The Year I Went Pear-shaped: A fat woman's tale of love and insanity

by Tamara Pitelen

  “You know what else we have to do Darl?” Anita continued, ignoring my moral dilemma.

  “I’m almost afraid to ask Anita.” I replied. Or tried to reply. With five chocolate almonds in my mouth what I really said was ‘urm urmurst afrud dur ursk urnurda’.

  “Shaddup and listen, you’ll thank me when you’re off to Paris for your honeymoon. Look, we need to get out and about, actively man hunting. We need to hang out in swanky bars and go to celebrity-studded events looking fantastic…”

  “That’s easy for you to say, you look fantastic in a garbage bag…”

  “Oh stop it, look, you’ve got to get us into the celebrity bashes. I know you get invited to all sorts of exciting things through your job on the magazine so the next one you get, we’re going, ok?”

  “Yeah, yeah, ok, but I’m warning you, these things are usually wank-fests jam-packed with TV game show prats and breakfast radio jocks who’ve got their heads so far up their arses that they could scrub their own kidneys with their goatees. Mark my words, it’s like death by canapé...”

  But Anita wasn’t listening. The Kardashians had just started.

  Chapter 4: Alcodoms

  “Hi de hi Darla Love! It’s Frannie here from Spinner PR, how are you?”

  “Good thanks Frannie.” I had never spoken to this woman before in my life.

  “Unreal! Look, I’m just ringing to check you got that press pack I sent last week about these amazing new alcohol-flavoured condoms called Alco-doms? The thing is Darla; it’s a really big, important issue for your readers. Did you know that the rate of throat STDs is now at a critical level?

  “Really Frannie, no I didn’t know that, how interesting.”

  “Mmm hmm! It’s true! Doctors and STD clinics are now reporting frightening increases of throat STDs sweeping across the nation you know. And what’s absolutely terrifying is that many women could be walking around with throat STDs right now! Without even realising it!

  Like most PRs, Frannie was fluent in Exclamatish; the language of exclamation marks, clichés, and outrageous claims that are never backed up by real statistics but are invariably qualified with vague and dubious phrases like ‘experts say’ or ‘doctors have found that…’

  “Gosh, that’s certainly terrifying, Frannie but how are women getting these throat STDs?”

  “Well, it’s a bit of a mouthful Darla, so to speak! Ha, ha!”

  Frannie snorted as though she hadn’t told her ‘joke’ fifty times already that morning.

  “You get them from giving blowjobs without using condoms.”

  A worrying tingle started in my tonsils as I recalled a seedy, drunken encounter with some guy called Tarquin last weekend. I’d met him in Zed bar at Kings Cross; he was a British backpacker who, conveniently, had his combi campervan parked just up the street. He had lured me into it with the promise of a big, juicy joint. And he wasn’t kidding.

  “That’s why it’s sooo important for your readers to know about these new Alco-doms, Darla,” Frannie said in her best I’m-Being-Serious-Now voice.

  “Us girls just can’t go around sucking off any Tom, Dick or Harry thinking we won’t catch any nasty diseases as long as Willy keeps away from Wendy because we’re kidding ourselves quite frankly.”

  Lord, please tell me she didn’t just call her vagina ‘Wendy’.

  “Right. No, of course not.”

  “Alco-doms really are going to change the sexual landscape you know Darl. They come in four exciting flavours; rum-raiser, vodka viagra, brandy blow, and my favourite, ‘gin ‘n bare it’, isn’t that a hoot! Ha ha! They’re also developing a fabulously, exciting beer-flavoured one, which’ll be launched in time for schoolie’s week. Anyway, shall I book you some interview time with the CEO? And I’ll email you about 100 or so product shots straight away, plus some more press releases. My contact details will be on them in case there’s absolutely anything else, anything at all, that I can help you with. Also, I’ve just sent a year’s supply of the Alco-doms to you by courier so that you and your special guy can give them a test drive. Ha ha!”

  “So you’ve sent me three of them have you Frannie?

  “What? Oh! Ha ha! You’re tooo funny Darl! Three of them for a year, yeah right! A girl like you would use three before morning tea!”

  A girl like me? Christ, who had she been talking to? Bloody Sydney's too damned small.

  “That's fabulous thanks Frannie, anyway, I must fly, thanks so much for the information”

  “Aw look, it’s my pleasure Darl, and you will ring me if there’s any other information or anything at all that I can do for you, won’t you?”

  “Yep, sure thing Frannie. Thanksalot, have a fab day.” And I put the phone down.

  Frannie was the sixteenth PR agent to call me that day and it was only 10.45am.

  There"d been some guy called Terry telling me I would never forgive myself if I didn’t feature a new, strawberry-flavoured vodka called Redka in the magazine. Then there was someone called Corrine pitching a new book on a ‘revolutionary exercise programme’ called Yogabics, half Yoga and half aerobics ‘for the women who want both a killer body as well as spiritual enlightenment in just ten minutes a day’.

  As soon as I got Corrine off the line, I had Nancy wanting ‘just two teensy minutes’ of my time to tell me all about an ‘incredible’ new female sanitary pad that had ‘see-through wings’.

  “Because women should have the right to choose, Darla!” Nancy exclaimed when she paused for breath seventeen, not-very-teensy, minutes later. Right on Sister but I don’t think that’s what Germaine and the other feminists had in mind when they were fighting for a women’s right to choose.

  Once I’d got Nancy off the phone, I took it off the hook to get a bit of peace while I transcribed a phone interview I’d done the day before with Josh Reddi, a former jeans model who had been ‘discovered’ in a shopping mall and was now the latest young stud to strut his stuff up and down Springston Beach on TV soap Home & Hearth.

  Playing the tape back, I heard myself ask, “so are you enjoying working on Home & Hearth?”

  “Y’know Darl, it’s fantastic.” He replied in a thick, Awstrayan drawl. “Everyone’s been so friendly and welcoming...”

  Well, that’s a lie for a start. According to my TV sources, the other cast members seriously resent the fact that some pretty boy who can"t even spell NIDA is being given better story lines than them.

  “...and it’s a great opportunity to extend my acting skills…” he continued.

  Acting whats?

  “…I dunno if anyone’s told you Darla but during uni break I toured my own one man show through Estonia. It was a sci fi cum Dr Seuss interpretation of Romeo and Juliet. The Capulets were blue aliens from planet Zorax and the Montagues were Trudoids with stars on their tummies from planet Troyd. It’s pretty avant garde stuff to be honest Darl, I wrote it myself and I think it might’ve been a bit too deep for a lot of the Estonian audience.”

  But perfect for a stoned audience.

  “Sounds amazing Josh, so anyway, can we expect any sizzling scenes between you and Vanda in up and coming episodes of Home & Hearth?”

  “Yeah, heh heh, my character Todd gets into a bit of a steamy bedroom clincher with Vanda while her parents are helping put out a fire in the pub started by an arsonist, and saving a litter of new born Labrador puppies. I loved shooting that scene, let me tell you Darl, Vanda is a hottie!”

  Another lie. It was a well known ‘secret’ in media circles that Josh was as gay as a queue for Kylie tickets. He spent most weekends hanging out in bars on Oxford Street with names like "Manzone", wearing electric pink cowboy chaps and a Lone Ranger mask.

  Just as Josh was telling me about the subtle dramatic devices he called on to give his character new levels of depth and insight, the shrill shriek of Katerina shot through my headphones and ricocheted off my ear lobes.

  I screamed, yanking my earphones out and got a second, heart-stopping shock when I whirl
ed around and found her face just inches from mine.

  “Jeezus Kat, what the hell do you want!?”

  “Sorry Darl, but Arabella’s been calling you, she wants us in her office for a meeting about next month’s features in two minutes.

  “Ok, ok, but I’ll need a caffeine hit to get through that. Tell her I’ll be there in three minutes, I’m just going to pop to the vending machine for a can of diet Jolt.”

  Five minutes later I was sitting at Arabella’s round meeting table with Mandy, Kat, Arabella and Naomi. In front of each of them was a bottle of sparkling Evian mineral water. My can of diet Jolt -- three times more caffeine than Cola -- stood out like the black sheep in a sea of virgin lambs.

  “Right, we need to finalise the mix of features for next month,” Arabella said. “We’ve got the real life horror story about the girl whose fiancé was arrested for murder two hours before the wedding, you’re onto that aren’t you Kat?”

  Kat nodded enthusiastically. “Yep! It’s all fine and she’s pretty and thin enough to photograph as well.”

  “Good. Then there’s the piece on that low-GI diet that everyone in Hollywood has lost shedloads of weight on. We’re going to add a seven day, low-GI diet plan with it for the reader to try…”

  “Oooh, low-GI is sooo excellent!” Kat butted in. “My best friend Sara Sloane-Bartrum swears by it! She lost six kilos in two weeks! Although, she was also going hard on the laxatives, living on boiled chicken and having colonic irrigations every second day as well. Her doctor says her bowel might not recover but she reckons it was worth it! She looked amazing at the Randwick Races Spring Fest party. Even Hugo commented on how good she was looking and normally he doesn’t have eyes for anyone but me; he’s such a sweetie like that. I was wearing this fabulous little pink dress with beaded pearls from Zimmerman…”

  “Fascinating thanks Kat, now if you don’t mind I’ll get on with it,” Arabella said between gritted teeth. “Now, we’ve also got a story on the new cosmetic surgery craze, Designer Vaginas, where you can have your hymen surgically reconstructed if you want to be a virgin again, or just have your labia fixed up or whatever. Next to that we’ll have a feel-good, positive body image article called ‘Love your Body, Love Yourself: You’re perfect as you are!’ So, all that’s great and really aspirational but I think we’re missing a good sex story. So girls, what shall we write about?

  For a second the silence was deafening, and then Kat suggested something like ‘103 ways to have a better orgasm tonight’ or ‘642 ways to drive him crazy in bed’.

  "Oh God, no!" Arabella shrieked. "Yuck, awful, sorry Kat that's far too white trash, leave those stories to rags like MetroGirl. Come on, what about the rest of you?”

  With perfect eyebrows raised expectantly, she looked around the room at each of us in turn, waiting for our flow of brilliant and original ideas.

  “Erm, how about something on the G spot?” said Mandy desperately.

  “God no, I couldn’t bear to read another story on the bloody G spot!” Arabella said. “Perhaps I’d feel differently if I could find my own. But I can’t -- and don’t think I haven’t bloody looked -- so if I can’t use mine I’m not going to worry about anyone else’s.”

  Never one to mince words, Arabella would reveal the most intimate details of her sex life without batting a false eyelash but would need to be tortured with a cattle prod before admitting to enjoying reality TV.

  “Top ten blowjob tips from celebrities?” I offered, recollecting my conversation with Frannie the Alco-dom queen

  “Not bad Darl, the celebrity element gives it potential, but we did something similar quite recently so let’s revisit it in another couple of months.”

  I tried again. “Well, what about something on how great masturbation is? But obviously we"d do it tastefully," I added even though we all knew taste was a not a priority. "It’s a few months since we talked about the good old Finger Fandango, maybe it’s time to bang on again about how it’s normal and healthy and if you’re not doing it, you’re weird.”

  “Yes!” Exclaimed Arabella. “And that way we can get some hefty advertising from one of the big sex shop chains in return for throwing in a few photos of their most expensive vibrators.”

  “Do you think we could get them to send us a few freebie vibrators at the office?” asked Mands. “The dog got hold of mine the other day, he must’ve thought it was a big bone because he chewed it for about three hours then buried it in the garden. The gardener got a helluva shock when he came round to prune the azaleas.”

  “We"d better get some bloody freebies out of it Mandy,” said Naomi. "Talk to the girls in advertising about it. And tell them to get some of those butterfly clitoral stimulators and some edible massage oils as well chucked our way as well.”

  “Darl, do you have time to write the masturbation story?” Arabella asked, making out like she was really asking me a question but no one in the room had any doubt that it was a decree.

  “Sure, no problem. When do you need it by?”

  “Next Monday will be fine. And get some case studies, you know the kind of thing, beautiful, 20-something girls who’ll talk about how masturbating changed their life, or saved their sex life, whatever. As long as they’ll be photographed. And some celeb quotes too, y'know someone like Toni Collette or Nicole Kidman saying how masturbation empowers women yada yada. Ok, does anyone have any other fabulous ideas?”

  “Um, what about a straight celebrity piece?” I volunteered, thinking that now was the time to pitch the Gordon Worsley story. “Mands and I were talking earlier and we thought it'd be a good idea to do something with that doctor from Love on the Wards, word is that he’s up for the Golden Logie this year. So, ah…”

  “Great idea Darla, get onto it straight after the meeting, I want it in the next issue,” said Arabella. “I see it as a Day in the Life of Sexy Doctor Ramswell, follow him around for a day and see what it’s really like working on a daytime soap. Make sure you get him on a glam day though, when he’s rushing from fab party to exciting bar opening to elite cocktail soiree, bla bla. I don’t want so much as a whisper of any boring rubbish about getting to bed by 9pm with a cup of cocoa after watching something about Cambodia on the ABC, I want sex! Even if you have to follow him around for a week and just pretend it was all in a day. Ok, any questions?”

  We all knew better than to have any questions.

  “Good, off you go then, back to your desks, there’s a lot to do so get on with it.”

  “Thanks Arabella,” we all mumbled as we stood up and left her office, taking our drink cans, pads and pens with us.

  My phone was already ringing as I got back to my desk. “Please God, don’t let it be a PR consultant pushing a ‘new, exciting’ breakfast cereal or some ‘amazing’ new yogurt,” I whispered under my breath.

  I took a deep breath and lifted the receiver to my ear.

  “Hello, Darla speaking.”

  “Hi Angel, it’s me Mummy!”

  “Mum! Hi, how are you doing?”

  “I’m very good, I won’t keep you long, I know you’re at work, I just wanted to remind you that it was Uncle Bert’s 70th birthday next week, you will send him a card won’t you?”

  Mum was always ringing to remind me about someone’s birthday or anniversary, which was lucky because I would’ve never remembered otherwise. I had tried to keep a birthday book for a while but find they don’t work unless you actually look in them more than once a year.

  “Sure Mum,” I said as I wrote a note to myself in my diary to buy a card. “I’ll do it today.”

  “Good girl. Anyway, how are you? Any news?”

  “Not really, same old. Work is good, living with Anita is good fun but not much to report really.”

  “Seeing anyone.”

  Oh God.

  “No Mum, no one special.”

  I was pretty sure Mum didn’t want to know about the quickie I’d had at a pub gig last week with the bass player in the headline band duri
ng their 15 minute break. There’s something about a man on stage. Unfortunately once you get them off stage much of that disappears so I was soon thanking the heavens it was a 15 minute break and not half an hour. Still, it was better than spending the time being crushed at the bar in the small hope of managing to attract the attention of one of the two bar staff who were trying to serve the 600 people who rushed up at once -- one of whom you could pretty much bet had just started that night.

  “Oh dear, well, how’s your weight going then?”

  “That’s the same too, no change.”

  “Are you trying to diet Darla?”

  “Mum, you know that I am constantly, permanently trying to diet.”

  “Yes, but are you trying hard enough? Your Aunty Gladys just lost 12 kilos on some blood group diet where you only eat certain foods based on what your blood group is, she’s looking fantastic, do you want me to send it to you?”

  “Sure, why not. I’ll give it a bash.”

  “Good, I think I might try it for a while too, we can do it together.”

  “Yep, great, that’ll be good.” Even though Mum had hardly an ounce of fat to spare from her long, lean frame, she was always on some diet or other.

  And maybe it would be good. Maybe this diet would be the one that provided the magic key that unlocked the secret of losing ten kilos. This time it just might work.

  “Ok, well, must fly, my yoga class up at the gym starts in an hour.”

  “Sure, talk soon then Mum, love you.”

  “Love you too Darling.”

  And she hung up. I imagined her whizzing around the house on her designer high heels getting ready for her yoga class. She went to the most exclusive women-only gym on the Gold Coast, one that let it’s well-shod clients not only leave their toddlers at the inhouse creche but also leave their spoilt pooches at the inhouse kennel. It was a testament to the clientele that the creche was usually empty while the kennel was permanently stuffed with dogs of every description, all wearing designer collars from Dogue, the store that did high fashion for canines.