Chapter 9
Chapter nine
Matty fumed as she yanked her rucksack from the locker and dragged a spare T-shirt out of it. She yanked off the Compton’s Coffee T-shirt and tossed it to the floor, pulling on her own clean one with the giant sunflower on it—the one that had made her smile that morning.
She heard Lawrence coming and decided the skates could wait. Right now, she just wanted to get out of there and away from the humiliation.
It was an accident. How dare they put the blame onto her.
Opening the fire door, she walked outside into the bright sunshine.
“Matty, come on… Please don’t quit,” Lawrence called after her.
She kept walking.
The alleyway eventually spat her back out into the square. The fountains were edged with curved concrete seating, and she plonked herself down on one to kick off her Vans.
It took a minute to pull on the skates, lace them up, and then she was off again, gliding across the square, dodging a woman with a pram and an older couple walking arm in arm.
Anger and adrenaline pushed her on. She’d actually quit—actually said it—and thrown her apron at Lawrence like she was in some dramatic scene from a film. And now what? Now she was down to one job, one income. Rent was due and she’d just walked away from half her pay.
And all because of her. The woman she’d been thinking about all night. The woman who’d made her pulse race with a single look, a single word. The woman who’d just humiliated her in front of a café full of people—for nothing.
Oh, sure, her fancy jumper had coffee spilt on it, but it wasn’t the end of the world, was it? Not when that jumper probably cost as much as the half of the rent Matty had just lost.
The sun was too bright. Everything felt too sharp, too loud.
And then she saw her.
Sloan.
She was walking across the square towards the car park, still dabbing at the stain on her jumper with a fistful of napkins, head down and shoulders tight.
Something snapped in Matty and she changed direction, skating straight towards her.
“Hey!”
Sloan looked up, startled.
Matty rolled to a stop in front of her, blocking her path.
“You…” Matty said, her voice shaking but firm. “You just cost me my job.”
Sloan stopped in her tracks, then registered the skates.
Her eyes dropped slowly, taking Matty in with a more scrutinous look: The dungarees with one side undone and hanging, the big, smiling sunflower peeking out beneath them, and the skates on her feet.
“I said that you just cost me my job.”
“I heard you. I’m not hard of hearing,” Sloan snapped back. She stopped dabbing and dropped her hands to her sides. “This is my favourite jumper.”
“Oh, well, I am sorry. If only I’d known and could have avoided you altogether,” Matty said.
Sloan bristled. She really did not have the bandwidth for this. “I need to go. Can you move?”
“I can move, yes,” Matty said, skating backwards in a loose weave. “I still don’t have a job, though.”
“And that’s my fault how?” Sloan said. “You’ve got agency, haven’t you...Matty?”
Matty came to a halt, and Sloan almost bumped into her. “You really don’t care?”
Sloan slumped. “I don’t have time to care.
I’m sorry, I just—” She looked away, swallowing hard as the old panic ebbed.
Get a grip. Be Sloan. “I’m having a bad day, okay?
The shittiest day. All I wanted was ten minutes to sit down and drink a coffee, and now it’s all gone to shit, and there’s nobody.
..no one will take her on, and I don’t know how I’m going to.
..” She stopped herself, suddenly aware she was rambling at a stranger. “I need to go.”
For a moment, Matty watched her walk away. What the hell was that?
“Sloan, wait,” she called, skating after her and catching up in seconds. “Come with me.” When Sloan didn’t move, Matty took her arm and steered her across the street.
She led her to the corner of the street, towards a different café.
“I need to get home,” Sloan insisted.
“You need to chill the fuck out before you implode,” Matty said, smiling at her. “I mean, the whole image you’ve got going on at work is hot and everything, but this...” She circled a finger in Sloan’s direction. “This is someone who desperately needs that coffee.”
Sloan glanced down at herself and then looked around. There were tables outside with empty seats.
“Sit,” Matty said, then laughed when Sloan did as ordered. “I bet that doesn’t happen often, does it?”
“No, not at all,” Sloan said, eyes narrowing at the bohemian on wheels.
“Flat white, right?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, take a breath. I’ll be back.”
***
Sloan glanced at her phone—nearly half ten. Gloria would be enraged if she was left for much longer. She huffed. This mess was Gloria’s fault; of course it was.
She looked down at her jumper, stained and ruined. She pulled it off and sighed when she saw the smaller mark on the silk shirt.
“Terrific,” she muttered. “Pull yourself together, for goodness’ sake.”
At least she’d got the milk and the other bits they needed.
It wasn’t long before Matty reappeared, two takeaway cups in her hands. “Here you go,” she said, sitting down and pushing one cup towards Sloan. “I’m sorry about your jumper.” She glanced quickly at Sloan, now without the cashmere. “And your blouse.”
Sloan looked down at herself.
“And your jeans,” Matty finished.
“Thank you. I’m sorry that I shouted at you.”
“And called me an idiot.” Matty smiled over the lid of her drink as she took a tentative sip, wincing when it was still too hot. She watched as Sloan’s cheeks reddened a little. “I’m not, by the way.”
Sloan nodded. “No, that was... I’m sorry. Name-calling is obnoxious.”
“Won’t get any arguments from me,” Matty said, pulling one foot up and untying the laces of the skate. “So, you should probably get it off your chest.” She pulled her foot free and dropped the skate to the ground, raising her other foot to repeat the process.
“I’m not sure that’s—”
“Any of my business? Fair enough,” Matty said, lifting her bag and digging out her shoes. Sloan watched as she slid her feet into them without bothering to untie the laces.
“My mother is...an issue,” Sloan heard herself say, reaching for her coffee as Matty tied the laces of her skates together.
“Okay.”
“She had a stroke a while ago that left her with some...”
“Issues?”
Sloan smiled. “Yes. She doesn’t have full use of her left side, and she slurs slightly, and... Well, to put it mildly, she’s spiteful, cantankerous, rude and—”
“Obnoxious?”
Sloan nodded again, forced to agree with the description. “And now, I’m in the predicament of not being able to find a carer to come in and take care of her while I’m working.”
“Because she’s a handful?”
“Yes.”
“Sounds like a nightmare.” Matty sipped her coffee, then sat back and looked at Sloan more closely. The put-together woman from the other day now looked like she carried the world on her shoulders. “So, why can’t you find anyone? There must be loads of carers out there.”
Sloan sighed. “Because it appears we’re blacklisted. Well, she is. Nobody wants to deal with her, and I can’t blame them. I don’t want to deal with her either, but here we are.”
“Surely, they can handle one rude woman. How bad can it be?”
“Bad,” Sloan admitted. “She throws things—remote controls…anything handy that’s within reach. Yesterday it was a bowl of soup.” She closed her eyes at the shame of it. “She will deliberately wet herself to make a point.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“I do not know,” Sloan said slowly. “I can’t take time off work right now. We have a huge deal going through, and Boston are having tech issues that, of course, I’m left to deal with.” She glanced across the square towards where her office was looming up along the high street.
“How much are you paying?”
“What?” Sloan said, aware Matty had spoken but not quite catching it.
“I said, how much are you paying to look after the old dragon?”
Sloan wasn’t sure whether to laugh or admonish. Instead, she simply said, “At this point, whatever they ask for.”
Matty nodded, sipped her coffee again, and let the numbers spin in her head. “Twenty an hour. Monday to Friday. Short-term—until you find someone.”
Sloan laughed then, despite herself, as she reconsidered the submissive tendencies she’d already noticed in Matty. “Oh, you wouldn’t last an hour with my mother.”
Matty held her gaze. “Why not?”
“Because...you...your...” She stopped, rethinking what she knew. This woman had stood up to her. Quit her job. Called her out.
“I’m what?”
Sloan held her gaze. “Hired?”