by Becky Siame
Copyright © 2012 by Becky Siame
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Printed in New Zealand
First Printing, 2012
ISBN: 978-09876625-1-4
Lighter Side Media
[email protected]
New Zealand
www.TheLighterSideofLarge.com
“Be kind. For everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.”
~ PHILO OF ALEXANDRIA
DEDICATION
To my darling children, Abe & Phoebe, the loves of my life. May you know throughout your life that you are loved just as you are. To my Dad, Doug Duncan, who passed away on the 5th October 2011, right when I was in the middle of writing this story. You always encouraged me to be all that I could be and taught me that the sky is the limit of all that I may want to achieve in my life! Thank you. To Vic without you this book may not have eventuated. You know the characters and the storyline as well, if not better than me. Thanks for your long-suffering, encouragement, and dedication to helping me make this the best novel ever. I couldn’t have done it without you. To my beloved friend Roslyn who was with me 6 years ago when Bella’s story first started taking root and for all the laughs we had coming up with the cartoons about the various misadventures of being fat. Also thanks for the great one-liners that you, unknowingly, contributed to the book. To all my other friends and family, that helped me on my own personal journey to being ok with myself just as I am. You are loved!
PROLOGUE
I can’t believe I am here. Despite the opposition of the love of my life, despite the incident a few months ago which almost killed me, despite the misgivings of friends and family, here I sit along with several other women who look model-perfect.
A twinge of guilt nags at me, but I stubbornly push it aside. I want this. I need this. I can’t afford it, but I’m doing it anyway.
I look down at my hips, which fit snugly between the armrests of the chair. I have spent most of my life not fitting into chairs, taking up even two at a time. I have looked forward to sitting in a booth without the table cutting into my midsection and to grocery shopping without knocking cans off the shelf with a big butt with a mind of its own. I have bornethe muttered insults and disdainful glances of strangers, who hate me because of my size, in silent misery. I lost the weight, but now I need something more. So here I am, waiting.
“What work are you getting done?” A voice interrupts my reverie. I look up at a bust bursting out of a tight hot-pink tube dress. Only after that do I see the skinny blonde behind the boobs. She looks like she stepped from the pages of a Victoria’s Secret catalogue.
She shrugs. “They’re fake. My boyfriend gave me his credit card and said to get whatever work done that I want. He’s used to being with really beautiful girls. His ex-wives are all actresses and models. So I figure I need to get rid of my imperfections so that he’ll stay with me.”
“Pardon me for saying so,” I say, “but I think you’re beautiful and perfect as is. Maybe he needs glasses.”
She laughs at my jest. “Well, you know how rich, older men are. I don’t think there’s any harm in getting plastic surgery in order to keep a man, do you? Do you have a boyfriend?”
“Uh…” I hesitate. “That’s a long story.”
“Are you here for him?”
“Definitely not.” I shake my head.
“Why are you here?” she asks.
Why am I here? I repeat the question to myself. There are lots of whys which led me here. “It all started nine months ago.”
CHAPTER ONE
“We cover up our obesity by making ourselves indispensable. If we make ourselves needed, then we won’t be rejected. Right?”
–FROM BELLA’S BLOG
http://www.thelightersideoflarge.com/ch1
It is the first bit of solitude I’ve had today. Seven year-old Abe is out back climbing and exploring the bank of bushland that borders the boundary of the cosy three-bedroom box, which we call home. My five year-old daughter, Fi, is taking her afternoon nap.
I want to put my feet up and enjoy a few moments of bliss, curled up with a good romance story or watching recordings of Shortland Street, which I never get to watch because the kids hijack the TV. Instead, I wander around the house picking up and putting away clothes, toys and other scattered, abandoned incidentals.
The phone rings. The caller ID flashes: Mama Rose. I hesitate, take a deep breath, and pick up the headset.
These calls from Tina matua o le aiga, my grandma, start with enquiries about her grandchildren, followed by a tongue-lashing for me not attending or contributing to a family event. They end with a lecture on why I should keep in touch with my estranged sister, Tiresa. Why do I even pick up? Because she is family, that’s why- the last link to my mother.
“Hello, Isabella speaking.” I sound hurried and flustered as I pick up a straggly, water-soaked teddy bear. Fi, no doubt, had given him a bath.
“Isabella?” she asks. My grandma never cottoned to calling me by my nickname, “Bella”, which all of my family and friends use instead of calling me by my full name, Isabella White.
“Hi, Mama Rose. How are you?” I ask, cradling the phone between my shoulder and my ear as I continue picking up toys. If I have to listen to another lecture, I might as well redeem the time while doing so.
“Fine, just fine, dear one. How are Fanau o lau fanau?”
“They’re wonderful, Mama Rose. Fi hasn’t stopped talking about the flax outfit she started making at your house last week, and Abe is determined to build a canoe. He’s scouting the tree trunks out back for a suitable base.” It is a slight exaggeration, but I learned long ago that it is easier to deal with Mama Rose if you tell her what she wants to hear. The lectures are shorter that way.
“Ah, that’s good to hear. Fa’a Samoa,” she replies.
I barely listen as she rambles on, extolling the benefits of teaching her grandchildren about their culture and history. She long ago gave up teaching me the “Samoan Way”. Instead, She turns the full force of her efforts onto her grandchildren.
I am the firstborn, pride and joy of my soft-spoken yet fiery-tempered Scottish Dad, and the second-born of my late mother. She already had a one-year-old daughter when she met and fell in love with my Dad. I was born twelve months later. Dad raised Tiresa as his own, and we were brought up as true sisters until the ages of ten and eight, when tragically, unexpectedly, our mother died from cervical cancer and my sister and I were separated.
Anxious to get the conversation over, I interrupt. “Mama Rose, what can I do for you?”
Startled, Mama Rose hesitates before revealing the reason for the call. “You know that Tiresa and Mika announced their engagement a couple of weeks ago?”
Dread wraps its cold fingers around my heart. Squeezing, its sucks the air out of my lungs. I hadn’t known. And the last five years do not make it any easier to hear the news.
The silence on the phone is heavy as Mama Rose waits for my reply. “Oh, that’s nice,” I say, but the words sound strained and insincere.
“The family is throwing an engagement celebration for them in four weeks. I want to give you lots of notice so the children and you can be there. The wedding will be in nine months.”
“Mama Rose…” I start, resigning myself to her disappointment.
Sensing my imminent refusal, she prattles on. “I will need your help on that day
, of course, cooking and such. I think it would be good if…”
Now I interrupt forcibly. “Mama Rose, you know I probably won’t be invited. I didn’t even know about the engagement until now.”
“Nonsense,” she huffs. “Tiresa is your blood sister, albeit half blood, but blood all the same. And even if you weren’t blood, family is family,” she finishes as I mouth her last words silently in unison. I’ve heard it all before.
“Tell that to Tiresa,” I spit. “She still hasn’t visited Dad since he was first hospitalised with cancer-and that was two years ago. He once was her family, too, you know.”
Tiresa hadn’t visited Dad for years, another bone of contention between us. When Mum and Dad got together, he promised he would love and support her daughter as his own. And he would have.
Although the family had reservations about Mum marrying outside the Samoan culture, Dad had been the best thing for her and Tiresa. They were happy and he was a good man. The family had been wrong to separate us after Mum died. They would have taken both of us, but Dad was adamant. He fought tooth and nail to keep us. It was quite the battle: fiery Scottish hotheadedness met generations of Pacifica island tradition. In the end, Dad lost the battle. He had no formal rights to Tiresa.
It’s been twenty-two years since Tiresa was taken from him, yet he never forgot his promise and obstinately waits for her return. Tiresa ignores him despite his failing health. She won’t acknowledge him as the doting, loving father that he is. If she would just give him a chance, she would see that.
“Well, I know nothing about that,” Mama Rose says, and then skillfully turns the conversation back to her agenda. “But it would be ridiculous if you weren’t there. Your sister will need you. Anyhow, you ARE invited because I’m inviting you.”
I exhale, exasperated. “Mama Rose, I can’t promise anything. I’ll see how things go. Okay?”
“I guess that is all I can ask, dear one.”
Phew! The end of the conversation is in sight, I ponder wickedly to myself.
With a few more niceties and a goodbye, I am granted a reprieve, but the conversation leaves a sour taste in my mouth. When Tiresa and I were close, I would have been the first person she told about her impending engagement. How times change. A part of me misses that and wishes things could be different, yet another part of me knows I can never trust her again.
Mika, the man she is marrying, was my husband. He left me for her two weeks after our daughter was born.
CHAPTER TWO
“Online dating: being someone you’re not in order to get someone you want. Problem is, if everyone is lying about themselves, how can anyone find Mr/Miss Right?”
FROM BELLA’S BLOG
http://www.thelightersideoflarge.com/ch2
Everything at Café Crave is just a little wrong since the new manager took over. It used to be a quaint, comfortable hangout for Sands, Riyaan, sometimes Cat, and I to meet up for our weekly therapy debriefs.
The new manager is turning it into one of those up-scale á la carte cafés where yuppies are seen sporting designer label clothes and the latest Gucci handbags. The walls are now covered with original artwork from local artists, hung crookedly at different angles, as though someone keeps trying to get it right but is unable to do it. It’s hardly a place where a fat lady and her eclectic group of friends, including her very own stinky homeless friend, are welcome.
Riyaan, world’s best gay friend and coffee barista extraordinaire, catches my eye as the door closes behind me. “Large mocacchino?” he calls across the counter.
“Make it a double,” I reply and approach the booth where Sands sits. Why can’t she remember to get a table?
Booths are difficult to slide in and out of, not to mention the table cuts into one’s gut.
Another annoying change to the café is the tables are too close. The place is never more than a third full, yet they squeeze in the tables as if anticipating throngs of caffeine addicts. As a large woman, I am unable to walk through this minefield without bumping into something or someone.
“Excuse me, so sorry,” I mumble as I bump the arm of a patron and cause her coffee to slosh across her hand. I hope it doesn’t scald her. Another patron, chatting loudly on his cell phone, grabs his purchase at the cash register and walks toward the door, except I am blocking his path. He stops short, gives me a horrified look, then backtracks and takes the long way around the minefield. He lowers his voice and sniggers something. I know it’s about me.
I’m almost to the booth. In my haste to get there, I turn sideways to squeeze between a man with a laptop and a table where a couple, oblivious to the world, makes googly eyes at each other. “Sorry,” I say as my stomach knocks the man’s head and arm forward. His hand hits a key and the laptop screen goes blank.
“Shit,” he mutters. So much for hoping that whatever it is it is backed up or not important.
Meanwhile, my butt pushes the table behind me backward. “Hey!” the female hisses. I glance over my shoulder and see coffee spilling over the table.
“I apologise,” I say and duck my head in embarrassment. I’d get out of there but my friends are waiting.
Feeling glares bore into my back and hearing muffled scorn from the far side of the café, I slide into the booth across from Sands - short for Sandi - who gives me a sympathetic smile.
“How’s it going?” she asks.
“Never a dull moment.” I deposit my keys on the table and risk a glance around the room. A few people look away hastily, caught staring at my enormity, but I forget about them when I see someone standing at the café window: it’s Cat. I smile and wave her in because she never comes in uninvited.
“Not again.” Sands turns to see whom I’m waving at and groans. “Why do you do this every time?”
Cat leaves her rusty grocery basket parked outside and opens the shop door. Just as customers leaned away from me as I walked through the café to make room, they now lean away from Cat to avoid contact with her filth.
She slides in the booth next to Sands as Riyaan arrives with my drink. “Double mocacchino, darling,” he purrs, making the word come out dahh-ling, and sits next to me. Riyaan, my “knight in flamingo-pink armour” (his words), always makes the perfect coffee. His dyed blonde highlights over espresso brown hair make him look like the specialty coffee drinks he serves. Dear, sweet, lovable, aggravating Riyaan is a cliché: the handsome, slender gay guy who loves to cook and take long walks at sunset and has dozens of girl friends, all of whom would dump their no-good macho boyfriends in a heartbeat for someone as kind and sensitive as he is. He also goes from relationship to relationship, raving about his latest catch (“He’s THE one!”) one day and crying over their breakup the next.
Cat arches a brow. “Like you need a double.” Her breath reeks of cheap beer; her hair (of indeterminate color) looks like it hasn’t been washed or brushed in a week; and her frayed, faded clothes smell, but despite being a homeless alcoholic, Cat, or Catherine, looks like a scrawny stray cat and can always be counted on to criticise others.
Sands is more sensitive. “What’s wrong? Is it your dad? Is he okay?” Her big blue eyes fill with worry.
I nod. “Yes, he’s fine. It’s just…”
I’m embarrassed to tell them. It makes me feel like more of a loser than I already am. My fingers play with the bundle of keys on my keychain. There are a lot of them. I have a habit of never getting rid of old keys. It felt like getting rid of old friends when I did, so I just carry all of them around. Sometimes they’re more trouble than they’re worth, but I don’t have the heart to throw any away.
“Just what?” Sands says.
“Out with it,” barks Cat.
I sigh. “Tiresa and Mika are getting married.”
“Guess you do need a double,” Cat quips.
Sands’ body appears to deflate and she shakes her head, speechless.
“It’s about time,” Cat continues. “At least they won’t be living in sin any more.”
“Cat, that’s not the point,” Sands snaps.
Riyaan’s eyes widen in horror. “That’s so wrong. Oh, Bella.” He rests his hand on mine, curled around the takeaway cup. “I’m here for you. If you need to talk, you call anytime, okay?”
“Yeah,” Cat says. “If you need to talk or go shopping, it’s always convenient to have a gay friend. Especially a pretentious one who insists on mispronouncing and misspelling his name as RHEE-OHN instead of plain old RY-UN.”
“CAT!” all three of us say in unison.
Riyaan rolls his eyes at her. “So when’s the wedding?”
“In nine months.”
“Are you going?”
“Of course not,” I say. “Why would I want to see the two people who stabbed me in the back get married in some rich, extravagant ceremony and overblown reception?”
“Well, I think you should.” Riyaan plays with his multiple bracelets and cuffs. “Show them they can’t keep a good woman down. Show up on the arm of a drop-dead gorgeous guy and shove it in their faces.”
“Like where is she going to find a drop-dead gorgeous guy?” says Cat.
“Riyaan’s right, Bella.” Sands nods. “You need to stand up for yourself. Make an appearance to send the message that you’re better than them.” She giggles. “Even better - wear black, like it’s a funeral.”
I sip my mocacchino, the chocolaty-coffee-frothiness a warming comfort. “The only message I’d send is that Mika made the right choice in dumping the frumpy sister for the hot one.”
“Not if you lost weight,” says Sands. I give her a dirty look. We’ve been down this road before. She holds up her hands in surrender. “I’m just saying. I can train you. It will take a while but the effort is worth the reward. And then you can show up to the wedding in some slinky cocktail dress and make Mika regret leaving you.”
“Of course,” I say sourly. “It’s that simple. You know how successful I’ve been in the past with dieting.”
“Never mind,” Riyaan waves the idea aside. “I’ll be your date to the wedding just as you are. Forget diets. What do you say?”