by Jo Watson
Blinking my eyes open, I grope for my phone on the bedside cabinet and see that it’s only 8:30 a.m.
Forget that. Zara knows me well enough to know exactly why I haven’t emerged from my bedroom yet.
I’m not really one for long lie-ins. Even though it’s a Saturday. But when you’re still feeling slightly delicate from the previous night’s events, it’s totally fine to stay in bed as long as you want. Which in my case will probably be until my headache goes.
Or maybe I could stay here all day and watch omnibuses of all the soaps in bed.
My phone, still sitting in my left hand, bleats my classic Nokia ringtone. I glance at the unknown caller’s number before answering the call.
“Megan Riley speaking,” I say. That’s how I always answer the phone at work, except today I omit the “Hello, Window Shine Leeds” or “How can I help you?” parts.
“Hello, Megan,” says a female voice. She has a vaguely Scottish accent. Or is it Irish? I can never tell those two apart. “This is Sue Weaver from Oxfam.”
I battle with the pillows to pull myself into an upright position. My head protests, but this is important, isn’t it? This is going to be one of those calls where the other speaker has to check that you’re sitting down first before they tell you the good news.
I’ve already forgotten about the romance-reading shop assistant and her negative response when I handed her my application form. Because this call means I’ve got the job, doesn’t it?
I’ve got the job!
I don’t even think I was this excited when I managed to get myself a paying job after I gave up on university. But this is different. This is going to be my dream job.
Anyway, I only applied for admin jobs at all because my only real-world employment experience was the file-sorting Saturday job I had working for Zara’s dad as a teenager.
But now Sue Weaver’s going to tell me that they want me to be part of the Oxfam team. I’ll build up my retail experience. And all the big fashion chains will want to hire me.
I’ll never have to battle the photocopier again!
“Oh, hi Sue,” I say nonchalantly, as though I’ve been expecting her call.
“We’ve reviewed your application to volunteer for us,” Sue continues, “and it all looks good. The thing is, Megan, we don’t have the space to offer you a permanent position.”
What? I almost scream down the phone at her. Hasn’t she read Olivia Bright’s “How to be a Confident Woman”? Doesn’t she realise how much this means to me?
When I don’t offer anything back, Sue says, “You’ve put down that you’re only available to work weekends. Would you consider holiday and sickness cover?”
“What would that involve?”
“Well, you’d still get all the perks of being a volunteer for a renowned global charity, but you would be working for us on short notice to cover occasional staff absences.”
That could work, couldn’t it? Occasional cover might even be better than working there on a regular basis. (Well, not in terms of enriching my experience working in retail. But it would mean I would still have most of my Saturdays free to explore retail as a customer, which is still probably a greatly valued skill to retail employers.)
“Okay. I’ll do it..”
“Would you be able to start today?” she asks after a pause.
“Today?”
“We’ve got someone off with the flu, and the other lady can’t do it on her own.”
“Oh.” I sit up further in bed. “I see.”
“Obviously if you’ve already got plans—”
“No! That’s fine.” I’m out of bed, and suddenly it’s not just my head that hurts.
“How soon can you be there?”
My eyes search for something appropriate to throw on from the piles of clothing and unpacked shopping bags scattered around my small bedroom.
“Maybe half an hour,” I suggest, locating my plain black leggings. I throw them back into the heap of (possibly) dirty clothes when I realise that they still reek of alcohol from last night. “Up to an hour.”
* * *
It’s almost ten o’clock when I reach the city-centre shop and breeze through the doors for the first day at my dream job.
There are a few customers milling around the rails and browsing the books.
The counter at the back is empty, but the open door behind it reveals a frantic woman on her hands and knees searching through a cardboard box.
“Excuse me?”
The woman looks at me with deep-set grey eyes. “Can I help you?” She stands up and dusts her hands off on her jeans.
“My name’s Megan. I’m the new temp cover,” I explain.
“Fantastic!” She steps out of the little stock room and into the brighter lights of the main shop. I see that she’s a casually dressed fortysomething with a glossy auburn bob. She steers me back into the stock room with rough hands. “You can start in here. Looking for crime fiction novels.” She gestures to the large cardboard box on the floor.
I kneel down to inspect its contents. It’s about half full with stacks of books from various genres. As she leaves I begin sifting through them, skimming the blurbs of the ones that sound promising.
This task is a lot more complicated than it sounds.
I can disregard all the novels with cartoony graphics of sophisticated women holding cocktail glasses, and all the ones with “wedding” in the title. But that’s as far as I get.
My dream job visions were all about arranging a cute pair of shoes beside a cashmere scarf.
I picture Olivia Bright as a stylish, glamorous young woman tapping one stiletto-clad foot as she wonders what the hell I’m doing here.
“So what else should I do?” I ask the other shop assistant as I hand her a pile of what I hope are appropriately sorted books.
“What else?” She blinks her thick lashes at me a few times. “My dear, have you ever worked in retail before?”
“No,” I admit. “But it’s always been a dream of mine.”
She dumps the pile of books on the counter in front of her. “Is that why you choose Oxfam?”
Somewhere in my handbag is the magazine containing the article. The very reason why I’m here. The word volunteer.
I chew on my bottom lip. I can’t tell her the truth, can I?
“I…I just really love…helping,” I stammer.
She laughs and extends her hand. “I’m Carol.”
We both look up as the shop’s door opens.
“Well.” She places her hands on her hips. “If you want to help me with that then you can.” She inclines her head towards the door.
A woman is standing by the entrance, smoothing a crease in her red wool skirt.
“Who’s that?” I whisper.
Carol leans in closer to me. “All I know is her name’s Juliette. And she’s a pain in the arse.”
I watch as the customer, Juliette, strides farther into the shop and begins examining one of the rails of garments.
I hadn’t noticed before, but there’s someone standing behind her. A man with soft dark hair wearing a black leather jacket meets my gaze from across the room.
“Oh!” I jump backwards, almost ending up back in the stock room.
“What is it?” Carol asks. “Do you know that guy?”
Composing myself, I turn away from the man’s brown-eyed stare. “Not personally,” I explain. “We work at the same company.”
“What’s his name?”
This is the embarrassing part.
You see, I don’t actually know his name. Not the one that he was born with, anyway. I’ve sort of taken to calling him Michael, or occasionally Bublé-Face, when I think about him (which obviously isn’t often, that would be weird).
It’s his oval face and arched jawline, grazed lightly and oh-so-deliberately with stubble, that outlines his resemblance to the Canadian crooner. Paired with the way he styles his hair and dresses almost exactly like the real Michael Bublé, it’s
an obvious nickname.
Just one that I have no desire to reveal to anybody.
“Um…I don’t know,” I say. “It’s a pretty big company.”
“Comes in with her most weeks,” Carol says, nodding towards the couple. “I’m curious about him.”
“Maybe she’s his girlfriend.” I force away the tightness in my throat.
I can’t see much of her face from here, but I take notice of the way her hair falls in dramatic curls.
Carol wrinkles her nose. “Wait ‘til you see her up close. She’s obviously had a facelift. I’ll let you have the pleasure of speaking to her.”
She can’t be that bad. She just can’t be. People who buy their clothes from Oxfam are nice, aren’t they? They care about poverty and stuff.
But every time Juliette catches me staring at her from over the top of the dress or smart jacket she’s inspecting, she narrows her blue eyes sharply.
About twenty minutes later when she and Bublé-Face finally make their way to the till, Carol moves away and pretends to sort out a shelf of toys.
Having given me the basic button-pressing instructions for operating the till, she seems to think I’m now capable of serving customers on my own.
“There’s a rip in this dress,” Juliette announces before she even reaches me. She lifts a long blue dress to show me a tiny hole in the seam.
Oh, my God. What do I say? Should I offer to discount the item? Can you even get discounts at charity shops? If so, how do I do that?
My eyes flit from Juliette’s hard stare to Bublé-Face, shuffling behind her as he tugs at his jacket’s collar, back to Carol, stacking board games and pretending not to notice any of this is happening.
“Well?” Juliette demands, thrusting the dress onto the counter. “What are you going to do about it?”
I finger the tiny hole. “I’m sure this could be easily sewn up.”
Her head tilts upwards, revealing a sagging neck. Carol’s right. She’s way too old to be his girlfriend. “Have you got your sewing kit handy?”
“Oh, come on!” Bublé-Face points to the price ticket. “It’s a fiver for God’s sake!”
“And it is Karen Millen.” I trail a hand down the silky fabric.
Juliette’s face stays oddly expressionless as she makes a fuss, sighing heavily and flapping her arms around while she finds her crocodile skin purse and hands over five pound coins.
After spending a few minutes trying to remember what Carol said about the till, I hand Juliette her purchase, and she marches off without a word. Bublé-Face stands still for a moment after she’s gone, his gaze locked intently on mine.
Just as he opens his mouth to say something, Juliette calls him over.
And then, without saying anything, he turns away and follows her out of the shop.
Chapter Six
When Monday comes around again, I arrive at work literally stuck to my red plastic raincoat, the front strands of my hair plastered to my soggy face.
How hard can it be to make a hood that actually stops the rain from attacking your hair? If I knew how to invent something like that, I’d appear on Dragons’ Den, and Peter Jones would invest in my business. Women everywhere would thank me, and I’d become rich and famous and spend my weekday mornings on daytime TV chatting with Lorraine Kelly.
“I’ve figured it out,” Scarlett greets me. She’s sitting at her desk, looking immaculate as usual.
“Figured what out?” I unbutton my coat and try to peel it away from my skin.
“I know who your office crush is!”
I frown at the use of the word “crush” outside of an American high-school movie. “That’s funny.” I tug my arms out of the coat’s sleeves like I’m removing a plaster. “I don’t know who it is. Are you going to tell me?”
“It’s Liam, isn’t it? From IT.”
I try to picture anyone from the IT department, but I can’t conjure up a single face. Filling in the gaps, I imagine a few Harry Potter lookalikes concealed behind computer screens, and I pull a face. “Sorry, I don’t know who you mean.”
“I saw you checking him out the other day when we left, but it didn’t occur to me that he’s the guy you want to ask out.”
“Still don’t know who he is.” I shrug and turn on my computer.
This is one of Scarlett’s silly games designed to make me crack and confess feelings for someone embarrassing so that she can use it as social ammunition against me.
And, to be honest, it’s easier to play along and let her believe that I bought new underwear because there’s a guy I like, rather than sharing the truth about the article with her.
“I don’t blame you,” Scarlett says. “He’s a nice guy. I went out for drinks with him once myself.”
This gets my attention. I swivel my chair around to face her. I thought she had plucked a guy’s name from her imagination in the hopes of pressuring me to confess.
But nobody goes “out for drinks” with a made-up man, do they? Scarlett must actually think I’m interested in a real person. A person called Liam.
“You’re going to have to tell me,” I say, having mentally scanned the faces of the colleagues I pass in the corridors, and still not coming up with any Liams.
“What about? The date? It was nothing, really. You don’t have to be jealous or anything.” She giggles.
“Describe to me who he is,” I tell her. “And I might know what you’re talking about.”
“He’s quite tall, dark hair and…Ohmygod he’s right over there.” Scarlett’s looking out the glass door of the office.
Outside, I can see Nora talking to someone, but my angle blocks who that person is.
“I could talk to him for you if you want?” Scarlett suggests.
Nora pushes the door open, and I can see the figure standing behind her. He’s got a shiny suit on, and his hair looks wet from his styling gel—or maybe he got caught in the rain, too?
“That’s Liam?” I whisper.
Scarlett blinks her long lashes. “Oh. You didn’t know his name? That’s so cute!”
What she doesn’t know is that I do have a name for him. I like to think of him as Bublé-Face.
“It’s this way.” Nora leads him to her desk. She eyes the two of us sitting behind our own desks, and clearly not doing any work.
As I bring up a report on my computer screen so I can at least look like I’m busy, I glance across at him fiddling with Nora’s computer. He is good-looking. And I’ve seen him walking into work with a copy of The Economist tucked under his arm, so he must be intelligent. And he’s probably funny, too.
But I wouldn’t call my interest in him a crush.
In fact, I’m not that interested in him at all. He’s just a bloke who works at the same company as me and looks a bit like Michael Bublé.
The nickname is an obvious choice. I need something to think of him by when I pass him in the corridors. It doesn’t mean I fancy him.
“I’ve got his number.” Scarlett rummages around in her large handbag for her mobile.
“I’m not interested.” I bow my head behind my computer screen.
“I think it’s a hardware problem,” Liam is saying to Nora. “I can try updating your drivers.”
While he sits down on her desk chair and starts typing something, Nora’s eyes flick over Scarlett and me.
She starts walking towards us, and I scan the report in front of me so that I can give her a semi-intelligent answer when she asks me what I’m doing.
When she reaches us and hovers over my desk, she doesn’t ask about my current work schedule. Instead she says, “Did you get the job, Megan?”
Scarlett’s head snaps up. “What job? Are you leaving?”
Now I’m going to have to say something about Oxfam and my stupid idea that I could volunteer there and actually be good at it. Of course, I still hold back a few things. My specific reasons for wanting to apply there aren’t relevant, are they?
When I’ve finished and Nora�
��s walked away again, Scarlett is still gawping at me. “Oxfam?” she asks. “Are you mad?”
“I just thought it would be a good way to…to give something back to the community.”
“Aren’t all the customers weird old ladies?”
“No. If you must know, I saw Liam there.”
“In Oxfam? Seriously?” Scarlett gives me a wide-eyed stare like I’ve just told her that I saw Johnny Depp doing his weekly shop at our local Asda.
“Yep. And he was with some complete nightmare of a woman.”
“I don’t suppose you know what her name is?” Scarlett surreptitiously slips her phone out.
“Juliette. Don’t ask me for her surname.”
“Let’s look on Facebook. Here we are. Ah! Juliette Wiseman. They’ve got the same surname.” Scarlett squints at the profile image. “Mother or sister? Hey! Why don’t we just ask him?”
Before I can stop her, Scarlett is calling his name.
He glances across the office at her from where Nora has left him to fix her machine and gone to make a cappuccino—or wherever it is that she goes.
“Is there something wrong with your computer, too?” he asks.
“No. I wanted to ask you something,” Scarlett says.
He peers at her from behind the screen before standing and walking closer to us. “What’s up?”
“Megan here says she saw you in Oxfam. Who were you with?”
He looks at me as though noticing my presence for the first time. Already a heat is spreading across my cheeks, and I try to focus on my computer, or the coffee stain on my desk—anything but his line of vision.
“I thought I recognised you,” Liam says. “That was my mother. I’m sorry about her.”
“Has she had some work done?” Scarlett studies her Facebook picture again. I swear that girl has no social filters.
“Scarlett,” I hiss, “you can’t just ask someone that.”
Liam laughs in a way that takes over his whole face, highlighting his resemblance to Bublé. “No, it’s okay. She’s very good friends with her plastic surgeon.”
I hate the way he’s looking at Scarlett. Why didn’t I know that they were friends or that they’d been out together before? He definitely never came up in conversation when we were talking about which male colleague we would snog if we absolutely had to. But she’s probably already snogged him, hasn’t she? And he’s probably a really bad kisser, anyway.
