Page 15 of Wrapped Up at the Vintage Dress Shop (Vintage Dress Shop Romance #3)

I t wasn’t just TikTok, there was an Instagram reel too. Both started with Rosie Roberts looking sad, and brushing away an imaginary tear. Even though she hadn’t cried at all in the shop. Not one single tear.

That wasn’t important though. Not when Rosie was choking back more imaginary sobs as she said that she supported small businesses ‘but I don’t support bullying and assaulting people’.

Then there was a clip of Phoebe brandishing the torn dress in Rosie’s face and shouting at her but you couldn’t actually hear what Phoebe was saying at the top of her vocal register because Rosie had replaced that with Taylor Swift singing, ‘This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things’.

Still, it didn’t look good. It looked very bad. And of course, Rosie Ratchet Roberts had tagged the shop on all her socials. Thank goodness Phoebe had her Instagram set to private and didn’t do TikTok because she wasn’t a gigantic show-off.

Then when Bea arrived for work, breathless, and Anita, full of barely suppressed glee, it was to announce that all the latest posts, Reels and videos on The Vintage Dress Shop’s social media had been inundated with many hateful comments.

There were even calls for Phoebe to be not just sacked but arrested too.

As Phoebe remembered it during the incident , she’d made several very important points about respecting the shop stock, sustainable fashion and the advantages of wearing vintage clothes.

But still, she was horrified by the video.

Even though it was only Rosie Roberts’s extremely biased side of the story and the clip was shown without any context and also, there had been very extenuating circumstances, this was an absolute disaster.

Both professionally and personally. Phoebe had always prided herself on being the perfect ambassador for the shop.

A champion of vintage fashion. A custodian of pre-loved frocks.

But all those years of hard work had been destroyed by a three-minute video in which, to the average viewer, she looked like a demented hell witch.

Phoebe didn’t even have the emotional bandwidth to explain, yet again, about the fake tan and the ripping noise. Instead, she sat in the back office where they’d all congregated – the shop not even open though it was past ten thirty now – with her head in her hands.

‘What should we do?’ Bea asked. ‘Or should we not do anything and hope it all blows over?’

‘The royal family have that motto, don’t they? Never complain, never explain,’ Cress offered, which made Anita snort in a very unbecoming manner.

‘Yeah, because that’s worked out so well for the royal family. Also, Phoebe was doing a lot of complaining in that video. That’s what got us into this mess in the first place.’

Phoebe wasn’t surprised that Anita was enjoying herself immensely, but she was surprised when Sophy patted her shoulder.

‘But Phoebe didn’t assault Rosie,’ she said indignantly.

‘Yes, she was all up in her face but that wasn’t assault.

And to say that Rosie was bullied, is a huge stretch.

If anyone was being bullied it was us with her constant demands for bubble tea and champagne. ’

‘I appreciate the support, Sophy,’ Phoebe managed to say though the words almost choked her.

But when she looked up at Sophy, her face didn’t look very supportive at all. ‘The thing is, Pheebs, the way you handled things on Saturday was absolutely wrong, but what Rosie has done is also bang out of order.’

‘Forgive me for caring,’ Phoebe snapped but before she could plead her case, they heard a loud tapping on the door. ‘That’s going to be our first customer of the day. Can we all just act like it’s business as normal and we’ll talk about this later?’

Bea hurried off to open the door and Phoebe stood up and brushed down her skirt. This was what Mildred would call a storm in a teacup. It would pass soon enough but before it could, Bea came back with Freddy.

Phoebe’s heart didn’t lift at the sight of him. His face was set in grim, forbidding lines, so her heart actually sank even lower.

‘Well, this is a complete balls-up,’ he said, rather than shouted because shouting was never Freddy’s style. ‘We’re going to have to issue a statement on our social channels. An apology.’

That was a step too far. ‘I’ve already apologised!’ Phoebe insisted. ‘This is ridiculous.’

It was odd how Freddy’s blue eyes, which this morning looked as stormy as the sea in winter, could say so much when he wasn’t uttering a single word.

Phoebe sat back down with an aggrieved little huff. Freddy went to stand behind Bea, who was sitting in front of the shop computer, fingers poised over the keys.

‘Shall I start with something about how there are several videos circulating on social media about a recent occurrence . . .’ Bea made no move to start typing but instead looked imploringly at Freddy, who nodded tersely.

‘The staff and management of The Vintage Dress Shop would like to apologise unreservedly,’ he said with heavy emphasis and a meaningful glance in Phoebe’s direction.

‘We absolutely cannot condone our employee’s behaviour and they have since been removed from customer-facing duties until they’ve completed some sensitivity training. ’

‘You what?’ Phoebe barked, her brain unable to process what her ears were hearing. ‘Removed? Training?’

‘Put in a line or two about the shop’s ethos,’ Freddy continued either unaware or unconcerned that Phoebe was about to have a rage blackout.

‘Then finish with something like while we love our dresses and the stories they tell, we value our customers and their experience at The Vintage Dress Shop even more. Blah blah blah.’

‘Blah blah, bloody blah!’ Phoebe echoed incredulously. She’d never ever, not even once, valued the customers over the dresses. The customers were a necessary evil but she didn’t point that out. Mostly because she’d reached the non-verbal stage of being furious by now.

On one level, she supposed that Freddy had to do this; but on another level, it was unjust and unfair.

And why was Freddy so angry? His mouth was a tight line, which sucked in his cheekbones and he was standing there with arms crossed, his posture so rigid that even Mildred wouldn’t have been able to find fault with it.

‘A word, please, Phoebe,’ he said, like actually it was going to be a lot of words and she wouldn’t like any of them. ‘Out on the patio, I think.’

Phoebe stood up, practically quivering with rage, and Freddy ushered her out of the back office and onto the terrace where it was as cold and frigid as the atmosphere between them.

The trees that overhung the canal had lost most of their leaves and their bare branches looked stark against the greyish white sky.

‘I don’t know what—’ Phoebe began to say.

‘I don’t want to hear it,’ Freddy said, cutting her off. ‘It’s not like this is an isolated incident, is it? It might be the most serious one yet but we’ve been here before and I don’t know how many times I have to tell you that your way of dealing with conflict is completely unacceptable . . .’

So, Freddy was going to tell her off. He was right. They had been here quite a few times. Freddy being very stern and Phoebe remembering that stern Freddy was also very sexy Freddy.

‘. . . at the end of the day, Pheebs, they’re just bloody dresses!’

It was like he was going out of his way to deliberately antagonise Phoebe. But again, they had been here quite a few times before, so Phoebe did what she always did when Freddy was reading her the riot act.

She pouted.

She sulked.

She sighed long and heavy.

And she shivered because it was far too cold to be standing outside being lectured without a coat on.

When Freddy finally came to the end of his rant, Phoebe said what she always said when she found herself here again.

‘Yes, yes, whatever. Thank you for showing me the error of my ways,’ she drawled in a bored tone, because while stern Freddy was quite hot, she wasn’t amused at being told off like some naughty schoolgirl who’d been caught smoking behind the bike sheds.

Did schools even have bike sheds anymore?

Also, her ways didn’t have any errors. Phoebe was in the right. And if she didn’t stick up for herself, then no one else was going to. She hadn’t even needed Mildred to impart that particular piece of wisdom. She’d learned that lesson from a very young age and in the hardest way possible.

It was Freddy’s turn to sigh as he realised that all his angry words had been for nothing. ‘God, it’s like talking to a brick wall,’ he muttered.

‘I thought we’d cleared all this up on Saturday when I explained that . . .’

‘I hadn’t seen the video on Saturday. I just let you talk me round the way I always do .

. .’ Freddy sighed as if he was cross with himself, but then when he looked at Phoebe, she saw something in his expression that she’d never seen before.

And never wanted to again. ‘The way you went for her. Your anger. It was uncomfortable to watch.’

Phoebe knew that. She really did. But . . . ‘I didn’t touch her though,’ she reminded Freddy in an effort to make him feel better. Or to make herself feel better, she wasn’t sure.

‘I’ve said what needed to be said.’ Freddy shrugged, his movements quick and jerky. ‘For all the good that it’s done. Let’s go back inside.’

Although the shop should have been open by now, the staff were still gathered in the back office and from the way they all went silent as she and Freddy returned, Phoebe knew that they’d been talking about them. Or rather, about her.

But before she could tell them to do some work, Freddy stepped forward so that he was blocking Phoebe’s path to the shop where she really needed to be among the dresses in order to find some inner calm.

‘Going forward, Phoebe is not to have any contact with the customers,’ Freddy said in a tight voice as there was a collective gasp. Though no one gasped as loud as Phoebe herself. ‘For now, Bea will step up . . .’

‘Oh no!’ Bea shrank back. ‘I don’t want to step up. Please don’t make me!’

Freddy was undaunted. ‘Then Sophy will have to be acting manager.’ He flicked a glance towards the woman in question, who didn’t look that happy about this undeserved promotion but Phoebe was sure that, on the inside, Sophy was punching the air. ‘You have tons of retail experience.’

‘ Sophy! ’ Phoebe echoed in a voice vibrating with fury. ‘I’m not having Sophy riding roughshod over my shop!’

Freddy’s face and voice got even tighter. ‘It’s not actually your shop,’ he said. ‘You just work in it and if you don’t start behaving like a human being, then you won’t be working here much longer.’

There was another collective gasp. Phoebe was practically reeling from shock and outrage. ‘You don’t mean that.’

‘Oh, but I do.’ Freddy didn’t sound angry anymore but weary, as if he hadn’t slept in days. ‘We’ve been through this again and again. Either shape up or ship out.’

Phoebe had always known that, sooner or later, Freddy would turn on her. Would reject her. Everyone always did. Which didn’t stop it from hurting. Like a knife plunging into her already shrivelled little heart again and again.

She blinked back sudden tears. She wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of making her cry.

‘But . . . you . . .’ She couldn’t even manage to get out a single sentence. ‘I can’t believe . . . How dare you?’

The look Freddy gave her was cold, dismissive. ‘Go home, Phoebe,’ he said. ‘Go home and come back tomorrow with a much better attitude.’

She scooped up her shop keys, which were on the table in front of her, not daring to make eye contact with anyone although everyone was trying their best not to look at her anyway.

With a straight back, eyes blazing, cheeks burning, Phoebe gathered up her coat in one hand, a furiously squirming Coco Chanel in the other, and stalked out, making sure she bumped Freddy so hard on the way that he rocked on his feet.