The Year I Went Pear-Shaped (8 page)

"Wait a minute!" he said. "I've just remembered, there is a party coming up soon that should be a doozie, all the big names will be there. It's this Saturday at the MCA, will that do it?"

Will that do it? That was only the biggest party Sydney is likely to see before the next Millennium.

"Yeah, that’ll be perfect. Will you be able to get me in, plus the photographer and an, um, assistant?" I added, suddenly remembering Anita and how my life wouldn’t be worth living if I didn't take her with me.

"Hmm, should be fine, I'll go and make the call now and give you a ring later to let you know."

Then, glancing at his watch and throwing back his last mouthful of coffee, my dream man announced he had to get to rehearsal. Kissing me on the cheek, we exchanged thanks and goodbyes and I watched him swagger out the door, turning to give me one last wave he then blasted me with a final, fatal smile warhead. Ka boom!

Chapter 12: Enter the Psychobitch

From the street below she could hear Simon, the little boy from next door, calling out to their new Labrador puppy.

“Saffron! Saaaaaffroooon!” The five year old boy called out at the top of his voice.

“Here Puppy, c’mere Saffron, it's dinner time! Mum's got some yummy lamb for you.”

The young woman smiled to herself and pulled back the thick blue curtain to glance out the window at the little boy. Simon had just started school the week before and was standing on the pavement in front of his house in baggy little grey trousers and a white shirt which had grass stains down the back, and was half hanging out at the back. Loosely knotted around his small waist was his school jumper.

After watching him for a minute, the woman let the curtain fall back into place and returned to her place on the floor where she sat cross-legged, picking up her scissors and turning her attention back to what she was doing. By her side was a big pile of glossy magazines.

Humming to herself as she worked, the woman rocked slowly backwards and forwards, her long dark hair pulled back into a neat ponytail. Her forehead was creased with concentration as she carefully cut around a photo of a man that she'd taken from one of the magazines in a stack next to her.

There wasn't much else in the room besides the hundreds of photos, apart from a table at the end of the room, which had a little shrine on it. In the centre of it was a big photo of the man's face with six tea light candles and a stick of incense in front of it. The candles were lit and the incense was burning.

It was three in the afternoon on a hot summers day but the woman had the curtains pulled tight. She sat in the middle of the room working beneath the light of a study lamp, angled so that it shone brightly right down on her hands. The work she was doing was thrown onto the walls around her as shadows of monstrous, bizarre puppets.

The woman was concerned about having plenty of light in order to see properly while she was cutting. She didn't want to accidentally cut off his fingers but she did want to make sure she completely cut out all trace of the pretty redheaded girl he was holding hands with. It was a tricky manoeuvre but she was well practised at it, as a glance around the room would attest to. Every wall and even the ceiling were covered in photos of this man. She'd obviously been collecting photos of him for a long time as the images, which had been plastered over virtually every flat surface in the room, showed him with a variety of different haircuts, and wearing fashions that dated back a decade. In the oldest photos he looked to be aged in his early twenties, a stunningly handsome young man with a shy smile and a hint of alarm in his eyes. Somewhere in the intervening years, the nervous young man had disappeared and in his place was a confident, self-assured man. With no signs of any lingering shyness or alarm, he smiled straight into the camera lens, raising a hand in friendly greeting to the photographer.

When she'd finished cutting the picture out, the girl kissed the image of the man then carefully glued it to thick card, before spraying it with a protective varnish.

As she looked around for somewhere to put it up, a high-pitched scream from outside made her jump. It was followed immediately by more screaming and a child yelling hysterically for his mother.

Smiling, the woman glanced at the razor sharp knife sitting on the carpet by her side. Simon had obviously found Saffron, she thought.

Chapter 13: Rebirth of the Bean Bag

I glanced at the clock above Mandy's head. 4pm. If I was going to get home, meet Anita, get changed, trowel on enough make-up to sink a battleship, all in time to meet up with Gordon for 8pm, then I needed to get the hell outta the office pronto.

"Anyway," continued Mands. 'so, I had to tell Derek for the second time that it was over. Can you believe that he turned up outside my window last night with a bunch of roses and a packet of Arnott’s Mint Slices? I mean, does he really think a few flowers and biscuits from the 7/11 are going to make up for having caught him out a second time? After he’d sworn to me that he’d never go near that bloody queen again. How can I ever trust him after that? The sight of him lying naked on our sofa -- the very sofa that we bought at IKEA when we first moved in together -- with his dick in the mouth of that fat, bald queen from next door will be etched on my memory for ever. Never mind that I had to give a perfectly good sofa to the Salvos because there was no way I was gonna seat my arse on it ever again."

Mands paused for breath and absentmindedly stuck her hands down the front of her low cut, tight, white t-shirt to adjust the position of her breasts. As she did, Tim, one of the guys from the post room came in with the mail and, at the sight of Anita's hand down her top, fiddling with her boobs, fell over a fake plant and badly sprained his ankle.

Mands was oblivious to the chaos she'd unleashed and blissfully unaware of the fact that she'd just single-handedly (or single-breastedly) ruined the Parramatta Pandas’ chances of winning the final that weekend against the Newcastle Knights by injuring Tim, their star player. It had been the first time in 37 years that the Pandas had made it through to the final. Thousands of dollars had been placed in bets and, come Saturday, an army of men would be crying in their beer. All because of one momentary jiggle of Mand's boobs. If a butterfly in China can cause an earthquake in Brazil with one beat of its wings, I hated to think what kind of devastation a jiggle of Mandy’s boobs could wreak.

“In the meantime”, she continued as Tim hobbled away, “I've pulled a couple of old vinyl bean bags down from the attic and am using them till I get the chance to head to IKEA again, even though trying to stand up after sitting in one of them for a while is like trying to pull your arse out of a suction cap."

"Mands", Kat butted in. "Beanbags might be enjoying a temporary resurgence of cool. Why don't we just do a wee story on how they’re like, totally, the Next Big Thing and then they will be. All the other media will jump on a story like that in a nanosecond. That way you'll still be a style guru."

We all nodded thoughtfully. Kat may have been a pain in the arse but she was right. We media types loved quirky little stories like "the rebirth of bean bags". It was cute, it lent itself to some nice photos and it could bring in some great advertising from big furnishing and home wares stores. After the nod from us, I could already see the home and lifestyle sections of the newspapers doing a double page spread on how "funky" bean bags were again. And all because Derek was caught getting a blowjob on Mand's old sofa. Truth be known, most "amazing, innovative, new trends" had equally dubious starts in life.

I glanced at the clock again. 4.10pm. Must get a move on. I was eating into valuable hair and make-up time.

"Good idea Kat, lets do something on what's sexy in seating and give the humble bean bag another bite of the glory. Mands, if we do the shoot round at your place, you can claim the costs of renovating the bean bags on expenses, what do you think?"

" Cool! Great idea, I'll get onto it."

"Ok, now I've gotta fly to get ready for this posh do tonight. Mands, if Arabella asks where I am, can you remind her I'm doing the soap star story?"

'sure thing Doll, have a great time, see ya tomorrow."

Grabbing my bag, I ran out the door and out into the streets to where my car was parked. I was early enough to miss rush hour over the Harbour Bridge so reckoned I could be home in 25 mins which meant just under three and a half hours to make myself gorgeous. God, that was a big call.

When I came to a screaming halt outside number 51 after hurtling my green Barina over the bridge like a bullet, Anita was just putting her key in the door.

"Hi Darl!’ she called. "You obviously had the same idea as me, get home early to transform into a demon party kitten."

"Yep and I bags first shower!" I cried racing past her and up the stairs and into the bathroom.

"Go for your life, I fancy a cup of tea before I get stuck in... hey, what are you wearing?" She yelled at me from the kitchen downstairs.

"I'm not sure, it's gotta be a sexy little dress and very uncomfortable shoes I guess,” I yelled back as I pulled my clothes off and kicked them into the corner of the bathroom. “Maybe my Lisa Ho with the gold stilettos? If I can still get the damn dress zipped up, I think I've put on a couple of kilos since last time I pulled it out."

To confirm my worst fears I stood naked in front of the bathroom mirror and grabbed at the fat rolls around my stomach, thighs and back. Instant depression crashed around my ears.

"God, you talk rubbish!" Anita yelled back. " You have not gained weight, stop being so bloody paranoid."

Yeah, yeah, she could talk. Little Miss Skin n" Bones who couldn't gain weight if she was force-fed deep-fried chocolate bars and ice cream for a month.

“I'm turning the shower on now Neets, I'll talk to when I get out.”

Shutting the bathroom door, I turned the shower taps on and waited till steam started to rise. From the corner of my eye, the bathroom scales glimmered cruelly, calling my name. I'd managed to resist getting on them for three days now, another two days and I'd have set an all time record. It was a big improvement on the 20 years where I’d weighed myself religiously twice a day without fail, first thing in the morning and last thing at night.

"Don't do it," I whispered to myself. "You’ll just end up suicidal and anti-social. Step away from the evil scales."

But I didn’t listen, instead I pulled them out from under the bathroom cabinet. They glinted in the overhead light, beckoning me.

I jabbed them with one foot, watched the numbers whiz around, and then checked that the needle was exactly over the 0 when it came to rest again. They were weighing a fraction over. I adjusted them and did it again. This time it was a fraction under. After six test runs, I was finally happy that the scales were reading accurately. I held my breath and slowly, slowly placed first my right foot, then my left foot, onto the footpads. The number flew around finally stopping at just over 69 kilos.

Damn, damn, damn! One kilo heavier than a week ago. How the hell did that happen? Familiar feelings of anger, frustration and depression rolled over me like a thick fog. Fucking hell, it just wasn't fair. The thick fog deepened into a black thunderous cloud.

Stepping into the shower, I tried to rationalise it. Maybe my period was going to be early. Maybe it was just fluid retention from all that water I'd drunk today. Or maybe I was just a big fat lard arse who would never be able to attract a man and would die alone, surrounded by cats.

'stop it you idiot. You're about to spend an evening with the man of your dreams, who cares about an extra bloody kilogram. Pull yourself together!"

But it was no use, the damage was done and all I wanted to do was put on my pyjamas and sit in front of the TV with a big mug of hot chocolate and a container of Haagen-Dazs ice cream. Bizarrely enough, whenever I got depressed about my weight, I have an irresistible urge to totally pig out. It's the same with money. When I'm broke, I go out on a spending spree with my credit card. But there’d be no getting out of tonight's soiree, not least of all because it was officially a work thing and I needed to get the story.

So I stepped into the shower, lathered myself up, pushed shampoo then conditioner through my hair and generally tried to perk up. It was almost working until about an hour later when Anita came into my room looking to borrow some gold flake mascara. She looked breathtaking in a revealing gold cocktail dress that shimmered when she walked. She was tall, with golden bronze skin and white blonde hair. Her green eyes sparkled like emeralds. If I'd been a man, I'd have pounced on her then and there.

"God, you look fantastic Neets!” I said as she wandered into my room.

"Thanks Chick, so do you! That dress fits perfectly just like I knew it would you moron!”

“Well thanks, but next to you I feel pretty ordinary. Do me a favour and keep right away from me all night will you and when I tell Gordon you're my drag queen friend, just go along with it ok?”

“Ah shaddup you idiot! Now, gimme that mascara and hurry up, I've called a cab and it's picking us up in twenty minutes. Can you claim the cab fare on work expenses?”

“Yeah, course I can, it's a work gig. I reckon I can also claim any food, drink and lines of coke that we need to fork out for as well but here's hoping it’ll all be freebies.”

With any luck there’d be a plentiful supply of cocaine being bandied about. It was great stuff for losing weight. A few lines of Charlie along with four days of only eating fruit beginning with A should well and truly knock off that extra kilo or two. I was feeling better already.