Fat Chance Read online

  OTHER TITLES BY NICK SPALDING

  LOVE . . . SERIES:

  Love . . . From Both Sides

  Love . . . And Sleepless Nights

  Love . . . Under Different Skies

  LIFE . . . SERIES:

  Life . . . With No Breaks

  Life . . . On A High

  Blue Christmas Balls

  Buzzing Easter Bunnies

  Max Bloom In . . . The Cornerstone

  Wordsmith . . . The Cornerstone Book 2

  Spalding’s Scary Shorts

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2014 Nick Spalding

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Lake Union, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Lake Union are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781477824566

  ISBN-10: 1477824561

  Cover design by bürosüdo München, www.buerosued.de

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2014903955

  All my friends, family and readers. Thank you for the chances you gave me.

  CONTENTS

  ARTICLE ON STREAM FM’S WEBSITE

  ZOE’S WEIGHT LOSS DIARY Friday, 3rd March

  GREG’S WEIGHT LOSS DIARY Friday, March 7th

  ZOE’S WEIGHT LOSS DIARY Tuesday, April 8th

  GREG’S WEIGHT LOSS DIARY Sunday, April 20th

  ZOE’S WEIGHT LOSS DIARY Monday, May 19th

  GREG’S WEIGHT LOSS DIARY Thursday, May 29th

  ZOE’S WEIGHT LOSS DIARY Tuesday, June 10th

  GREG’S WEIGHT LOSS DIARY Thursday, June 26th

  ZOE’S WEIGHT LOSS DIARY Tuesday, July 8th

  GREG’S WEIGHT LOSS DIARY Wednesday, August 6th

  ZOE’S WEIGHT LOSS DIARY Saturday, August 9th

  GREG’S WEIGHT LOSS DIARY Sunday, August 31st

  ZOE’S WEIGHT LOSS DIARY Monday, September 15th

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ARTICLE ON STREAM FM’S WEBSITE

  Posted January 3rd

  Are you a couple?

  Are you a FAT couple?

  Would you like to win £50,000?

  WE want to hear from YOU!

  Stream FM is looking for six overweight couples between the ages of 25 and 65 to take part in our fabulous new competition:

  ‘FAT CHANCE!’

  Over a six-month period, we’ll find out which couple can lose the most weight, and the winners will receive £50,000!

  If you and your partner would like to enter, download the form and fill in your details, along with the reasons you think you should be part of the competition (in no more than a hundred words).

  Deadline for entries is January 31st.

  The competition will be launched on the Elise & Will Breakfast Show at the beginning of March.

  Good luck!

  ZOE’S WEIGHT LOSS DIARY

  Friday, 3rd March

  14 stone, 7 pounds

  I’ve never been this nervous in my life, and all I’m doing is starting a diary.

  The last time I wrote anything even remotely diary-like was for my English language A Level course—right before I got kicked out of college for poor attendance. That was seventeen years ago.

  . . . it was mostly for poor attendance anyway.

  There was the incident when Greg and I got caught ‘enjoying each other’s company’ by the vice principal in the art department store room. That probably had a lot to do with it. I doubt the vision of me with my legs kicked in the air and Greg pumping me hard enough to knock several third-years’ paintings off the wall did much for our prospects that year. It’s a wonder we’ve both got jobs.

  I’ve certainly never been asked to write about my private life in such detail before. The whole idea of putting it down on paper seems absolutely horrific.

  The people at the radio station have told me to write whatever I want about my experiences. They’ve assured me that they’ll edit and polish the diary entries before they post them online, in order to put me in the best possible light. I have a feeling that, no matter how much they cut or omit from my entries, my neuroses and bizarre personal habits will still be glaringly obvious.

  And as for Greg, he takes to creative writing as well as an elephant would take to roller skating blind-folded. If he gets more than a hundred words written down without some kind of prolapse I’ll be amazed.

  Still, my best friend Elise thinks we’re both smart enough to write these silly diaries—even with our combined lack of experience—so I guess I have to trust her judgement. ‘You’re both intelligent people, Zoe. You’re my absolute favourite couple in the world and you’ll be great for this,’ she said to me in that oh-so-charming and persuasive manner she has. ‘You could do it standing on your heads.’

  Also, I don’t have a self-censorship button and will indeed write what I like regardless of subject matter. I fear the editing staff at the radio station will be claiming a lot of overtime in the near future.

  The first thing Elise suggested I talk about—to get the ball rolling, as it were—are the reasons we agreed to enter this competition.

  I say ‘we’ like Greg had much of a say in the matter, but to be honest I’ve bullied my poor husband into doing it. I want . . . no, I need to change the way I live my life, and the way Greg lives his, for that matter, before the damage we’ve done to ourselves becomes completely irreversible. The weight gain we’ve both allowed in the last decade hasn’t broken us, but there are some mighty big cracks showing. I’m as worried about his health as I’m sure he is about mine. He might not want to be a part of this competition, and I’ll probably have to drag him kicking and screaming all the way through it, but I know he’ll do it for me—and I know it’s the right thing for both of us.

  The closer I get to forty, the more I feel every one of the four stone I’ve piled on in the last decade. Enough, as they say, is well and truly enough.

  So, how does this monumental decision to change really happen? How does Zoe Milton, a woman who’s become more and more painfully self-conscious in recent years, agree to take part in a competition that will air all her dirty over-sized laundry in public for the next six months?

  It starts late last year with a dress . . . and a great deal of mindless optimism.

  It’s a lovely evening dress from Marks & Spencer. One I’ve had my eye on for several weeks now. Sharon’s Christmas bash in town is only three days away and I decide that I’ll look bloody fantastic in this dark green silky number with the pretty pattern running down the straps.

  What’s more, the top half is designed with a definite corset-like effect that will hold a majority of Zoe Milton nicely in place while she dances her arse off to Girls Aloud at 3 a.m. This will prevent a repeat performance of what Greg likes to refer to as the ‘titty flop trauma’ of New Year’s Eve 2010, when the flowery dress I’d bought from H&M decided to give up its futile resistance against my ample bosom—and gave way at two of the main seams. This provided my cousin Jeff with a clear view of my left tit as I swung past him during the chorus of ‘Come On Eileen.’

  Unsurprisingly, we haven’t heard much from Jeff since.

  This M&S green dress, however, looks like it can withstand all the abuse I can throw at it. Ev
en as I admire it on the hanger, the emerald silk glittering under the bright arc sodium lights of the ladies’ clothing section, I can tell it’s going to be sturdy, steadfast and perfectly suited for the job.

  There is just one small problem.

  The dress is a size sixteen. I, sadly, am not. Not anymore. I sloped over the threshold into the dreaded world of the size eighteen lady about a year ago.

  It’s been a good few months since I last plucked up the courage to stand on the scales, but I’m pretty sure that the chances of me having lost any weight are next to none, given that I’ve done about as much exercise as half the cast of ‘Supersize vs Superskinny’ lately.

  Inevitably, there are no bigger sizes of the dress available in the shop. A quick consultation with Google suggests that M&S don’t actually make a size eighteen version of it at all. It’s absolutely heartbreaking.

  But I want this dress, dammit!

  Just for once, I’d like to go out in something that makes me feel just a little bit sexy. A little bit confident. A little bit more like the girl I used to be before I wound up in this tired, unhappy body.

  Sod it.

  I’m trying the bloody thing on anyway. You never know.

  Dress sizes are always different shop to shop, so I might get lucky and find out that M&S have decided to start taking pity on the fat people of England and are now being generous with their size charts.

  With determination and hope I march off to the dressing rooms with the green evening gown billowing in my wake.

  ‘Good morning madam,’ the skinny blonde shop assistant greets me when I reach the changing rooms at the back of the store. ‘How many items have you got today?’

  ‘Just this dress,’ I tell her, waving the object in question in her face.

  ‘Okay, that’s fine,’ she replies in a disinterested tone, and hands me a plastic hook with the number one written on it. ‘Feel free to use any of the cubicles.’ She pauses and looks me up and down. I know what’s coming next. ‘The largest one is at the end of the aisle.’

  There was a time I’d have been extremely insulted by this remark. That time was over two years ago, however. Now I have resigned myself to the fact that certain people think because I’m overweight, I can’t possibly move through the world of the skinny person without knocking everything over and causing myself an injury.

  This silly cow probably thinks that the second I step into one of the smaller cubicles, my enormous hips will become wedged in it, and I’ll have to leave Marks & Spencer carrying the bloody thing on my back, looking like the world’s biggest tortoise.

  ‘Thanks,’ I reply with a scowl. ‘I’ll try not to eat anything while I’m in there.’

  This comment is greeted with a blank stare, so I just sigh and walk past her without another word.

  I take one look at the largest cubicle at the end of the aisle and decide to resolutely ignore it for the rest of my life. Instead, I turn into one of the regular size stalls and pull the thick white curtain aside to enter, safe in the knowledge that I can fit inside it without needing a crowbar and a pound of butter—despite what the bony bitch outside might think.

  Having said that, it is quite snug in here. Snug enough to make the removal of my jeans a bit of a trial, as I have to bend over to shrug them off. This causes my backside to hit, and then rebound off the wall, nearly sending me forehead first into the full-length mirror in front of me.

  Taking a deep breath to curb the rising tide of anger and self-loathing I can feel making its way up from my nether regions, I remove my jacket and blouse slowly, placing them on the stool next to the jeans with a long sigh and some muted tutting noises.

  I look at the green size sixteen evening dress now hanging from the hook on the wall and regard it as a prize fighter would his next opponent.

  Inspecting it more closely, it’s evident that this is a dress I will have to slip over my head. The tight corset style of the upper half dictates that stepping into it will be impossible.

  I gather the bottom of the dress up in my arms and slip it over my head and shoulders, being careful not to wrinkle it too much.

  I am delighted to find I can get the dress on without too much effort. I scarcely have to break a sweat, and spend only thirty seconds grunting and groaning before the hemline is below my knees.

  Ha ha! Success is mine!

  . . . Oh bugger, I haven’t zipped the bloody thing up yet, have I?

  It’s all very well feeling triumphant that I’ve managed to get a size sixteen dress onto my size eighteen frame, but the victory is a hollow and shallow thing unless I can get that zipper all the way up.

  Luckily, it zips to the side rather than the back, so at least I have a fighting chance.

  I suck my chest in, mentally cross myself, and pull the zipper up.

  It gets almost halfway before the laws of physics assert themselves, in no uncertain terms I might add, and refuse to let the sodding thing go any higher.

  I could cry. Warm, satisfying victory has turned into the cold ashes of failure.

  ‘Oh, you utter bastard,’ I whisper under my breath.

  At this point I should just give up the struggle, unzip the dress, remove it from my person, and rush home to eat the rest of the Ben & Jerry’s Phish Food we didn’t get through last night. This is my usual response to such disasters.

  However, the anger and self-loathing that I’ve managed to keep a lid on since my brief conversation with Little Miss Bony-Arse outside is now taking steps to remove my rationality—and is apparently succeeding extremely well. I now decide to start wrenching the zipper in an upwards motion, in the vain hope that brute force will solve the problem.

  If ‘solving the problem’ actually translates as ‘yanking the zipper tab until it breaks off and leaves me trussed up like a Christmas turkey,’ then I have been one hundred percent successful.

  Incredulously, I hold the tiny broken piece of metal up in front of me. I then try to re-attach it to the rest of the zipper, hoping that I’ve suddenly developed superpowers that allow me to bond metal with metal through sheer force of will.

  This is not the case, so I now find myself trapped inside a green dress that’s squeezing my boobs so much I can nearly rest my chin on them. I’m also having to take short, shallow breaths that make me sound like a hyperventilating chipmunk.

  Panic threatens to set in. Thankfully, the self-loathing has gone into hyper-drive now, which means any other emotions don’t really get a look in.

  I’m now left in something of a quandary.

  As far as I can tell, I have three choices open to me.

  I can call the shop girl to come and help me out of the dress—which is about as likely as Greg arranging a threesome with Bradley Cooper for my next birthday present.

  I can try to pull the dress down as much as I can on my own, thus relieving the pressure on my ribcage, and allowing me to think about the situation a bit more clearly without the onset of suffocation.

  Or, I can yank the dress upwards in a swift and decisive motion, in order to free myself as quickly and as effectively as possible from my material prison.

  A less impulsive person would go with option two, but then again, a less impulsive woman wouldn’t have tried to squeeze into a dress that’s too small for her in the first place.

  I take a deep breath, squeeze my eyes shut, grab the straps with both hands, and, with all the strength I can muster, I yank the dress upwards in what I think is the aforementioned swift and decisive manner.

  Sadly, as I do this, the dress also twists round to the left and the tight corseting constricts around my ample upper body like one of those Chinese finger puzzles. Instead of flying off over my head, the dress becomes wedged at the shoulders, leaving me with my arms flailing above my head and my vision limited to a landscape of green material.

  Compounding this terrible s
ituation is the fact that I’m bound to be showing my enormous pink and black striped knickers to the world, thanks to the lower half of the dress bunching up and creating an unattractive pool of bulging material around my waist.

  I’m in proper trouble now.

  I’ve never been one to suffer from claustrophobia, but I now feel a new and acute appreciation for those who have the condition. I simply have no idea what to do.

  I can’t lower my arms thanks to the stiffness of the corseting, so I can’t gain any leverage on the dress to pull it back down.

  Panic really does set in now, and I start to fight against my impromptu straitjacket, wobbling my body back and forth in an attempt to shake myself free. I haven’t writhed around with my hands in the air this much since I went to a rave back in the mid-nineties. If somebody sticks The Prodigy on over the M&S speaker system, I’ll feel right at home.

  Of course, in my mild panic, I’ve forgotten about the fact that I’m standing in a small cubicle containing a stool, which is currently adorned with my street clothes. I’m reminded of this fact when I painfully smack my knee into the stool as I whirl around on the spot for the third time, hoping that by building up some centrifugal force it might throw me clear of the dress.

  ‘Oww! Fuck!’ I wail in muffled frustration.

  The usual human response to sharp pain is to back away from its cause as swiftly as possible. This makes me stumble into the heavy white curtain that shuts off the cubicle from the outside world. The curtain has seen how much fun the dress is having with me and wants in on the action. In my increasing distress, I twist around sharply as I hit the curtain—which neatly manages to wrap itself around my entire body, thus encasing me in two layers of material.

  ‘Oh, for crying out loud!’