The Next Big Thing (21 page)

Then they hit us with the volleyball game.

The stakes in this contest were the highest yet. In addition to a monetary prize of seventy-five thousand dollars, we’d be given a copy of the trade magazine
Hollywood Heat
—which, not coincidentally, had a cover story on
From Fat to Fabulous.

“Find out, once and for all, what’s being said about you in the press,” Jagger taunted, waving the magazine in front of us. I sucked in a breath. Seeing my face on the cover of a glossy magazine felt alien, surreal.

“We can’t beat a team of pro volleyball players,” Regan complained. “We shouldn’t even try.”

“You don’t have to win the match, you just have to win one game out of three,” Jagger informed us, smoothing an imaginary wrinkle from his shirt. He was decked out like a surfer boy, in a white T-shirt and brightly patterned shorts that hung down to his knees. Brown flip-flops housed his feet. A pair of expensive-looking sunglasses sat perched atop his head, and a coconut shell necklace adorned his neck. He looked prepped to film an episode of
Baywatch.

The seven of us stood on the crowded
Venice Beach boardwalk, surrounded by a plethora of cameramen and sound technicians. Zaidee had even commanded a large camera on a crane. It sat in the sand, hanging over the volleyball court. A small crowd was starting to gather, pushing in past the hotdog vendors and the T-shirt sellers to catch a glimpse of us.

“We can totally do this,” Janelle said excitedly. Ever since Jagger had announced the competition, Janelle had been ecstatic. “I played competitive volleyball in college,” she enthused. “This is right up my alley!”

The rest of us were more skeptical.

“Regan’s right. We can’t beat some professional team,” I argued. “Why bother trying?”

“It ain’t meant for us to win,” Luisa agreed. “They want us to go out in bathing suits and look stupid. They’re not gonna let us read about ourselves in a magazine. And Zaidee doesn’t want us to get another seventy-five grand. Our bank accounts are getting too big.”

Janelle shook her head. “Maybe they’re doing this to make up for Weight of the World on Your Shoulders.”

“Hey,” I cut in, defensively. “We haven’t officially lost that yet.”

Five pairs of eyes turned to glare at me.

“It’s not my fault,” I griped. “How can I be expected to win a competition if I can’t even compete?”

“So compete now,” Janelle said. “The worst part is the bathing suits.”

Regan was beyond mortified. “I am
not
wearing a bathing suit in public. I already had to wear a cheerleader’s uniform.”

Maggie didn’t seem to care one way or another. “I’ll do whatever’s best for the group,” she said self-righteously. “Even if I’m the only one who feels that way.”

Only Alyssa shared Janelle’s eagerness. And, given her fondness for lying, there was no way of knowing if what she said was the truth. “Listen to Janelle,” Alyssa insisted. “I played on my high school’s volleyball team. We’ve got this.”

“I don’t think it’s the game that we’re worried about,” I said. “We’re worried about the bathing suits.”

“Alyssa and I will keep you guys covered as best we can,” Janelle said, as if I hadn’t spoken. “You guys just try and keep the ball off the sand. If you can get it up in the air, I can spike it back.”

There wasn’t much use arguing, so Regan, Luisa, and I gave in.

“Jagger!” Janelle called. “We’re going to do it. Where do we go to get changed?”

“Follow me, ladies,” he said, leading us over to trailer turned makeshift dressing room out in the parking lot. “Your uniforms are inside.”

“Uniforms?” I asked, following Luisa up the stairs and into the trailer. She opened the door and then stopped dead in her tracks. “I knew it! I knew Zaidee was gonna do this to us. What did I say?” Luisa demanded, stalking into the trailer and grabbing one of the hangers.

“Oh no!” I wailed, with a sinking feeling. Deep down, I’d known it, too.

“Bikinis, right?” Janelle called from behind us.

“Hell, yeah, it’s bikinis,” Luisa grumbled. She was still blocking the door, so I pushed past her, clearing a path for the others. One by one, we filed into the dressing room, followed by two cameramen and a sound tech.

“Look at these!” I cried, picking up one of the pink, two-piece monstrosities, with
Fat2Fab
written across the butt in black letters. I held it out at arm’s length, as though it were someone else’s dirty laundry.

Janelle ran her hands through her hair in exasperation. “Oh, well,” she said eventually. “At least they aren’t thongs.”

“These are pretty flattering, actually,” Alyssa commented. “Very conservative.” She picked up the bikini top and held it by its string. She was right, but it didn’t matter. A bikini was a bikini. Any way you sliced it, they were a big girl’s worst nightmare.

“I don’t wanna do this,” Regan moaned.

“I don’t either. But I will, for the good of the team,” Maggie said dryly. “And I’m the oldest one out here. My body sags worse than any of yours.”

“You mind stepping outside so we can get changed?” Janelle asked the camera crew.

They obliged. “Leave these on the table,” the sound tech said, gesturing toward our mic packs. “Not using them today. Boom mics,” he murmured, heading outside after the cameramen.

It should have been a simple thing, changing into the bathing suits and going back outside. But other than
Alyssa and Janelle, everybody was too self-conscious to get undressed with other people watching. Even other fat girls.

So we trudged back outside, using the dressing room one at time. Then, wrapped in large white beach towels, we made our way down to the sand, where the court had been set up. The crowd—
which was sizeable to begin with—had now swelled to encompass what looked like thousands.

“Christ, there’s a lot of people here,” I murmured.

“Saturday,” Luisa reminded me. “Everybody goes to the beach.”

“Great, just what we need. An audience.”

“Don’t worry about them,” Janelle said. “Once we start playing, you’ll forget they’re even there.”

We took our positions on the
sand. Our team had first serve, and Janelle managed to hit a clean shot over the net, though our opponents returned it sharply. Janelle dove forward but her hands didn’t even come close to connecting with the ball. “What they just did, that’s called a kill,” she said, sheepishly. “It means there’s no possible way to return it.”

It was an unfair match from the get-go. The other team was made up of strong, athletic women, some of whom had been playing competitively since they were kids. We lost the first game easily, bagging only seven points against the other team’s fifteen. Worse still, we were exhausted. “

I always thought volleyball looked easy,” I grunted, wiping sweat off my brow. “Who knew bopping a ball around in the sand was so
hard.
”

“Everything’s easy until you’ve actually tried it,” Janelle pointed out.

“No kidding,” I said. I had to admit that, despite my initial reservations, I was actually having
fun.
Janelle had been right; as soon as we’d started playing, I’d managed to lose myself in the game, tuning out the noise of the crowd. I even forgot, temporarily at least, that I was a fat girl wearing a bikini on a crowded beach.

Until we took a break, that is.

“Go ahead, take twenty. Get something to drink, stretch your legs,” Zaidee said, after we’d blown the second game, losing by four points. She brushed past us to confer with the primary cameraman.

Luisa and I grabbed our towels and then trotted up toward the boardwalk to browse through the various vendors. We felt awkward in our bathing suits, but this was a rare chance for freedom and we had to grab it. We had just started examining some woven jewelry when it happened.

“I know who you are,” a voice called from the crowd. A woman was pointing a boney finger at me. She was in her mid-fifties with short blonde hair that was streaked with gray.

“Katherine,” she said.

“Kat,” I told her, pulling my towel tightly around my bathing suit. “It’s short for Katrina.”

“You’re the girl from that
Fat
show.”

I grimaced. “Yeah.”

Luisa began backing off, slipping down to the sand and out of the limelight.

“My son has been watching you on television,” the woman said, and for a moment I thought she was going to ask me to autograph something for him. I couldn’t have been further off-base.

“Yes, you’re the one my son has been talking about.” Her expression changed to disdain. “The way you fire off your mouth is a disgrace!” she exploded. “You think the whole world should take pity on you because you have a weight problem? Well, I’m here to tell you there’s not a person alive who feels sorry for you. You’re lazy,” she snarled. “And you know something? Not only are you lazy, but you’re stupid and mean.”

Her words hit me like a punch in the gut. Lazy. Stupid.
Mean?
How could she say I was mean? She was the one insulting a total stranger!

Out of nowhere, a man approached, his face lit up with rage. “You’re a pathetic excuse for a human being,” he said, frowning. “I saw you complaining about how much you hate exercising. I tell you, exercise is a
privilege,
not a punishment. God gave you a perfectly fine body and look at what you’ve done to it! My wife lost her leg to cancer nine years ago. Before she got sick she was a triathlete. She’d give anything to have her leg back, so she could compete again. And here you are, all the blessings in the world, and all you do is complain.”

This had to be some kind of joke. Certainly, the producers had paid these people to come along and stir up drama?

Before I could respond, Zaidee was at my side, shooing them away. “Get back on the court,” she instructed.

I was grateful that she’d intervened
, but shaken up by the exchange.

“Break’s over,” Zaidee announced.

I resumed my position, but it was a lost cause. My game was totally thrown off. First I screwed up serving, then I got in Maggie’s way and wound up knocking her down.

“Ow!” she screeched, rubbing her backside as she stood up. “Be careful, Kat.”

“Yeah, last time I checked, volleyball wasn’t a contact sport,” Alyssa said.

By the end of the third game—which we miraculously won fifteen to thirteen—I was so upset I couldn’t see straight. I didn’t even care about the prize.
I couldn’t stop thinking about what those people had said to me on the beach.

“Congratulations, girls, on a job well done,” Jagger boomed, joining us on the court. He walked around shaking each of our hands and smiling. “Tonight marks an important turning point in the game. Within the next few weeks, several twists will take place, shocking the house to its core.”

“Wh-? . . . what?” Regan sputtered.

“All in good time,” Jagger said, smiling. “You’ll find out on the first ever
From Fat to Fabulous
live show, coming up within the next few weeks.”

And with that, he was gone. Live show? This was the first I’d heard of it.

“Hey, cheer up, Kit Kat,” Alyssa said. “We won. Twenty-five G’s! And, even better,
Hollywood Heat
!” She threw her arms around me in a sisterly hug.

I shoved her off. “How can I cheer up? They’re turning us into a freak show!”

“Well, I’ve got something that’ll cheer you up,” she said, looping her arm through mine. “Look over there.” I turned to see a small film crew coming over. “MTV,” she hissed. “Here it is—my big break!”

Zaidee rushed over and spoke briefly with the crew. Then she came trotting across the sand toward me and
Alyssa. “Why don’t you gals sit down on the sand for just a minute, and let them get a shot of you sunbathing.”

A lanky assistant came over and set down several beach towels and accessories. “Just try and act natural,” he instructed before turning to go.

“No thanks,” I grumbled. The last thing I wanted was for MTV to film me lounging in a bikini. “That wasn’t a question,” Zaidee snapped.

“They’re broadcasting live from the beach today and you girls are going on in ten minutes.” She stalked off before I had the chance to object.

Alyssa sat down on the sand, watching patiently as Zaidee pushed back the sea of onlookers. “It’s cool, Kit Kat,” she said. Her eyes traveled the length of my torso. “I understand why you don’t want to be on MTV. The camera adds ten pounds.”

I glared at her, not saying a word.

“Here.” She picked up a bottle of sunscreen and tossed it in my direction. “Just get behind me and pretend to rub this on my shoulders. I can hide most of your body that way.”

I’d about had it with her. There was only so much pestering and belittling one person could take before they cracked. “And just why, exactly, does my body need hiding?” I demanded, fully aware of how she’d answer.

“Seriously, Kat, do you even need to ask that? You have a major weight problem, isn’t that obvious? Even with the few pounds you’ve lost, you’re still a total heifer. No offense.”