Читать книгу Me and Mr Carrington: A Short Story - Alexandra Brown, Lindsey Kelk - Страница 6

The shop floor looks amazing, all summery and happy, lifting my mood to practically euphoric – the display team have done a fantastic job. Giant daisies hang on lengths of invisible string from the ceiling and the podiums dotted around the floor are swathed in pretend grass and decorated with candy-striped deckchairs, buckets and spades and piles of brightly coloured towel bales from Homeware are stacked high with bottles of lotions and potions dotted in between. Molton Brown. Cowshed. Soap and Glory, they’re all here. Another podium displays a sleek silver luggage collection beside a couple of cocktail glasses and a stack of bonkbuster beach books. Even the traditional cherry wood gilt-inlayed panelled walls have had a makeover and are now adorned with a trillion tiny daisies, pretty and sparkly with their gold-dipped petals.

I duck into the little alcove behind my counter here on the ground floor, next to the floor-to-ceiling window display giving me a magnificent view of the cobbled High Street with its white colonnaded walkway and pretty hanging baskets brimming with fuchsia begonias suspended from romantic olde worlde streetlamps. During quiet times, I love watching all the people milling up and down outside, or relaxing in a deckchair enjoying a musical performance on the bandstand opposite. And on a clear early morning, when the town is still empty, I can see as far as the peppermint-green railings down by the harbour and out to the glistening sea beyond.

After surreptitiously sliding my mobile from my trouser pocket, (we’re not really supposed to have phones on us, but everyone does and as long as we’re sensible and keep them on silent mode, then nobody knows) I read the email.

Hi Georgie,

I’m looking forward to picking up from where we left off too.

Tom x

Ps – does that mean I get to kiss you all over next time after I’ve tickled you into submission??

Mmm. Flirty. And I like it. A lot.

I let out a long breath before smoothing down my hair and straightening my top – one of our regular customers could appear at any moment to catch me red-cheeked, and that really wouldn’t do. I like to think of the shop floor as a stage to perform on purely for the customers’ retail shopping pleasure where everything else can be left behind the scenes. It’s all an illusion. When a customer enters Carrington’s, the store with more, as our strapline says, they want it to be about them, not the flirty goings-on of the sales assistant.

I sneak one last quick peek at the email before slotting my phone back inside my pocket.

‘Hey, what are you grinning like a looper for?’ It’s Annie, my assistant, and she’s scrutinising me from behind the biggest pair of sunshine yellow geek glasses I think I’ve ever seen.

‘Nice frames,’ I say.

‘Don’t try to change the subject.’ Annie flicks her frosted hair extensions back over her shoulder. ‘Something’s going on,’ she pauses to ponder, crinkling her forehead and placing her index finger on her lip. ‘You’ve had sex!’ she bellows.

‘Shuuuuush,’ I mouth, swiftly dragging her behind the Marc Jacobs display, and narrowly avoiding regular customers, Mr and Mrs Peabody, who never actually buy anything, they just like to come in store for a chat and share pictures of their grandchildren who live in California. But still, I don’t want them overhearing Annie – she can be very loud and animated when she gets going. Plus, I’m not sure I want the rest of the staff knowing about Tom and me just yet. And the last thing I want is him thinking I can’t be discrete. Trusted. He may want to keep things under wraps for now. He is the boss after all.

‘It’s Mr Carrington, isn’t it? Oh my God … It is, isn’t it!’ Annie practically screams, before slapping her hand over her mouth. ‘You are one very lucky lady. Fuuuck … what I wouldn’t do to grab hold of him.’ She smiles and shakes her head in disbelief.

‘Whisper-voice, Annie, someone might hear you, and no, I haven’t had sex,’ I tell her, before scanning the floor.

‘But why not? He’s totes gorge,’ she adds, lowering her voice now.

Annie makes big eyes and waits for me to respond.

‘Err …’ I start, wondering how on earth she even knows about me and Tom, when the only Carrington’s staff in the loop are my best friends, Sam and Eddie, and I trust them both. Eddie might be the biggest drama queen going, but he’s completely reliable and Sam, well, she’s the kindest, most loyal friend ever, we’re practically sisters and we’ve known each other ages – since we started school together at five years old.

‘Oh, it’s OK. Everyone knows … Well, not everyone everyone.’ She shakes her head and grabs my hand reassuringly. ‘Only me and Betty, that mumsy switchboard supervisor. And Mrs Grace I think, but not the customers or anything.’ Oh that’s good. Betty is the biggest gossip going, and Mrs Grace, Carrington’s oldest employee will certainly have something to say about it. She’s a stalwart for tradition and upholding the ‘proper way to behave’; she really won’t approve of Mr Carrington carrying on with me – I can see her now, clutching her granny bag and wagging her bony finger, warning me not to dally with the likes of them upstairs on the executive floor. She’s old-fashioned and a bit of a ‘them and us’ and ‘it’s alright for them’ type.

‘Whaaaat?’ But how?’ I ask.

Annie leans in to me, her eyes darting from side-to-side as if she’s a spy on a special top-secret espionage mission.

‘I only found out because Betty was here on the floor a few minutes ago.’

‘Oh?’ I raise an eyebrow.

‘That’s right. She took delivery of a massive bouquet for you … from Mr Carrington!’ Annie is beside herself now and lets out an actual squeal before clapping her hands together. ‘This is SO romantic, just like a film,’ she gushes, echoing Eddie’s sentiment from earlier and my heart lifts. Flowers. Tom sent flowers. ‘Georgie, this is real babe. You’ve landed a millionaire. A bloody buff one too – not one of those geriatric Ronseal-tanned ones that own pole-dancing clubs and want you to call them daddy.’ She flings her hands on her hips and stares me straight in the eye. My mind boggles wondering how she knows such things.