The Shoplifting Mothers' Club Read Free

fire.
    ‘Come on. I get freebies at that new place in town. Friend of my hubby owns it.’
    ‘Really, I’ve got so much to do and . . .’
    ‘I’ll throw in a muffin. Skinny blueberry and apple. To die for. Come on, I hate having coffee alone.’ The tooting was intensifying, but Chelsea didn’t look at all flustered. How did she do it? It might be worth a coffee just to discover the answer to that question.
    A gruff voice called from down the street. ‘Move it you stupid cow. You’re blocking the road.’
    ‘Calm down,’ Chelsea replied, smiling sweetly at a white van man who seemed to be fitting in anger at the wheel. ‘You’re breakfast buttie will still be there.’
    Deciding they might be sitting there all day if she didn’t relent, Jessica nodded and agreed to follow her nemesis. Free coffee was free coffee, even with a bitch in Burberry. And what’s the worst that could happen? Apart from food poisoning and a probable attempted murder on Jessica’s part, that was.

    The ‘new place’ was more a bar than a café, but it was trying to capture some of the lucrative coffee mums’ market and was packed to the rafters with prams, screeching kids and au pairs eager to cash in on the one pound coffee offer that was advertised on a stylish blackboard in a Rococo frame over a large fireplace and on a similarly stylish sandwich board outside.
    ‘This is nice, I’ve never been here,’ Jessica said, trying to keep the conversation away from the Paris trip.
    ‘So, is Rachel going to Paris then?’ Chelsea asked in response, watching Jessica sip her drink with an eagle eye.
    Bitch!
    Time for some honesty. ‘I don’t think so, we can’t afford it.’
    ‘But she must, every other child in the class is going. You live in the best part of Clawden, surely you can spring for a couple of hundred pounds?’
    ‘I thought it was one hundred and nineteen?’
    ‘Plus food and spending money. After all, you can’t go to Paris and not indulge a little, can you? I’m going to get Sienna one of those cute little cards you can load up with Euros. She’ll just adore spending with it. They do so love to be grown up at eight, don’t they?’
    The free coffee was beginning to develop a foul taste. ‘I’ve told you, Ronald works for a charity.’
    Two large muffins appeared and the waitress carefully laid them out with napkins and tiny forks. Chelsea was quiet for a moment, then began to slowly cut the muffin into pieces. ‘You know, there are ways to make ends meet.’
    ‘Like a part-time job, you mean? I had thought of that. Might go to the job centre later.’
    ‘And find something for a fiver per hour? Pretty pointless, don’t you think?’
    ‘The minimum wage is six pounds plus now, isn’t it?’
    Chelsea shrugged. ‘If you want something with flexible hours that pays well, I could help.’
    ‘Really? Doing what?’
    ‘Oh, something lucrative and easy, but there’s one thing I should tell you though, you’ll need to suspend your Miss Goody-Two-Shoes attitude if you want to work with us.’
    Us? Christ, she probably meant those evil clones of hers. That did it! Jessica wasn’t about to sell her soul to the BIBs for any money. It was probably a ploy to humiliate her in some way. ‘I might see what the job centre has to say first, but thanks so much for the offer.’ She stood. ‘And the muffin and coffee.’
    Chelsea smiled her expensive white smile and chose to ignore the fact that Jessica’s muffin remained uneaten. ‘Well, I didn’t pay for them, but you’re welcome. Think about the job offer. And . . .’ she leaned over, showing off a pert, surgically-enhanced cleavage, ‘. . . if you need money for that Paris trip, I can help out. You can pay me back when you start earning . . .’ she smiled even more widely, ‘. . . either through our little business, or at Tesco, or wherever.’

    The job centre woman was an enthusiastic but ultimately unhelpful woman named Mandy Loa. She cheerfully plied