It's the beginning of the summer of 1977. Final exams are over and 18 year old Monica Brannigan and her best friend Paula leave their troubled home city of Belfast to embark on a fun-filled three day trip to London for Paula's 18th birthday, and to...
After they settled in a bit more and rested at their hotel the two girls started fulfilling the first duty on their list: shopping. They spent the last few hours of the sunny London afternoon scouting shop by shop and soon enough their arms were filled with bags.
They'd walked out of Kensington Market, giggling amongst themselves as they talked about old memories from when they'd go out. Well, times when Monica used to go out more often. Such as the time they got drunk and locked themselves in the toilet and laughed at the way they were laughing, and the time when Monica got a hickey and Mrs Brannigan thought it was a plant rash (and luckily she got away with it- her mother actually gave her antihistamine). They stopped walking when a particular building caught Paula's eye.
"Mo! Why don't we try this one?" Paula pointed across the street to a shop with the four big letters B I B A over the entrance. "All the big stars like Mick Jagger stop there!"
"Ohh yes!" Monica took another lick of her ice cream. "I hear that they do clothes really cheap too you know...", and the two girls giddily laughed as they ran across the busy street amongst the London traffic.
So they entered Biba, and spent a good half hour in there browsing for frocks and accessories. Paula picked out a black bandeau top, a gold statement necklace and an A Line mini skirt which was perfect for her curvy figure for tomorrow night, but none of the frocks and shirts suited her because of her big bust. That secretly annoyed her greatly.
Monica, on the other hand, was finding clothes shopping difficult but she had found a brown eyeshadow colour palette to compliment her bright blue eyes, a pair of black and indigo sandals, and in the jewellery section she picked out a nice pair of silver chandelier drop earrings.
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"There's a buttercup yellow dress that I think will look great on you," Paula grabbed her wrist and lead her to a clothing rail.
"I love yellow!" Monica giggled, and when they got there Paula picked one on a hanger out and held it up, and indeed it was a lovely pastel long sleeved dress with a tightly pleated skirt and bow loosely tied at the neck.
"Let's get one in your size." Paula started shifting through them.
But much to their disappointment, there was no buttercup yellow dress in Monica's size; they were all too small for her.
"Can I help you?" Monica heard a voice behind her, and she turned around to find one of the shop workers standing behind her.
"Uhh yes," she held the dress up to the tousled blonde woman, and Monica glanced down to the label pinned on her chest that indicated her name was Mary. "Can you please tell me if there is one in my size?"
"Oh I'm sorry I didn't quite catch that," Mary quickly said, and Paula widened her eyes in disbelief. "Your accent was too distracting. Can you please repeat your question?"
