Chapter 7
“Will you please just take a check?”
Madeline laughed, but it wasn’t a mean sound, and her eyes crinkled at the edges.
Her mirth seemed genuine—and gentle. Still, Vic wasn’t sure what the laughter meant.
It must be derisive. It had to be, right?
And who could blame Madeline if she thought a check from Vic wouldn’t be worth the paper it was written on.
Also, who even wrote checks anymore? She was such an idiot.
Her cheeks flooded with heat. “Or, I mean, I can do an eTransfer or make a debit or credit card payment through your POS system.”
One of Madeline’s eyebrows quirked, and she gave Vic an evaluating look but didn’t say anything for a long moment.
They were inside, talking by the antique general store counter, but Madeline hadn’t turned the lights on yet.
The dim shop was all shadows and dark corners, and Vic’s anxiety was a twitching, scratching thing inside her, clawing to get out.
The silence—and Madeline’s stare—were excruciating. She wanted to climb out of her skin.
“The deal was you’d work off the items,” Madeline finally said. “You showed up, so I’m taking that as you accepting my terms.”
The shop’s delectable scent of sugary lemons and sunshine might’ve been soothing if Vic let it, but she didn’t.
Instead, she forced it to be another way to scold herself.
You stole from a shop that smells this pure, this good.
A shop belonging to a woman who seems equally pure and good. You should be ashamed of yourself.
I am, Shoulder Angel shrieked. I am.
It was all too much. Vic exploded like a bottle of soda, shaken and uncapped. “I don’t understand! Why do you want me to work in your shop? Why would you trust me around your things? Why? What do you want from me? What’s the catch?”
Madeline shrugged. “There’s no catch, Victoria.”
“Vic,” Vic mumbled.
Madeline’s expressive eyebrows rose again. “There’s no catch, Vic. It’s like I said on Saturday. The things you take are relatively inexpensive. You won’t make me go broke.” She motioned at Vic’s Gucci bag. “You obviously don’t need to shoplift, but you clearly need something.”
“And it’s not soap,” Vic mimicked snidely, finishing Madeline’s sentence before she could and rolling her eyes. It wasn’t exactly the same speech Madeline had given Saturday, not word for word, but it was close enough.
Madeline shrugged, but didn’t seem put out by Vic’s rudeness. “If you don’t want to be here and you don’t trust my offer, why are you here? It’s no skin off my nose if you decide to stay away.”
Why are you here? It was a very good question. Why was she?
Vic stared at the floor for a very long time. Madeline didn’t fidget. She seemed to have all the time in the world, though surely it was close to 10:00 by now, and she must be antsy about getting the shop open.
“I’m here because . . .” Vic kept her gaze nailed to the floor.
“I’m not a thief.” She waited for Madeline to scoff or make some cutting comment to the contrary.
When no such thing poured forth, she glanced up.
At the very least, Madeline would be making a face about such a bald-faced lie, wouldn’t she?
Surprise flickered through her. Madeline’s expression was one of attention, of listening. No judgment. God, she was maddening.
“Okay, except, obviously, I am . . . a thief, I mean.”
Madeline did react to these words finally. She shrugged and gave a sad half smile, her eyebrows—both this time—lifting in an expression Vic felt she already knew well, even if she didn’t quite understand what it meant.
“But I don’t mean to be. I don’t set out to. I feel bad—I—”
Madeline held up a hand, cutting Vic off before she could start stuttering excuses and non-explanations in earnest.
“So how much do you think you owe me?”
It had to be a test. Madeline must have a crystal-clear idea of how many things Vic had taken. Though, as she’d gone through her apple box, Vic had been surprised herself—and horrified—by how many items she’d . . . procured.
She’d given it a lot of thought, though, and was prepared for the humiliating question.
“Around five hundred bucks.”
Madeline shook her head. “No way. Not even close.”
Vic almost smiled at the eccentric woman. Perhaps she would have if her guts weren’t tied in such a painful knot. “Okay, maybe I rounded up. A lot. Call it a deterrent for the future. So, if you pay me ten bucks an hour, in fifty hours, I should be free and clear.”
“That’s another big no way. I can only pay minimum wage right now—so that’s $17.95 an hour, but I also give a thirty-percent employee discount.”
Vic gaped.
“No five-fingered discounts, though. I must be firm about that, I’m afraid.” Madeline’s unusual eyes twinkled again.
Vic remained at a loss for words and continued to stare.
For the first time ever in their admittedly limited conversations, Madeline looked uncomfortable. “That last bit . . . It was supposed to be a joke, lighten the mood, you know? No five-finger discounts . . . because you shoplifted? Get it?”
Before Vic could say anything, Madeline answered her own question, wincing. “Sorry—sorry. That probably wasn’t appropriate. Scratch that. It was definitely inappropriate. And insensitive.”
Vic shook her head. “No, it was—is—funny. Very. I get it now. Thank you.”
She got the joke. Did find it funny. Both things were true.
She was just too nervous to laugh—and she still couldn’t figure out Madeline’s motive.
Why would she do this for her? Still, she was going to stop arguing and just accept it.
Maybe it was too good to be true and it was some payback scheme that would blow up in her face once she was unsuspecting, but for now?
For now, it would give her some much-needed breathing space away from Audra and a way to legitimately pay back what she owed Madeline. Or what she owed her money-wise, at least.
“This doesn’t seem like much of a punishment,” Vic whispered.
“It’s not meant to be a punishment.”
“I don’t understand—” Ugh, the sound of her own timid, always-questioning voice drove her mad. And if it drove her mad, how must it make Madeline feel? She probably hated her.
Madeline shrugged. “What else can I say? But for now, enough talking. I’ve got to get the door open, and then I’ll show you what I’d like you to tackle today. Mostly just cleaning and dusting, if that’s all right with you?”
Vic nodded, but she felt like she’d been dropped into an episode of The Twilight Zone.