“Tracey. My office. Now!” barked Kate as Tracey walked in. She quickly tossed the Whistles bag under her desk and headed toward the open door. Kate had a face like thunder and she wondered what the problem was. Surely a little shopping excursion wasn’t that bad?
Kate firmly shut the door and Tracey looked around. Gareth sat in the corner looking like a naughty schoolboy.
“Sorry Kate, what’s up?” she asked.
“I think you can guess young lady.” Kate snarled, “Gareth has been filling me in on your activities at the theatre. I must say, even for you I’m shocked. What the hell are you up to?”
Tracey was thrown off balance for a moment. “You mean the panto? You know I was helping out there. And I got out of it as quickly as I could.”
“Not the panto. We all knew about that and while I wasn’t happy, I let you go along with it for the good of the job. No. I mean this show you are organising”. She spat the last words out.
Tracy looked at Gareth. He spluttered, “Kate. I think you are being a bit harsh. I mean Tracey has been doing her research…”
Kate interrupted him. “I’m sure she has. In fact, I know she has. I asked Kelvin to pull her internet search history for the last couple of weeks. When she hasn’t been checking out the latest fashion, she’s been doing a lot of ‘research’ into male strippers.”
Tracey protested, “It’s not like that. We need to bring in something big if we are going to save this theatre.”
“Something big like ginormous George perhaps? I see you’ve been researching his website quite diligently. Do you actually do any work?”
“That was work. We have a plan to save this place. OK, it’s not conventional, but plenty of people think it’s a good idea.”
Kate looked surprised. “Who thinks it’s a good idea? Gareth says the woman who runs the ticket desk. I’ve obviously missed her on Dragons Den.”
“Not just Doris, and she knows a lot about theatre, but I’ve been meeting one of the Councillors too. Councillor Dhaliwal is a bit of a financial genius apparently and he thinks it’s a great idea.”
“You mean you’ve been trotting this idea around other people? I thought it was just something you two had been cooking up behind my back. Now I find out half the bloody town knows. Have you any idea what this will look like for our business? We are supposed to be professional. We take on big government contracts. We do serious work. Now you want us to be known for pimping out greasy men.”
This was too much for Tracey. Her clothes were still damp and uncomfortable. Her hair was soggy. Even on a good day, she would be unhappy and this wasn’t a good day.
For a moment she stared at her boss, then turned and ran out of the room.
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