The Year I Went Pear-Shaped (2 page)

At 35, Naomi was a tall, striking, born-and-bred Sydney girl who, like all good Sydney girls, hadn’t so much as sniffed a carbohydrate since 1999 which meant she was unnaturally thin and permanently tanned, the latter thanks to a few expensive bottles in her bathroom cabinet. Naomi didn’t do sun. She hadn’t been outside without an SPF 30 moisturiser on her skin since 1985. Even so, she had a sprinkling of freckles across her forehead and nose, the legacy of a childhood spent on the Northen Beaches but even their days were numbered, the unlucky freckles would be lasered off by Christmas courtesy of a swanky Paddington clinic. Raven black, corkscrew-curled hair (courtesy of L’Oreal because Naomi knew she was worth it) bounced prettily on her shoulders in a way that completely belied her personality. And heaven help anyone who was fooled.

Before moving into glossy women’s mags, Naomi had been the kind of news reporter happy to chase politicians down the street with a dictaphone, or stalk celebrities for days. More than once, she’d used herself as bait by hanging out in bars frequented by the rich and influential in order to get a good story. And usually she had.

I’d worked on Lush! Magazine alongside Naomi for three years. If she was the backbone of the magazine, then the editor, Arabella Hamilton-Smythe, was its great haircut and sparkling personality. The rest of us were arms, legs and other necessary, but lesser, limbs. Although, more often than not, I felt like the stuff that collects under the big toe nail.

“Darla,” screeched Katerina through her nasal passages. “Some PR company has just sent me some Belgian chocolates, do you want them? I couldn’t possibly eat them, I think I might be allergic to them and they’re loaded with fat of course but I know you don’t worry about stuff like that.”

I shot her a look of pure venom but as usual she didn’t notice.

“Are you ok, Darl? Your face has gone all funny?”

“I’m fine thanks Kat and no, I don’t want your chocolates, you should eat them, I’ve heard they’re great for PMT.”

Truth was, I badly wanted them. I wanted to rip them out of her skinny, manicured hands and shove them into my mouth with both hands. The battle with my weight was now into its 22nd year. For 22 years I’d dieted, denied myself, starved then binged, counted calories, had thyroid tests to see if my metabolism was slow, gone through hundreds of pairs of running shoes, sweated through countless aerobics classes, and spent thousands of dollars on everything from Chinese Slimming Tea to colonic irrigation and heart rate monitors that beep when you’re in the fat burning zone. I’d tried the Zone diet, the cabbage soup diet, the liver cleansing diet, the high protein diet followed by the high carb diet. I’d spent three days eating nothing but apples, I’d fasted for a week, run marathons, bought books called ‘Get slim through self-hypnosis’ and listened to positive affirmation CDs that promised to ‘reprogramme my subconscious to make my body burn fat’. I’d eaten nothing after 5pm for three months, and then swapped my meals around so that I ate dinner in the morning and had cornflakes in the evening. I’d had acupuncture, hypnotherapy and counselling. I’d joined slimming clubs, been to a health camp, and had kilojoule-controlled meals delivered to my door three times a day.  I’d taken speed and ecstasy and even tried to develop a smoking habit.

But nothing worked.

Now, at 34, I’m 10 kilos overweight and I haven’t had a proper boyfriend in four years. Countless one-night stands, I might add, but no boyfriend. I blame my weight. I just know that I’ll never meet a man until I lose all this ugly fat. I’ll never be happy. And I’ll never achieve my one burning ambition, which is to have a night of unbridled passion with Dr Rick Ramswell aka Gordon Worsley. That’s right, my ultimate mission is to get Dr Ramswell into the sack. Just a fuck, meaningless sex. The same thing that every girl back at school except me got. Even bloody Sharon Greese with her huge buckteeth, cross-eyes and dribbling problem. When I heard about Sharon and Gordon’s coupling in the medicine ball cupboard at the back of the gym, I went home and ate a three-kilo tub of chocolate ice cream. Even for me that was an almighty effort and I had to go to bed before dinner with stomach cramps. At school the next day Sharon was walking around like she was some sort of queen and relaying all the gory details over and over again to an ever-changing circle of giggling girls in the loos. The way she told the story, gangly Sharon came across as some kind of seductive Mae West. I burned with jealousy and vowed that I too would one day get myself into the same position. Now, almost 17 years later, a plan was forming. My job at Lush! meant it was easy enough to arrange an interview with some celeb on the pretext of doing a story on them, or using them in a feature. My plan was to work out a story idea where I could meet Gordon, seduce him, get him into bed, then forget him forever. And it all looked to be turning far easier than I could have possibly hoped.

“Darla! Amanda! Features meeting in my office in ten minutes. Bring some good ideas.”

I hurtled back to reality, feeling the burn on re-entry into the Lush! stratosphere. “Sure thing Arabella, no problem.” I shouted at the briskly retreating figure, her blonde bob flicking side to side in time with her perfect arse.

“Oh god,” moaned Mandy, the features editor, once Arabella was out of earshot. “Do you have any bloody ideas? How can I be expected to come up with a constant stream of stupid story ideas when I’ve got so much on my mind!” She said, accidentally knocking the framed photo of Brad Pitt from off her computer and slamming her coffee cup onto her desk, sending a spray of cold, brown liquid onto her keyboard.

Mandy, a short, voluptuous Italian girl with a fiery temper and breasts that could stop traffic, had gone through four keyboards in six months; she was the in-joke and the secret fantasy amongst the boys down in the IT department.

Mandy’s problems involved having recently gone home early to find Derek, her unemployed boyfriend (AKA actor ‘between’jobs), in bed with their neighbour. A large, hairy man in his fifties called Donald whose two passions in life were his black poodles, named Rum and Coke, and his herb garden. It also appeared that Donald had a penchant for virile young men with smooth, bronzed skin and hard bodies. Which was totally understandable, said Mandy. But what the hell did Derek see in him? That’s what she wanted to know. While she was trying to figure it out, she’d moved back in with her parents who took every opportunity to tell her that it would have never happened if she’d been with a nice Italian boy.

“What about a story on women who marry outside of their religion, y’know, like a kind of modern day Romeo and Juliet. We could interview a Muslim girl going out with a Jewish boy, or a Catholic married to a Scientologist or whatever,” I suggested.

“Mmm, maybe. Or what about ‘My boyfriend left me for a fat, bald man’?” Mandy said bitterly. “I could just write that myself and change all the names which would save the bother of finding a real life case study.”

“Yeah, great idea but I think we need a celebrity element as well. Some gorgeous celeb who’ll reveal the secrets of their love life and then pose for photos in their beautiful House & Garden home.”

“Cool, but we’d need a B or C grade celeb, some struggling soap star or someone. A real celeb wouldn’t let us shoot in their living room. What about that cute guy from Love on the Wards? The blonde who plays the randy doctor who’s always shagging the nurses? God, whassisname? Gary? Greg?…”

“Gordon. It’s Gordon Worsley. And I think that’s a fucking brilliant idea, Mands.”

Suddenly my plan was crystal clear.

Chapter 3: The Perfect Man

Dear Darla,

My partner of five years had a one-night-stand recently with some woman he picked up at a bar. He says it meant nothing and he doesn’t want to lose me but I just can’t look at him in the same light. Will I ever be able to trust him again or should
I just finish it? Victoria, 29, Fremantle, Perth

Dear Victoria,

What was he doing picking up women in bars? What do men find it so fucking difficult about keeping their trousers on? How did you find out and has he done this before? Of course he bloody has. I’d be kicking her to the curb Vicky but I guess I should first advise you to find out why he felt the need to go out and have meaningless, cheap sex. It may be a symptom of deeper, unresolved issues in your relationship. Is he feeling insecure or undesirable? Frankly, who cares? Man up and grow a pair I say. There’s also the matter of unpleasant diseases. Did he use protection with this other woman? But should you finish it? The truth is that many men are unfaithful to their partners. There may be plenty of fish in the sea but a lot of them are bastards too.

“No, it's true!” insisted my housemate Anita; crossing her long, smooth legs beneath her as she effortlessly assumed the lotus position.

With her limbs perfectly arranged she took a sip of Vodka Martini and picked up the menthol cigarette resting in the blue glass, 1970s ashtray sitting on the floor, taking a drag before holding the cigarette out to the side of her head and blowing the smoke towards the ceiling. Anita was a ‘head turner’ as my Aunty Peg would say, and even her shorn blonde hair cut close to her scalp couldn’t hide it. Her huge eyes flashed green like traffic lights, urging onlookers caught in her gaze to accelerate towards her. Sitting cross-legged on our fake Persian rug, she was wearing white cotton knickers, an old sweatshirt with Gold’s Gym in faded lettering, and thick woollen socks. I was lying beside her in my pink-striped Peter Alexander pyjama bottoms and a singlet, staring at the white plaster ceiling and failing to blow smoke rings.

Lying on my back like this, my breasts looked like two plates of jelly threatening to spill over down the sides of my torso. By contrast, Anita’s firm globes sat miraculously poking straight out of her chest in stubborn defiance of gravity. I took another drag on my cigarette. Officially, especially if my Mum was around, I was a non-smoker and only ever lit up when Anita and I got stuck into one of our heart-to-heart conversations. Which meant almost every night for the last 18 months but who’s counting? We had PJ Harvey on the stereo and seven of this month’s women mags lying all over the floor. My excuse was research. Anita said she didn’t need an excuse. The two of us lived happily in a cosy, two bedroom terrace house in Cricklebush Lane, at the heart of Glebe. It was the ‘up n’ coming’ suburb where lefty politics students with faux-hawks rubbed shoulders at pavement cafes over soy macchiatos with grunged-up website designers in square, black rimmed glasses, and music media types with enormous sideburns and hangovers to match. I’d only been living in the house three months when my old flatmate moved out to go and live with her boyfriend. Anita had answered one of the ads I’d sellotaped on café noticeboards up and down Glebe Point Road. She’d told me she was a non-smoking, vegetarian but after she moved in I found out she was more like a ‘quitting-any-minute-now-honest’ chain smoker with a mild eating disorder. Which meant she was pretty much like most women I know.

When she had first come to check the house out, she’d rocked up in a bright orange, 1970s Mercedes. She’d been wearing hipster jeans and a tight red t-shirt with ‘Pussy Whipped’ emblazoned across the front, which, I found out later, was one of about 40 t-shirts that she owned which dripped with lesbian sexual innuendo. She collected them even though she was totally heterosexual. To look at her you’d think she was the lead singer in an all-female punk band but it turned out that she worked as an engineer for Qantas. I liked her immediately.

“Darl, it’s all about knowing what you want and asking the universe to bring it to you. My life coach was telling me about one of her other clients, some chick who just couldn’t meet any decent guys. Anyway, Sue -- that’s my life coach -- told her to visualise her perfect man and write down a list of everything she’s looking for in a guy, y’know, like great sense of humour, animal lover, and dick like a toddler's forearm or whatever. Then she had to put the list under her pillow, and light a special romance candle every night - oooh, which reminds me! You can buy these gorgeous scented ones online at www.foreverlove.com…anyway within a week she’d met this totally amazing guy! And he had everything that she’d written on her list! Sue said it was just too freaky.”

I blew another smoke ring towards the ceiling that came out as a big, shapeless cloud and sighed impatiently.

“Jeezus Anita, I’ve lost count of the times I’ve heard a variation of that story but I’ve never actually met any girl it’s worked for, it’s always ‘a friend of a friend’ or ‘someone’s cousin’.”

“God Darla, you’re so bloody cynical,” she said, prodding my shoulder with her foot. “It’s no wonder you don't have a proper boyfriend. You haven’t got a romantic bone in your body.”

“I’m not after a romantic bone Anita, it’s a very different kind of boning that I’m hanging out for. And I don’t think lighting a few overpriced, smelly candles is going to help, unless I put them to the same use that Monica Lewinsky has for cigars. All that stuff about visualising Mr Right and then he’ll just materialise is bollocks! It’s that kind of thinking that keeps women downtrodden.” 

I angled my head to look at her properly.

“We sit round asking the universe to make our dreams come true and lighting candles instead of getting out there and actually doing something to change our fate. You don’t see men running off to the tarot reader on the corner when they need career advice, or burning Ylang Ylang oil to get a pay rise.”

“Oh calm down Germaine bloody Greer, it’s just a bit of fun! Come on, it won’t hurt to try, lets do it now! I’ll get some paper and pens from the kitchen.” And she was off, long legs hurtling up the hallway, firm breasts hardly jiggling.

Grumbling, I sat up, lit another cigarette and took a gulp of the vodka martini Anita had thumped down on the coffee table moments before. Three minutes later she was back with a pack of coloured felt-pens, candles, a writing pad and a packet of chocolate covered almonds.

“Aghhh!” I cried in horror at the sight of the chocolate almonds. “Where did those evil things come from? What are you trying to do to me? You know there’s about a million calories in each one and once the bag’s open I won’t stop until every last one is finished!”

Anita’s eating patterns swung between the kind of denial that would break a Tibetan monk, to an all out food orgy. There seemed to be no middle ground. One week she’d be like ‘do you know how many kilojoules soda water has?’ and the next week I’d find her chowing down on Devil’s Food cake with rich chocolate and brandy sauce at 6am.

“Jeeze! Who made you chief detective of the chocolate police, Darl? Just shaddup you grumpy cow, no one’s forcing you to eat them. Distract yourself by thinking about your perfect man.”

“Ok, ok, let me think…perfect man…hmmm…god, I’m going to need fuel for this, pass me those choccie almonds.”

I ripped open the plastic bag with my teeth, poured a little mound into the palm of my hand and passed the bag to Anita who did the same.

“Ok, I’ll go first ‘cause I know what I want!” asserted Anita. “My perfect guy has got to be tall with big, broad shoulders!”

Groaning, I rolled my eyes at her. “Well, you’re hardly going to beg the universe to bring some short arse with a canary chest and puny shoulders to your door, are you? Jeeze Neets, think outside the box. Outside your box!”

“Christ, this from the woman who, five minutes ago, was sneering at the whole idea. Now you’re a bloody expert! Ok, smartarse, gimme your thoughts.”

“Right then, listen up. I want a man who has backpacked in a non-English speaking country for at least two months; a man who can cook dinner for four people with two hours notice; a man who’s read at least one feminist book - even if he thought it was bollocks - someone who likes alternative theatre but also loves heading to the footy with his mates. I want someone who sends flowers to his Mum on her birthday and who phones his Dad on Father’s Day no matter where in the world he is. I want a guy who knows the words to a song by either Cat Stevens or Simon and Garfunkel. I want someone who’s been in a bar brawl and a protest rally; a man who’s tried Ecstasy, who owns at least one household appliance, and who has a sex drive that could keep Sydney lit up for a month. And that’s just off the top of my head.”

I reached for the bag of almonds and poured another mini chocolate mountain into my hand.

Anita cocked her head and stared at me with one eyebrow raised. “Is that all? Are you sure you wouldn’t like to add ‘links to royalty and Swedish massage expert? I mean, that’s getting pretty specific Darl, don’t you think the universe needs a bit more leeway than that? I’m sure fate would love to help out but you’ve got to give it something to work with.”

“I’m not going to settle for just anything Anita. Anyway, this is my wish list. I might have to lower my standards in real life but on my wish list anything goes.”

“Yeah, that’s true but you’ve got to have realistic expectations Darl.”

“Ha! I have zero expectations of men, that’s the problem.”

“No, it’s worse than that, you totally expect them to be arseholes who’ll either cheat on you or leave for you for someone else that’s why your so-called "relationship's" never last longer than a box of cornflakes but you’ve had one night stands with half of Sydney. At this rate you’ll have worked your way through every straight, single man in town and will be forced to move to Melbourne to start all over again there.”

Anita was a fine one to talk. Her bedroom should’ve had a revolving door. I had to admit though; she was picky about her promiscuity. She wouldn’t bring home just anyone; they had to be at least B grade celebs or own spacious homes with outdoor swimming pools in Double Bay before they got an invite back to Chez Cricklebush.

“Gimme a break Anita, if it weren’t for casual encounters of the meaningless kind I’d have no sex life at all, unless you count battery-powered Big Black Ben which I don’t. And can you imagine what a dragon I’d be to live with then? You should thank your lucky stars I’m a dirty strumpet!”

Anita threw her head back and laughed.

“Aw c’mon Darl, aren’t you over the whole casual sex thing? Aren’t you tired of all that? Don’t you crave beautiful sex with a heart connection, instead of meaningless fucking with some moron you met fondling a schooner five minutes ago, who doesn’t care that your head is banging against the headboard or that he’s kneeling on your hair?”

I bought some time by blowing menthol smoke slowly into the air.

“Ok ok, when you put it like that, I’d have to admit that, yes, I am sick of it. But I hate being such a cliché! I’ve spent most of my life arguing against that patronising stereotype that says all a woman really wants, deep down in her heart, is a loving relationship with her soul mate. Now, here I am lighting bloody candles and writing lists about my perfect man! I’m a disgrace to the sisterhood.”

Sighing, I poured more chocolate almonds into my hand and stuffed five into my mouth at once.

“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.