Honestly, Lucille Bond is such a miserable human being! I am exhausted from years of bowing and scraping to her to earn an income. I am convinced that she purchases clothes from me only because it gives her an outlet to make me feel worse about myself than I already feel.
Today she came to pick up the dress that I had made for her. She had been most specific about her choice of style, and type of fabric. We even had a fitting to make certain that the garment fit her perfectly. I do everything in my power to please Lucille. I need her business. Oh how I wish that I could tell her to take her business elsewhere. I simply could not survive in this little town without her business.
The fitting went very smoothly, which for Lucille is remarkable. Today she strides in demanding to have the finished dress altered. She wants the sleeves to be broader leg of lamb sleeves. (Initially she had wanted regular arm fitted sleeves). Lucille does NOT request. She DEMANDS. I am certain that she spends time thinking of new ways to annoy me.
Fortunately I had enough fabric left to remove the fitted sleeves and create new sleeves. As I was glancing at my stockpile of fabrics to ascertain if I had enough fabric Lucille decided to go through my well organized supply of buttons. She pulled out of my small cabinet one or two buttons of virtually every one of my button choices. I have at least 200 different types of buttons. That makes around 400 buttons that I have to re-sort and put away.
At this point I was not speaking about anything other than the dress that she wanted re-made. I felt as though I were literally holding back my temper from exploding. I wanted to slap her. Of course she did NOT apologize for messing up all of the buttons.
Next she strode over to a dress that I had finished and hung up for Sophronia Evans. Sophronia has very little money. She has children and any money that she gets goes to clothing and feeding her children. Sophrie befriended me when I first came to Calkington. She befriended me even when the gossip in town was about Madame Rouge's death at the ranch, and my being a prostitute.
Lucille strode up to it and demanded. "I want this dress!"
I moved forward. Inwardly I was cursing myself for not putting the dress in my bedroom where Lucille Bond could never see it. She has actually done this twice before, demanding that I give her a dress that I have made for someone else. Both times I told her that I would be happy to make something similar. Of course, heaven forbid that Lucille wears a dress like somebody else's. The town is small. It would be very likely that both women would attend a social event in the same dress.
Both times the dress that she insisted she should have would have to be altered substantially to fit Lucille. Lucille doesn't care about that. She's excited to find some way to make my life more complicated.
Again I said, "Lucille, this dress has been made for someone else. I would be happy to make you a dress of similar style and fabric."
"You never make ME dresses like that. You always do your best work for OTHER clients in Calkington."
I sighed, "Lucille, I make you the dresses that you request. I usually alter patterns to make your dresses but the alterations, and changes to the style are always your choice. So, you are saying that your taste is faulty?"
I saw the anger in Lucille's eyes. If she were a dragon she would have been exhaling flames. Without a single word she snatched up the dress that she had said she wanted altered and strode out of the shop.
I sighed and stretched my back. I actually feel sorry for Lucille. She feels inferior to everyone. On the surface she acts as though she's better than anyone else. The reality is that she grew up desperately poor. They did have love in their family (Willard has told me), but very little else. Lucille often went hungry. She worked really hard to help provide for her family.
Knowing what drives her cruelty and unkindness, and tolerating her actions are two very different things. If Willard were not her husband I would refuse her business...even if I starved. I dare say that if Willard did not insist that she purchase her clothing from my shop she would starve before allowing me to sew for her.
The best thing about sewing for Lucille Bond is when she leaves!
No comments:
Post a Comment