I do not own the characters.
NATIONAL EFFIN' JAM WEEK.
John followed his boss Dave Thompson out of the office door following their meeting. The gruff Scot fancied himself as a bit of a Malcolm Tucker, believing that an abrasive attitude was the best way to get results and improve staff performance. He had no time for anything that had no positive impact on these but was quick to clamp down on anything he saw as a negative influence. During Dave's watch, there were only a handful of staffers that had not yet had a written warning. Even dearly departed Ted had had to face the ire of Dave for having once left a line of trolleys fully exposed to the elements overnight. They'd been frozen together in the harsh winter's night and could not be separated by brute force, so Ted had resorted to De-Icer. Unfortunately, a customer had complained about a De-Icer burn.
Even worse was Dave's penchant for management speak. John recognised that in his role as assistant manager, some of the lingo was necessary but Dave's dialogue (or frequently, diatribes) consisted of management speak interspersed with swearing. Such as right now.
"John, I'm counting on you to deliver 110% and raise the bar. We cannae have those wankers in Leigh put us in the shite 2 years running. We dropped the ball last year and I got my arse dragged over the coals by HO. I want our optics to blow them outta the water. I want a win-win from here on in."
"Don't you worry Dave," said John, having tuned out the rest of it. "No slow and steady from me. First past the post, I'll make sure of it."
"Aye, grand," replied Dave, glancing at his watch. It was lunch time. "Got tae meet the wife in 20. Daft cow is booking a holiday to Gran Canaria for the in-laws' 50th. I'd rather massage my ballsack on a belt sander then dip it in acid. Let me know how it goes in Preston, aye?"
"Will do Dave. Say hello to the missus from me."
With that, Dave made his exit and John headed downstairs to shop level. It was nearly his lunch hour too. Rather than nip into the canteen, he needed to drive up to the Preston store. He could have conference called the company's area manager Alan Campbell but he had something to pick up before heading back south. He would make the trip worth his while after a quick pit stop at Burger King.
As he walked along the wide central aisle, he spotted four figures chatting to a customer beside one of the jam stands that had been set up. Sitting in the trolley was the customer's young son who could not have been much more than 2. They were cooing to and pulling funny faces at the little tyke and he was loving the attention, all smiles and giggles. After a moment the shopper wheeled away, and the young boy was busy waving goodbye to all and sundry.
John surveyed the scene. Kayleigh, Alexa, Joyce and Debs had been roped in to promote National Jam Week at the store, where one of the big brands were pushing deals on their products. As John moved closer to the stand, he could see plates of items with cocktail sticks poking out of them. There were cut up pieces of bread and crumpets, all covered in different jams. There were also some pieces of cake with jam and cream.
Alexa was dressed as a strawberry, complete with red face paint and a hat that resembled the leafy top of a strawberry. Debs had on what John at first thought was an orange, but upon closer inspection looked more like a peach. Debs was actually decked out as an apricot, but that was obviously a difficult outfit to come by. She didn't have any need for face paint, being a spray tan aficionado. Joyce was a fairly tall woman and towered over the other girls. Her outfit made her look like a giant pea on stilts, so luminous was the green. She was meant to be a gooseberry. That was even more difficult to find than the apricot. Then John noticed Kayleigh laughing away at something Joyce said. He grinned in spite of himself. Kayleigh was actually shorter than all the others and the roundness of her dark purple blackcurrant costume made her resemble a spacehopper. Her 'black face' make-up really emphasised her cute button nose.
All stood together, they looked less like part of a promotion campaign for jam and more like something else. Red, yellow, green and purple. Something that made the laughter bubble up under the surface until he could no longer contain it.
"Eh up, have the Teletubbies made a comeback?" laughed John, catching the attention of the costumed staffers.
Kayleigh sighed and piped up first. "Oh don't you start. Whose idea was it to put us in all this foam padding in the middle of summer? I'm sweating Ribena here!"
"Well whatever you're doing, it's working. The jars are flying off the shelves. Keep up the good work ladies."
"Would you like to try some crumpet Mr Redmond?" offered Joyce.
"Aye, I'm famished," answered John, eyeing up the plate on the stand and reaching out for a piece. "Love a bit of crumpet me."
"I'll bet," mumbled Kayleigh. Typical man.
"Anyway, must dash," John announced, stepping away and still grinning at the ridiculousness of the costumes. "Oh, by the way, here's one for yer. How did Bob Marley like his doughnuts?"
The ladies all looked at him.
"Wi' jam in. He-hey, I'm here all week!"
Kayleigh shook her head and they watched John walk away. "We've got five more hours of this yet."
In a way, she wished for the five hours to drag, as she had packing and a house move to not look forward to. It was mostly about what to dump, what to give away to her neighbours, what Mandy might like to have, and what could be handed over to charity. There was only so much she could take with her to Mandy's.
Not only that, but she knew she would really miss car sharing with John. She thoroughly enjoyed his company, and he was somebody that, unbeknownst to him, had found a place in her heart. She had never expected that to happen, but it was a bolt from the blue when she finally realised that John was something more than a car share buddy to her.
She didn't know that John, while not on the same page with regards to where they stood, was just as despondent at the loss of a commuting routine that had come to mean an awful lot to him. The planned trip to Preston for the last of the red novelty heart lamps had brought it home to him that Kayleigh was something special. After all, you don't go out of your way like that unless it has some real meaning.
FIN.