Page 54 of 12 Days

I scan my surroundings, deftly checking behind me. I see nobody—everyone I know from True Love is still inside the building, and well out of earshot.

“Good, good.” Homer’s just barely holding onto the act, ready to let go soon.

“Is this really necessary? It’s not like they’re oblivious,” I whisper-hiss into the phone, more out of annoyance than out of attempted subterfuge.

“We haven’t heard from you in a while.” Homer’s ignoring my complaint, although he’s never heard anything like that from me before.

“Well…I’m sorry. There’s a lot going on with this project, but I’m starting to scratch the surface.”

“The surface?”

Homer’s abrupt, angry yell startles me into halting in my path again, but I restart moving away from True Love, quickly now. I’d rather keep this conversation away from there for my own reasons.

“We know the surface already, Alyssa.” Homer’s moved from artificial to angry to speaking like his real, inflexible self. “We don’t send people in to make nebulous observations about how ‘there’s a lot going on’ after spending days on the job.”

“There is a lot going on, though.”

“I don’t care. Unless that includes the formula. Any news about that?”

“No. Not yet.”

This whole assignment’s been an unimaginable whirlwind, and it looks like it may conclude with me getting pulled away from it.

While that seems like a fitting end, I can’t imagine it actually being the end. At least not now, not yet.

I need to think fast, because Homer will take my silence as a response, and will use that as an excuse to take action, to end the assignment.

The higher ups at the FDA know these types of jobs inside and out, and they know what constitutes a solid outcome. Their standards are high, and from this conversation I can tell that Homer wants the formula and nothing less.

Even if he has to wait. That’s what I’m betting on, at least.

“Give me a week.”

“What?” Homer sounds more confused than angry. I need to work with that.

“I’m getting close, and I can deliver the formula. Just one more week.”

I hear a distant sigh through the line, as if Homer frustratedly put the phone down for a second to figure this out.

“First of all, Alyssa…”

I’m so focused on walking hurriedly away, I almost jump as Homer’s voice suddenly retakes my phone. He doesn’t finish his thought, though.

“Are you still there, Homer?”

“Alyssa, it’s not just me involved with this contract. You know that. You also know how I vouched for you to get this job. Now this is on me, too.”

I involuntarily start gripping my purse, holding it tightly against my side.

“Yes, of course I know. All I can tell you right now is that I’m making progress.”

He continues as if he didn’t hear me.

“Second, you can’t make any assumptions about how oblivious these guys are or aren’t. That’s disturbing for me to hear. Over the course of the next three days…and it will be only three days, right?”

“Right. Absolutely.”

“From now until the end of this job, if you want to talk business as soon as you pick up the phone, that’s fine. I’m telling you this, though: if that’s what you want, you need to be exceedingly careful about where you answer calls from work.”

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