Break Out The Bubbly

by Rick Adams

  ‘You really think I wouldn’t have done the mathematics on that one before I went ahead and made such a significant order?’

  ‘I’d think it wholly likely actually, yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you’re an arrogant bastard, and once you strip away the pretence from people like that there’s usually dumbfounded stupidity cowering underneath.’

  Even Carol looked up when she heard those words.

  Leafy Hollow gulped.

  But even as he opened his mouth to retaliate, the door to the boardroom flew open and in strode Mrs. Osgood, spoiling for revenge.

  ‘You,’ she drawled at Ginger, ‘I want recompense from you.’

  She stumbled across the floor towards my colleague.

  I stood in her way.

  ‘Move aside!’ she thundered.

  Matthew appeared in the door behind her.

  His lip was bleeding.

  ‘Let her past, Emily,’ he pleaded.

  I stood in her way.

  The old bat glared at me, deep hatred in the pits of her eyes.

  For a moment I was scared, but then I looked at Matthew and his cowed look turned that feeling into defiance.

  ‘What,’ I said fronting up, ‘are you going to hit me too?’

  ‘I haven’t hit anyone,’ she shrieked. ‘It is that girl. She must pay for the crime she has committed.’

  ‘You are a most unpleasant woman,’ said Marilyn decreed. ‘Because of your actions, we now find ourselves in such position.’

  ‘I’m the one who’s hurt,’ she protested. ‘She’s the one who slapped me in the face, and all because of your intolerance to my request.’

  ‘You were trying to return an empty bottle of champagne for refund. You created the situation, and here you are sustaining it, with your obstructive attitude.’

  ‘I am trying to restore some sort of equilibrium,’ she managed tersely. ‘You must see that matters here are out of balance.’

  ‘That we do,’ I sighed. ‘But we need to know what’s going on so that we can restore order.’

  I took a deep breath, and in a whisper I hoped my Manager wouldn’t overhear asked, ‘Why is she stealing the champagne?’

  Carol lifted her head.

  It sunk back down again.

  Then she snapped her neck back sharply, and scanned us all in that crazed manner with which she’d prefaced her tirade yesterday.

  If only she’d just met us with diplomacy, or tact, or just basic plain honesty, admitted her guilt and let us all help her…

  I mean, she was stealing from herself.

  Sheila’s was her shop, and her shop still despite anything Adrian might be planning for it in the long haul.

  If she’d just admitted she was the thief, then everything could have been resolved and we’d have all settled back into the routine of everyday life here.

  Everyday life.

  Hadn’t I railed against it?

  Been driven to desperation by it, by the monotony of retail?

  Hadn’t I yearned for something exciting to happen, something, anything to save me from the tedious round of my dull, uninteresting life?

  And now, with that something in full effect, I wanted nothing but peace and quiet and calm and a sense, I don’t know, of, balance.

  Matthew’s mother was right.

  The old witch was spot on.

  Equilibrium had been disturbed, and the quickest, the only way for it to be regained was if we all kept our heads, came clean, and clung to the sense of community this little shop had offered in its heyday.

  ‘If you accuse me one more time, Tranter,’ seethed the Manager, ‘I shall have you out on your ear.’

  ‘But it is you,’ said Matthew, ‘we saw you.’

  He turned to everyone in the room to explain. ‘Last night…’

  ‘Shut up!’ she screamed launching herself across the table at him, ‘after everything I’ve done for you, you ungrateful imp!’

  She almost got to him before he reacted.

  But once again he tackled her into the side table, where they landed on the broken printer and lamp.

  It was pathetic to watch her struggle.

  And impressive to see his strength as he held her firm.

  ‘Calm down,’ he said in no uncertain terms.

  She flipped and flustered under him.

  ‘Get off me, Osgood!’ she screamed, flailing and fighting tooth and nail, ‘get the fuck off me!’

  ‘Help me,’ cried Matthew at us all, ‘for God’s sake, give me a hand.’

  We all stood motionless.

  Except his mother.

  ‘Carol!!’ she shouted with such force that I swear the very walls shook.

  The force of the exhalation reached deep into the pit of my soul and petrified me right there, at the source of my being.

  I had never heard anyone scream like that in my life.

  It made Carol’s rage sound like the whine of a child.

  And it worked.

  Mrs. Osgood not only dammed up the Manager’s lava flow, she actually turned it back on itself and had the wretched molten climbing back up its slopes…

  And not just Carol’s.

  Ginger was a blubbering wreck.

  And Leafy Hollow was trying to make a brave fist of his fear.

  Maybe the same look of terror had etched itself on my features.

  Matthew’s mother stopped just momentarily to register us all, then once more turned her full invective on the boss.

  ‘I’m fed up to the back teeth with you,’ she screamed across the table at her. ‘Every time I try to help you, you attack me or my son. Well, not on this occasion.’

  She moved closer to her.

  ‘Not once, twice, but three times now you’ve virtually ruined us. I would have thought after that last attempt,’ she looked at us all, ‘which wrecked my marriage by the way,’ back to Carol, ‘you’d have realized the worth of my sacrifice for you, but no, here you go again, pilfering like a common thief, all because your own marriage has gone up in smoke.’

  She paused for breath, but hardly.

  ‘You’re not the only one who has relationships end on them, you know. And if you think getting cosy with him,’ she pointed at Leafy Hollow, ‘is going to help you through this mess, you’ve got another thing coming.’

  ‘What would you have me do then?’ pleaded Carol.

  ‘I’d retrieve the champagne from his store,’ she vented. ‘Go up to the attic, collect the bottles, and put them back in place here, in aisle five. Then I’d banish these two back over there, re-employ the staff you’ve fired, including Tabatha, go to the hospital, beg for Sarah to come back to the store and return to her rightful place at the lottery kiosk, then,’ she paused, ‘open the shop for custom! How does that sound?’

  ‘But how do I proceed?’ salivated the boss, ‘where do I begin again?’

  ‘I just told you.’

  ‘With men?’

  ‘You’re not fit for one,’ she said flatly, ‘give yourself a break.’

  Carol looked abjectly at Leafy Hollow.

  ‘But I can’t,’ she wailed, ‘I need him in my life.’

  ‘No, you need to right your life first, then think about a relationship to strengthen the foundations you have already dug, yourself.’

  ‘She’s right you know,’ said someone from the door.

  That voice, it was familiar.

  I turned, and immediately felt huge warmth.

  It was Cynthia.

  ‘You must respect yourself, Carol,’ she said moving into the room, ‘autonomy must come first.

  ‘Who the hell are you?’ barked Carol at her.

  ‘One of your customers,’ replied my friend, ‘and one of many who would like to see Sheila’s reopen as soon as possible.’

  Carol studied her.

  Then she studied everyone else.

  In turn.

  For a moment I thought she was going to flip out, accuse us of conspiring agai
nst her, slip back into her heady paranoia, lose the plot, and launch herself at the nearest person who she fancied was persecuting her in her hopeless delusion.

  But she didn’t.

  I mean, she didn’t admit to the thefts.

  But she did soften, and say that she would reopen the store.

  I almost put my foot in it…

  But I didn’t.

  I kept my mouth closed.

  I mean, we were back in business.

  ‘Of course Emily, said Carol as we made our way from the boardroom, ‘will still have to organise tomorrow’s party.’

  You must be joking, I thought, who the hell was going to pitch up to that with all the commotion over the last few days?

  ‘I’ll help her,’ said Matthew kindly.

  I glanced at the clock on the wall.

  It was midday now.

  So, in a day and a half it would be the New Year.

  And I’d have to deal with all the emotional baggage that particular milestone brought me every close of December.

  I walked out in front of Cynthia and Marvilyn.

  I heard their conversation, even as I considered what a strange situation we were now in, about to start trading again even knowing who the felon was who was stealing the champagne.

  And doing nothing about it.

  Shouldn’t Carol be removed from her position?

  Shouldn’t Leafy Hollow be Manager?

  Ginger Assistant Manager?

  Me, Assistant Assistant Manager?

  ‘You must tell me more about your writing,’ Cynthia said to Marilyn.

  ‘What would you like to know?’

  ‘How do you come up with all the ideas for crimes? There must only be a finite amount in the bank to consider.’

  ‘I don’t write crime,’ she corrected gently, ‘I am a romance novelist.’

  ‘How long had you been listening at the door?’

  ‘Long enough to understand that your two stores should remain independent.’

  ‘But Hadrian is driving for a takeover. And he usually gets what he wants.’

  ‘Then we must cut him off at the pass,’ said Cynthia.

  ‘How?’

  A pause.

  ‘By bringing Tabatha back into the equation.’

  I almost stopped.

  I almost turned.

  But somehow my smile and sense of satisfaction kept me walking on.

  Chapter 8

  WENT THE DAY WELL?

  Amazingly enough, when we opened the store again, customers did actually start to return through the front door.

  Marilyn took up residence on the front till.

  And I had to give it to her, she was pretty damned amazing at the job.

  Not only was she able to scan and process and pack everything with one hand, she was also able to hold a book open in the other whilst she worked.

  I asked her how she managed to multi-task so.

  ‘It’s become second nature,’ she explained gently, ‘serving people is fine, but I do so have to have ‘me’ time into the bargain too. Good afternoon, sir.’

  I moved aside whilst she served the gentleman in question, watching them both keenly.

  She really invested the time with him, then as soon as he was gone she went straight back to the book.

  ‘What are you reading?’ I asked casually.

  She held it away from her as though noticing it for the first time.

  ‘It’s a book about space,’ she said finally.

  ‘But I thought you were a romance novelist,’ I blurted. ‘Shouldn’t you be reading about relationships, and love, and, I don’t know, loss?’

  She studied me in benevolent manner.

  ‘All those things are built into our souls,’ she said matter-of-factly, ‘but it is the source from which they spring that I am truly interested in exploring.’

  I smiled sweetly.

  She studied me again.

  ‘The chap in the boardroom,’ she whispered, ‘you like him.’

  I went bright scarlet.

  ‘You had dinner with him at the lottery kiosk last night,’ she smiled. ‘You let slip so upstairs, earlier.’

  ‘I have a habit of doing that,’ I sighed, ‘I wish I could change it.’

  ‘You can,’ she said, leaning towards me. ‘Love yourself a little more.’

  I looked strangely at her. ‘What on earth do you mean?’

  ‘The two ladies,’ she continued breezily, ‘Matthew’s mother and that other one, they’re right, self-assurance and sanity begin at home. The moment you put your welfare in the hands of another person, or expect them to save you, you end up stealing from your own store and stashing your goods in boxes up in Hadrian’s attic. Then you shout at people to try to regain control over matters.’

  ‘Why do you call him that?’

  ‘He’s a barrier,’ she said, ‘he puts walls up between people. That’s why he’s planning to bridge the shops, to nullify that defect.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  She smiled. ‘I have customers to serve, Emily.’

  I looked round.

  A great queue was snaking away behind me.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ I whispered back at her.

  ‘Because I was enjoying talking to you,’ she said, ‘and who wants to work when you can have a nice conversation instead?’

  ‘Can I talk to you about your book?’ I said heading off, ‘it sounds exciting.’

  ‘Even though I’ve told you nothing about it?’

  ‘You’re writing a book,’ I marveled, ‘that’s amazing in itself.’

  She seemed thrilled by that, and as I left to move into the body of shop I glanced back over my shoulder to see her scanning items of shopping, talking to the customers who were buying them, packing them, and in the other hand holding the novel she’d been reading, even whilst she was talking to me.

  I sighed.

  I wished I was creative.

  I had nothing to write about.

  I just didn’t have the urge to express myself in that manner.

  What on earth was I doing on a journalism course?

  I passed aisle three.

  Breads and condiments.

  I sighed.

  Bread had been the sole item I’d been charged with when I first came to work at Sheila’s, when Carol had been normal, when the place had been fun, when Tabatha had been the Assistant Manager.

  I missed those times.

  When Carol had been normal.

  I stopped.

  When Carol had been normal.

  I moved past aisle four.

  Meats and frozen.

  That’s where she’d interviewed me.

  Not seated in the office.

  Oh no.

  She’d met me out on the shop floor and set me straight to work.

  Not dealing with the public or shelf filling.

  No, she’d piled me up with frozen food…

  I thought we’d have a talk afterwards, but that never came.

  I presumed I’d flunked it.

  Then the call came through, from the Manager’s office.

  Over the tannoy, of course.

  Carol wanted to hire me.

  But that initial feeling of unease, well that was followed in turn by my Manager’s subsequent disinterest in me.

  For the first month, she just ignored me.

  Everything came through Tabatha.

  And that sense of unease, that initial sense mixed with the disinterest, it unsettled me, made me unsure of myself.

  And the temper.

  I knew she’d always had a short fuse, but boy when it lit was there mayhem.

  So unpredictable.

  So vicious.

  And no matter what I’d done this morning, I couldn’t get out of my mind that horrible accusation she’d made that I’d rammed a knife…

  Who spoke like that?

  What kind of person possessed that venom?

  What fiend…


  And suddenly she was there in front of me.

  ‘Right, Emily,’ she smiled, ‘are you alright with this party tomorrow?’

  I was completely taken aback, her unexpected concern knocking me back like a ten pin being smashed to all corners by a jagged bowling ball.

  ‘Matthew’s going to help me,’ I replied.

  ‘Oh yes,’ she mulled, ‘well I was thinking, perhaps Ginger might be a better aid in that respect.’

  ‘Ginger?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Ginger Starr. The Ginger I detest unutterably.’

  ‘Oh come on,’ she said chummily, ‘I know you have your differences, but really I think you get on very well most of the time.’

  ‘She tried to get me sacked in the summer, Carol.’

  ‘Did she?’

  ‘You almost acquiesced.’

  ‘It was never on my mind,’ she dismissed. ‘Remind me again.’

  ‘Forget about it,’ I sighed, ‘I don’t want to go over old ground.’

  ‘So that’s settled then,’ she breezed, ‘Ginger can help you instead.’

  ‘Why not Matthew too?’

  ‘He doesn’t understand the nuances of the shop.’

  ‘What nuances?’

  ‘Parts,’ she stumbled, ‘points, purposes to the enterprise, which I don’t think he’d quite understand yet. Not until I’ve instructed him personally anyway.’

  I looked at her, a little too long.

  She knitted her eyebrows.

  My God.

  ‘Where’s Matthew?’ I asked quickly.

  ‘What’s it to you?’

  ‘I should tell him about the party, you know, that his help is no longer required. It would be the right thing to do.’

  ‘Of course. I’ll tell him.’

  ‘No, really, it’s no trouble.’

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Your job, Emily. What are you doing right now?’

  ‘I was on my way, to the lottery kiosk.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To help Matthew.’

  ‘With what?’

  I hesitated. ‘A transaction.’

  ‘What kind of transaction?’

  ‘A difficult one.’

  She smiled. ‘Well it would probably be best if I went now, wouldn’t it, as Manager? Why don’t you head over to Adrian’s and start bringing the champagne back?’

  She couldn’t be serious.

  But she’d said it with a straight face.

  Leafy Hollow appeared from round the corner of the aisle. ‘Carol.’