Mondays should not exist for a very good reason. Everything starts on a Monday.
The working week, diets, resolutions.
Nobody counts calories on a weekend, do they? And it’s totally acceptable to splash out on a new handbag on a Saturday because, on Monday, you’re seriously going to be cutting back on your spending.
But after Saturday’s shopping splurge with Zara, I still walk into work on Monday with a fresh Starbucks caramel latte. To be fair, I’m going to need all the caffeine I can get if I’m really going to start becoming a confident woman today.
I’m going to do it point by point, starting with the first bit of advice about buying a proper bra. Which is why I’ve already pre-ordered my tuna-mayo baguette from the sandwich shop to eat on the go while I’m out browsing the rails in La Senza during lunch.
Obviously this is another can’t-be-helped expense. I’ve got to eat, haven’t I?
Especially if I’m going to get through today.
Not only am I about to embark on my new life as the confident Megan Riley, but I’m also being given a huge amount of work, Window Shine has recruited loads of new staff to work in their warehouses. They’re obviously starting on a bloody Monday, and require the HR department to oversee their settling-in periods.
Normally, organising recruitment paperwork is Helen’s job. Only she’s swanned off to Wales for a dirty long weekend with Raul from her salsa class.
After Nora abandons me and Scarlett to take care of everything, the last thing I’m going to want to do is traipse around underwear shops listening to the overly perky sales assistant’s drivel about strapless bras.
But I’ve got to start today, haven’t I? Who starts any new project on a Tuesday?
So when twelve o’clock comes, I skip out of the office and into the cold city air.
Well. Okay. I don’t exactly skip.
It’s more a shuffle, hoping that I’ll bump into Nora and she’ll ask me—no, beg me—to work through lunch. Then I’ll have no choice but to start all this confidence stuff tomorrow. Or maybe I could wait until next Monday…
The truth is, I’ve never been a big fan of underwear shopping. Like food shopping, it fails to excite me in the way that hunting for a nice party dress or a new handbag does. Nobody strolls into work and gets questions about where their knickers are from. Nobody even sees your underwear.
Unless you’ve just got a new boyfriend, and you’re buying skimpy see-through things that you’re supposed to wear with suspender belts and stockings. And then you discover that it’s a bit tricky attaching the stockings and…well, that’s a different story.
I tend to get all the bad kind of shopping done in one trip by grabbing new underwear sets from Asda when I’m food shopping with Zara. And their underwear is quite nice.. It’s always served me well so far. Although I hate those sets where they guess what size your bottom half is based on your cup size. Not every small-busted woman also has a small bum.
Okay. Fine. If Olivia Bright says I’ll feel more confident in a bra that fits me properly, I suppose La Senza it is.
I take the short walk from the office to the lingerie store with my winter fur coat fastened up as far as it will go, my scarf wrapped around my otherwise exposed neck. God, it’s cold. Surely November’s too cold to be looking at underwear that isn’t thermal.
What if the assistant comes into the cubicle with me, measures my chest and gives me the depressing news that I should be buying a smaller-sized bra?
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Confident Women (Extract)
ChickLit*SYTYCW winner* Inspired by a list of confidence-boosting tips in a magazine, twenty-four-year-old Megan Riley decides it's about time she became a confident woman. But after stumbling over the easy points such as buying a bra and learning to cook...
