After the One by Cass Lester (e book reader free .TXT) 📕

‘Fantastic!’ He seemed so genuinely pleased for her she wanted to hug him. She didn’t, of course.

Casually, he hitched himself up onto the counter and, apologising for the lack of chairs, indicated she could sit up there too. So, using her heel for leverage against the front of the counter, she hoisted herself up and sat perched next to him companionably. While they drank their coffee and ate their pastries, Carlo snuffled around the floor, hoovering up the crumbs, and Ricky asked her more about her plans.

‘I’m opening a Prosecco-themed gift shop,’ said Charley barely able believe the words as she said them.

‘That could do really well here. No wonder the management are keen for you to have it.’

‘Actually, I think it’s more that the crafters aren’t planning to sit it out for four months and they don’t want an empty unit,’ she replied, more realistically.

He shrugged amiably, dismissing her modest rebuttal, and raising his takeaway coffee said, ‘Anyhow, welcome to Cargo!’

As she thanked him, it dawned on her how lucky she was to have bumped into him, and how generous he’d been with his time and help. She barely knew him, but she already felt way more comfortable with him than she ever had with her colleagues at the letting agency, and she found herself looking forward to the prospect of him being there, three shops down from hers.

After she’d finished her coffee, she thanked him again, and then took herself straight to the estate agent to sign the paperwork before she could chicken out again. The estate agent looked decidedly peeved that she’d managed to prove him wrong, and so soon, too. But Charley had merely smiled sweetly and tried extremely hard not to gloat. As she signed, literally on the dotted line, she realised her hand was trembling. Leaving the office, excitedly clutching her copy of the signed tenancy agreement and an impressively glossy letting brochure, Charley was suddenly engulfed by a blinding, full-on, white-out panic, as the enormity of what she’d just done hit her like a truck.

‘Bloody hell! Are you insane?’ she asked herself.

The women clustered eagerly round the glossy brochure Charley had opened out on the coffee table. Most of it was taken up with arty shots of the other shops at Cargo and a floor plan of the site, but there were a couple of unassuming photos of the interior of an empty unit.

‘I know it doesn’t look much, just a plain oblong box, but you should see some of the other shops, they’re stunning!’

‘No, it’s great,’ Angie enthused. ‘It’s a blank canvas which means you can do whatever you want. You could do hand-painted logos and Prosecco slogans all over the walls and the window, and paint the shop name in the same style.’

‘You could, I couldn’t,’ laughed Charley.

‘I’ll happily do it for you!’

‘Ange! You’re huge! How are you going to even reach over the bump?’ Tara raised her brows at Angie’s rather impressive stomach.

‘Long-handled paintbrushes!’

Pam eyed her sternly. ‘Well, don’t overdo it.’

Angie rolled her eyes affectionately. ‘It’s my fourth!’ she reminded Pam.

‘Even so…’ Pam left the implicit warning hanging.

‘I was thinking maybe do everything gold and white?’ suggested Charley tentatively, prepared to bow to Angie’s superior wisdom in all things design.

‘Definitely!’ Angie nodded. ‘Simple, but classy.’ She offered to come up with a number of logos for Charley to choose from.

‘Can’t we just base them on the ‘Charley’ logo on the pamper bags?’ Charley asked. ‘Then that would tie the two sides of the business together.’

‘Smart thinking,’ said Nisha, ‘and you can use it on your website, too.’

‘My website?’ said Charley, mildly alarmed. Nisha made it sound like she could just pop out and get one from the Co-op.

‘Yes. You’ll need to make online sales to maximise your profits, and you’ll have to be all over social media like a rash for marketing and promotion, and you’ll have to try and get some influencers interested.’

Charley groaned. ‘Must I?’ Her previous forays into social media had been distancing and demoralising. She seemed to have little connection with, and even less to say to, the inhabitants of the internet, all of whom seemed to be living such adventurous, successful and fulfilled lives.

‘Oh, choose me!’ Tara put her hand up eagerly, like a primary-school kid in class. ‘Finally, an excuse to waste my life, I mean devote my life, to social media.’

Pam leapt up and nipped off to the kitchen. ‘I’m opening the other bottle of fizz!’

Charley put the budget she’d pulled together in front of Nisha. ‘This is just a rough draft, obviously.’ She pointed at the neat lines of figures. ‘That’s the shop rent, that’s the amount I’ll need to draw to live on for the first few months, and that’s what I’ll have left for stock. I’ve done a quick summary of the things I’d like to get to start with.’ She presented Nisha with another list. ‘Obviously I can build up more stock as and when the business grows.’

‘Blimey. You’ve been busy,’ Angie said, and Charley shot her a smile.

Nisha was looking at the figures, meticulously. ‘So, can I just check,’ she said after a few moments. ‘Is this figure here the total of all the start-up capital you’ve got?’

‘Yes. It’s my redundancy and my savings.’

Nisha went quiet. Uncomfortably quiet, and when Pam came back in with the fizz she paused in the doorway, as if sensing the sudden tension.

‘What’s wrong?’ Charley asked Nisha in a strained voice. ‘Is there a problem?’

‘No, not necessarily,’ Nisha said carefully. ‘It’s just that I think there might be a few costs you haven’t factored in.’

‘Like what?’

‘Business rates, insurance, the electricity bill – unless that’s all included in the rent.’

‘No, I don’t think it is.’ Charley bit her lip.

‘And there’s no display shelving in the shop. Plus there’s broadband, website, domain names etc. I mean none of these are huge costs in themselves, but they will mount up and eat into the money you have left to buy