Pear Shaped

Chapter One

 A/N: This is my first real attempt at a chicklit sort of novel so I'd appreciate some feedback! Thanks xxx

"I think we can safely say your child bearing years are behind you." Bianca pats me on the back in what I think is supposed to be a comforting gesture, but it feels more like a bro-hug or whatever it is men do to show affection.

Bloody men. I said I wouldn't even think about a man again. Not after Dan and that woman. Kylie. What sort of a woman is called Kylie? Seriously. Aside from the Aussie pop star, do you actually know any Kylies? It's the sort of name little girls give their Barbie dolls.

 I smile at her and sip my overpriced vodka lemonade. Bianca means well. She's been my best friend since primary school and she's been trying to set me up with a suitable member of the opposite sex for about as long. Dan was one of her great ideas.

 Across the room, Bianca's boyfriend Jeff catches sight of us and elbows his way through a hen party. He hands a bottle of lager to Bianca and I make a face at her choice of beverage and turn away from their embrace, suddenly aware of how many couples are in this bar.

 It's supposed to be my thirtieth birthday but I don't feel like celebrating.

 Jeff finds us a little table by the bar and disappears to the loos.

 "So let's talk about your options," Bianca says quickly. "I guess there's always a sperm donor."

 "And what about you?" I eye her enviably flat stomach. "No baby on the way?"

 "Nope, but still seven months until I'm thirty."

 "You need nine," I point out.

She shrugs away my comment. Bianca would have it all worked out. At school, she was the girl who got the first bra and the first boyfriend. And now she's the one with the happy life and seven more months of being twenty-nine.

Bianca would never describe herself as beautiful, but she is attractive with her loose strawberry blonde curls, delicate features and her perfect hourglass figure. She doesn't care about dressing to show off her body. For my birthday night out, she's chosen a shapeless red cocktail dress that does nothing for her.

This is what I do for a living. I'm a personal shopper for Connect, a Leeds department store. My role is to give women fashion advice and help them to find clothes to suit their body shape. Supposedly, the hourglass is the perfect shape. Men love curvy women, especially those with tiny tummies and big boobs like Bianca. I'm more of a pear shape, meaning my bum sticks out no matter what I wear and the only part of my body you could describe as flat is my chest.

I'm used to helping my customers but when it comes to dressing myself, I can never seem to get it right. Tonight, for example, I'm wearing a blue halter-neck mini dress that's probably more appropriate for someone celebrating her eighteenth birthday. My long dark hair is down out of its usual messy bun and already I can feel myself tucking it behind my ears.

"Oh God," I say just as Jeff returns. "It's Suzy and Janine from work." I shuffle into the corner but it's too late, they've already seen us.

Bianca looks at me like I'm crazy. "Didn't you invite them?"

"Out of politeness," I hiss. "I didn't think they'd bother showing up."

"Chloe!" they greet me in unison.  

I grit my teeth and force a smile, standing up to give them both awkward one-armed hugs like we're friends. I am not friends with either of these women. Suzy Smith is the manager of my department and the woman who regularly makes my life hell. Janine Greenstock is her younger, stupider sidekick.

“What’s it like to be thirty?” Janine asks in her irritatingly girlie voice.

I can’t imagine she’s far off herself but that realisation probably hasn’t dawned on her yet.

Suzy, who is probably so far past thirty she can’t even remember it, gives me one of her unbearable false smiles. It’s the sickly sort of smile I see her give difficult customers every day. “What did Dan get you for your birthday? A ring I hope.”

I cringe at the thought of Dan getting down on one knee. It hasn’t exactly been at the top of my to-do list to inform my gossiping colleagues that my boyfriend has actually walked out on me. All because of Kylie.

“They’re on a trial separation,” Bianca says innocently.

I roll my eyes at her naivety. A trail separation is what Dan had suggested we call it so that he could bugger off with Kylie and not feel guilty about it. Bianca is such a hopeless romantic, she actually believes all the crap men say.

“Really?” Janine asks, nudging closer to the table. “You never said.”

I can’t even remember the last conversation I had with Janine, so why she thinks I would tell her everything about my personal life like we’re gushing best friends I don’t know.

Suzy smiles again and grabs Janine by the elbow. She says they’re off to get a drink but I can tell from the way her usually dull grey eyes light up that they’re really going to gossip about me and Dan.

“What did you tell them that for?” I glare at Bianca the second they’re out of earshot

“It was that or putting up with them dropping engagement hints all day at work,” she replies.

She’s right. Listening to Suzy’s drivel about her own wedding day whilst she makes subtle little digs at my single status would have been much worse.

I lie back in my seat, slowly downing the contents of my drink. When I go to get another one (notice no offers of birthday drinks), I have to fight my way through yet another hen party. Somebody else getting married and her army of women in matching pink t-shirts printed up for the occasion. The bride-to-be is apparently called Jess and none of her friends seem to notice that they’re blocking an angry woman’s path to the bar.

Just as the vodka is in sight, Suzy appears. I move out of her way, only steps from the bar and collide with Janine, of course right behind Suzy. Her sticky pink cocktail is now all over my front, even in my hair. I knew I should have tied it up.

“It’ll dry!” Janine insists, dabbing at my chest with some tissue she’s got out of her handbag.

Somehow, this is not how I planned to turn thirty.