The First Fall

Chapter 20

I took a sweeping look once again around my surroundings, well I won’t say that this was my dream while still in college but after graduation and my inability to land a job as I planned I decided to open this gift shop together with Jenny. Actually it was her idea in the first place. She wanted to do something with her freshly acquired business degree and the valuable knowledge which she imbibed during the process. Alex was so happy to hear about it that he participated actively in helping us set this from the ground up. He was even ready to invest in this with no limits and I had to do a hard job to prevent him from doing that. Thank God the bank accepted our proposal and agreed without any delay to grant the loan or we would have to depend on Alex again for the capital.

Jenny was like a lunatic for the first couple of weeks with the, ‘I am so happy that I can’t stop smiling face’ and all. She did almost all the work and all I had to do was to supervise the work of the employees who were there to put everything up. I had no idea how to collect all the stuff and the truth that I am not a very people friendly person led her to take the initiative in dealing with all the collecting stuff and travelling. According to her strict instructions all I had to do was to paste a smile on my face, say welcome sir or madam as per the gender of the customers and try to sell off some items saying sweet things about those.

At first I was very restless just like a fish out of water. This was not a comfort zone for me and I had to be very careful in dealing with everything and everyone. Given my clumsiness, Jenny used to blow a fuse whenever I destroyed something unintentionally. For me it was like entering a mine field, I had to be extra careful with where I place my legs, where I place my hands and other body parts and I even had to take extra care in wearing dresses which had nothing long or frilly attached to it to cause serious damage to the glass and ceramic items.

The first couple of months were filled with tension and then slowly the business picked up. We haven’t reached the point of making profits yet but it was enough to pay the installments at the bank without delay and we both were the only staff present to deal with everything. With Alex’s wedding approaching, our sales too got a lift up because of Rene, our latest valuable customer. She had a very large family with a number of under fifteen members in it who was flocking to our town soon to attend her marriage.

Thanks to her kind heartedness she was trying to buy gifts for everyone and that lifted our spirits too. Every one we knew helped us in spreading the publicity which also was a boon to us. We soon got some regular customers in the form of local office staff and such people who always gifted their near and dear ones at birth days and such anniversaries and during the festive months. Alex’s business associates too began to visit because of my participation in it. The building we selected was a good one with its location and space. Jenny already had plans for expanding. She had a cousin who was studying at some high profile culinary school abroad and when he returned, she wanted to open a bakery adjacent to our shop. She was the one to dream high and I agreed to it.

Life was busy and it was going okay as far as I was concerned. Managing the shop and Jenny took most of my energy and all I longed for when I reached home was to fall on my bed face first. Sometimes either Alex or Rene came to wake me up for dinner and the first couple of months went like that. Slowly I began to acclimatize to the busy life and I was no longer too tired when I reached home and the strange fact was that I had started to enjoy spending time at the shop. We decided to name it ‘The Spell’ because Jenny wanted even the name to arouse curiosity in people passing by. Hearing the name Alex laughed till it hurt him and he started to call us the witches.

I was too excited because that day Rhea was coming and JT agreed to pick her up on his way. I hope they both reach here without doing any damage to the other one because both were highly volatile in each other’s presence. Maybe it was their wild side which rubbed off causing all the friction between them.