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

event? She wasn’t sure, so she called Tara, who didn’t pick up. She left the gist of the problem, and her solution, on Tara’s voicemail, then she called Nisha.

‘Good time, bad time to call?’ she checked, as usual.

‘Perfect time. Slogging through some accounts, and any distraction’s welcome!’

‘I’ve had what is either a very good idea, or a very bad idea. Or possibly a completely mad idea.’

Nisha pronounced the idea ‘inspired’. ‘It’s the perfect venue, and you can use the event to launch the shop.’ A suggestion which set off flutters of panic inside Charley.

‘I don’t think I’m ready to open yet,’ she protested.

‘You’ll have to be,’ responded Nisha brusquely.

‘No, seriously, I’m not,’ said Charley firmly.

‘Again, you’ll have to be. You can’t hold an event in the shop and tell everyone you’ll be opening soon, but you don’t know when. How unprofessional will that look?’

Loath as she was to admit it, she could see Nisha was right. Charley was beginning to wish she’d never come up with this solution. Maybe it wasn’t too late to back-pedal.

She heard a text ping in. ‘Hang on a minute, Nishe.’ It was from Tara. It read:

BRILLIANT IDEA! GO, CHARLEY, GO!

Shit, thought Charley. There was clearly no going back now. She took a deep breath and said to Nisha, ‘Right then, let’s do this.’

‘Excellent. I’ll get on to the local press. You get new flyers out promoting both the fundraiser and the shop opening ASAP. Get the other units at Cargo to give them out too, it’ll drum up support with the locals and regular shoppers, and will help promote the area for them, too. Do six hundred flyers.’

‘Six hundred!’ gasped Charley.

‘Don’t panic! They won’t all come on the night. But they will find all out about the shop, which will be great marketing.’

Six hundred flyers was, quite literally, six hundred invitations to an event in her shop. Charley looked round the small unit in dismay. ‘Nishe, this is my little shop remember! It’s not a Marks and Spencer’s!’ she cried.

‘Trust me, it’ll be fine,’ said Nisha calmly and rang off. Taking a deep breath and trusting Nisha as instructed, Charley grabbed an empty envelope and a pen and hurriedly wrote: ‘Call Angie – 600 new flyers needed TODAY.’ Then another thought occurred to her, and she added, ‘Check she can paint shop logos in time.’

She then jotted: ‘Call Felicity – post change of venue on PTA Facebook group and school website TODAY. New flyers to go out in book bags TOMORROW.’

Then Charley looked around the shop intending to list everything she still had to do to get ready for business, and realised the back of an envelope wasn’t going to be anywhere near big enough.

She had less than a fortnight to get the logos painted, the shop name put on the window; order the rest of the stock; get shop-branded paper bags and carriers made; stock the shelves, set out all the displays; get an electrician to put the sockets in; get a card reader and a till working…

Not surprisingly, the panic already simmering inside her threatened to boil over. She crushed it down. You can do this, she told herself. There’s a lot to do, but if you’re organised and drive it along and keep everything on schedule, it’ll be fine. Then she added, But you do know you’re insane, don’t you?

Since she was still working her notice, Tara pulled a sickie a few days later to help Charley and Pam in the shop. Charley was infinitely grateful to have all hands on deck. Most of the orders had arrived, and so now they were standing in the middle of the shop, drowning in a sea of products.

‘Where’s it all going to go?’ Pam looked round the shelves in despair.

‘I don’t even know where to start!’ cried Charley.

Tara doubted they’d fit everything in.

They spent the entire morning stacking things onto shelves, then promptly emptying them again, trying to work out where best to put everything. It was chaos. Jumbles of stock lay piled all over the floor.

‘This isn’t working,’ said Tara.

‘We need a plan!’ said Charley. ‘Let’s make a list of all the display areas, and shelves, and then do a list of the products and then…’

She didn’t even get to finish her sentence, because Angie arrived at that moment, ready to paint the logos on the walls and window. Eliot was at nursery, but she’d had to bring Finn. Naturally Pam was delighted, but Tara and Charley took one look at the energetic little toddler who was already wriggling impatiently, desperate to be released from his buggy, and promptly started sweeping everything up either off the floor or out of his reach before Angie could even unstrap him. She’d stuffed the changing bag full of toys and games to keep him amused and soon Pam and Finn were crawling around on their hands and knees setting up a farm. Watching them, it was debatable who was having the most fun, Pam or Finn, but it was probably Pam. No, definitely Pam.

‘More flyers,’ said Angie, handing over a wodge of them to Charley. ‘For the other shops to hand out.’

‘Thanks,’ she said, making a note to run them down to Ricky later. He’d offered to take them round since he knew the other traders better than she did, but just right now they needed to focus on which slogan should go where.

‘How about “Prosecco with Everything” on the window, because it sums up the shop,’ Angie suggested. ‘Then “Happy Prosecco Day” on the wall above the till, then, on the back wall above the clock, how about something like “Tick Tock, it’s Prosecco O’clock?”’

‘Perfect!’ said Charley.

‘Blimey!’ said Tara, ‘You’ve really thought this through. Charley was just going to go, “ip dip sky blue”!’

Charley poked her tongue out at her, and, of course, Ricky chose that precise moment to walk in, which made her feel like a complete idiot. Only to feel even worse when Tara and Angie both stopped what they were doing