The next day, Allyson arrived at her normal time to find she was the last to arrive. Carla was already there at her workstation - quite the turnaround from her bored attitude on her first day - she now seemed to be the most enthusiastic worker amongst them. Tara was on restocking today, and walked up to greet Allyson as soon as she arrived, noticeable snacking on a lollipop. '
"Hey, looks like Carla beat us both in today," Tara said, gesturing to the smiling Carla behind the counter, who waved at them both cheerily.
Allyson waved back before turning to Tara. "Lollipop for breakfast?"
Tara blushed. "Oh, yeah...well...turns it this stuff is pretty good. I opened up my supply last night and tried some of the candy. These lollipops are great. You sampled any of yours yet?"
"Not yet," Allyson said. "Not super into candy, to be honest."
"Yeah, me either," Tara said, placing the lollipop back in her mouth and sucking on it.
Sarah entered the room from the back office and smiled enthusiastically. "Morning girls, I must say, business has been booming all week. We're only on our third day and already we've cleared a third of our stock! If this keeps up, we'll be the best selling store in town. So let's try and keep up the hard work until Friday, if we sell the most candy we can all look forward to a nice bonus!"
Allyson wondered what kind of bonus they might get, and, not for the first time, found herself asking how Expansive Candy could possible be affording all this? Though apparently their faith in their product was paying off due to the amount of stock they had managed to clear so far.
She wasn't exactly looking forward to greeting and meeting today, not being the most social person, and being well known amongst her friends for being the introvert of the group, but it did seem like the easiest job. Taking her place at the door, she let the first few customers inside. Once again, there had been a line forming outside about an hour before opening time. These people really must not have had anything better to do.
"Hi, welcome to our store, where the candy is - "
Before Allyson had finished, the first few customers charged past her, ignoring her cheery greeting and hurrying to the shelves. Huh, good morning to you too, candy fiends...
It went on like that for most of the day. Allyson would say hello, and nine times out of ten, she would just be ignored. Carla was, surprisingly, doing very well behind the cash register, acting much more calm and collected than Tara had been yesterday despite a similar influx of customers. Whenever Allyson looked over at Tara, the petite blonde had a new lollipop in her mouth, which Sarah seemed to be fine with. Their manager had not been seen for a while, and was in the back office, so Allyson decided to move away from the doors and have a break. She doubted she would be missed.
Taking a seat nearby, Allyson noticed she had positioned herself next to the free samples; a bowl of assorted candies laid out each morning by Sarah. For the first time, she found herself tempted, and, with nothing better to do, she grabbed a small chocolate from the bowl, unwrapped it and popped it in her mouth. Wow, these are really tasty...that's some good chocolate.
And so, she found herself reaching for a few more, eventually grabbing a handful and returning to the entrance as she popped another three freebies into her mouth, savouring the rich, chocolatey flavour. For someone who wasn't a candy fan, she sure was enjoying these...
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