THE JOB

By Claire Adams

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2015 Claire Adams

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Chapter One

Quote, Unquote

Jessica

It started as a simple idea: Expand the plus-sized section and add in a new display area for the front of the store. Simple, right?

Well, simple though it may be, this is turning out to be a lot more than I bargained for. I’m getting ready to meet with another contractor to discuss quotes and, so far, they’ve been sky high.

The store’s been doing great, but I don’t know how I’m supposed to expand anything if I can’t get these guys to rein in their estimates.

My next appointment, some guy from IRP Construction, comes through the doors, and I can already see that I’m not going to be his biggest fan.

I’m waiting at the front of the store when he comes in, but as I say, “Hello,” he just scoffs and walks right by me.

Heading to the counter, he interrupts one of my salesgirls, saying, “Hey, I’m here to bid on the expansion job. I’m supposed to meet with the head chick or whatever.”

So, hearing all this and being the head chick or whatever, I walk over to him and introduce myself, trying to mask my general repulsion at his presence.

“Hi, I’m Jessica Davis,” I say and put out my hand to shake his.

He just looks down at it and then back up at me.

“I’m the store owner.”

“Oh!” he says with a only partially-toothed smile. “I thought you were the store greeter or something. Let’s talk about what I can do for you today.”

“All right,” I tell him, “if you’ll follow me…”

I lead him over to the section of the store that I want redone and start pointing things out to him.

“Over here, I’d like to get this section of the wall taken back a bit. From what I understand, it’s just dead space back there. I guess they used to use it for storage when this was a more general department—”

“Yeah, that’s a load-bearing wall,” the man says, “If I knock that out, you’re going to see daylight. Maybe that’s what you’re looking for, though.”

“I’m not talking about the wall behind,” I explain. “I’m talking about this area where it juts out. If we could just remove the small storage space and leave the external wall…”

“Well, that’s not going to be cheap,” the man says. “I’ll have to get my electrician in here to check the wiring, and if he finds it’s degraded, we’ll have to tear up the whole store to do it.”

“That really won’t be necessary,” I start, but he doesn’t let me finish.

“Bad wiring can cause a fire,” he says. “If you don’t get it taken care of, you’re playing games with your customers’ lives. Is that what you want?”

What I want is to punch the guy in the face right now, but I’m pretty sure he could take me in a fight.

“No,” I tell him. “What I’m trying to say is that the wiring in this whole complex was redone a few years ago when the property was bought by the Richmonds. I’d be absolutely mystified if there was any degraded wiring in there.”

“Huh,” the man says, and I can tell he’s just looking for more ways he can pad his bill.

Luckily for me, I did some homework on this place before I bothered calling contractors to come in and give bids.

“Well,” he says, “I guess I could do all that pretty cost-effective and what not, but I think if you really want to open up this space, you’re going to have to get rid of all those wall displays.”

Now he’s just talking gibberish.

“Those would obviously come down before the wall did,” I say, annoyed. “What I do want to do, in addition to what we’ve already talked about, is to see if we can lengthen this window space up in the front so I can display some more of the specialty items that set this store apart. Is that something you think you could do?”

“Well, that’s going to be pretty costly,” he says. “We’re going to have to reinforce the wall if we’re going to increase your window space here. Now, we have a few options to go with there, but I think it’s best to do it right the first time. Otherwise, you’re stuck paying more over the long run.”

“I absolutely agree with you on that last part,” I tell him. “I’m not looking for a quick and sloppy job. I’m looking for something that’s going to last for a long time to come.”

“My men don’t do a ‘sloppy’ job,” he says.

“I’m not saying they do,” I start again. “I was just saying that I agree with you: I’d rather have it done right the first time than do something that’s only going to end up costing more time and money. That’s all.”

I don’t know if this guy’s actually this dense, or if he’s trying some rudimentary psychology to convince me to pay more for what I could get cheaper from someone else.

“I like to use titanium,” the man says. “It’s a bit more costly, but nothing lasts like titanium.”

Yep, he’s trying to sucker me.

“I don’t think titanium should be necessary,” I tell him. “To tell you the truth, you’re the first person I’ve ever met who’s even suggested that titanium should be used for something like this.”

“You want it done right, don’t you?” the man asks. “I sure know I want to do you right.”

“Excuse me?” I ask.

The large, unevenly shaved, gummed, smelly man in the stained white shirt just said he wants to do me, right in the middle of negotiating his estimate. I wonder if he actually thinks that’s going to work.

“I just meant that I want to do right for your store and you as a client,” the man says.

For a second, I actually start to feel bad about judging him like that, but when he runs his yellow-coated tongue over his lips and winks at me, I stop feeling so guilty.

“I think I’ve heard about enough,” I tell him. “I’ll let you know.”

“Is that it?” the man asks. “I understood that it was going to be a much bigger project than what you’ve described.”

“It is,” I tell him, “but I just don’t think it’s going to be the right fit.”

“I think we got off on the wrong foot here,” the man says. “I’m Billy, by the way, it’s nice to meet you.”

Yeah, now he wants to shake my hand.

“Jessica,” I say again and, being the benevolent woman I am, I shake his gross, sweaty hand. “So, all right,” I continue. “I also wanted to see what you think we could do about having a lowered section right through the middle here. I saw this shop up in Greenwich, and it had a space like—”

“You do know this isn’t Greenwich, right?” the man asks.

“I’m perfectly aware of my store’s location,” I tell him, “and I think we’ve really come to an impasse here. I don’t think it’s going to work out. Thank you for coming in.”

“You haven’t heard my bid yet,” the man says.