Chapter 3
Three
“You look cheerful today.”
Mira looked up from her stack of sweaters. Rue’s big, bright smile could’ve fooled her into thinking she had imagined the sarcasm. Mira smiled back.
“Thanks, it’s a skill.”
“Sure, sure.” Rue nudged her. “So what’s going on? Is it something with the house? You haven’t said a word about it since you got back.”
“No, it’s not,” Mira muttered. “Though maybe I should have stayed a little longer. When I came home, I found a note shoved under my door that my rent is going up next month. I could’ve done without that, if I’m being honest.”
“Oh. Ouch.” Rue winced in sympathy. “Bad?”
“Annoying, but manageable.”
For now, anyway. Until something else became more expensive, and her request for a raise got denied the third time in a row. Then she’d have to figure something out.
Rue inspected one of the sweaters and straightened one of its folded edges. “You know, if things get too much, we could find a place together.” She sighed. “I love my sisters, but sharing a room with a fourteen-year-old is getting a bit much.”
“I bet.” Mira shrugged. “Maybe. Once I have a bit less on my plate.”
“Oh, speaking of things on your plate. Did you get a chance to fold the clothes from the dressing room hamper?” Rue arranged the stack of knitted sweaters just so against the edge of the display, then re-arranged it immediately. “Last time I walked by, it was overflowing.”
“No, I’ve had to work through an entire line at the till and then someone knocked over the shoe display.”
“Oh, that was that racket.” Rue sighed. “Either way, one of us has to, or else we’ll-”
“Miss Gardener! Miss Evergreen!”
They both flinched, and Rue grimaced. “He was right behind me, wasn’t he.”
Mira tried to keep a straight face. “Maybe you summoned him by mentioning the hamper. I think he can smell that kind of thing.”
They both turned to face Jonathan Lewis, floor manager and thorn in the collective side of the emporium’s employees. His face was pinched, and he was marching towards them as if into battle.
“Why are the clothes by the changing rooms not sorted? That hamper looks like a discount bin!”
“Sorry, Mr. Lewis,” Mira said quickly, “Rue was on her way to do it, but I asked her to help me with the display, I wasn’t quite sure how to arrange it.”
His eyebrows drew tightly together. “Then why are we paying you, if you can’t even arrange a display of-” A quick glance down. “Sweaters? These are supposed to be jackets.”
“The jackets are on the other side of the aisle,” Mira pointed out. He glared at the jackets as if they had personally offended them.
“No, I don’t like this. We need the jackets here, and put the sweaters on the other side.
See the blouses over there? Layering them over a skirt is fashionable, and we want them to buy the matching set.
They won’t do that with a jacket.” He waved his hand.
“Get on it, and let Miss Evergreen do her job!”
He turned on his heel and marched off, presumably to find another sales clerk to reprimand. They waited until he was out of earshot before they sighed in unison.
“Thanks,” Rue muttered. “You didn’t have to.”
“I know he wrote you up for tardiness when it rained so hard the tram didn’t run,” Mira said. “He has it out for you this month.”
“Doesn’t he always,” Rue groaned. “I suppose I should get to folding then. Lunch together when we’re done?”
“I’ll meet you at the stairs.”
The time until their break dragged on in the worst way this morning.
Mira was no stranger to long days, both literal and figurative, but today, she found herself checking her pocket watch every few minutes, surprised and annoyed that time wasn’t moving faster.
It didn’t help that, after her time covering the till, she was solely responsible for restocking, decorating and tidying the shop floor, leaving her with ample time to think.
She’d conversed with Mr. Bowen again, who was willing to handle the sale of the house.
She’d voiced her doubts about it, given the general state of the town, but he had assured her it wouldn’t matter.
He’d get an estimate, and she would have concrete numbers to work with.
To know if it would finally get her the down payment for a place of her own.
Or perhaps she could use it to finally try and get a degree, the first in her family.
What kind though, she had no clue. Literature sounded nice, but would hardly get her a better job.
Business would be the sensible but boring option.
She might even be able to leverage it for a promotion, so she wasn’t stuck in a job she had mostly taken out of necessity for the rest of her life.
Then again, that was the point, wasn’t it – she didn’t want to spend the rest of her life in stores just like this one, selling things nobody needed to people she didn’t want to talk to.
What else she wanted though, that was still something of a mystery, even to herself.
Mira finally escaped after receiving another critique of her decorating skills and a brief but powerful urge to strangle Mr. Lewis with one of the silk scarves he’d insisted she fit in with the sweaters somehow.
After she’d already finished the display.
She’d left them in their box for the time being as she and Rue made their escape down to the market square with its food stalls that provided lunch for employees on a shoestring budget.
Far from nutritious, and the scenery of exhausted crowds between noisy carts wasn’t exactly serene, but the food was tasty and affordable, and that was what mattered.
“Do you think I’ll get fired if I just don’t go back for the afternoon?” Rue muttered between bites of her tamales. “I think he’s going to yell at me again.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. He just had that face on when I left.”
“He always has that face on.”
A deep sigh. “He does, doesn’t he.” She nudged Mira, who only barely didn’t drop her deliciously fatty beef skewer. “At least you won’t have to put up with that much longer?”
“What? Why?”
“The house. You can use the cash to tide you over until you find a better job.”
“I never said I’d quit.” Mira licked a drop of juice from her thumb, trying to pretend that she hadn’t been thinking about it herself.
“Besides, it probably won’t amount to much.
The house is all right, but it’s been modified for the shop, and Emberglen isn’t exactly the place everybody wants to be. ”
“You said it was a nice town.”
“It is, it’s just… declining, is all.”
That was her biggest concern. Mr. Bowen had assured her that he would find a buyer, that he already had a client or two in mind, but at the end of the day, more people were moving out of Emberglen than even went there for a visit, never mind willing to buy a house and settle down.
A nice town was all well and good, but if there wasn’t much there, people didn’t tend to jump on its real estate.
“Nothing to live in, then?”
Mira paused. “I don’t think so. There isn’t much there, and I doubt the stores are in dire need of new employees.”
“Mhm.” Rue looked like she was thinking rather hard. “What about your stories?”
Mira groaned. “Please. That’s nowhere near enough. And even if it was, I’d still be stuck away from everything. I don’t fancy a four-hour train ride just to see a film every once in a while.”
Though that would also put her four hours away from the usual crowd who thought yelling at the person behind the till was an acceptable form of communication. Upsides and downsides, Mira mused.
Rue chuckled. “Ah, you have a point.” She patted Mira’s shoulder. “But hey, at least it’ll cover the rent increase.”
They were careful to return almost five minutes early.
This, however, did not seem to please their manager, who sharply reminded them that they had ‘shamelessly abandoned their tasks’ when they had taken their legally protected lunch break.
Mira bit her tongue and forced another apology before she went to finish unboxing some decorations for the upcoming flower festival.
After, she spent a solid hour basically trailing a pair of customers who seemed to try on everything and put away nothing.
Around halfway through inspecting no less than nine different sundresses and putting them back on their hangers, she heard her name yelled across the shop floor.
“Miss Gardener!”
She draped the dress she was holding across a rack and speed-walked down the aisle, to where Mr. Lewis was standing next to the rumpled remains of the sweaters she and Rue had arranged just this morning.
“What is this?”
An aggravating mess, but he could probably see that. “Someone probably looked for their size and didn’t find it,” Mira said instead. “I’ll get to-”
He drew himself up to his full, if somewhat unimpressive, height. “Oh, don’t bother, you clearly need some rest, seeing as you can’t even keep up with your usual tasks.”
Mira felt the heat creep into her cheeks. “I was just by the dressing rooms, and-”
He waved her off. “Oh, I understand. Excuses, as usual. You lot always have a reason. Get back to whatever you were wasting your time on, it seems I will have to handle this myself.”
“Mr. Lewis-”
“Now,” he said curtly. “And report to me after your shift, I’m afraid we will have to discuss your performance. Again.”
Mira took a deep breath and managed to keep the obscenities to herself. “Of course.”
She turned and stalked away, seething too much to even plaster her usual professional smile on her face.
Not a single customer directed a question towards her as she returned to the dressing rooms, only to find a dozen more pieces piled on top of the dress she had left.
Mira grit her teeth. She’d probably have to steam the damn thing before she could put it back on the floor.