Page 16 of Guilty as Sin
Instruction manual.Focus. Read. It’s a gun. That should put you at ease.She looked at the already-printed tags. Fifty-fivedollars?Forthis?One piece of it?
“It’s a resort town. People want to spend too much money,” Lily had explained patiently the first time Paige had seen the shop. “They want to buy something they never would normally. It can’t be just a little bit better. It has to be alotbetter. They’re on vacation, and it’s a piece of luxury they can take home with them.”
Forget it. Scan, push the button, print, repeat.Then you hung the items up. She could do that.
She’d gotten through twenty of the sets before she realized that she was supposed to have been changing the label according to size and would have to start over. She could hear voices outside the room. More than two, like there was a store out there full of customers. Early May or not, it was Saturday, and it was busy. She blew out her breath, considered jamming a couple of Kleenexes into her armpits, searched for scissors, and started removing tags, sticking the rejects into the bottom of the wastebasket and pulling crumpled tissue paper over them. Then she started over on the labeling.
Right. Done. That was half of one box. The rest of the carton was filled with silky white nightgowns with a little more substance to them.Crumplednightgowns. She hung them up and used her label gun on them, working frantically now.
When the door opened, she whirled, crouched, and dropped the nightgown she was holding. Hailey put a hand to her chest, sucked in a breath, laughed, and said, “That doesn’t look relaxed. But then, I’m not sure I’m relaxed either. The nice weather brought out the mob.”
“I’ll be right out,” Paige said. “Just finishing these.”
A long moment, a crease between Hailey’s arched brows. “Oh, sorry,” she finally said, in what Paige recognized as some more stealth-tact mode. “I put the steamer back into the closet. Are you feeling all right, hon? You look a little flushed.”
“I think I picked up something on the plane,” Paige said. “Not contagious,” she hurried to add. “Food poisoning.”
“Oh, no,” Hailey said. “You want to go on home? I can manage here for today.”
Paige wanted nothing more. Unfortunately, all of this would be here tomorrow, and Sunday was Hailey’s day off. If she were going to learn this stuff, it was going to have to be today.
Or she could close the store tomorrow. It was closed on Mondays anyway, which would give her two days to wander around and figure everything out without customers. But that would be losing, and besides, the point was to seem normal, to take on everything and everybody that was bothering Lily. If she hid, how was that going to happen? “No,” she said. “Just ate a bad hot dog at the airport. It’s about out now. I mean, I’ve just about, ah, gotten rid of it. You know how that goes. Doesn’t take long.” She added a “Ha ha” for good measure.
Hailey looked even more taken aback. “Oh,” she said faintly.
“I know what you’re thinking. Hot dog. Why? Extreme hunger. Too many vegetables at the spa. Serves me right. Whew, pork has sure taken its revenge now. Out in a second, though! Let me just, ah, steam these.”
Hailey finally closed the door, probably to shut out the babbling, or perhaps further details of exactly where the hot dog had gone, and Paige opened the closet door, wiped her hands on her dress, and stared at the blue-and-white contraption. No instructions on this one. She wrestled it out of the closet, wheeled it over near the clothes rack, and finally grabbed her phone and pushed the button for Lily’s number. Her own number. Whatever.
And got her own voicemail. She whispered a series of very bad words, shoved her phone back into her purse, closed her eyes, and summoned her Lily-magic.
It’s a steamer. Steam is water. You have to fill it with water.It looked like a vacuum cleaner, but there would be a reservoir for water.Ah. There.She’d seen Lily doing this on past visits, she vaguely remembered. You ran the nozzle up and down over the clothes, like ironing standing up. Paige didn’t iron, but it wasn’t like she’d never done it. Not neverever.She filled the reservoir at the sink in the bathroom, spilled half of it figuring out how to fit it back into the machine, then plugged the steamer in and pushed the switch.
Ironing standing up, or like you’d vacuum curtains, maybe. She pulled the trigger, and steam came out. Perfect.
She smelled it first. What did that remind her of? The firing range. Same acrid bite. She yanked the nozzle away and stared in dismay at the result.
The garment was still white, except for one place where it was wrinkled and brown. And the tag said $125.00.
That was when the phone rang.
“Help,” Paige said, even as she ripped the garment off the hanger and stuffed it into the wastebasket, pulling the tissue paper over it once more.
“What did you do?” Lily asked. “What happened? Something happened.”
“I melted a nightgown. Never mind. Never mind. I’m fine. I thought you were supposed to steam, though.”
“As long as it doesn’t actually touch the clothes,” Lily said.Oh.“I’m coming back,” her twin added. “It’s too hard for you.”
“It’s not too hard!” Paige snapped. “It’s lingerie.” She got herself back under control with an effort. “I am going back out there. I am selling underwear. Watch my smoke. Not literally. I’m done burning up your stock. I’ll talk to you tonight.”
She should’ve gone with the sprained hand idea instead of the mythical hot dog. Too late now. Closing the storeroom door behind her, she advanced into the shop with a smile pasted onto her face and hoped her makeup wasn’t running. Lily would have checked before she’d come out. A couple women were standing in front of the racks of clothes, fingering them hesitantly, and Paige reminded herself that she knew how to use a cash register. Also that she wasn’t a moron. She smiled harder at Hailey and said, “Trade you. I got a little lightheaded back there.” She didn’t need Hailey observing her customer interaction.
That part was easier. She greeted the women, kept an eye out as they browsed, and in between, wandered around and “arranged” clothes on the hangers, doing her best to memorize. She ushered one customer into a dressing room and closed the dusty-rose curtain behind her, rang up a scarf for the other one, and wondered if she should have encouraged her more in her shopping. She seemed… scared. Intimidated, almost. Like Paige wasn’t the only one who found lingerie daunting. And then the fiftyish woman who’d vanished into the dressing room poked her head around the curtain and asked her, “Can you give me an opinion?”
When Paige got over there, the woman let the curtain drop a fraction and said, “Tell me honestly.”
That would be a bad idea. The white nightgown ended well above the knee. It was a little snug around the middle, too low, too… everything. Paige thought fast, then said, “You know what? You’re not really loving that one, or you wouldn’t have asked. Not my favorite, either. I’ve got one I think you’ll like better. Hang on.” She went over to one of the racks she’d been “checking,” brought back two gowns, one in large and one in extra-large, handed them in, and said, “These tend to run small, so I’ve brought you two sizes.” In reality, she had no clue, but it would’ve sounded good if somebody’d said it to her. “This runs small” ranked right up there with “I love you” when it came to appealing three-word phrases.
