The Desperate Bride’s Diet Club

by Alison Sherlock

  ‘Hear hear!’ barked Donald.

  ‘Perfect,’ said Sebastian, turning to Violet with a beaming smile.

  Violet was so stunned she could do nothing but fix on a fake smile and stay silent.

  Grateful of the excuse to escape, Violet got up to return her empty tea cup to the kitchen.

  Unfortunately, Sebastian’s mother had followed her into the room and was standing guard at doorway.

  ‘A wedding,’ said Miriam. ‘How exciting. I can’t wait to tell everyone.’

  Violet nodded her agreement.

  ‘Can I see the ring?’

  Violet held out her left hand and watched Miriam peer forward for a closer look.

  ‘Lovely,’ declared Sebastian’s mother. ‘Emeralds are so classy, aren’t they? But then Sebastian did always have good taste.’

  Violet carried on nodding and smiling in reply.

  ‘I suppose you’ll want to lose a bit of weight for the wedding,’ said Miriam, giving Violet a quick once-over.

  Violet stopped nodding and blushed bright red, mortified.

  ‘You could always try those slimming pills,’ Miriam carried on, not noticing or caring about Violet’s embarrassment. ‘One of the ladies at my lunch club has lost a couple of stone in a month. Your mother was a large woman, was she?

  The mention of her mother brought tears to Violet’s eyes. She had been slim, a dark-haired beauty. Nothing like her fat daughter.

  ‘It’s a shame because you’ve got ever such a pretty face.’

  Thankfully Sebastian chose that moment to appear. ‘Any more of that cake?’ he asked.

  Miriam’s smile snapped back on. ‘Of course, darling.’ Then she turned to look at Violet. ‘You must both have a second piece.’

  She went back into the lounge with Sebastian to sort out the plates, leaving Violet to calm down both her red cheeks and her racing pulse.

  But somewhere amid the embarrassment was a flash of anger. How dare Miriam dismiss the death of her parents as ‘unfortunate’?

  Violet was the only child of parents who had adored her. Then, when she was twelve, they had both been killed in a car accident. It hadn’t been unfortunate. It had been catastrophic.

  Not only did Violet suffer the deep grief of losing her parents, but her life suddenly changed dramatically. She was torn out of school and away from her friends to live with her mother’s sister Mary and her husband Joel. They were the only family willing to put up with an orphaned twelve-year-old. Violet had no choice but to go.

  Her parents’ death had been a cataclysm and Violet hadn’t been truly happy since.

  Apart from now, she reminded herself. She was engaged. She was getting married to the love of her life. But her heart sank once more as she thought of Sebastian’s parents’ country club and all their cronies.

  She would have preferred a small wedding. Intimate and stylish. But Miriam had already mentioned a guest list of at least a hundred. And that was just off the top of her head. It was made up of a lot of people who didn’t know or care about Violet.

  She tried hard to think about who she would want at her wedding. The only person who popped into her mind was Uncle Joel. But he had died four years ago, just before Aunty Mary.

  And now there was nobody who cared. Nobody except Sebastian in her life.

  Sebastian was smiling as they drove home later that afternoon.

  ‘Well, that’s all sorted,’ he said. ‘Mother says she’ll book the church and reception so at least we don’t have that stress on our hands.’

  But Violet was beginning to panic. A fat bride. A porky, obese bride waddling down the aisle in front of one hundred guests who didn’t know her. They would all be whispering, giggling, laughing at her. She could feel her pulse racing at the thought of it. She couldn’t do it. Oh God. All those people.

  She took a deep breath and looked at her fiancé. ‘We could always elope,’ she found herself saying.

  ‘Elope?’ He sounded quite shocked. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. My family has been getting married in St Winifred’s for generations. And you know what Mother’s like with foreign food.’

  Sebastian was right. It was ridiculous. As usual, Violet was being an idiot.

  But what about us? a little voice inside her asked. What about what we want? What I want?

  But Violet stayed quiet.

  Chapter Ten

  TRUDIE STARED AT the fat freaks before forcing a smile onto her face.

  Right!’ she said. ‘Who wants to be weighed first?’

  Nothing. Not a smile, not a whisper. That was a bit bizarre. The first weigh-in after her victims began their diets normally bought a brief joy at the very least.

  She pursed her lips and then pointed. ‘You! Edward! You can be first.’

  Start with the fat boy. He’ll have lost quite a bit already. That might spread a bit of excitement.

  She strode over to the scales and waited as he lumbered his way over to her. Trudie tried not to shudder. Thank God, her husband Trevor was nice and slim. Not like this elephant. Imagine sleeping with that? Trudie gulped down her nausea.

  ‘So? How was your first week? It’s always exciting when you get your first results, isn’t it?’

  Edward nodded. Whatever, mate. Save your breath. You’re going to need it to blow up your next date.

  ‘Step up on the scales for me.’

  Edward took a deep breath and stepped up.

  There was a moment whilst the machine registered the weight and then beeped its final results.

  Trudie frowned at the screen and then up at Edward.

  ‘You’ve only lost two pounds,’ she told him.

  She waited for him to tell her that the computer must be wrong but his face was filled with guilt. He obviously hadn’t bothered at all.

  ‘I would have expected you to lose far more than that in your first week,’ she told him. ‘Especially at your significant weight.’

  Edward coloured a deep shade of pink. ‘It was a friend’s stag weekend,’ he said, sounding a little hoarse. ‘Maybe I had a few too many beers.’

  ‘Followed by twenty kebabs?’ Trudie pursed her lips together. ‘I expect better from you next week. Unless you have another social gathering you want to tell us about?’

  Edward shook his head and lumbered away.

  What a loser. Thank God for the Trevors of the world. Men like Edward should never make it past the sperm count.

  Lord, here was the menopausal mother. Hopefully she’d had a better week.

  ‘Hello, Maggie. How was your week?’

  ‘A bit difficult, if I’m honest.’

  Couldn’t prise your hands off the sherry bottle, could you?

  The woman looked even more wretched than usual in tracksuit bottoms and an aerobics T-shirt that was far too tight on her.

  ‘Dieting is meant to be difficult,’ Trudie replied. ‘Otherwise everyone would be thin, wouldn’t they? Hop on the scales for me.’

  Maggie stepped up and they waited for the beep.

  Trudie looked at the screen and then back up at Maggie.

  ‘Not another one,’ she snapped. ‘You’ve only lost a pound. What happened?’

  ‘It was Lucy’s birthday,’ said Maggie quickly.

  When in doubt, blame the fat daughter.

  ‘Did you eat the whole cake yourself?’ said Trudie, not waiting for a reply. ‘Try harder next week.’

  I see that you were so impressed with your first couple of chins that you’ve added another one in the past week. What was wrong with these people? Couldn’t they see how disgusting they looked?

  Maggie stepped aside to make way for her daughter. Oh good, it’s the birthday girl.

  ‘I hope you didn’t have too good a birthday,’ said Trudie.

  The teenager scowled back in reply. Stroppy mare. At least when I do a handstand, my stomach doesn’t hit me in the face.

  ‘Step up on the scales for me, please.’

  Just as expected. Another loser but not in the mo
st important way.

  ‘You haven’t lost anything,’ Trudie said to Lucy. ‘Not a single pound.’

  Lucy shrugged and then walked away.

  Not my fault you can’t handle life without McDonald’s, is it? Honestly, thought Trudie. They’ve spent all this money and not bothered. Makes me wonder why I should.

  The next fatty wandered up. At least Violet was a bride-to-be and had a real goal to aim for.

  Or not, Trudie realised, as the scales beeped their results.

  ‘You’ve lost one pound,’ Trudie finally said into the silence that stretched out between them.

  Violet scuttled away before Trudie could say anything else.

  She’ll be lucky if the groom doesn’t dump her before the wedding day.

  Last up was the jolly fat lady. The joker of the pack.

  ‘Hello!’ boomed Kathy, as she arrived in front of Trudie. ‘Don’t bother to ask about my week. I was so hungry that I ended up in the bakery most days. Their sausage rolls are to die for.’

  Trudie glanced down at the scales.

  ‘Not a single pound off,’ she snapped, with increasing frustration. ‘Nothing to show at all. Have you anything to say for yourself?’

  Kathy fixed on a smile. ‘I know. It’s disgraceful. I even bumped into a homeless guy yesterday. He said to me he hadn’t eaten in a week. I told him, “I wish I had your willpower.” Boom! Boom!’

  Trudie sighed. Yes, keep talking. I always yawn when I’m interested.

  It was unbelievable. She had never had such a total class failure. Head office was not going to be impressed. These bunch of fatties were going to make her look bad. She ground her teeth in irritation.

  ‘Right!’ she barked as Kathy sat back down. ‘We need a team talk.’

  She strode to the middle of the group and stared down at them all.

  ‘I would have expected far bigger losses this week from every one of you,’ she said in her sternest voice. ‘Especially as you’re in full detox fortnight.’

  Everyone shuffled in their seats.

  ‘Don’t you want to lose weight and be nice and slim like me? Don’t you want to stop feeling fat and unwell all the time? Don’t you care that my commission is based on how much weight you lose?’

  Maggie and Kathy glanced at each other before looking back at her, eyebrows raised.

  But Trudie didn’t care. ‘Right! I’m going to have to work you really hard this week to make up for it. Now stand up straight and put your hands on your waists.’

  If you can find them, that is.

  Chapter Eleven

  VIOLET WOKE UP on Wednesday with good intentions to stick to the diet. Especially after the humiliation at Trudie’s class the previous evening. And it worked for a whole hour.

  Because she never normally had breakfast, the hunger didn’t kick in until 10 a.m. At which time, she was up to her eyes in hotline calls. Not that they were very exciting, unfortunately.

  The job was very monotonous. Pick up the phone, say hello, find out their name and a rough idea of the problem. Then pass it on to the relevant team member. Job done. It made her job at the accountants’ firm seem like nuclear physics.

  Once in a while, the call became interesting. Like when someone screamed that their world was falling apart because they couldn’t get into their emails. Or when she overheard her colleagues negotiate the fine line between advice and sarcasm.

  She had just passed a phone call across to Anthony after a man had rung saying he had lost the letter H key from his keyboard.

  Violet tuned into what Anthony was saying.

  ‘I can send you a replacement H key. It just clicks into place. I suggest you don’t let your cat sleep on the laptop in future.’ There was a small pause. ‘Well, I think the vet’s going to have to deal with that.’

  Anthony put down the phone and let out a sigh. Their gazes locked briefly and Violet gave him a sympathetic smile. Anthony rolled his eyes and turned back to his computer screen.

  ‘God, I’d kill for some chocolate,’ Wendy said suddenly. ‘But I mustn’t. I’m trying to be good. I put on a stone with Calum and I just can’t shift it.’

  ‘You don’t need to lose weight,’ snapped Julie from across the desk. ‘I keep telling you, you look fine.’

  ‘I never had this trouble when I had Jack,’ said Wendy. ‘My stomach snapped back straight away. Perhaps it was the breast feeding. But Calum wouldn’t even try to get on to my tit.’

  Violet noticed Anthony get up rather swiftly and head into the store cupboard where he kept all the computer parts. That was his sanctuary away from the girly talk, which was usually initiated by Wendy.

  ‘Chocolate’s my downfall,’ said Wendy.

  Violet thought that all food was her downfall.

  ‘You’ll never lose any weight eating between meals,’ said Julie. ‘Do you know how many calories there are in a Mars bar?’

  Violet didn’t even know the meaning of between meals.

  But, as usual, she kept quiet. It was interesting to hear slim people talk about their struggle with weight.

  ‘I’m gonna go low-carb,’ said Wendy. ‘You know, like the Atkins diet.’

  ‘You’ll die of clogged arteries,’ snapped Julie. ‘All that butter and red meat. Your heart will go into cardiac arrest.’

  ‘No, there’s a new diet out,’ said Wendy, grabbing a magazine from her handbag and flicking through the pages. ‘It’s like the Atkins diet but without all the fat.’

  ‘But what does that leave?’ said Julie, rolling her eyes. ‘Are you just gonna eat meat all day?’

  ‘I think they let you have a lettuce now.’

  ‘Very nutritious,’ said Julie. ‘Gimme that magazine.’

  Wendy reluctantly handed it over.

  Julie was silent for a minute before tutting. ‘Look at that,’ she said, holding the magazine aloft so she could point at the opposite page. ‘Samantha from that new pop group says she eats normally. But do you know what she does? Sprinkles charcoal over every meal.’

  ‘Charcoal?’ Violet couldn’t stop herself from stammering out loud.

  Julie nodded. ‘The same stuff that we put in our fireplaces, this girl is adding to her food. It absorbs all the bad fats in the body, apparently.’ She threw the magazine back across to Wendy. ‘These girls are bonkers.’

  Wendy stared at the photo of the charcoal-eating singer. ‘But doesn’t she look great?’

  ‘Who looks great?’ said Mark, coming to stand between Violet and Wendy.

  ‘Samantha from Popstars,’ said Wendy, holding up the photo for him.

  ‘Bit skinny,’ he said, making a face. ‘I prefer women to have a few curves rather than look like they can’t even cast a shadow.’

  ‘She eats charcoal,’ said Julie to Mark. ‘To make herself thin.’

  ‘Thought she looked like a bunny boiler.’ He peered closer at the photo. ‘Plus she’s the colour of a lobster. I rest my case.’

  And off he strode.

  ‘Did you see that girl he met in reception last week?’ hissed Wendy to the girls. ‘Think he took her to lunch. Really tall.’

  ‘So? He’s got to be over six feet,’ replied Julie.

  ‘Yeah but she was gorgeous. Tall but curvy. I reckon she was a model.’

  ‘Humph,’ said Julie, rolling her eyes. ‘I bet she didn’t eat anything at lunch though.’

  ‘What happened to the last girlfriend?’

  Julie gave a snort of laughter. ‘Tossed out like the rest of them. He doesn’t keep them hanging around for long.’

  ‘They’re always beautiful though,’ said Wendy with a sigh.

  Violet picked up the hotline as it began to ring once more, grateful not to hear any more about Mark’s love life. Or about Mark in general. Something about him made the hairs on the back of her neck rise. Whenever he looked at her, she could swear he knew what she was thinking. The fact was that he had seen her at her absolute worst and it still mortified her.

  Later on, she
mulled over Wendy’s thoughts about dieting. Perhaps she should go low-carb too. People on the internet were reporting huge weight losses really quickly. And that’s what she needed. A quick fix to get rid of all the flab.

  The thought of a life without potatoes, bread, rice and cereal was a bit daunting, but the promise of losing a stone in two weeks was just too much to resist. She needed a big start to her weight-loss campaign. And this was going to work, wasn’t it?

  She printed out a menu for the week. All you could eat was meat, fish, eggs and non-fat dairy stuff, which sounded great. Plain bacon in the morning would be weird without buttered bread, but she normally skipped breakfast anyway.

  By lunchtime Violet was ravenous. She’d already had her New You! cereal bar but that barely touched the hunger inside. What was she supposed to eat? So she went into McDonald’s and had a double burger but discarded everything apart from the meat. The bun and salad went in the bin. Yet she was starving that afternoon so she had her shake as well.

  Dinner that evening was a bit more of a problem.

  ‘What are you doing?’ asked Sebastian, leaning against the kitchen door and watching her.

  ‘I’m looking for something to eat,’ she told him, closing the fridge door. She took a deep breath. ‘I’m sort of trying a carb-free diet for a week.’

  His eyebrows shot up. ‘Why?’

  ‘I told you. I want to lose weight for the wedding.’

  He gently shoved her to one side and opened up the fridge door. ‘Great,’ he said, before straightening up. ‘Let’s have a fry-up.’

  So they had fried eggs, bacon and sausages. She wasn’t sure if that was strictly within the diet but it sounded close enough. Sebastian wolfed down two slices of bread and butter but Violet just about managed to resist the temptation.

  Think of being skinny, she told herself. Think of the wedding dress. Think how wonderful you and Sebastian will look together once you’re no longer fat.

  The following day, she followed the same diet of no breakfast, burger but no bun and a fry-up of steak and eggs. That night Sebastian added chips to his plate. Violet’s mouth was salivating but still she held firm.

  Violet had begun to suffer with headaches. And she wasn’t the only one. Wendy was moaning as Julie handed her some paracetamol.