The Fat And The Thin Of It

THE FAT AND

  THE THIN OF IT

  Julie Croft

  Copyright 2013 Julie Croft

  Cover Design by Lighthouse24

  Contents

  THE FAT OF IT: JACKIE

  THE THIN OF IT: JILL

  Jackie

  Jill

  Jackie

  Jill

  Jackie

  Jill

  THE CRUX OF IT

  For Mum

  And

  For Ms Chislet, who chisled ‘The Thinker’

  from my blank slab of brain

  The Fat Of It:

  JACKIE

  The phone rang while I was driving to Sainsbury’s and that always annoys me. I have Bluetooth in the car so I can talk without having to tuck the phone under my chin and risk a fine, but it still annoys me. Still, thought I ought to answer it, just in case it was something important. It could even be Bob, which would be nice.

  I pressed the ‘answer’ button. “Hello?”

  “Hi, Jackie. It’s me”

  Well, that was a surprise. Jill never phones from work. “Hi, love. What’s up?”

  “Um, I was wondering what you were doing.”

  I sighed, feigning boredom. “Well, I’ve got a coffee appointment with George Clooney then I thought I’d drop by Dior and pick up a few outfits. I was thinking of going to Gordon Ramsey’s place for lunch, afterwards. You know; same old, same old.”

  There was pause instead of a giggle. “What about you?” I probed.

  Jill sighed, feigning nothing. “Well, I got to the office about eight-thirty, Harriet summoned me to her office at nine and told me I was fired, and I’ve just finished clearing out my desk. You know,” she was trying to sound casual, but it wasn’t working. “Same old, same old.”

  Well, that was a shock, and I was lost for words. “Oh, love. What on earth happened?”

  Jill’s second sigh was a little shaky. “Invite me for coffee instead of George, and I’ll tell you all about it.”

  “Okay.” I had nothing to do after Sainsbury’s, apart from housework, and an excuse to not do that was always welcome. “Could you come by in about an hour? I should have finished shopping by then.”

  Jill agreed as I pulled into the parking lot, and I hung up quickly to concentrate on manoeuvring the car into a parking space. The tarmac was icy as it hadn’t been used over the weekend, and not many people had yet braved the cold to do shopping, and I could feel the wheels gliding over the surface like Torvel and Dean. I parked then jumped out the car and gingerly trotted towards the trolleys.

  I revised my shopping list, searching for the most important items, then headed for the frozen section. In a way, I was glad I had to shop on the hop, as it didn’t give me much time to fall into temptation. I’d started dieting, again, three days ago and was feeling the cold turkey-type syndromes of carbohydrate deficiency; light-headedness and lethargy. Nonetheless, I was determined to lose three stone this year and most definitely not put it back on again. I was genuinely, really going to do it this time. I’d had a bowl of porridge before coming out – good, slow-burning GI stuff – to help curb the usual tendency to end up with a packet of something naughty in the trolley under the pretext it was for Mark. I knew Jill wouldn’t want to suffocate her sorrows in food, as she hardly ate much at the best of times. I marvelled at her ability to pick like a bird at her food, although sometimes she’d eat with what I called a healthy appetite, but the occasions were rare.

  As Bob wouldn’t be home until next Sunday, the shop was pretty basic; meat, vegetables, a couple of pizzas for a quick tea for Mark, skimmed milk and low-fat yoghurt. Mark would whinge, but if he wanted what he called ‘proper food’ then he’d have to beg a place at the table of a friend’s kitchen.

  After a gratefully quick check-out, I piled the bags into the boot, skated out of the parking lot and made it home before Jill. Before I’d even pulled into the driveway, I heard the chest-trembling thump of rap music.

  “Mark!” I yelled as I opened the door. Nothing. I went to the bottom of the stairs and yelled again. “Ma-a-ark!”

  The music faded slightly and a door was opened. “Wassup?”

  “Come down here and help me with the shopping, please.”

  Mark tutted loudly and ambled down the stairs. He unloaded the boot without a word, dropped the bags in the hallway and ambled back upstairs. The door was slammed and the music back up to full blast.

  “Thank you, son.” I whispered and struggled with the four bags into the kitchen. The shopping was put a little haphazardly in the fridge, then I checked the time: five minutes to Jill’s arrival. I decided to get the kettle on as Jill was always punctual, and just as I’d brewed the tea, the doorbell chimed. I placed the two mugs on the kitchen table and went to open the door.

  I gave her a silent hug and ushered her into the kitchen. She shrugged off a very nice, camel-coloured wool coat and dropped her very expensive-looking crocodile-skin bag on the floor and placed her mobile on the table. She looked a little red around the eyes, but in all, more relaxed and in control than I’d anticipated. Her mobile buzzed a quick fairy-like chime, but she took no notice. That was unusual as she’s always got that darn thing in her hand and continually checking messages, tweets and whatever what-not. But at that moment, she sat staring into the mug as I smiled my best encouraging smile, but it looked like I’d have to break the silence.

  “Come on. Get it off your chest, you fat cow.”

  She chuckled sadly. I’d called her ‘fat cow’ and she in turn called me ‘skinny bitch’ since we’d mutually admitted to an unhealthy preoccupation with our weight somewhere in our teens. I’d silently envied her figure since we became friends in secondary school, and apparently she’d silently admired and desired my face. Jill was far from plain, but she’d had a vicious bout of chicken pocks as a child and her face was a little scarred, but not as ‘terribly’ and ‘frighteningly’, as she put it. We’d joked that if we could transplant my head on her neck, we’d rule the world. Maybe even marry Donny Osmond, but as it would have been my head doing all the work, it would have been David Cassidy. Still, I’d never fully understood why on earth she had a problem with her weight.

  “That stupid bitch the Hairy-it told me that the agency was going through a crisis and that they had to dispose of unnecessary personnel.” There was that fairy chime again.

  Her tone was sarcastic, understandably. She’d worked at Catwalk for nearly ten years, and I wouldn’t have thought that Jill’s almost thirty years of working in the fashion business would deem her as ‘unnecessary personnel’.

  She voiced what I suspected to be the only possible reason. “In other words; the old, over-the-hill and behind the times personnel.” Another chime, and she tutted but didn’t pick it up.

  “You’re not old, Jill.” Not really, anyway, but I suppose fifty-two was old for a business that was overrun with anorexic schoolgirls and hysterical designers practically embalmed in Botox. “Besides, they were the ones who head-hunted you because of your cache of professionals. They’ll lose them now they’ve got rid of you.” I said, trying to be encouraging. “It’s their loss, not yours.”

  Jill winced. “I signed an agreement with Catwalk stating that, if I left, they kept hold of the cache.”

  “But you haven’t left; they fired you. That’s a different kettle of fish, surely.”

  I needed something to eat if Jill didn’t. I got up from the table and rummaged in the pantry for some rice cakes. “Anyway, I’m sure that if you called those people and explained what had happened, they’d drop Catwalk like a hot potato.”

  “Jackie, my ‘people’ are interested in work, not loyalty.” she said. “And, as long as they’re gettin
g the best work in London they don’t care who gives it to them. And,” she emphasised. “There’s no other agency worth working for, not now Catwalk has all the best designers and fashion houses so used to working with them, regardless if I was somewhere else or not.” She sighed dejectedly. The fairy chime seemed to agree.

  I went back to the table and offered her a rice cake, which she waved away like she would a big, fat, hairy spider. I munched hungrily, but the rice cake stuck to the roof of my mouth like powdery cardboard, so I took a long gulp of tea and tried to speak. “Shtill, you could fish about and shee if any of your peepooh would follow you if they had the opshion, couldn’ choo?” it was an effort not to spit out dry rice while talking, but I took another bite anyway and followed it with a chaser of tea to see if it would stop the sticking. “It w’dn’t hurt t’ g’v’ it a chry.” I hoped she understood the last sentence, as I sounded like I had a mouthful of big, fat, hairy spiders.

  “Anyway,” she got up from the table and picked up her phone. “I need to pee.”

  “Just check the toilet seat before you