Autumn in London
an excerpt

When she got to work, Lauren went straight to Ellen’s desk. She was worried that Ellen would snap at her, like she had done to Anna previously, but instead Ellen seemed to be making an effort to be nice.
"Ellen, would it be too much to ask if you could teach me everything you know about looking good and making men like you?" Lauren whispered, so that Terrence and the other males on the floor couldn’t hear her.
Ellen paused, then seemed to cackle like an evil character in a movie, but she soon recovered and said "Lauren, dear, I’m probably the last person who could explain anything about bagging men to you. I’m a 34 year old single woman."
Lauren looked stunned, slightly taken aback and a bit disappointed.
"But I can teach you how to dress to impress," Ellen added, nodding her head. "How about we go shopping this week-end? Complete make over. It’s possible."
"Oh thank you so much Ellen! I really appreciate it," Lauren said energetically. Then she went back to her programming and her passion for life was renewed alight.
The rest of the week zoomed by, and Lauren tried to avoid Jeremy when she was having a bad hair day, and talk to him more than usual when she was feeling extra attractive, somehow naturally. Finally, the week-end came and early on Saturday morning, Ellen and Lauren set off to London’s Bond street to find some expensive, revealing and sexy clothes for Lauren to wear.
"First and foremost, we need to get you some sexy boots and some sexy shoes to wear to work. The boots you can wear whenever you go out, and the shoes are for wearing to work."
"I have a feeling I won’t be able to afford all of the stuff you want me to buy," Lauren said in a defeated voice after looking at the price tag on some of the shoes that Ellen had pointed out.
"You’ve got a credit card. Use it. You don’t need to pay any interest on it, so in a year when you need to pay it all off, just get another credit card and pay it off with the other card. Londoner’s do this all the time. You can essentially increase your spending power by a few thousand pounds for more than a year."
"Really? Isn’t that illegal?"
"Course not. Banks love it if you forget to pay it off in time, then they rake in the big bucks. But you’re smart and you’ll remember to pay it off with another card soon enough," Ellen seemed to have spotted the perfect pair of shoes for Lauren. "Look at these!" They were black, round shaped toe, a stiletto like heel and a small black strap around the ankle. Perfection.
Lauren whimpered when she tried them on. They hurt her toes, the back of her ankle and she couldn’t stand up without falling forward.
"Hrm. We’ll need to work on your walking," then Ellen turned to the shop girl and said firmly "We’ll take them."
"What? These are not my style at all!" Lauren squealed, suddenly wondering if this had been a good idea at all.