Pear Shaped

Chapter Seven

“Don’t you think it’s a bit too tight?” Melinda Carrol twirls in the changing room mirror. “I mean, look at my boobs! They look like they’re about to pop out!”

Melinda is a single woman in her twenties who frequently makes my job more interesting by coming in with her hilarious date stories and looking for new outfits. She joined a dating website six months ago and says she’s never had so much fun. I wonder about joining something like that myself before I remember that I’m sworn off men.

Her body shape is categorised as ‘boyish’, meaning that she has a slender, athletic body with a small bust and hips.

“Your boobs look great!” I tell her.

“Really?” She twists her head, checking out her body from all angles in the full-length mirror. “You think Tony will like it? His profile says that he’s a doctor.”

“Well then he’ll love it!” I say, wondering what his profession has to do with whether or not he likes frilly playsuits.

Eventually Melinda decides that I’m right and heads back to the changing cubicle.

As I’m leaving the changing rooms, Suzy appears in front of me holding a clipboard like she’s someone really important. “There’s a woman here to see you. And I don’t think she’s a customer.” She lifts her head high in the air so I can almost see up her crooked nose. “She’s not the type.”

The woman waiting for me at the front desk is definitely not a customer. She’s an apple shape with a short bob of choppy brown hair and is today wearing a black lacy blouse and a pink pencil skirt.

“You!” Kylie screams when she sees me. She gets up close, looking at least a couple of inches shorter than me in her ballet pumps.

I don’t know why she’s here but it must have something to do with Dan. That’s another problem with men. Having to deal with their crazy floozies.

“You boyfriend stealing whore!” she accuses.

I laugh at the irony. “I did rather hope Dan had got the message when I said I wasn’t interested.”

“He told me,” she continues. “I know that he agreed to go out for a drink with you to talk things through. I think he feels a bit sorry for you but I know what you’re doing. Begging him to come back to you. It’s pathetic."

Here’s another bad male habit: telling massive lies and actually managing to make people believe that you’re the villain.

“I think that you ought to go home and speak to Dan,” I suggest, resisting the urge to beat her over the head with one of the expensive handbags hanging on the wall behind the till.

She points a bony finger at me. “You just stay away from my man!”

It occurs to me as Kylie storms out of the store’s main entrance that Dan could have told her anything. She might not even be aware of the part she played in ending my relationship.

That’s it. I don’t even want to look at another man.

Of course, as soon as I turn around to get back to my job, I see I’ve attracted something of an audience. With Mark Edwards in the front row.

Suzy marches up to me before I can fulfil my need to justify what’s just happened to Mark. “Chloe, I’ve spoken to you before about dealing with personal matters at work.” She’s referring to the one occasion on which Bianca stopped by, trying to set me up with some guy she’d met at the gym prior to my Dan disaster.

“Sorry Suzy.” I recreate the false smile she’s always got plastered on her face.

I can tell that my reaction isn’t the one she was hoping for. She purses her thin lips and hugs her clipboard tighter to her chest.

If she wants me to start an argument with her, she’ll need to work a bit harder.

I leave her standing there and hurry towards Mark to apologise.

He nods once, accepting my apology. “Don’t let personal matters interfere with your work,” he says seriously.

“I’ll try not to. It’s just that Kylie–“ I spot a blonde from the cosmetics counter leaning in our direction and Suzy and Janine are huddled up, trying to listen to mine and Mark’s interaction.

Mark seems to notice the vultures too and asks, “Are you busy?”

“I’ve got a rail of jeans to sort out.”

He smiles widely. “Great. Why don’t we talk in my office?”

I’ve been in Mark’s office a few times before, most noticeably my recent burst in there after hearing poisonous Suzy’s little recession rumour, but I’ve never noticed how tidy it is. Like he spends all day cleaning it rather than whatever it is that store managers are supposed to do.

As well as his computer desk, he’s got a filing cabinet and several A4 binders stacked one top of the other on the grey carpet. There’s a plant that looks a bit poorly sitting on the window sill but no photographs or personal items.

Mark sits in his office chair and gestures for me to pull a brown plastic chair over from where it stands in the corner by the door.

I position the chair, which reminds me of the ones they have in schools, facing him at the opposite side of his desk and sit down. The hard plastic is just as uncomfortable as it looks.

“I do appreciate that your recent situation must have been difficult for you,” he begins.

“What do you know about it?” I question, knowing that Suzy will have given him her spin on things.

He blushes, the colouring looking odd against his olive skin. “Just that you’ve split up with your boyfriend and now this woman’s come in accusing you of all sorts.”

“Kylie,” I explain, “Dan’s bit on the side.”

“I see.” He fiddles with his tie. “I can’t say I was really that taken with Dan the other night.”

“Good.” I laugh.

There’s a pause in the conversation that I long to fill with questions about him and Janine but I catch him looking at his reflection in his computer screen and smoothing a strand of loose hair. For a second there, I thought I was with a nice, normal guy and not Mr Vain Mark Edwards.  

“I should get back to sorting those jeans,” I say, standing up.

I don’t bother to look back at Mark but I’m sure he hasn’t even noticed I’m gone.