Chapter 7
“What do you think you might do today?” Casey asked as casually as she could.
“Gosh, not sure,” Margo replied idly as she changed the color of the garlands wound around the arch leading to the café by tapping them with her pinkie finger.
She was nervous about Margo being in the store all day without her there to supervise.
The spirit had been, well, spirited throughout the night.
At two o’clock that morning, Casey had needed to insist in the strongest possible terms that riding a horse through the store was prohibited.
They’d also had words about her setting off fireworks in the entrance hall and having a foam party for one in cosmetics.
Margo had protested that nothing she did would have a lasting effect on the store, but it was still intensely distracting trying to work with a spirit careening about the place like a pinball.
“The book department’s pretty good. I’ll probably just chill out,” said Margo.
Reading sounded safe enough, but it didn’t stop the niggle in the pit of Casey’s stomach. “And you’re absolutely positive that no staff or customers will be able to see you?”
“Not a single soul. I told you, I’ve been coming to this site for eons, and you’re the first person who’s ever caught me out.”
“Right. You won’t, you know, cause any trouble, will you?”
“Define ‘trouble,’ ” Margo said, stuffing a doughnut into her mouth from the box at her feet and offering one to Casey.
Casey took one; she was not a woman who passed up a free doughnut. “Oh, you know the sort of thing: pranks on unsuspecting customers, messing with the staff…”
“Worry ye not, sugar tits; I won’t interfere with anything or anyone I shouldn’t.”
“Thank you.”
“Unless they have it coming.”
“What? No, no, that’s not part of the deal,” said Casey, the niggle blooming into panic. She wondered if she could use salt to keep Margo relegated to one small area….
Margo gave her the kind of smile that spelled trouble.
“Au contraire, our deal was that you let me remain in the store and I get rid of your meme. All other specifications and particulars should have been agreed upon before the handshake. And don’t even think about keeping me confined with salt,” Margo continued.
“That would be a breach of contract, and I’d be forced to back out of our deal, and you know what that means…
Memes forever and ever and ever.” Margo looked so pleased with herself that Casey considered spitting the doughnut back out into her outstretched hands.
“Fine!” snapped Casey. “No salt. But can you at least try not to do anything that’ll cost me my job or anyone else their sanity?”
“I can most certainly try,” Margo replied sweetly.
—
Day security arrived just before half past five, and Casey tried to ignore Margo’s elaborate yawning as she did the handover in place of Nigel.
It was incredibly hard to act normal around people when one had a spirit stood close to one’s ear loudly critiquing Dave’s choice of aftershave and Kerry’s ironing skills.
She breathed a sigh of relief when she wished them a good shift and closed the office door behind her.
Grabbing her coat out of her locker, she made her way down through the store and found Margo shrieking with joy as she cadged a ride on one of the rotary floor cleaners; the woman in charge of the machine completely oblivious to the spirit yeehawing atop of it as she whirled it around the parquet.
“I’ll see you tonight!” Margo called, waving wildly. Casey resisted the automatic urge to wave back and gave a curt nod instead.
It’ll all be worth it, she told herself as she pushed the door out into the dark service yard. It’s only four weeks. All I’ve got to do is keep my shit together till Christmas and then…no more meme.
In the dead of night, the natural order of things had felt somehow less concrete, as though the rules of the universe were pliable.
A department store, like a museum or school or any building abuzz with life during the day, held a certain unreality when bereft of its patrons.
Now, the frigid morning air acted as a reality check.
Making deals with spirits? Was she insane?
“Hey!”
“Jeez Louise!” Casey screeched in shock.
“Oh god, sorry! I’m so sorry, it’s just me, Ajay.”
“Ajay!” His name tumbled out of her mouth in relieved laughter. “I think you just took five years off my life.”
“Sorry,” he said again. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay, you know, after your scare last night.”
For a second, she faltered. So much had happened since she’d made her call to the police that it seemed longer ago than just last night that she’d met him. “Oh, that. Yes.” She looked around half expecting Margo to jump out and start a commentary on how she liked a man in uniform.
“Are you all right?” he asked, a crinkle forming between his knitted eyebrows.
“I’m fine. I think there was some interference with the camera feed and I somehow picked up someone’s Netflix show?
Or something?” Casey bluffed. She thought she saw something move over in the corner of the yard and strained her neck to look past Ajay’s shoulder.
Was that Margo lurking over there? She felt skittish, the shadows in the yard putting her on high alert.
Ajay looked doubtful. “Oh, yeah, I guess that could happen,” he said, not sounding convinced. He turned to see what she was looking at. There was nothing there. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Fine! Great! Fine!” She gave him what she hoped was a reassuring smile.
“O-kay.” Ajay smiled at her and it made his dark brown eyes twinkle. She thought he must be very good at disarming people in charged situations. She wondered how he’d cope with truanting spirits.
“How was your shift?” she asked, trying to behave like a normal person.
“Well, I rescued a duck from a fox and shut down an illicit house party at the host’s request.”
“Someone asked you to shut down their own party?”
“Yeah. Happens more than you might think. A couple of teenagers decided to have a small gathering while their parents were away for the night, word got out and before they knew it, they had half the sixteen-to-twenty-year-old population getting pissed up and vomiting on their dad’s prize begonias.”
“Eek! Not the begonias! Was there much damage?”
“I’ve seen worse,” he said amiably. “They’ll have some explaining to do when their folks get home. Poor buggers. I guess we’ve all been there.”
Casey said “mmm” in response to his knowing smile even though she’d never done anything remotely like it.
By the time she was sixteen, she was living with her brother in a one-room apartment and there was barely room for their beds, let alone guests.
Their parents had behaved badly enough for them both; her and Nate’s act of rebellion had been to stay out of trouble.
“So does fox and teen wrangling count as a quiet shift?” she asked, still keeping her eyes peeled for signs of Margo lurking.
“In this town, that’s a rowdy night.” He grinned. “But I don’t mind it.”
“Whereabouts in London did you work before you came here?” she asked.
“Haringey, it’s where I grew up.”
“You must miss it,” she said, and then kicked herself when his expression clouded. “The bustle of London, I mean,” she added quickly. “I’m an Essex girl. Billericay. It took me a while to get used to the pace here.”
He smiled ruefully. “I miss a lot about all of it. But I’ve got my fifteen-year-old nephew, Jared, staying with me, and trying to keep a teenager used to London entertained in Weaverston is keeping my mind off it.”
She laughed. “I’ll bet. Is he here for the holidays?”
“Um, not exactly. It’s a long story.” He left a beat and Casey thought he was going to change the subject but then he continued.
“He fell in with a bad crowd, things got difficult. Tanzie, my sister, thought a dose of life outside the city would do him good. I’m not so sure Jared agrees.
” He smiled and she got the impression that Jared wasn’t making his uncle’s life easy.
“That’s hard. For both of you.” She wasn’t sure what to say. They seemed to have skipped polite conversation and got personal fast, and she didn’t want this to become a quid pro quo of sharing life stories.
“He’s not a bad kid,” Ajay added, obviously feeling the need to clarify. “But he’s frustrated and angry and he feels like he’s been banished to the arse end of nowhere as a punishment. He can’t see that his mum only wants to protect him. We both do.”
“The teenage years are tough. I’m sure he’ll grow out of it.”
“Yeah,” said Ajay in a voice loaded with doubt. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to overshare. I just don’t know that many people here, and Nigel and Vern talk about you so much, I sort of feel like I know you already…”
Now she felt bad for him. He was clearly hoping for a friendly ear, and all he was getting from her were generic platitudes.
She hated the idea that her offhandedness had caused him to feel embarrassed.
“I can remember having such big feelings when I was fifteen and not knowing where to put them all,” she said.
“I was grown up in so many ways, but also I was still a kid. Presumably your nephew’s mates are all back in London, which makes you the person he’s going to direct all his big feelings at. ”
Ajay sighed. “Don’t I know it. I want to be a friend to him. I’ve honestly tried, but also, I’m his uncle, I’m responsible for him, I have to be the grown-up.”
She could see in his expression that he worried about getting it wrong. “That’s a tough line to walk,” she said kindly.
“I don’t think I’m doing a very good job of it,” he said glumly. “I make for a crap friend and a crap uncle. He was embarrassed enough having a police officer in the family, but now he has to live with me too…”
She raised her eyebrows in mock horror. “A fate worse than death!”
“Right!” He gave her a resigned smile.
“I’m sure he appreciates your efforts,” she said gently.
Ajay looked dubious but she carried on. “My older brother took me in when I was a teenager, and we clashed all the time, he used to drive me nuts. But even though we fought, I knew deep down that he was just looking out for me, and I’ll bet that’s how Jared feels too.
Obviously, he’s not going to tell you that because he’s a teenager and he has his street cred to consider… ”
Ajay laughed. “He does have a lot of attitude. To hear him talk you’d think I’d grown up in a twelfth-century monastery rather than on the same estate he did.”
“I think it’s the role of each generation to imagine that the one that went before had no clue about anything.”
“I think you’re right.”
Ajay smiled with his whole face, meeting her eye, and Casey felt the shift in the atmosphere as their friendly repartee became a spark.
She broke the gaze first. She needed to douse that spark quickly before it took hold.
She had streamlined her life, avoiding anything that could lead to emotional mess, and that was just the way she liked it.
“Can I give you a lift home?” he asked. “I’m parked just over by the station.”
“Oh, thanks but I’ve got my bike,” she said, motioning to where her bike was chained to one of the lampposts in the yard. She was grateful to have a bona fide excuse not to be in a car with him. He was just her cup of tea, and he was making her feel decidedly thirsty.
“Sure, no worries.” He gave her the kind of bashful smile that was almost enough to melt her resolve. “Thank you for letting me blurt my private problems all over you. You’re a good listener.”
“You’re very welcome. Feel free to blurt all over me anytime.” Oh my god! “I’m here if you need a friend.”
“Thank you. Well, I guess I’ll see you around. Call me if you see any more random picnickers.”
She laughed. “You will be second on my list, after the psychiatrist.”
Goodness, her body had been through a whole gamut of emotions in the last twelve hours: fear, excitement, confusion, embarrassment, hope…
And now as she watched Ajay walk back out of the gate she experienced something she hadn’t felt for a long time: a tickle in her stomach like she’d swallowed a bunch of jumping beans.
The electricity of a connection. Crikey!
In one night, she’d encountered a spirit and gained a crush, which was a lot of thrill for a woman who’d decided to only take walks on the mild side.