The Next Big Thing (A novel about Internet love, plus size heroines, and reality TV)

by Johanna Edwards

“Where’d you come up with a name like that?”

  “I didn’t.” He smiled. “It was my parents’ doing. Honest.”

  “Come on!” I eyed him suspiciously. “There’s no way your birth certificate says Jagger. It’s a stage name, right?”

  “You would think so, but nope. Jagger Thomas Roth, that’s what’s on my birth certificate. My parents were big—we’re talking huge—Stones fans,” he explained. “It was either this or Mick. In some ways, I prefer Jagger.”

  “Yeah, I do, too,” I said, surprising myself. Up until that very moment, I’d always thought it seemed silly, over the top. “Jagger,” I said again, drawing it out. It sounded kind of nice.

  By the end of the sixth week, Janelle, Luisa, Alyssa, Regan, and Maggie had all completed their challenges for Weight of the World on Your Shoulders. I had no idea whether they’d succeeded or not, but it didn’t matter. We couldn’t get the money unless all six of us did it, and my blind date was still MIA.

  “When do I have my challenge?” I asked Zaidee over and over in the Confession Chamber.

  She’d never answer, not outright. All she’d say was, “Soon.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Tonight’s competition holds two rewards,” Jagger said the following evening. “Triumph and you will not only be awarded twenty-five thousand dollars for your Fat2Fab Bank, but you’ll get something that, in many ways, is equally valuable. A phone call from home.”

  I stared at him in disbelief. “Are you serious?” I asked.

  He told us he was. “Whoever wins tonight’s competition will get a five-minute phone call from home.”

  “Girls.” Maggie turned to face us. “I think you’re all aware of how desperately I miss my son. I would give anything on this earth to talk to him. And since none of you have kids, I’d also like to say that a mother’s love is the kind of thing that can’t be paralleled by boyfriends or husbands. I just wanted to let y’all know that,” she said, slipping into a slight twang.

  Alyssa shrugged. “What are you hinting at? That we should let you win?”

  Maggie looked down at her hands. “I’m merely suggesting it would be fairest to let me have that phone call. I have an eleven-year-old at home.”

  “No!” Luisa burst out. “I don’t agree.”

  “You’ve got that right,” Alyssa seconded.

  Maggie’s eyes narrowed. “If the situation were reversed, I’d do it for any one of you.” She looked around at us accusingly.

  “Maggie,” Janelle began gently. “We all feel bad that you miss Owen so much. And if it were merely a competition to win a phone call home, we’d feel differently. But there’s twenty-five thousand dollars at stake. And since you won In for a Penny, In for a Pound, you’ve already got a ten-thousand-dollar lead on the rest of us. None of us can afford to throw this. You’re going to have to compete fair and square.”

  “If tonight’s event is physical, then the odds are stacked against me!” Maggie yelled. “I won’t win. I’m twice your age.”

  “Be logical,” Janelle said. “You really think they’re gonna test our endurance? None of us are in that great of shape. It’ll probably be trivia.”

  Maggie ignored her. “Regan? Kat?” she asked. “You two are being awfully quiet over there. Are you going to be money-grubbers too, or do you actually have hearts?”

  I chewed on the inside of my lip. Maggie was a grown woman. Nobody had held a gun to her head and forced her to leave her son at home to come on From Fat to Fabulous. As much as I sympathized with her, this was a game and twenty-five thousand dollars was a lot of money.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, apologetically. “But, I don’t think it’s fair of you to ask us to throw the game. When you signed up you made a choice to leave your family.”

  “Uh-huh,” Regan said, piggybacking off my answer.

  “This is ridiculous,” Maggie huffed. “I didn’t make a choice to leave my family. I made a choice to better myself so my family would have me around a lot longer. I can’t believe you girls are being so selfish.”

  Jagger, who had been standing back observing our argument, took command of the situation. “Tonight’s competition is called Find the Fat.”

  I was struck by a horrible image: the six of us, lined up behind a curtain while Jagger lifted up our shirts and measured our body fat with one of those horrible clamp devices. Whoever had the lowest body fat ratio would win. Or maybe he’d have us guess each other’s body fat percentages, the way we’d guessed each other’s weights?

  “Before you all get too upset, let me explain how this works . . .” Jagger started talking about the importance of eating a balanced diet and finding the hidden fat in foods.

  Foods. Not people. Phew. I breathed a sigh of relief.

  As it turned out, Janelle was right; we were competing in a trivia contest.

  “In this box, I have a sampling of ten foods.” He picked up a large black crate that had Fat2Fab painted across the side in hot-pink letters. “I’ll ask you questions about the fat or calories in each of these items. Whoever guesses the closest on each food gets one point. At the end of the game, the player with the most points wins.”

  Jagger handed us each a stack of yellow cards and markers. The cards were identical to the ones used during In for a Penny, In for a Pound, except there were no names written on them. “After I read each question, you’ll have sixty seconds to answer. If you’re ready, ladies, we’ll begin,” he said.

  The first question was a gimmie: Which has more calories, a plain bagel or a glazed donut? Or so I’d thought. When the time came to produce our answers, only Janelle and I said bagel; everyone else put donut. I couldn’t believe they’d gotten it wrong. I had read many, many times that—despite popular belief—bagels generally have more calories than donuts. And even if I hadn’t already known the answer, I could have easily deduced it. After all, they weren’t going to give us something painfully easy, like which has more fat, fried chicken or grapes?

  True to the competition’s title, we were supposed to “find the fat” in unsuspected places.

  “Your standard bagel packs a bigger caloric punch than a donut,” Jagger said.

  “Shut up!” Regan objected. “That can’t be true.”

  “A deli-variety bagel contains between three hundred fifty and four hundred calories, while a glazed donut has two hundred and fifty calories,” Jagger informed her. “One point Kat, one point Janelle.”

  Maggie shot us a look of death. The second question was slightly harder.

  “How many grams of fat are in a McDonald’s Big Mac?” Jagger asked, waving the forbidden treat in front of us. It smelled heavenly.

  I wrote down forty-five, but it turned out to be thirty-three. Janelle got it with a guess of thirty.

  However, once again, Alyssa, Maggie, Luisa, and Regan had all guessed way beneath the mark. Alyssa’s answer was the worst: seven grams.

  “I thought we were talking about saturated fat,” she complained. “You didn’t make that clear.”

  “I’d advise you to listen more closely next time.”

  I got the next question, correctly guessing that a piece of angel food cake was lower than a reduced-fat frozen yogurt. The game continued, with Janelle and I staying neck and neck, and Regan trailing by two points.

  “Okay, ladies, we’re down to the final question. It’s currently a tie game between Janelle and Kat. This next question will determine the winner. Since the rest of you have no chance of winning, you’ll sit this one out. How many calories are there in a Burger King original Whopper sandwich?”

  I blinked in surprise. I knew what a Burger King Whopper was, but was that the same thing as a Burger King original Whopper sandwich? Those two words threw me for a loop. I couldn’t figure out why Jagger put them in, unless there was some kind of significance.

  I glanced to my left, where Janelle was busily writing on her card. During my college stint on Weight Watchers, I’d spent countless hours dissecting the menus at v
arious fast food restaurants but, for the life of me, I couldn’t recall how many calories a Whopper had.

  “Kat, I need an answer.”

  “Uh, hang on just a sec,” I said, scrambling to come up with something. Finally, I wrote down eight hundred calories, praying I hadn’t gone too far over.

  We revealed our cards. Janelle had said six hundred calories, which sounded like an excellent guess. I cursed myself for not having thought of it.

  “This is incredibly close—the winner has prevailed by a mere ten calories. A Burger King original Whopper sandwich contains seven hundred and ten calories. The winner of Find the Fat is . . . Kat!” Jagger announced.

  “Oh my God!” I cried, jumping up and down. Maggie muttered something under her breath and stalked out of the room.

  Janelle reached out and hugged me. “Congratulations.”

  “Kat, your bank has now received twenty-five thousand dollars. And as the winner of this competition you will also receive a five-minute phone call from home. Please go immediately to the Confession Chamber to claim your prize.”

  “You have three choices,” Zaidee said, when I’d sat down on the soft red chair in the Confession Chamber. I stared at the cell phone sitting on the floor in front of me, a luxury that had been temporarily brought in for my reward.

  “Yes?” I asked. “What do you mean, choices?”

  “On line one we have your friend Donna Bartosch from Memphis. On line two, we have your mother, Lynne Larson, from Denver. And on line three we have Cara Magley, also of Memphis. You may only talk to one of them. I’ll give you thirty seconds to decide.”

  I felt a brief surge of disappointment. Part of me had hoped they’d have Nick Appleby from England on line four, but I knew that wasn’t possible. And, truth be told, I was glad.

  There was only one problem. Who to choose? I picked up the phone and turned it over in my hands. There were really only two considerations—Donna or Mom. Nothing against Cara, but if I picked a friend at all, I’d have to pick Donna. Not only was she my best friend, but she was my closest link to Nick while I was in this house. If I wanted to find out any information about him, she was the one to talk to.

  But then there was the problem of Mom . . . If I didn’t choose her, I’d hear about it every day for the next thirty years. She would never understand why I, her one and only beloved child, had opted to speak with “some girl” instead of “my own mother.”

  “All right, Kat, have you made your selection?” Zaidee asked.

  I took a deep breath and let it out. I knew what I had to do. “Yes, put Donna Bartosch on,” I said, silently begging Mom to understand.

  Zaidee coached me briefly, going over a list of topics that were off-limits. I wasn’t allowed to ask Donna what kind of press From Fat to Fabulous had been receiving, and I wasn’t allowed to tell her anything about the competitions.

  “In a minute the phone will ring,” Zaidee informed me. “Your five minutes begins as soon as you answer.”

  “Thanks,” I said, sinking back against the chair. It seemed like a million years passed before the phone finally rang. I was so panicked, I fumbled it in my hands, nearly dropping it.

  “Hello?” I screamed, when I finally managed to answer it.

  “Kat? Oh my God, it’s really you, I can’t believe it!”

  “It’s me,” I yelled back. I was hollering so loudly I felt like my dad.

  “How are you?” Donna asked. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m holding up. It’s crazy out here. I still can’t believe I’m on television,” I said. “Are you taping it?”

  “Yeah, they keep showing commercials for it,” Donna began. “And there was a huge article in the Appeal section of today’s paper—”

  “You’re not allowed to discuss media coverage of the show,” a man’s voice came over the phone line, causing me to jump. They were listening in on my conversation. In all likelihood they were also tape-recording it to use on the show. And to think, they hadn’t even asked me. I thought it was illegal to tape record a phone conversation without getting prior permission? Well, now Donna would see firsthand what kind of people I was dealing with here. Maybe she’d understand why I’d been so paranoid that my room was bugged that casting weekend.

  “Sorry,” I told the man. “Hey, Donna, how are things at work?”

  “You still have your job,” she said. “Cindy’s been trying to get Richard to let you go, but he’s beside himself. Ever since it went out in the news today—Oops,” she said, catching herself. “Better not talk about that.”

  We gabbed on for another minute, with Donna informing me she’d talked to my parents the day before. “Your mom was totally freaking out,” she said, laughing. “She can’t even bring herself to watch the show, it upsets her too much. But I talked to her for a while, and she’s cool with it.”

  I was starting to panic. Time was running out and I hadn’t yet found a way to work Nick into the conversation. I couldn’t come right out and ask about him, for obvious reasons. And I was afraid if I brought him up, Donna might blurt out his name. The last thing I needed to do was tip off the producers to my secret. As it turned out, there was no need to worry.

  “Kat, there’s something else.” Donna paused for a long moment, and I thought our conversation had been cut off. “There’s a problem with . . . Charles Dickens.”

  “No!” I shrieked, then composed myself. “What kind of problem? Is it . . . over?” I asked, feeling my throat tighten in fear.

  “Uh-uh, it’s nothing like that. It’s just. Well, you see, Charles Dickens called H and G the other day.”

  “What!” I cried. “What did he say?”

  “It’s complicated. I don’t know if—” And then the line went dead. I sat there, hoping against hope that Donna would come back on, finish what she’d started to say. But the only voice I heard was Zaidee’s, speaking to me through the intercom.

  “Time’s up,” she said.

  ***

  There are lots of things fat people aren’t supposed to do. Visit the beach. Wear revealing clothing. Pig out in public.

  From Fat to Fabulous was determined to make us do all of them. After Regan danced at the Lakers game and Janelle posed nude, I didn’t think the competitions could get much worse.

  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 argue
d. “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.