The Little Shop of Afternoon Delights

by Sarah Lefebve

  The next day I move out.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The minute I heard my first love story

  I started looking for you, not knowing

  How blind that was

  Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere

  They’re in each other all along

  Jabal ad-Din ar-Rumi (1207 – 1273)

  Fliss and Derek have offered me their spare room while I sort my life out. It’s quiet where they live. You can hear the slightest noise. The pipes creaking as the central heating cools down. An insect hitting the window outside. My own heart beating.

  I can’t sleep. I’m not used to being alone in bed. I’ve spent nights away from Alex, of course, but it’s been a long time since I’ve slept alone because I am alone.

  I haven’t told anyone yet – apart from Katie. I can’t face the questions. People who believe in Mr Right will be surprised because they thought I was happy and because they thought Alex was Mr Right. And people who don’t believe in Mr Right will just think I’m bonkers. And everyone will want to know why. But even I don’t know that.

  At 4.30am, after waking on and off all night, I give up trying to sleep and go in search of the kettle.

  I’m pouring water into a mug when Fliss walks into the kitchen.

  “Oh I’m sorry Fliss, did I wake you?”

  “No, no, I’m not a good sleeper these days,” she says. I look at the ungodly time on the clock on the oven.

  “It’s my age,” she laughs. “I always wake up early.”

  I hold up the hot chocolate. “I hope you don’t mind?”

  “Don’t be silly. You must help yourself to anything you want while you’re here, lovey.”

  “Do you want one?”

  “That would be lovely.”

  We take the drinks through to the living room and Fliss turns on a lamp.

  Sitting on the sofa I pull my knees up to my chest and balance my drink on them in my hand, blowing on it gently.

  A painting on the wall above the television catches my eye. It’s a woman sitting on a deckchair, holding a parasol. I lean forward to confirm what it is I think I’m seeing. The woman in the picture is Fliss, only much younger – about my age.

  “Who painted that picture of you in the deckchair, Fliss?” I ask.

  “It’s one of Derek’s” she says. “He did it on our honeymoon. We had such a wonderful time,” she smiles, remembering. “We went to Cornwall for the week. Had sunshine the whole time. It was perfect. He painted that picture on our last day. We didn’t want to forget.”

  “I didn’t know he could paint. It’s fantastic. It looks just like you.”

  I blow on my drink again and sip it tentatively.

  “How are you doing, lovey?” Fliss asks. “Are you okay?”

  “Not really,” I admit. “But I know it’s for the best.”

  “Are you sure? Is there no way you and Alex can work things out?”

  “There isn’t really anything to work out – that’s the problem. It’s not like one of us has cheated or anything – you know, something you can get over if you both really want to. It’s more than that.”

  “Hmm.” She sips her drink. She probably doesn’t understand. Fliss is of the generation where a guy met a girl, they went out and then they got married. And they stayed together forever – for better or for worse.

  I, on the other hand, am from the generation where one in three couples give up on a marriage. Which kind of makes you think twice about doing it in the first place, doesn’t it? Or at the very least it makes you more determined to find the right person in the first place – because surely then it can’t possibly fail – not if you’ve found that one person you are meant to be with.

  Or maybe it doesn’t really work like that at all. Maybe there are lots of people out there we could make it work with. But we’re so busy looking for that one person that we can’t see all the other possibilities.

  “I do understand, you know,” Fliss says, breaking my thoughts, reading my mind.

  “If something isn’t meant to be, you won’t ever make it work. No matter how much you might want to.”

  I sip my drink. It’s cooling down.

  “Fliss…,” I say.

  “Yes, lovey?”

  “How did you know Derek was the one for you? How will I know when I have met the right person?”

  “Honestly?”

  “Yes.”

  “When you don’t need to ask that question.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “Jim’s split up with me,” Emma tells me the next day, when I phone her during my lunch break.

  “He doesn’t love me,” she sobs down the phone. “He says he thinks the world of me, that I’m one of the loveliest people he’s ever met, and that he wishes he could fall in love with me. But that he just hasn’t and doesn’t think he ever will.”

  Ouch.

  “He says it’s not me, it’s him,” she says, her tone revealing exactly what she thinks of this particular explanation. “He says I am fabulous and that any man would be lucky to have me. Just not him, obviously. Oh B, what am I going to do?”

  “You’ll meet someone else,” I reassure her. “You always do.”

  “But I don’t want anybody else. I want Jim. I love him.”

  “Really?” I ask. She said she really liked him but she’s never mentioned love. “Do you really love him, Em?”

  “Yes. No. Oh, I don’t know,” she says. “I guess I just hoped he was Mr Right.”

  But Emma doesn’t believe in Mr Right…

  “But you don’t believe in Mr Right…”

  “Maybe I do. Oh I don’t know. I just really liked him, B. He’s lovely. He makes me laugh. He makes me smile. Made me smile. And he was so bloody good in bed,” she adds, an afterthought that is followed by a fresh wave of sobs.

  “Anyway, you rang me,” she says, composing herself with a big snort. “Was there a reason or did you just phone for a chat?”

  “Alex asked me to marry him,” I tell her. “And I said no,” I add quickly, before she rushes to congratulate me.

  Silence. And then…

  “Oh my god B. I can’t believe it. And you let me go on and on about Jim!”

  “That’s okay. You’re upset. I understand that.”

  “But B. Oh my god. Are you okay? I didn’t think you were being serious the other day. I thought it was just a phase. I thought you really loved him.”

  “I did love him. I do love him. Just not enough to marry him. Not enough to know I want to spend the rest of my life with him.”

  “Well if that’s how you really feel then I guess you’ve done the right thing. But blimey, I still can’t believe you let me go on about Jim for so long.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  When I get to work the following morning Erin says Malcolm wants to see me in his office.

  “He has a 9.30am meeting so he says can you go in before you do anything else.”

  No cup of tea then.

  “Did he say what it was about?”

  “No. He probably just wants to make sure you’re okay.”

  “Probably wants to make sure my mind is still on the job, more like.”

  I’m being unfair really. As bosses go we could do a lot worse than Malcolm Hurley – Penand Inc’s sales director for as long as anyone can remember, including Fliss. Admittedly he makes our lives a bit difficult sometimes and demands account changes which virtually have us camped out in the office for days on end. And he wears the most shocking ties that require both a strong stomach and dark glasses. And he looks like a slightly better looking version of Shrek – although in fairness you can’t really hold that against him. But on the plus side he does give us generous pay rises and bonuses and always makes sure we have a Christmas bash to remember – even if it is for his not-quite-perfected plate spinning demonstration – with a free bar all night, which really shouldn’t be scoffed at.

  But nonetheless, I’m dreading this. I’m already feeling
wobbly. What if he’s mean to me and I start sobbing in his office? How embarrassing. Or, even worse, what if he’s really nice to me and I start blubbing because of that instead? It happens, doesn’t it? A few kind words from an unexpected source and, whoosh, enough tears to make Niagara Falls look like a leaky tap.

  I knock lightly on his door. If he doesn’t hear me I can slope back to my desk and avoid him for the rest of the day.

  “Come in.” Damn.

  “Ah, Rebecca,” he says, pushing his glasses up his nose as I enter his office.

  “Thank you for coming to see me. I know how busy you girls are. Take a seat.”

  I sit in the chair opposite him. I feel like I’m in a job interview.

  “Can I get you a cup of coffee?” he asks.

  Odd. He doesn’t normally offer hot beverages. Maybe this isn’t going to be as quick and painless as I was hoping.

  “Erm, that would be great,” I say nervously, because I am a bit parched as it happens. I’m normally slurping my first cup of tea at my desk by now.

  Malcolm buzzes through to his secretary and orders two coffees. I decide not to tell him I’m a tea drinker. He looks at me and smiles.

  This is all looking very formal.

  Maybe I’ve made some gargantuan cock-up with one of the accounts – given someone too much discount, perhaps, or given a £500,000 credit limit to a dodgy customer who has ordered his maximum and skipped the country with a lorry load of laptops?

  Maybe he’s going to sack me. Do you think you’d get coffee if you were getting the sack? To soften the blow, maybe?

  Hang on… maybe he is going to sack me. Excellent. If he sacked me then that would force me to do something else, wouldn’t it…?

  “How are you feeling Rebecca?” Malcolm asks, interrupting my fantasy. Damn him. “I gather you’re having a few personal problems.”

  “I’m fine,” I say, a little defensively. And then I feel bad because he is only showing concern. I think.

  “I’m fine, thank you,” I repeat, a little softer this time.

  “If you need to take some time off…”

  “No, it’s okay, I’m fine,” I say quickly, hoping that will put an end to all this. Although, I would quite like to have my coffee before I go back to my desk. Malcolm drinks the posh stuff, none of your instant rubbish.

  And then he leans back in his chair, takes his glasses off and rubs the bridge of his nose. He looks very serious. He looks like he’s about to offer me some words of wisdom on affairs of the heart or something. Oh please no….

  Thankfully I am saved by the arrival of the refreshments, complete with a plate of chocolate Hobnobs. My favourite. Actually, that’s a fib. Jammy Dodgers are my favourite, but chocolate Hobnobs definitely come in a close second.

  What? You hardly expect me to diet when I’ve just split up with my boyfriend? I need comfort foods. And somehow lettuce and celery sticks just don’t quite make the grade. Hobnobs, on the other hand, most definitely do. I take one and put it next to my coffee on the edge of Malcolm’s desk.

  “So, Rebecca,” he says, putting his glasses back on. Back to business then.

  I’m a bit nervous. I want to say “So, Malcolm.” I pick up my coffee and take a sip instead.

  “As you know we had to let Hannah go last month.”

  “Yes,” I confirm.

  “For reasons I won’t go into,” he continues.

  Who’s he trying to kid? It was the talk of the office.

  “Of course,” I say, picking up my biscuit and taking a quick bite before it’s my turn to speak again.

  “You have been acting senior account planner since then haven’t you?”

  “I have, yes,” I confirm, wiping a crumb from my lip with my thumb.

  “And have you been enjoying the role?”

  “Oh yes, very much so,” I say.

  Yes, I know it’s a big fat lie, but what do you expect me to say? “No, Mr Hurley, I can’t stand the bloody job. In fact, you can shove your rotten job up your bum”?

  “It’s giving me some exciting challenges through which I can develop my skills and enhance my experience,” I add for authenticity, before taking another slurp of coffee.

  “That’s excellent news Rebecca, excellent news, because the reason I’ve asked you in here today is to offer you the role on a more permanent basis.”

  Bollocks.

  Does coffee stain? And did I just say bollocks out loud?

  “There will of course be a pay rise to go with the promotion,” Malcolm adds, clearly mistaking my horror for financial intrigue, and apparently overlooking the whole ‘bollocks’ faux pas.

  “As well as a generous bonus structure,” he says. “I have prepared a contract so take it away it with you to read and perhaps I could ask you to sign it and have it back to me by…shall we say Monday?”

  “Right, sure,” I say. “Thank you very much Mr Hurley,” I add, because, again, what else could I say?

  “It’s no more than you deserve Rebecca. You are a hard worker and, if you want to, you can go far in this company.”

  If I want to. Exactly.

  “So?” Erin asks, as soon as I get back to the office.

  She can’t bear not knowing anything, that girl. She’ll have chewed her finger nails right down to her knuckles in anticipation while I was gone, because she knew as well as I did that Malcolm didn’t ask me into his office to express his heartfelt concern for my welfare. I was either being bollocked or rewarded. I’m still not sure which category I’d put it in.

  “It seems I’m being promoted,” I say, moving the pile of papers that have been dumped on my chair during my brief absence and sitting down. The sales guys are in the office today for their twice-monthly meeting, which means shed loads of work for us. I don’t know why they think it will get done any quicker if they put it on my chair, though. It’s not as if I ever pick it up and get straight on the case – I just move it onto my desk where it has to draw straws with every other bit of paper marked ‘urgent.’

  “Wow, that’s great,” Erin says, rushing over to my desk to hug me.

  I look over at Fliss, who isn’t saying anything. She doesn’t need to. She doesn’t want me to take this job; I know that. She wants me to leave. She wants me to do what I really want to do.

  “Well done, lovey,” she says, eventually. A compromise. “Do you really want it though?” she asks. ‘You don’t really want it though, do you?’ is what she actually means.

  “Not really, no,” I admit.

  “Why not?” Erin asks, puzzled.

  “Wait a minute, Erin love,” Fliss says, holding her hand up to stop her from saying anything else.

  “So what did you say to Malcolm then?” she asks me, hopeful.

  “I said thank you very much.”

  I phone Katie while Fliss makes the tea.

  “Books!. Katie Roberts speaking.”

  “It’s me.”

  “Hi B. How are you doing? How is everything at Felicity’s?”

  “I’m okay. Fliss and Derek have been fantastic,” I say, looking over at Fliss and smiling.

  “I need your advice. Again.”

  “What about? Has Alex phoned you?”

  “No, it’s nothing like that. It’s work. I’ve been offered a promotion.”

  “Hey, well done! More money then?”

  “Yes, and some sort of bonus structure, although I don’t know all the details yet.”

  “But? I’m sensing a ‘but’?”

  “But I hate working here,” I say. “I hate my job. Do I really want a promotion that’s going to keep me here forever?”

  “Nothing’s forever.”

  “Well a couple more years at least and a couple more years here would feel like forever.”

  “So leave.”

  “And do what?”

  “What you’ve always wanted to do, but never have.”

  “It’s not that easy though is it?”

  “Nothing worth doing is eve
r easy, B. It just depends how much you want to do it. Listen hun, I’ll call you back in a few minutes, I’ve got to take a call from an author.”

  “No, it’s okay. I’ll phone you later. I just wanted to tell you.”

  “Okay. But if you really want my advice, then I don’t think you should take the job.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really. Leave, B. Come home. There’s nothing stopping you now. There’s nothing up there for you anymore.”

  She’s right. There isn’t.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  I’m making a habit of turning people down, it seems.

  I’ve done it. I’ve told Malcolm I don’t want the promotion. Or to work at Penand Inc at all, thank you very much.

  He was ever so understanding, as it happens. In fact, he even congratulated me on an ‘excellent decision’ and wished me all the best for the future. Until I pointed out that he had misheard me, that is – that I hadn’t said “thank you for the offer, I’m going to take it, you won’t regret it,” and that what I’d actually said was “thank you for the offer, but if I take it I’ll regret it”. Seems I’d never noticed his hearing impairment before.

  “I don’t want to look back in ten years and wonder why I never did something I really wanted to do,” I explain, once he has recovered from the initial shock. The concept of not wanting to spend your whole life working for Penand Inc is not one with which Malcolm is familiar. Here is a man who has earned his carriage clock, and then some.

  “I see,” he says, despite, I suspect, not seeing at all. “And you don’t want a bit more time to think about it?”

  “No. Thank you. I knew as soon as you offered me the job, if I’m honest. But I have thought about it – a lot – and I still feel the same. Now just seems like the right time to make the break, what with Alex and I, and…well…you know…”

  “Okay, Rebecca,” he says, getting up from his chair. He’s probably worried I’ll start pouring my heart out. “You’ll be sorely missed, though. You’ve been a great asset to Penand Inc. And of course, it goes without saying that I’ll be happy to give you a glowing reference.”