Page 12 of (Not So) Mad About You

And something in Bea snapped. It was something about the way the woman spoke to her, like she wasn’t important enough to waste time on, like Benny didn’t matter, like Bea herself didn’t matter.

“Oh, piss off you stuck-up, snotty little excuse for a woman,” Bea said. She slammed her mouth shut quickly. She had no idea where those words had come from.

The woman was staring at her. And then, with a shrug, she pulled a business card out of her suit pocket. “Have your people call my people. We’ll get the insurance sorted.” Then she climbed back into her car and reversed out of the forecourt and whizzedoff down the road.

Bea looked at the card in her hand, not even reading it, just amazed that she had it at all. She’d stood up for herself and look what had happened. She’d got the woman’s info. The petrol station cameras would have everything else she needed if the woman decided to kick up a fuss about paying for Benny’s damage.

She grinned as she pulled out the petrol nozzle and unscrewed the cap on Benny’s side. Things really were looking up, weren’t they? She looked down at the card again. Alli Williams. This Alli Williams was not going to walk all over her.

Chapter Six

Maybe today was just a cruel joke and she was going to wake up any minute. Alli pulled her car up into a parking space and took a deep breath. Getting pranged in her car was just the icing on the damn cake.

Still, if the woman bothered to follow up, Alli would just get her lawyer to handle things. She didn’t have time to waste on little people with little problems. Though, to be fair, the woman had been attractive in a strange sort of way. All smooth skin and shining hair so that Alli wondered what someone like that had been doing in a car that so obviously needed to be scrapped.

“Hello?”

She jumped and turned. A man was bending down and looking through the driver’s side window. The tinted glass must mean that he couldn’t see much. “Hello there?”

Alli took a breath. Alright. Fine. She could do this. She could be charming when she needed to. All she had to do was talk her way out of things. She buzzed the window down. “Hi,” she said with a smile.

“Well hello there,” the man smiled back. He was blonde and rough-shaven and had, at some point, had that messy surfer-boy attractiveness. He’d aged out of it now and looked twenty going on forty and the look wasn’t a good one.

“I’m Alli, Alli Williams.”

“Ah, our late addition,” he beamed. “Come on out, we’re allanxious to meet you, of course.”

He stepped back and Alli got out of the car. There was enough dim light in the evening to see that she was parked in front of what looked like a cheap boarding school, or maybe a starless hotel. She frowned.

“Ah, yes, St. Hilda’s. Up until last year, this was a teacher training college,” the man said, bending to pick up the case that Alli hauled out of the back seat. “And now we’ve taken it over for our own nefarious purposes.” He laughed at his not-at-all-funny joke.

“Right,” Alli said, still frowning.

“Luke, Luke Bradshaw. I’m the director of the wellness program. Let’s get you inside, shall we?”

“Do you greet all your inmates at their cars?” Alli asked.

Luke smiled again. “Clients, not inmates. And speaking of which, the others are waiting for you.” He turned to go into the building.

Alli followed. “As I’m sure you’ve guessed, there’s been some sort of mistake. I’m not really supposed to be in a place like this.”

Luke laughed again. “On the contrary, you’re exactly the type of clientele we hope to attract.”

“I don’t have an anger problem,” Alli said. Which was true. Alright, sometimes she got angry. But it wasn’t a problem. Not to her. It got the job done. It kept people out of her way. She had no problems with either of those things.

Again, Luke laughed and Alli thought that she might get pretty tired of his chuckle if she were to stick around.

“We are a wellness program and a relaxation retreat, as well as dealing with anger issues,” he said as he mounted the steps. “So you have no worries on that front.” He opened a large door. “In we go.”

Alli tried a different tack. “I had rather hoped that I could speak with you about possibly speeding this process along. A sort of fast-track, if you will.”

He stopped in a cold entrance hall. “A fast-track?”

“Mmm. Maybe I just stay for the program tonight and perhapstomorrow and then…” She lifted an eyebrow.

“Oh no, I’m afraid that won’t do. We do need heads in beds, I’m afraid. Something to do with our funding. You’ll have to speak to our finance person on that.” He was looking around and finally, a large man loomed out of the shadows. “This is Josh, he’ll show you to your room.”

“Evening, ma’am.” He was approximately the size of a double decker bus and looked like he might eat her swish Mercedes for breakfast. He also called her ma’am. Again.

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