Free Christmas at Carrington’s by Alexandra Brown Page B

the cash office, and wonder how they feel about being featured on
Kelly Cooper
Come Instore
. ‘Besides, they’re not using real customers for the selling scenes,’ Amy adds.
    ‘Will they be pretend ones then?’ I resist the urge to laugh out loud as I wonder how this is all going to work.
    ‘That’s right. KCTV are going to use actors for the actual customer interaction sequences,’ she says, with a totally deadpan face. My smile quickly fades. ‘They’ve already done a couple of trial runs this morning, and they were very successful apparently.’
    ‘Trial runs?’ They seem to have it all figured out. And I’m instantly reminded that this must have taken months to plan. I think of Tom again, keeping it a secret, and my heart sinks.
    ‘That’s right. I met one of the actors earlier, with his son – a really cute little boy with a gorgeous head of dark curls. He brought the boy along to make the performance seem more authentic. ’
    Whaat? Nooo, it can’t be.
    ‘Was the little boy called Declan by any chance?’ I ask, mentally kicking myself for not having guessed that his dad was an actor.
    ‘Oh yes, I think so, how do you know? Have you met him too?’ Amy gives me a wide-eyed look.
    ‘Err, yes. This morning. He bought a Chloé bag.’ And there was me thinking reality TV shows were, in fact,
real
. I can’t believe I didn’t cotton on. I should have guessed, with their gorgeous accents and picture-perfect shopping scenario, like something straight out of a
Hallmark
film. And with Hannah practically breathing down my neck as I served the guy, and then pretending it was authentic with her ‘wish I had a husband like that’ comment. I make a mental note to scrutinise every customer more thoroughly in future. Just because I’m doing the show – under protest,
for the record
– doesn’t mean Kelly can make a fool of me a second time. Besides, I’m only doing
Kelly Cooper Come Instore
to avoid having to flog boring washing machines downstairs, and because my swirly signatured fifteen-year-old self didn’t know any better than to check for sneaky ‘filming for worldwide TV broadcasting’ clauses. I do a big, satisfying harrumph inside my head.
    ‘Well, there you go. Nothing to it, just like any other day in Women’s Accessories,’ Amy says, attempting a bright smile that doesn’t quite meet her eyes.
    ‘I guess so.’ I shrug. ‘But it means losing a day off,’ I add, wondering if anyone has thought about that – and it’s not just me, all the staff have Sunday off. It might even be illegal to work six days per week. Ha! I don’t remember seeing that covered anywhere in the contract.
    ‘That’s why all staff who choose to take part will be paid extra for their time, their normal salary plus an additional payment, and also benefit from other perks. Guest appearances, interviews … Apparently it’s not uncommon for the people who appear in Kelly’s shows to go on and command considerable sums for doing all sorts of things – read bedtime stories to shoppers, I think was one suggestion, attend openings, magazine interviews; even appear on daytime TV, if they want to. And the board saw a whole stack of figures from KCTV showing how previous programmes boosted revenue for the businesses featured – by fifty per cent in some cases. So it really will be worth it, I’m sure, if Carrington’s is revived and we all get to keep our jobs.’
    ‘Wow. Fifty per cent! That’s pretty impressive. It’ll be like the boom days again.’ Thinking back to that time, I remembered our sales figures were fantastic – Annie and I were almost doubling our salaries some months, with the amount of commission we made. And Carrington’s could certainly do with a boost, the way sales had been flagging recently.
    ‘Exactly. But you’ll need to be here early, for make-up and stuff. They want to start shooting, as it were, at around 10 a.m. Is that OK for you?’
    ‘Sure,’ I say, thinking it will be