by Ilana Fox
‘I’ll take it.’
‘Seriously? You will? You don’t mind me suggesting it?’ Amelia let out a sigh of relief.
Jo looked at the group of girls who were all staring at her menacingly, and she realised she couldn’t wait to get out of London. ‘Just let me know when I start.’
February 2001
Working at The Royal Oak was like being at school again, Jo thought – only with interesting lunch menus and an older clientele more interested in foot-and-mouth disease than Hollyoaks. When Jo had started five months earlier she’d been incredibly nervous, but she soon got used to the amused nudges about her weight when she served food to the customers. Jo scrutinised the menu for about a fortnight, and after a while she soon began to be known as the girl who knew as much about the dishes as head chef Michael – from the exact texture of the rabbit and bacon terrine to what the Ryeland lamb had grazed on. David and Dominic – the pub’s owners – congratulated themselves on hiring a girl who so obviously enjoyed knowing and eating food, and Jo blossomed with the adrenaline rush that came from living alone and earning a wage.
In the evenings Jo sat in her favourite corner of the bar, feeling her breath catch as she looked up from her notebooks and took in the beauty of the pub. She thought the décor was what it would be like inside Buckingham Palace. All of the furniture was antique and the framed oil paintings cleverly depicted views of the wintry fields on the other side of the country lane. Old letters written to the seventeenth-century owner of the former inn by minor Royals and the aristocracy filled the rest of the wall space, and according to legend, Oliver Cromwell had spent the night there.
Jo had always felt as though London – and school – had stifled her creativity, and as soon as she moved to The Royal Oak she was proved right. Suddenly she found she couldn’t stop thinking of feature ideas for magazines, and when she wasn’t working, she was sitting in the bar scribbling in her notebooks. Some of the barmen thought Jo was nuts, and asked why she preferred writing to making use of the free drinks The Royal Oak kindly provided to staff, but Jo found she couldn’t answer them. Magazines were her obsession, and so far nobody, including Amelia, had ever understood that about her.
‘You’re either writing your life story or getting something off your chest,’ Jo heard a voice comment from the other side of the bar, and she momentarily let her pen hang in the air, giving her hand much-needed relief from the furious scribbling she’d been doing for the past hour.
Jo looked up and realised she was staring into the eyes of the most attractive man she had ever seen. He was tall, had broad shoulders and an athletic frame, and his dark blond hair swept over his eyes. He looked like a cross between Brad Pitt and David Beckham, and as he pushed his fringe from his face and grinned at her, Jo swallowed hard.
The man came over to her table and peered down at Jo’s work. He spotted a few tips on ‘how to find a boyfriend for Valentine’s Day’ before she could put her arms over her notebook.
‘David told me you’re the waitress here, but you’re clearly moonlighting as a relationship advisor,’ the man said, and he stuck out his hand. ‘William Denning. I’m the new bar manager.’
Jo stared at William’s hand for a moment and then shyly took it. Every nerve ending felt as though it was on fire, and she felt her face turn red.
‘Do you have a name?’ William said gently, and Jo bit her lip. He was wearing brown boots, faded blue jeans and a well-fitting dark grey jumper, and his face was slightly ruddy from the cold wind outside. He looked like a model, and Jo wasn’t sure she could speak.
‘Jo,’ she said quietly, and she looked down at the table, unable to look William in the eye again. She was mortified by her physical reaction to the man who was, effectively, her new boss. ‘Jo Hill.’
‘How long have you been working here, Jo Hill?’ William asked her in a light, teasing voice, and Jo forced herself to look William in the eye. His blond hair had flopped back over one of his eyebrows sexily, and when he smiled Jo noticed that his piercing blue eyes crinkled. She wished he would stop smiling – it made him all the more attractive.
‘About five months now, I think,’ Jo said, hoping she could end the conversation before it really began. She didn’t want to make a fool of herself in front of the most perfect man she’d ever seen.
William was twisting his mouth around in a vague sort of bemused grin, and Jo wondered if he was laughing at her. She crossed her arms in front of her chest defensively, caring that she’d left her notebook open and exposed on the table, but desperate to cover the rolls of fat under her breasts.
‘I see. And do you enjoy it?’ William asked.
Jo tried to smile. ‘It’s all right.’
William laughed openly. ‘You’re making me feel like I may have made the wrong decision in coming here,’ he said, as he looked at her with interest.
Jo shrugged and couldn’t think what to say next. She felt like an inexperienced child and, for lack of knowing what to do or say, she concentrated on holding her stomach in. She looked back down at the table again and felt miserable. As if William would ever fancy me, she thought.
‘I hope you don’t think me rude, but I promised my father I’d phone him right now …’ Jo murmured, hating herself for lying but desperate to get away from William. ‘Perhaps we could catch up tomorrow?’
William shot her an easy, casual grin, and Jo felt her face flush again. She’d never really had a crush on a boy before – apart from the men who did agony-uncle columns in Honey and Gloss, and they didn’t count, not really – and she didn’t know what to do, what to say.
‘That would be great,’ he said, and Jo stood up, suddenly very aware that the last thing she wanted was for William to see her body wobbling as she left. Taking a deep breath Jo shot William one final smile and, carrying her notebook behind her back so that it covered up some of her bottom, she walked stiffly to her bedroom.
March 2001
‘So he’s tall, dark and handsome?’
Jo put her head against the wall by the telephone and sighed. ‘Not only is he tall, blond and handsome, he also has a broad chest, footballer legs, these amazing blue eyes and …’
‘And?’
‘And the most gorgeous bottom you’ve ever seen.’ Jo’s blush burned across her face. She couldn’t believe that she would say something like that. What was William doing to her?
‘Sounds like someone is in love!’ Amelia sang down the phone.
‘It’s horrible. I don’t know what to do – it’s been a month and I can’t bear it when he looks at me. I blush bright red, can’t speak, and most of all I know he’s checking me out and thinking how fat and ugly I am.’
‘Jo!’ Amelia sounded shocked, but Jo knew she wasn’t. Not really. ‘Is that how you really think of yourself?’
Jo nodded down the phone. Her self-esteem had reached an all-time low when she had failed to be sent on a measily typing job, and she hated herself. Now that William was around, Jo was even more aware of how overweight she was – and she knew that he would never fancy her so long as she was fat.
‘You know, I bet if you really put your mind to it you could lose weight,’ Amelia said gently.
A million reasons why she couldn’t lose weight flooded Jo’s mind, but rather than defensively blurting one of them out to Amelia, she thought quietly to herself.
‘Do you think I could? Really?’ she asked Amelia in a small voice, and Amelia smiled grimly down the phone.
‘I don’t think it will be easy, but I think if you put your mind to something, you can achieve anything you want.’
Jo flung her newest diet magazine back on to the pile in her bedroom and concentrated very hard on ignoring the rumbling sounds from her stomach. After reading up on the best way to lose weight, Jo had decided to try and drop some excess pounds before attempting to exercise, and after a long and difficult week of cutting out the junk food and fizzy drinks, she had been ecstatic to find she’d lost two pounds. It was the fir
st time she’d actually lost weight, and although she’d not noticed a physical difference, it affected her profoundly. She had over seven stone to lose to reach her ideal weight of nine stone, and although it seemed like a massive figure, Jo knew she had to do it.
Using the diet mags as her benchmark, Jo ate only what was recommended, and submitted herself completely to their advice. She had toast for breakfast, a small sandwich for lunch, and chicken or meat with vegetables in the evening. Jo was starving – and the gorgeous smells that came from Michael’s kitchen nearly drove her mad. To supplement her diet, Jo stole cold triple-roasted potatoes from the kitchen, and made herself sandwiches with them when she thought she was going to faint from hunger. The guilt she experienced when she took the last mouthful encouraged her not to do it again, but she couldn’t help herself.
Slowly, though, the weight kept on falling off. Jo woke up early, did some stretches, and walked to the local village shop and back as fast as she could under the guise of needing to get the newspapers in for the customers who sat alone nursing their pints of bitter. In the beginning Jo was out of breath and sweaty when she reached the shop, and then again when she got back to the pub, but she soon found she could walk the distance easily. Jo made a point of not buying sweets, chocolate or crisps from the shop and instead bought herself magazines as rewards, using the photographs of slim models to keep her going. She wanted to look like them, and then she wanted to create fashion shoots with them.
Head chef Michael noticed a difference in her. ‘Gone off our food, have we?’ he asked one lunchtime when Jo had forsaken a pithivier of shredded pigeon with glazed chestnuts for lentil soup and a small slice of bread.
Jo nodded – suddenly food seemed like the enemy, not her faithful friend. As Jo began to eat less and less she realised how eating had been her hobby, how working out what she was going to eat next had kept her entertained. The new Jo Hill swapped her eating addiction for a dieting addiction, but when her weight loss started to plateau she decided it was time to try and exercise. By October she’d lost nearly two stone, and even though all her clothes were looser, she wanted to slim down properly – she wanted to get to a size ten.
At first it was hell, pure hell. Jo didn’t warm up enough to begin with and three minutes into a light jog her legs began to ache and seize up. Jo gave up and stretched her legs out properly, and vowed to try again the next day. This time Jo managed to jog – slowly – for ten minutes as a light shower kept her cool. As a result of doing this every evening for a week she lost another three pounds, and a few weeks later Jo caught William staring at her.
‘So how are you doing it?’
Jo looked up at William and tried very hard not to blush. Every time they made small talk she felt like she made a fool of herself with her teenage-crush stutters, and she’d started going out of her way to avoid him.
‘Sorry … how am I doing what?’ Jo attempted a casual, carefree grin and tried not to notice just how breathtaking William looked.
‘How are you managing to lose all that weight?’ William asked her. ‘You look terrific.’
Jo immediately felt her blood turn to ice. She hated the thought of William looking at her body and, worse, comparing how she was now to how she’d been a few months earlier. She felt ashamed at how large she’d been.
‘I’ve been working out,’ Jo said in a small voice. ‘I’ve been running and watching what I eat.’
William’s forehead furrowed slightly. ‘But when? You haven’t changed your shifts, and you’re always writing in your notebooks in the evening …’
Jo took a deep breath and desperately hoped she wasn’t coming across as shy, or as if she had a crush on him. ‘Late at night after closing,’ she said. ‘When everyone goes to bed I go out and run on the roads.’
‘What? In the pitch-black? What if you got hit by a car?’
Jo shrugged and grinned in what she hoped was an offhand way. ‘It hasn’t happened yet. And you have to admit it’s working.’
William’s eyes travelled over Jo’s body and despite wanting to cross her arms over her stomach, she pretended she didn’t care he was looking at her.
‘You know, I go running too – and I’d be happy to help you train if you like …’
Jo couldn’t stand the thought of William seeing her hot, sweaty and red in the face but at the same time she wanted a running partner, she wanted someone to urge her on when her legs burned and she didn’t think she could run any more. She wanted to spend some time with him.
‘Six o’clock every morning, and then again mid-afternoon,’ William said. ‘Are you in?’
Jo looked at William, and clocked his broad shoulders, muscled arms and beautiful blue eyes.
‘I’m in.’
Chapter Six
May 2002
‘You’ve got to keep on going, keep on going, Jo, you can do it!’
Jo thought she was going to die. She was sure of it. Every muscle in her body, despite being hidden by layers of fat, burnt with a hot white heat. Her throat felt sore from the cool breeze and her nose ran, dripping on to her T-shirt, which was soaked with sweat.
She couldn’t take much more of this.
William ran behind her with a stopwatch. He was wearing a tight fitted T-shirt, and Jo knew if she turned round she’d see the outline of every single muscle in his torso. ‘Come on, it’s only fifty more steps to the tree, come on, Jo, come on!’
She couldn’t do it, she just couldn’t do it, she thought. But Jo knew she couldn’t stop either. Focusing her eyes on the dusty track, Jo imagined the tree was made of chocolate. Oh God, she thought, chocolate. If she just kept on going, if her legs didn’t give up on her, she would let herself have some Dairy Milk. Her whole body felt as heavy as lead. She wasn’t sure if she would ever get to the tree, and just as Jo’s body screamed out for mercy she was there.
William stopped beside her as she doubled over in pain, out of breath and feeling like she was going to throw up. ‘Nineteen minutes, Jo! You beat your record by nearly six minutes!’
Jo wanted to thump him. She collapsed on the dewy grass and looked up at William, who didn’t even seem puffed.
‘I am never, ever doing that again.’
William grinned and brushed his blond hair from his eyes. ‘Sure you are, and next week we’ll beat this time by ten minutes. Just you wait and see.’
William infuriated her, but he was right. They’d been working out for six months, and during that time he was always there by her side. When Jo ate breakfast he was there making sure she ate enough – he persuaded her that porridge with semi-skimmed milk needed to be eaten alongside wholewheat toast with low-sugar peanut butter; that the salad she ate for lunch needed to have lots of grilled chicken and a dressing. He convinced her that she’d lose more fat if she ate enough to give her more energy, thus ensuring she could work out more. If Jo could have had her way she’d have eaten nothing and exercised all day long, but William made sure she ate, and David and Dominic made sure she worked. She had been promoted to serving customers in the bar, with David’s reasoning that she looked nice behind it. For the first time in a long while, things were looking up.
On Jo’s twentieth birthday, in June, William handed her a birthday card, and she tried desperately hard not to go bright red. William had recently had his hair cut, and somehow his eyes shone an even darker blue because of it. His face was slightly tanned, and he had the healthy complexion of a man who worked outside rather than of someone who ran a bar. He was still dazzling, and Jo longed to touch him.
‘I can’t believe you remembered,’ Jo exclaimed. ‘But now you know how old I am, I think it’s only fair you tell me your age. You’re so old I’d guess about fifty,’ she teased.
William laughed. ‘I’m twenty-seven,’ he said. ‘Not that much older than you. But as I am older than you, you need to do as I say … And I want you to shut your eyes.’
Jo did as she was told, and William brought out a candle-lit chocolate-frosted bir
thday cake. Before he told her to open her eyes William gazed at her for a long, lingering moment, and realised just how different Jo looked to the girl he’d first met – she was confident, happier and slimmer. Head chef Michael, who’d been watching them, noticed the affection in William’s eyes that hadn’t been there before, and when Jo opened her eyes and saw the cake they both burst out laughing, as if sharing a private joke.
Michael smiled as he watched Jo blow out the twenty candles William had dotted on the cake. Then he looked at William again, who was staring at Jo with such adoration he wondered why nobody had noticed it before.
August 2002
Jo couldn’t believe it.
When she stood in front of the mirror she noticed that her rolls of fat had got smaller, that she had the beginnings of a waist, of cheekbones, of an ass that sat on top of her legs rather than merging into her ample thighs. In her eyes she was still massive – Jo guessed she was a size sixteen – but she had lost loads of weight. Jo grinned to herself. She was definitely on her way, and she phoned Amelia up with her good news.
‘So, yeah, I’ve lost five stone.’
There was silence at the end of the phone.
‘Sorry, did you say five stone, Jo?’
‘Yup! Five stone! I’m not going to tell you how much I weigh as I have plenty more to lose but I’m getting there. I’ve got two stone to lose to get to my target weight!’
Amelia looked at the phone first in disbelief, and then in amazement. ‘Jo, that’s incredible! Well done! Congratulations! I’m so proud of you!’
Jo fell about laughing. ‘I’m proud of myself too, but it’s been such hard work. I run and cycle every day.’
‘Christ, you must be exhausted.’
Jo shook her head happily. ‘But that’s the thing, I’m not! And the best bit is that I’m no longer going to be hidden in the kitchen and only allowed out to serve meals when the bar is busy. I’ve been promoted to barmaid.’
