The Woman On The Bus #amwriting

‘A woman on a bus today carried her Pekinese dog inside her handbag. It had a red bow on its head that matched her sweater.’

This short description of a real person could be the starting point for a fictional character. Imagine:

Who might she have been?

This was Tracy Reed. That's what it says on her birth certificate. It's not the name she uses these days though. Since she started climbing her way out of poverty, she has been known, via Deed Poll, as Ms Elouise De la torre. She thought it sounded 'noble' and was a nod to her family home in Tower Hamlets in East London. She felt being 'Ms' rather than 'Miss' made her sound somewhat exotic.

Where was she going?

She was heading to The Goring to meet The Girls. It was a 90 minute, two-bus journey, but she had plenty of time. Trixie, her dog, was happy to sleep on the bus and provided the perfect excuse for why Elouise hadn't had her Driver drop her off; Trixie needed a 'personal stop' so she had hopped out at Grosvenor Gardens before coming to meet Lucy and Alexandra for lunch.

What did her appearance suggest about her mood or state of mind?

Elouise had chosen a regal, red cashmere sweater for her lunch today. It was the colour of the royal guard, and was matched beautifully by killer heels on her feet and the bow in Trixie's hair. Her handbag, a large black Bottega Veneta leather tote was a rich textured black, just the right size for her purse, her phone and her dog. And a sneaky pair of flat black pumps for the walk home. She finished her look with an asymmetric, ribbed Stella McCartney pencil skirt, in a shade which perfectly matched her wheat-blonde hair and showed off her slim but feminine figure. She looked the part, and felt the part. 

How old was she?

Her birth certificate, again, does not match the 'reality' Elouise has carefully constructed around herself. Her painfully sculpted youthful looks would place her at around 29. Her birth certificate would whisper that actually, she is closer to 39. But, who's counting?

How did she live?

She had The Girls convinced she was part of 'The Set', and was hoping that today, she would be invited to Lucy's birthday party at the Sky Bar - it was a VERY exclusive guest list, so in addition to potentially a great place to meet her 'Mr Right', an invite would be the culmination of all of her hard work. The discrete auctioning of expensive clothes and jewels which were gifted to her by a succession of suitors, the initial scrimping and saving to afford a new wardrobe, the painful injections, the smoothing and filling and scrubbing to achieve the right look, the days and hours churning over on the treadmill, the creation and learning of her whole new back story, the clearing up after the damn dog - all of it would be worth it.

ENDS