The Making of Mia (7 page)

‘Let’s get this straight,’ she said, as she sat opposite Jo in an interview room with light blue walls and computers in the
corner. ‘You’ve not worked as a secretary before?’ Felicity was wondering if the slightly nervous girl in front of her was
for real. She didn’t want to stare at her body, but she’d never encountered anyone so big before. She didn’t know quite how
to break it to this girl that when you were a secretary, looks counted for everything. Felicity wondered if she could convince
some of her favourite managing directors to take Jo on rather than the slender girls she had on the books. It would be impossible.

‘No, I haven’t, Jo said slowly, ‘but I have only just left school … I went to St Christopher’s. In Buckinghamshire.’

Felicity’s back straightened somewhat, and Jo was pleased she had gone to a good boarding school after all.

‘And you have no plans to go to university?’

Jo shook her head and took a deep breath.

‘I was going to, but …’ Jo didn’t want to let on that she’d messed up her exams. ‘But I’d rather just start working. I think
that work experience is as good as going to college.’

When Felicity gave Jo a satisfied little smile she continued. She knew what this woman wanted to hear.

‘I know I haven’t worked before but I did learn to type at school. Luckily for me St Christopher’s was keen – very keen –
to make sure all their girls had a well-rounded education. As well as the usual Latin and lacrosse, we also learnt all our
computer skills.’ Jo let out a little laugh. ‘Not that most of the girls at school would need to know how to turn a computer
on, considering all the eligible men on their doorsteps.’

Felicity looked at Jo curiously, and Jo could see she was winning her over.

‘Why don’t we see for ourselves what you learnt at school … If you could just come this way we’ll give you a typing test …’

Jo aced the test. She breezed through the Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint tests, the telephone-manner test, and excelled
at the different filing situations she was put in during the next hour. Like the girl in Gigolo said, it wasn’t hard.

‘So will you put me on assignment now?’ Jo asked eagerly, feeling more confident.

Felicity looked uncomfortable. ‘Being a secretary is … it’s more than just being able to do the job, Joanne. You need to look
the part too, and I’m not sure by your dress you would be suitable for the majority of our offices.’

Jo felt her heart drop. The whole day suddenly seemed like a waste of time.

‘It’s my weight, isn’t it?’ A small tear slid down her cheek, and Jo hated herself for crying.

Felicity nodded.

‘But I can do the job, and I’ll work really hard, I promise!’

Jo knew she was sounding desperate, but she couldn’t help herself. She had been so close to starting out on her dream and
suddenly it seemed as though the rolls of fat that had stopped her fitting in at school were going to stand in the way of
her career too.

‘I’m afraid that our clients won’t see it that way.’ Felicity looked around the office uncomfortably and lowered her voice.
‘Look, I wouldn’t normally do this, but I’m going to put you on our books anyway. I’ll try to start you on some low-key jobs,
and in the meantime you should try to present yourself better – lose some weight and smarten up a bit. You seem like a clever
girl, it shouldn’t be too hard for you, should it?’

Jo nodded dumbly, and Felicity patted her arm again.

‘I’m sure you have some perfectly delightful clothes at home you could wear to the workplace, too. Give me a few days to let
our other girls here know we have someone new on the books and I’ll telephone you a day in advance when we have some work
for you.’

Jo struggled to speak normally – she was delighted that she’d be able to start working for the agency, but when Felicity had
told her to lose some weight a flash of white-hot anger had coursed through her.

‘Do you think any of those jobs would be on a magazine? Your client list in reception said you supply typists to Garnet Publishing
and IMC Magazines.’

‘Why yes, we do, but these jobs are like gold-dust and are given to our more experienced girls. But don’t you worry. After
a few jobs for some of our more blue-collar organisations I’m sure you will be more than ready for them.’

Felicity smiled kindly at Jo and showed her to the door.

‘Careful of the rain, dear. Why, don’t you have an umbrella?’

Jo wondered what Felicity would have to say if she told her that she didn’t have enough money to buy one.

September 2000

Jo lay on her bed and wished she lived in a remote country cottage miles from anyone. The couple in the flat above – a greasy
man with tattoos and a bleached-blonde woman with three-inch dark roots – were arguing again, and the bangs, thumps and screamed
swear-words made her uncomfortable. If this was what being in a relationship was like, she thought, she was better off single.
She sighed, swung herself out of bed, and walked the three steps to her chest of drawers where she grabbed a Bounty bar from
her stash. She crammed half of it into her mouth and felt depressed.

It had been four weeks and the recruitment agency hadn’t called.

After three days of euphoria and jumping up and down because she was finally on her way, Jo had begun to feel slightly uneasy.
The phone hadn’t rung once. When a week had passed Jo had given in and phoned Felicity on the agency’s phone number. In a
hushed voice Felicity told her that no jobs for newcomers had come in, asked how her diet was going, and said that she’d phone
when she had something for her. Jo waited and after three more agonising sitting-by-the-phone weeks she’d rung again. This
time the switchboard operator told her that Felicity was unable to take her call, and as Jo watched her tears drop down on
her bulging spare tyres she realised it was a lost cause.

To snap herself out of her mood, and to distract herself from the angry yells coming from upstairs, Jo picked up the phone
to call Amelia at university. She was halfway through dialling the number when she realised there was no dial tone. Her mother
hadn’t paid the phone bill again, and, judging by the way she’d started throwing away all the bills rather than saving them
for future pay cheques, it seemed she had no intention of getting the line reconnected.

Jo grabbed some coins from her piggy bank and marched down to the phone-box, ignoring the giggles of some schoolgirls who
were watching her get out of breath. Jo’s hand tightened around her ten-pence pieces – she was going to buy her first mobile
as soon as she had some money.

‘Ames, it’s me. Jo.’

‘Jo, hi! How are you?’ Amelia settled back in her room at university and carefully held her phone to her ear, making sure
it didn’t catch on her chandelier earring. ‘Have you got a job on a magazine yet?’

Jo could feel herself slump. ‘No. That recruitment woman isn’t taking my calls, and my phone’s been cut off so I can’t call
her anyway. Can you phone me back?’ Jo turned away from the gangs of girls on the other side of the road and tried not to
feel overwhelmed at the smell of urine in the phone-box.

‘Want to come and stay?’ Amelia offered hopefully, after she’d quickly filled her in on how much she’d drunk during Freshers’
Week. ‘I’m not doing anything really, lectures don’t take up much time, and you’ve not come to see me yet.’

‘I haven’t got any money, Ames.’

‘Well, yes, I know that, but the train fare isn’t that expensive …’

Jo didn’t bother to try to explain that she didn’t have a trust fund or savings. And that she was down to her last ten pounds.

‘I don’t know what I’m going to do,’ Jo said in a small voice. ‘I suppose I’m going to have to go on the dole after all.’

There was silence at the end of the phone as Amelia was lost in thought.

‘Look, I have an idea, but I don’t know if you’re going to like it. Hear me out, OK?’

Jo wondered what Amelia would suggest. Her best friend sometimes seemed so blind to the disadvantages she faced because of
her weight that she wouldn’t be surprised if she proposed that Jo be a stripper, or a model. Jo knew there was a market for
fat-girl porn but it really wasn’t something she wanted to get into – it wasn’t what she meant when she said she wanted to
work ‘in magazines’.

‘Go on …’ Jo said wearily as she crossed her fingers in hope.

‘Well, Charlie was saying on the phone that there’s a job going at a pub near Bishop’s Waltham, that town near my parents’
house. It’s called the Royal something, I think, and they’re looking for a waitress-cum-kitchen hand. The pay is shitty, but
it’s a live-in job with a room above the bar and free meals.’ Amelia was nervous as she heard silence at the end of the phone.
She hoped she hadn’t insulted Jo. ‘Charlie told me about it as a joke in case I “came to my senses and realised I was too
dumb for university” – the cheek! – but, well, it could suit you. What do you think?’

‘So I’d have to move to the middle of nowhere in Hampshire to do a rubbish job that nobody else wants?’

Amelia felt herself deflating.

‘The pub’s meant to be really good …’ Amelia began, before trailing off. ‘They’re one of those new ones that does proper food,
and they’ve been in the
Guardian
and everything …’

Jo leant against the phone-box and clutched the receiver so hard her knuckles went white. What would she be leaving?
All her hopes pinned on a phone call that would get her a job filing in a dingy warehouse? At least if she got a job she’d
be doing something – and she was desperate to move out of home and away from her mother.

‘I’ll take it.’

‘Seriously? You will? You don’t mind me suggesting it?’ Amelia let out a sigh of relief.

Jo looked at the group of girls who were all staring at her menacingly, and she realised she couldn’t wait to get out of London.
‘Just let me know when I start.’

February 2001

Working at The Royal Oak was like being at school again, Jo thought – only with interesting lunch menus and an older clientele
more interested in foot-and-mouth disease than
Hollyoaks
. When Jo had started five months earlier she’d been incredibly nervous, but she soon got used to the amused nudges about
her weight when she served food to the customers. Jo scrutinised the menu for about a fortnight, and after a while she soon
began to be known as the girl who knew as much about the dishes as head chef Michael – from the exact texture of the rabbit
and bacon terrine to what the Ryeland lamb had grazed on. David and Dominic – the pub’s owners – congratulated themselves
on hiring a girl who so obviously enjoyed knowing and eating food, and Jo blossomed with the adrenaline rush that came from
living alone and earning a wage.

In the evenings Jo sat in her favourite corner of the bar, feeling her breath catch as she looked up from her notebooks and
took in the beauty of the pub. She thought the décor was what it would be like inside Buckingham Palace. All of the furniture
was antique and the framed oil paintings cleverly depicted views of the wintry fields on the other side of the
country lane. Old letters written to the seventeenth-century owner of the former inn by minor Royals and the aristocracy filled
the rest of the wall space, and according to legend, Oliver Cromwell had spent the night there.

Jo had always felt as though London – and school – had stifled her creativity, and as soon as she moved to The Royal Oak she
was proved right. Suddenly she found she couldn’t stop thinking of feature ideas for magazines, and when she wasn’t working,
she was sitting in the bar scribbling in her notebooks. Some of the barmen thought Jo was nuts, and asked why she preferred
writing to making use of the free drinks The Royal Oak kindly provided to staff, but Jo found she couldn’t answer them. Magazines
were her obsession, and so far nobody, including Amelia, had ever understood that about her.

‘You’re either writing your life story or getting something off your chest,’ Jo heard a voice comment from the other side
of the bar, and she momentarily let her pen hang in the air, giving her hand much-needed relief from the furious scribbling
she’d been doing for the past hour.

Jo looked up and realised she was staring into the eyes of the most attractive man she had ever seen. He was tall, had broad
shoulders and an athletic frame, and his dark blond hair swept over his eyes. He looked like a cross between Brad Pitt and
David Beckham, and as he pushed his fringe from his face and grinned at her, Jo swallowed hard.

The man came over to her table and peered down at Jo’s work. He spotted a few tips on ‘how to find a boyfriend for Valentine’s
Day’ before she could put her arms over her notebook.

‘David told me you’re the waitress here, but you’re clearly moonlighting as a relationship advisor,’ the man said, and he
stuck out his hand. ‘William Denning. I’m the new bar manager.’

Jo stared at William’s hand for a moment and then shyly took it. Every nerve ending felt as though it was on fire, and she
felt her face turn red.

‘Do you have a name?’ William said gently, and Jo bit her lip. He was wearing brown boots, faded blue jeans and a well-fitting
dark grey jumper, and his face was slightly ruddy from the cold wind outside. He looked like a model, and Jo wasn’t sure she
could speak.

‘Jo,’ she said quietly, and she looked down at the table, unable to look William in the eye again. She was mortified by her
physical reaction to the man who was, effectively, her new boss. ‘Jo Hill.’

‘How long have you been working here, Jo Hill?’ William asked her in a light, teasing voice, and Jo forced herself to look
William in the eye. His blond hair had flopped back over one of his eyebrows sexily, and when he smiled Jo noticed that his
piercing blue eyes crinkled. She wished he would stop smiling – it made him all the more attractive.

‘About five months now, I think,’ Jo said, hoping she could end the conversation before it really began. She didn’t want to
make a fool of herself in front of the most perfect man she’d ever seen.