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Time passed, not always too slowly. I settled into my job and finally Christmas shoppers descended. This particular day, a red sea of casual spritzer chicks spread out across the department, from the main entrance of the store to the bottom of the escalators. They handed out mini perfume vials attached to sample cards.
Even I had to admit the costumes looked effective from a distance. The scarlet velour jumpsuits stood out like a sore thumb, but they matched the Christmassy décor in the store with the hanging pine laurels and suspended sparkly baubles. In their costumes, the girls looked like red rose petals scattered across the floor.
A pop tune came ringing out from the P.A. system. It had me humming and feeling positively festive. Mariah Carey’s modern classic, All I Want For Christmas Is You was irresistible. I hummed along, swaying and hip-bumping with Giselle as we went about our cabinet stocking. But my good mood didn’t last.
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BY TWO-THIRTY, I COULD stand it no longer.
We’d had a flood of customers since eleven, with no let-up. I’d had no break and was rapidly becoming a ravenous beast-monster. Customers were hovering around the perfume counter like bees seeking pollen. But I had to eat and sit down before I either bit someone’s head off or passed out. I leaned on the edge of the counter and took a deep breath.
I pressed a hand to my stomach as it gurgled. “I need lunch. Can you hold the fort?”
I cast the question over my shoulder at my team members, who had each just finished serving a couple of ‘high-touch’ customers, as they’d say in marketing class. These were customers requiring a high level of service and hand-holding, all our ad-speak, upselling and product-knowledge expertise. In other words, they were exhausting.
“Yes, though I will need a break soon too. My feet are killing me!” This, from Giselle, wasn’t surprising. Her shoes were always skyscraper-high designer numbers, gorgeous but impractical.
I glanced at her feet and swallowed a stab of shoe-envy. Those beauties were worth the pain. High heels with black and white stripes on the little bows adorning the instep. Sweet but sexy too.
I nodded at the girls in turn. “Okay, Gigi, you go in half an hour and we’ll crossover.”
I strolled away towards the staff-only area through fitness apparel, and stiffened as I felt a presence close behind me. It wasn’t unheard of to be followed by male customers. I was wary ever since a young woman from kitchenware had to enlist security to walk her to her car. Everyone was talking about it.
I glanced over my shoulder and my heart hippity-hopped with excitement to find Christos walking behind me. But he didn’t look up. He was watching his own feet as he walked. Then he was right beside me. He wanted to talk to me. My tummy tightened at the thought.
He walked at my pace, and I felt his sideways glance. My heart jitterbugged like I’d been listening to Wham! on the 80s radio station I liked.
He cleared his throat. “Lily, do you have a moment?”
I fluttered my eyelashes without thinking. “For you, all the moments.” Where had this flirty fox sprung from? I was usually tongue-tied when I met a man I liked. Or wanted to have babies with, whatever.
He frowned in a crinkly way. “Good to know. The break room okay?”
“Sure. Give me five minutes.”
I scooted off to the staff bathroom to powder my nose. In my case, it wasn’t a euphemism. I got horrible shiny skin after wearing thick make-up under the store’s lights. So I primped and primed in front of the mirror, applying translucent powder from my compact, then Red Hot Mama lipstick and my favourite Better Than Sex mascara. I was perfectly prettified again. Exiting the Ladies, I veered right to the secure area where we stored our bags and personal items during our shifts.
Then I dashed into the break room and immersed myself in its awfulness. With its chipped laminate tables, and old magazines, the whole look could have been dropped in from my old living room, back when we still owned the old suburban three-bedroom house. Before Dad died, leaving the family broke.
I deposited myself on a seat and grabbed my phone from my handbag. I had a message from my sister, KC.
No, she wasn’t the lead singer of the Sunshine Band. Her name was Katherine Claire, but KC suited her.
KC – Want to hang if I drive down to Melb on Friday?
Really? She was going to drive all the way from Sydney to Melbourne? That was over ten hours on the road! My little sister, seven years younger than me, still seemed too young to have her driver’s licence. But she was eighteen now and had passed her test, so I guess she could drive.
I’d always been like a second mum to KC and I didn’t like the idea of her driving all the way on her own. Anything could happen. What if she ran out of petrol halfway down the Princes Highway, surrounded by trucks? What if she was driving late at night and hit a kangaroo on the road? Or fell asleep at the wheel? I couldn’t think about it.
I frowned at the screen, tapping and re-tapping a reply that wouldn’t sound too overprotective and annoying. What should I say?
“Are you okay?”
I glanced up to find Christos right in front of me, standing behind a kitchen chair. He gestured to it, as if asking permission to sit with me. I nodded, he sat opposite me, watching me the whole time.
Sundry thought balloons of worry circled my head. I couldn’t even articulate all the things I was worried about when it came to KC I tapped out a quick message telling her I’d call her tonight to chat.
I pressed my lips together, then told Christos a smidge of what I was feeling. “I’m fine. It’s my little sister. She wants to drive all the way from Sydney to Melbourne by herself. I worry.” I confided the last part in a whisper.
Christos studied my face in silence for a beat or two, then sat back and stretched his long legs to one side. He was too big for the table, like a high-school football player visiting a kindergarten class.
He crossed his arms over his massive chest. “You’re right to worry. It can be a dangerous trip, even for experienced drivers. How old is she?”
“Just eighteen.”
“Yeah, I’d worry if she was my sister. I’d probably buy her a plane ticket.” He scratched the back of his neck, looking super serious and super sexy. “Too many bad things can happen on the road. Too many crazy drivers.”
Didn’t I know it?
He didn’t say it, but I’d heard he’d been a cop. The word was out through the store. Christos had been a police officer for a few years, but for some scandalous reason he’d resigned from the force and gone back to college to study law or something. So the rumours went. I wanted to ask him about it, but I didn’t want to upset him and ruin our chances of being...friendly.
I put down my phone with a dull thud on the table. “I think you’re right. I’ll call her tonight and see if I can talk her into flying down.” I tipped my head to the side and pressed my lips together. “What did you want to ask me?”
His eyes widened for a second. “Oh, right. This is kind of an odd request, but I was wondering if we could meet a few times a month. You could let me know about anything out of the ordinary you notice at work.”
This was unusual. Could it have been an excuse to see me? But why wouldn’t he just ask me out, if he was actually interested? There was my answer. He wasn’t interested. He was only doing his job.
I shrugged. “Okaaay. I’m not sure what would constitute ‘out of the ordinary’? Lynda being nice? Or me actually being able to create a shop display without falling on my arse?”
In my fantasy version of the incident that morning I fell on my arse behind the counter, Christos leaned over me and kissed me. Really kissed me, until I was a moaning, writhing mess on the floor. Good fantasy.
I interrupted my regularly scheduled daydreams to find Christos chuckling. His dark eyes had come alive with cheekiness. He was truly adorable. I studied his high, sculpted cheekbones and the firm line of his jaw. I may have licked my lips.
He spoke in a low, syrupy voice. It should’ve been bottled, like an exotic liqueur. “There’s a situation I’m aware of in the store. I could use some help, if you can keep it confidential.”
I nodded, but I had no idea where this was leading.
“You probably saw the commotion a while back. I had to chase some young blokes out of the store.”
I leaned forward and gestured for him to continue. If Christos wanted to tell me the story, I didn’t mind. He could tell me stories all day. Christos had a lovely deep voice. Calm but also commanding. It made me imagine all sorts of bedroom scenarios involving handcuffs and being under arrest... Was it hot? Did someone turn up the heating in the break room?
Christos stared at my face for a second, then cleared his throat before continuing. “Well, I apprehended them in the car park with the help of the police. We soon realised they had staff security codes and barcodes scanned on their mobile phones. They attempted to get inside the main storeroom on the ground floor. Then I spotted them.”
I could see where this was headed now. Someone, a staff member, was probably helping these guys. An inside job. This was exciting. Also worrying. But exciting. “Right. Did they manage to get inside?”
He clamped his mouth shut for a second until a muscle at his jaw ticked. “Not this time. But I don’t know if they’ll be charged. There could be more incidents. I’m concerned there’s someone giving away, or more likely, selling staff data.”
Got it. Sort of. But I didn’t see how I could help. “What has this got to do with me?”
He glanced at my face then down to my hands, resting close to his on the table. He sat back in his seat and huffed out a breath. “It’s a big ask, but I was hoping you could keep your eyes open in the cosmetics area. There’s heavy foot traffic through the department, and with staff cutbacks, we don’t have a big enough security team. It can be hard to watch staff, unobtrusively.”
Oh. Christos was asking me to spy on my colleagues. I’d have to think about it. After all, I’d only just started working in the store. This could potentially ruin my working life, if people got wind of the fact I was watching them or dobbing to security.
Before I could say anything else, he stood up as if to leave. “I understand if it puts you in a difficult situation. I just thought...I could trust you.”
My heart thudded under the confines of my blouse, too fast for me to speak immediately. I thought there was something between us. Maybe I hadn’t been imagining things for a change.
I stood too, straightening my spine. “You can trust me. I’d like to help.”
I extended my right hand for him to shake, without thinking about it. Christos paused for a couple of beats, then took my hand in his. This time when we touched there wasn’t only pleasant warmth and an impression of strength, there was a full-on bolt of lightning. Okay, maybe not lightning, but megawatts of electricity plus some chemical stuff mixed in. Something to do with animal attraction. It made me want to purr.
He gripped my hand tight, allowing me the privilege of treating me the same as he would a male colleague. Or not. His eyes met mine and zing! His look was boiling over with heat, like an unwatched pot on the stove.
With a blink and a stunned expression I’d never seen on his face before, Christos retracted his hand, quickly, as if burned.
He rubbed his hands down his sides and nodded. “I’ll let you have some lunch.” And without waiting for a reply, he walked out of the room.
Right. It made me feel about as wanted as the plague and as useful as tits on a bull, as my dad used to say. I admit I stared after the retreating Christos for a moment. Where was his head at? Had I completely misread what I assumed was the simmer of mutual attraction? Did he see me as a convenient nobody he could use for his spy scheme?
I picked up my bag and strolled back through the break room towards the door just as a bunch of tech blokes from Home Entertainment and Computing strolled in.
Dressed all in black, sporting bunches of lanyards with special security access cards and passwords, they apparently thought they were it and a bit. Too cool for school. Ironic beards, hipster low-slung jeans and slicked back hair and/or spiked haircuts defined the look. They seemed to do everything together, even take lunch breaks and go to the loo. Too strange for my liking.
One of them grinned at me. Marco, who I remembered from the same staff training session Petula, Christos and I were indoctrinated in. He’d been smart as a whip in training, answering questions with ease and flirting with the thirty-something female Team Leader, Roberta. Now, he was turning his charm and his unusual caramel-coloured gaze on me.
He looked me up and down in an appreciative way, but it struck me as slimy. “Hi, Lily, isn’t it?”
“Yes. How are you, Marco?”
His grin widened and I caught a glimpse of gold. A sparkly tooth on the right-hand side of his smile. “Oh, can’t complain. Sold a massive surround sound system to an old dude this morning. Cha-ching! Nice little commission coming my way.”
“Good work.”
It seemed the right thing to say, though I couldn’t pretend to be genuinely impressed. Show-off boys weren’t my type. It would have been nice to have commissions in the range of thousands though. Selling perfume wasn’t so lucrative for sales staff.
I made to walk off, slinging my bag over my arm. “See you later.”
He tipped his head to one side and winked. “You can count on it.”
With a polite smile I turned away. I pushed through the double doors. I needed to get out of there, away from all the chatty men behaving strangely. I’d get some lunch somewhere quiet and mull over my conversation with Christos.
He’d probably want me to chat to Marco and guys like him to see if anything strange cropped up. The thought was unsettling. I wasn’t sure why.
Lunch beckoned. My belly growled like an angry bear as I marched through the store. I couldn’t do any decent thinking on an empty stomach.
––––––––
THE NEXT DAY WAS FRIDAY, one of our biggest days of the week. Lots of women got paid on Thursdays and the money hit their bank accounts the next day. Therefore it was shopping day.
By ten o’clock the perfume counter was pumping. About eight people had been through already, purchasing bottles of scent and even one top-quality eau de parfum from the special backlit display case holding the prestigious products.
The store had purposefully upbeat dance music playing through the department’s sound system, designed to put shoppers in the mood to spend, spend, spend.
I was stationed at the counter’s gift wrapping table, perfecting the art of wrapping with no visible tape. I glanced up at the customer Giselle was handling. A gorgeous woman with legs like a gazelle, wrapped in a barely-there mini skirt, was chatting to Giselle. She’d been browsing when Giselle reeled her in with talk of the latest sensation from France.
“Oui, it is an elegant infusion of peony and honeysuckle. Sweet, but not overpowering. Subtle and distinctive. Yes?”
The customer nodded, inhaling the spritz of perfume Giselle had applied to her inner wrist. The pulse point there warmed the oils in the perfume, releasing the fragrance. It would develop on the skin, changing with the individual’s chemistry.
Giselle rubbed the matching perfumed body lotion into the customer’s hands, pausing to compliment her, like the pro saleswoman she was. “You have beautiful hands. Oh, and I love this nail colour!”
“It’s Chanel,” the customer confided.
“Of course! It is stunning.” Giselle continued to give a complimentary hand massage, and the woman at the receiving end sighed. She was bound to buy all the things now. She was putty in Giselle’s hands.
I turned to where Penny, one of our new casual spritzer chicks, was standing, in the middle of the main aisle through the cosmetics department. She wore a little black dress, her hair piled high on her head with a black velvet bow on top like a pair of kitten ears. She was glamorous, sexy even, but scowled like she’d just stepped in something gross on the pavement.
My heart sank. She’d got her first whiff of Heart-mas the Hideous. It was hard to sell with a smile on your face when it was really rank. She sneezed, loudly.
She must have felt my eyes on her, because she looked across and caught my eye, raising one arched eyebrow in an eloquent expression. No words required. The message was along the lines of: WTF is this?
Just then, I yelped. “Ouch!”
Shit! I hadn’t been paying attention. Blood dripped from my thumb, so I reached across to the bench near the register and grabbed a tissue. Mopping up blood was not my favourite occupation. I couldn’t stand the stuff.
Giselle and Penny dashed over to me, checking I was okay. I shook my hand in the air, trying to make the dull throb go away. Like an idiot, I’d managed to slice my thumb on the edge of the guillotine—a paper cutting machine with a sharp edge meant for rolls of wrapping paper, not fingers.
“Show me. Oh, it’s a deep cut. We must find the first-aid person.” Penny turned to Giselle.
Giselle bit her lip, then burst out with a flurry of words. “Christos from security. He can help. He’ll fix you.”
I had no doubt he could fix me, but he’d also make me swoon.