Diary of an Adorable Fat Girl Read online

  Diary of an Adorable Fat Girl

  Adorable Fat Girl series, Volume 1

  Bernice Bloom

  Published by Gold Medals Media Ltd, 2020.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Contents

  Copyright

  Welcome to the world of Mary Brown

  1. Meeting Mary

  2. Week two at Fat Club

  3. The third session at Fat Club

  4. The visit

  5. My hot date with Dave

  6. The fourth session at Fat Club

  7. One week later, session five of Fat Club

  8. Session six, the final session at Fat Club

  More books...

  Copyright

  PUBLISHED INTERNATIONALLY by Gold Medals Media Ltd:

  Bernice Bloom 2018

  Terms and Conditions:

  THE PURCHASER OF THIS book is subject to the condition that he/she shall in no way resell it, nor any part of it, nor make copies of it to distribute freely.

  All Persons Fictitious Disclaimer:

  This book is a work of fiction. Any similarity between the characters and situations within its pages and places or persons, living or dead, is unintentional and coincidental.

  Welcome to the world of Mary Brown

  Thank you so much for buying the opening story in the Adorable Fat Girl series about the delicious, larger-than-life Mary Brown. There is now a range of stories about Mary - mysteries, holiday books, weight loss books and many more. This is the first step on her incredible adventure.

  If you want to look through all the books on offer, see my website: bernicebloom

  Lots of love, Bernice xx

  Chapter ONE

  Meeting Mary

  FOR THE LOVE OF ALL that is holy, what on earth was I doing? It was pouring down with rain on a miserable Thursday evening and I was standing alone in the semi-darkness, sheltering under a tree outside a run-down community centre in one of the less salubrious parts of Surrey. Icy cold raindrops rolled across the leaves on the branches above me before dripping onto the top of my neck and crawling slowly down my back.

  And all because I was fat.

  Sorry, I should explain – I was lingering outside waiting to go in for my first night at Fat Club. Not that they called it Fat Club, of course; Fat Club was my own special name for it. The course was called ‘New You’ and it was for very overweight people who didn’t want to be quite so overweight any more. There was a battered sign hanging off the railing next to me declaring ‘Six weeks to a NEW YOU. Register here.’

  Oh God.

  I didn’t want to go in, of course. Who would? If your choice was to spend the evening in the pub having a few glasses of wine with your mates or sit around with fat people, crying about how enormous you all are, which one are you going to choose? That’s right – you’d be on your third glass of Sauvignon by now, wouldn’t you?

  But there I was. And it was a good thing, because an hour earlier, when I’d been sitting in my little flat thinking about the pizza and the bottle of wine that were taunting me from the fridge, it was touch and go whether I’d come at all. I could think of a million reasons not to venture out, but I’d managed to drag my large bottom off the sagging sofa, grab my coat and get on the bus.

  Now all I had to do was force myself to go inside. I walked towards the door, stumbling on exposed roots and slipping on soggy leaves in the semi-darkness. The broken street light directly outside the centre made the experience particularly dismal. I felt around for the cold, wet handle. Finally, I found it and the door creaked as I turned it. It was like I was in some low-budget, 1950s horror film.

  Inside, things were considerably brighter. In fact, the fluorescent lighting strips were so overpowering you could perform major heart surgery in there. I narrowed my eyes, squinting as I adjusted to the brightness, like a small woodland creature coming up from its burrow into daylight.

  “Hello, welcome, welcome, welcome,” said a woman with a wide, smiling face and ears that stuck out through a plethora of unruly curls. She introduced herself as Liz, explaining that she was the course tutor as she reached out a large hand and pulled me into her, hugging me warmly. “Sorry if my outfit’s a bit bright, I love colourful clothes.”

  She wasn’t joking. If I were being very unkind, I’d say she was dressed in the manner of a four-year-old who’d been told she can choose what she wants to wear to a party. She was wearing a very tight (I mean – so tight, you could see the outline of her major internal organs) pink dress, with red tights and a red cardigan, and had lashings of vibrant green eyeshadow thickly painted onto her eyelids. She wore a pink lipstick but most of that appeared to be on her teeth and chin rather than her lips so she looked like she’d been eating raspberries straight from the bush without using her hands. She even had glitter on her temples. She was a pair of butterfly wings away from winning the prize for best dressed little girl at the party.

  The childlike nature of her makeup was in contrast to her stature. She was a tall and sturdy woman, carrying quite a few extra pounds. “I’m glad you’ve decided to join us,” she said. “I hope this class will help you change your life for the better. You know, I’ve lost 13 stone since I first came to the group.”

  “Wow, well done,” I said. The generous side of me thought – that is really impressive. The less generous side thought – blimey, how fat were you before? I decided not to share the more ungenerous thought. In fact, I decided not to share any of the ungenerous thoughts I was having about her. I was being a real bitch. Sorry if you think me offensive. I’m not normally like this, but I was stressed as hell – I wanted to be at home with pizza and wine, not discussing my food issues with random strangers.

  “Take a seat,” said Liz, leading me to a circle of chairs, and making the compulsory British observations about the weather. We agreed it was miserable and much colder than it normally was for the time of year (I don’t know how people remember that sort of thing. Do they keep notes or something? I can’t remember what the weather was like last week, let alone last year. I guess she was right though, so I nodded and smiled, raising my eyebrows in agreement with her). There were only two other people in the room – an older man and woman who barely looked up. They were tucked into a corner, wearing matching navy blue anoraks and trying to sink into the background. I tried to smile at them but they didn’t smile back. Liz saw me trying to make a connection with them and gave me an enormous grin, revealing just how much lipstick she had smeared across her teeth. I’d rather have been anywhere else on earth.

  “My name’s Mary,” I said, eventually, when the weight of the silence became too much for me to bear. I walked over and shook hands with the two older people. They didn’t offer their names, so I returned to my seat, slightly cross that they didn’t have the decency to pretend to be interested in me, but also happy that I’d done my bit for group relations. I’ve never liked to see people looking sad, and those two looked nigh on suicidal. I discovered later that their names were Phil and Philippa.

  The Phils and I were sitting down with chairs between us, and as other people filtered in they took the free chairs. A woman called Janice sat to the left of me. She clutched her handbag and whimpered, “I want to go home,” which endeared me to her.

  “Me too, sister,” I said.

  What she also had in her favour, as far as our future friendship was concerned, was that she was a lot larger than me. This gave me a strange sense of confidence and happiness. I know that was selfish, and very uncharitable, but I really didn’t want to be the fattest person at Fat Club. I mean – no one wants to be the fattest person at Fat Club.

  “What on earth is that woman wearing?” she said, after Liz had been over to give her a welcome hug. “I didn’t realise it was fancy dress.”

  Opposite me there was a very beautiful woman taking a seat next to the Phils. She was tall and quite big but nothing like as fat as the rest of us: size 16, at a guess. Unnervingly elegant in cream, three-quarter length trousers and a white shirt, she also had a treasure trove of gold accessories to bring the outfit to life. She looked exactly like Kelly Brook. She had no place at a Fat Club, and I longed for bouncers to appear clutching scales and a tape measure and throw her out for not reaching the required obesity level.

  Liz wandered over to her, and for one insane moment I thought she was going to do exactly that – chuck the poor woman out because her stomach was too small and her thighs didn’t rub together. But, instead, she told her she was very welcome, hugged her, and invited her to sit down. I watched the alarm spread across the woman’s face as she released herself from the compulsory hug she’d just endured and took in Liz’s outfit. “My name’s Veronica,” she said. “I don’t know whether I should be here. I used to be a model.”

  “Everyone’s welcome, regardless of who they are or who they used to be. We’re simply here to support one another. Why don’t you stay and see how you feel,” said Liz.

  “OK,” said Veronica. Liz moved away and the glamourpuss smiled at me, revealing perfect teeth. I smiled back, making sure I didn’t show mine.

  The club was quite a long way from my home. I couldn’t risk going to a club near to my house in case someone saw me. It’s bad enough being fat without advertising it to all your friends and family. I’d never have lived it down if my boss at the garden centre had seen me walking into a local club. Keith’s always been a bit of a clown and would have found it very amusing to mock my efforts
to lose weight.

  “While we’re waiting for the others to get here, does anyone have any questions?” said Liz. “I know you must be wondering about the course and how it works.”

  “Yes, I’d like to know that.” I raised my hand a little, like a child in school. “How does it work? What do we do? How are we all going to lose tonnes of weight? And how quickly will we lose it?” I could hear the urgency and desperation in my own voice. It didn’t sound pretty.

  “We will obviously go into that in great detail later.” Liz gave a warm smile. “But – briefly – this course is about dealing with your issues psychologically, not physically. When you’re ready to diet and exercise, you will.”

  “OK.” I was trying to stay positive but this sounded like a load of New Age bullshit. “I’m really ready to lose the weight, now. I’m sick of being fat. I’d like to get thinner as quickly as possible.”

  “Amen, sister,” said Janice, and I treated her to the biggest smile I could muster.

  “OK. I get it, I really do. You desperately want to lose weight, but let’s look at the facts,” she said calmly, perhaps sensing that I wasn’t entirely sold on all this. “You know what you have to do to lose weight, don’t you? You know that by increasing exercise and cutting back on your calorie intake you will lose weight. Right?”

  “Right,” I said.

  “But you’re not doing it.”

  “No, I think we can all agree on that.” I rubbed my fat stomach and let the ripples provide the evidence.

  “Why not?” she asked.

  “Um. I don’t know.” I felt myself go scarlet and wished I’d never asked a bloody question in the first place. I wished I was at home with a bottle of wine.

  “Look, I don’t want to embarrass you at all, I’m just trying to explain that losing weight is actually quite a complicated psychological shift, if you want to keep it off, so that takes a bit of time.”

  She looked at me and I was sure she could sense the disappointment and frustration emanating from me.

  “There must be a reason you’re not cutting back on your calories and losing weight, mustn’t there? Or you’d do it. Something’s stopping you, and it’s not something physical – no one’s standing in your way at the gym and not allowing you onto the treadmill, or forcing you to eat cake. It’s something psychological, and that’s what we have to sort out.

  “This course is to try and understand all the mental processes that we go through as overeaters. It will involve working out why you eat too much in the first place. This is a gentle, kind environment and within it we’ll explore your emotions and learn to understand them.”

  What she said made perfect sense, of course, but I still didn’t get it...not really. How would I be filled with positive energy and never eat anything but celery ever again merely by chatting about how fat I was?

  “Will you just trust me?” said Liz. “Stay with this and I can help you.”

  “OK,” I said, though I had my reservations about trusting her. I didn’t trust anyone, not really. My ability to trust had deserted me along with my innocence all those years ago.

  I looked up to see a man walk in; he was one of those very jolly fat guy types – all smiles and laughter and cracking jokes. He didn’t seem to fit into this rather dull group. He sat down to the right of me and I sighed inwardly. I was starting to think I might get an empty seat next to me, which I’d have liked. I hoped he wasn’t going to try and jolly me up...no sing-alongs or hand holding or anything nasty like that.

  “Am I in the right place?” His voice was barely a whisper. “I am looking for Overeaters Anonymous. How will I know when I find it? You’re too thin to be in the group I’m looking for.”

  It was a valiant attempt at humour in the face of embarrassment, and I did appreciate the compliment, so I smiled at him as he sat down. He took off his glasses that had steamed up when he came into the warm building, and wiped them on his checked shirt. He had odd facial hair – not just a simple beard, but a sort of complicated moustache/beard combo that had been shaved into place. Like topiary.

  There were six of us in the room when Liz decided to start the session. She was expecting 10, she said, but it was already 10 minutes late and she didn’t want to keep us waiting.

  “I bet they’ve only got the hall booked for 90 minutes,” whispered the man. “Then the ‘Under-Eaters Anonymous’ group arrive, and they can’t risk us all being in the same room at the same time.”

  I smiled at him. He was ever so slightly bonkers which cheered me up.

  I heard Janice giggling to herself at the man’s joke. “That’s right; the under-eaters are terrified of the overeaters,” she said. “They’re worried we might eat them.”

  Liz began by talking about the importance of us working together as group, and how we must contact one another during the week. She said she’d give out a list of numbers and we should send a text to the person on our left during the week, just to encourage them.

  The very smiley, happy, red-faced man with the steamed-up glasses and odd facial hair arrangement gave me a smile. “I’m Ted. I’ll text you to check you’re OK. Just call me if you need to talk or anything,” he said in a kind voice.

  “Thank you,” I replied, and I instantly regretted judging him on the beard thing.

  “I’ll text you,” I said to Janice.

  “OK, but will I have to put my bag of chips down to reply?” she said. I assured her that there was no need of that. “Let’s not take this too seriously, Janice. She gave me a lovely big smile.

  I guess Janice was about mid-40s...certainly older than me. I’d only just turned 30. She was quite plain-looking, with short brown hair and very little makeup, but she had such mischief in her eyes that I could imagine men really being attracted to her. At a guess, I would say she was a size 24, but she wore it well.

  “Ted, why don’t you lead us off by telling the group something about yourself and why you’re here today,” said Liz.

  “Oh, OK,” he said with an embarrassed shrug. He had turned the colour of ham.

  We were all watching him and thinking ‘Thank God I don’t have to go first.’

  Liz sensed his concern, or perhaps she was just worried about the strange colour he’d turned. Either way, she stepped in.

  “Look, you don’t have to if you don’t want to, but I want everyone in the group to understand one another and be aware of each other’s problems. I think it will help you when you’re away from the sessions, in terms of offering support to one another, if you have an understanding of each other’s issues.”

  “Sure,” he said in a voice which suggested he’d never been less sure of anything in his life. He stood up.

  “OK, here we go then. I never used to have problems. In fact I used to be a very good sportsman,” he said, and I immediately looked up. I’d been a good sportswoman myself many years ago, but I certainly wasn’t going to tell them anything about that. I’d never told anyone about the awful things that had happened to me when I was younger.

  Ted continued to explain that his life had involved playing county rugby, having trials with a range of top English clubs, and being thought of as a future international.

  “It was my life,” he said. “All I could think of was that first England cap. I’d dream about it and build it up into a colourful scenario in my mind. It was like playing for England was the only thing worth doing. Nothing else mattered.”

  But a call-up to the national squad never happened. A freak injury ended his career just when he was on the verge of greatness. Ted told us about the moment a scrum collapsed on him and he lay on the floor unable to move.

  “Do you all know what a scrum is?” he asked. “Without being too technical, it’s when the biggest players on the pitch all pile in together to get the ball. The opposition sides push against one another, ramming their shoulders in against their opposition number. It’s quite OK if it’s done properly, but I was pushing at an awkward angle and I twisted, and ended dumped down on the ground neck first. We all winced in support.

  “I was only 22,” he said. “I fell into a great depression afterwards about not being able to play any more. I knew I should be grateful to be alive. Certainly when they took me off the pitch, the doctors were very concerned about whether I’d ever walk again, or lead a normal life. My mum said no one knew whether I’d live or die. I was grateful to the doctors for everything they did. I’m grateful to them today – 10 years on since the accident – and will be forever more. But I was also desperately sad, and felt like my world had collapsed. I couldn’t cope without playing the sport that had defined me, and was creating a future for me. All I’d ever wanted to be was an international rugby player. I felt as if my past, my present and future had all been snatched away.