The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic

'But I gave them to you! You were supposed to be looking after them.'

'Ah,' I say, and flash my shop-assistant smile. 'I'm afraid we can't be held responsible for property given to us to hold while customers are in the fitting rooms.'

'Oh for God's sake!' she says, looking at me as if I'm an imbecile. 'This is ridiculous! I gave them to you about thirty seconds ago! How can you have lost them?'

Shit. She's really angry. Her voice is getting quite loud, and people are starting to look.

'Is there a problem?' chimes in a syrupy voice, and I look up in horror. Danielle's coming over towards us, a sweet-but-menacing look on her face. OK, keep calm, I tell myself firmly. No-one can prove anything either way. And everyone knows the customer's always a troublemaker.

'I gave this assistant a pair of jeans to look after because I had four items, which is apparently too many,' the girl begins explaining.

'Four items?' says Danielle. 'But you're allowed four items in the fitting room.' And she turns to look at me with an expression which, frankly, isn't very friendly.

'Are you?' I say i

'I thought it was four!' says the girl 'I mean, you've got tokens with bloody "Four" written on them!' She gives an impatient sigh. 'So anyway, I gave her the jeans, and tried on the other things – and then I came out for the jeans, and they're gone.'

'Gone?' says Danielle sharply. 'Gone where?'

'I'm not sure,' I say, trying to look as baffled as the next person. 'Maybe another customer took them.'

'But you were holding them!' says the girl. 'So what – did someone just come up to you and whip them out of your fingers?'

Oh piss off. What's her problem, anyway? How can she be so obsessed with a bloody pair of jeans?

'Maybe you could get another pair from the rack,' I say, trying to sound helpful.

'There isn't another pair,' she says icily. 'They were from the reduced rail.'

'Rebecca, think!' says Danielle. 'Did you put them down somewhere?'

'I must have done,' I say vaguely. 'It's been so busy in here, I must have put them on the rail, and I suppose another customer must have walked off with them.' I give an apologetic little shrug as though to say 'Customers, eh?'

'Wait a minute!' says the girl sharply. 'What's that?'

I follow her gaze and freeze. The zebra-print jeans have rolled out from under the curtain. For a moment we all stare at them.

'Gosh!' I manage at last. 'There they are!'

'And what exactly are they doing down there?' asks Danielle.

'I don't know!' I say. 'Maybe they…' I swallow, trying to think as quickly as I can. 'Maybe…'

'You took them!' says the girl incredulously. 'You bloody took them! You wouldn't let me try them on, and then you hid them!'

'That's ridiculous!' I say, trying to sound convincing – but I can feel my cheeks flushing a guilty red. Oh God, why do I have to be someone who blushes? Why?

'You little-' The girl breaks off and turns to Danielle. 'I want to make an official complaint.'

'Rebecca,' says Danielle. 'Into my office, please.'

Hang on a minute. Isn't she going to back me up? Isn't she going to defend her staff to the public? What happened to a united front?

'Now!' she says sharply, and I jump in fright. As I walk slowly away to her office (broom cupboard, more like), I can see all the other staff looking at me and nudging each other. Oh God, how embarrassing. Still, it'll be OK. I'll just say sorry and promise not to do it again, and maybe offer to work overtime. Just as long as I don't get…

I don't believe it. She's fired me. I haven't even worked there for a day, and I've been kicked out. I was so shocked when she told me, I actually became almost tearful. I mean, apart from the incident with the zebra print jeans, I thought I was doing really well. But apparently hiding stuff from customers is one of those automatic-firing things. (Which is really unfair, because she never told me that at the interview.)

As I get changed out of my grey trousers and T-shirt, there's a heavy feeling in my heart. My retail career is over before it's even begun. I was only given twenty quid for the hours I've done today – and Danielle said that was being generous. And when I asked if I could quickly buy some clothes using my staff discount, she looked at me as if she wanted to hit me.

It's all gone wrong. No job, no money, no discount, just twenty bloody quid. Miserably, I start to walk along the street, shoving my hands in my pockets. Twenty bloody quid. What am I supposed to do with–

'Rebecca!' My head jerks up and I find myself looking dazedly at a face which I know I recognize. But who is it? It's… it's…, it's…

'Tom!' I exclaim in the nick of time. 'Hi there! What a surprise!'

Well, blow me down. Tom Webster, up in London. What's he doing here? Shouldn't he be in Reigate, grouting his Mediterranean tiles or something?

'This is Lucy,' he says proudly, and pulls forward a girl holding about sixty-five carrier bags. And I don't believe it. It's the girl who was buying all that stuff in Ally Smith. The girl whose boyfriend was paying. Surely she didn't mean…

'You're going out together?' I say stupidly. 'You and her?'

'Yes,' says Tom, and grins at me. 'Have been for some time now.'

But this doesn't make any sense. Why haven't Janice and Martin mentioned Tom's girlfriend? They've mentioned every other bloody thing in his life. And fancy Tom having a girlfriend!

'Hi,' says Lucy.

'Hi there,' I say. 'I'm Rebecca. Next-door neighbour. Childhood friend. All that.'

'Oh you're Rebecca,' she says, and gives a swift glance at Tom.

What does that mean? Have they been talking about me? God, does Tom still fancy me? How embarrassing.

'That's me!' I say brightly, and give a little laugh.

'You know, I'm sure I've seen you somewhere before,' says Lucy thoughtfully – and then her eyes crinkle in recognition. 'You work at Ally Smith, don't you?'

'No!' I say, a little too sharply.

'Oh,' she says. 'I thought I saw you-'

God, I can't have it going back to my parents that I work in a shop. They'll think I've been lying about my entire life in London and that secretly I'm broke and living in a squalid bedsit.

'Research,' I say coolly. 'I'm a journalist, actually.'

'Rebecca's a financial journalist,' says Tom. 'Really knows her stuff.'

'Oh right,' says Lucy, and I give her a supercilious smile.

'Mum and Dad always listen to Rebecca,' says Tom.

'Dad was talking about it just the other day. Said you'd been very helpful on some financial matter. Switching funds or something.'

'I do what I can,' I say modestly, and give Tom a special, old-friends smile. Not that I'm jealous, or anything – but I do feel a little twinge seeing Tom smiling down at this Lucy character who, frankly, has very boring hair, even if her clothes are quite nice. Come to think of it, Tom's wearing quite nice clothes himself.

Oh, what's going on? This is all wrong. Tom belongs in his starter home in Reigate, not prancing around expensive shops looking halfway decent.

'Anyway,' he says. 'We must get going.'

'Train to catch?' I say patronizingly. 'It must be hard, living so far out.'

'It's not so bad,' says Lucy. 'I commute to Wetherby's every morning and it only takes forty minutes.'

'You work for Wetherby's?' I say, aghast. Why am I surrounded by City high-flyers?

'Yes,' she says. 'I'm one of their political advisers.'

What? What does that mean? Is she really brainy, or something? Oh God, this gets worse and worse.

'And we're not catching our train just yet,' says Tom, smiling down at Lucy. 'We're off to Tiffany first. Choose a little something for Lucy's birthday next week.' He lifts a hand and starts twisting a lock of her hair round his finger.