Calling All Customers (Calling All... Book 3)

by Tara Ford

  Calling

  All

  Customers

  by

  Tara Ford

  Is sanity a small price to pay for happiness?

  © Tara Ford 2015

  All rights reserved

  ASIN: B012G9F23C

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Other titles by Tara Ford

  Calling All Services

  Calling All Dentists

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks to Tracey Rawlings for challenging me to include the most ridiculous name you could imagine, in this book – but hey – I did it. Thank you to the following people for their show of support and encouragement throughout: Ann Faulkner, Andrea at EIS (you owe me a review or two and also, you look amazing with no hair), Veronica Hall, Cathy Parr and Nicola Elson.

  Thanks to Sarah Bennett and Debbie Lewis for being patient ladies (although I’m sure that you both love to badger me at any opportunity, just for the sake of it) but here’s the third one at long last.

  Thank you to Caroline Fielder for the generous offer of living with her, in her picturesque new home, somewhere in the sticks. I will be taking her up on the offer, purely for writing inspiration of course… and maybe the odd meal thrown in for good measure. And the obligatory glass of wine.

  A huge thanks to Jane Hessey who, once again, has had to endure the task of proofreading and going through my emails – you’re a star!

  Thank you to Nigel, Liam, Zak, Abbie, Megan, Benita and Ashley for putting up with my little, laminated, hand-made signs. However, I do think they worked well and I will continue to use them. ‘I am working – pretend I am not here’, ‘Please don’t talk to me, even though you can see me – I AM NOT HERE!’

  Thank you to everyone who has read my other books.

  My biggest thank you goes to those of you who have taken the time to leave a review on Amazon – I appreciate all of them (good or bad) as always.

  Tara Ford

  http://taraford.weebly.com/

  Twitter: @rata2e

  Facebook: Tara Ford - Author

  For Jane and Luke

  Chapter 1

  Jenny Fartor (as in Fa-toar not Far-ter) sighed, stood up and stretched her limbs. Kneeling on the floor for half an hour had numbed her slim legs. The mound of letters, addressed to countless different people, did not look any smaller now that she had sorted through and placed them into categories. There were three piles of mail on the floor: ‘No longer at this address’, ‘Junk’ and ‘Not sure what to do with it’.

  Staring out of the four-paneled window front, Jenny pondered over the huge task ahead. She’d realised her dream when she collected the keys to her very own retail unit in the suburbs of Farehelm and now the hard work was really going to start.

  It had been two months since she’d started the process of raising enough money for the deposit on the 15 year leasehold. A substantial amount of money had been required, not only to stock the shop but enough to cover the costs of shop-fitting, shelving, display cabinets, fridges and freezers as well. Her business plan had been welcomed by her bank manager but now she was in debt up to her ears. It was a challenging and scary place to be.

  Jenny was made of tough stuff though and to lessen the burden of a huge loan, she’d been saving, here and there, for the past five years. Her previous job in the wholesale business had helped her financially, as well as equip her with a vast knowledge of the independent retail trade. These firm foundations had secured her business plan. And ditching her boyfriend, Calvin, had been the best move of all. She was free. Free to do what she’d always dreamed of – to own her very own convenience store.

  However, it was still a terrifying place to be.

  At the tender age of 28, Jenny was somewhat angst that she had wasted more than five years of her life with a hopeless, no-brainer like Calvin. They were still friends (amazingly) but their new friendship status was one-sided. If Calvin’s controlling and insecure personality had anything to do with it, they would still be together. She supposed that he couldn’t help being a complete and utter dork and she genuinely wished that one day he would find someone else to get his little claws in to.

  Drawn from her reverie by the sound of her mobile ringing on the mahogany windowsill, Jenny reached for the phone. “Hi Dayna.”

  “Jen, are you in there yet?”

  “Yes, been here about an hour, picked the keys up last night.”

  “Yay, when can I come over? I am so excited.”

  “Now if you like. I’ll be here for most of the day, I expect, judging by the state of this place.”

  “Rubber gloves on as we speak,” replied Dayna in her usual excitable, high pitched tone. “I’ll be there in a couple of hours, going to drop Xaylan off at my mum’s first. Is that ok?”

  “Yes, great. Thanks Dayna, I could do with some company here.”

  “Ok, see you laters,” she said and then hung up the phone.

  Dayna Seeshy was Jenny’s closest friend, confidante, and the first member of staff at J’s Convenience Store. Having moved on from her ten year stretch of raising a child, claiming social security benefits, working voluntarily and several dead-end jobs in local fast-food stores, Dayna was now ready for the challenges that lay ahead. She was going to be Jenny’s number one sales assistant, customer liaison manager, agony aunt, bouncer, security guard, comedienne, all-round entertainer, counsellor, psychiatrist, general dogsbody and anything else that Jenny saw fit.

  The two women went back a long way, to their school days in fact, and had stayed in contact through the years, through the boyfriends and the ups and downs of bringing Dayna’s son, Xaylan, up – sometimes between them.

  Jenny had now joined Dayna’s world of singledom, except, unlike Dayna, she had nothing to show for her years with Calvin apart from the proceeds from the sale of their small apartment. But she supposed that if it hadn’t been for the small amount of profit she’d accrued from the sale, she may not be here, sifting through piles of letters and rubbish in her very own shop.

  Jenny picked up the biggest pile of letters and proceeded to scribble out the current address and write across the front of each one in jumbo lettering, No longer at this address. The shop had been empty for over six months, having closed down as a failing tanning salon previously. So Jenny had a mammoth sized job now in the conversion process to turn the unit into a grocery store. Her plan was to convert the shop over the next six weeks and open up just after she received her alcohol license. There must be over 30 letters here, she thought to herself as she leant over the rickety old counter and continued to scribble.

  Brilliant sunshine poured through the shop’s front windows heating the interior, so much so that Jenny had to stop what she was doing and open the front door to allow the heat to escape. Peering up and down the road, she noted that there were not many people around for a Saturday morning, apart from the occasional dog-walker meandering past.

  She’d studied the demographics of the affluent area before she had decided to purchase the unit and her services were definitely required in the area. Yet it seemed oddly quiet. She had expected the place to be a little livelier than this. Just the odd vehicle travelled up or down the road and there were very few pedestrians about, anywhere.

  The nearest grocery store, KO Stores, was about a mile away and although it was part of a retail chain,
it was much smaller than Jenny’s shop would be. It stood alone, amongst a cluster of maisonettes and tatty looking garages. When she had visited, during the purchasing period, she had secretly checked out their footfall and been quite surprised by how many people were using it. In the hour that she sat in the car park, across the road, she’d counted 74 people using the shop. A rough estimation of the shop’s traffic and likely spend per hour was favourable. Jenny’s own shop looked promising if the KO Store was anything to go by.

  Along the row of retail units, where Jenny’s shop would be, there was an expensive looking ladies hairdresser come beauty salon, a recruitment office and the last three units were owned by a nursery. Each unit had three parking bays directly outside and there were further parking bays around the back of the building for the residents of the flats above. Across the side road was a small pub and just behind that, a car showroom and mechanics garage. The local school was a couple of streets away and the bus stop, in to town, was just across the road, a little further down. Jenny had speculated that her shop, along with the area it was situated in, would have far more to offer than the KO Store could and would see more traffic. A personal and friendly service was the top of Jenny’s list of provisions. Upon her surreptitious visit to the KO Store previously, it had appeared that the staff were a right miserable bunch. They’d slouched around with hunched shoulders and a look of disdain on their faces.

  Jenny would also be in a position to offer low prices on everyday products too. So a smile and a bargain were the name of her game – what could go wrong?

  Upon further inspection, up and down the road, Jenny could only assume that the quiet streets were just a sign of it being too early on this sunny Saturday morning and the neighbourhood would be out and about soon enough. She breathed in the warm sweet air, tied back her mid-length, wispy brown hair, into a ponytail, then returned inside to continue the mammoth cleaning up and clearing out task.

  “Yoo-hoo, only me,” called Dayna from the front door. “I’ve got my mighty-mission-holdall with me and look at these, I just bought. Cool or what?” She waved a pair of long black, rubber gloves, with a red feathery frill around the tops, in the air.

  Jenny peered around the staffroom door at the back of the shop. “Seriously? That’s a worry,” she said and tutted. “Where on earth did you get those from? And more importantly – why?”

  “That new fancy dress/party shop in town, they’ve got loads of weird and wonderful things in there. And they’re so cool – that’s why.”

  “Dare I ask why you would go to a fancy dress shop on your way here?” asked Jenny, knowing full well that she was going to hear a ridiculous reason for why her best friend had been shopping in a party shop, so early in the morning.

  “I just bought a didgeridoo. Mum told me they had some in there. I just had to get one, Jen, and Xaylan will love it too. I’ve just tried it out in the car park down town.” Dayna grinned her usual quirky smile as she closed the front door and looked around.

  Dressed in a pair of blue jeans, red plimsolls and a matching red t-shirt, Dayna’s striking features and long, dark hair always managed to make her stand out in a crowd. She’d always liked to be noticed, right from an early age. In their younger days, it was always Dayna who would get sent home from school because she was wearing heavy make-up or false, painted nails or ‘inappropriate’ clothing, when she should have been wearing school uniform. The worst occasion was in their last year of school, when Dayna had to get changed for PE one day, and got caught showing-off her new nipple piercing. According to her, she’d offered sexual rewards to the tattoo man, in town, in exchange for an under-age piercing. They both got into a lot of trouble for that.

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. Mind you, I got a few funny looks sitting in my car playing a great big didge out of the driver’s window.”

  “I don’t doubt that,” said Jenny and shook her head. “What am I to do with you?”

  “I know, first things first, where’s the kettle?” Dayna asked as she admired her new rubber gloves.

  Jenny raised her eyebrows and tutted, “In here, but I forgot the sugar so we’ll have to pop down to the KO Store. It’s not far. We could go for a walk and check out the area. What do you think?”

  “Sure, sounds like a plan,” said Dayna as she walked down the length of the shop surveying the rubbish and discarded pieces of equipment and furniture. “Gosh, we’ve got some cleaning and clearing to do.”

  “Hmm, but I’m sure your mission holdall will have what it takes to do the job. Maybe we could even blow it all away with your didgeridoo,” said Jenny with a wry smile. “Come on then, let’s go.”

  As the girls left the retail unit together, Jenny peered back and grinned. “It’s really happening, isn’t it, Day.”

  “Not before we’ve had a cup of tea – with sugar – to christen the place.” Grabbing hold of Jenny’s arm, Dayna ushered her friend away.

  “After the tea, I need to start thinking about looking for that third member of staff… we have got so much to do in the next six weeks.”

  “Tea first,” replied Dayna, pulling Jenny’s arm. “Then we’ll find our dream team, third person.”

  Chapter 2

  There had been six applicants, sent from the local job centre, two of whom had been so over- qualified that Jenny worried that they would take over her shop in no time. Another three were either, not quite right, for one reason or another, or, as Dayna put it, ‘There’s no way I’m working with a jumped-up tart like that’. The sixth person had been far more suitable and at just 19 years old she was perfect (well as perfect as could be, bearing in mind the other five, who were either ‘Up their own arses’ as Dayna had suggested, ‘too geeky’ or ‘total sleaze-balls’). So it was final, Tasha Evans had been declared the third member of staff and would start her employment in one week’s time, although Dayna still had some doubts.

  Jenny sighed, only one week to go before the deadline. Just seven days before J’s Convenience Store supposedly opened – there was still so much to do. The signage for the front of the shop had been delayed, due to an error, but Jenny was adamant that the apostrophe after ‘J’ really did matter. So the new, correctly punctuated sign was expected to arrive and be duly fitted in another two days time.

  Keeping the whole business ‘in the family’, Jenny’s dad and her older brother had been fitting the shelving, new counter, installing the electrics and countless other jobs that had needed to be done. They’d worked tirelessly over the last five weeks and had done so at a very reasonable rate of pay.

  Dayna had spent a lot of her time helping Jenny with the menial tasks of clearing out and cleaning up, making tea for everyone and generally getting in the way of the men. Her saucy rubber gloves had been made good use of over the weeks and had certainly given everyone a good giggle. Dayna fancied Jenny’s brother, Jacob, openly and even if he was happily married, which was questionable, she could still flirt outrageously with him.

  “All I need, Jacob, is a rubber maid’s outfit to go with these gloves and then I’ll be well away. What do you think?”

  As always, Jacob ignored Dayna’s innuendos, he had no time for her and her antics.

  However, Dayna’s motto was, ‘A little flirt here and there never hurt anyone’. But nobody was really sure just how much her ‘little flirts’ would amount to. She was a law unto herself.

  “One week to go Jen,” said Dayna excitedly. “Are you getting nervous?”

  “I’ve been nervous for months. In fact, since the first meeting with the bank manager.” Jenny tried to peep through a tiny gap in the window. “You keep putting that cream cleaner on so thick each week Dayna, guess who’s going to be scrubbing it all off next week.”

  “Well you shouldn’t let anyone see what’s going on inside the shop – it’s a secret. It’ll be a great unveiling next week, you know, build the excitement and all that kind of stuff.”

  “Yes, I know. I’ve seen a few people pass by and try
to peer through the window.”

  “See – they’re curious aren’t they. Cif is great stuff when it dries... until one of you lot go and lean all over it and rub it all off.”

  “Do you feel nervous?” asked Jenny, moving away from the window, as she could just make out a couple of figures walking along the path towards the shop.

  “Not really, I can’t wait. I’m looking forward to meeting all of our potential customers. I’ll soon have them rolling in, Jen.”

  “Hmm, I thought as much, that’s why you’re here.”

  “Shush… they’re talking.” Dayna frantically pointed to two dark shadows on the other side of the window. “Listen.” She suppressed a giggle and moved closer to the glass.

  “What are they saying?” whispered Jenny.

  “Something about alcohol.”

  “They might be the people who complained to the council.” Jenny edged nearer. “Can you hear what they’re saying?”

  “Talking about the nursery up the road. Shall I go out there?”

  “No.” Jenny drew a sharp breath. “Come away from there, Day, I don’t want to cause any more trouble around here.”

  The silhouettes moved away from the window and slowly disappeared.

  “Bloody cheek, who do they think they are?” Dayna was in fighting mode already. “I bet they are the ones who complained, well at least two of them anyway.”

  Jenny had applied for an alcohol license during the leasehold purchasing stage. Upon good advice and her own knowledge of independent retailers, she knew that it was a sure-fire way to succeed if she could supply alcohol at reasonable prices. However some of the residents of Farehelm and in particular Millen Road, where Jenny’s shop was situated, had disputed the application for an alcohol license. Eight of the local residents had written to the Council, as was the protocol for such matters, to air their views about why there should not be a license awarded to Miss Jenny Fartor, proprietor of 166 Millen Road.