My Pear-Shaped Life. Carmel Harrington

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СКАЧАТЬ the role for months and practically danced out of the room with it in her hands.

      Dylan: I told you we can just buy another costume. It probably shrunk in the tumble dryer.

      Greta: Maybe you should throw me into the dryer too the next time! This queue to security is horrendous. Distract me with another URG example.

      This was one of their things. Dylan the hopeless romantic, Greta the cynic, discussing moments in cinematic history that were Ultimate Romantic Gestures, or URGs, as they nicknamed them.

      Dylan: I need to bring out the big guns so. How’s about Bridget Jones’s Diary? The first one, though. When Mr Darcy buys Bridget a new diary so she can make a fresh start. URG central.

      Greta: OK, that’s creepy not romantic. I mean, the guy read her diary. Shootable offence.

      Dylan: Noted. No reading of girls’ diaries.

      Greta: I’d have shoved his new diary where … well … somewhere painful!

      Greta put her phone away and placed her luggage in the large square plastic box on the conveyor belt.

      ‘You’ll have to take those shoes off,’ the security guard said, pointing to her boots.

      She held onto the side of the conveyor belt and felt a shot of pain to her ribcage as she leaned down. The first time she’d experienced it, she thought she must have a serious illness. So she’d approached Doctor Google for help. And found two words that made her flush in shame and recognition. Apparently the pain was a fat cramp, caused by her lungs being flattened by her organs. By the time she managed to pull her shoes off and had placed them beside her iPad and handbag, a line of sweat had formed above her lips. She swiped it away with the back of her hand as she walked towards the security gate.

      The alarm went off. The alarm always went off. Greta moved to the left as indicated and looked upwards with embarrassment while the female security guard patted her down. She was mortified by the woman’s touch, especially when her hands felt her back fat. And as always when she was embarrassed, Greta started to sweat like Donald Trump in a spelling bee. She could feel trickles of water snaking its way down her back, under her boobs, between her legs. And the shower she’d had only a few hours earlier began to feel like a distant memory. She couldn’t turn up at her audition looking like a sweaty mess.

      Greta took a steadying deep breath and willed the perspiration to disappear. She made her way to the ladies’ bathroom, so that she could freshen up before it was time to board. A full-length mirror ran along the wall at the entrance which meant it was impossible to miss seeing her reflection.

      Who was that woman staring back at her? A round face, shiny and patchy with sweat, looked back in horror. Greta walked closer to the reflection to study herself, something she didn’t do very often. This morning when she’d dressed she had felt good about her appearance. Her midi print dress in navy and ochre, with three-quarter-length sleeves, felt like the perfect audition dress. It had skimmed over her wobbly bits; paired with her ankle boots, she felt hip and trendy. As the saying went, fake it till you make it.

      Now all her eyes could see were the two dark stains that lay under her armpits. She pulled her shoulders forward and tried to hide them, mortified that she’d walked through the airport unaware that they were there. Then she noticed a pull in the buttons that strained over her breasts. Had her boobs grown since she’d left home an hour ago? Was that even possible? And the print that she thought hid her extra weight, now seemed to offer a neon-light invitation for all and sundry to look more closely at her imperfections.

      Her body had let her down.

      Which wasn’t strictly true. It was she who was letting her body down. She had done this to herself.

      Greta thought of her two brothers at home, fit and toned. And thin. She thought of her parents, now in their fifties, both managing to keep any middle-aged spread at bay. She stood out like a sore, angry thumb. The runt of the Gale litter. Except she was as far from little as you could be. What had the lads at the bus stop called her the other day? Fat cow.

      Greta tugged at her dress. She had to get it off. What on earth had she been thinking? She felt something new and insidious begin to nip at her. Shame, she knew well. Anger; self-doubt too. But this pain in her stomach, the trouble catching her breath, it felt like … fear, panic. And it wasn’t like her. She was the girl who just brushed herself off, dusted herself down when life threw a curve ball at her. But right now, Greta knew that if she didn’t change her clothes, her audition would bomb. An irrational thought, but now that it was planted in her head it started to grow and blossom, until it took over everything.

      Greta made her way into one of the cubicles and placed her case on the toilet. She pulled off the dress then mopped the sweat from her body with swabs of toilet tissue. They turned to pulp in seconds. She sat down on the toilet and closed her eyes for a moment, to let the fresh air from the air conditioning waft over her. When her body temperature regulated back to the normal zone, she doused herself in deodorant once more, then changed into her black trousers and her oversized black tunic. They were her staples, her wardrobe of choice and her planned clothes for tomorrow. As she smoothed down the tunic over her hips, she felt better instantly. Less conspicuous. Less her.

      Greta stuffed the dress, alongside her hidden pain, into her small case with a stifled sob. She zipped it closed, took a deep breath and exited the cubicle. She walked to the mirror and reapplied another layer of translucent powder, erasing the shine of sweat from her face. She couldn’t afford the luxury of feeling sorry for herself.

      As she passed by WHSmith, a display of books stopped her in her tracks. A large cardboard poster hung from the ceiling at the front of the store, in bright red, saying DOCTOR GRETA GALE, THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! Underneath it was a display of hardback books, dozens of them, piled high in stacks, side by side. Her book, What’s In Your Cupboard, had been in the Irish bestseller charts for over a year and showed no signs of leaving it any time soon. There was a giant photograph of her namesake on the poster – a triumph of shining platinum-blonde hair, Hollywood smile and translucent, porcelain skin. Her familiar brown eyes twinkled and seemed to say,

       Greta, you’ve got this!

      ‘I know what I have to do. I’m gonna fake it till I make it,’ she whispered to the poster, then forced a smile onto her face. And with every step Greta took as she made her way to the departure gate, her smile grew wider.

       Chapter 2

      By the time Greta inched her way down the aisle of the aeroplane towards her seat, she had successfully managed to bury her feelings about how she had looked in that mirror. Until she sat down and realized that her seatbelt would not clasp shut. She felt her body tense in shock and took several deep breaths to try and calm herself down, not quite believing the situation that was unfolding.

      She checked to make sure her belt was not tangled. It wasn’t.

      She then pulled the lever to extend the belt to its full length, getting an extra millimetre by doing so. But no matter how hard she tugged and pulled, the two ends never met. A glob of acidic bile made its way into the back of her throat, as the enormity of this discovery hit her. The unimaginable had happened. She was too fat to fly.

      In silent loathing, she went through her options. She could call the attendant and ask for a seatbelt СКАЧАТЬ