Mabel's entire body thrummed with energy as she surged through her morning routine. 'Ok, calm down. You don't have the job yet, even though you should have the job, and you will, but you don't, so CALM DOWN. Right. There's no sense getting worked up.' Far too early, she was ready, feet encased in her favorite work boots, her sturdy plain dress hugging her curves. It was a fine line, looking good but not too good, and Mabel had it down to a science.
Too early for Mrs. F's breakfast, she snuck some bread out of the kitchen and grabbed her hat and purse. Maybe the walk would calm her down. She found herself at the steps leading to the still and took a few calming breaths. She could do this. She squared her shoulders and headed up.
Surprisingly, the lamps were lit in Alfie's office. She'd expected an early shift to be in swing but thought she'd just get acquainted with the layout and confirm some of her guesses she'd written down yesterday. Well, if the man himself was available, she might as well find out if it was worth the trouble.
Alfie's gruff, "What the fuck is it?" answered her knock, and she let herself in. He was hunched over working on something but glanced up when she entered. Then he tossed his glasses on the pile that was his desk before leaning back and propping his feet up.
"So, Ms. Ziemann. Fosters of Lincoln, eh? S'a pretty big place to be foreman."
"Yes, sir, although we always called it 'The Mill'. I can assure you, sir, that my work speaks for itself. I was foreman there for two years over the agricultural machin..."
"Oh, shut up, shut up," Alfie flapped a hand at her. "That's not what I need to know."
Mabel hesitated. "O...kay."
"What I need to know is...can you get me a tank?"
Mabel laughed. Then she watched Alfie's eyes stare steadily into hers. Clearly he wasn't kidding. She cleared her throat.
"I...will see what I can do. Sir."
"Fabulous. Now that we have the most important bit out of the way, day shift starts at 7 am. You'll be on a trial basis until I decide if you're worth paying, and your desk will be out on the floor. Ollie will show you around. You're here early, so you can get started on paperwork right away, he's not here anyway and there's enough here to keep us busy until the savior comes, so have at." He started stacking papers, mindless of any order, just obviously eager to get rid of them.
"Thank you, Mr. Solomons, that sounds perfect. Except, of course for the part where you're not going to pay me, and I'll need to know where I can move my desk so it's not on the floor. Otherwise, we are on exactly the same page." Mabel smiled sweetly and held her hand out for the stack of papers.
"Ah, fuck, I don't care where you move it. You're not gonna bother me with shite like this, are ya?"
"Of course not, sir," she said, accepting the stack. "Also, here is the minimum wage I'd be willing to accept during this trial period, and the length of time I expect it will last. Beyond that, we'll have to discuss." She slid a slip of paper from her pocket over the desk to him.
He eyed the paper then picked it up to look at it closer. "What the fuck is that? No, no, no, you'll get maybe half of that and you'll like it." He spun the slip through the air back at her.
"Oh," Mabel said, looking sadly at the ground. She regretfully slid the stack of papers back into Alfie's hands and sighed dramatically. "Well, it was a good run. I've really enjoyed my time here in your...office. I hope we can do it again sometime."
"Now...wait a minute, woman, wait a minute." Alfie glared at her, shoving the papers back at her. "Come on! You're not going to give me any budge on that number?! Damn it, that's just...that's cruel is what that is." He gave up trying to get her to take the papers and threw them on his desk instead. "Fuck, and people call me heartless."
Mabel fought off the urge to laugh and returned his glare coolly. She sighed again. "Mr. Solomons, sir, I am worth every farthing of the money listed there, plus quite a few more that I am not charging you. If you cannot come up with at least three-quarters of that, well, I'm afraid you won't get to have me be cruel to you ever again."
For a second, heat flashed in Alfie's eyes at that, so fast she wasn't sure she saw it at all and then he carefully narrowed them at her. He stared silently for a few seconds. "Two-thirds."
"Six-eighths," she countered.
Alfie's grin spread unhindered across his bearded face. "Well, fuck." He threw his hands up. "Fine!" he declared. "Shortest negotiation of my natural life. My father is rolling in his grave right now, I just want you to know that. On pain of death, this does not leave this office, yeah?"
"Yeah, boss." She matched his grin wholeheartedly, spit on her palm and clapped it to his.
The first few days on the job passed by in a whirl of names, faces, procedures, and safety precautions. Say what you want about illegal distilleries, they're more flammable than anything she'd worked in before and she wasn't letting any disasters happen on her watch.
Occasionally she'd sense Alfie's eyes on her, but couldn't pin him down long enough to eye him back, let alone talk to him. He was the least of her concerns because he wasn't wrong about needing a new foreman. She found herself staying late and coming in early, just to try and make a dent in the backlog of work she'd faced. She knew she had Alfie himself to thank for the mountains of paperwork that sluiced her way, a flood she knew wouldn't stop on its own anytime soon. Fortunately, as she got to know the crew a little better, she found a refreshing number of people she genuinely liked, and could be trusted to pick up additional tasks. She took it upon herself to make small changes, and as she didn't hear anything back from the man upstairs, a few bigger ones. Oh, she didn't have any delusions that she was pulling any wool over Alfie's eyes, but thus far he hadn't stopped her and she was grateful for the freedom to make things better.
After the first two weeks, she felt she'd gotten a handle on things well enough that she finally accepted the office girls' offer of a night on the town. She'd been in London long enough and still didn't really feel like she lived there yet. Plus, when Hazel came, she wanted to be able to paint the town, show her the best clubs and enjoy herself again. So she gratefully joined them on their regularly scheduled nights of debauchery and excess and remembered how to breathe. They would grab boys from the floor to take with them, just like back home. Ollie and Abe were regulars, but they seemed to have a ready pool to choose from and while many of the girls wound up "sharing a cab" at the end of the night with the man of their choosing, Mabel wasn't interested in anything outside of drinks and dancing. She wasn't a puritan, far from it, in fact. But she knew the tightrope she had to walk was fine as it was, and any kind of relationship with one of her subordinates was drama she didn't want. 'Maybe someday I'll have a life outside of the still and I'll be able to meet a man that won't bore me stupid inside of ten minutes', she lamented regularly.
Although she'd heard rumors of Alfie's black temper, by week three she finally got to experience one for herself. He could make grown men wet themselves if he wanted, and she wouldn't have been surprised if he'd done so in the past. No one would tell her if it had actually happened, but that didn't stop her from opening a pool to guess the next time it would. She found out later that there was a side pool as to who it was going to be and she patted herself on the back that while her name was in the pool, there weren't many takers. The tongue lashing she and her crew suffered through Tuesday morning was nothing, though, compared to the one she had to face when she went to his office by herself. She'd needed his approval on the new floor plan she'd devised for the layout of barrels, tools, etc, and she'd come prepared to defend her ideas with percentages, facts, and testimonies but didn't even get close to a chance to use them. Alfie's diatribe rolled over her and eventually, when it started to seem very personal, she looked at Ollie for any clues as to where this was coming from. Naturally Alfie noticed her glance at his right-hand man and launched into an even more vicious rant about how he was the boss, not Ollie, and there are rules and how everyone in this town could respect a rule he'd lay down, except apparently, for Mabel Fucking Ziemann, and Mabel eventually tuned it out. She didn't let her wary eyes leave his, though, and she supplied nods and 'Yes, sir's in all the right places while mentally she sifted through her actions for the past three weeks to figure out just what the fuck he was so bloody mad about.
When Alfie paused to breathe, Mabel licked her lips and tucked a curl behind her ear. She had just taken a breath to calm herself when she noticed the look that flashed over Alfie's face. He was staring at her lips like they were his last meal and he couldn't hide the lust and pure want that contorted his handsome features. The look hit her like lightning, but as soon as it had a chance to register and her slow body formulated an appropriate (but not work appropriate) reaction, he had himself under control again and had dismissed her with his standard "Now fuck off."
'Well,' she told herself, 'that should make for an interesting rest of the day. And to think, I'd almost gotten a handle on those horrendously unprofessional dreams I'd been having.'
By Thursday, Mabel had a theory and a plan to test it. Sure, she was a fanciful, silly girl, but...could Alfie Solomons, the Alfie Solomons...want her? Just a little? If it wasn't true, no harm done, but if that look (please, please, don't let me have imagined it) was anything to go by, her guess was that Alfie was in a particularly foul mood because she'd been out with some of the boys from the still the weekend before. Well, she had one more weekend before Hazel came to town, and she was going to enjoy herself. And if she just so happened to keep her eyes and ears open this time, and maybe have an especially good time while looking especially delectable, well, more's the pity for those who don't attend. She made sure it was known where she'd be and when, but also ensured that neither Abe nor Ollie was in attendance this time. If he wanted to know what she was up to, he'd have to work for it.
Friday night, she and her gaggle of friends staggered from one joint to the next, and she didn't notice anything out of the ordinary until she was almost ready to call it a night. Then she spotted Abe, crouched at the bar and scurrying to hunch over his drink in the shadows once he'd gotten it. 'Oh Alfie,' she thought ruefully. 'I'm just a teeny bit disappointed,' as she smiled to herself.
Making sure Abe saw her, she asked one of the gentlemen if he could grab her a cab and then leaned in close to him while they waited. Then, she made it a point to leave alone. She checking the shadows for Abe as she climbed in the cab, but he'd moved and she couldn't spot him. Hmm. She worried her lower lip and debated. She could just go back in, dance a little more and make sure Abe saw her leave...
"Hey, love. In or out, yeah?"
Right. She was a strong, independent woman, and she was being ridiculous. Homeward bound. Hazel's train would be in early tomorrow, and she wanted to be there to meet it.
Alfie was not a patient man. People knew this, hell, everyone knew this. So why the fuck Abe kept babbling at him was enough to make his brain short out and he'd have to shoot someone. Probably Abe.
Fuck. This mess with Mabel was too much. He couldn't help but admire her, professionally, of course. The changes she'd made were enough to convince him, but the floor plan she'd proposed was fairly brilliant and he could see at least the surface benefits immediately. It'd be even better if he could move the vats, but the cost to do so...
"Wait, say that again," he commanded Abe.
"I said, she left with some bloke in a cab."
"What fuckin bloke? This is what I'm paying you for. I need to know if she's working for someone, the BLOKE is the whole damn reason for this fuckin...Sod this. Abe, I'm just gonna shoot you, yeah? So hold still."
"Sir! Wait! Please, sir. What I mean to say is that I didn't know him."
"Yeah, Abe, I got that. S'matter of fact why you've got a gun pointed at your head."
"I mean, I would have done! If there was anything to know!"
Alfie cocked the gun. "Abe. You've got three seconds to make some kind of sense."
"He wasn't anyone! I swear it! I would have known him if he was, and he wasn't hangin' around anyone neither! He was just some boring chap!"
Alfie uncocked the gun. "Some boring chap."
"Yes, sir." Abe could sense the light and the end of the tunnel and he hurried to get the words out before it could collapse on him. "Tha's what she said. Mabel. I mean, Ms. Ziemann. To Rachel. She said he was just some boring chap but she was ready to go home because she had a train to catch the next day."
Alfie lowered the gun. "Mmhm."
Abe felt his knees weaken, just a bit, and said a prayer of thanks he hadn't just lost the pool.
Alfie tucked the gun back in the drawer. "Do you know where she was going? On this train?"
"No, sir. But!" he added hastily as he saw Alfie's hand reach for the drawer. "She couldn't have gone far because Ollie stopped by his mum's this morning and she was there. She and some ritzy gal, thick as thieves they was."
"Right." Alfie's hand dropped from the drawer. "Alright. Send Ollie in when he gets here."
"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."
"Mmph." Alfie waved his hand in dismissal.
So. Ritzy gal. Boring chap. He had a few questions for Ollie, definitely.
Monday morning Mabel left Hazel sleeping off the drink from the night before. She reminded her when breakfast was and when she'd be back, which was met with a glare from under the duvet. Mabel smiled and left with a quick wave. If she was up and dressed before noon, Mabel would consider it a small miracle.
She came in to find a bustle of activity where she hadn't expected any and Alfie shouting orders over the din. She decided to lay low, he'd surely seek her out when he decided he needed her. In the meantime, she heard paperwork calling her name. She immersed herself a few hours, but when she straightened to stretch her back, she heard the uproar had died down and decided to investigate.
When she walked onto the floor, she noticed that quite a bit of equipment had been moved around. In fact...this looked suspiciously like her layout plan she'd planned on proposing to Alfie. She felt heat flood her face as anger boiled in her gut. How dare he! He hadn't even talked to her about this, and here he was playing it off like it was his idea? She tried to tamp down her fury when she realized she was grinding her teeth so hard she was afraid she'd break something. 'Nope. No, no, no,.' she told herself. 'This is not happening. Not again. Fucking MEN! I don't care how good looking he is, or how many times I've dreamt of his hands. This is NOT happening. Now, stop thinking about his hands and go tell him off.'
Mabel stomped to his office, righteous indignation stiffening her spine and hardening her features. She burst into his office without knocking and promptly froze. She blinked, sure she was having some kind of brain fever, because what she saw sitting on Alfie's desk, with his hands on her thighs beneath her skirt, was Hazel.
'But...' she thought nonsensically, 'it's before noon.'
"Hazel?" she asked, all anger flooding out of her and being replaced by confusion. It was definitely Hazel; she looked fantastic, her blonde hair was in this cute bob and she was wearing this cranberry colored dress that was to die for, but how was she here? Why was she here? How did she know Alfie? And why were his dream-worthy hands all over her best friend?
"Oh, hey Mabe!" then she giggled. She giggled. "I just came down to see if I could take you to lunch, and they told me I should ask the big boss here." She fluttered her eyeslashes as she looked down at Alfie. He still hadn't moved his hands, but he did lean back in his chair and raise an eyebrow at Mabel.
Mabel blinked again. "I..." she started. She cleared her throat. "I don't normally grab lunch for a little while yet."
"Oh, s'no problem," Alfie drawled, finally dragging his hands away, albeit by the fingertips and all the way down to Hazel's knees first. "Why don't you girls take off for a while. Have a good time, yeah? Unless you needed something...Mabe."
Mabel felt her jaw clench again, as her eyes snapped away from his hands. Displeasure stiffened her stance, although if she were honest with herself, she didn't know if it was only one thing causing it anymore. "No, sir. Not at the moment."
"Ah." He stood and held out a hand to help Hazel to her feet. "Well, maybe another time." He held Mabel's gaze, pointedly, and she felt her cheeks flame without her consent. 'Damn it all to hell. We WILL be having that talk, don't think you can get out of it with flirty looks and fucking my friend,' she thought at him. But she thought it loudly.
Mabel held the door to Alfie's office open to let Hazel pass, and before she could escape, Alfie said, "Mabel." She turned back, reluctantly. "I'd like you to continue the new floorplan rollout. he paperwork will be on your desk when you get back."
Whatever she thought he was going to say, that wasn't really it. "Fine," she said, coolly. "Sir," she added.
He nodded. "Now..."
"Fuck off?" she guessed.
He huffed a short laugh. "Mmhm," and he gifted her one of his rare grins.
Author's Note: I don't know if William Foster and Co. was actually called The Mill, but it did produce agricultural machinery in Lincoln England in 1919. It is also credited with designing and producing the first tanks, used in WWI. The managing director of Fosters of Lincoln, Sir William Tritton, was knighted for his efforts.
In an uninteresting and completely unrelated note, I'm from Lincoln too, just a United States one, not an England one.
