by Lotte Daley
‘What do you mean, no one eats?’ I say, shocked. I have to eat! I would die without my food.
‘Come off it, Katie. Your fans may identify with you because you’re tipping the scales the wrong side of eleven stone, but the fatty fan base is minute compared to the legion of lithe teenagers who eat, sleep, breathe and shit Jessica Hilson.’
My stomach lurches. Coffee … that will help. I move to the kettle and fill it up with more water.
‘And let’s not forget the teenage boys, their elder brothers and their fathers!’ Aubrey interjects.
‘Yes. One, you have successfully managed to achieve the dream that the ordinary girl can make it, even at a size fourteen.’
‘Yes, and I’m happy about that!’ I say, smiling.
‘You had your cake, you’ve eaten it, now it’s time to diet,’ Aubrey says, grabbing my back fat. God, it’s not like you can even see my back fat unless you grab it like a bloomin’ pincher.
‘Two,’ Hanna continues, ‘you have to begin to live the dream. It’s not attractive in the world of celebrity to be normal. It’s not attractive to be blubbery. It’s not attractive to have anything less than the utmost perfection. You now have to model yourself on starlets like, and I hate to say it, but it’s deathly true, like Jessica Hilson. She’s the one who everybody, including your beloved Jack Hunter, loves, and she’s the one whose name is on tons of merchandise, she’s the one who has her own reality show starting at Christmas and she’s the one that everybody, including you, especially you, wants to be like.’
I gasp. This is unreal. Reality show at Christmas? Jack really will be famous. I feel sick. What are they doing to me? Is this bad? Or is it good? The jury was still out on that one.
‘Um, well,’ I begin.
‘Let’s make no bones about it. Thin and beautiful and perfect is in, and that is what you will be. You’re incredibly lucky that you have the best in the business helping you live the dream. Tonight, you are stepping out in the most expensive clothes, with the most attractive man in London, and you are going to dazzle and shine and every girl in the country is going to be lapping up your interview in Sizzle Stars tomorrow. This is how you are going to get revenge on Jessica Hilson, you will surpass her, YOU will be the BEST!’ Hanna is tomato red. She thumps her hand on the table.
‘What about Fabio?’ I say meekly. Aubrey raises an eyebrow and looks away. Magenta is immersed in my What’s On TV guide, and Frenella is busy giggling at Richard’s bad jokes.
‘Forget him, it was one night, get over him, move on …’ Hanna says, a little too knowingly.
‘Right …’ I say, feeling slightly bruised. Did she mean Bailey or did she really just mean Fabio? Fabio! I thought I had a date with him, ooooh gosh, when was it? Ah, that’s right, I remembered. He will call me. Where did I put my phone? I scrabbled in the pocket of my dressing gown. God, I really ought to get dressed!
‘This all sounds perfect and mega exciting,’ I said to Hanna, whose face lit up at my reaction to her crazy, celebrity, image-obsessed, vacuous outpourings. ‘I’ll just go get changed, won’t be a minute,’ I said, leaving them to it.
‘Don’t be too long, the jabs are ready now,’ Aubrey sang after me.
Right, I thought to myself as I entered my bedroom and closed the door quietly behind me. The cat purred on the bed, sleeping cosily amongst the goose pillows. I flicked open my Mac and set about doing some extreme Googling. Whilst the machine was powering up, I pulled on my black sweatpants and a Gap t-shirt and took out a packet of baby wipes and removed last night’s make-up.
Ding! The computer indicated that I had messages.
One from Janice, about what colour highlights I have had done and whether or not I could wangle her an appointment at Ziggy Wang’s. Not on your nelly, I thought.
No important emails. Hmm … I wondered. Why had none of the girls I sat with at work emailed me to ask for the gossip? I also wondered whether I could locate Nicola Baxter on Facebook and find out why she was sabotaging my credibility. Bitch, I thought, she always did have a nasty streak in her. I typed in her name and about a dozen different Nicola Baxters popped up. I found the one I was looking for, pressed ‘Add as a friend’ and forgot about it. I’d check later. I scanned my room for my phone and found it on the bedside table. I picked it up and scrolled through my messages.
U looked cute 2day, B
Ooooh!! I giggled. It was from Bailey! Saying I looked cute!! He wasn’t an arsehole after all! Right, must text back … but what to say? I wanted to ask him how he felt about me, whether his tummy did flips at the mere sight of me in my posh dressing gown. I already figured out that clothes were not all that important to him. He had ravaged me, after all, on disgustingly unfashionable bedsheets while I was wearing tartan pyjamas. Also, he only seemed to own one very tight, easy-on-the-eye, white t-shirt. He always wore his skinny jeans and he always had on his white trainers. He always looked ripped and sexy and smouldering. He always looked as though he had literally fallen out of bed and into his clothes, yet his tousled hair and easy-going aura suited him down to the ground. Richard and Jack, however, would give Cristiano Ronaldo a run for his money on the metrosexual-o-meter. Jack was always always in a pair of tight Levi’s with a variety of tight t-shirts imported from America (on my credit card) over which he wore a blazer. He would top it all off with his ridiculously overpriced leather jacket that looked as though he’d picked it up from Whitechapel market, his Wayfarers and a distressed-leather man-bag. He didn’t smoke, preferring to chew gum and ponce about with fruit and bags of macadamia nuts. He wore pale pink t-shirts, had a diamond stud in his left ear and used hair straighteners. Jack was the colour of David Dickinson. Richard was slightly more macho, preferring to wear navy-blue suits, often with a low-slung shirt so you could get a glimpse of his chest hair. Richard didn’t wear earrings, was the colour of golden sand and had his hair cut so short it looked as though he was wearing a helmet. It was thick and short, a bit like Jack. They both had short man syndrome and delusions of grandeur. Richard, however, was confident, arrogant, in love with himself, but with a roguish charm and a loveable nature. Jack simply thought only of himself, how he looked to other people and about being seen in the West End bars – without me. I wasn’t quite so cool in my food-stained clothes, my oversized sweatpants, my scruffy hair and my penchant for ripped tights. Honestly, I thought they made me look edgy. When I asked Richard if he thought I looked like a hooker he gave a resounding ‘no’. The hookers, sorry, high-class girls he picked up for £300 an hour, wore stockings woven with gold. As for me, I looked like a Hoxtonite. So what, it was my style and I didn’t care. Before I had a chance to text Bailey back, there was a quiet knock as the door opened.
‘Danielle?’ I said, surprised. What was it about people coming over today uninvited?
‘Hey, honey,’ she said, ‘can I come in?’
‘Sure,’ I said, and she walked towards me for a hug before sitting down on the bed.
‘Gorgeous sheets, are these the ones we bought the other day?’
‘Yep, the very ones.’
‘I tried texting you to see if you were in … wasn’t sure what with all the crazy stuff that’s been going on around you this past week. I’m sorry I’ve been so weird with you …’
‘Hey, it’s OK,’ I said, as I sat down next to her to comfort her. She really didn’t seem herself. I glanced at my phone and sure enough the other two texts were from Danielle, along with one from Richard demanding I open my front door this morning. Nothing from Jack, but then I had almost given up on hearing from him.
‘I brought you a gift,’ she said, passing me a parcel wrapped in swirly pink paper with a glittery pink bow on it. Totally girly and over the top – I loved it!
‘Oh my God, Danielle, you shouldn’t have!’ I squealed, as I took the parcel from her hands and began to rip it open.
I pulled out, from beneath lashings of tissue paper, a beautiful black velvet diamanté … bra?
‘It�
��s a Wonderbra,’ Danielle smiled. ‘You know, I thought it was fitting.’
‘Wow,’ I said, fingering the little white diamonds. ‘Thanks! And yes, it is fitting. Oh, babe, you’re so sweet, I can’t believe you did this for me!’
‘Well,’ she said, grinning, ‘I’d like it if you could give this a whirl before you, well, you know how I feel …’
‘Babe,’ I began, before the door creaked open again. We both looked up.
‘Kate, the jabs are ready now.’
Danielle’s face dropped as Hanna stood in the doorway.
‘Jabs?’ Danielle queried.
‘Botox,’ I said to her, feeling really anxious now. I totally didn’t want a stand-off between us here, right in front of everyone.
‘OK,’ she said, looking a bit forlorn. I could tell she was mega unimpressed and was battling not to show it. I had felt distant from her since last week. I knew something was bugging her, but she wouldn’t give it up and tell me.
‘HANNA!’ Aubrey wailed from the kitchen. ‘These jabs need to be done!’
Hanna turned her head briefly, spun back and gave me a look before turning once again back downstairs towards the kitchen.
‘Danielle, are you OK?’ I said, putting my arm around her shoulder.
‘I’m fine, but I have something to tell you and I don’t think you’ll like it, but I swear to you, I’m doing my best to have the right thing happen, but sometimes, you just can’t control how people feel and before you know it, certain relationships are formed and there’s no going back …’ Danielle looked on the verge of tears.
‘Babe, you’re talking in riddles, what do you mean? What relationships? Has Stewart let you down again? Is that what this is about?’ I queried. Nothing made any real sense at the moment. All I had to go on were cryptic clues and tearful confessions These lawyers didn’t half dress their issues up.
‘OK, in simple terms …’
‘Kate, NOW,’ Hanna barked.
Danielle and I sprang back. She pulled a tissue from the box on my bedside table and blew her nose. She took another and wiped her eyes. She smiled brightly. ‘I’m going to go now, call me when you’re free,’ she said, standing up.
Before I could protest, Hanna was saying her goodbyes and practically shoving Danielle out of the door. I swear I heard Hanna hiss, ‘How did you get in here?’ to her, but I couldn’t be sure. All I knew was my confident, full-of-life, ball-busting bitch (but in a nice way) bestest friend in the entire world was in some kind of trouble and I should be there to help. What kind of a friend was I, just letting her go off into the afternoon without giving her a chance to tell me what she came here for? I got up and looked for my trainers. Maybe if I leave now I can catch up with her.
‘Hanna, I won’t be long,’ I said, heading for the door.
‘Where are you going?’ she questioned.
‘To catch Danielle. She’s upset, I just know it, and I’m her best friend and I need to be there for her, I’m sure you can all wait for fifteen minutes. I know this is inconvenient for you, I’m sorry, but I have to do this.’ I pulled on my denim jacket.
‘Sure, I understand,’ said Hanna gently.
‘You do?’ I said, surprised.
‘Yes, of course I do. If she was my best friend and there was something wrong I would be out there too, trying to find out what it was and offering her my undivided attention, my unwavering support, regardless.’
‘Oh, right, then,’ I said, feeling a little uneasy.
‘But my best friend isn’t about to become an overnight celebrity. Is she?’
‘Um, I don’t know … I mean, I guess …’ Hanna had me rooted to the spot. I was so incredibly torn between wanting to be with Danielle and also being super aware of the fact that there were people here, for me, to help me, to get one over on Jessica Hilson and my stupid ex-boyfriend. They’d gone to so much effort too. Over and above, beyond and all that jazz, that’s what Hanna said the other day, wasn’t it?
‘Personally, I think Danielle has a lot to answer for,’ Hanna said, snidely. ‘She came over here unannounced.’
‘But …’ I began to tell her it wasn’t entirely unannounced, Danielle had texted me, it’s just my phone had been in the bedroom. Besides, that’s how our friendship worked, it wasn’t like how I imagined Hanna’s friendships would work, I didn’t have to page her or call her weeks in advance or book into her diary or check in with her PA, no, we always turned up unexpectedly to see each other and it was always a priority to make time for each other. We’d been known to throw sickies here and there in aid of emotional crises of the boyfriend kind, where chocolate cake and trips to the salon were necessary for the broken-hearted. Man problems were in such abundance that we were on first-name terms with the beauty therapists and would get free cakes from the cake shop on our birthdays.
‘She is a very selfish friend,’ Hanna continued, shrugging.
‘No, she’s not! She’s a wonderful friend, she’s thoughtful and caring and kind and … and …’
I wanted to scream at her, ‘Everything you’re not!’ but refrained.
‘Sorry, Hanna, I’m just worried and I really ought to catch her up.’
‘Well, you can’t,’ Hanna put her hand up.
‘I think you’ll find I can …’ I said, nudging past her to the door.
‘Well, unless you have rockets on your shoes, an exhaust poking out of your backside and an engine in your belly, mind you, with all that water retention you carry, it’s not impossible … you won’t catch her.’
‘What on earth are you talking about?’ I said, my blood pressure rapidly rising. Engine in my belly? I was becoming sick of the fat jokes. So bloody what, honestly anyone would think I was a Ten Ton Tessie. And there I was, thinking it was only geriatrics and pre-menopausal family members who saw fit to make comments about my shape.
‘Kate,’ Hanna said softly, her face rapidly changing from smacked in the face with a trout to calm and angelic.
How did she do it? I wondered.
I pursed my lips.
‘She got in a car and drove off.’
‘Ah,’ I said, realizing, duh, of course she got in her car, she wasn’t car-less like me, she didn’t take the smelly Tube or the packed bus to work, she drove in her sexy sports car.
‘Silly me,’ I said, looking at my feet. I could feel my cheeks flush red.
‘Darling,’ Hanna said, putting a hand on my shoulder, ‘I admire you, I respect you even, your keenness to be there for your friend, your courage in the face of celebrity-boyfriend-stealer adversity, your determination to fit in with the elite.’
‘You do?’ I said, thinking, was that just a barrage of back-handed compliments complete with barbed wire wrapped around them, or was she actually, honestly being nice? I zoned out as she steered me towards the living room and into the kitchen. I noticed Richard giving Frenella the thumbs up as she twirled in a bright blue backless dress and giggled some more. Some journalist she was, I thought. She was supposed to be intelligent, good with words, all I ever heard from her was ‘Fierce!’ ‘Tinkles!’ and ‘OMFG!’ Seriously. Stupid bimbo.
‘Thank the Lord, I was about to declare you MIA.’
‘What?’ I said, puzzled. Seriously, these guys needed to come with a translator. ‘I’m not down with the kids,’ I said, attempting to make light of the situation and sounding less like a cool person and more like a bad Ali G impersonator.
Hanna and Aubrey both ignored me and sat me down on my breakfast-bar stool and wiped my face with antiseptic wipes.
‘Can I have the boob-job jab too?’ I asked, feeling slightly nervous but also tingling with excitement.
‘Botox first,’ Aubrey said, administering the drug the way psycho doctors do in horror movies.
Drops of the liquid spat out into the air.
‘Macrolane is out for now,’ he said, concentrating on my brow bone.
‘Don’t move, Katie, unless you want a paralysed cheek,’ Hanna said.
&
nbsp; ‘Ouccchhhh,’ I said, as I felt the needle sting my temple.
‘Nearly done …’ Aubrey said gently. ‘The Macrolane is out for now because although I was more than happy to give you 100ml in each breast, which would have taken you up to a size oooh, um, what size are you now? An A?’
‘B.’
‘OK, well it would have taken you up to a D.’
‘Oh, wow, please, please, please give me bigger boobs, Aubrey, it’s so mega important to me, go on, please!’ I begged shamelessly.
‘No,’ he said as he pulled the needle from my head and refilled. ‘Macrolane will hurt.’
‘I don’t care!’ I said. God, had I been brainwashed or something?
‘It will hurt a lot, it will feel as though you’ve been kicked in the chest by someone really fat wearing wedges, and it will take about three days before you won’t scream every time anyone tries to hug you. It’s just not a good option when you are going to have to move with complete ease and grace with Danny Divine across the red carpet on Leicester Square this evening.’
‘Ooh,’ I said, pondering that fact. He did have a very good point. And he wasn’t telling me that I could never do it, he was just saying that it wasn’t going to happen today. I thought about the Wonderbra sitting on my bed. That would have to do for now.
‘We brought you these,’ Hanna said, slapping two clear jelly balls into my lap. They looked like chicken fillets.
‘Breast enhancers,’ Hanna said. ‘They fit into your bra, et voilà! Bigger boobs and a cleavage to die for.’
‘I use them!’ Frenella twittered. ‘My turn now, Dr Aubrey!’
‘You can get down now, Kate, you’re done,’ Aubrey said, blushing at Frenella. ‘I’m not a real doctor.’
‘Cripes!’ I said. ‘I hope you knew what you were doing!’ I felt a little bit freaked out.
‘Don’t have a cow, Katie, he’s a doctor of beauty, he’s a cosmetic doctor, he’s a doctor all right, just not a proper one who gives you Valium or whatever,’ she simpered as she sat back on the chair and clipped her fringe away from her eyes and forehead. I stood there, unsure as to what I should do next, holding a pair of boob enhancers.