I’m not really a dress person

“I’m not really a dress person” She’d told them before being pushed into the rather too grand changing room before the pink silk curtains were closed around her and three of the dreaded things were put in with her.

The changing room had three large mirrors decorated in gold frames; one in fount of her, and two at the sides. On the gold bar stretching across one of the mirrors hung the dresses she was being forced into. A tight fitting navy blue one, a ghastly pink one with frills and bows and a simpler peach one. There was no way on God’s earth she was going to let them where the pink one so she picked the navy one off the gold bar and began undressing her grubby clothes onto the cream carpet.

 

Outside the changing room, the men were talking. They were dressed in dark suites, clearly the other end of the class system to the girl in the changing room and knew it. The first man looked bored and slightly doubtful as he picked up the end’s of random dresses that hung in the huge department store.

"Do you honestly believe you can do this?” This first man asked the second, his disbelieve and spite in his voice.

"The second man paused before answering,

“She’s not pretty. Her skin’s too tanned, her hair doesn't curl and she’s too thin. The girl constantly looks unimpressed, she swears too much and has an uncanny habit of speaking what’s on her mind. She can’t dance, ride, play an instrument, sing, paint or sew.” He smiled “She’s not a lady”

"You’re going to lose Briggs” the first man laughed, “ you admitted it, you can’t make a girl from the streets into a lady, the idea’s preposterous!”

“So the girls got a bit of spirit! I like a tough challenge, but don’t worry” He flashed his white prefect teeth “I’ll pull through.”

The first man shook his head and tipped his hat at the lady running the store before leaving, his black coat sweeping through after the bell that rang as he left. When he had gone the poor girl in the changing room stepped out slightly nervously from behind the engulfing heavy pink curtains.

The dress clung to her body in the right places and showed off her tall slender figure. Her flat white blonde hair hung at her grubby shoulders and she bit her caked with dirt fingernails as the rich man cocked his head to the side. He smiled suddenly.

“We’ll take this one” He told the woman. She nodded and went to help her out of it back into the changing room.  

“I’ll make a lady out of you yet sunshine” He muttered and smiled taking a seat next to the room.

 

Eleanor