Free Kiss My Name by Calvin Wade Page B

a steak and onion slice, a jam doughnut and a vanilla slice, please.”
    I couldn’t decide between the desserts so I ordered both, I knew I didn’t have to eat them both, but also knew that I would.
    “Are you still there, Flo?” Zara whispered down the phone. I realised that she had actually been whispering throughout the conversation.
    “Yes, Zara, just getting my lunch...why are you outside Brazier’s office?”
    “I’m about to tell Mr.Brazier to stick his job up his arse!”
    For a few split seconds, I lost my appetite. I was in panic mode. Zara needed that job as much as I needed mine and she liked it more than I did. What was going on?
    “What? Why would you want to do that?”
    “I bought a scratch card on my lunch, Flo. It’s come in! I’ve just gone and won us one hundred grand! Where shall we go, Flo? Australia, America, Skegness, anywhere you like, Flo, it’s on me!”
    “Skegness then.”
    “Seriously, you just want to go to Skegness? Anyway, it looks like Mr.Brazier’s just finishing off his telephone call, I’ll be going in, in a sec. I’m not go ing to tell him why I’m leaving. I’m just going to tell him to stick it! I’ve never liked him. He’s always shaking his head when my boyfriends come in.”
    “Zara,” I shouted down the phone, “don’t go anywhere. Stay right where you are. Do not go into that office!”
    “That’s £4.20 please, love!” said the Greggs lady handing me a plastic bag with my hot food in and a separate white box for the cakes.
    I handed her fiver.
    “Keep the change!”
    Eighty pence would have bought me another cake on the way home, but this was an emergency. I ran, well waddled quickly back towards Penny Pinchers. Despite the fact that Zara sounded totally convinced that she was the proud winner of one hundred grand, I was equally convinced that she had not won. I knew her better than she knew herself. I knew she would have inadvertently done something stupid, like scratched out the bit that says, ‘card void if you scratch here’. She was about to do something else stupid too. Offend the only boss in Chorley desperate enough to employ her. Not that Zara wasn’t a good employee, but times were tough, still are tough, and jobs in retail are scarce.
    The more I thought Zara’s situation through, the more I realised I needed to get back to Penny Pinchers before it was too late. My waddle soon became a desperate run. There were breasts and bellies bouncing everywhere. I didn’t move very quickly as this was the first time I had broken into a run since P.E at school but the effort was there. I needed to keep Zara in that job for her sake and for mine, the job was mundane and monotonous as things stood, it would be murder without Zara. I really hoped that I was wrong, that she really had won one hundred thousand pounds, that would just be fantastic, but realistically I knew there was more chance of me riding the Grand National winner. Zara was the type of girl who chased dreams, not the type of girl whose dreams came true.

ZARA – May 2011
                  I had never liked Mr.Brazier. He is one of those men that make women feel uncomfortable. The type you wouldn’t want to be trapped in a lift with. A member of the wandering hands brigade. Mr.Brazier is a letch.
    On the day of our Christmas party last year, Mr.Brazier disappeared at lunchtime with a few of his cronies, store managers from other shops around Chorley and his hour’s lunch must have lasted near enough the whole afternoon. He arrived back at about half past four stinking of whiskey. We had all arranged to go straight out after work, but by the time we had closed up, he was already slurring and before we’d even had our starters at Parmesan & Pepper, he was off his face.
    Mr.Brazier made sure I was sitting next to him at the table and he kept trying to bring the conversation around to my sex life and whether I was single, whilst I kept trying to talk about his family and what