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Work, work, work.
I stood behind the perfume counter, wrapping presents with shaking fingers. And aching feet. I kicked off each shoe and rolled my ankles, one at a time. I’d wrapped twenty presents so far. About fifty to go. I’d get the other staff to help later.
Giselle was serving our only customer. She chatted as she applied scented body lotion to the older woman’s hands. “Oui, I am French, but I do love Australie. My mother and father came here when I was in high school. They worked for a French cosmetics company. So it is in my blood!”
Giselle demonstrated the finer points of fragrance layering—showing the customer how to use multiple products to extend the life of a fragrance on the skin.
I stood in my stocking-clad feet for a few seconds before sliding my shoes back on and submitting to the slow torture again. I’d only been at work for a couple of hours, but the wrong shoes were turning me into a grumpy cow. Well, grumpier.
What could you expect of a day beginning with lies and suspicion? I was now watching every single one of my colleagues with new eyes, clouded by mistrust. I stopped wrapping, scissors still in hand, turning left and right, checking out the activity on the floor. Everything was quiet.
Petula was across the aisle, leaning against the manicure bar. She was sorting new nail polishes into an attractive rainbow colour wheel display. She’d started work here around the same time as me. Could she be a criminal?
What about Giselle? I doubted it, since she’d been working here a couple of years. But what if she’d been corrupted by someone?
Then there were casual spritzer chicks who I hardly knew. A bunch of casual staff had just started in the fashion department, as well as upstairs in what I called The Land of Christmas. The decorations and toys took over most of the fourth floor at this time of year and a team of sales staff were brought in for the season. Plus the Home Entertainment guys. I hated to think it, but some of them looked dodgy.
Is this what it would be like to be married to a cop? Worried, suspicious of everyone?
The thought could get out of my head. It didn’t belong in my mixed-up brain at all. I put down the scissors and took several slow breaths.
I’d barely started seeing Christos. He’d met my peculiar uncle, which probably counted as meeting my family, it was true. I’d slept with him, oh yes. But marriage? I was getting way ahead of myself. I was in danger of becoming an obsessive basket case. And it wasn’t even lunchtime.
Christos appeared, as if he’d materialised out of thin air. He marched straight down the centre aisle of the cosmetics department. His posture was stiff and waves of invisible furiousness rolled off him. Maybe not everyone could tell, but it was obvious to me.
His jaw was hard, his expression carefully neutral, but his eyes were flinty. He scanned the floor, looking around the area near the escalators. He stopped, hands linked behind his back.
I guessed he was looking for something, or someone. A customer approached the counter and I smiled, as Christos turned his full focus on me. He was metres away, but a slow, knowing smile spread over his face, his eyes sparkling with fallen stars under the overhead Christmas lights. That look was all mine and I soaked it up like a sponge.
I swallowed on a dry throat as flashes of sense-memory from last night overtook my mind and body. His lips against the soft skin of my stomach, the flutter of his breath, travelling downwards...
Giselle approached my side and promptly nudged me, hard. Right in the ribs.
“Oooof!” I gasped.
“Wake up, Ms Lily. We have real-life customers waiting.” Giselle’s voice floated down to me, from some faraway place back on planet earth.
When I glanced at her, Giselle was wearing her trademark bemused French woman expression. It was rather like resting bitch face, but more sophisticated.
I shook my head, hormones rattling randomly. I shot a last glance at Christos as he marched off towards the staff area at the other end of the floor. I served my customer with the standard level of service, an extra huge grin tugging at my cheeks. I couldn’t seem to turn it off now.
Giselle sidled up to me again by the cash register as I rang up a beautiful bottle of imported Italian eau de toilette with matching shower gel in a heart-shaped box. I studied the box as I placed it in a shopping bag with the customer’s receipt, ignoring Giselle as long as possible.
Finally Giselle stamped her stiletto heel and demanded, “Well?”
I raised my left eyebrow and pretended innocence. My strained giggle might have given me away though. “Well, what?”
Giselle sighed. “Did you passer a la casserole with the handsome Mr Security?”
“Make a casserole? No, we did not. We did share croissants this morning though, so I think you’d approve.” My cheeks stretched into another grin and my face heated.
“Oh, I approve. Mmm-hmm.” Giselle fist-bumped me in a most un-Giselle-like way.
I turned back to the floor to see a determined Petula speed-walking in my direction. She skidded to a halt right in front of the teetering tower of gift-wrapped fake presents. My eyes widened. I watched to see whether they’d topple.
I reached for the top of the pile and Petula slapped her hand over mine, squeezing my fingers. “Psst, tell me. Tell. Me!”
My new friend was aggressive as a pit bull over a titbit of gossip. Okay, it was more than a titbit. I’d been well and truly laid after a drought of almost two years. It was certainly newsworthy. Especially on the cosmetics floor, where admiring the finer specimens among the male staff was a favourite spectator sport.
“Me, Christos, breakfast this morning. You can join the dots.” I leaned closer to her, lowering my voice. “He crossed all the Ts and dotted the Is too, if you catch my drift.” I nodded meaningfully.
Petula removed her hand from mine and pressed it over her own mouth, to muffle her squeal. It leaked out anyway. “I knew he was meant for you. He gave you the man-in-lust eyes from day one. I knew it!” She gestured to her wrist, then mouthed, “Lunch, one o’clock.”
I agreed to lunch and Petula sauntered back to her counter. I pressed my lips together to keep from bursting out laughing. It took me a minute to recognise the bubbly, frothy feeling in my belly, the light-headed excitement overtaking my whole body.
It was probably silly. It was undeniably hopeful. It was happiness. Grumpy cow mood deactivated.
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EMERGENCY, EMERGENCY...
So much for a gossipy lunch with Petula. At five minutes to one, the wailing alarm and the recorded emergency voice sounded and we all looked around with startled kangaroo-in-headlights faces. This wasn’t a fire drill, this was real.
I signalled to my team to follow me. Giselle and Gillian, who had just arrived, lined up behind me. We had to exit the cosmetics area and head towards the emergency exit through the main double doors. I checked on two casual staff who were rostered on as perfume spritzers near the main entrance. They knew to evacuate.
Christos and his offsider, Jason, a younger, sandy-haired, chubby-faced man with ill-fitting jacket and trousers, were ushering people through the main doors. They were talking to two staff with fetching yellow Fire Warden helmets.
Our area warden was the scary floor manager, Hyacinth. I saw her lurking by the door. She spoke into a mobile phone and stood with one hand on her hip.
The automated voice on the overhead public address system did little to calm people’s panic. The whole store was being evacuated, everyone exiting right out into the street. Customers went where we directed them.
Something was going down, and it wasn’t good. Likely a bomb threat.
I wouldn’t panic. It was probably just kids messing around, getting a thrill out of setting off the alarm. Unless...
What if it was the criminals Christos was investigating? What if something real was going down, right here, right now? I should have been scared, but a strange thrill snaked its way down my spine.
I cast a glance over my shoulder as I exited the main doors. Christos was in the middle of a powwow with three yellow hats. He towered above them all, and his eyes connected with mine. The expression on his face softened, melted like butter on the top of a pancake. I only held his gaze for a second but I pressed my hand to my chest to keep my heart in place.
I swooshed out the door, carried forward by Giselle and Petula and a bunch of girls from the make-up-artist crew. I spotted a customer with one eye made-up with heavy winged eyeliner and one eye still nude.
The cool air-conditioning evaporated instantly as I stepped outside, and the sun’s rays pounded against my exposed face and arms. It had to be over thirty degrees outside. I was pasty, being a redhead, and I needed a hat or I’d burn in no time. The shade of a spindly gum tree planted next to the pavement would have to do. Petula was on my heels.
“Do you think we’ll have to go back to work today? I could really use an afternoon off. Maybe I’ll go to the beach.” Petula sounded wistful, her head tilted upwards at the cloudless blue sky.
I shaded my eyes with my right hand. “I’d either be sunburned lobster red or I’d get heatstroke. If we get the afternoon off, I’m going home to my air-con and putting my feet up. Maybe I’ll watch a movie. Have a glass of white wine or two.”
Petula tossed her hair over one shoulder and sighed. “No hot security guard to keep you warm if the air-conditioning gets too breezy?”
“I might invite him over to rub my feet. He’s good with his hands.” I let the comment hang there for a few seconds, until we both descended into fits of giggles. Honestly, we were both mature adults.
A few metres away, our elusive store manager, Mr Harrison, made an appearance. His grey hair glowed in the sunlight. He stood on a low concrete wall and spoke through a megaphone. “Please follow instructions from fire wardens and the fire department. Move to your nearest emergency assembly point. There’s a potential gas leak and we need everyone to stay back from the building.”
I spotted the red whoosh of a fire truck coming down the main driveway, the nee-naw of the siren blaring. It followed the road alongside the shopping centre, turning into the parking area nearest the main doors of the department store. A team of fire fighters headed inside the building. We couldn’t see anything else from our spot outside.
I chatted to Petula to pass the time. She was thinking of inviting Kurt to her family’s Christmas dinner. This was clearly a big step, so I didn’t press for too much information, since she had a pinched look around her eyes. Petula needed to go and buy Christmas presents, so she wandered off.
Half an hour later, most of the customers had gone and there was only a handful of us still standing around waiting. A lot of staff had gone for lunch, with or without permission. Who knew where Giselle had disappeared to?
I gasped when someone snuck up behind me and whispered in my ear. Someone tall, with a familiar scent. Heat flushed from my chest and neck all the way to my face. “Lily, you should go home.”
I spun around on my heels and faced Christos and started, my mouth hanging open. He’d stripped off his jacket down to his white business shirt. And he was wet. The cotton fabric of his shirt was semi-sheer and stuck to his chest and stomach in a lickable way.
Christos tilted his head to one side. “We’re closing the store for the rest of the day since the sprinkler system went off in the offices and everything’s wet. But I have to work.” He ran his hand through his hair, slicked back with water.
I must have pouted. Christos’s gaze dropped to my mouth. He mumbled under his breath, something like ‘dammit’ and ‘later’. I distinctly heard the words, ‘that sexy mouth’.
A warm ribbon of velvety desire unfurled deep inside me. I wanted to wrap him up in ribbons and never let him escape.
He took a step back from me and shook his head. “I’d better get back.”
“I understand.” I did, even though he didn’t tell me the whole story. Something was going on, beyond a gas leak. Something required his urgent attention, since he took off at a jog.
I hesitated, shifting my weight from one foot to the other. My phone was inside, in my locker. I needed it, since I expected KC to call. She’d be arriving soon and I wasn’t even prepared. This whole week had been one unusual thing after another. I didn’t know which way was up.
But I was more preoccupied about Christos maybe calling me later than where my own sister was. How bizarre.
A young woman with curly blonde hair was outside now, handing out bottled water and telling staff to go home. She approached me with water in her outstretched hand, and a gap-toothed smile. She reminded me of my sister.
“I’m Bron from HR. You should collect your personal items and leave for today. The store’s closing.” She spoke to a few of us still milling around. I couldn’t see any of my team though.
I accepted the water with thanks, then entered the staff door and made my way to the locker area. I couldn’t wait to get home.
How would the night unfurl? Would Christos call me and come over? Would I be able to introduce him to KC and get her opinion on my spunk of a date? Maybe we could all spend Christmas together.
I couldn’t wait. I had a skip in my step as I walked home.