Fate, Chance and Circumstance

FCC Chapter One

I'll put the cover up soon but I'd just like to thank summergirl21 for making it. As usual, just what I wanted and absolutely perfect!! Love it so much =D

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Fate, Chance and Circumstance

Chapter one:

If Creative Writing 101 didn't kill me, fuchsia would.

I mean, I understood the need to replicate a single outfit in every colour under the sun, but who in their right mind would buy a frilly, pleated, off the shoulder evening gown in fuchsia?

Someone who was colour blind and therefore could easily be forgiven for mistaking the putrid colour for something tasteful, that was who. Anybody else had to be completely bonkers, and considering the wealth oozing off the clientele we got in the store, it was entirely likely. They'd either spent too much time in the sun while the rest of us middle class people struggled to make a living, or too much time lazing around on the tanning bed. The latter more likely.

"So, you don't have any more in fuchsia?" the customer asked Maggie for the third time, like Maggie hadn't just politely uttered the words, "I'm sorry Ma'am, but we're out. We do have some on order though, due to arrive early next week."

Maggie, expert saleswoman first and hater of all things pink second, continued to smile sweetly.

"Ma'am, we're all out of fuchsia, I'm afraid. If you'd like the gown now I can perhaps get one in your size in another colour. We have lavender, maroon, olive, charcoal, sap-"

"I want one in fuchsia," the lady replied testily. "If you don't have what I want, I shall simply go elsewhere."

"Well thank God for that," I muttered from the safety of my hiding place. I was sitting on the floor behind the huge mahogany cashier counter, a mountain of schoolwork in my lap.

"What did you say?" the lady asked, suspicion lacing her tone.

Maggie kicked me while at the same time replying, "Nothing Ma'am, I didn't say a thing. I'm very sorry we couldn't supply you with what you needed today."

She harrumphed and by the sound of her receding footsteps, stalked away.

"Pink," Maggie muttered in disgust. She turned her back on the store, which I presumed to be empty when she slid down the counter to sit beside me. She drew her long slender legs up to rest her chin on her knees. "Bloody pink. I should have told her she'd look better going to her charity fundraiser naked."

"But then you'd get fired, and then I'd have no one to cover my butt when I need to redo my entire Creative Writing paper for my next class."

Maggie glanced over at the folder I had open, the pristine page gleaming brightly at both of us. Nothing but the title of my dreaded assignment adorned it.

"Wow," she said with a shake of her head. Blond hair cascaded over her shoulders. "Looks like you're off to a terrific start."

I groaned and threw the pen at the wall opposite us. It bounced back and hit my stockinged foot. My shoes lay abandoned three feet to my left, next to Maggie's.

As per the owner of the store's dictate, shoes with no less than a four inch heel were to be worn in the workplace. A rule as stupid as this one only told me one thing about Mrs. Wiltshire (whom I'd never met before): she had never done a hard day's work in her life. If she had, she'd know how impossible it was to do an eight hour shift in heels.

No matter, Maggie and I had come to a compromise: If we were behind the desk we went without our shoes. If we were on the floor, we grinned and beared it and hobbled like idiots in shoes that would be the death of us.