. And they were now ready for me to share, thus proving my worth, should Guy Carmichael ask me intelligent and probing questions over lunch. It did, however, take a massive chunk of time.
When Arrie FaceTimed this morning to show me Maud’s new puppies and complain about the twins’ school and the way that they’d treated her (one of the twins had apparently given a haircut to another child and there was some discussion about consent and Arrie had felt slighted as a parent and dog breeder), she wouldn’t believe I was in the middle of work until I showed my laptop. Then she went weirdly emotionaland said, ‘God, how has Astrid managed that? Alice working on a Sunday?’ And made a big show of shouting out to tell Roger how fab Astrid was and look what she’d achieved with Alice, and when Astrid had children there probably wouldn’t be difficult conversations with schools, and got a tear in her eye and tried to pretend it was pride that I’d come so far but we both knew she was secretly upset at the idea that Astrid had managed something Arrie never had. Arrie is so competitive.
So eventually I put her out her misery and told Arrie that my working had nothing to do with Astrid, and that if I were honest, watching Astrid puke and faint and lose her marriage over deciding she needed a dramatic career change was enough to make me want to opt out of life altogether and join the circus. I explained how Harry Piles was such a dick at work and that when the cuts started happening, I didn’t want to lose my job on the back of his incompetence. Arrie said it was an indication of poor leadership when someone like Harry Piles took root. ‘Who does he report to?’
‘Guy Carmichael’s divisional leader,’ I said. ‘But it’s not his fault.’
‘Oh Christ,’ said Arrie. ‘Please tell me that’s not the one you’re hoping to shag? If you’re crushing on your boss, Alice, at least he should be an effective boss.’
‘More than crushing actually, Arrie. I’ve got a date on Thursday.’
At least that cheered Arrie up. She said that Astrid was undoubtedly doing a way worse job with me than Arrie would, and why would Astrid stand by while I went and proffered myself to sub-standard executive leaders? She wouldn’t listen when I told her that Guy was authority itself and has wonloads of awards so is indisputably good at his job. She just told me that I needed to have a good hard think about exactly what it was I hoped to achieve and that judging by this latest mess with me, Astrid was the sort of person who’d probably end up with the type of child who ended up receiving haircuts at school then crying about it later. And now, on reflection, when she really thought about it, Arrie would prefer to be the mother of haircutters.
I mean that says it all. Arrie is verging on a psychopath. That’s why she made all that money when she was young.
I took a few screenshots of the puppies snuggling together (they were cute, despite their belligerent mother) to mollify Arrie and to show Astrid later.
But Astrid was typically derisive about the puppies when she eventually got home later that evening. ‘They’re not snuggling together, Alice. That one’s plainly trying to hump his brother. Animals don’t always respect boundaries. Neither do you, by the sound of it.’
Like Arrie, Astrid wasn’t impressed by my manifesting date success with Guy Carmichael: neither of my sisters is good at being happy for other people.
‘Going for lunch with Guy,’ I said, ‘is not the same as incest.’
‘He’s married,’ said Astrid. ‘And he’s your boss. You’re crossing boundaries.’
‘He’s getting a divorce! Besides, you’re crossing boundaries too with your new career.’ I was thinking of Aziz at his parents’, on his own.
‘At least I know it’s what I want. And I take responsibility for it.’
‘I do know what I want: Guy.’
‘Really? So do you want a date with Guy because Charlotte had one and you want to beat her? Or because you want him to notice you, get your name right and respect you at work? Or just because you always want hairy-knuckled men in their fifties?’
‘I’m a complex woman, Astrid. It’s possible to want many things. Plus you haven’t seen him; Guy is in his prime.’
‘Congratulations, Alice. Glad you’re perpetuating the patriarchy by continuing to participate in gender ideology where the older male form is revered, and the older female form despised.’
Christ. Someone was stressing about hitting middle age. ‘I’m not,’ I said quickly. ‘I’m always telling Cara at work that in a couple more years, when she hits fifty, she’ll be at her zenith, and that her skin is just getting better as she ages.’
