Am still away but found some QT to get this fourth slice together n am now in a place where can access the wibbly wobbly web n hopefully upload. I am really appreciatin all your comments n questions n so glad my little story is putting smiles on faces. Please keep the comments comin n feel free to PM me. I’m sorry but we still don’t seem to be able to get beyond Friday…. Take care my baby.

Pam gushed: “Seren is not a woman and this whole masquerade has just got to stop. It’s Sally’s dress, I never knew it had ever been worn until we walked in on it being danced in early this afternoon. Sally’s shoes too and, I’m guessing, everything else. Except the make-up, that’s mine.”

Seren Dee Petty: Chapter 4

Mary interrupted: “Pamela, I hope you don’t think me interfering but, would you mind sending Seren in with no make-up tomorrow? It’s just that she’s likely to be in the shop, at least some of the time and what she’s wearing today is too thick and, to be honest, more than a bit dated.”

“But ..”

“Oh don’t worry, we won’t leave her face naked, we are a fashion shop after all. It’s just that we have a bit of a corporate look and it will be quicker to start with a clean canvass. And judging by what I’ve seen of Seren so far, I’m sure she will want to fit in with the rest of the girls.”

“But ..”

Brian interrupted: “That reminds me Pamela, just before we realised that Seren was missing, you mentioned there was something really important you had to tell me about her. I think your exact words were: ‘A crazy mix-up that has to sorted before things get out of hand.’ So, I’m all ears!”

Pam gave a huge sigh! It began as a natural release of pressure on realisation that at last the whole story was now going to come out. The lies and half-truths could stop and the tension involved in pre-editing every word, to avoid stepping off the narrow plank laid across the swamp, could be unwound. Yes, the sigh began naturally, but was extended to an unnatural length. In fact, for as long as Pam could extend her breath, buying time to consider how best to present her sorry tale.

She decided to kick-off with her ‘concerned mother on the edge of tears’ approach, anticipating that Brian was one of those guys sensitive enough to recognise when a woman was on the verge of breaking into sobs. But not sensitive enough to know how to deal with a full-on crying woman and so would back off rapidly in a manly effort to keep the waterworks from flowing.

Pam knew it wouldn’t wash with Mary though, she’s been too many times round the block and probably knows every dodge going. So she lined up her ‘recently widowed mother of two starting out alone in a new town,’ second defence. She figured Mary was either a spinster or widowed herself, so would respond with either guilty sympathy or total empathy and she could work with both.

Finally running out of exhalent, Pam took a great gulp of air and gushed, in a voice so full of emotion you felt one river bend from Niagara: “Seren is not a woman and this whole masquerade has just got to stop. It’s Sally’s dress, I never knew it had ever been worn until we walked in on it being danced in early this afternoon. Sally’s shoes too and, I’m guessing, everything else. Except the make-up, you were quite right about it being dated Mary, that’s mine. My poor child, I never knew this was happening until this afternoon and I don’t know how long it’s been going on, but obviously this is not the first time, and it’s got to stop, and I’m ashamed of the part I played in misleading you, but you surprised us in the car-park, I didn’t know what to say, I was worried about the interview, and losing the job, and I’m sure it wouldn’t have happened if Mr Petty had still been with us, and now I’ve got to sort it out all on my own, and I don’t know what to do ..”

At that point Pamela’s face had puffed red, the first sobs had been deployed, she’d almost run out of breath, was completely out of words, was just contemplating collapsing into Brian’s arms, when he finally leaned forward and put a tentative hand on her shoulder.

“There, there Mrs Petty, Pamela. Don’t go getting yourself all worked up, after all, it’s not such a bad thing. Not really. And I’m not so sure that Mary hadn’t worked it all out anyway. My top manager isn’t easily fooled you know,” Brian comforted, as he gently used the flat of his hand to smooth the seam of Pam’s blouse where the sleeve met her shoulder.

“Well if I’m honest, I was taken in to begin with,” admitted Mary. “Maybe because, in that first instant, I so needed Seren to be the teenage girl we were desperately expecting. I suppose, once I recognised the subterfuge, I should have called an immediate halt. But the two children were getting along so well together, Seren was obviously enjoying the work and she was being such a good girl.”

“But that’s just it,” bawled Pamela. “Seren’s a bad boy!”

“I wish my Julie was a bad boy,” sighed Brian. “As much as she loves getting involved in the business and seems to be happy handling and working with the dresses, I just can’t seem to get her to wear them. She goes around all the time in t-shirt, jeans and trainers, hair tied back and as often as not, dirt smudged on her face. I’m sure the neighbours on both sides think I’ve got a son not a daughter, she makes such a good boy.”

That’s why Brian is delighted that the two children are working so well together and one of the reasons why he encouraged Mary to take them to the food court for dinner. He knows it can’t be forced to happen, but is hopeful that spending this time in each other’s company, tonight and then again tomorrow, might lead to the two youngsters becoming firm friends.

All Julie’s current friends are boys, so Brian thought: “It will do her good to be in female company for a change and with Seren being so especially girly, hopefully some of that femininity might rub-off on to my tomboy daughter.” Brian was just relieved it was Pam’s second daughter that had come along this afternoon and not Sally. He’d shuddered that day he met her in town, not that there was anything bad about Sally. Just that she too seemed to favour the boy look, was clearly older than Julie and was not the sort of influence he wanted for his precious princess.

In fact, Brian had worried how he would keep the tom-tomboys apart if he employed Mrs Petty and began the day very undecided as to whether he should take that risk. Particularly as he was quite taken by Pamela Petty in a way he wasn’t sure was appropriate for an employer/employee relationship. It wasn’t until his car-park encounter with the delectable Seren that he knew Pam would be joining Steven’s Fashions as quickly as he could make it happen. Now all he had to do was keep tomboy Julie in the full-on feminine glare of Seren’s girl power headlights and wait for her to melt into chiffon.

As Brian’s thoughts plotted away, Mary consoled Pam. “Now don’t you worry, I’ll take real good care of Seren, we’ll have chance for a nice little chat in the car on the way to your house and we’ll have everything cleared up, put away and a fresh set of rules ready to be run to in the morning.”

A doubtful Pam said: “You just don’t seem to be quite getting it. Maybe we should call Seren up here and then we can both explain together and you can see what the problem is.”

Mary immediately went on the defensive. Not only did she want to avoid a stoppage in the work going on in the storage area below, she perceived a potential threat to Seren’s arrival in the morning and that would not do. She suddenly remembered something: “How’s the time? Did you mention having to collect Sally from Norton’s.”

“Oh my gosh! I got completely side-tracked, I’m definitely going to be late now. Sorry Brian, have to dash, mwah!” she pecked him on the cheek. “Thank you so much for the opportunity, you won’t regret it.” Pam missed his beetroot blush as she turned to Mary: “I’m trusting you with my precious child, please take care of my baby.”

“Call you tomorrow Brian,” Pam threw, over her shoulder as she hit the button to open the exit door and headed for the stairs while unzipping her purse to fish out her car-keys. Her final words getting lost as the door clicked shut behind her.

“You need to be getting along home too Brian,” said Mary. “You know Mrs Stevens will have dinner all ready to serve at bang-on six-thirty, with it being a Friday.”

“And what a long, good, Friday it has been Ms Wilson. One of our more exciting I think,” and with that he winked at her, took his coat from the rack and made his way down to the car-park.

“Yes,” thought Mary as she slipped a small tape measure from the top drawer of her desk, closed the files on her computer, logged out and shut down. “I can see Mrs Petty’s getting you all excited. I wonder when you are going to tell Mrs Stevens about her?”

She locked the desk drawer, dropped the small key into her purse, took at out a much larger key and turned the lock on the entrance door from the inside. After returning the key to her purse which she now swung over her shoulder, Mary collected her coat, made her way through the back door and called down: “Either of you girls left anything up stairs?”

When both answered: “No, Ms Wilson,” she closed and locked the back door from the top of the stairs and carefully picked her way down to where Julie and Seren were now surrounded by more empty boxes than full ones. “My, you have got on well. Now Seren, come here girl, stand up straight and hold your arms out wide.”

Pamela was cursing herself as she sat in the snails’ race of cars crawling towards the exit barriers of the car-park. Some so loaded with weekend shopping, it looked like they were carrying their homes with them. She took a quick slug of semi-flat coke from the plastic bottle in her cup-holder, preparing to slither out into the Friday rush-hour traffic. By the time she was next but one to slip her ticket and raise the barrier, Pam had looked at her watch so many times she’d slipped it off her wrist and into her pocket, fearing an accident otherwise.

Almost as frequently, Sally was making furtive glances through the window of Norton’s Newsagents, checking her mother was not pulled-up outside. It had not been Sally’s most efficient evening. Cross checking her tallies, she found so many mess-ups she ended up trashing half her night’s work and starting over. Thankfully, it being Friday, Mr Norton was kept busy at the till and hadn’t noticed everything being done twice. He had noticed that Sally seemed unusually distracted, but didn’t know her distraction had a name, Joseph!

Sally didn’t know her distraction now also had a second name, Seren! She did know a picture of her elder brother, dancing in a mini-dress, tights and heels, was locked firmly in the centre of her mind. And even if it faded, she had only to glance at an identical picture, locked firmly on the screen of her phone, to refresh the memory. Sally didn’t know yet what she might do with it, but she knew the picture had value, she could feel the weight it added to her mobile as she fingered it in her pocket.

Like most little sisters, Sally loved her elder brother, but unlike most little sisters, she didn’t look up to him. Partly because physically, he looked up to her as she was an inch taller. A situation strangely reversed, she remembered, when she’d led him out to the car in his heels. Well, in her heels actually, though they did fit him exceptionally well. Sally had no idea how well they fit her, as she had only worn them those few minutes in the shoe shop, at her mother’s insistence on buying them for her. The deal Sally’d had to make to get her new ‘Tracker’ hiking boots.

No, Sally loved her brother, but she also found him really, really annoying. He was always making such a big deal about being the elder, but what was 11 months? She was an August baby, he was a September child. In England, the school year starts first week of September and your year is determined by your age on the first Monday of that month, so although almost a year apart in age, the education system registers Joseph and Sally in the same year. In fact, at their old school, in the old town, they were not only in the same year, but even in the same class, at least, to begin with.

The day they started senior school, she was eleven and he’d just turned twelve the day before, he was like a proper big brother, all protective and making it clear he was looking out for her. But within weeks he’d turned into an asshole, always trying to put her down, calling her “little sis” or “baby” in front of her friends. Making comments like: “are you sure you’re old enough for that?”

She knew he was just showing off in front of his mates and that was what boys did, but he’d started to bring the behaviour home. Trying to insinuate himself as the older, and more mature, in his mother’s eyes and always telling the neighbours, callers and just about anyone that would listen, how he was: “looking after his little sis.” If they went to town together, he would say he was: “taking her to town.” If they went home together, he would say he was: “making sure little sis got home safe.”

It had got to the point where even the neighbours started saying things like: “now you keep hold of your brother’s hand, little one.” Or: “you make sure to do as he tells you.” Worst of all was running in to a neighbour when she was with her friends at the mall. “Does your brother know you’re out here on your own little girl.” Argh, how embarrassing can it get!

Well, Joseph did take it one step further. One step too far as it turned out. Like all girls, Sally and her school friends all went to the loo in one big gaggle and were just coming back into the corridor together, as Joseph came by with the gang he tagged on the tail of. “I hope you got one of the older girls to make sure you wiped properly and didn’t get your blouse caught up in your panties,” he quipped.

It wasn’t that funny, but the timing was perfect. Even worse, Sally blushed as red as a sunburnt tomato using ketchup for lotion. The guys laughed, the girls giggled, Joseph grinned wide and Sally didn’t remember anything more except a twitch of her shoulder and a sudden sharp pain in her right hand. Until she saw Joseph stretched out on the floor, eyes closed and ketchup all over his nose.

Sally got moved to a separate class and Joseph’s quips died down for a while, but he still took every opportunity to make it known she was “little sis,” both at home and at school. And it seemed even more important now that he realised she was not only taller, but stronger than him too.

Everything official though, still runs on birth date and whether it’s school, after-school club, youth club or even mum’s orders, Joseph is always put first with Sally behind. Sometimes she even has to follow what he tells her and my, does he take every opportunity to the max. “Well Joseph my boy, here we are in a brand new town, looking for a brand new school and you, mom and me are the only three who know what’s what.

“This picture might be just the lever I need to bring about a little swing in the balance of seniority. After all, as I’m bigger, tougher and stronger, it’s only common sense that you should be following me.”

It was primarily a constant drift onto this train of thought, and how to bring it about, that distracted Sally enough to keep messing up her newspaper tallies. But there was also something else nagging in the back of her head. It had to do with that picture, that vision, of her brother dressed as a girl. He was dressed in her clothes, clothes she’d hardly worn. But one thing she knew for sure, he looked a whole lot better in them than she did.

She didn’t mind her brother being pretty. She thought it was pretty funny if truth be told. But it did worry her that he was so much prettier than her. She liked being stronger, she didn’t want to be girly, not in the slightest. And clearly, she also didn’t want to be the younger sister. But in the back of her mind a new worry was forming, that much, much worse than being younger, would to be considered as the ugly sister!

Finally the papers were finished and the tallies all cross checked, it was twenty-five past six, thank goodness her mother was late. She glanced again through the shop window just as Pamela pulled-up outside. Sally collected her things, strode to the door of the shop and chimed her goodbyes to Mr Norton.

Pam, touching the spot on her shoulder where Mr Stevens had so recently rubbed, was having a naughty little thought about her new boss. She jumped, when Sally suddenly launched into the backseat and asked: “Where’s Joseph?”

Brian Stevens decided to leave his car in the drive rather than wrestle with the garage up-and-over. All the way home, he’d been picturing Pam in the various poses she’d struck during the interview, and especially her bottom wiggling dash from the office. He tap-danced to the house, humming as he climbed the front step. He could smell dinner the moment he opened the door and a female voice called from the kitchen: “Perfect timing love, I’m just about ready to serve.”

Brian hung his suit jacket in the cloakroom and as he washed his hands, gave himself a jaunty wink in the mirror and turned his cheek to check there was no lipstick where he’d been kissed. He made his way to the dining table, still humming. Close behind came a wheeled trolley laden with steaming pots, bowls and tureens, pushed by the wonderful lady who ran his life and currently, the second most important woman in his world. “Anything exciting at the shop today dear?” asked Mrs Stevens.