Clouds Below the Mountains Read Online Free Page B

I come with you to Reception and help finish up their processing? Then perhaps you would like me to come to your suite and we’ll see if the accommodation is to your satisfaction?”
    â€œYes, I’d like that, thank you,” said Paul, feeling very gratified with the woman’s manner towards him. “You’ve been jolly decent listening to my grievances. I’ll just whistle up the family and we’ll continue on from there.”

Chapter Two.

    Lucy hummed a little tune, as she stood under the shower feeling the pinpoint needles shafting into her sticky body. Oh, it was good. Not too hot and not too cold, the temperature was just right to make her feel like herself again. Perhaps she’d go over to the pool bar next, after she had got herself into her clean blouse that was hanging over the balcony railings to air. Get herself a cool drink before she went to man the rep’s desk.
    She took a look in the mirror over the vanity unit as she dried herself. The tan was coming along well, although there wasn’t much on her oval face as she was scared of getting sun spots. She had definitely put on weight since she got there. Her thighs were beginning to develop cellulite and there was a little pouch on her stomach that had never been there before. Perhaps she should ask Kath how she went about getting a skirt size larger. It was all this food she was eating in the evening that was doing it, besides her nightly glasses of wine.
    Thinking of Kath made her speed up getting into her uniform again. She looked at her silver watch that she had placed on the unit, along with her St Christopher necklace that her mother had given her and her diamante stud earrings that her father had bought her at Christmas time. Her Dad had been really good about her wish to work in a foreign country. He had stood up to her mother and said that Lucy should get things like this out of her system now, while she was only nineteen. It wasn’t as if she was emigrating to Australia. Tenerife was only four and half hours away and they could visit her at anytime.
    The time on her watch told her that she shouldn’t be lingering in front of the bathroom mirror reapplying her makeup. Kath would be back from the airport by now and be wondering where she was. Though surely she wouldn’t want a rep’ smelling of sweat, with streaked mascara and lack of lipstick manning the desk for her? She spread some pale blue eye shadow onto her eyelids, smiling as she did so because it was a perfect match for her large expressive eyes. Rinsing her hands and noticing that she had a chip in her burgundy coloured nail varnish on the index finger of her right hand, she debated whether to renew the polish straight away or risk a telling off by her superior.
    She decided against a tongue lashing, as she wasn’t sure that Kath had let her off for failing to inquire about the Harrison’s, so after dragging a silver coloured banana clip through her hair to be fixed in place on the top of her head, she locked the patio door of her apartment behind her.
    ***
    â€œSo what have you got to say for yourself, young lady?”, asked Kath, as she cornered Lucy walking along the corridor on her way to the rep’s desk. “Not only do you leave the desk unmanned so that one of our clients had been left with no one to answer his problems, but I saw you out of the window as I was inspecting the client’s accommodation. Imagine how I felt when I was showing him the view from his balcony, to see you sitting at the Pool bar, without your jacket on I may add, laughing and joking with two of the waiters! It isn’t good enough, Lucy. You passed your month’s probation with flying colours and now you think you can just sit back and do as little as possible. Well let me tell you, I am issuing a Verbal warning. Pull your socks up or you’ll be out on your ear.”
    She stalked off then, giving Lucy no chance to defend herself.