Destination India (3 page)

Workaholic (n.) A person who works compulsively at the expense of other pursuits

‘I heard that you help people like me? I just came in on a whim really as I don’t know if anyone can really help me.’ The woman sat opposite me spoke in a whisper of barely audible breath that seemed to come in bursts from her rattling chest.

She was slowly shredding a Kleenex apart between her long thin fingers, not realising what she was doing as she spoke. She was getting ripped bits of tissue everywhere, all over the floor and her knee-length, plum-coloured cord skirt. I noticed her fingernails were impeccably painted, a deep red that shone against her pale trembling hands. I remembered doing that when I was in her position, thinking that if my nails were perfect then everything else in my jumbled-up life would follow suit, that somehow a lick of nail lacquer would make it all OK. It was only when the tiny flecks started to chip away that you were brought back to reality.

I looked down at my own hands as she sipped her cup of tea. My fingernails were bare, my cuticles ravaged and the thinnest line of white kept trying to break through before I bit it off again, not through sadness this time but through stress. Going for a manicure was on my to-do list,
one of many I had on the go. Go to the gym, join a gym, learn how to use the smoothie maker my mum bought me at Christmas, be home enough to have time to use the smoothie maker, make a date with my best friend, call my parents more; all these things including go and get a manicure had been long forgotten. Tomorrow, I always seemed to tell myself. Tomorrow.

‘So he packed everything whilst I was away at a work team-building weekend and just left. I came back to find our flat half empty and a note explaining what he’d done,’ Nice-Nails Lady whispered.

I winced. ‘God, I’m sorry.’

I tilted my head and passed her a fresh tissue, whilst at the same time trying to keep an eye on Kelli who was chatting to an equally unsure-looking man in the corner of the shop.

I hadn’t realised how much of my time would be spent acting as a counsellor to customers. Fresh from messy break-ups they would wobble in here looking for a calming place to talk to people who understood that love doesn’t always go to plan. My experience of being a jilted bride had kick-started the idea of the business as I had been in the exact same position as they were now – feeling unsure, scared, but desperate to make changes to my life – when I first donned a backpack and went off to travel. These customers today were still coming to terms with what had happened in their lives but I knew that booking into one of our travel tours would soon cure them of pining for their exes.

‘He had been having an affair with our neighbour.’ Nice-Nails Lady sniffed loudly, grabbing another tissue to wipe her chapped nose. My heart ached for her. I knew this pain. And not to seem too heartless I also knew it did get better. I wanted to shake her thin shoulders, to rattle the plastic
beads across her neck and sing out loud that it would get easier, that he had probably done her a favour, that she would look back at this in a few years’ time shaking her head at how upset she’d been over something that now seemed so insignificant. For me, going travelling – having that time and space away from everything I knew back home – fixed so many of my problems, gave me the confidence to believe in myself once more and inspired me to create this business. Plus, I met Ben and reignited the hope and desire to love again. If only I could move us past this
flirtationship
stage we had found ourselves in, where we were surely out of the friend zone but nowhere near to being in a proper relationship.

‘This was all six months ago and since then I’ve just been in some awful nightmare, hoping I’ll feel happy and like my old self again. I visited Spain on a foreign exchange programme when I was younger and I just remember having such a carefree, happy time. That girl, that version of me feels like she has died but I’m desperate to get her back, which is why I’m here today.’ She blew her nose and gave me a sad smile, before telling me about her hazy student days in a small Spanish village teaching English to adorable children, drinking cold sangria outside on heady evenings, longing for the neighbour of the homestay she was staying in to notice her.

‘Juan.’ She smiled. ‘Funny how the neighbour seems to have such an impact on my life.’ Well at least she could see the ironic side. It was the first time in the twenty minutes since she’d been sitting opposite me that she’d smiled, the worry lines on her pale thin face receding as she was instantly taken back to her youth. ‘I saw an advert about the tours you organise, with people like me I guess, and just hoped you would have something for me?’ She looked so lost I wanted to give her a hug, but I noticed the guy
talking to Kelli kept staring over at us – breaking the intimate moment with a strange cold glance.

I nodded and patted her hand. ‘We will do our best to get you back to that happy young woman. I’m positive about that.’

I started to tap on my keyboard, looking for tours that would suit her. We had had an amazing success rate of matching people with countries and challenges that seemed to pull them out of their comfort zone and fix them back together again. The wall of the office behind me was tacked with so many thank-you cards and postcards from other customers who had once been sitting in the exact same chair as her. This was why I loved my job. The satisfaction from helping people get back on their feet was immeasurable – so what if it meant other things in my life may have been slipping?

Not long later, Nice-Nails Lady was booked to go to Barcelona, looking to reignite her Spanish youth. She would be in a small group dusting off her language skills, joining fun nights out and soaking up the architecture all around her. She left the shop clutching the information to her bony chest, beaming. I couldn’t help but smile too.

I noticed that the strange man Kelli had been talking to had also left. ‘What was he after?’ I asked her, picking up shreds of tissue from the floor.

Kelli shrugged. ‘Was a right weirdo. I asked him what he was looking for but all he was bothered about were boring facts about the business.’ She popped a piece of gum in her mouth and chewed it loudly.

‘Did you speak to him like how we told you?’ I shuddered thinking back to when we’d first hired her, a favour to Trisha who was friends with Kelli’s aunt. A few weeks after she’d started, a new customer had walked in, someone in a similar position to the lady I’d just helped:
red ringed eyes and chapped nose from the constant wiping of tears and snot. Ben and I were both on the phone at the time so Kelli had bounded over to her, thrusting our brochures into this poor woman’s sad face. She had started crying almost immediately seeing the faded band T-shirt that Kelli was wearing and explained mid-sobs how her ex loved that band. Instead of consoling her, offering her a cup of tea and a seat in a comfy chair, Kelli burst out laughing, exclaiming that she wore that T-shirt ironically as their music was utter shite. A true believer in tough love was our Kelli; let’s just say the client made a quick exit and never returned.

She always used to rock up late with pillow creases down her pale cheeks and no apology, she never wore suitable clothes and barely brushed her hair but Ben was adamant we keep her on to please her aunt and said that with a little encouragement she would blossom. He was right. Ben had spent a lot of time patiently explaining to Kelli how she needed to listen to the customers before judging them on the music their ex liked or chucking our tours down their throats. Some customers were just not ready to go off and explore the world; they were still grieving their relationship and not yet ready to turn the page and start a new life.

Kelli’s hunched-up shoulders had gradually softened, her timekeeping had improved and that sulky teen attitude that she’d had when she first walked in here had evolved into a sort of vulnerable confidence. She wasn’t the perfect employee but she had a heart of gold and got what we were trying to achieve here, even if she did still have as much tact as a heavy-handed butcher at times.

‘Err yeah.’ Kelli rolled her kohl-heavy eyes at me. ‘Even if he was acting shifty I still offered him a brew. He said no though.’

I chucked the tissue in the bin and looked at her. ‘What do you mean shifty?’

‘I dunno. Just asking about how the shop was doing … something about turning?’

‘Turnover? Money?’

She shrugged, bored with this conversation. ‘Maybe. I said you were doin’ all right, although you could pay me a little more.’ She said this so matter-of-factly I wanted to laugh.

‘If I could, you know I would.’ I smiled at her as she rolled her eyes. ‘Did he look like he was going to book a tour?’

‘Er, he was asking about that India one, you know the one that’s going tits up.’ She yawned.

‘It’s not going tits up.’ I pursed my lips at her. ‘It’s just had a few not so great reviews, that’s all.’ Getting to the bottom of why was high on my to-do list. We had been lucky to receive almost five stars for every other trip we offered, and the India trip had initially received similar reviews, but now it just felt like the black sheep of the family.

She nodded slowly. ‘Well anyway, I gave him the brochure.’

‘OK, good,’ I mumbled distractedly. There was another Indian tour leaving in a few weeks and I was determined to make sure this one was the best ever.

‘Hey, what’s with that face?’ Ben asked as he put his phone down and got up to flick on the kettle.

‘Nothing. Just thinking about those Indian reviews again.’ I sighed. ‘Kelli was just with a customer asking about going to India with us. I can’t face another set of one stars.’

Ben got the milk out of the fridge. ‘Don’t worry, Georgia. Our winning streak was bound to come to an end
one day. I’m amazed we’ve managed to notch up so many five stars already. It’s only normal that we’re not going to please everyone.’

‘But we should! We work hard in picking the best tour guides, the nicest hotels, the funnest activities,’ I half cried. ‘Every tour should go without a hitch.’

‘Yeah and My Chemical Romance should get back together and tour again, but not everything we want works out,’ Kelli piped up.

‘Thanks for that, Kel, really helpful,’ I said sarcastically.

‘She’s right, you know,’ Ben said, passing me a full-to-the-brim cup of tea. I took the mug and smiled gratefully. On the front was a photo of us from the local paper when we opened our business just last year. We looked so happy, unaware of what we were getting ourselves into and the adventures that lay ahead. I still cherished this mug even if the dishwasher had smeared off most of the colour and my smile had faded half away.

‘Cheers,’ I said and he winked back. ‘What do you mean she’s right?’

‘Well, I know we want to offer the best tours to our customers and make everyone who comes in this shop or travels with us happier than they were before they met us, but it doesn’t always work like that, Georgia. We can’t fix everyone’s problems. Getting some duff reviews is just part and parcel of this business, especially when we’re working with some very heartbroken people. It’s just the way it is.’ He shrugged and sat back at his desk.

I sighed. Maybe he was right. Maybe the perfectionist in me needed to just chill out. ‘But don’t you think it’s weird that a lot of these reviews are coming from the Indian tour?’

‘I’ve been to India a few times. That is one crazy place.’ Ben shook his head, lost in some memory. ‘I bet those
people struggled with the country rather than our tour. It’s a whole other world over there, far removed from the life we live here and for some that culture shock is too much to take. Come on, please don’t get stressed about it. Like you say, we have the best guides, the best trips planned and we give it one hundred per cent, but we can’t control everything.’

I nodded slowly. ‘I guess.’

‘So, how was your dad’s birthday meal? Did they like the restaurant?’ Ben asked, changing the subject.

I tapped my forehead. ‘Oh my God, I completely forgot to tell you.’

‘Tell me what?’

‘OK, well you know that sales guy Dan at
Itchy Feet
?’ Ben nodded slowly. ‘Well, I managed to negotiate a very good rate on us getting some advertising space with them. Forty per cent off!’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘Wow, how did you manage that?’

‘My womanly charms.’ I grinned. ‘I sent the copy over last night and we should be in the next issue coming out in a few weeks.’

Ben’s smile faded in a second. ‘What?’

‘I needed to act quickly on this offer as Dan had others waiting and there was no way I was going to let Totally Awesome Adventours take it.’

‘Wait – so you signed off on this and sent over copy without speaking to me first?’

I nodded, my bubble of excitement popping. ‘Yeah, ‘cause if I didn’t we would have lost it,’ I said quietly, feeling the atmosphere close in around me. Kelli sensed the mood and nipped to the loo, mumbling something on her way past.

‘Georgia,’ Ben snapped. ‘You promised me that big decisions like this, decisions that cost money, would
always be made together. Even with the discount this has probably wiped out our advertising budget.’

‘I’m sorry; I just didn’t want us to lose out.’

‘That’s the oldest trick in the book: say you’ve got others interested to make the first shmuck agree to the sale before thinking it over.’

‘Oh.’

‘Yep, oh.’ He rubbed his face. He seemed a lot more tired these days. ‘I thought we had an agreement that we didn’t make any big decisions without checking with each other first.’

My cheeks felt flushed. ‘I’m sorry. I thought I was doing the right thing; you’ll see, this will bring in loads of business.’ I laughed weakly, hoping that I would be proved right.

The afternoon flew by and before I knew it Kelli had clocked off in a whirlwind of nerves for her gig tonight, leaving just Ben and me finally alone.

‘I am sorry about the advert thing,’ I said as I emptied my waste-paper bin.

‘It’s fine. I’m sorry for flying off the handle.’ Ben flashed a genuine smile. ‘I just want you to know that I’m here to help. I want this business to work just as much as you do.’ He placed a warm hand on my shoulder that gave me a tingle of excitement. My body just seemed to melt at his touch, no matter how small or infrequently it happened.