Charity Shop Job

It’s amazing what I have learned about society by being the quiet old bat who works in my local charity shop. I may look like some unassuming, hunched over grandma-type, and I suppose that is why people feel like I would never be able to match up the donated bags of unwanted things, with the folks who bring them into the shop to start off with. However, I am not so absentminded. I used to be a lawyer you know. Even now, playing bridge with my neighbour Marge keeps my mind sharp. Which is why I’m able to read people pretty easily now-a-days. 

For example, the big butch guy down the local rugby club may seem like a jumped up, beer swilling Casanova, but secretly he enjoys cross dressing. Who else would have handed in those size 13 sparkly red heels? And the lovely lady who lives in the modest cottage in the middle of the village, is either addicted to cocaine and gets so high she doesn’t recall that she leaves the packets in her donated cardies, or is an ardent baker who measures her flour out in tiny plastic bags...

I have so much experience now I can just tell what sort of a person you are as soon as you step into my shop. I do not even need to look in the bag. The person’s demeanour says it all. Quiet and sheepish there is generally a secret in that bag that is just waiting to be uncovered. Head held high and laden down with bags, that donor is clearly starting a complete overhaul of their life due to:

a)    Meeting a new sweetheart

b)   Dumping an old sweetheart

c)    Both of the above

It is really quite that simple. 

I was not, I must say, fully prepared for it however. The day when Maya Whittering waltzed into my shop. Brazen and bold with dark red lipstick and legs up to here…

“Hello there” she began in a friendly tone “What a wonderful array of items you have here” and she walked around the shop energetically, gesturing to a sparkly sequinned dress I had just put out. 

I could tell she didn’t need to buy from charity shops straight away. The Armani coat and fresh blow dry told me that. But I have to admit that I was quite disarmed by her bright face, perfect makeup and general pleasant countenance. 

“Was there anything in particular you have come in for dear?” I asked. She stopped scanning the rail of dresses, turned to look at me and then replied radiantly “Well actually…wouldn’t you know it…I’ve come in looking for a job.” 

I paused. Which she took as reluctance. “Of course, I am very reliable and I can work on Sundays. I imagine no one willingly volunteers to work on Sundays.” She blushed as if she had just said something out of line considering that it was a Sunday and I seemed perfectly happy behind the sales counter. I quite liked her directness.

“Well dear, we are always looking for people to lend a hand and it would be fantastic to have someone tall to reach the top shelves.”

She smiled warmly which made me want to smile back with all the happiness I had inside of me. 

“Are you new to the area dear?” I asked. I had not seen her around before and I tended to know the main characters in the village. 

“No, no. I have just moved back. It is so gorgeous here. I have been away for a long time travelling, but the whole while I couldn’t get this place and the surrounding valleys out of my mind. I grew up just down the road, near White Park if you know it? My parents were the Jones’ who lived in the Green house at the end?” She looked at me expectantly. It was clear then that she thought the world of her parents and they must have been big people in the community for her to assume I knew them too. So instead of hurting her feelings I nodded, mimicking her own nodding head. 

She seemed as vulnerable as a puppy and I was instantly taken to her, willing to house train her in the ways of the charity shop world. She started in the shop that same day, shrugging off her Armani coat and rolling up the sleeves of her silk shirt to get stuck in. We had a whale of a time for the first week. Maya chatted a lot and was also a keen listener. She wanted to know all about my life and what I did in my spare time. 

Working in a charity shop for so long, the pleasantries with customers never usually get beyond the weather and finding them the matching candle stick holder to the one they would be gesturing violently at me with. This woman, Maya, was clearly lonely as she seemed to be hooked on my every word. I told her about my weekly bridge tournaments with Marge and how I had two children who I saw very rarely since they had left Somerset and moved across the world to Sydney decades ago to be with their father. I mentioned how my arthritis was playing up and I could really do with the kids around now to help out managing the house I lived in on my own. I say lived in, I now only occupy three rooms in the ginormous place: the kitchen, bathroom and my bedroom; whilst the other rooms all begin to gather dust. After my marriage to Ken, the kids’ father, went sour; I then went on to marry Damian, a then colleague of mine at the local law practice. Damian went on to be a partner of the firm, of course, I wouldn’t marry any old fruit. 

Unfortunately, by the time Damian and I had found each other and settled down, the opportunity for more children had passed and so we rambled happily on, just the two of us; as we slowly moved reluctantly into our twilight age. Damian, in fact, passed away a few weeks before Maya entered my life. Nothing dramatic. Just old age that took him in his sleep. It was therefore nice to have someone new and young to talk to. Marge was great but she did a habit of falling asleep mid story or looking at my cards whilst I was distracted getting to my punch line. 

Naturally Maya and I got on so well I invited her over to mine a few days after meeting her. She did seem ever so lonely and new to the village I thought I would show her some neighbourly hospitality. That and the fact she could do with putting a few pounds on her very slim thighs. I invited her around for a hearty dinner. Excited to prove myself as the food connoisseur I once was, I nipped to the local co-op next door to pick up the meat and veg. 

Beef stroganoff was on the menu and as I mixed the hot saucepan and straightened my outfit, I awaited the doorbell. Maya was on time as usual. She really was extremely reliable. She came in and poured us both a large glass of red and then she sat herself on the kitchen top chatting whilst I added the sour cream and parsley to finish up the dish. She was wearing a very sparkly dress I was sure looked familiar, but I couldn’t place it. 

Maya then excused herself to nip to the loo whilst I dished up and laid the table. It was a while later she came back. I was already sat at the table, having served up the food and almost having finished the glass of red, when she walked back into the room as if she had only been gone a moment. 

“What a glorious home you have” Maya exclaimed jubilantly

“Thank you, it does all seem slightly redundant now that it’s just me” I replied slightly miserably. I looked down at my meal so as not to give anything away. I heard footsteps on the gravel outside. I hoped Maya had been too distracted looking up at the gold chandelier over my dining room table to notice. 

Our show was coming to an end and I would miss Maya. Another footstep a crack, someone standing on a twig outside. I spoke so as to cover up the noise. “They say that chandelier comes from the palace of Queen Victoria.” I gestured to the ceiling. Maya raised her eyebrows with excitement and so I continued “Apparently Victoria had it taken down following the Crimean war when she realised it was created by a Russian workman years before.” I paused awkwardly. Suddenly bright lights came streaming through the front windows, I had been told not to close the curtains in the dining room and now I understood why. 

Maya looked startled. She wasn’t supposed to be there. It was all so surreal. I was not one for crime or thriller films and therefore I was not ready for what came next. 

“We know you’re in there” a voice from outside said. It had been amplified over some sort of speaker system. “Come out quietly with your hands up and you won’t be hurt”. Maya looked over at me alarmed, as though they were speaking to me. Her wide eyes, frightened and her body started to shake.

“You horrible old cow” She sang “What have you done?” Her face contorted into a twisted smile. “Oh you have no idea who you have messed with” she advanced towards me, knife and fork in her hands. I started, even in my heyday I would not have been able to outrun this carnivore. Quick as a flash a high pitched siren started outside, momentarily stopping Maya mid attack. It was that moment I needed to duck below the table as I had been instructed if she would not go quietly. A second later I heard one single shot and Maya fell with a thud to the floor. She had been shot through my dining room glass windows. 

My whole body shaking, I could not move. I lay there for what felt like hours, half petrified, half unable to move my legs because of the arthritis mingled with shock. I shrieked as I was hauled up gently by a police woman in a bullet proof vest and helmet. I didn’t look back at Maya, afraid of what I might see, as I was pulled from my home. 

I was taken straight to hospital where I was checked over by a woman in a white coat. I could barely see or hear her as I was thinking long and hard about if there was another way I could have changed the conclusion with frantic Maya. I kept forgetting her final outburst which, for me, seemed completed out of character. I stayed that night in the hospital and, to my surprise, slept the entire way through. I woke up refreshed thinking about the visit I had received a few weeks before…

Detective Inspector Pepper had walked straight into my charity shop as I was putting out the latest donation of size 13 glittery platforms on the shelf. I fussed around, not quite ready to be completely pleasant to customers yet. It had only been two days since I had put Damian to rest. The DI walked straight up to me and gently touched my arm. The warm feel of her hand on my sleeve made me immediately judge her as someone I could trust. She mentioned that she was extremely sorry for my loss, she had personally worked with Damian when he represented a few unfortunate youths who had been arrested a few years before. She reminisced about Damian commanding the entire courtroom as he got those two youths off the hook and now they were both in training to become police constables themselves. It was my first smile since finding Damian in his bed on that cold, dark morning. DI Pepper asked me to close the shop and took me out the back to make a cup of tea. She then proceeded to tell me that I was vulnerable. They had received some insider information on a woman named Rachel Hamilton who went by a pseudonym of Maya Whittering. About how this Maya/Rachel woman was a con artist, focussed on extracting money from rich widows by befriending them and then going to their house, searching through their recent post, and finding the details to their bank accounts, security safes, anything else you name it. She had even been accused of stealing silver ornaments straight out of the house of one widow. However, whilst the evidence was stacking up against Maya, they needed to catch her in the act to have her put away forever.

I suddenly felt alive, adrenaline running for the first time in years, and happy to be given a purpose. I had been so bereft from losing Damian, my number one reason to be alive. And so, when Maya walked into my shop, ostensibly you would not think too much about her. But I now knew better…