The Retail Therapist Read online

  “Oh, come on, GiGi: get a move on! We’re all going to die of thirst, if not starvation, by the time you finish this story!” one of them said, but I carried on regardless. I was, as usual, a woman on a mission to make the world a better-dressed place. I knew my friends from old and they knew me; they could put up with my storytelling just a little bit longer – that’s the polite thing to do, isn’t it?

  “Vanessa was a woman of culture; she spent evenings in her mansion reading books and was actually an amusing person to be with. But she didn’t have a single chance to interact with her peers, and was now very far removed from her old friendships, so life was starting to get boring. She was getting desperate by the time I was given her number. There is only so much travelling around the world you can do before you realise that life, even with money, can be tedious. Vanessa was shy by nature and, therefore, she wasn’t the person to stand out at a social event. Not that she received any invitations.

  “An opportunity had presented itself a few months previously, when she’d rented a box for Royal Ascot. She’d been on the verge of leaving the racecourse, after just the second race. She couldn’t manage to go to the neighbouring box and present herself; how in hell are you supposed to do that? ‘Hello, I’m Vanessa.’ People can be nasty and just answer, ‘Who cares?’ and like anybody else she wouldn’t have liked to be rejected.

  “So Vanessa decided to leave early, but just near the escalator she stumbled upon Marjorie, who had just tripped on the floor, with all the contents of her bag rolling around on the ground. Vanessa, who was a good-natured person, helped her to collect up her belongings – but her attire would have made anybody suspicious! In her quest to gain attention she’d gone dressed in full Essex style, with platinum-blonde hair extensions, eyelashes as long as a Halloween witch’s broom, fake orange tan – the whole shebang. Her skirts had grown shorter and shorter as the months had passed, in an attempt to get noticed; that happened, of course, but for all the wrong reasons. Despite all that, Marjorie saw through the entire masquerade and realised she had in front of her a very nice person, maybe one that needed some help; so, moved, she invited Vanessa for a drink. One thing led to another and soon enough Vanessa was crying like a baby about her frustration at having all that money and no friends whatsoever.”

  “I thought Blake was long-winded,” said Lillian, “but today you’re putting him to shame.”

  “Come on, GiGi – get to the point,” urged Ritchie.

  “Oh well, I see you don’t appreciate the short version of the facts. Ah, the mobile-phone generation! Everything has to be a hundred and forty characters nowadays.” I tried to look disappointed, but I was sure my face had a weird expression, as they all started mimicking me. I couldn’t have cared less if they got bored; it was my story, after all.

  “So the good Marjorie, fresh from getting the GiGi treatment, sent Vanessa in my direction for a makeover. Vanessa had a nice figure and plenty of cash to spend; during my initial assessment I asked her if she wanted something that looked good but not expensive or if she wanted the high-end stuff. The answer was always the same; everybody wants high-end garments. So I did a little experiment on her; I proposed a mix of the two without her even noticing. I showed her how to enhance her figure without being tatty and to look elegant without spending a fortune. It doesn’t matter whether you’ve won the lottery; you don’t have to go around wearing thousands of pounds’ worth of clothes all the time – a few well-chosen items make all the difference. Especially if you knew a few of the tricks I’ve learned on my journey so far.”

  “So, are you now a millionaire as well, then?” asked Lillian.

  “I wish! No, I’m not, but all this is giving me confidence that there is a market out there, with people who are willing to spend money to look beautiful.” I tried to pontificate, as if I was in front of Peter Jones attempting to convince him to invest in my little endeavour.

  “We’re still missing the finale,” interjected Ritchie.

  “Marjorie invited Vanessa to dinner with a few friends,” I explained, “and of course Vanessa’s witty personality came out. The fact that she was also looking the part boosted her confidence. Rumour has it that she may even have found a boyfriend – a nice one.”

  I was almost expecting a round of applause, but our plates arrived at that very moment and we all became busy getting spiced up with Mexican food. We did, however, enjoy our meal together and declared the birthday bash a huge success, partly due to the presents, but mostly because of the company and good food.

  CHAPTER 3

  My mother kept nagging at me that I should have found my own place, as I was hijacking every possible space in their home with my clothes, shoes, bags and coats; and that’s not counting all the things, the day-to-day stuff, that I had at Ritchie’s apartment. There’s a thin line between loving fashion and being a hoarder, believe me.

  So, I started being a personal shopper by chance. In addition to being a secretary I had a job as a nanny, and the lady of the house needed some assistance. Needless to say, my suggestions were spot-on and made a huge impression among the upper crust in Berkshire, so, by word of mouth, I started receiving other “requests for assistance” – and there I was.

  It’s not as easy as you might think. I spent the day scavenging around shops, looking at clothes on the internet, keeping up to date with the latest trends; it was like being on a diet and working in a chocolate shop. Life is hard, but someone has to do it, I say.

  Now, despite not knowing anything about information technology, and after days spent fighting with HTML code and mostly pleading, rather than asking, for help from friends, I also have a website.

  I was home trying to work out a lead a former client had thrown at me when I heard the door slamming. I closed the laptop and went to see why Ritchie was home so early; it was eleven in the morning and that was highly unusual.

  “The bastards!” he shouted as soon as I entered the lounge. “I can’t believe that!”

  “What’s going on?” he was walking up and down from the sofa to the window and back, biting his nails as he usually did when he was nervous.

  “They fired me,” he continued, “or, as they say, they ‘let me go’. Redundancy and all that rubbish.”

  “Hang on – sit down,” I urged him. “Calm down for a second and tell me the whole story.”

  “There isn’t much to tell. Do you remember little Frank, the one who was made supervisor instead of me, just because he has a brown nose?”

  “As a matter of fact I do. Isn’t he the one who has no issues whatsoever with authority?” I added sarcastically.

  “Cheap shot! I just don’t like being told what to do; you know, I have ideas of my own.”

  “OK – so what about Frank?” I started wondering if he had punched him in the face or had thrown him down from the balcony in Selfridges. The two had always been like cat and dog.

  “He called me into his office, made the speech that they were reducing the personnel and all the other crap. They also had my P45 already there. They could have had the decency to let me know a few days earlier. In this period finding a job is not easy.”

  I wasn’t sure at that point whether he was more upset because he’d lost his job, which he had hated for months, or whether it was because Frank had been the one to fire him. Knowing him well, though, and if he’d got the supervisor job in the first place and had had to fire someone, he wouldn’t have done it; Ritchie would have told his superiors what to do with their redundancy plan and would have lost his own job without a doubt.

  “You’ll find another place, Ritchie. You’re good at what you do and you love fashion. Someone out there will recognise your talent.” I tried to cheer him up, but it was a hopeless task. When he was in such a foul mood he just had to vent his frustration, before eventually coming to his senses.

  “Oh my God – how am I going to pay the bills, if I don’t find something soon?” I knew very well the guilt trip he was experiencing. He had ju
st spent a fortune on a cashmere coat and now he was going to regret the purchase, biting his nails until they started hurting.

  “I can give you a hand on that. Vanessa just paid me.”

  “GiGi, I can’t let you do that. Come on.”

  “So, we both have to go back to our parents, tails between our legs, and beg them to let us have our little rooms back?” I snapped, “How’s that as an option?” I knew that if I played the parent card I had a chance; it was also my place, that apartment, even if it was only on a temporary basis. “Think, Ritchie: I’ve just been paid, and you made me save all that money for a rainy day. Looks to me like today it’s pouring, so why not?”

  He mulled it over for a couple of minutes and then nodded; one less problem to take care of.

  At that point my mobile rang.

  “GiGi Personal Shopper – how can I assist you?” Ritchie looked at me, flabbergasted, most likely owing to the lack of imagination in my business name. But at that point people already knew it and also I was listed in the directory and on the web, so no point in changing it. I put my index finger on my lips, signalling him to keep quiet.

  “Yes … of course, Natalie ... what do you mean exactly when you say ‘a fashion emergency’?”

  Ritchie at that point looked amused and I was glad, for once, that he had kept quiet instead of making one of his silly jokes.

  “I see … sounds urgent. Let me check my schedule … yes, I think I could make this afternoon. I’ll have to reschedule another appointment but hey, an emergency is an emergency.” The woman gave me the address and contact details and we parted with the promise to meet a few hours later.

  I hung up the phone and asked, “Do you want to come along?”

  “Ummm … no, I think I should start preparing my CV.” He didn’t look convinced and I know that starting to amend a CV the very same day you’ve been made redundant is a sure recipe for depression.

  “Oh, come on. You need some fresh air and the CV can wait until tomorrow. And you might actually enjoy it.”

  “So, where is your emergency?” he asked. Fortunately, his curiosity took over.

  “Windsor. A certain Allyson Traynor is being interviewed by a magazine in a couple of weeks’ time and she recognises her wardrobe is not up to scratch.”

  “The Allyson Traynor? The one from the Berks Girls, the series on telly?” I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about, but Richie knew his television programmes; I guessed she was probably a minor celebrity, considering she was going to be interviewed.

  “Well, you can tag along and see for yourself. I might even be able to get you an autograph,” I teased him.

  “Ha, ha, very funny. Only thing is, I can’t come. I have to get my CV updated and putting it off won’t get me anywhere fast! The autograph would be greatly appreciated, though,” he added with a wink. I had often wondered just how many different things Ritchie collected. I’ve seen that there is very little space at his place for me to occupy, owing to his “collections”, but he’s so damn secretive about them; they’re never on display. One of these nights, when he’s either out or fast asleep, I vowed I would investigate. No man, be they gay or straight, could seriously be that much of a hoarder, could he?

  CHAPTER 4

  Two years earlier

  So, how did I start being a personal shopper? Easy. I worked as a secretary first; to be precise, as a legal secretary. My first secretarial job was in a firm of surveyors; it was as boring as watching grass grow and paid peanuts as a salary. My monkey period was over, I thought soon enough, and I was on the hunt for a change. I found my second job in Farnborough, after weeks of scouring the internet and visiting one agency after another in the search for that elusive occupation. I had almost given up and decided to look at temping when the call arrived. The Office Seraphim’s Agency (or something like that) had found my CV somewhere, on one of the millions of job websites where I had posted it, and wanted to put me forward for a new position for which they’d just received details. The post was apparently an opportunity that happens once in a lifetime – to become a legal secretary for a renowned firm established more than forty years ago, Lowe and Partners. No legal experience was required, though.

  Hey, when a chance like that comes along you snatch it up, don’t you? The agency didn’t even want to have a preliminary interview. The chap on the phone was pleasant enough, and when I said I was a fast typist (which I was) there was no reason to mistrust my assertion. They organised a meeting with the senior partner for the following Monday, and there I went. I was thrown into the glamorous, desirable world of legal secretariat. Fortunately enough I had time for a trip to the outlet to buy some proper office clothes. You have to spend money to make money; don’t they always say that on Dragon’s Den? Surely, we would have to deal with high-end conveyances, large inheritances and divorces, and I wanted to look the part.

  The interview was surprisingly brief. I went to their office on a Monday at lunchtime. The office was situated above a Chinese restaurant, with the entrance just on the left – a blue door with a metal plate, well worn, reading “Lowe and Partners”. The wood was rotten at the bottom of the door and the paint was peeling off after years of rain and sun. I climbed the steps and introduced myself to Eliza, a South African lady as slim as a stick, with big, thick glasses, who was working as secretary and receptionist. She looked miserable, like a dog that had been beaten up and kept on a chain all day long, without even the hope of a walk or even being able to have a sniff around. Lowe interviewed me first, an old man in his seventies if he was a day, well dressed and with a strong German accent; and he was followed by his wife, who resembled a wicked witch. I didn’t get exactly what the wife was doing in the firm, but at that time I was too shy to ask. For sure, she wasn’t a solicitor and neither was she a secretary; I soon had the suspicion that perhaps she was just there to keep a close eye on her husband. Perhaps he was an old pig.

  The interview didn’t strike me as very professional: just a couple of questions about my previous job, whether I had any experience and whether I was a fast typist. Something didn’t add up: no questions about my motivation, why I wanted that job, where I saw myself in five years’ time … you know – the regular bull that everybody asks in those situations. They didn’t seem to be too fussy when it came to hiring. Seraphim’s called me that very afternoon, informing me that I’d got the job and I could start the following week.

  I broke the news to my partner that very evening; he couldn’t have cared less.

  “It’s your decision,” he kept repeating like a parrot; not a single word of encouragement or even the willingness to spend some time discussing the matter. After all, if I was going for a higher-paid job it was for us, our future, not only for my little passion for clothes.

  I spent the first week without any hassle, learning about forms and on occasion answering the telephone. Lowe’s wife, meanwhile, was flying around like a condor looking for carrion, always ready to grumble if someone spent an additional millisecond chatting about something that wasn’t work-related. Most likely she was even setting a stop watch to gauge how much time the personnel spent in the toilet.

  I went for lunch a couple of times with Eliza and finally, after some fishing, I found out what was wrong with that job. The old boy had already lost five secretaries that year and was able to drive everybody nuts. After a couple of months of mistreatment, the clever ones left for another job. Lowe and Partners was the name of the firm, but the first question popping into my mind was, Where the bloody hell are the partners? I could see only the old fellow and two junior solicitors, and partners they were not, I was sure of that. I could clearly see they had the exact same terror in their eyes as Eliza had.

  “But … didn’t they tell you, at the agency, who you were going to work for?” she asked, surprised.

  “Apparently not. They talked to me on the phone and they thought, ‘Here’s the solution to our problems.’ ” I laughed, but I didn’t think it was actually
a very funny situation.

  “Every agency in town knows him; I’m surprised there are still some agencies that want to work with him. Whenever I’ve had to call them saying we needed a new secretary, most of the time they’ve hung up on me.”

  “So, why are you staying?” I asked curiously. Maybe there was still hope.

  “My husband and I are saving to go to Australia. Paul has two sons working there already and if we transfer, we can have his other son move there from South Africa, on what’s called a ‘family ticket’.”

  “Don’t you have to have a job, to get into Australia in the first place?”

  She laughed out loud. “No, we’re going there as pensioners. As long as we have enough funds for the first two years, before the pension kicks in, that’s allowed. That’s why I’m still working here; we’re saving as much as we can.”

  I was stuffed. I still had thirty-four years to go before retirement.

  I had to swallow the medicine the following week. Eliza was safe because mostly she was working as the receptionist, but I could see she was terrified, always trying to appear busy at the computer. For me, it was a different matter; I had to type all the letters that old Lowe had dictated, with headset on and nothing much to do other than type. The problem was that the old oaf was speaking quickly, with a German accent despite his forty-odd years spent in England and most of the time he was mangling the words. I could barely understand what in hell he was saying. The worst were the names, which he pronounced wrongly all the time. For those; I had to go and get out the old files to try to find the correct spelling, hoping that the previous secretary had done their job properly in writing it correctly. That was an endeavour not without risks. And then, at the end of the day it was “correction time”. Every time there was a mistake, the old boy became a fury.