This is my own little romantic fiction story that I’m making up as I go along and that you all seem to be enjoying. If you have missed the beginning, you can read part 1 here and part 2 here.

Here is part 3. Hope you enjoy it 🙂 Please comment if you would like more.

I’m waiting on the bus with my hand in my pocket clutching the little pink envelope.  I have to keep touching it so I know that it’s real. My stomach is churning as I get on the bus. I feel guilty, like one of the other passengers is going to realise that I am clutching Adrian Axel’s mobile number in my hand and call me out on it. I find a seat near the back and contemplate texting my sister. Robyn needs to know about this, she will know what to do. I think better of it though, patience is not one of her virtues and  as soon as she read my text she would just call me with a bunch of questions that I don’t want to answer on the bus.  I gaze out of the window wondering if Adrian Axel is expecting my call.

Robyn is finally home, she got home an hour after I did but it was a long  hour. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve read the card from Adrian Axel. I think I know his mobile number by heart now.

Robyn walks in to the kitchen and I hand her a cup of tea. She takes a sip, eyes me over the cup and says ‘Spill’. She knows me well.

‘He sent me flowers’ I tell her, handing over the little pink message.

She reads it quickly and then puts her cup down and heads out of the kitchen.

‘Robyn!?  Where are you going? I could use some advice y’know.’ I say huffily , following her into my bedroom.

She scans my room.

‘Where are the flowers?’

‘Well…’

I explain how Samantha’s interference led to my flowers going home with Mel.

‘We’ll have to get her back for that.’ Robyn says simply once I have finished my Samantha  story. My big sister is a big fan of the ‘don’t get mad, get even’ philosophy. After placing Samantha firmly on her mental blacklist she turns her attention back to the matter at hand.

‘I need to know what the flowers looked like.’ She says, taking a seat on my bed.

‘Why?’

‘Because the card sounds pretty flirty, it’s not a bog-standard ‘Thank you’ card, and it has his number on it. He wants you to call him, so he probably wants to see you again. What type of flowers did he send you? Were they roses? How big was the bouquet?’

Robyn fancies herself quite the detective, but she’s never given me bad advice before so I answer her questions.

‘I don’t know what they were, definitely not roses, but a mixture of all different flowers, mostly pink, purple and white ones. I didn’t pay them much attention. The bouquet was quite big.’

‘Roses would have been easier to read but he sent you flowers and gave you his number. He is not just thanking you for doing your job. You have to call him.’

‘ No. I can’t. You know I can’t. He’s Adrian Axel. What am I supposed to say to him? ‘Hi Adrian, about those 20 questions…’ No. I don’t think so. I’ll say something stupid.  What if this is what celebrities do to say thanks. What if he gave me his number so I can ask for tickets to one of his film premiers or something?’

‘Stop over thinking it. He’s a guy, he gave you, a girl, his number. He’s interested in you. It’s that simple.’

‘If it’s that simple, why does it matter what type of flowers he sent me?’

‘I just wanted to know if they were roses, it doesn’t really matter. Give me your mobile.’

‘No.’

‘It’s not like I’m  going to just ring up Adrian Axel Wren, give me your phone, you’re going to text him. Well technically I’m going to text him because it will take you ages to figure out what to say and then you will want me to read it over before you send it anyway.  So I’m saving us sometime and skipping a step. Give me your phone.’

‘Ok, but let me read it before you send it.’

‘Deal.’

I give her my mobile and she has one last quick read over the card before typing my message.

‘Done.’ She says handing the phone to me.

I look at the screen, but I only see the number from the card and the calling symbol. I just have time to glare at Robyn who gives me her Cheshire cat smile and then I hear a very famous voice.

‘Who’s this?’ it says brusquely.

‘Uh.. Hi. It’s Wren, I mean Mel, Mel from ‘The Barn’. I mean, you think my name is Mel but it’s actually Wren… uhhh, I’m the girl who dressed you in a tracksuit and Burberry cap.’

‘Did you like the flowers?’

‘yeah, they were really nice. Thank you.’

‘Where is good to eat in Glasgow?’

What!?

‘Umm, China Buffet King?’

‘OK, Meet me there at 9.’

He hung up.

He hung up on me! And asked/ordered me to dinner. I think. I don’t know what to think. I don’t know what to do. Actually I do know what to do.

‘Get out of my room Robyn.’

‘Need some time to swoon? She says, sauntering by me, Cheshire cat grin still all over her face. She knows that I’m mad at her but she doesn’t care. ‘ I’m going to have a potnoodle and then I’ll do your hair for you.’ she calls on her way to kitchen. Robyn is a hairdresser.

I flop onto my bed and stare at the ceiling. I don’t know if I’m thrilled or infuriated . I stare at the glow in the dark stars stuck to the ceiling and replay  my conversation with Adrian Axel in my head. I decide that I’m infuriated. I’m not going to dinner with him.

I order a Chinese and turn off my phone.

Thanks for reading. Feedback would be appreciated 🙂

Well you seemed to like the first snippet of this story so here is the next part. If you would like to read the first installment, you can find it here :

https://beautyandthebestoftherest.com/2012/07/05/when-a-hollywood-megastar-walks-in-to-your-place-of-work/

Samantha corners me the minute she is finished serving her last customer. I’m just logging off my till when she confronts me.

‘Was that who I thought it was that you took downstairs?’ She asks; hand on my arm like we’re best buds.

‘Depends on who you thought it was.’ I say without looking up

‘Was it Adrian Axel?’  She says Adrian Axel very slowly and succinctly, like I have hearing problems.

‘Yeah it was him’ I reply, walking towards the staff room.

‘Oh my God! It’s not fair! I’ve been here a year and a half without anything interesting happening and you’re here three days and you’re showing a Hollywood God around.

I smile smugly to myself.

‘What was he like? What did he say? Why the hell was he dressed so badly when he left? Did he give you a tip?’

Oh, so that’s it. She thinks that she has missed out on the chance of easy money. I’m tempted to tell her that he gave me a huge tip but I think better of it.

‘Why would he give me a tip? I’m a shop assistant, people don’t tip shop assistants.’

She regains some of her icy Samantha composure at this. Samantha doesn’t like me. It would just boil her blood if I got to meet a megastar and he tipped me.

‘Oh that’s a shame, maybe the next time a celebrity comes in you’ll give them better service.’  She replies, smiling at me sweetly. Bitch.

‘Maybe next time a celebrity comes in, you’ll manage to get there first.’ I say, putting on my jacket and smiling just as sweetly. I put my bag over my shoulder and stroll out of the staffroom leaving her still trying to think up her next dig. I’m feeling smug just now but I know that she will be hell to work with tomorrow.

I don’t know why she doesn’t like me. Since I started at ‘The Barn’, the only things that she has said to me have been thinly veiled insults and digs. She seems to get along with everyone else just fine so I’m guessing she’s not completely horrible. For some reason I just rub her up the wrong way.  It might be because Sean and I get along well, he’s been showing me the ropes, but I’m not sure.

By the time that I decide that I simply don’t care why Samantha hates me I’m already at Union Street waiting on my bus.  I get out my mobile and start to text my sister.

‘You will never guess what happened…’

————————————————————————————————-

It’s  eight a.m and I’m standing at the bus stop waiting to go to work.  I sigh thinking that today is going to be very boring compared to yesterday. I had a look on Google last night and found out that Adrian Axel has indeed been filming in Edinburgh. Not any more though, apparently yesterday was the last day of filming. He’ll be off back to Hollywood in no time.  Too bad. I fish my busfare out of my purse when I see the bus approaching.

The first person that I see in work is Mel so I won’t be wearing her badge today. I met her briefly on my first day on Monday but she was off sick after that. Callum decided that that meant that I would be Mel while he waited on my I.D badge arriving. Having customers know your name promotes a friendlier atmosphere apparently. True as that may be, when they are calling me by someone else’s name I don’t seem very friendly, I just seem a bit slow. I keep thinking ‘who are they talking to?’

I dump my stuff into my locker and Mel offers to make me a cup of tea. We still have ten minutes before our shift starts.

‘So Wren, did anything interesting happen while I was gone?’ She asks, handing me a steaming hot cup.

‘Actually it did…’

————————————————————————————————-

It’s ten to two and the day has dragged slowly by without incident, I’ve just finished lunch and I’m getting ready to get back to work. I check the queue as I pass the tills on my way to the staffroom to dump my coat and bag. It’s not too busy so I won’t be expected to go on before two. I can have a quick cup of tea.  I walk into the staffroom to see Samantha frowning over a gorgeous bunch of flowers on the table.

‘What’s with the flowers?’ I ask.

‘Oh Mel’s boyfriend sent them, y’know, because she was sick.’ She says still frowning at them.

‘Don’t you like them?’

‘hmm? Oh I just think they’re a bit O.T.T, she was only off for 2 days’ she says bitterly. ‘Anyway, shouldn’t you be back on the tills?’

We both know that I have a good ten minutes left but I humour her. I would rather go back to work early than sit in the staffroom with her anyway.

A minute or so later, I log on to my till.  There is no one in the queue so I wander over to Mel’s till.

‘I saw you’re flowers, they’re gorgeous’

‘Thanks, I haven’t had a proper look at them yet, I’m not on lunch until two thirty, did you see a card? I don’t know who they’re from.  It was busy when the delivery guy came in so he just came up to the tills, said ‘these are for Mel’ and put them down at the back wall.’

‘Samantha said they were from your boyfriend, some kind of get well thing, she put them on the table in the staffroom.’

A customer came up to Mel’s till then so I went back to my own, exchanged a few words with Sean, and then we were kept busy until closing time.

I’m in the staff room getting ready to go home. Mel and Samantha are chatting about Mel’s flowers while Sean looks on bored. He’s waiting for Samantha. They get the subway together. Lauren has already left. I’m re-doing my hair into a pony-tail at the mirror in my locker while listening to the flower conversation.

‘There’s no card.’ Mel says, examining the flowers. She looks at Samantha expectantly, ‘You said they were from Ross?’

With a last tug to tighten my pony-tail I turn around to see Samantha shrug.

‘I just assumed that they would be from him, who else would send you flowers?’ She replies buttoning her coat.

‘You should call Ross and find out’ says Sean, heading to the toilet.

Not interested anymore I take my bag from locker and sling it over my shoulder and close the locker. My bag buzzes. I take my mobile out and see that I have a message from Sean. That’s very weird since the only Sean I know is in the staffroom toilet. I read the message. It just says ‘Wait here’.

I open my locker again and take my umbrella out even though it’s not raining, then I find some lip gloss and start slowly and meticulously applying it in front of the mirror on the inside of my locker door.

Sean emerges from the toilet and Mel hangs up on Ross.

‘He says they’re not from him.’ She says eyeing in the flowers quizzically.

‘Oh well, you must have a secret admirer then.’ Samantha says impatiently. ‘Come on Sean let’s go’

‘I’ll meet you at the subway Samantha, I need to have a quick word with Wren.’  Sean replies, taking a seat next to the flowers.

Samantha raises an eyebrow at him but stalks out. Mel gives us both a quick smile, picks up her mysterious flowers and heads off home.

‘What’s up’ I ask, putting my lip gloss back in my bag.

Sean stands up and heads over to the sink.

‘I think those flowers might have been for you’ he says, opening the cutlery drawer.

‘What makes you think that?’

He lifts out the cutlery tray and rummages around for something before replying.

‘You’ve been wearing Mel’s name tag and you got up close and personal with a celeb yesterday.’

My stomach flips, Adrian Axel, Hollywood megastar, might have sent me, Wren Cooper, shop assistant, flowers.

‘Got it.’ Sean says, holding up a little silver key. He walks over to Samantha’s locker and opens it while I watch on in confusion.

‘It’s a master key’ he explains, ‘Callum showed me where he kept it when I forgot my key for the third day in a row.’

He starts rummaging around in Samantha’s locker as if it is the most natural thing in the world to be doing and then he pulls something small and pink out.

‘I knew it!’ he exclaims holding the small pink thing out to me. ‘Samantha really has it in for you Wren, what did you do?’

I shrug, taking what turns out to be a small envelope from his hand. It’s addressed to ‘Mel’ and it has been opened already. I pull the card out from the envelope. It reads;

                     Thanks for your help Mel. You can ask me 20 questions anytime.

                     ~The Michelin Man

 

It has his mobile number on it. I am holding Adrian Axel’s mobile number in my hand. I stare at it until Sean interrupts me.

‘Well?’ he says, looking at me expectantly.

‘You were right, the flowers were for me.’ I reply looking back down at the card.

‘And?’

‘They were from Adrian Axel.’

If you want to read the next part let me know. I’m not sure if my lovely readers will lose patience with story clogging up the blog so I would appreciate some feedback.

Thanks for checking out my blog 🙂

Ok, ok it didn’t happen in real life,  this is my attempt at fiction writing, let me know  what you think and if you would like to read more. I just started this tonight.

‘What do you mean I can’t have a refund? Get me your manager!’

Thank God. ‘I’ll get my supervisor for you, just a moment’

It’s only my third day at ‘The Barn’ and none of the other department store victims have shown me how to do a refund yet so I wouldn’t know how to give the short angry blonde woman in front of me a  refund even if she was entitled to it, which she isn’t, at ‘The Barn’ earrings are non-returnable. End of.

Now I have to call Callum, my scary supervisor. Well he’s not that scary; it’s just that after three days  he is getting tired of my constant questions so I’ve been trying to avoid him. At least I’m not technically the problem this time. I feel sorry for him, Mrs.Short, Blonde and Angry is going to give him an earful. I can hear her huffing and puffing behind me while I walk to the phone.

 ‘Supervisor needed at level one cash point’

Callum arrives from wherever he was lurking and Mrs.Short, Blonde and Angry is his problem now. If there was another till free I’d have to go on that as there is a growing queue but the three tills beside mine are occupied so I have a few minutes to myself and nothing to do but stand beside Callum and watch the queue grow.  As I’m watching, a tall blonde man strides up and starts pushing his way to the front.  Someone is not a happy chappy. At least Callum is already here, this guy is definitely going to be a complainer.  He’s barged his way to the front now and I can see him properly, he looks really familiar.

Oh God.

‘I need a jacket, right now, where are they?’

Callum doesn’t have a minute to spare for anymore rude customers, Mrs.Short, Blonde and Angry is going on about consumer rights and slams the earrings on the counter to emphasise whatever point she is making.  I quickly look to the three tills on my left and Sean, Lauren and Samantha are all busy. As I’m looking at her , Samantha looks up at the megastar in front of us and I see recognition dawn on her face, that is what spurs me into action.  I step out from behind the till.

‘Menswear is on the bottom floor, this way.’

I turn and walk towards the escalators not daring to look behind me and see if Mr. Hollywood Royalty himself  is following me.  I can hear the people in the queue muttering about the rude man who pushed his way to the front, but by some miracle they haven’t recognised him yet. Maybe it isn’t him after all. I reach the escalator and peek behind me and heart jumps into my throat again. Nope, no mistake. That is the one and only Adrian Axel. Right behind me.

Where are the jackets again? The corner, yeah they’re in the left hand corner of the menswear floor, next to the changing rooms.  I stride confidently towards the changing rooms with Mr. Megastar behind me but my mind is at warp-speed. What do I do when I get to the jackets? Do I just leave him there? Do I ask what style he is looking for? What the hell is Adrian Axel doing at ‘The Barn’ anyway? Do I act like I don’t recognise him? Do I ask for his autograph? Out of time, we’ve reached the jackets.

I turn with a smile on my face, still not sure what I’m going to say but Mr. Axel takes the lead.

‘I just want a jacket, not twenty questions.’ He says with his hand up to me, presumably to fend off the twenty questions I was about to ask him. It takes me a moment to decide whether I’m angry at his rudeness or disappointed that he isn’t the way he seems in the movies. I settle on angry.

‘Well I hope you don’t have any questions about the jackets’ I hiss and stalk away. I’m cringing. Questions about the jackets? I could have said something better than that surely. How many questions can you even ask about jackets?

‘Wait! Sorry! I can’t pay for this’

I turn around and he is holding up a blue suit jacket with a £70 price tag on it. What Hollywood megastar can’t afford a £70 jacket?

‘I mean, I can’t queue up and pay for it’

Oh this just gets better and better, well too bad famous boy, your queuing. I don’t bother telling him that though, I just turn back around and start walking away again. A few seconds later there is hand tugging on my arm and I’m looking up into one of the most gorgeous faces in the world. In fact, I’m pretty sure his face is the most gorgeous face in the world, y’know according to one of those gossipy magazine lists.

 ‘Listen, (pause while he looks at my name tag) Mel, just give me a minute to explain. I’m filming in Edinburgh but I’m staying at a hotel here in Glasgow to keep the paparazzi off the scent. But my car broke down just outside the city and I had to take the subway. When I got off at St.Enoch there were papparazi waiting for me. I’ve lost them for the moment but they’ll catch up and I want a different jacket so that I can try to get to my hotel without being seen. It’s so irritating when they know which hotel you’re staying in. I don’t want to queue up to pay for my jacket because it will cause a commotion and they will know where I am, plus I’d rather leave via the back door if you have one.  So, can you please help me Mel?’

Oh no. I’m going to start laughing, more than that I’m going to burst. I look up into his gorgeous earnest face and I just can’t help it, I erupt into fits of laughter.

He’s still holding my arm when I calm down, still searching my face to see if I’m going to help him, it makes me feel bad for laughing so much. I pull myself together.

‘Sorry, it’s just that I can’t imagine you, Adrian Axel on the subway in Glasgow, and you’re in total secret agent mode like in one of your films, but your only trying to escape the paparazzi, not an assassin or something, and to make your big clever escape you’ve picked a suit jacket just like the one you’re wearing just now, only in blue instead of black. That won’t make one bit of difference.’

Oops, I’ve annoyed him now, clearly Adrian Axel does not like being laughed at, he drops my arm and strides back over to the jackets, shoving the suit jacket back on its rail. Then he’s looking at me again.

‘Ok Mel, what would you suggest?’

Oh.

I scan the lines of jackets and then spot the perfect one. A white bomber jacket.  It will make him look like the Michelin man, not like Adrian Axel. I tell him that as I give it to him and tell him to wait in the changing the rooms while I get the rest of his outfit sorted. Who would have thought I would be dressing Adrian Axel on my third day at ‘The Barn’?  Not only am I dressing Adrian Axel, but I’m dressing him like a Ned. Well it is Glasgow and he wants to blend in to the crowd. I come back to the changing rooms with a pair of trainers, a pair of tracksuit bottoms and burberry cap. No one will ever believe me when I tell them this.

By some miracle this floor has remained empty the whole time we’ve been down here.  ‘The Barn’ closes at 5pm and it’s 4.50pm just now so maybe that has something to do with it. When Adrian Axel the Ned emerges from the changing rooms, I lead him over to the menswear pay point and give him a plastic bag to put his suit and shoes in. Then he pays £170 cash for his new ensemble.

‘I’ve just started here and to be honest I don’t know if there is a back door, I suppose there must be but I don’t know where it is. No one will recognise you now anyway, not if you keep the cap on, so you can just walk right out the front door.’  I say while leading him back to the escalators, he just nods, adjusting his burberry cap.

We travel up to the womenswear floor in silence. The queue is even bigger and Callum is glowering at me from the minute I step off the escalator. One look at his face tells me that I’m in BIG trouble.

I turn back to Mr Hollywood Ned and point him in the direction of the exit.

‘I have to go; my boss is going to kill me, Good Luck.’ I say, already scurrying towards a very angry Callum.

‘Ok, I’ll see you later Mel’  he says before striding towards the exit.

I manage to get all the way to Callum before realising that I didn’t tell Adrian Axel my real name.

‘Where the hell have you been Wren! Look at the queue!’ Callum glowers at me, stepping aside to let me log back on to my till.

I look at the queue and realise that there is no way that I will be finished by five.

So if you would like some more let me know in the comments section and I will make this a regular feature. Thanks for checking out my blog 🙂