Bloody Tara! swore Charley. It was well after ten o’clock on the Friday morning and Tara had only just called in to say she wasn’t coming in.
‘Sorry, Monnie’s got the dentist.’
Sorry? She hadn’t sounded remotely apologetic. Charley had taken a deep, calming breath and tried not to let the irritation show in her voice, but she’d lined up half a dozen pitch meetings with pubs and hotels in an attempt to boost the party bag side of the business. So Tara baling on her, and with no notice, was a complete pain in the arse.
‘D’you you think you’ll be able to get in later?’ asked Charley. It didn’t take all morning to take a kid to the dentist, and there was no way that kid was ever going to need a filling. Tara was far too much of a helicopter parent for that.
‘It won’t be worth it. The appointment’s not until quarter to eleven so by the time I’ve taken Monnie back to school it’ll be nearly lunchtime.’
Charley did the maths in her head. Actually, it probably won’t be much later than eleven thirty, she calculated, but she held her peace. ‘Okay, well, thanks for letting me know. Have a good weekend,’ she managed to add.
Her disappointment evidently reflected in her tone because Tara had finished, ‘I’ll make it up to you! Promise!’
Charley wasn’t quite sure how. Nor was she sure how she was going to get to her appointments and hold the fort at the shop at the same time. Rescheduling would make a really bad impression, hardly demonstrating reliability. She sighed irritably. Either she was going to have to close the shop for the morning… or call Pam.
Less than twenty minutes later, a mildly flustered Pam rushed through the door. ‘Sorry, darling. I got here as soon as I could but I couldn’t find a parking space!’
‘You’re an angel! I don’t know how to—’ Charley started to say but Pam cut her off.
‘You need to go!’ She ushered Charley towards the door. ‘Go!’
Pausing only to give Pam a swift thank-you hug, Charley grabbed her bag and her samples, and legged it.
The next couple of hours were disappointingly fruitless. Charley slogged round her pitch meetings, a positive expression glued to her face, but became increasingly discouraged. Only two of the pubs showed any interest. One said they liked the look of the bags and reckoned they’d go down well at the hen parties they occasionally hosted, but they’d need to raise it with the brewery head office. The other pub asked to keep a couple of sample bags to show the manager, which peeved Charley no end since she was pretty certain the woman she was talking to was the manager. She suspected the woman wasn’t really interested and just wanted the freebies. The only real highlight was discovering that one of the dockside restaurants ran regular Prosecco events and they said they might be interested and would be in touch. Still, Charley got back to the shop in a low mood, feeling even more guilty for having asked Pam to drop everything and rescue her since she had nothing concrete to show for it.
‘Well, that was a waste of time,’ she muttered quietly to Pam as she joined her behind the counter. There were customers in the shop so she kept her voice low and slapped her professional face on and prepared to hold it, at least until the punters had left. Once the shop was empty again, she offloaded the frustration of her unproductive morning onto Pam.
‘It doesn’t sound a complete waste of effort,’ Pam said encouragingly. ‘That’s still a couple of possible new venues. When you first started out you’d have been thrilled with that.’
‘True,’ said Charley, momentarily bolstered by Pam’s optimism, then she grimaced. ‘I’m just sorry I had to drag you in.’
‘Well, that’s not your fault.’
The unspoken criticism of Tara hung in the air and for some reason Charley felt compelled to defend her mate. ‘She can’t come in if she needs to take Monnie to the dentist.’
‘No, but she should still turn up when she says she will, and not let you down at the last minute. And dentists are actually open in the afternoons,’ finished Pam.
Good point, thought Charley, falling silent.
‘By the way, Ricky was lovely while you were out,’ Pam told her. ‘He popped in on his way to the deli and when he saw I was on my own, he got me a coffee. And then I shamelessly took advantage of his good nature and asked him to get the box of flutes down off the dresser.’
‘Oh, right,’ Charley spoke lightly, but she felt her stomach knotting.
Her unease must have shown on her face because there was a beat and then Pam said, ‘I hope you didn’t mind my asking him?’
‘No. Of course not,’ she lied. She knew she was being insanely illogical, but every little gesture of kindness from Ricky seemed to bind them closer together, entangling her, and making their future together seem inevitable. If someone was unremittingly kind and loving towards you, and everyone around you, what possible reason could you have to end the relationship? How could you ever find the right moment to finish with them? Every day that passed made it harder and she felt as if she was sliding down a slope into a claustrophobic trap. She turned away, hoping her dismay didn’t show on her face, and engrossed herself in checking the till roll, but the older woman knew her far too well.
Taking her by the shoulders, Pam turned her round to face her and Charley gave in.
‘Oh Pam, I’m in a mess. I don’t know what to do about Ricky. I don’t love him the way I loved Josh. But everyone, everyone, seems to think we should be forever. Except me.’
‘Of course you don’t love him the same way you loved Josh,’ replied Pam softly. ‘He’s not Josh. He’s a different person, and you’ll love him differently.’
‘But I’m not in love with him, and I fell in love with Josh immediately.’
‘You were besotted with Josh when you met him,’ corrected Pam. ‘You were young and blindly infatuated.’
Charley pulled away. ‘No, we were in love!’
‘Were you?’
‘Yes! It was love at first sight. For both of us.’
‘Can you fall in love with someone you don’t really know?’ questioned Pam mildly. ‘I’m not sure you can. You know, I had a whirlwind romance, before I met Geoff. His name was Carl. I met him at a disco and I worshipped the platform shoes he walked on and, like you with Josh, I would have gone to the end of the world for him. But it didn’t last. Nothing substantial grew out of it, thank God! He turned out to be a self-opinionated narcissist!’ She rolled her eyes, presumably at her own gullibility, then continued more seriously, ‘You were lucky, you and Josh. Your holiday romance did develop into something deeper, before the initial infatuation wore off.’
Charley reeled. She’d had no idea Pam had seen her relationship with Josh in that light. But no matter what Pam thought, she told herself, she knew she was right. She and Josh had been in love from the very beginning. They had.
‘It takes time for people to fall in love, Charley,’ Pam continued. ‘Don’t be too hasty to give up on you and Ricky just because your feelings, your emotions, are perhaps more…’ she faltered momentarily, ‘…more mature than they were when you fell for Josh. You and Ricky are good together. Give it more time. Give love a chance to grow.’
‘That’s what Angie said,’ replied Charley flatly.
‘Were you hoping I’d give you a different response?’ Sometimes Pam was too perceptive for Charley’s comfort.
Deep down she had been hoping the older woman would advise her say that if Charley wasn’t sure she loved Ricky then she should break it off. What she’d actually wanted, she realised, was for Pam to give her permission to end the relationship, and now she was disappointed that she hadn’t. Just then, the shop door was flung open and a group of giggling women spilled in, so she didn’t get to reply to her mother-in-law.
Halfway through the afternoon, very mindful that Pam had come in for the morning shift, Charley pressured her to leave early. ‘You’ve done more than enough today. I can manage,’ she said firmly and, indicating the empty shop, added, ‘It’s not like I’m rushed off my feet!’
With evident reluctance, Pam eventually left, assuaging Charley’s guilt a little. Nevertheless, that evening, after she’d got in from work, Charley called Nisha to ask her advice about Tara.
‘Is it a good time to call?’ she asked, as she always did, since Nisha was almost always sleeves-up, head-down and knee-deep in some promotional campaign or other.
‘It’s a fine time. Perfect, in fact. I could do with a break. I’m wading through the contract that marketing company finally sent through.’
‘Oh, excellent! And?’ asked Charley eagerly, immediately setting aside her troubles in favour of hearing Nisha’s epic news.
‘Well… I’m not sure. They want access to my client list, which is fair enough. But there doesn’t seem to be any guarantee that I’ll get to keep running their campaigns.’
‘Ah,’ said Charley.
‘It’s taken me years to build my list. Years. I’m not sure I want to just give it away.’
‘But didn’t you say that the company represents some pretty stellar people anyhow? Maybe you’d get a share of those?’
‘Maybe… But then again, maybe not. What if they just want my client list rather than me?’
‘Then they’d be mad,’ was Charley’s loyal but genuine response.
‘And what about my clients? I’m not sure I feel comfortable just handing over control of their marketing accounts to another company without asking them first. It’s one thing to agree to something that’s going to impact on you, but another if it’s going to impact on other people.’
Charley could see Nisha’s point, but for the life of her couldn’t think of anything useful to say to help her resolve her dilemma. Fortunately, Nisha clearly wasn’t expecting her to, since she concluded, ‘So, like I said, I’m not sure. But anyway, how’s things with you?’
‘Ok-ay,’ replied Charley hesitantly, ‘but I wondered if I could ask your advice on something?’
‘Fire away.’
‘I’m not sure what to do about Tara. I had to ask Pam to rush in to cover for her today when she let me down at the last moment. I don’t mind when it’s just me she’s messing around by not turning up when she says she will… Actually,’ Charley corrected herself, ‘I do mind,’ and then, picking up on the term Nisha had just used, she added, ‘but today it impacted on Pam too.’
‘Well, I don’t actually have staff,’ Nisha reminded her. ‘So this isn’t my area of expertise, but it strikes me that since Tara’s not formally contracted to you to work agreed hours, and is coming in on a purely voluntary basis, then you can’t really expect her to come in if she needs to prioritise something else.’
‘I know,’ said Charley shortly. ‘But she hardly gave me any warning. She’s treating it like a hobby.’
‘It is her hobby,’ Nisha pointed out flatly, momentarily flooring Charley.
‘But it’s my business!’ she protested. ‘I’m trying to make a living out of this! And Pam doesn’t…’ she stopped herself from saying piss me around and changed it to, ‘let me down, and I’m not paying her, either.’
‘Well, that speaks volumes about Pam, doesn’t it?’ replied Nisha. ‘And you know what Tara is like over Monnie. She comes first. Always has done, always will do. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise to you if she puts her daughter before your shop. Sorry Charley, but unless you can pay someone to work, you can’t ask them to do any more than they feel like doing. And to be brutally honest with you, you’re enormously lucky to have two people willing to give up their spare time to help you get your business going, and you might want to bear that in mind.’
Ouch, flinched Charley, stung by Nisha’s sharpness, but nonetheless she managed to thank her friend for her advice before ringing off. Slumping back on the sofa, she flung the phone irritably onto the seat next to her. This was the second time in one day she’d been wrong-footed when, having turned to someone for support, expecting them to agree with her, or at least empathise with her, they’d done the opposite.