The Sebana Heir

Chapter 13

"Stay close!" Mrs. Harber called out to Sophie as she ran into a toy and candy shop. The mall was quite full of people that Tuesday morning, and Ria was looking around and into the different retail stores, shops, cafés, game centres and arcades. She followed Mrs. Harber into a fancy first-hand store that sold expensive outfits, dresses, accessories and jewellery. "Okay, let's see what we have here," Mrs. Harber said as she began to scroll through the hangers. In no time she held up a hanger at Ria, that held a pretty green party dress with red designs, "Here! Why don't you go try this on." Then she held up another hanger with a beautiful fitting blue dress on it, "And this!" Ria couldn't tell if the dresses would fit her, so she went on her way to find the dressing room. As she was heading towards the counter, she was stopped by the saleswoman.

"Excuse me. Where do you think you're going with that?" she asked rudely.

"To the dressing room, do you know where it is?" Ria asked. Instead, the woman glared at her from head to toe, giving a despising look at her longs sleeves, worn out pants and frizzed out hair.

"They're a hundred and eighty dollars each," the woman replied, referring to the dresses.

"What?" Ria looked confused.

"Are you going to pay for them? Coz if you're just here to try them on and take a selfie to post online, the dressing room is not a photo booth for that," she said, "So I suggest you put them back before you get them dirty."

"Excuse me?" Ria was surprised by the woman's discriminative thinking, just because she had showed up to a fancy store in ordinary clothes. "Then, how do you expect someone to buy an outfit that doesn't even fit them?"

"Same way I know if they can afford it,"

"I'm sorry, what did you just say?" Mrs. Harber's voice sounded from behind Ria. "Is this really how you treat your customers? By telling them to try things on only if they can afford it?"

"I was-" the woman began to say.

"Save it for your manager!" Mrs. Harber replied. Although Ria tried to tell her that it wasn't necessary and that they should just go to another store, in no time Mrs. Harber called to see the manager of that store to report about their rude saleswoman. The woman ended up apologising to both Ria and Mrs. Harber before going back to her work. "That lady was clearly crossing the line!" Mrs. Harber replied, "Come on, let's go back to trying those dresses."

"Uhm........... Mrs. Harber, can we just, go to the next store............I don't think I can find anything I like in here, anyway." Mrs. Harber saw the look on her face, she was still aggrieved by what had happened earlier and felt sorry for her.

"You know what? Me too," she nodded, "Let's go to a real fashion boutique!"
So after finally getting Sophie out of the candy store, they drove right into the city. Mrs. Harber parked the car on the side and they decided to walk down the sidewalk. They walked past numerous cafés and stores and Mrs. Harber revealed all her favorite places to shop for the most fashionable outfits. Finally they stopped by 'Viéna Fashions'. A glamorous shopping boutique that had the best imported gowns and dresses. The mannequins at the windows, clearly showed that!

"Hi, welcome to Viéna Fashions," a salesgirl greeted them, "You ladies looking for some elegantly sassy outfits or dresses? Coz we've just got some pretty hot designs from Milan this morning!"

"Actually I'm looking for something nice and...........suitably cute for her," Mrs. Harber referred to Ria.

"Sure, right this way!" the salesgirl replied before she lead them down an aisle. During the next hour, they got Ria to try on some jeans and leggings, crop tops and cute sweaters, fitting dresses and pants and some new pairs of shoes; in which she directly preferred to wear sneakers. When they exited the shop, they were carrying out several bags with them.