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“I soit; the reports were probably in a pile somewhere in my house

“Have you listened to es?”

“I think your cell phone is h to knoas in trouble I usually tuned out after Jian: Your friend Jim Jeffreys here, Libby …

Jiers and stuck his bottom lip out “There is 982 dollars and 12 cents left in the fund As I’ve mentioned before, had you been able to replenish it with any kind of regular work, we’d have been able to keep it afloat, but …” he tossed out his hands and gris didn’t work out that way”

“What about the book, didn’t the book … ?”

“I’m sorry, Libby, the book did not I tell you this every year It’s not your fault, but the book … no Nothing”

Years ago, to exploit my twenty-fifth birthday, a publisher of self-help books asked hosts of reed to the book anyway, talking over the phone with a wo The book came out at Christ an unfortunate shag haircut It was called, Brand New Day! Don’t Just Survive Childhood Trauma—Surpass It! and it included a few childhood snapshots of loppy, positive-thinking porridge I was paid 8,000, and a sroups invitedof athering of teenagers whose nedquestions, like did ray, needful oldburnt coffee and stomach acid “Start a New Day!” I’d write or “A New Day Awaits!” How lucky to have a pun for a last name The people who ca uncertainly near roups were always s paid for any of this, I refused to go anywhere The book had already bombed anyway

“It seems like it should have made more money,” I mumbled I really wanted the book tothat if I wanted it enough, it should happen It should happen

“I know,” Ji more to say on the subject after six years He watched me drink my wine in silence “But in a way, Libby, this presents you with a really interesting new phase of your life I row up?”

I could tell this was supposed to be chare up inpoint

“There’s no money left?”

Ji his newly arrived steak, the blood pooling around it like bright Kool-Aid

“What about new donations—the twenty-fifth anniversary is cospree around 2 am on January 3, 1985 The ti forward to it Who said things like that? Why couldn’t there have been even 5,000 left?

He shook his head again “There’s no more, Libby You’re what, thirty? A woirls, not …”

“Not me”

“I’m afraid not”

“People have moved on? Really?” I felt a lurch of abandonment, the way I always felt as a kid, when so me off at some other aunt or cousin’s house: I’m done, yo

u take her for a while And the new aunt or cousin would be real nice for about a week, try real hard with bitter little me, and then … in truth it was usually my fault It really was, that’s not victi roouardian, my mom’s sister, my beloved, took me in—and sent me away—half a dozen tiood I did very bad things to that woman

“There is always a new“People have short attention spans Iabout Lisette Stephens”

Lisette Stephens was a pretty twenty-five-year-old brunette who’d disappeared on the way ho dinner All of Kansas City was invested in finding her—you couldn’t turn on the neithout seeing her photo sone national in early February Nothing at all had happened in the case for a month Lisette Stephens was dead, and everyone knew that by now, but no one wanted to be the first to leave the party

“But,” continued Ji well”

“Awesome”

“What about college?” he chewed off a hunk of meat

“No”

“What about we try to set you up in so and whatnot?”

“No” I folded in on lulu the blues in a way that annoyed other people Having the blues aggressively

“Well, why don’t you take a week and do so his steak, his forkup and down briskly Jim Jeffreys wanted to leave Jim Jeffreys was done here

HE LEFT ME with three pieces of rin that was supposed to be opti like junk Ji shoe boxes full of n the check over to him, and then the donor would receive a for “Thank you for your donation It is people like you who let hter future Your truly, Libby Day” It really did say “your” truly, a nant