Free A Fine Profession (The Chambermaid's Tales Part One) by Sarah Michelle Lynch Page A

miraculous had ever occurred before. Unrequited love. Could anything else be so painful or more entrancing as a plot device?
    I remember looking at Alex that night, as he walked me home, feeling that he was the love of my life. We got to my door and he revealed, “Thanks for making my birthday perfect.”
    He had not even told me it was! I was flummoxed and he said, “I didn't want any fuss. Just you in a dress with that smile on your face.”
    We hugged it out, but really, I felt the only way of expressing our emotion was to head for the bedroom. As ever, I padded on up to my one-bedroom flat and he made his way to his more luxurious pad on Canal Street.
     
    For my 26th birthday, Alex insisted on taking me shopping. I had known him for nine months by then and for sure, he seemed to know me better than anyone. He wanted to buy me something nice to wear for our night out celebrating the annual event. He did not give me much notice, telling me the morning of said outing. I thought about feigning illness, or something, but it was a busy day and I didn't have time to think about it all really.
    It was 3pm. We were meeting at the end of our respective shifts. That gave us around two hours to find something suitable. A short window but one I had decided I could perhaps cope with.
    Alex, oh, my dear lovely Alex thought he was doing me a great service, really, he did. However, he was not to know the depth of my paralysing self-consciousness. He did not realise how painfully and thick it ran.
    We had visited several stores, nothing seeming to appeal to me. Everything was either too patterned, too short, too revealing, too tight, too lacy, too eye-catching, too sparkly. Nothing offered me all I wanted. I needed demure, sophisticated, stylish, but at a price that suited me. And certainly nothing that appeared to be a fashion statement. I would not allow him to spend over £50. He tried to push so many things on me, declaring I would look great in any of them, but nothing would do. He just did not quite comprehend the damage he was doing.
    We were in John Lewis, panicking because our time to find something was almost up. Alex spotted a friend and left me for a few moments, dashing off to catch them before they exited in a lift. In the designer section, I wandered alone. Everything I saw was unsuitable. If something was low-cut, I would imagine strangers staring at my breasts, thinking how vulgar I was to be displaying them so brazenly. If something was tight, I imagined people assessing my behind and groaning at its disproportionate size. I saw the sales assistants, impatient and weary from a full day's work, staring at me. I wore my work uniform beneath a fleece jacket that could not be any plainer, and reached the conclusion that they probably thought me poor or destitute, browsing what I could never afford. If I chose something revealing, I would be deemed a slut. If I selected a garishly fashionable item, I might be seen to be trying too hard. Anything Victorian and modest would label me a prude or trying to hide some deformity only a mother could love. The stress that crept up on me was intense. I felt unattractive, unsuited to anything we had seen that day, and totally ill at ease within my own skin. The inability to choose a single item meant I was a failure. The shop girls possibly thought I had just been released from prison, with no make-up, my work clothes and not a clue what to buy. I wanted to leave and run, but I was not so lucky.
    I do not re member the woman, but I recall what she said.
    “ Are you looking for anything in particular? Maybe I could help if you are? We shut in ten minutes I am afraid.”
    By then, shaking with self-loathing, frustration and claustrophobia, I felt I was being attacked. I decided that everyone was my enemy. Nothing, not a single item, was for me. Everything would say something about me that wasn't true. I felt sure not a thing would represent me and what I stood for and therefore it was