The Making of Mia

by Ilana Fox

  A young-looking blonde girl came over to them, and she hung her arms around Charlie’s neck while giving Jo a critical once-over. Charlie began to stroke her hair, and Jo could see she was wearing a tiny, flimsy scrap of material that doubled up as a dress. As Charlie’s hands moved down past her neck and on to her breasts, Jo didn’t know where to look, but as soon as they started kissing passionately, she fled.

  Amelia was sitting at their table in the VIP area, and she beamed when she saw Jo approach. She didn’t notice that she was out of breath from rushing back to her.

  ‘Isn’t Charlie great?’ Amelia gushed, and for a second Jo wondered if she was talking about her boyfriend or cocaine.

  ‘He’s … he’s certainly a charmer,’ Jo said, hesitantly, and that was all Amelia needed to start singing his praises.

  ‘He’s amazing – so much cooler than those stupid little boys I used to write love letters to when we were at school. And …’ she said, leaning towards Jo conspiratorially, ‘he is incredible in bed. He makes me come every single time. It’s unheard of!’

  Jo took a sip of her drink.

  ‘And he’s just so nice to me,’ Amelia continued, blissfully unaware that Jo’s face was like thunder. ‘He’s always giving me free drinks. I joke that he’s trying to get me drunk, but he’s just such a sweet guy he wouldn’t do that. Mummy adores him; she calls him my bit of “rough” even though he went to Eton. You can see why he’s one of Winchester’s most eligible bachelors – every girl wants to be with him!’ she cooed, and Jo downed her drink in one, despite it tasting like cough mixture.

  ‘Do you trust him not to go with them?’ she said flatly.

  ‘He doesn’t even notice other girls,’ Amelia slurred. ‘But don’t take my word for it, let me go and get him … Where did you leave him?’

  Jo panicked. She didn’t want Amelia to go and get Charlie at all, or worse, find him in a compromising situation with another girl, but she was already on her feet and looking around the bar. ‘Is he in a private room?’ she asked, and Jo shrugged. She hated not telling Amelia the truth, but Cosmopolitan always said never to get involved in other people’s relationships – especially if you suspected one of them to be having an affair.

  Amelia teetered on her heels and walked off, and suddenly Jo felt incredibly alone and vulnerable. She was the only person sitting in the VIP area, and it was like she was on a stage, with hundreds of people watching her every move. A particularly loud group of giggling, awkward-looking teenagers who were dressed in practically nothing and had far too much make-up on were strutting around close to her, and every so often one of them would look at Jo and puff her cheeks out. It was worse than school, Jo thought. At least at St Christopher’s she knew how to escape.

  Gathering all her courage, Jo stood up with as much dignity as she could muster, and moved into the main area of the bar. As she walked past people she could hear them laughing at her, and although she wanted to ask someone where the ladies’ was she didn’t dare – she was much too shy. Eventually Jo found them – hidden behind a glossy black door that merged seamlessly into the wall – and she took cover in a cubicle just before a couple of girls stumbled in to reapply their make-up.

  ‘So, like, the bastard told me if I refused to work Saturday to help the editorial team meet the deadline he’d sack me!’ Jo lifted her head from her hands and stared at the cubicle door.

  ‘And what did you do?’ a bored-sounding girl asked.

  ‘What could I do? I worked the Saturday. It was such a fucking pain, but I’ve only been there for a couple of months and the last thing I need is for everyone to know I got sacked from Sparkle magazine.’

  Jo held her breath. A girl who worked on a real magazine was only a few feet away, and Jo was desperate to hear what she said next. This girl, Jo thought, could be the person who helped her with her career – if only she stopped being so scared of everyone.

  ‘Don’t know why you bother working there anyway,’ the girl’s friend said. ‘It’s just a crappy teen magazine.’

  ‘Yeah, true, but it’s a foot in the door, isn’t it. I don’t want to be a secretary all my life, but it’s a way in. Today Sparkle … tomorrow Tatler. Well, that’s the plan.’

  Jo’s drive for wanting to work on a magazine banished her shyness – she flushed the toilet and approached the sinks. Both of the girls were tall, skinny and blonde, and Jo felt like a frumpy mess standing next to them. They looked like they’d stepped out of Sex and the City. She took a deep breath.

  ‘Sorry, I couldn’t help but overhear …’ she began meekly. ‘But do you work on Sparkle magazine?’

  The prettier of the two girls looked Jo up and down. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Why?’

  Jo beamed. ‘I’ve always wanted to work on a magazine,’ she said enthusiastically. ‘How did you get to be a secretary there?’

  The pretty blonde girl smirked and gave her friend a side-long glance. ‘My agency sent me there …’ she began slowly, as if she were considering something. ‘You know, you could be a secretary too … it’s really easy.’

  Jo’s mouth dropped open. ‘Do you really think I could?’

  ‘Sure,’ the girl said, and Jo was so overwhelmed that she may have found a way into a magazine that she didn’t notice the other girl giggling.

  ‘Look, why don’t you phone them up? The woman I deal with is Felicity, and she’s great. Have you got a pen? I’ll give you the number.’

  Jo wrote the phone number down carefully on an old receipt, and thanked the girls gratefully as they sauntered out of the toilets. The door slammed behind them, and as soon as they were out of earshot they both fell about with laughter.

  ‘I wish I could see Felicity’s face when that fat girl turns up,’ the girl said to her friend, who couldn’t stop giggling. ‘That will teach her for putting me on an assignment where I have to work weekends.’

  Luckily Jo didn’t hear a word of their conversation, as she was too busy counting her blessings. Who needed A-levels and journalism college when there were other ways to work on a magazine? she thought to herself, with a tiny smile. She carefully tucked the phone number into her bag, and, thinking that the haughty-looking girls in the bar weren’t that bad after all, went to find Amelia.

  Jo stood in the West End of London looking at the sky. Dark clouds were overhead, masking the afternoon sun. Jo checked her tattered watch and realised she was early for her appointment at the recruitment agency. She pulled at her jacket nervously – she wasn’t convinced it was big enough for her, and she also wondered if she had dressed correctly. Jo wasn’t so sure she had.

  ‘Think of it as a job interview,’ Amelia had advised the week before, when she’d appeared in the morning with a killer hangover. In the cold light of day Jo still felt awkward about having seen Charlie with another girl, and it wasn’t until Amelia asked Jo what she planned on wearing to her interview that Jo realised she had to put what she had seen the night before out of her head. Amelia had knocked back an Alka-Seltzer and dragged Jo back to the maternity shop in Winchester – they managed to find a skirt that sat on the knee, along with a simple white blouse and navy jacket. When Jo put it on she felt about thirty, and when she teamed it with black flats and black tights, she felt forty. The whole outfit had cost far more than Jo could afford, but Amelia made her realise it was an investment in her future. Amelia said secretaries in London dressed like this all the time, so Jo thought she should get used to it.

  But as Jo watched some secretaries in the West End taking their lunch-breaks, she wasn’t convinced Amelia knew what she was talking about after all. Most of the girls looked like models. Many wore tight little blouses and tiny Top Shop mini-skirts that showed off lean, tanned legs, and all of them sashayed around the shops on heels, ranging from killer stilettos to demure kittens and sensible courts. Worst of all was that every single one of them had perfect hair.

  Jo ruefully remembered how beautiful her hair had looked after Amelia had been at it with her profe
ssional hairdryer, but she resolved to not let her frizzy split ends put her off. She absolutely had to get on this agency’s books and she was determined to make them see past her appearance. Felicity – the Sloaney-looking recruitment consultant with an Alice band and twin set – didn’t seem so enthusiastic.

  ‘Let’s get this straight,’ she said, as she sat opposite Jo in an interview room with light blue walls and computers in the corner. ‘You’ve not worked as a secretary before?’ Felicity was wondering if the slightly nervous girl in front of her was for real. She didn’t want to stare at her body, but she’d never encountered anyone so big before. She didn’t know quite how to break it to this girl that when you were a secretary, looks counted for everything. Felicity wondered if she could convince some of her favourite managing directors to take Jo on rather than the slender girls she had on the books. It would be impossible.

  ‘No, I haven’t, Jo said slowly, ‘but I have only just left school … I went to St Christopher’s. In Buckinghamshire.’

  Felicity’s back straightened somewhat, and Jo was pleased she had gone to a good boarding school after all.

  ‘And you have no plans to go to university?’

  Jo shook her head and took a deep breath.

  ‘I was going to, but …’ Jo didn’t want to let on that she’d messed up her exams. ‘But I’d rather just start working. I think that work experience is as good as going to college.’

  When Felicity gave Jo a satisfied little smile she continued. She knew what this woman wanted to hear.

  ‘I know I haven’t worked before but I did learn to type at school. Luckily for me St Christopher’s was keen – very keen – to make sure all their girls had a well-rounded education. As well as the usual Latin and lacrosse, we also learnt all our computer skills.’ Jo let out a little laugh. ‘Not that most of the girls at school would need to know how to turn a computer on, considering all the eligible men on their doorsteps.’

  Felicity looked at Jo curiously, and Jo could see she was winning her over.

  ‘Why don’t we see for ourselves what you learnt at school … If you could just come this way we’ll give you a typing test …’

  Jo aced the test. She breezed through the Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint tests, the telephone-manner test, and excelled at the different filing situations she was put in during the next hour. Like the girl in Gigolo said, it wasn’t hard.

  ‘So will you put me on assignment now?’ Jo asked eagerly, feeling more confident.

  Felicity looked uncomfortable. ‘Being a secretary is … it’s more than just being able to do the job, Joanne. You need to look the part too, and I’m not sure by your dress you would be suitable for the majority of our offices.’

  Jo felt her heart drop. The whole day suddenly seemed like a waste of time.

  ‘It’s my weight, isn’t it?’ A small tear slid down her cheek, and Jo hated herself for crying.

  Felicity nodded.

  ‘But I can do the job, and I’ll work really hard, I promise!’

  Jo knew she was sounding desperate, but she couldn’t help herself. She had been so close to starting out on her dream and suddenly it seemed as though the rolls of fat that had stopped her fitting in at school were going to stand in the way of her career too.

  ‘I’m afraid that our clients won’t see it that way.’ Felicity looked around the office uncomfortably and lowered her voice. ‘Look, I wouldn’t normally do this, but I’m going to put you on our books anyway. I’ll try to start you on some low-key jobs, and in the meantime you should try to present yourself better – lose some weight and smarten up a bit. You seem like a clever girl, it shouldn’t be too hard for you, should it?’

  Jo nodded dumbly, and Felicity patted her arm again.

  ‘I’m sure you have some perfectly delightful clothes at home you could wear to the workplace, too. Give me a few days to let our other girls here know we have someone new on the books and I’ll telephone you a day in advance when we have some work for you.’

  Jo struggled to speak normally – she was delighted that she’d be able to start working for the agency, but when Felicity had told her to lose some weight a flash of white-hot anger had coursed through her.

  ‘Do you think any of those jobs would be on a magazine? Your client list in reception said you supply typists to Garnet Publishing and IMC Magazines.’

  ‘Why yes, we do, but these jobs are like gold-dust and are given to our more experienced girls. But don’t you worry. After a few jobs for some of our more blue-collar organisations I’m sure you will be more than ready for them.’

  Felicity smiled kindly at Jo and showed her to the door.

  ‘Careful of the rain, dear. Why, don’t you have an umbrella?’

  Jo wondered what Felicity would have to say if she told her that she didn’t have enough money to buy one.

  Chapter Five

  September 2000

  Jo lay on her bed and wished she lived in a remote country cottage miles from anyone. The couple in the flat above – a greasy man with tattoos and a bleached-blonde woman with three-inch dark roots – were arguing again, and the bangs, thumps and screamed swear-words made her uncomfortable. If this was what being in a relationship was like, she thought, she was better off single. She sighed, swung herself out of bed, and walked the three steps to her chest of drawers where she grabbed a Bounty bar from her stash. She crammed half of it into her mouth and felt depressed.

  It had been four weeks and the recruitment agency hadn’t called.

  After three days of euphoria and jumping up and down because she was finally on her way, Jo had begun to feel slightly uneasy. The phone hadn’t rung once. When a week had passed Jo had given in and phoned Felicity on the agency’s phone number. In a hushed voice Felicity told her that no jobs for newcomers had come in, asked how her diet was going, and said that she’d phone when she had something for her. Jo waited and after three more agonising sitting-by-the-phone weeks she’d rung again. This time the switchboard operator told her that Felicity was unable to take her call, and as Jo watched her tears drop down on her bulging spare tyres she realised it was a lost cause.

  To snap herself out of her mood, and to distract herself from the angry yells coming from upstairs, Jo picked up the phone to call Amelia at university. She was halfway through dialling the number when she realised there was no dial tone. Her mother hadn’t paid the phone bill again, and, judging by the way she’d started throwing away all the bills rather than saving them for future pay cheques, it seemed she had no intention of getting the line reconnected.

  Jo grabbed some coins from her piggy bank and marched down to the phone-box, ignoring the giggles of some schoolgirls who were watching her get out of breath. Jo’s hand tightened around her ten-pence pieces – she was going to buy her first mobile as soon as she had some money.

  ‘Ames, it’s me. Jo.’

  ‘Jo, hi! How are you?’ Amelia settled back in her room at university and carefully held her phone to her ear, making sure it didn’t catch on her chandelier earring. ‘Have you got a job on a magazine yet?’

  Jo could feel herself slump. ‘No. That recruitment woman isn’t taking my calls, and my phone’s been cut off so I can’t call her anyway. Can you phone me back?’ Jo turned away from the gangs of girls on the other side of the road and tried not to feel overwhelmed at the smell of urine in the phone-box.

  ‘Want to come and stay?’ Amelia offered hopefully, after she’d quickly filled her in on how much she’d drunk during Freshers’ Week. ‘I’m not doing anything really, lectures don’t take up much time, and you’ve not come to see me yet.’

  ‘I haven’t got any money, Ames.’

  ‘Well, yes, I know that, but the train fare isn’t that expensive …’

  Jo didn’t bother to try to explain that she didn’t have a trust fund or savings. And that she was down to her last ten pounds.

  ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do,’ Jo said in a small voice. ‘I suppose I’m
going to have to go on the dole after all.’

  There was silence at the end of the phone as Amelia was lost in thought.

  ‘Look, I have an idea, but I don’t know if you’re going to like it. Hear me out, OK?’

  Jo wondered what Amelia would suggest. Her best friend sometimes seemed so blind to the disadvantages she faced because of her weight that she wouldn’t be surprised if she proposed that Jo be a stripper, or a model. Jo knew there was a market for fat-girl porn but it really wasn’t something she wanted to get into – it wasn’t what she meant when she said she wanted to work ‘in magazines’.

  ‘Go on …’ Jo said wearily as she crossed her fingers in hope.

  ‘Well, Charlie was saying on the phone that there’s a job going at a pub near Bishop’s Waltham, that town near my parents’ house. It’s called the Royal something, I think, and they’re looking for a waitress-cum-kitchen hand. The pay is shitty, but it’s a live-in job with a room above the bar and free meals.’ Amelia was nervous as she heard silence at the end of the phone. She hoped she hadn’t insulted Jo. ‘Charlie told me about it as a joke in case I “came to my senses and realised I was too dumb for university” – the cheek! – but, well, it could suit you. What do you think?’

  ‘So I’d have to move to the middle of nowhere in Hampshire to do a rubbish job that nobody else wants?’

  Amelia felt herself deflating.

  ‘The pub’s meant to be really good …’ Amelia began, before trailing off. ‘They’re one of those new ones that does proper food, and they’ve been in the Guardian and everything …’

  Jo leant against the phone-box and clutched the receiver so hard her knuckles went white. What would she be leaving? All her hopes pinned on a phone call that would get her a job filing in a dingy warehouse? At least if she got a job she’d be doing something – and she was desperate to move out of home and away from her mother.