The Curvy Girls Club Read online

  As I munched through my Michelin star turd, I made myself think of something other than Rob’s kiss. At least for a few seconds. We’d been friends for nearly four years. We’d seen each other at least weekly for the past few months. He’d had hundreds of chances to kiss me before now. But he waited until we couldn’t see each other.

  Did he kiss me because he couldn’t see me? I thought again about a world where looks weren’t a factor. No more paparazzi, for one thing. In fact the whole gossip magazine industry would probably implode. With no stories about celebrities losing the baby weight or having facelifts, how would they fill their pages? They might actually have to talk about Angelina Jolie’s charity work or Ryan Gosling’s acting.

  And just think what might happen to our psyches. Would people who were now judged and found wanting all feel better about themselves? Possibly. But wouldn’t it have the opposite effect on those whose confidence was founded on their appearance? I wasn’t sure that trading one set of hurt feelings for another was the answer.

  Of course I couldn’t concentrate on my main course. Rob’s declaration was the first I’d heard in years. Scratch that. It was the first proper grown-up declaration I’d ever heard. I couldn’t really count Rory’s slurry Wanna get outta here? when we were eighteen. Did I? Wanna get outta here, so to speak?

  Alex popped into my head. He had a bad habit of doing that. Damn him and his perfection. It wasn’t healthy to hold such a torch for someone who didn’t know I was alive. Just a silly crush. A silly, six-year crush. I was not about to pass up the only opportunity I’d had for a date since … Oh god, I couldn’t bear to think how long it had been.

  ‘Rob? Let’s get a drink after this. We can compare notes.’

  Yes, let’s call it comparing notes. I couldn’t very well say and kiss each other’s faces off, could I?

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Rob and I compared notes after dinner. They were very good notes, full of tenderness and cheeky fun. We compared them in the bar where we went after our meal, and again when he walked me to my door. I didn’t ask him inside, and he didn’t try his luck. Whatever this was, it wasn’t like that.

  Of course I was in a complete muddle over what this might mean for Rob and me. Were we just two friends snogging in the dark to pass the time between courses? Could this be a fling, or a torrid affair, or even the start of a lifelong relationship? I wasn’t sure. More importantly, I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted it to be.

  It certainly didn’t look like any relationship I’d ever seen. Man declares feelings. Woman says all right then. Relationship commences based on friendship and mutual attraction. Surely that couldn’t really exist. What about the drama, the uncertainty, the complications? Look at Ellie. Look at Pixie. Look at every rom-com and Jeremy Kyle episode ever aired. Reality didn’t work like that.

  Besides, I couldn’t simply transfer my devotion from one person to another like I was changing over a handbag. Six years of feelings for Alex had built up. Six years. Lots of married people had shorter relationships. And he’d been extra-attentive since my review. He was emailing most days – just friendly notes to see how I was. This was definitely a step forward.

  Oh, of course it was probably still hopeless, but I was on safe ground with Alex. I got all the tummy-tickling excitement with none of the confidence-crushing anxiety. It was the perfect fake relationship. Insane, yes, but it was my constant.

  How ironic that before we kissed, Rob would have been on my Grand Council of Man-Woe Advisors. He always gave excellent advice. Now that I knew his feelings, remembering how I’d prattled on about Alex made me feel like an arse. That couldn’t have been nice for him, although he must have known there was nothing to worry about. Alex was about as likely to want to date me as I was to want to do exercise. Maybe the time had come to face that.

  But I just wasn’t ready. Not yet. So I pretended nothing had happened in the dark, and in the pub and at my front door. We were comfortably friends again, at least on the surface. He didn’t mention anything when we hosted events together, and I tried to forget that I had quite liked snogging him.

  A week later, I woke early on the morning of my first client meetings. I say I woke, though I didn’t feel as if I’d actually slept. My new best friend, insomnia, ganged up with excitement to make me bleary-eyed. After lovely Thomas made good Ellie’s promise to hand over the client lists, I’d taken my proposal straight to Cressida. She promised to look into it. At first she tried the usual Somebody else can do these meetings line. Sorry, I told her sweetly, nobody else had clients within twenty miles. Plus, they were important clients whose renewals were coming up. At that point she knew she’d been out-manoeuvred. I was under no illusions though. I might have found a way around her objections this time, but it was a one-off.

  When she first hired me she made much of the fact that salespeople got to visit clients. She meant other salespeople. It took me a couple of years of wishing my colleagues luck as they went out to exercise their expense accounts to realise that it was my figure, stupid. Sure, clients liked me on the phone. I was an authority on nutritional supplements. As far as they knew I was the poster child for healthy lifestyles. Cressida wasn’t about to let me waddle in and burst their bubble.

  As I got close to the Tube entrance nearest to our flat, my heart sank. The gates were down. A mob of angry commuters stood waiting to enter. I had a non-changeable ticket from King’s Cross in forty-five minutes and they decide to close this station now?

  ‘Excuse me,’ I said to one of the commuters as she huffed and fumed. ‘Do you know what’s happening?’

  ‘Of course bloody not! They just shut the gates and won’t let anybody in. I’ve got a meeting in thirty minutes.’ She checked her watch again. She was definitely one of those obsessive lift button pushers. ‘Just bloody great,’ she said as fat raindrops began spattering the ground. I stepped away, in case of Tube rage.

  ‘Excuse me.’ I tried a slender young man who stood with his face in his paper, oblivious to the intensifying deluge. ‘Do you know why they’ve closed the station?’

  ‘Electrical failure, apparently,’ he said, not looking up.

  ‘Did they say how long till it reopens?’

  He shrugged.

  I’d definitely miss my train unless I did something fast. The next closest station was a twenty-five-minute walk away. In my pinchy shoes I’d end up in tears with bleeding feet halfway there. And the station might not even be open.

  I had about ten minutes to spare. I could wait but what if the station was closed longer? This felt like one of those pivotal decisions. There seemed to be a lot of those lately.

  Dammit, I was not going to give up my one chance to visit clients. I pushed my way back through the crowd and hurried to the kerb to flag down a black cab.

  The taxi crept along in the rush-hour traffic, giving me palpitations all the way to the station. By the time I found my platform, the train was boarding. I ran to the first open carriage with my heart clanging in my chest. Extra girth aside, I’d always been healthy. My joints didn’t ache and I usually managed to avoid the worst of the winter colds. So my heart pounding like an unbalanced spin cycle was Not Normal. I spent the entire journey trying to remember the symptoms of a heart attack.

  Things had calmed down a bit, cardiovascularly, by the time I reached the client’s offices so I no longer felt the urgent need to dial 999. Then the whole day became a blur of meetings and taxis and sheeting rain and I forgot all about it. The clients were all nice and by the time I limped back to the train station on blistered feet, I was tired but triumphant.

  My mobile trilled just as the train pulled away from the platform. ‘Hi, Rob!’

  ‘Hey, Katie. I just wondered how your meetings went today. Did you get my text this morning? I wanted to wish you good luck. I’d have called earlier but was afraid I’d disturb you. Though I’m sure you had your phone off anyway.’

  Right. Turn phone off, so mates ringing in the middle of meetings d
idn’t make you look like the amateur you were. Note for next time.

  ‘God, I don’t think I could do this every day,’ I told him. ‘It’s too exhausting!’ I recounted the stressful journey to King’s Cross. ‘But the meetings themselves went really well. One client as good as promised to renew her contract, so I’ve got something pretty concrete to tell my boss.’

  ‘That’s great, well done! I’m sure it was ace to meet everyone, and put faces to names. Do you want to tell me all about it over a celebratory drink? I’m buying.’

  ‘No, I can’t tonight, I’m meeting the girls. Can we go out another night?’

  ‘Are you just saying that, or would you really like to go out?’

  ‘I’d really like to go out with you.’ And I meant it. ‘I need to see the girls tonight. Can we please go out another night?’

  ‘Of course we can. I’ll plan something nice for us in the next couple of days. And Katie, I’m really glad everything went well for you today. You deserve a lot of success.’

  ‘Thanks, Rob. You’re very sweet.’ And not just sweet. Hot too. My mind went back to the night we kissed. ‘I’m looking forward to our date. See you soon.’

  Through the rest of the train journey back to London, my tummy told me just how much I looked forward to seeing him soon. Maybe I wasn’t in Rory-love just yet, or Alex-lust, but my feelings for him were definitely not platonic.

  Rob’s text pinged to my phone just as I got to the restaurant to meet everyone. I smiled. Date plans already?

  Forgot to tell you, it read. 833 uniques, 253 signups last week. We could use some more events. Rob x

  No date yet, but still I grinned as I went inside. Great client meetings, the prospect of Rob’s kisses, another great week for the club and a night out with my best friends? My life felt pretty good just then.

  ‘Ooh, aren’t you a fancy thing!’ Pixie said when she saw my outfit. I generally favoured empire waist dresses or flared trousers with roomy tunics. My interview suit made very rare appearances. ‘C’mon, love, give us a spin.’

  I did, adjusting my skirt again. It had inched its way back-to-front all day long and was going in the charity box pile as soon as I got home.

  Pixie’s eyes narrowed as she stared at me. ‘Come here,’ she said, making a grab for my suit jacket. ‘Look at you, skin and bones!’ she announced as she pulled it against my tummy.

  That was poetic licence if ever I’d heard it, but I had to admit that my clothes were more voluminous than normal. ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ I said. ‘I might have lost a few pounds.’

  But I was lying. I knew exactly how much weight I’d lost. Fourteen pounds. On top of the six I lost before. That was seriously meaningful weight! Excitement stirred. Wasn’t twenty pounds equal to four dress sizes? That meant that the Holy Grail – Topshop – was within my grasp.

  Pixie was the first to break the increasingly uncomfortable silence. ‘How the bloody hell did you do that?’

  I shook my head, feeling my friends’ eyes boring into me. ‘I have absolutely no idea, honestly. I haven’t done anything differently. Ellie, you’ve seen me. I’m not doing anything. I feel like I’m eating more than usual.’

  I couldn’t account for it. Lately I woke every morning with my stomach grumbling for breakfast, and the defiant little organ never seemed to be satisfied.

  ‘Katie, if you’ve not meant to lose that kind of weight, you need to see a doctor,’ Jane said gently. ‘I’ve fasted for three weeks and lost three pounds.’ She shook her head. ‘I’ll try not to be jealous of you. I just feel like if I could drop some weight my life would be perfect. I feel guilty even saying that.’

  ‘That’s because no matter what you see in the mirror, you’re going to listen to what’s inside your head. If the fat girl is still in there she’ll drown out everything else, unless you figure out a way to get her to shut up.’

  I was trying my best to silence Fat Katie, but I knew how Jane felt. It wasn’t easy. I might be pleased with what I saw in the mirror, but it only took one snub from a stranger, or a colleague’s comment, to give her voice again. Mostly she stayed quiet though, muffled by the club.

  ‘Come off it, Katie,’ Pixie said. ‘It’s easy to ignore the fat girl when you’re not fat any more. Apparently you’ve miraculously got a Get Out Of Jail free card.’

  ‘Pixie, I don’t know why this is happening and you’re acting like you don’t believe me.’

  ‘Of course we believe you,’ Ellie said. ‘We’re just worried. I hadn’t noticed you’d lost so much weight. You always wear baggy clothes. Now that Pixie pulled your top back though, I can see it. Maybe Jane’s right. You should just check with your GP. Have you been feeling unwell?’

  I glanced between their faces. Concern. Concern. Disbelief and concern (that was Pixie). What if I did need to see a doctor? There I was thinking about summer fashions when there might be something seriously wrong with me. I felt fine, generally, except for the constant hunger. And the fact that I wasn’t sleeping, though that could be related to my demanding tummy. And my racing heart was … just joyful anticipation of my next meal? Even I didn’t believe that.

  Then I remembered my grandmother. She got really skinny about a year before she died. Mum and Dad took her to the doctor, who knew pretty quickly what was wrong. Granny asked not to know the details. She wanted to live her life as normally as possible. The cancer had spread everywhere anyway. They weren’t even sure where it had started.

  She was seventy-two when she died.

  I was only thirty and I had my whole life in front of me. At least I thought I had.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  I rang my GP the next morning but he couldn’t see me for a few days. Over much wine at dinner my friends had convinced me not to worry too much. I was probably just the luckiest slimmer in the western world. By the time I woke for work the next morning, I nearly believed them.

  ‘Here, I’ve made breakfast,’ said Ellie when I got to the kitchen for my coffee. She was wielding a spatula with remarkable ease for someone who rarely cooked. ‘Scrambled eggs and toast and bacon and beans.’

  ‘What’s all this?’

  ‘We got through a lot of wine last night. You must be hungover too.’

  ‘This isn’t because you’re worried about me?’

  ‘What? No!’ she said.

  I’d be a rich woman if I played poker against her. ‘Ellie, it’s okay. You don’t have to force-feed me. I promise I’m not anorexic.’

  She set the spatula down. ‘I’m sorry. I’m being stupid. And I can’t even cook!’

  I scrutinised my plate, unable to disagree with her. ‘Here,’ I said. ‘Give me your rashers and I’ll pop them in the microwave to finish cooking. You’ll give us both food poisoning.’

  As I set the microwave my mobile started buzzing on the table, sending my mind racing towards Rob. Maybe he was calling to ask me out tonight. He’d want to be sure I had enough warning to know what to wear.

  ‘It’s Jane,’ Ellie announced, handing me the phone.

  ‘Katie,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry to ring so early but I’ve just heard from the Channel 4 producer. She can fit us in this morning if you can make a meeting at ten.’

  ‘Oh, well I’ll have to call Cressida and tell her I’ll be late into work. But yes, of course I can! Does this mean the producer liked the pitch?’ I caught Ellie’s eye.

  ‘She loved it! I’ve got to dash to get the children to school first. I’ll text you the address.’

  Ellie was doing her excited puppy dance by the time I hung up. ‘Yayyy!’ she shouted just as the microwave pinged.

  I was in a complete tizzy by the time we got to Channel 4’s offices. How could I be calm at a time like this? Behind the four-storey-high glass façade sat the people who could give the Curvy Girls Club a sparkling future. We entered the busy atrium to check in with reception. When Jane showed her pass the woman behind the desk sent us straight upstairs. We were in!

  A slender middle-age
d woman was on the phone when we arrived at her open door. If the décor was an indication of this woman’s mind then she was a mess. The room was crowded with red packing crates full of handbags and shoes. Papers were piled on every surface and scattered across the floor. Carefully we picked our way through the chaos to the chairs she’d pointed to in front of her desk.

  ‘So sorry about the mess,’ she said when she hung up. ‘Samples. We get them constantly. Anyway, I’m Rea Benton, one of the executive producers. You’re Jane, yes?’ She shook Jane’s hand warmly. ‘I used to love watching you!’

  Jane blushed and graciously thanked her.

  ‘So you must be Katie. Pleasure to meet you. Thanks so much for coming in at such short notice. I’m off on holiday tomorrow but wanted to get the ball rolling on this.’ She scanned a piece of paper. ‘We love your idea. The Great British Makeover is right up our street, and the Curvy Girls Club angle is perfect. Katie, I caught up with your segment on On The Couch. Excellent. You’re exactly the kind of girl Gok would love to work with.’

  Gok Wan would love me! I felt faint. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘So you’d like to commission it?’ Jane asked.

  ‘Oh yes, definitely. You two would be on the show, right? What about the others? There are four of you, I understand.’

  ‘I’m afraid the other two are camera shy,’ Jane explained. ‘Is that a problem?’

  ‘No … as long as you’re confirmed as definite, then we can start sketching out the segment to see what we’ll need. We’d look to air it in late September, and filming would start in late August. We can confirm exact dates later. You haven’t got any plans to be out of the country for an extended period, have you?’

  We shook our heads. I only recently got to go to Southend-on-Sea for the day.

  ‘Good. So, I’ll just get a few snapshots of you both so everyone knows who they’re working with. And we’ll need to take some measurements.’ She held up a tape measure. ‘Katie, can you please stand up over here?’