Chick Lit Box Set

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

“No, sir, I’m sorry but we don’t stock inflatable dolls, I’m afraid. Sorry, what? Inflatable sheep? Er, no. I didn’t even know they existed. But no, not here. Er yes,” Coco listened down the phone and tried to keep a straight face. “Oh those,” she emphasised for added drama to Aggie and Christie who were both listening to the conversation. “No, I don’t believe so but you can probably find them online. No, I can’t suggest a site, I’m afraid. Have you thought about Googling inflatable sheep? Oh right. And what was the other thing you’ve been looking for? An inflatable p***y? The feline variety? Oh right. Sorry, we don’t stock those either. However we do carry a vibrating v****a if that helps? No, no it’s not inflatable. Sorry. Yes, fine. All right then. Thanks for your call.”

Coco put the phone down and looked up at the girls. Both were red-faced and trying very hard not to laugh out loud.

“Everything he wanted was inflatable,” Coco just about managed to say before cracking up.

“Oh my gawd,” she laughed. “I guess I’d better get used to calls like that,” she said after they all began to calm down.

“Perhaps we need to start looking for inflatable sheep to stock in the shop?”

“Er, I think not,” Aggie replied, looking aghast at the mere thought.

“But look, they do exist,” Coco blurted out, turning her iPad toward them to show the offending item online.

“Ew,” Aggie and Christie both said at the same time.

“Well, don’t knock it until you’ve tried it,” winked Coco.

“Coco!” Aggie said, disgusted, walking away and chuckling under her breath.

“I can hear you laughing, missy,” Coco said a little louder.

The sound of something being shoved through the letterbox, made Aggie change direction. She scooped the letter off the floor and started to open it.

“Oh my God,” she whispered.

“What is it?” Christie asked, walking up behind her.

“We’ve been threatened.”

“What do you mean?” Coco asked, joining them to have a look.

“It’s a threatening letter,” Aggie added. “Look.”

Opening a s*x shop in the town of Frambleberry is nothing less than despicable. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves. Look out Coco Watson, Agatha Trout, and Christie Valentine. You’re about to get your comeuppance. I know where you live.

Coco read the letter out loud as the three girls leaned against the countertop, listening intently.

“Don’t worry about it, it’s clearly just a pathetic joke. Nothing to worry about.”

“You don’t think we ought to call the police or something?” Aggie asked, taking the offending letter out of Coco’s hands and re-reading it.

“Nah, it’s just someone messing about. It’s probably just one of my sicko friends. Let’s just forget about it.”

“She’s right, Aggie. Let’s not let it worry us.”

Aggie nodded and ripped it in half and deposited it in the bin.

oOo

That night when Aggie went to bed, every little noise she heard outside made her jump. She didn’t know why but that letter had freaked her out a little bit. Trying to get it out of her head, she decided to get up and have a look through some of the old things she’d found in the secret room when they’d first visited the shop. She’d been so busy over recent months that she’d almost forgotten about it all.

First making herself a cup of sweet hot chocolate, she grabbed one of the boxes and hiked it into the living room, where she sat cross-legged on the carpeted floor and covered her knees with a warm throw.

Delving into the box, she pulled out a handful of old photographs. Most of them were of the same family, a tall fierce-looking woman with jet-black hair, her husband who appeared to be a little older than her with a head of thick white hair and two little girls who had the same dark hair as their mother.

On the back of the first two photographs, was the date 1921. The girls must have been Aunt Petunia and her sister Elsie.

That’s obviously her mother. I wonder if it’s Cornelia, Aggie thought as she looked for some other photos in the box. Pulling out about half a dozen more, she stopped when she came across an older photo of what must have been Petunia with, perhaps, her first husband. He had died in 1938 and this photo was dated 1936. She would have been around eighteen years old. Glancing at the photo again, she was surprised to see that the couple were standing at the foot of some stairs. Stairs that looked very familiar.

“It’s here,” Aggie said out loud. “They were here. So I wonder how the shop came to be in her possession? Hm?” she wondered aloud.

Picking out some pieces of folded paper, Aggie came across a letter. Opening it and reading it, she soon realised that Petunia’s parents had died within a year of each other. Petunia had only been sixteen years old at the time. Finding more evidence, Aggie soon discovered that Petunia had been taken under the wing of a man named Henry Cleaver. And on further inspection, the two had married shortly thereafter.

“Gosh,” Aggie said before taking a sip of her hot chocolate, which had turned cold. Screwing up her face, she put it back down on the coffee table and continued searching. This stuff was intriguing.

Finally after going through a whole load of old paperwork, she discovered how the shop had become Petunia’s. It had belonged to the Cleaver family and therefore on Henry’s death, was bequeathed to his young wife, who was barely twenty-one years old at the time.

Aggie sat back and uncrossed her legs, straightening them out in front of her, as she thought about Petunia and Henry all that time ago. She’d inherited the shop from her late husband and had subsequently kept it all those years. Incredible.

But that wasn’t enough, Aggie was determined to find out more about the family history, but yawning all of a sudden, she looked at the clock and realised it was after two in the morning. Putting everything back in the box, she stood up, grabbed the cold cup of chocolate and tipped it down the sink before heading back upstairs to bed where she fell asleep almost immediately.