“It doesn’t matter. Look, I’m sorry. I have to get ready for my interview soon, so…”
“Don’t do it,” he beseeched her, grabbing her arm as she went to stand up.
“That’s OK for you to say, mister megabucks.” She snorted. “I’ll bet you’ve never had to work more than one job at a time, have you?”
She was surprised to see the hurt expression on his face and immediately regretted her attitude.
“All I’m saying is…” He sighed as she got up, and he stood with her. “What if I could get you more shifts at the club? You must be on more bucks an hour there than at some crummy grocery store, and you wouldn’t have to work your ass off to get it.”
Her blood ran cold, and she tensed immediately. “No, I can guess what I’d have to do with my ass to get it. No thank you. I’m not interested. Now if you wouldn’t mind leaving I have things to do.”
She stalked over to the door, handed him his jacket, and waited.
“I didn’t mean…” he began.
“I don’t care what you meant. I don’t need a job from you. I can get my own thank you very much, and what if it is a crummy grocery store? At least it’s honest.” She spat the words at him, hurt and anger welling up inside her.
“Summer, I think it came out all wrong. I didn’t mean to insult your efforts or you. I wasn’t implying anything…”
“Good-bye.” The door was open, and the frosty air that gushed in matched the cold feeling in her body as she threw him out of her home. Nathan sighed, but he seemed to realize she wasn’t going to listen right now. Without another word he walked out into the dim light of dawn and climbed into his car.
Summer slammed the door before sliding down it and collapsing into a heap of miserable, angry tears.
CHAPTER FOUR
Summer didn’t feel much better after she’d had a hot shower and changed her clothes. Although she was really tired, she promised herself a good rest once she got back from the interview, ready for tonight’s shift at Collar and Cuffs.
The bus journey into town was long and boring, and she was afraid she was going to fall asleep and miss her stop. Instead she concentrated on how much money she could make if she got this job. The hourly rate was only just over half what she was being paid at the club, but she had the chance of more hours so she would make up the money that way. She smiled as she thought of how she would be able to pay her way, and after a couple of months she might be able to start making inroads into the huge debts that bastard had left her with.
She stared out of the window as the memories came flooding back to her, and she almost thought she spotted him walking down the street. Putting it down to her own imagination she tried to put the thought to the back of her mind. After all, there were probably loads of scruffy, lanky, sandy-haired guys in the world, all with unshaven faces and dirty clothes.
Colin would have no business this far south anyway, she reasoned. She’d left him behind in West Palm Beach, stoned out of his mind and exhausted after beating the shit out of her because she refused to give him any more money. She had only found out that morning that the bastard had taken out a credit card using her details, which he had maxed out to the tune of three thousand dollars. Three thousand dollars that she was now liable for. When she had found it in his wallet his biggest worry was how she had dared “snoop” into his affairs. The fact that it had genuinely fallen out of the back pocket of his trousers when he was too high to care about it was, apparently, beside the point.
She had been so shocked by his latest trick that she had yelled at him, despite the fact he had been shooting up all night. She was already working four jobs to try to keep the roof above their heads and pay off the debts he had landed them with. All the money she had given him to go and pay bills while she was at work had been injected up his arm. She had also been threatened by some guy he owed money to because he had conveniently disappeared for a couple of days without paying for his last few shots.
Not having paid the electric bill wouldn’t have been such a problem as she was never home long enough to use the stuff anyway, but Colin had been livid when he’d crawled home, shaking and throwing up, only to find there was no heating on in the apartment. There was also no food because whatever she bought disappeared whenever he had a case of the munchies.
He’d seemed such a nice guy when she’d first met him. He’d been working on a building site and had been proud to have muscles on him like Popeye. She had found his strength admirable at the time, but once his contract finished and he was out of work they weren’t much use to him. He started hanging around bars during the day while she was at work, although he promised her he was out looking for a job. That was how he had met up with Alex Ross. Alex was well known for having gotten rich on the backs of other people, but Colin was in awe of him. He soon started peddling drugs for Alex, who convinced him to give them a try himself.
Those muscles started coming in handy again when people owed Alex money. Summer soon felt the brunt of them too. Each time Colin wanted money she couldn’t give him, out would come those fists. She’d tried to leave him once before, but he had caught up with her and beaten the crap out of her. That was when she decided she needed a plan. She hadn’t been able to go too far the last time because she needed to keep her jobs and she had a commitment to continue renting her apartment for another five months. That had given her five months to save her money, cut her ties, and plan her escape.
A lot of her clothes had already been stashed in a locker at the train station, along with the cash she’d managed to hide from the bastard, and the few precious pieces of her mother’s jewelry that she’d managed to buy back after he’d stolen and pawned them. One night, while he slept, she’d made a run for it.
Cutting off her long, wavy locks came in a flash of inspiration after she had tried for the umpteenth time to hide them under a baseball cap to disguise her appearance. She had been sad to see her hair fall to the ground as she’d hacked at it with a pair of blunt scissors but figured it would be worth the price of her freedom.
The bus pulled up just down the road from the grocery store, and she got off feeling drained and low. It had started to rain, and she was glad she didn’t have to walk too far.
“I’ve come for the interview,” she told the young guy behind the counter. “Ms. Powell’s expecting me.”
“She’s been delayed, but you can wait if you want,” he said, unhelpfully.
Summer sighed and decided to have a look around the store while she waited. The floor wasn’t as clean as she would have liked, and the shelves looked like they needed a good wipe over. Some of the packets and cans actually had a layer of dust on them, and she realized from the lack of customers that goods probably didn’t get a very fast turnaround in a place like this. The young guy wasn’t exactly friendly, and she wondered why customers would want to come here at all.
Over an hour later, Summer was beginning to get agitated. She had walked around the store several times by now and was sick of the sight of the place already.
“Do you know when she’ll be here?” she asked the young guy.
He shrugged. “She doesn’t tell me anything. I just work here.”
“Do you have a number I could call her on?” she asked hopefully.
He shook his head.
“Well could I leave a note with you to explain that I was here but she’s obviously not shown up, so I can come back tomorrow instead?”
He shrugged again, and she pulled out a scrap of paper and jotted down her message. She was just handing it to him when she heard someone clip-clopping across the tiled floor behind her.
“Summer, I’m so sorry to keep you waiting. Do come through.” The woman didn’t look very sorry, but Summer followed her through into the back of the store anyway.
“You’ve worked in a store before, you said, didn’t you?” Ms. Powell began as she poured them each a cup of coffee from a machine in the corner.
“Yes. I’ve worked in a food sto
re, a general store, and a hardware,” Summer told her, eagerly taking the coffee from her.
“Good. And you’re used to long hours then, I presume?” Ms. Powell sat behind a small desk and gestured for Summer to sit opposite.
It was rather a cluttered room, with stock piled high on shelves, and one corner turned into a sort of office. The whole place smelled of plastic, which Summer guessed must be from all the packaging. It was quite overwhelming.
“Yes,” she concurred.
“Well, you need to be here for eight o’clock sharp. You can manage that?”
Summer nodded, but at the back of her mind seethed a bit over her boss’s own tardiness.
“Good. Well, in that case, the job’s yours.” Ms. Powell looked like she had just handed over the crown jewels.
A quick “Thank you” was all Summer could muster. Why couldn’t she have conducted the interview over the phone? Or just told her that yesterday?
“You’ll find overalls on the back of that door.” The middle-aged lady pointed. “You need to get that pallet-load on the store floor as quickly as you can, and don’t forget to rotate the stock.”
Summer was stunned. “You want me to start now?”
“There’s no time like the present, dear.” Ms. Powell looked like she had lost interest in her already and began flicking through the morning paper.
Summer felt a heavy thud in her stomach. She was looking forward to going home and getting some sleep before tonight’s shift.
“I have to work tonight,” Summer spluttered. “I start at six.”
Ms. Powell looked over her glasses at her, frowning. “Oh, how inconvenient. You’ll have to hurry then, won’t you?”
Summer nodded dumbly. It was nearly eight o’clock, so she hoped that if she got the job done quickly she might just get home in time to get some rest before her shift at the restaurant. She hurriedly put on the overalls and set to work.
“You’ll need to clean the shelves down before you load them up,” Ms. Powell shouted after her as Summer took an armful of cans through the store.
Summer placed them on the floor next to the shelf and went back for a bucket and cloth.
“You can’t leave food on the floor, stupid!” The young guy had managed to move from his seemingly permanent position behind the counter and poked his head through to the back of the store.
Summer seethed and looked over to the boss for some support. Ms. Powell looked up from the paper and tutted. “I thought you would have known better than that, dear. You did say you had worked with food before, didn’t you?”
Summer opened her mouth to protest that the food on the floor was, in fact, canned, and would have been no different than being stacked on the wooden pallet in a dusty warehouse, but remembered how desperate she was to keep this job, so she said nothing.
She spent the next few hours cleaning the shelves before restocking and wiping the dust off the cans. She wasn’t even halfway though emptying the massive pallet when Ms. Powell called through.
“Summer, you need to relieve Larry for his lunch now. You know how to use a cash register, don’t you?”
“Yes, Ms. Powell.”
Larry smirked at her and took off his overalls. He still had a customer waiting to be served in front of him, and Summer had a bucketful of water to dispose of before she could take over.
The young guy wasn’t waiting around, though, and promptly left the store. Ms. Powell returned to the back room, and the customer huffed loudly.
“Is someone going to serve me or not?” he grumbled. Summer had the bucket in her hand and was heading toward the back of the store.
“Can I just…”
“No you cannot! Either you serve me now or I’ll take my purchase elsewhere!” the man bellowed at her, and Summer turned bright red.
“What’s the matter?” Ms. Powell suddenly appeared in front of her with an angry expression.
“I’m waiting to be served!” the man shouted.
“I was just…” Summer lifted up the bucket to show her boss what she was doing, but the woman obviously wasn’t interested.
“The customer always comes first, Summer. You should know that. Now just leave what you’re doing and serve the gentleman!” Her voice was sharp, and Summer felt herself go hot right through her body. She placed the bucket on the floor and went behind the counter.
After that she had a continuous stream of customers. She realized that lunchtime must be the busiest time for the store—although no one spent very much—and thought how convenient it was that Larry took his break when he did. Luckily the cash register was the same type she had used before, so she was able to ring up the sales without any difficulty, although it seemed whoever had priced the goods was in the infuriating habit of placing the label over the bar code so they wouldn’t scan properly.
Summer had to keep reminding herself this was just the means to an end, and the end result would be worth it. Anger boiled inside her though. A fake smile covered her face, and she did her best to sound cheerful and friendly as one miserable customer after another trundled up to the counter, moaning at how long they had been kept waiting to be served.
Larry finally returned just over an hour later and rushed into the store. He was speaking into his cell phone and looking at his watch as he hurried around to the back of the store.
Summer was still serving a customer when she heard an almighty clatter and Larry yelling as he tumbled to the floor, where he proceeded to slide in a puddle of dirty water.
“What on earth…?” Ms. Powell appeared in the doorway with a face like thunder.
“Who the fuck left that there? I think I’ve broken my leg!” Larry yelled angrily from his position on the floor.
Summer felt sick to her stomach as she finished serving the customer and then rushed over.
“What the hell did you leave that there for?” Ms. Powell screeched.
“You said…” Summer stopped herself short as she felt her face burning up with rage.
“I told you to leave it while you served one customer over an hour ago!” The lady screamed at her.
Every customer in the store turned and looked at Summer, who, for the third day in a row now, wished the floor would open up and swallow her whole. Anger and embarrassment roiled inside her. She had just about had enough.
“I have been serving customers ever since. I didn’t get a chance to put it away because you told me to take over while he had his lunch.” Summer spoke through gritted teeth, pointing at Larry, who had now managed to sit up but was holding his leg like an injured quarterback.
“Are you serving or not?” an old woman snapped from the counter.
Summer turned and glared at the woman.
“Well, serve the lady!” Ms. Powell shouted. “I’ll call an ambulance for Larry, and you’ll have to cover for him while he’s not here.”
An ambulance? She had to be kidding! As soon as Ms. Powell went into the back to use the phone, Larry shot Summer a smirk. Summer saw red. She hauled off her overalls and followed the woman into the back room.
“Yes, an ambulance. There’s been an awful accident.” Ms. Powell looked up in amazement when she saw Summer pick her way through the dirty water and up to the desk.
“Isn’t anyone serving?” the old lady called through from the store.
“What do you think you’re doing? Get back out there! You’ve got customers to serve and all this mess to clean up! And if that boy sues, you’ll have to cover it, you know!” Ms. Powell’s face was bright red as she hollered at Summer, while someone from the ambulance service could be heard asking for directions from the phone.
Summer calmly picked up her purse from the desk. “Correction. You’ve got customers to serve and a mess to clean up. And if that boy with nothing more than a bruise on his leg decides to sue, it will be you who will have to cover it!”
“You get back here this instant!” the woman hollered.
“Your store. Your staff. Your mess. Oh, and your pro
blem!” Summer’s voice, as well as her expression, was as cool as an ice cube in winter as she waved her hand to the seething woman and carefully made her way through the stream of dirty water. She couldn’t resist giving Larry a smirk as he sat in the puddle gawping up at her as she left the store.
CHAPTER FIVE
It was just after four o’clock when Summer entered her tiny apartment. She picked up her mail and then sank into the sofa with a massive sigh. What a day. She kicked off her shoes and curled up with her head on the arm of the couch. The events of the day whirled through her brain, and then the thoughts of last night sprang to mind.
Suddenly remembering she had to leave for work in just over an hour, she went into the bedroom and set her alarm clock. She allowed herself exactly one hour to sleep, and then she could quickly change and get to work on time. The bed looked so inviting she snuggled up straight away and laid her exhausted body on the soft bedspread.
The alarm was ringing after what felt like a few minutes, and she shot up and grabbed a quick shower, hoping it would wake her up. She was glad she had such a short, easily manageable haircut now, and she briskly dried herself before applying a little makeup. It was still raining outside, so she didn’t bother to dry her hair and wore a pair of loose trousers with sneakers to walk to work. She pulled on a T-shirt and a waterproof jacket, stuffed a couple of unread letters in her pocket, and set off. She’d read the mail later.
Summer had hoped that the walk would wake her up a little, but she was wrong. The weight of the day, including her argument with Nathan this morning, hung heavy on her shoulders, and she was exhausted by the time she arrived. She felt like a drowned rat standing outside the club.
She noticed Nathan’s car in the parking lot and sighed. She just hoped she wouldn’t bump into him tonight. He would be bound to ask about the interview, and then he would probably laugh at her for putting in all those hours for no pay. She began to wonder if she had done the right thing in walking out the way she did, but she knew she couldn’t handle any more of that shit. No siree. Her days of being dumped on like that were over.
Waiting on Summer Page 6
