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“Here. You can hold these,” she said, handing me the pile of clothes.
“I’ll start a change room for you and be right back.”
When I returned, she had another armful of clothes ready to try on. “This should do it. Where’s my change room?” she asked.
I guided her to the room in the back and helped her with the curtain. “I’ll be right out here if you need me.”
I smiled at my manager when she gave me the thumbs up. About ten minutes had passed when the woman in the change room called out, “Can you get me a size four in this one? The sizes here are all wrong.” She passed me the dress and I went back to the rack. When I couldn’t find her size there, I tried the backroom. Finding it, I hurried back to the woman.
“Here you go,” I said, and she grabbed the dress through the small opening in the curtain.
“Can you get me a size six in these?” This time she passed me a pair of black leather pants.
“Sure.”
When I returned with her pants, she handed me a blouse next. I repeated this for another ten pieces.
Finally, the woman emerged from the change room about an hour later.
“Which items can I take to the register for you?” I asked, looking back to ensure my manager saw the pile of clothing I would bring up to the front.
“None of them,” she said. “They were all so drab. Nothing really popped, you understand.”
I nodded but had no idea what she was talking about. “Perhaps if you tell me what you need, I can help you find it.”
She laughed. “Honey, I don’t need anything. Something has to call to me. Everything here was too quiet, you know?”
Again, I didn’t know, but I nodded anyway.
The woman walked out of the store and I looked at the rack of clothing next to her change room. It would take me another hour just to put everything away. I didn’t mind, but I knew my manager wouldn’t be pleased.
As expected, she walked right up to me as soon as the customer left. “She didn’t buy anything? Not one piece from all those clothes?”
“Not one,” I confirmed.
The manager pursed her lips. “What did you say to her?”
Exhausted and confused, I threw my hands in the air and explained, “I didn’t say anything.”
She pursed her lips. “Maybe that was the problem.”
Her words pricked my confidence.
She walked away and I hung a blouse on the rack, my back straight, fighting to keep my head up.
Colton
Ava Grady started work today. Well, the real Ava Grady. The temp was a disaster. She messed up all the filing Frances had organized and never arrived to work on time, not even once over the last ten days. When Ava arrived ten minutes early, I murmured my approval.
“Good morning, Mr. Crawford,” she said, stepping into my office. “How was your evening?”
“We can discard the small talk. Let’s worry about this afternoon’s meeting with Robert Morgan. I need him to sign that deal today.”
She puckered her lips and narrowed her eyes as though she’d just bitten into a lemon, but fixed her face quickly.
“Can you get me the Morgan file and email his assistant? Find out what Morgan drinks these days. I want to have a bottle ready for him when he arrives for us to toast.” I learned that trick from Frances.
“I don’t have an email yet,” she said.
