The Desperate Bride’s Diet Club (17 page)

Lucy recognised
the look on his face. It was mortification mixed with embarrassment. She hoped it was because he had never called her. But she knew deep down that he was probably embarrassed at having slept with her in the first place.

She paid for her gum and left the shop, trying to hold herself straight. Well, stuff Robert. So what if he was embarrassed? So was she, come to think of it. He was no looker and
hadn’t exactly been fantastic in bed. She would find herself a decent boyfriend, a gorgeous guy who was funny and intelligent. A guy who would think himself so lucky to have her that he would never stop telling her so.

Lucy nodded to herself. That was it. That was her goal. Stuff Nicola Bowles and her cronies too. Stuff the world. Lucy was on a mission.

This was it. No turning back.

Maggie
hated the house once everyone had left. It always felt so empty without them there. After years of hectic family life, it had all suddenly calmed down. Lucy was grown up and at college. Gordon’s garage was an established business and didn’t need her input now. Which left Maggie at a loose end.

She ate her toast whilst listening to the radio. She always had either the radio or television switched
on. It filled the silence in the house.

After breakfast, she headed for the supermarket. The food shopping was fairly easy. Lots of healthy ready meals for her and Lucy. More calorific meals for Gordon. Of course, he could do with losing a few pounds as well, but he hated dieting so there was no chance of his eating the same as her and Lucy. He wouldn’t realise that their meals were different.
He was normally too busy chatting about his hectic day at the garage.

It was OK for Gordon, thought Maggie. Her days were never hectic.

Next to the checkouts was a large display of exercise DVDs.

Maggie thought back to what Trudie had said during Tuesday night’s class.

‘Exercise is the key,’ Trudie had told them, hardly out of breath while everyone else was looking for an oxygen tank. ‘It
shifts the fat faster than anything.’

Maggie threw the DVD into her shopping trolley. It had to be better than daytime TV.

She headed home, her heart sinking. An hour had passed. What to do for the rest of the day?

She unpacked the shopping, trying not to glance in the cupboards which were still filled to capacity with biscuits, cakes and treats. Gordon had a sweet tooth so she wasn’t able
to clear them out like the others had. Maybe she wouldn’t buy any more in the future. Let him run down the pile she had stashed inside the cupboard. If she and Lucy weren’t going to eat any of it, it would take Gordon a good few months to get through all their supplies.

She glanced at the last bag of shopping to be
unpacked
. It was more biscuits and cakes. All for Gordon, of course. More sweet,
lovely, comforting things to be eaten. Including a box of fresh doughnuts. Gordon loved his doughnuts. She always brought him one to go with his cup of tea when he got home from work.

But this was a box of eight. Special offer, the label said. Buy four, get four free! Eight delicious doughnuts. Maggie licked her lips. No, she was fine. She could do this.

She headed into the lounge and switched
on the television. Slotting in the DVD, Maggie wondered if she worked out all the time whether she could eat whatever she wanted. Like a marathon runner or an Olympic athlete. The only gold Maggie knew she could win at the moment was an overeater’s competition.

Maggie closed the curtains and stood in front of the television. She was still wearing her jeans and jumper but she couldn’t be bothered
to change.

It was lucky she hadn’t made the effort, Maggie told herself five minutes later. She could barely finish the warm-up. The instructor was telling her to copy everything, but the stretches were impossible. The side lunges hurt her knees. A quick march on the spot jiggled the fat around her middle.

In the end, Maggie watched the rest of the DVD from the sofa. The beautifully toned instructor
bounced around her fitness studio in her teeny tiny shorts and top. It must be wonderful to be that thin and not have to worry, thought Maggie.

She went into the kitchen and made herself a cup of tea. But as she picked up the mug, she sighed. Then she picked up the box of doughnuts as well and took them both into the lounge with her.

THE MORNING AFTER
the weigh-in, Violet still couldn’t believe that she had lost five pounds. How? Why? It was all a mystery.

She supposed she must have somehow eaten less than normal. It didn’t feel like it. Different, yes. But she hadn’t been starving hungry. She thought she had eaten loads, too much even. It was all very odd.

She found a tape measure after the others had
left and had taken her measurements. Big fat rolling skin measuring oh so many inches. There was still such a long way to go. But this second week would be better. She would eat healthily once more. She just had to be strong. And patient.

Talking of patience, when was the new shopping precinct in the centre of town ever going to be finished? Violet’s car was inching forward in the queue at snail’s
pace. The traffic was getting worse and worse.

Violet arrived at work still feeling quite bouncy. Five pounds off! Did it show? Was her waistband any looser? No. But it must have gone from somewhere.

She arrived at her desk and put down her handbag.

‘Good morning,’ said Mark, coming out of his office. But his usual smile was missing.

‘Morning,’ muttered Violet, sitting down.

‘Wendy’s off
sick,’ Mark told her, with a grimace. ‘Some hideous stomach bug she caught from one of her kids. She went into too much detail and put me right off my breakfast.’

Violet nodded, not knowing what to say.

‘And the email system is off line.’

Violet realised the stress levels in the office were humming on full blast.

‘How long will the system be off?’

‘God knows,’ he said, running his hand through
his dark hair so it stuck up a little. ‘Couple of hours, we think.’

The hotline phone inevitably rang.

‘You’re going to be inundated,’ he told her, with a shake of his head.

He continued to hover whilst Violet picked up the phone.

‘Hello, Hotline. Can I help you?’

‘I can’t get into the email system,’ said the female voice down the phone.

Normally Violet would have passed the call on to Wendy
and just let her tell them that the email wasn’t working. But Wendy wasn’t there. Julie and Anthony were already on the phone. It seemed a bit ridiculous that she couldn’t just simply advise the customer what the problem was.

So she took a deep breath and said, ‘I’m afraid the email is likely to be down until midday. But if you have any problems this afternoon, please phone back.’

She finished
the call and looked up to find Mark still standing over her, with his eyebrows raised.

Violet waited for the inevitable bawling out but it never happened. Instead he nodded at her, allowing himself a small smile, before walking away.

The morning continued with barely a moment to pause for breath. The hotline was red hot with people panicking about their emails. But Violet continued to field
most of the calls.

Then she received a call from one of the managers, who had put on his most pompous voice and asked what the exact problem was. At that point she had to pass on the call to Anthony.

Afterwards, Anthony peered over the divide between our desks. ‘That guy is such a tosser,’ he said, referring to the last phone call.

Violet nodded. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know what to say to him.’

He passed over a piece of paper. ‘If they’re really pushing for the technical answer just use any of these words at random. That soon shuts them up.’

She peered at the piece of paper. ‘Right. Thanks.’

‘Go on then. Let’s see if you can sound convincing.’

‘Oh! Well,’ she said, looking at the paper. ‘You seem to have an encrypted gateway. The stack has failed, I’m afraid.’

Anthony grinned. ‘Excellent!’

‘Are you teaching Violet to lie to the customers?’ said Mark, suddenly appearing out of thin air.

Anthony nodded.

Violet cringed, fearing his wrath. But Mark broke into a smile. ‘Excellent. Keep up the good work!’

She didn’t even have time for a lunch break, so busy was the hotline with calls. So Violet ate her
lunch
at the desk. Not wanting to buy ready-made sandwiches every day, she had bought
some low-fat crackers and very-low-fat cheese. It was pretty tasteless but at least it kept within her calorie count for lunch.

‘What’s that?’ said Mark as he passed by. ‘Part of a dry wall cavity?’

She ignored him. Hadn’t he seen anyone eating healthily before?

Violet was just finishing her last cracker when she became aware of Julie glancing over.

Finally, Julie spoke. ‘You did OK this morning.
With the email stuff, I mean.’

Violet was shocked. Julie didn’t even speak to her normally, let alone give out praise.

‘Thanks,’ she managed to stammer. ‘It seems silly me being bored when I could take the heat off you guys. You all seem so overworked.’

It was sheer, unadulterated flattery. But Julie seemed to preen a bit at the words.

‘We seem to have more and more customers but the same
amount of staff to support them all. It’s crazy.’

Violet nodded in agreement and then decided to be a little bit brave once more.

‘If you ever wanted to show me some basic procedures on your database, I’d be happy to field some of your phone calls as well.’

There. She’d said it. She waited for Julie to throw her computer in disgust. But she didn’t. She narrowed her eyes briefly, at which point
Violet mentally ducked. But then she gave a nod.

‘Will do.’

She said it so quietly that Violet almost missed it.

‘Thanks.’

Later on, she was regaling Sebastian with the news from her exciting day.

‘It was so funny,’ she told him. ‘Anthony’s given me all these words like transmission and migrated and you just say a few in order. It totally fazes the customers!’

But Sebastian wasn’t laughing.
‘All sounds a bit unprofessional to me,’ he snapped. ‘I’m starving. That ready meal was crap. What’s for pudding?’

‘Erm, I’m not sure.’

She hadn’t dared to tell Sebastian about her cupboard overhaul.

She took the plates into the kitchen feeling a bit deflated. Why couldn’t Sebastian support her in the new job?

But he was probably just tired. After all, his job was a lot more important than
hers.

VIOLET HAD HAD
a reasonable week but still didn’t feel confident at the second weigh-in. She still wasn’t sure if the previous week’s weight loss had been some kind of fluke.

Trudie looked as if she believed the same thing, especially when Violet bravely stepped up on the scales first.

There was a short silence before Trudie looked up at her with her lip curled. ‘Another five
pounds off,’ she snapped.

Violet reeled from the wonder of losing ten pounds in two weeks.

‘Are you sure you haven’t had one of those gastric bands fitted?’ asked Trudie with a frown.

Violet looked at her, horrified, and scuttled away.

With nothing to lose but his dignity, Edward quickly got up to get weighed next.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘Let’s get this over with.’

He had stuck to the two thousand
calories but who knew if it had worked? He had no idea what he was going to do if it hadn’t.

He took a deep breath and stepped up on the scales. There was a short silence and then Trudie looked up at him.

‘You’ve lost half a stone,’ she said, staring at him as if he were from an alien planet.

‘Excellent!’ he said, beaming at her.

‘Me next,’ said Lucy, standing up. ‘I’ve been really good too.’

She stepped up on to the scales briefly and then stepped off before giving a scream of joy.

‘I’ve lost four pounds! And I had a piece of cake yesterday! Think how much I would have lost if I hadn’t had that!’

‘Well,’ said Trudie, trying to gather her thoughts together. ‘Let’s try and not have any cake next week.’

‘I won’t if you won’t,’ said Lucy, grinning at her.

Maggie smiled at her daughter
as she returned to the chairs and gave her a quick hug. Then she looked at Kathy.

‘You had a bad week too, did you?’ said Kathy.

Maggie nodded. ‘Terrible.’

‘No, you didn’t,’ said Lucy. ‘We were really good. We only had those healthy meals in the evening, followed by a yoghurt.’

Maggie hung her head in shame. ‘Yes, but I had already eaten for Britain the rest of the day when everyone else was
out.’

Lucy shook her head. ‘I don’t believe it.’

The others persuaded both Kathy and Maggie to get weighed anyway. Thankfully both their weights had stayed the same.

‘I’m very disappointed in both of you,’ Trudie told them, finally able to criticise someone and get it out of her system. ‘You’ve really let yourself and the whole
class
down. You must do better next week. For me, if not for you.’

‘Wicked old witch,’ muttered Kathy as Violet handed them a mug of tea when they were back home.

‘At least you didn’t put on any weight,’ Edward told them.

‘Yeah but you’ve all done so well,’ said Kathy.

‘I ended up in hospital,’ Edward reminded her. ‘I have to lose weight otherwise I’ll be straight back there.’

When he gave Kathy a small smile, she found herself blushing and had to look away.
She had had all sort of feverish dreams about Edward whilst she was ill. Now she was trying to forget about them.

‘And I’m getting married,’ Violet told her. ‘I’ve got a goal.’

‘Me too,’ said Lucy. ‘I’ve had a miserable time in college being fat. I’m not going to be fat at university as well.’

‘I’ve been lying on the sofa with flu feeling sorry for myself but that’s no excuse,’ said Kathy.

‘Yes it is, you were ill,’ said Maggie. ‘Every time I’m with the family, I eat really well.’