After the One by Cass Lester (novels for students .txt) 📗

I’ll be the ice maiden.’ She looked at her watch, she was going to be late if she didn’t leg it. ‘Dammit! I’ll run on ahead. Okay?’

‘Yes, of course, but remember, be cool!’ Pam shouted after her.

‘Got it!’

Cursing her heels, Charley hurtled along the dockside and arrived breathless and panting to find the estate agent already at the entrance waiting for her.

‘Blimey, you’re keen,’ he said dryly.

‘NO!’ wheezed Charley. ‘Not at all, I just didn’t want to be late!’

‘Of course,’ smirked the agent, and Charley could have happily knocked the smug smile straight off his face.

There couldn’t have been a bigger contrast between the units at Cargo and the old-fashioned, bow-fronted shop near the Downs. The minimalist, open-fronted lorry containers that formed the shop units were stacked into two blocks, one painted a bright urban blue, the other a matt olive green. From the distance they looked like a stack of temporary Portakabin offices for a dockside building development, but close up their glass frontages revealed a hive of small start-ups. Thriving start-ups, thought Charley, looking around her. The whole area screamed entrepreneurial vision and vibrant chic and, more importantly, it was heaving with people, even in the middle of a weekday afternoon.

In all honesty there was hardly anything to show Charley when the agent unlocked the door and ushered her inside. It was just an empty, white-walled container box, the front of which was filled with a glass display window. But once inside, Charley was already conjuring up an exciting vision of shelves and tables all laden with mounds of Prosecco products, surrounded by, of course, a throng of happy punters.

The agent took a different tack with Charley this time and didn’t try to browbeat her with a hard sell. He didn’t have to. It was clear to Charley that there would be dozens of enterprising start-ups who would have torn his arm off to get one.

‘What you see is what you get. It’s a three-year contract with four months’ notice.’

Charley was desperately trying to be businesslike, desperately telling herself not to fall in love with it, not to make any rash decisions and above all, not to make it obvious to the agent that she’d had already fallen in love with it and would have signed on the dotted line, there and then, in her own blood if necessary. It was when he told her the rent that she completely buckled. It wasn’t suspiciously cheap or improbably low, but it was reasonable, and crucially, affordable!

‘When would I need to let you know?’ she asked, trying to sound casual, as they went outside to join Pam, who had been peering in through the window.

He paused to shoot her a straight look. ‘I’ve given you a head start on this one. But I can guarantee if you don’t take it today it’ll be snapped up tomorrow.’

Charley’s mask slipped. A small anxious frown fleetingly clouded her face and she shot Pam an agonised look, then turned back to the agent. ‘I’m just going to talk to my…’ she paused, thinking that ‘mother-in-law’ didn’t sound very professional.

‘Mum?’ he suggested, patronisingly.

‘Colleague!’ replied Pam, raising an eyebrow witheringly. Taking Charley by the arm she led her some distance away, out of earshot of the agent.

‘Oh-my-God-I-so-want-this-place-but-I-don’t-know-what-to-do!’ garbled Charley.

Her ‘colleague’ instantly stepped up to justify her newly acquired role of business associate. ‘Is it in a good location?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is there enough footfall?’

‘Yes.’

‘Can you afford it?’

‘Yes!’

‘Is it, without any doubt, the best we’ve seen all day. And is it the only unit likely to come up here in a month of Sundays?’

‘YES!’

‘Go for it!’

‘You think I should go for it?’

‘Yes!’

‘Sure?’

‘Yes! Go for it!’

‘I’m calling Nisha,’ said Charley, suddenly getting cold feet, but Nisha’s number went straight to voicemail. ‘She must be in a meeting,’ said Charley. She looked at her watch. It was half past four. The estate agency shut at five.

‘Charley.’ Pam took her by the shoulders and locked eyes with her. ‘Trust your judgement.’

Charley frowned anxiously. ‘Let me just call Tara!’ Tara’s response was instant and typically blunt.

‘She says, “Stop being wimp and go for it!”’

‘So what are you waiting for?’

‘I don’t know!’ wailed Charley, in an agony of indecision. It was such a huge, momentously huge, terrifyingly huge, decision.

‘Need any help?’ asked a man’s voice. They both turned. ‘What sort of bike are you looking for?’

Charley was momentarily dumbfounded, until she realised they were standing outside the second-hand bike shop. ‘Oh! Sorry, no, no. We’re not bike shopping. Sorry.’

Carlo, the huge grey lurcher, plodded up to her and nudged Charley’s hand with his nose, as if she were an old friend, and at the same moment, the bike man recognised her.

He gave her a warm, easy smile. ‘Hi there. How’s the bike working out for you?’

‘Fine. It’s all good,’ said Charley hurriedly, trying not to be irritated that he was distracting her when she really, really needed to think.

‘No problems with it then?’

‘No, no.’

‘You know you can just bring it back if there are.’

‘Yes, yes. Thank you.’ Nice as the man was, Charley wished he’d go away and leave her to think.

‘We’re actually looking at renting the empty unit three doors up,’ volunteered Pam.

The man’s face broke into a broad smile. ‘Oh, that’s great,’ he said to Charley, maybe just a little too keenly.

‘I’m thinking about it,’ she stressed.

‘Well, if it’s any help, I can tell you being here’s been good for me. We’re all in the same boat, all trying to get our businesses off the ground,’ he said, and then added with charming openness, ‘It’s really tough setting up a business, much tougher than I thought, especially on your own, and you need support.’

‘Right, well, thank you,’ she said. Then, realising he genuinely had just helped her make her decision, she looked at him and, holding his gaze, added, ‘No, seriously, thank you.’

She was rewarded with a slow, sincere smile that spread to his eyes, as he replied, ‘You’re most welcome.’

After the briefest of moments, Charley gathered herself together, turned and walked off.

‘If