The Ideal Customer

The woman was stunning, well dressed, immaculately groomed, elegant almost too good to be true...

- LYN FRANKLIN

Hermione Wethersby-Brown came into the shop most weeks. She would enter the door with a confident smile, walk over to the accessory shelves, peruse the scarves hanging on wooden rings and assorted hats on mannequin heads, turn and make her way over to the rails of dresses, survey the sweaters, examine the nightwear - and if we were lucky she would end up at the counter with something she wished to buy.

Hermione Wethersby-Brown always looked immaculate. Her hair was cut into a shiny black wave. It reached her chin in a sleek curtain and swayed beautifully with every toss and turn of her head. Her clothes were designer. I recognised a lot of them, even though they had not been purchased at our shop - outfits with a price tag to make your eyes water, a cost that even with my twenty per cent staff discount I could never hope to afford.

Miss Wethersby-Brown - I noticed she didn't wear a wedding ring - was regarded as the ideal customer. I have to admit anything she purchased was often later returned. It was unsuitable. That was the only explanation she gave, and as our policy was to refund any item with the appropriate receipt, we would dutifully reimburse her.

Hermione Wethersby-Brown spoke with a cut glass accent. She was, as my mother would say, posh.

"They're all posh on Nob Hill." she told me. Nob Hill was the name my mother gave to the beautiful houses in the better part of town known as Eton Chase. We weren't sure she lived there, we just assumed she did. Or my mother assumed she did.

The particular Saturday in question had been quiet. It was a cold grey afternoon and most of the people wandered in the shop to browse only, curious to look at items they had no intention of buying. I could tell them a mile off. Hermione was different. She was class. She was capable of buying anything she wanted. She was the sort of person we wanted to have shopping at Blanche's Boutique.