My Pear-Shaped Life by Carmel Harrington

Author:Carmel Harrington [Harrington, Carmel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2020-02-10T17:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20

They drove for a few hours, moving closer to Billie with each mile, eventually stopping in a town called Manhattan.

‘If you tell me that you’d rather stay the way you are, that’s fine. But if you let me, I’d love to help you change things up a bit,’ Greta said, when they spotted a shopping centre.

‘I don’t want to look like a boy-band reject.’

‘I give you my word that there will not be a single Boyzone vibe. The look we’re going for is the dashing romantic hero.’

When he parked the car up outside the mall, Greta took that as a yes. Within an hour, she’d talked him into buying two pairs of jeans, three sweatshirts, four T-shirts, one shirt – not check – a pair of boots, trainers and a new jacket.

‘I don’t see what’s wrong with the coat I’m wearing,’ Ray moaned. ‘It’s in perfectly good condition.’

‘It’s ancient! You need to bin it. Trust me. You know the saying. The clothes maketh the man. You are a good-looking man. Show that off!’

‘Go away out of that.’

‘You are! And I’m not just saying that because I love you. It’s true. All these clothes do is to add a bit of icing for the top of your cake.’

‘Thanks Greta,’ Ray said, chuffed with her compliment. ‘But if I’m getting some icing, you need to get some too. Go treat yourself to something new. I’m going for a sit-down. I haven’t been in a clothes shop this long … well, ever … it’s tired me out.’

She left him to his own devices for a bit and went upstairs to the women’s section. Maybe it was time she looked at mixing up her own wardrobe, following her own advice. She had got into the habit of wearing black a lot. And here, on this road trip, she didn’t feel that black suited her any more. She needed to technicolour her life up. Adding a splash of colour into her wardrobe was the first step.

A smiling shop assistant walked over to her when she got to the top of the escalator. She looked Greta up and down, from her boots to her double chin, and landed her glance on Greta’s tummy. ‘Our plus-size range is up another level on three.’

Plus size. These two words held so much power that they seemed to strip every ounce of confidence from Greta in an instant. It felt like the shop assistant was saying that Greta was abnormal in some way. Because to be plus-sized didn’t mean that you were simply bigger. It implied so much offence. Greta felt angry, then hurt, then angry again, to have been labelled in this way. She knew she was fat. Fair enough. But that didn’t mean she was a lesser person than someone who could fit into a size zero. Skinny, tall, fat, small – they were all descriptor words. But somehow only negativity surrounded the words plus size or fat, especially when matched with the look that the woman had given her as she uttered them.

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