Pay Day

I had an extra bounce in my step this morning as I strolled to work. It was payday.

I whistled in excitement. Tommy Lee got a buyer for the off-the-books fashion brand gowns that I'd hidden in the warehouse.

Working in a fashion retailers store on Oxford Street had been the most lucrative job I'd done since dropping out of high school ten years ago. Thanks to Madeleine McCann, my foster mother, who recommended me as a "good and hardworking girl".

I smiled. I kept up the good girl image after social services removed me from Tony Griffith's family and placed me in Madeleine McCann's care.

No one believed Tony Griffith after I reported that he liked to touch me in indecent places.

The day social services took me away, I left with some of his valuables. He gave me the middle finger as the car zoomed away. I watched him from the rear windshield and grinned. He would scream through the roof when he noticed his diamonds and twenty grand were gone.

Madeleine McCann was a devout Catholic. So I showed her my good side and she got me the job as a retail assistant.

Once I saw Tommy Lee, the assistant manager, slap a fellow retail assistant on the backside, I knew he would be interested in working with me to earn some money on the side.

I sorted the clothing on the racks and made sure everything was in order for the day's business. My colleagues, Freya and Lucy, came in and got busy too.

Suddenly, the store phone hung on the wall close to where I stood rang. I picked it up.

"Bershka Clothing Store. Isla speaking. How may I help you?" I said mechanically. I didn't get a response. Just silence.

"Hello?" I hoped this was not a prank call.

"Look to your left, Isla," a soft voice that sounded very familiar whispered.

A strange tremor ran through me. My brain scrambled in haste, probably going through my memory files, to verify the voice.

I turned to my left, the phone receiver hooked to my ear, and gazed at the window.

There stood Emily Yates, my best friend from my junior secondary school days!

I stared in shock. She gave me a crooked grin, and the left side of her face dipped slightly lower as if a nerve had gone awry. She wore a white top on blue jeans and draped a multicoloured scarf around her neck.

I gripped the phone tight and couldn't take my eyes off her neck.

She chuckled. "Oh, Isla. You look like you've seen a ghost."

"I…erm, Emily? Is it you?" I stuttered.

"WHAT DO YOU THINK?" She yelled, looking daggers at me as the left side of her face wrinkled grotesquely. "I'm coming in now. Time to catch up."

The call ended. I hung the receiver, unable to move from where I stood. Think! I commanded my brain but it seemed to have completely shut down.

Emily Yates walked into the store and Lucy walked up to her with a smile. She pointed at me and Lucy nodded, waving her through.

"Hey friend," she said cheerily and kissed my cheek. "Let's go for a cuppa at Crest Café. I love their crispy chicken baguette."

That was how Emily and I sat at a corner table close to the glass wall in the café. I didn't know when she ordered but a waiter brought two cups of espresso.

I couldn't take my eyes off her neck.

She caressed the scarf. "Know why I wear this?"

I looked into her eyes. Was this a trick question? "H-how? How are you alive?" I asked instead.

She feigned shock at my question and gave me the crooked grin again. "Aren't you happy I'm alive?"

Now I'd had enough of the mocking grins. I wasn't ready to lose the life I'd built to a mucky past that crept up on me unexpectedly.

I leaned my face close to hers and saw that flicker of fear in her eyes. It reminded me of that hot afternoon when Emily and I ditched classes and hid in an abandoned house.

I complained about my drug-addict mother who almost overdosed that morning. After taking a puff from her joint, Emily delivered the news that she was moving away. I'd never felt terrible.

Emily was my only friend, the one whom I thought understood me. I begged her to stay but instead, she blew smoke in my face and laughed at me. "Why would I stay in this shitty town for you?"

It was until her fingers scratched at my hands and I saw her eyes bulging that I realised I'd tied my scarf around her neck and was squeezing.

The more she scratched and struggled, a sweet thrill flowed through me and I squeezed harder. How dare she laugh at me? Emily had betrayed me and I didn't feel an iota of remorse.

When she stopped moving, I slowly released my grip and pushed her body down the stairs. I hid it underneath the heap of dirt and junk in one of the rooms and ran home.

"I hoped by the time anyone would find you, you would be rotted and gone to hell!" I screamed in her face and watched her pale.

Immediately, two men and a lady sitting about two tables away stood up and walked towards our table. The lady brandished a pair of handcuffs.

"You are under arrest, Miss Isla Fisher for attempted murder and grievous bodily harm."

I gasped.

Emily grinned crookedly and turned the screen of her phone to display the recording. "A good Samaritan found me and nursed me to health. It was difficult to track you after you went into the system. Here you are now."

As the cuffs were slapped on my wrist, Emily stood. "Karma's a bitch, aye"?

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