How am I ever going to pay for that?
While Emma chews on a piece of toast I hurriedly throw on some clothes and give my long hair a quick brush. I’m already late, it wouldn’t do to turn up looking like a fright as well. I’m the shop assistant and people do expect me to look presentable.
I’m really lucky that the Cozy Nook allows me to bring Emma with me because while my dad is great at watching her as much as he can, he can’t do it all the time. I wonder briefly if I can ask him for another loan to tide us over, but he’s already given us so much and he’s only got his pension to live off.
Maybe I should get another job?
But who else will put up with my erratic schedule? Rachel should have fired me a hundred times over if she wasn’t fond of me.
Finally I’m ready and I shoot off a quick text to Rachel before my phone dies, grab my charger and bundle us into the car. I can hear another banging noise in the engine and just hope it’s nothing important. We can’t afford another trip to the mechanic on top of everything else.
The worry about where rent and food are going to come from makes me stressed and Emma can tell. Maybe she can hear it in my voice, I don’t know. I try so hard to keep things light and cheerful for her so she doesn’t have to know that we’re in trouble.
But by the time I pull up into the parking lot near the bookshop she’s just as stressed and cranky as I am. I’m happy to see Sara already in the shop. She recently started a new job but she still comes by the Cozy Nook sometimes and I could cry with relief as she takes Emma from me and lets me get to my job.
“What time do you call this, Heather?” Rachel calls from the back of the store, and Sara makes a sympathetic face at me. I hurry over, all apologies and explanations but it looks like Rachel has been going over the store accounts again and this never leaves her in a good mood.
“This is the third time in two weeks, Heather, I’m not running a charity shop here.”
“I know, I’m sorry. There was another power cut during the night.”
“That’s been your excuse too many times. You could get a battery clock or use your phone and you know that as well as I do. I can’t keep holding these shifts for you when you’re never in on time to do them.”
I feel a rush of desperation. Sure I’ve been a little unreliable, but I’ve got reasons. She wouldn’t fire me for that surely!
“Look, I’ll cover the shift for the club tonight. I know you wanted to attend and no one else could get the night off. Would that make it up to you?”
“It would be a start,” Rachel says, softening. I let out a breath of relief to see she’s mollified. Of course now I’m going to have to get my dad to sit Emma for the evening but better that than looking for a new job.
Two
Rafaela
As we wait for our drinks to arrive I can tell my cousins are mad at me. But answer me this, is it really my fault that all women find me hot? And let’s go one step further and ask the really important question which is whether it’s my fault if those women happen to include my brother’s girlfriends?
I don’t think so. I didn’t twist anyone’s arm and it’s not m
y fault that Stefano didn’t get the memo that I’m God’s gift to women. He should take it as a compliment, he has good taste.
My father doesn’t see it that way, but he’s old school. He’s all about family loyalty and banding together and so forth. I don’t exactly disagree but what, am I not going to punch my stupid little brother in the nose for calling me names?
Of course I am.
Apollo and Daniella stare at me over their manhattans. It’s going to take a few rounds of drinks before they’re willing to talk to me again. I know that they think I’m being impulsive and out of control but all the restrictions that the family try to put on me only make me want to buck the rules even harder.
I know that my father doesn’t want someone as clueless as Stefano running the family business, and if he doesn’t have the balls to realize that means he has to give it to me then I’m not going to bend over backwards to convince him.
Although he did say that if I don’t shape up he’ll cut me out of the business altogether and that gives me a little pause. What would I do without the money or the excitement?
“You’ve got to stop with Stefano,” Daniella says finally over her second Cosmo. “It’s going to cause a war inside the Family and you know that Apollo and I will be caught in the cross fire. I don’t want to take a shot for you, Rafaela.”
“Neither do I,” Apollo adds.
“It’s your job to take bullets for me,” I say, swigging back the shot of bourbon that the cute waitress has just set in front of me and waggling my eyebrows at her. She blushes and I smirk.
Apollo smacks my hand the way he used to when we were children and I was trying to steal his cookies. “No. It’s my job to keep you out of trouble and I’m about to be fired from that job because it’s actually impossible.”
“To start with you could stop chasing every skirt you see,” Daniella adds.