Three Days and One

Domenique was baptized in Valletta and lived in Qormi till the age of 18, when he moved out because she had had enough of her father’s over protectiveness. Married to Jimmy, a man from Żejtun, she ears no children of her own. “God forbid. God forbid! You’d have to raise them up if I ever get knocked up! I am warning you. And I won’t ask you to carry them because otherwise you cannot.”

She’s been working in Floriana for six years. Her job is to answer calls and take the orders of those watching the boss’ adverts and are tempted to buy. She has a television in the shop so that every afternoon she watches the adverts and then when he calls her on the mobile she would know exactly what to say. “Hey Steve. Yes of course, it’s crazy. Four people have already called in just five minutes. I must leave you now because the phone’s ringing again.”

The six years during which she’s been there, she almost worked them all on her own, amongst those many shelves and boxes on top of each other. Behind her, gathered in a pile in the corner between the wall and the furniture, there is every kind of plastic bags, card boxes, and even parts belonging to products from long ago. “Yeah, yeah Madame.  We’ll make the delivery to Mdina earliest on Friday.” She detests that yeah. Two months ago, they employed a man to work with her. His table was just a metre away from hers and the only corner in which she used to stretch on, after sitting down for an hour and fifteen minutes, was taken away from her. Work starts at 8:30 but he arrives five minutes late, and till nine o’clock he would have already taken his shoes off and wandered off two times.

During these last two weeks, it seems that Steve has dreamed of treadmills because he started to advertise just them. She couldn’t bear to hear him every afternoon boast on about how many calories they are able to burn down in a minute. If this had happened two months ago, she would have heard him once and the television would stay mute in all the other times, but he wanted to listen. And turns the volume upper every time he sees her getting more frustrated.

She weighs 98 kilos and has been telling Jimmy that she no longer wants cheesecake on Sunday morning, and on Wednesday afternoon, after he picks up his sister’s little one for she works late, and on Friday evening when he arrives from the square. “I’ve bought them now! Why shall we waste half a dozen cheesecakes? They’re still hot, he was just getting them out of the oven.” And Domenique swallows her tongue and some three or four cheesecakes. 

Steve wanted them to really know what they’re selling. “You aren’t able to talk to clients about products which you never used.” He used to take a new product to the shop every time, one time a food processor, another an energy saving gas lamp and other times, well-woollen bed slippers. But she didn’t want to try out the treadmill. She let the skinny one use it, and then drowned him with a questions: “is it difficult to assemble it for the first time?”, “how did you feel by running on it?”, “is it  necessary to adjust it every time?”

And after two weeks hearing about the calories, she got frustrated and grabbed the telephone line and pulled it out of its place. After five minutes of staring, she found some coins in the drawer and went out to buy two cheesecakes. She left the other one trying to sell that treadmill and when she got back, she threw the change in the drawer, spread the napkin in front of her and started to nibble on the cheesecakes. “How come your telephone’s not ringing? Are they only connecting to mine today then?” She looked at the calendar, Monday, the most day during which people phone to make orders, and was wondering whether to plug in the line again. And while she was chewing on the last crumbs, she remembered that along with Sunday, Wednesday and Friday, Monday was now added to the list too.