Page 3 of A Midnight Kiss on Ever After Street
Scarlett scoffs. ‘Oh, please. How long has she been dangling that particular carrot? She’s not going to hand this shop over to you while there’s a business expenses account to wallow in. I love my mother dearly, but youhaveto stop trying to please her.’
‘Says the woman who won’t even tell her you want to leave this shop and go full-time at hairdressing.’
Scarlett only works part time at The Cinderella Shop, covering the shop floor and running the business side of things, and she spends the rest of her time working at Rapunzel’s hair salon down the street, except in this case, ‘Rapunzel’ is a long-haired man called Jackson who also happens to be Scarlett’s boyfriend. She’s been taking on more and more private clients and spends most mornings doing special occasion hair dos for wedding parties.
‘That’s different. She might disown me if she finds out I studied business management for years only to throw it all away to do “superficial hairdressing nonsense Jackson has talked me into”. Sadie, you’re incredibly talented. Your dresses are as beautiful as your mum’s were, butlookat the hideous crap we’ve got on display.’ She indicates towards the front window, which has got three mannequins on one side, all wearing dresses Ebony has insisted I make. Flashy ruffles in clashing shades of neon pink, neon orange and banana yellow, with enough flounce to look like a hot air balloon has deflated on top of each mannequin. ‘People call us The Ugly Sister shop, not The Cinderella Shop. You can’t keep doing everything she tells you to in the hopes she’ll finally sign the shop over to you.’
‘I’m thirty-five, and she’s turning sixty-five in a couple of months. Shemustbe wanting to slow down by now.’ Ihaveto cling onto the hope that Ebony will give me the shop one day. I haven’t worked this hard, for this long, doing everything she asks of me, only for The Cinderella Shop to never be mine.
‘You’ve said the same thing at each of your big birthdays. Twenty. Twenty-five. Thirty. Even thirty-two because she mentioned wanting to take up golf and you thought it was code for retiring rather than just an excuse to do less work. It’s hard to imagine my mum doinglesswork than she currently does, but one thing we can be sure of is that she’ll find a way.’
‘But if I don’t do what she says, she’llneversign the shop over to me. I need her to trust me. Every time I alter the window display, she puts it back to how it was. She yells at me for trying to put my tasteful dresses at the front of the shop. We’re barely doing any trade. People don’t come in because there’s nothing even vaguely appealing to entice them. Her insistence on celebrity endorsements is what’s going to pull this place under. The creations that might appeal to slightly mad celebrities don’t belong on display here. They’ve been known to make small children cry. Even pantomime dames have looked in and recoiled in horror at the brightness. We’re losing customers because of her way of trying to gain customers, and she just can’t see it.’ I sigh in frustration. It’s heart-breaking to see my beloved shop floundering and the one person who can do something about it simply won’t hear it.
‘Say that toher. And quickly. We’re going under, Sade. Our outgoings are higher than our incomings for the tenth month in a row. There’s very little left in the coffers to keep us afloat. We need something to change, drastically.’
‘I know.’ I didn’t expect Scarlett to approach the subject head on. We’ve been dancing around it for months, but it’s true. We’re running at a loss. Treading water. I’ve already had to buy cheaper fabrics and cut other corners. How much worse is it going to get? ‘Ebony doesn’t listen, you know that. But shehasto let me take over before it comes to that. The only thing keeping us afloat is the occasional injection of cash from the commissions she does get. This can’t go on much longer. I need her to trust me enough to run The Cinderella Shop as it used to be run, and going against her, and all the other Ever After Street shopkeepers by going to that ball is not the way to build her trust in me.’
‘And then what?’
‘And then my life can begin. I can change things and turn this shop back into the sewing heaven it was when my mum and dad ran it. I can display the elegant dresses that Iwantto make and sell them for prices that normal people can afford. Get rid of this stupid guarantee that’s wiping us out financially, and—’
‘And the castle will be gone. If this sale goes ahead, you willneverget to see that castle again, but you’ve got the rest of your life to win my mother back around. And that’s onlyifyou get found out.’
‘How am I not going to get found out? I’m the worst liar in the world. And I haven’t been invited. That ticket is addressed to the owner of each shop. I am not the owner.’
‘It says you can bring a plus one.’
‘I don’t think you can go as a plus one if you haven’t got the “one” to begin with.’
Scarlett screws her face up in thought, and I can’t help but smile at her determination. She’s always been like a sister to me. I might’ve had the Cinderella-esque start of losing my parents and being taken in by my aunt, but I never got the clichéd ugly stepsister part. Scarlett has been my best friend, cousin, and makeshift sister for as long as I can remember.
I’ve never gone against my aunt’s wishes before, but this ball… it feels like there’s magic in the air every time I think about it, and when I let my mind drift, just for a second, I close my eyes and picture a magical night of dancing and pumpkin carriages and glass slippers, and then…
The shrill ring of my phone in my pocket shocks me out of my reverie and I pull it out to see ‘Ebony’ flashing on the screen. It’s as if she could telepathically tell what I was thinking and chose such stellar timing as a reminder that the ball isn’t meant for me.
‘Hello, Aunt Ebony?’ Why is she phoning my mobile on a Sunday afternoon? I quickly pull the phone away from my ear as the shrieking from the other end threatens to spontaneously burst an eardrum.
‘Would you believe my flight’s been delayed?’ she barks down the line, along with a few choice expletives.
‘Delayed?’ I put her on speakerphone so Scarlett can hear too.
‘They won’t even say why! Something about birds in the engine. Birds, for goodness’ sake! I was supposed to land at seven, but now my flight isn’t even taking off until eight! I’m stuck in this hellhole forhours.’ She swears at someone on the other end, presumably a member of the Finnish airport staff trying their best to appease her wrath.
‘I’m sorry, Aunt Ebony,’ I say, but my eyes are on Scarlett’s face which has got a mischievous look creeping across it. ‘What time do you expect to be back?’
‘I don’t suppose we’ll see you tonight, will we? It will be too late.’ Scarlett jumps in before she can answer, waggling her eyebrows at me.
‘Yes, you flaming well will! I’ve got a commission from that reality star! An all-in-one catsuit. It’s a little… risqué. Not your usual style, Sadie, but she wants to wear it for a red-carpet event on Satur—’
‘ThisSaturday? I don’t have time to make a catsuit and ship it to Finland before Saturday!’
Ebony laughs. ‘You will when you see how little material is involved. And that’s exactly why I’ll be over tonight. My flight should land at eleven, so I’ll be there by twelve. You need to get started on this right away!’
‘Midnight?’ I groan. Catsuits at midnight. Is this what my life has come to? Instead of the glamorous ballgowns my mum sewed or the Disney princess-style wedding dresses that I used to design, I’m reduced to making lascivious jumpsuits during the witching hour?
‘There’s no time to waste. She’s paying top dollar. Well, top euro or whatever they have in Finland.’
We’re interrupted by another member of staff asking Ebony if she needs anything, who probably wasn’t expecting the answer to be a screamed, ‘What I want is my flight to take off on time!’
