This has been a pretty slow day. Anju generally didn't like these. Slow days always meant that her manager, Felicia, would be cranky. The woman was only several years her senior, but was incredibly self-important and considered any dip in sales a personal responsibility of her subordinates. "If you worked better, customers would be more likely to recommend the store to their friends", she frequently reminded them. Felicia could never clear up exactly what constituted working 'better' at a shoe store. Anju always got the sense that if Felicia herself had to be an assistant here, she'd be fired the very first day.

Generally, though, working at Pedestal wasn't bad. Most customers were filthy rich. Some tipped her. Some were quite rude. Anju was good at smiling, nodding, and quickly doing anything they asked of her, which usually involved a lot of running back and forth to bring them another stack of shoe boxes. Generally, women were worse than men and younger people were worse than the older ones.
Right now she was looking at her own reflection in a mirror. She was wearing low heels and a beige uniform. A golden badge on her breast informed the customers that her name was Anju M. She was a woman of twenty-three years old, about five and two in height, brown-skinned and dark-haired. She dragged the brush through her hair once again and walked out of the restroom.

Felicia was in a little sideroom with a 'For Management Only' sign on it. Another assistant, Chloe, was in the storeroom right now, organizing some boxes. There was also the cashier, Nicole, who was right now standing up, looking gleefully at the entrance.
Behind the glass door, someone was approaching the store. Anju walked over to the entrance, anticipating a client's arrival. She had absolutely no idea that her day was about to get a lot less slow.

The men's section was located to the right of Anju, the women's was to the left. There were no other customers present. Shoe prices at Pedestal began at $1200. Everything there was decadent and luxurious: leather couches, ivory shoehorns, shiny decor. There was a big gilded sign saying something to the effect of 'your satisfaction is our priority' and 'our assistants will help you with anything you wish'. That was, in fact, how the assistants were trained at the Pedestal.

Finally, someone entered the store...