“Omilord, how does the girl get out of the house looking like that?”
Jan and Lydia were image consultants. Actually, they were housewives who ran a small business on the side, selling clothing at in-home shopping parties…sort of like Tupperware with accessories. They had built up a good patter, talking about body shapes and color matches. It had started as a way of pointing clients to a particular style of clothing, so that they didn’t have to wait while every customer tried on every sample. It was interesting stuff, though, and they found that women wanted to hear it.
One of the guests at a shopping party was married to a guy who knew someone who ran a consulting firm for conventions. Filling the off-hours of conventioneers, and more importantly, their wives, was a full-time business. Jan and Lydia had been booked for the Fremont Corporation Convention with the promise that, if they made a go of this, there’d be a lot more in their future. They were not allowed to talk about their particular line of clothing, but just give a general lecture with samples from retail stores. It had been a fun week for the two of them, shopping for clothes for the event…they had thought they would have to buy clothes and then return them when they were done, but when they mentioned to the salesclerks what they were doing, the clothes were happily lent to them with the proviso that they make prominent mention of where the garments had come from.
They had worked their patter over and over, practicing on each other. Now all they needed was a guinea pig…someone they could transform. And she appeared before them in the form of Abigail Fremont.
They did not know who she was. Fremont Corporation meant nothing to them. Big company from the States. Okay, good. We’re dealing with the wives. Nothing to worry about here.
They began their lecture talking about body types. There were four, they stated, X, H, A and Y.
“Of course, everyone wants to be an ‘X’,” said Jan, “but unfortunately, very few of us are.” She described what made up the different body shapes and how you could use clothing to compensate for your shortcomings.
“What every woman wants is to look like she’s an ‘X’,” said Lydia, placing a transparency on the overhead projector. “You’ll recognize this picture, I’m sure.” The audience murmured its agreement. “I bet that you think this is an ‘X’ woman, but she’s not. She’s an A…that means wide in the hips, narrow on top.”
Mutters of dissent sounded throughout the audience. “But see here,” continued Jan, pointing to the sweater the actress was wearing. “Big shoulder pads. She made that her look, and really, all she’s doing is compensating for her shape.”
The audience sat forward in their chairs. Really? She wasn’t perfect? That actress that they all aspired to look like? They wanted to hear more.
Jan and Lydia ran through their spiel. This was what they did at house parties and they were good at it. Okay, so there were a hundred women in the room today…so what? Same old thing. Women who were unsure about their body image, looking for satisfaction. This famous person here…another overhead…she’s a ‘Y’, big shoulders, narrow hips…see how she dresses to compensate. The women in the audience looked at each other. Omigod…do you think there’ll be a handout?
They pulled women out of the audience. An H, an A and a Y. They detailed their figures and showed what they needed to focus on and sent them to a makeshift dressing room behind some curtains to change into one of the selected outfits. The women came back out and the reaction was immediate and overwhelming. Jan and Lydia looked at each other. They were definitely onto something here. It was time for the piece de resistance.
“You!” said Jan, suddenly. “You’re an ‘X’. Come here.” And she grabbed Abby by the hand and pulled her out of her chair before she could protest. The collective gasp that went through the audience made Jan and Lydia look at each other but they ignored it and carried on. Abby stood before them wearing a loose tunic over a prim white blouse.
“I’m not an ‘X’, I’m an ‘H’,” protested Abby. “Look, Ma, no boobs.”
The resulting exhalation of breath and nervous laughter from the entire audience let Jan know that they were dealing with someone important to this group and that they should tread carefully. Lydia, unfortunately, didn’t get the same message.
“Doesn’t matter,” said Lydia, grabbing the back of Abby’s tunic and bunching it in. “See. It doesn’t matter how small you are. If your hips and breasts are the same measurement and they are wider than your waist, you’re an ‘X’.”
“God bless tennis,” said Abby, because she didn’t know what else to say. Before she could protest, she was hustled to the changing room and handed a dress to change into. Right, she thought, yeah, this is going to look good on me. It was a jersey knit dress with a wide belt. Raspberry. The skirt had the tiniest bit of flare and the neckline was a Henley style…three little buttons at the top…no collar. The hemline was just above her knee.
Abby stared at herself in the mirror. The dress did make a difference. She looked…okay. Well, good, she wasn’t going to look like a total idiot in front of the assembled multitude. She didn’t give a ‘rat’s ass’ to quote Nick’s favorite AJ quote, but she knew that the women assembled out front would not know how to deal with seeing the boss’ daughter reduced to fashion rubble before their eyes.
Abby hovered by the curtains waiting for Jan and Lydia to notice her.
“Okay, here she is. Come on out.”
Abby walked over to the two women.
“What’s your name?” asked Lydia.
“Abby.”
“Okay. Now ladies, look at Abby. Turn.”
Abby obediently turned around slowly. Lydia and Jan pointed out the features of the dress and how they enhanced Abby’s figure.
“Here,” said Jan, slipping out of her shoes. “Put these on.”
Abby replaced her flat espadrilles with Jan’s higher heels. A murmur of appreciation went through the audience.
“You’ve got great legs,” said Jan. “You should show them off more, wear shorter skirts and higher heels.”
“You need one of those shaper bras too,” said Lydia. “If you got it, flaunt it.”
“I don’t got it,” said Abby with a laugh.
“Well, flaunt what you got. Even more reason for the bra.”
Abby laughed again. The women in the audience started to breathe again. Abby was joking and having fun with it, so they could too. No husband was going to lose a job here because of a wife’s indiscretion.
Jan and Lydia finished their presentation. Abby gave Jan back her shoes and went back to the changing room. When she came out, she saw that there had indeed been a handout. The women were poring over it and chatting. Jan and Lydia moved through the crowd and answered questions, helping the women decide what shape they were and what style of clothing they should wear. Abby picked up one of the handouts from the table and read through it. Not much wonder I always look so awful, thought Abby. According to this, I’m choosing all the wrong clothing. Instead of trying to hide my skinny bones, I should be drawing attention to them.
Lunch was announced and the ladies moved as a herd into the next room where they would be eating. Abby walked over to Jan and Lydia. The crowd around them dissolved, making way for Abby.
“Thank you very much for the presentation,” she said. “It was very enjoyable. You are good at it…and made it fun too.”
“Thank you, Abby. And thanks for being a good sport…about changing clothes and all.”
“Well, I sure learned a lot about myself in a very short time, I can tell you that. How much did you get paid for this, if you don’t mind me asking?”
Jan and Lydia looked at each other. They did kind of mind, but they didn’t want to insult her. It was obvious the other women deferred to her. Abby noted their hesitation. She did something then that she hated doing.
“Perhaps it would be better if I introduced myself properly. My name is Abby Fremont.”
Jan got it immediately. “As in…?”
Abby nodded. “Yes, as in…”
“Five hundred dollars,” said Lydia, catching on at last. “Between us.”
“Do you have any more shows this week?”
“No,” said Jan. “This was kind of like a test, to see how it went over. We might get more work out of it.”
“Well, you will certainly do that after they get my recommendation. But I was wondering…if you don’t have any more shows this week, if I could hire you to…this is going to sound silly, but…to go shopping with me. I am in desperate need of a new wardrobe and I don’t have any idea where to start.”
Jan and Lydia looked at each other.
“Paid to go shopping? I’ve died and gone to heaven,” said Lydia with a grin.
“I’ll pay you five hundred dollars a day…” said Abby and then sealed the deal with one word, “…each.”
“When do we start?” said Jan, holding out her hand to shake Abby’s.
“Tomorrow at nine?”
“Perfect. We’ll meet you in the lobby, then?”
“No, come up to my room. 508. We’ll go through my stuff first. I have a feeling I’ll want to get rid of most of it.”
Jan and Lydia nodded in agreement.
“And ladies,” added Abby, as they were turning away. They stopped and turned back. “I want you to be brutal. Tell me the honest truth. Okay?”
“Okay,” said Jan. “We promise. We’ll see you tomorrow.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~That night, Abby went over the week’s schedule carefully, figuring out where she could get the time to transform herself. She had to attend most of the functions that had been planned, even just to put in a token appearance and then slip out. She developed a plan she thought would work. Free time had been built into the schedule fairly generously anyway. The low Canadian dollar made shopping the favorite activity for most of the women. Abby disliked shopping and figured that would be her writing time, but that was all changed now.
As she was going to sleep, she thought about Nick. She wished she hadn’t sent that last email. The more she thought about it, the more she realized that he hadn’t been insulting her personally and she shouldn’t have been such a sensitive twit about it. Ironically enough, it seemed that she was going to get her transformation after all, and it wasn’t going to involve surgery.
