‘I tend to find,’ Daphne goes on, ‘that it’s a good idea to consider what you may do with a piece of clothing before youbuy it. Anything can look lovely in a shop, but if you have nowhere to wear it no one else will see how lovely it is.’
Lucy shrugs again. ‘I just think it’s cool. The colour’s nice.’
‘That it is.’
‘Just let her get it if she wants,’ Adelaide says, sounding exasperated, and both Daphne and Lucy turn their heads toward her.
‘I’ll let you buy it if you can sew well enough to alter it for your figure,’ Daphne tells Lucy.
‘I can.’ Lucy sounds almost defiant.
‘And you have to come back and show me what you’ve done.’
‘This isn’t a school exam!’ Adelaide says testily.
This time Daphne spins all the way around and puts her hands on her hips. Perhaps suburban life is chafing on her old friend. The frock shop may not be glamorous enough for someone used to boulevards and boulangeries.
‘This is a matter between me and young Lucy,’ she admonishes. ‘We’ve known each other a long time, haven’t we, Lucy?’
‘Yep.’
Daphne turns back in time to see Lucy grinning into the mirror, as if she’s enjoying the spectacle of two old biddies having a barney. That’s what Daphne thinks she must be laughing about, at any rate.
‘What do you say, Lucy?’
‘I’ll take it.’
Lucy pulls the blouse off over her head, revealing the Madonna T-shirt she’s wearing underneath. Daphne likes that Madonna, more for her fashion than her music, Daphne’s taste in tunes having been fixed somewhere around the heyday of Frank Sinatra.
‘How’s school?’ Daphne enquires as she rings up the purchase and Lucy hands over a two-dollar coin.
‘All right, I guess. The art teacher is rubbish. But I like the English teacher.’
‘Better than liking none of them.’ Daphne hands over a paper bag with the blouse in it. ‘Now don’t just rip it apart at the seams to see how it’s made. It’s a quality item.’
‘I won’t!’ Lucy says cheerily, then waves as she almost skips out the door.
Daphne sees another customer pulling a boxy, shoulder-padded jacket from the rack and holding it up against her torso.
‘No,’ Daphne says forcefully, walking up to her.
‘No?’
The woman looks vaguely amused, and Daphne can guess why: she’s no doubt used to her style being complimented – she has a nice, relatively new handbag, good shoes, tasteful earrings. A charity shop is clearly not her usual destination yet everyone in Mosman knows there are ‘good finds’ here, thanks to Daphne’s eye. Some customers have been coming here since the shop was a boutique, and they come back because of Daphne. Or so they tell her.
The woman’s figure is compact and slender and she probably thinks she can carry off any item of clothing she likes. This is incorrect. And Daphne must find a way to diplomatically tell her this as she can’t, in good conscience, let her leave the shop with a jacket that will accentuate her short-waistedness and do her no favours whatsoever.
‘It won’t bring out your best features,’ Daphne says with a smile.
‘And they are?’ The woman still looks amused.
‘You have a lovely waist, but as it’s on the short side you need a line that draws the eye down, not across.’
The woman’s mouth opens and closes, and Daphne considers the possibility that she’s never been told she has a short waist. It’s not a criticism, just a fact. Everyone should know their own proportions and dress for them, rather than for what suits the tall, skinny, boyish-hipped girls in the magazines.
The boxy jacket is put back on the rack and Daphne selects two others for the woman, who exclaims over their good condition.She ends up buying them both, and Daphne makes a satisfied sound as she notes the purchases in the ledger that’s kept at the till.
‘We can probably go home now,’ Adelaide teases.