Fitting In

by Amanda Radley

“I take it you disagree?” Heather asked.

  “You cannot be certain that what he told you was the truth. It could have been a fabrication used to get out of situations like this.”

  “Absolutely, it could have been. I’ll admit I’ve taken a risk. But I feel it’s one worth taking. Tell me, how many shoplifters have you encountered since you started working in security?”

  “Four,” Scarlett replied. “Two when I was shadowing another officer and two on my own. I’ve also been present at six other discussions with offenders as part of my training.”

  “And did Joshua look like any of them?”

  “I watched him take goods,” Scarlett reminded Heather.

  “Yes, I know. But did he resemble the others? Were his manner, his clothing, his behaviour the same?”

  Scarlett considered that for a moment. Joshua had reacted differently to being caught. He had immediately shown contrition rather than irritation at being discovered. In addition, he was well dressed and didn’t seem to have pre-prepared himself to take items. Usually shoplifters would wear ill-fitting clothes in order to hide items on their person. Often they would have a large, empty bag in their possession.

  “No,” Scarlett allowed.

  “And that’s one of the reasons I let him go with a warning,” Heather explained. “He didn’t fit the usual criteria, and I felt there was something else there. I’ve taken a risk in letting him go, but I’m happy with the decision if I’ve managed to help put him back on the right path. Sometimes kindness is more important than justice.”

  Scarlett wasn’t so sure, but she didn’t want to argue with the boss.

  Before she had a chance to reply, there was a knock on the door. It swept open a moment later to reveal Tara.

  “Heather, could I have a word?” Tara asked, obviously having seen her through the slim window in the door.

  “Yes, we were just finishing up,” Heather replied.

  Scarlett took the opportunity to stand. “If there is nothing else, I should return to work.”

  “Sure. Thank you for your efforts,” Heather said.

  Scarlett wanted to comment that her efforts were in vain if the centre director was going to choose to release every thief she discovered, but she knew that wouldn’t go down well. Instead she made her escape from the room, nodding at Tara as she left.

  14

  Clap Them in Irons

  Heather watched Scarlett leave and let out a small sigh. She wasn’t sure if she’d managed to get through to the young woman or not.

  Tara entered the room and closed the door behind her. She took Scarlett’s vacated seat.

  “Sorry to interrupt. I wanted to quickly talk to you, but it wasn’t worth setting up a formal meeting,” Tara explained.

  This was one of the reasons why Heather liked Tara; she had an excellent sense for what could be solved during a five-minute discussion and what couldn’t.

  “No problem. What’s up?”

  “She just left the room,” Tara quipped.

  Heather felt her body sag. “Oh? I thought things were going well.”

  “They are, and they are not,” Tara said. “On one hand, she’s great. One of the best officers I’ve had, to be honest. She’s dedicated, observant, and she knows the rulebook back to front.”

  “I’m sensing a but?” Heather asked.

  “But she’s creating issues within the team.”

  Heather wasn’t exactly surprised by that news. Working with others didn’t seem to be one of Scarlett’s strengths. She raised her eyebrow to encourage Tara to continue.

  “She’s started ratting on team members when they arrive for their shift a minute or two late. If she sees someone commit what she calls an ‘infraction,’ she writes it up in an official report and gives it to me.”

  Heather couldn’t help but snigger. She covered her mouth with her hand. “Okay, so she’s a little keen on the rules?”

  “You could say that, but the problem is, people know what she’s doing. She’s not quiet about it. In fact, she told Dominic that she was going to write him up.”

  “What had he done?”

  “Wrong shoes. Not in the uniform rules. He’d got a new pair and they’d given him a blister. Long, boring story, but the point is that he had a valid reason and she wrote him up anyway. Not that she should be snitching on her fellow team members at all.”

  Heather rubbed at her forehead, feeling the beginning of a headache. “Okay, I’m assuming that you’ve already tried to talk to her?”

  “I have, and she’s agreed to limit her report writing to the more serious infractions. But that’s not the main issue. The problem is that she’s created a rift between her and the rest of the team. More so, the rest of the team are becoming unified against her.”

  “Ah.” Heather understood now. If any team needed to work as one cohesive group, it was security. A lone wolf wouldn’t get far in that department.

  “I’m not giving up yet,” Tara said. She seemed to bristle a little at the thought that she might ever do so. “But I wanted to make you aware of what is happening. She’s a great asset; I want to keep her. But if she can’t be a team player, then she may have to go.”

  “I understand.”

  “I can ask her to stop writing reports, but I can’t make her integrate if she doesn’t want to. She eats lunch in the food court every day rather than eat with the team in our breakroom. Little things like that are setting her apart from the rest of the department.”

  Heather could imagine the problem, especially considering that Silver Arches was such a close-knit team. She herself often spoke about all staff being a family of sorts.

  Now it seemed a member of that family didn’t want to play with the others. In fact, it sounded like that person didn’t want to engage with anyone else at all.

  And Heather could absolutely see that, having spoken to Scarlett a couple of times.

  The problem was that Heather didn’t know why Scarlett was the way she was. Yes, there was the fact that she had been nicknamed the Robot by her previous colleagues, but where had that come from? Was it simply a part of Scarlett’s personality, or was there a reason for her reluctance to integrate? Did she feel above everyone else? Was she shy?

  Heather had no idea, but it looked like she would need to find out.

  “Thank you for bringing this to my attention,” she said. “Keep trying to bring her into the fold. I’ll see if I can have a word with her too.”

  “I’ll do my best,” Tara said. “May I ask why you were both in here?”

  “Troubled teenager caught shoplifting,” Heather explained. “Scarlett wasn’t pleased with me letting him go with just a warning.”

  Tara laughed. “No, Scarlett is more the ‘clap them in irons’ type.”

  “So I discovered! I tried to highlight to her what I had seen in him, but I don’t know if I got through to her.”

  Tara smiled knowingly. “Yes, I have that same issue with her at times. I don’t know if I’m making my point understood or not. Time will tell, I suppose.”

  “It certainly will.”

  Tara stood up, saying she had to get back to work. Once she had left, Heather leaned back into the comfortable armchair and considered the Scarlett conundrum.

  It wasn’t long before her stomach rumbled and she remembered that she had, once again, forgotten to eat lunch. Glancing at her watch, she realised she had just enough time to grab a bite to eat before her next meeting.

  15

  Setting Up Shop

  Ravi lowered the three heavy boxes to the ground and let out a pained grunt.

  “Surely, that must be all of them?” he asked hopefully.

  Nico was standing on a chair, adjusting some of the spotlights in her new pop-up. She turned and looked over her shoulder, evaluating the boxes.

  “For now,” she said.

  Ravi couldn’t believe how many books, stickers, postcards, calendars, and more Nico thought she was going to sell in her first week in
Silver Arches. He admired her confidence.

  Nico’s assistant had dropped out at the last minute, and so Ravi stepped in to help Nico with the set-up. He’d expected to spend his lunchtime putting up signage and setting up the till, but Nico had other ideas, ideas that lived in heavy boxes she’d left in her car.

  “You’re out of shape,” she told him before returning to angling the lighting rig. “Panting like an old man.”

  “Books are heavy,” he complained.

  “Are they?” Nico asked innocently.

  “This is a health and safety violation,” a new voice spoke up.

  Ravi walked around to the front of the temporary store to see Scarlett Flynn standing in front of a loose cable with a displeased look on her face. The cable had been draped on the floor for less than two minutes and was obviously a part of the work they were currently doing.

  “We know, we’re changing the lights out. It will be fixed in a few moments,” Ravi explained.

  Scarlett looked at him with uncertainty. “I can’t leave a health and safety violation unattended.”

  Ravi wanted to roll his eyes. Of course Scarlett would want to be by the book about the cable, the cable that was most definitely not a trip hazard and not in anyone’s way.

  But it did technically represent a hazard, and so Ravi knew he had to clear it up immediately.

  “I’ll… do it now.” He went over to the cable, realising it was attached to a mass of other cables, and started to unthread them.

  “Do you read much?” Nico asked Scarlett.

  Scarlett turned to look at Nico. “No.”

  “You like stickers?” Nico held up a sheet of stickers emblazoned with rainbows.

  “No.”

  “Postcards?” Nico gestured to a stack of postcards.

  “No.”

  Nico smiled, completely unfazed. “What do you like?”

  Ravi paused and watched Scarlett with interest. The young woman seemed to put thought into the question, but after a few silent moments she simply shrugged her shoulder.

  “I don’t know.”

  Ravi felt his eyes widen. Did Scarlett genuinely not know what she was interested in, or did she just say that to stop Nico asking her questions? He couldn’t imagine the former. Who didn’t know what they liked?

  “Never mind,” Nico said brightly. “Keep looking and you’ll find it.”

  Scarlett didn’t seem to have a reply to that.

  Nico got her phone out of her back pocket. “I’m trying to add more photos to my Instagram account. Can I have a selfie with you as my first almost-customer?”

  Scarlett looked uncomfortable. “I’m not a customer. You’re not even open.”

  “Almost-customer,” Nico corrected.

  “There’s no such thing,” Scarlett replied.

  “There is. Anyway, I’ll make it very clear that you simply stopped by to report my health and safety violation,” Nico told her. “I’m Nico, by the way.”

  “Scarlett.”

  “Nice to meet you, Scarlett. So, what do you say? Selfie?” Nico waved her phone a little. “It will pass the time while we wait for Ravi to clear up our mess. And it will help my Instagram account.”

  “Very well,” Scarlett said.

  Nico exited the pop-up and positioned Scarlett in front of the store; she then stood beside her and held up the phone to check the view.

  “Thanks for doing this. I need to get into the habit of asking more people,” Nico said. “Apparently we need to document our lives through photos these days.”

  “You’re welcome,” Scarlett said, though she sounded uncertain.

  Nico held up the phone. “Right then, smile!”

  “Why?”

  “To show that you’re happy,” Nico said.

  “I’m not,” Scarlett replied seriously.

  Nico burst out laughing. “Okay, fair enough. Don’t smile; I’ll smile enough for both of us.”

  Ravi cleared away the cables just as Nico released Scarlett from her social media duties. Scarlett looked at the area and gave him an approving nod.

  “All done,” Ravi said, not missing the irony that Scarlett was about twelve pay grades below him and still happily telling him what to do and when.

  “Agreed.” Scarlett spun on her heel to leave. Then she stopped, turned, and looked intently at Ravi for a second. “Thank you,” she added.

  Ravi blinked in surprise. Before he had a chance to reply, Scarlett had turned again and continued her patrol.

  “Who was that?” Nico asked. “She’s fascinating.”

  “That is Leo Flynn’s daughter,” Ravi explained.

  “Where do I know that name?” Nico asked, cocking her head to the side.

  “He is the big boss at Intrex, the investment company.”

  Nico’s eyes widened and her mouth formed a small o. She turned to look at Scarlett’s retreating form and then back to Ravi.

  “Why’s she in a security uniform?”

  “Because she works in security now,” Ravi said. “Leo asked Heather to find a role for her. He thinks she’s difficult. And, well, she is a bit, to be fair to the man.”

  “She’s hilarious,” Nico said, though not without kindness. “And fascinating.”

  “She’s certainly an interesting one,” Ravi allowed. “Not made many friends, though. People have started calling her the Robot; it’s what the people at Intrex used to call her.”

  “That’s shitty,” Nico said.

  “It is, but she doesn’t exactly endear herself to people. As you could see.”

  “Still, it must be hard to have no friends at work,” Nico added.

  “I’ve tried to get her involved in things,” Ravi said, “but she just doesn’t want to join in anything. I do keep trying, though.”

  Nico bumped his shoulder with her own. “Good. Don’t give up. Not everyone can be average and boring; sometimes people are weird and wonderful. We need to keep them that way.”

  Ravi smiled at her. He loved the fresh way that Nico saw things. Different wasn’t scary or wrong; it was something to be embraced.

  Nico collected people and had more friends than anyone else he knew. If you wanted to source an artist, a painter, a builder, a plumber, a pilot for a fixed-wing two-seater plane, Nico knew someone. Nico knew everyone. And what’s more, Nico knew how to connect with everyone. She had an ability to read people like a barcode and adapt herself to them.

  Ravi made a decision to redouble his efforts to try to integrate Scarlett into the Silver Arches family. It had played on his mind that the woman was still such an outsider. It had been quite a few weeks since she joined the team, and she was still regarded as odd and robotic by the staff.

  Ravi just didn’t know how to change things. Especially considering that Scarlett seemed perfectly satisfied with the way things were.

  16

  Prefer to Be Alone

  Heather entered the upper level of the food court. She looked over the railing and gazed down at the lower level.

  She hadn’t believed Tara when she said that Scarlett ate at the same table, at the same time, every single day, but sure enough, there she was. Heather smiled to herself; creature of habit didn’t even begin to describe Scarlett.

  Tara had contacted Heather a second time after their brief conversation in one of the security meeting rooms.

  She’d asked Heather to please try to have a word with Scarlett and attempt to bring her back to the flock. Or at least get a little closer to the flock so she wasn’t so universally disliked.

  Heather had a reputation for being able to get through to people. She didn’t know if she’d have much luck with Scarlett, but she was willing to try.

  She crossed the food court and took the escalator downstairs, wondering how she’d approach Scarlett. Was it better to pretend she was passing, or to make it clear that it was a planned visit?

  She decided on the latter. Scarlett didn’t seem to be one for subterfuge, and so Heather decided to take her lea
d on things.

  Heather approached the table, where it was located in the far corner of the dining area. Scarlett was eating a pre-packaged sandwich she had picked up from a nearby chain. On the table were a bottle of water, a napkin, and Scarlett’s phone. All seemed perfectly positioned rather than randomly put down on the table.

  “Afternoon,” Heather greeted her.

  Scarlett looked up in surprise. She looked around, almost as if she expected Heather to be greeting someone else. Heather stood her ground and waited for Scarlett to settle down and reply.

  “Hello.”

  Heather smiled and pulled out the other chair at the table, seating herself opposite Scarlett. The younger woman looked displeased at the unexpected company, but Heather knew she couldn’t let that discourage her. She had to speak with Scarlett and try to resolve the various issues that had come up.

  “I see you’re sitting alone,” Heather began.

  “I was.”

  Heather smiled. Scarlett’s comment wasn’t necessarily rude, but it could certainly be considered as such by some. She suspected this was some of the problem.

  “I hear that you always eat here rather than in the security breakroom?” Heather continued.

  “I prefer to be alone,” Scarlett replied, putting her sandwich down and putting her phone to sleep.

  “That must make it hard to make friends,” Heather enquired.

  “There is no one to make friends with,” Scarlett said.

  “We employ hundreds of people. There must be someone you want to be friends with,” Heather said.

  Scarlett tilted her head to the side slightly, pinning Heather with a questioning gaze. “Am I required to make friends at work?”

  Heather hesitated. Of course it wasn’t a requirement, and such a thing could never be regulated anyway. It was just the done thing for most people. But not Scarlett Flynn, it seemed.

  “Don’t you feel lonely?” Heather asked.

  Scarlett seemed to give that serious consideration.

  “Sometimes. But not often.”