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“Experience the rush of pure Christmas pleasure... Heart-mas.” Heart-mas, Heart-mas, Heart-mas...
The words echoed, and were followed up by a thumpity, thump sound to mimic a heartbeat, then a screeching violin note to finish. The stupid ad played over and over again on the flat-screen TV monitor directly overhanging Harrison’s department store perfume counter.
The same ad was playing on a whole wall of TV screens beside the escalators and the central gold-bauble-bedecked Christmas tree near where I stood. I was ready, perfume spritzer in hand, to spray any unsuspecting customers who came my way. I had now heard the ad approximately eleventy billion times since I started work here two weeks ago, and I tell you, familiarity breeds contempt.
The video matched the voice-over in being annoying. It featured a wraith-like poppet of a supermodel in a low-cut, bright-red jumpsuit and reindeer antlers dancing in slow motion. She still managed to look fabulous.
It wasn’t fair. If I wore the same outfit I’d look like an overgrown pre-schooler in a Christmas play with a slight weight problem. Not that I was fat, I was simply naturally endowed with ‘womanly curves and child-bearing hips’, as my gran used to say. Urgh.
The Heart-mas scent was the big promotional drawcard of the season and we had been instructed to promote the hell out of it, whether we liked it or not. I did not. The top note of the perfume was suffused with something I can only describe as skanky old socks, while the middle note, or Heart Note, reminded me of blue cheese.
I hadn’t been able to stand the scent on my skin for long enough to discover whatever the delightful base note could be. It didn’t improve on closer acquaintance. I spent a good ten minutes in the staff bathroom yesterday, scrubbing the offending odour from my wrist.
I glanced across the cosmetics floor and my gaze was hooked on a vision of beauty. The Greek-Australian security guard, Christos. Causer of fake heart attacks and truly exceptional partner in trust exercises demanded by staff trainers.
Hello! I squinted at him across the floor. I’d love to make his closer acquaintance. I sighed as he turned and strode off, talking on his walkie-talkie the whole time and looking important. His furrowed brow made him look both angry and sexy. Sexy-angry?
Hello, Mr Sangry. At least he had something to do apart from make up new words.
The day had started like any other day on the department store cosmetics floor, which was to say, slow as a wet week. It was only the start of November, but apparently it was Christmas time in retail land. Shoppers hadn’t quite caught on yet.
So, at nine o’clock opening time, the polished marble tile floors echoed with the lonely clicks of spritzer-chick heels, as we roamed the department with perfume bottles and cards printed with images of roses or the curling script of the perfume’s name. Chicks like me, working their way through university or saving their pennies, one fragrant spritz at a time.
My brand new black pencil skirt and slightly puffy white blouse were starchy and scratchy, but my make-up was expertly applied, eyebrows appropriately arched and unruly auburn curls tamed (for now) into swishy submission in a low ponytail tied with a black satin bow. Dare I say, the outfit actually looked good on me. It was a 1940s look, flattering my hips rather than accentuating any lumps and bumps. Paired with my Mary Jane heels, I thought it worked.
I gave up on spritzing non-existent customers for now, and strolled back towards what I dubbed Perfume HQ. The square arrangement of glass and chrome counters surrounding a central column, cash register and wrapping area was a scent-lovers’ paradise. Hundreds of different perfumes were here from Paris, London, New York and around the world. All packaged in shiny boxes and glittering glass bottles. I loved it. I would have loved it more if it had been my own perfumery. One day, hopefully. It was my long-term goal.
I craned my neck around the towering display of fragrance gift sets I had so carefully arranged yesterday. Perfectly wrapped and be-ribboned, resplendent in their Christmassy gold paper and red-velvet bows. The pyramid-shaped display on the low table in the aisle seemed precarious to me, but what did I know? I knew perfume, but I wasn’t the visual merchandising expert. She’d suggested it, so I’d gone along with the idea.
Speak of the devil...
Lynda ‘with a Y’ McCauley, Visual Merchandising Manager, was out and about. I noted heads ducking behind nearby make-up counters, staff pretending to rearrange stock in low cabinets. Hiding, basically.
Lynda was not a woman to be crossed. She’d have you re-wrapping hundreds of already beautifully wrapped gift sets before you could say ‘management track control freak’.
“Good morning, Petal. How are we today?”
I narrowed my eyes an infinitesimal amount. I hated when Lynda called me Petal. Hated it with the loathing usually reserved for stinky-cheese perfume. My name was Lily Lucas, as she was well aware. The name tag pinned to my blouse stated my first name anyway. I blinked slowly and allowed a polite but non-committal smile to cross my dial. Maybe Lynda was being funny, trying to be my friend. I was the new girl, after all.
Tilting my chin in her direction, I tried to strike up a conversation. “I’m fine, thanks. Just getting started on the new displays.” I waved my arm vaguely at the stack of newly arrived perfumes and body creams lying on the wrapping table behind me.
Unfortunately, the gentle waving action of my arm sent a breeze rippling towards the pyramid-shaped stack of boxes, which were not, in fact, actual presents but pretend packages. They were quite hollow. Lightweight.
They toppled and fell like a stack of dominoes, clunking on the table and down around my feet. I kept my eyes up, pressing my lips together to keep from laughing, or crying. As a final death knell, the Perspex sign behind the display fell down with a low wallop.
I met Lynda’s accusatory eyes, steely grey and mean with it. She glanced down at the floor and muttered something under her breath, which may have been something derogatory about lazy retail workers. I crossed my arms over my stomach.
Lynda looked up and leaned right over the counter, her claw-like hands gripping the chrome edge. Her jet black bob swung over the super-wide shoulder pads of her 1980s-style Chanel power suit. She partly bared her teeth in what may have been a smile. “I’m glad you said you’re just getting started, because the display wasn’t much good, was it? Piss. Weak. Do it again.”
My stomach dropped and the delicious latte I’d downed on the walk to work turned sour and squelchy in my gut. Lynda was evidently in a mood, again. But I bit my tongue to stop myself swearing and surveyed the mess.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Lynda turn and march off, clacking across the floor on her stunningly high Louboutins, towards the other new girls at the manicure bar.
One of them, Petula, I’d met in training. She was a qualified hairdresser/make-up artist who looked like a Bollywood movie star. Petula caught my eye and raised her eyebrows in alarm. Petula...Petal... I think Lynda had me confused with the other new hire across the floor. At least I’d give Lynda the benefit of the doubt and assume so.
With a sigh, I turned to the scattered boxes, plus the other pile of products to be arranged. My Thursday offsider, the reliable Gillian, would be in at ten, so she could help. But since I was the counter manager, I’d have to come up with the overall plan.
The direction from Lynda had been vague, to say the least. “Festive. But not hideous with gold baubles everywhere.” Right.
I lifted my head to examine the ceiling decorations and couldn’t help but notice the sheer volume of gold baubles dangling overhead from garlands of pretend pine leaves. They threatened to fall and poke my eyes out any second.
With my eyes trained above, I didn’t notice I’d stepped on a slippery satin ribbon, which skated across the floor, taking me with it.
Woah!
I let out a gasp and then an unladylike cry of pain as the hard floor met both my arse and the back of my head. Pleased to meet you, clunk. Likewise, crack!
I stared up at the baubles and the lights above, blinking stupidly. I should get up. Really, I should. Only I suddenly wanted to curl into a ball right there and have a little nap.
I sat up part-way, leaning on my elbows. I grabbed a handful of perfume spritz cards that were by my side.
“Problem?”
The gruff and quite frankly lady-parts-spasm-inducing voice of senior security guard and all-round hottie, Christos, caused me to drop the pile of spritzer cards. They fell to the floor like a randomly shuffled deck of cards. I was feeling pretty randomly shuffled too, when I glanced up and met his eyes.
He was all stunning in a Zeus-like way, clad in a perfectly fitted grey suit and white shirt (courtesy of the men’s fashion department on the fourth floor). His brown eyes reminded me of half-melty chocolate buttons. Of course he had the type of thick, velvety looking hair I itched to run my hands through. I stared. I couldn’t help it.
“Baubles,” I babbled.
“Excuse me?” Christos arched one dark, manly eyebrow. It really was manly. He had a thoughtful expression on his face too, like the famous sculpture, The Thinker. You know, the naked, muscular one? Anyway, Christos had his Thinker face on and I paused to admire him. He tilted his head to one side and waited me out.
Then he reached over and extended an excessively masculine hand in my direction. I grabbed hold and warmth wrapped around me. I let him help me to my feet because I couldn’t manage in my tight skirt. I didn’t mind the excuse to touch him, either. I stumbled, grabbing hard onto his forearm before I righted myself and leaned back against the counter.
Christos tilted his head again, his gaze travelling thoughtfully up and down my body. At least I thought it was in regards to my body. Maybe he was busy thinking about what he wanted for lunch.
“What happened?” he asked with a quasi-smile, only there for a moment.
“It was just Lynda being a pain in my arse. I spent hours on my displays already but then this lot fell over in front of her. Apparently I’m no good at decorating and I have to start again. Without too many baubles.” I sighed, gesturing vaguely with my right hand to the threatening baubles overhead.
“Right.” He nodded, then leaned in, over the counter, whispering right near my ear. “She’s a pain in my arse too. Wants me to count and catalogue all the mannequin hands in the back storage room. She’s convinced someone is stealing them. I tried to tell her it’s not my job but...” He shook his head and then rolled his eyes skyward.
I pressed my lips together to stifle a laugh and glanced over his shoulder in the direction of women’s fashion. Lynda was now patrolling like a police officer, skirting the perimeter and narrowing her eyes at a pedestal featuring two mannequins in red sequined party dresses. They appeared to have their hands in place.
When I returned my gaze to Christos’s handsome face, he quickly met my eyes. “I like red lipstick on you. Much better than the vampire purple from last week.” He hesitated, his mouth opening as if to say something else. “Have a good day.”
He stepped back from my counter and strode away towards the security station near the store’s entrance doors. I was left gaping after him.
Christos had noticed my lipstick. My lips. Maybe I should have been insulted that he’d commented, but I wasn’t. I was warm and tingly.
Maybe it would be a good day after all. My hand was still warm from where I’d grasped his hand, then his arm. He was strong. Not just normal-man strong, but muscular. I knew he was, because I’d felt his forearm flex under my fingertips. It was like steel.
Then I clocked Petula giving me raised eyebrows from across the floor. Her gaze followed the path Christos had taken.
Petula winked, and her golden-tinted eyelids twinkled. I’d have to ask her about the eyeshadow she was wearing. It was super glam. Petula mimed a coffee drinking action and pointed to her chest, then to me.
I nodded, glancing towards the front doors of the store. Sure, morning coffee break together at 10.30 am. It was a date.
Petula would want all the Christos-related gossip. There wasn’t much to tell, so I’d have to get my embellishments ready. There was no need to ruin a perfectly good flirtation story with too much pesky reality, after all.
––––––––
I SPOTTED PETULA RIGHT away at Georgina’s, the best Italian café in the still half-empty mall. She sat neatly with her legs crossed to one side, unaware she was showing off her sheer black stockings and towering high heels in her little black uniform dress, which was quite chic. Va-va-voom!
She was also apparently unaware of the avid male attention she was currently receiving from the barista, the delivery boy, who nearly dropped a box full of coffee beans on his foot, and one or two of the customers near the counter who had their mouths hanging open.
Petula’s table was beside the wall of windows overlooking the ocean of cars in the car park of the southern hemisphere’s largest indoor shopping centre. Not exactly a delightful view, but there were a few potted plants out the front.
My new friend waved me over to her table, grinning like a gossip-crazed maniac. Which she undoubtedly was, but in an endearing way, like a puppy eager for treats. Petula wasted no time in picking my brain for tantalising titbits of gossip. At the last minute I decided against confiding in her about how much I liked Christos. It seemed too soon.
Petula leaned forward, her eyes wide. “Did he ask you out, or did he tell you he thinks you’re beautiful while creasing his forehead and running his fingers across his stubble? Because I had a dream like that.”
I shook my head. “Um, no.”
Petula’s face fell for a moment, but then she sat to attention and her eyes widened further. “Or did he slowly unbutton his shirt and let you smell his neck? Because I have to say, he stood close behind me last Wednesday in the lunch queue at Romani’s and he smells divine.”
“Look, I hate to disappoint you, but we really only talked about baubles.”
“Baubles?”
“The Christmas decorations. I can’t believe I have to do my displays again. He didn’t laugh, which would have been fair enough. Christos empathised with me about Lynda. She’s giving him a hard time too.”
Petula grinned. “Oh, good. You’ve got something in common!”
I let out a laugh under my breath. Petula was determined to set me up with someone. That she’d happened to pick on the very man I’d been crushing on since I’d fallen into his arms at staff training either meant she could read my mind and we were bound to be best friends forever, or she fancied him as much as I did. But I happened to know she had her eye on someone else.
I tipped my head to one side and asked her, casual as you please, “So when are you seeing Kurt again?” The shy Kurt was her study partner from her accounting class.
Petula blushed, a dead-set, deep vermillion, even under her caramel skin tone. It would make a fabulous shade of lipstick. “There must be a story to go along with your blush.”
With a shrug, Petula brushed her long, silky ponytail over one shoulder. “He’s taking me out Friday night. Bowling! Can you believe it? I don’t know how I’ll manage with these nails.” She glanced at her perfectly manicured hands, now featuring the latest season’s nail colour, turquoise metallic, with decals of little golden stars and moons.
I reached out and stroked one of her nails. “Amazing. But not for bowling.”
“Right? Anyhoo, I checked out bowling shoes online and they totally have purple glittery ones I could buy.”
A grin stretched out my cheeks until they could have burst like mini balloons. “Sounds like a serious relationship, if it requires special shoes.”
She bit her lip, hesitating, but she was smiling. “Maybe.”
I was happy for her. Petula’s skin actually radiated happiness, and I didn’t think it was the result of the primer she’d tried from the organic skincare counter. No, she was radiant because she’d found a man who wanted to hang out and take her bowling. It wasn’t even a euphemism for anything dirty.
We chatted for a few minutes as we drank coffee. Petula told me all about the oddball professor teaching her accounting classes. I told her all about my stoush with my new next-door neighbour. We were arguing about when to bring in the rubbish bins on a Friday.
Then Petula’s expression turned all serious. Her lips formed a thin line. “Can I ask you something? When you worked at the perfumery in Sydney, did you like being able to come and go as you pleased? I mean, you were the boss of the shop.”
I paused to say thanks to the new young waiter for bringing over another coffee. He was only about seventeen, doing his final exams in high school. About the same age as my little sister.
He looked down at me under long blonde lashes, then murmured something like, “My pleasure, babe.” I shot him a frown of disapproval but he was already headed back to the serving area behind the cake display.
Petula watched me stir a teaspoon of raw sugar into my latte, dissolving the fine golden crystals into the leaf pattern the barista, Yusef, had made in the top of the milk foam. He really was an artist. I shot him a genuine smile across the cafe, and he grinned before ducking his head behind the coffee machine again.
Now he seemed like a sweetheart who I would seriously consider dating, if he wasn’t already going out with the pretty but perpetually harassed Belinda, the pastry chef.
I sighed as I swallowed a mouthful of the excellent coffee, letting it warm me through to my bones and send wake-up messages to all my nerve endings. Then I met my friend’s eyes and answered her question, as honestly as possible.
“I loved my job. I never would have left if I didn’t have to.”
I’d had a hard time in the few months since I was forced to leave my previous job at a stand-alone, boutique perfumery in inner-city Sydney. I couldn’t find another job with the same level of responsibility or salary there, so I ended up moving to Melbourne where rent was cheaper, although not by much. My little place in fashionable Malvern would cost a significant chunk of change.
The department store job wasn’t my first choice, but at least I was still in the perfume trade. I had experience from working in a similar store a few years ago. And I could walk to and from work, saving both travel costs and gym fees. This should be a good move. But I still sighed when I thought of the old perfumery, which had felt like home.
I gazed into space over Petula’s shoulder, picturing the shop as it had been. “I loved the perfumery. The old-fashioned stained-glass windows, the hand-crafted cabinets, the French blown-glass bottles, all of it. Just walking in the door and inhaling the profusion of perfumes made me happy.”
The shop had been there for over a hundred years. I’d worked my way up to be weekday manager, but I wasn’t the boss. “Judith was the boss, and like family. Her stamp was all over the place, from the inventory we purchased from France, to the design of the brochures we sent out to customers. Until she was gone. I miss her.”
Judith, the octogenarian owner, had been my perfumier mentor. She’d died about four months ago, leaving the shop to her middle-aged son. He promptly fired the staff and sold the shop, liquidating the assets. The heartless fiend spent it all on a luxury boat to sail around Sydney Harbour, or so I’d heard.
Petula’s mouth twisted to one side. “I’m sorry about Judith and the shop. But you’re on the right track with this job. Being counter manager at a big department store is a great thing to have on your CV.”
I nodded, then glanced out the window. A pigeon chose to leave his business on the pane of glass. I sighed. “I know, so everyone keeps telling me. It’s hard when I’m still studying part-time. At least the term is over for summer. Then I’ll do online classes. But I didn’t want to leave my sister.” Not to put too fine a point on it, but I was broke and I’d had no choice but to take this job.
Petula’s voice went soft and wistful, and she waved her hands around in mid-air. “One day, it will all be worth it. You’ll have your marketing degree and your own shop. You’ll be the bossest perfume boss ever. You’ll have beautiful perfumes shipped from France and design your own bottles. And you can hire me to be your make-up artist on staff. Life will be perfect.”
The vision was tantalising, a golden-haloed, richly scented image in my imagination. Unfortunately it was still out of reach by several years and many thousands of dollars. Still, Petula was proving to be a good friend, trying to make me think positive.
“Thanks, honey.”
“You’re welcome. Now, tell me about how you’re going to implement some extreme flirting strategies with Christos while you’re working here.”
A gurgly laugh escaped my throat, as I’d been sipping my glass of water. Petula was studying a business degree and loved talking about implementing strategies and being ‘agile’. She also loved spreadsheets, but I wouldn’t hold it against her as an otherwise normal person.
Suddenly, the peace of the café was shattered by a violent, ear-splitting alarm, then the rush of people. Two, no three, guys in black hoodies and jeans ran past the café doors and out through the main mall entrance. They made it out to the car park, still running, ducking and weaving around a bus and a line of taxis.
Then I saw him. A vision of athletic perfection, an Olympian in a business shirt and trousers. Christos was sprinting after them. I hardly had a second to admire him as he shot out of sight. The police pulled up outside the main entrance in a divvy van. They’d arrived quickly. They wouldn’t send a van unless a crime was unfolding.
Petula and I glanced at each other and shrugged, then stared out the window, trying to make out any activity. What was going on?
Perhaps today wasn’t simply a day like any other. How exciting! I couldn’t wait to find out the full story. I’d have to corner Christos later.
Hmmm, cornering Christos. The idea had possibilities.