Stranger Passing By

‘You shouldn’t—’ she began, but those lips were back, tasting faintly of wine, playing with hers until they parted on an admonishing gasp, the arms around her having slipped to her waist. It was no use, she told herself helplessly, she was caught in this stranger’s magnetic field—hadn’t he used it to draw her to him?—and there seemed to be no way in which she could escape.

The music ceased, the dance ended. For a couple of seconds the lights were almost extinguished and only the dark outline of him remained. When they flashed on again he was gone.

* * *

The reappearance of food and drink put new life into the evening.

Maureen patted the seat beside her and Crystal joined her. ‘So pensive,’ Maureen remarked. ‘Won’t be long now, then you can relax. You found a dancing partner, then? The lights were so low that I couldn’t identify the man.’

‘I—what? Oh, yes.’ With a jerk Crystal returned to the present. The stranger’s arms still seemed to be holding her, the imprint of his mouth lingering alarmingly. ‘I enjoyed it,’ she added, quickly enough, she hoped, to avoid further questions, not wishing to talk about something that had become, quite foolishly, she realised, so precious to her.

A man materialised in front of her and her heart leapt, her eyes travelling upwards and bouncing disappointedly off the smiling face.

‘Hi,’ said Roger, holding out a plate and a glass of wine.

How could I have thought, Crystal reproached herself, that the stranger had come back to me? He hadn’t been real; she’d dreamt him up out of her subconscious, she told herself. Wasn’t she too old now to believe that dreams materialised, gained substance, came true?

‘Thanks a lot,’ she responded, accepting Roger’s offerings. ‘Just what I needed to boost my adrenalin for what’s to come.’

‘You won’t believe,’ said Maureen, ‘that this girl’s got butterflies because she’s going on the platform.’

‘I’m Roger Betts, by the way,’ he told Maureen. ‘There’s nothing to it, Crystal. All you need to do up there is—’

‘Shake hands,’ Crystal put in with a laugh, ‘and say thank you nicely. Maureen’s already told me.’

‘They’re assembling on the platform,’ Maureen commented, watching as various attractive-looking items were carried on and placed carefully on the long table behind which chairs had been placed.

Someone stepped to the front of the platform, hand raised for silence. After a few words of welcome and introduction he invited the prize-winners to assemble at the side of the platform. With Maureen’s and Roger’s encouragement ringing in her ears, Crystal followed the man’s instructions.

From where she stood, she heard but could not see the line of company executives filing on to the platform.

‘Know who all those guys are?’ a young man asked her.

Crystal shook her head. ‘I haven’t been with the firm long enough to know.’

‘Nor me,’ the young man answered.

Short speeches were made in voices she could not identify.

‘It is my pleasure to invite,’ the man was saying, ‘the chief executive of Worldview International, which is, as you all know, the parent company of Ornamental You nationwide, to present the prizes. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Mr Brent Akerman.’

As the applause died down names were called, and one by one the people in the group around Crystal ascended the short flight of steps to the platform. The long wait, she realised, only served to increase her apprehension.

‘Miss Crystal Rose.’ Her name rang out, and it was almost with relief that she trod upwards, reaching the platform at last.

In a daze, Crystal walked on, head high, heart racing, and lost her hand in the firm enveloping grip of the man standing at the side of the long table. A smile was ready on her face, the phrase ‘Thank you very much’ waiting to be spoken, but her lips failed to co-operate and the words were never uttered. She found herself staring directly into the eyes of her dancing-partner.

His lips moved and Crystal knew he was addressing her, and she forced herself to concentrate on his words.

‘Miss Rose,’ he was saying, ‘represents the branch of Ornamental You in this city. It is this branch that has achieved the highest sales of all. Miss Rose, we congratulate you and your manager, Miss Maureen Hilson, on your excellent achievement. You are both a credit to Ornamental You, not to mention Worldview International.’

With care he held aloft a crystal rose bowl, a beautiful object from which the light danced, refracting the colours of the spectrum. From all around there were sighs of admiration.

‘Never has there been,’ under cover of the sound came the words, to her and her alone, ‘a more appropriate prize, both in name and in beauty.’ Then the mask of detachment on Brent Akerman’s face was back in place, the smile neutral and totally professional.

As if from a million miles Crystal heard the applause. Descending the steps, she sank on to the seat between Maureen and Roger. Wonderingly she gazed up at the man from whom she had accepted the prize. Had she really discovered him behind the scenes, quite unselfconsciously devouring a scratch meal, which he’d offered to share with her? No, it just couldn’t have happened.

On the other hand, she thought, although she hadn’t invented the man himself, surely she had dreamed up everything else that had happened between them earlier that evening?

Yet, she pondered, if it had all been a dream, how was it that, when she closed her eyes, she could still feel the touch of his lips on hers, see the warmth of his smile and the moving lights reflected in his eyes? And in her mind experience all over again the incomparable sensation of dancing in his arms?

CHAPTER TWO

TWO weeks later Crystal arrived, as she always did, half an hour before Ornamental You was due to open. For once Maureen was there before her, reading a letter, a frown creasing her brow.

‘You’ve got one too, Crystal,’ she murmured. ‘I’ve been through this three times, but I still can’t work out what it’s all about.’

Crystal, experiencing an unaccountable feeling of foreboding, slit open the envelope that was addressed to her. Ever since Mick Temple’s letter had arrived out of the blue two years ago, telling her that their friendship was over because he’d found another girl, Crystal’s equilibrium had gone into the switchback mode every time an unexpected letter had come through her door.

But this wasn’t her door she had just closed behind her, it was the shop’s, which just had to mean that this official-looking communication in her hands meant business.

‘What do you make of it?’ Maureen asked, reading her missive yet again.

‘“Your presence is required—”’ Crystal read aloud ‘—note that word “required”, not “requested”—’ she pointed out ‘“—at a meeting of employees of the Ornamental You group of stores in Ye Olde Oak Tree Hotel, at seven-thirty p.m. on—”’ She counted on her fingers. ‘That’s only two days’ time. Too bad,’ she replaced the letter in its envelope, ‘if you’re booked for that evening. Are you going?’

‘Of course,’ Maureen answered. ‘It comes from Head Office. It’s like a royal command, isn’t it?’

‘Oh, dear,’ Crystal remarked, waving a feather duster over the varied stock displayed attractively around the shop.

‘Why are you assuming,’ Maureen returned, doing likewise, ‘it’s bad news? Might be the opposite.’

Crystal looked at the sparkling rose bowl that she and Maureen had won for highest sales. It stood in pride of place on a central revolving stand, the shop’s lights angled so as to glance with brilliant colour off its many facets. She couldn’t explain to Maureen, nor even to herself, why that letter they had each received seemed to bode ill rather than the opposite.

‘You mean, an announcement of an expansion of the business?’ Crystal asked. ‘But didn’t you tell me that they’d recently done that?’

‘That’s true. Oh, dear,’ Maureen added as she turned the ‘closed’ notice to ‘open’. The shop door pinged and two customers entered, wandering round.

* * *

‘STAFF MEETING ORNAMENTAL YOU‘, the blackboard in the hotel’s entrance foyer announced. ‘WOODLAND ROOM. THIS FLOOR.’

Maureen entered first, peering round the door. Voices welcomed her by name, smiles and nods greeting Crystal. Most of them Crystal recognised from the prize-giving dinner.

Roger Betts stood and beckoned to them.

‘You go,’ said Maureen. ‘I’ll have a word with some of the others.’

Seats were filling fast as Crystal took her place beside Roger. ‘Nice to see you again,’ he said. ‘I’ve been thinking of ringing you at work, but—well,’ he coloured a little, ‘I couldn’t quite summon up the necessary cheek to ask.’