Free Miracle on Regent Street by Ali Harris

customer.’
    ‘No,’ I say quietly. ‘I’ve been here two years. You talk to me all the time.’ She looks at me blankly and shakes her head so I lean in and whisper conspiratorially,
‘You have credit card debts that you don’t want your husband to find out about . . .’
    ‘Hush!’ Her hand flutters to her chest in panic. ‘How do you know about that?’
    I take a deep breath. ‘You told me when you came into the stockroom for a cup of tea. Last week?’ I pause and look at her. Still nothing. ‘I work in there,’ I add
despairingly.
    ‘Oh!’ She heaves a sigh of relief. ‘You’re wotsit, um, oh, yes! Sarah the stockroom girl!’
    ‘Anyway, gotta go.’ I nod resignedly and edge away.
    ‘Righty-oh,’ she says, her smile painted on her face like a clown’s. ‘Er, Sarah love,’ she grabs me by the arm and her long, cerise-painted nails pierce my skin
slightly, ‘You won’t . . . tell anyone about my little, er, problem will you?’ She laughs forcefully and I can hear the fear in her voice rise up and threaten to choke her. The
thousands of pounds’ worth of credit card debt she’s secretly amassed over the past couple of years has become a massive burden to her. I’m no expert, but when she opened up to me
last week I told her she needed to tell her husband and deal with the consequences. It would be far less stressful for her in the long run.
    ‘Of course not,’ I say gently. ‘What’s said in the stockroom stays in the stockroom.’ She nods in relief and I walk on through the store.
    When I reach the stockroom, I punch in the security code, open the door, step inside and shut it.
    ‘Carly?’ I call.
    No answer. I peer over to the sofa, but she’s gone. I do a double-check around the stockroom and then, when I’m sure I’m alone, I scream. And squeal. And jump up and down. Then
I clasp my hand over my mouth as it hits me.
    I’m a really bad person. Terrible, in fact. I’ve lied to someone really nice by pretending to be someone I really like and who I know likes the person that I think is nice. If that makes any sense. I need to rectify it. I need to find him and tell him the truth.
    But you don’t want to, whispers a voice inside my head.
    I do, I really do.
    No, you don’t.
    I squeeze my eyes shut and lean against the door. Yes, I do.
    You don’t want to because you deserve this. You deserve it more than her. You’ve been waiting for something like this for so long. It’s your turn for some
excitement.
    Is it?
    Yes.
    I open my eyes and look down at the top I’m still wearing. The yellowy-gold sequins glimmer at me brightly as if they’re winking at me.
    Go on, they seem to be saying . Go on . . .
    I shake my head, trying to get the voice out of my head and the devil off my shoulder. I dash past the aisles of stock, past the boxes waiting to be unpacked and the stack of order sheets
waiting to be filed. When I get to the back of the stockroom I pull the top over my head and fling it down. I stand there, panting for a second in my faded white bra, gazing at the sequined
Gainsbourg number like it’s Carly’s shroud. It may as well be. It has her face, her figure, her personality stamped all over it. I just happened to take them all on when I wore it. Now
it’s off I’m back to boring old me. I can feel the excitement drain from my body, like water going down a plughole. I grab my shirt from behind the radiator and pull it on. Then I
scurry to the corner of the back aisle, doing up the buttons as I go, ready to begin working on the latest stockroom report. I don’t want to be seen by anyone again today. And I don’t
want to be anywhere near that top. It’s got me into enough trouble as it is. There’s no way I can keep this pretence up, no way.
    Joel will be so disappointed when he realizes who I really am.

 

    T he hours trickle by but I’m finding the slow, methodical process of doing the stocktake to be very calming. I’ve even managed to
convince