My Big Fat Low-Fat Wedding

chapter 7



Oof, ugh, toss and turn. Why the bloody hell am I so uncomfortable? Blinking open my eyelids I stare up at an unfamiliar ceiling. Oh. Right. I’d slept on the sofa last night. Well, I suppose that was a bad idea. As squidgy as our couch is, it’s not comfortable enough to rest on for the entire night. I think I’m going to crawl upstairs and into my flat bed where I can spread my limbs.

Tossing my legs over the side of the sofa causes someone extreme pain, and that person isn’t me.

“Ouch!” Callum grumbles.

I sit straight up and start feeling around with my toes. Looking down I see him lying on the floor next to the couch with his pillow and blanket.

“What are you doing down there?” I ask him, my feet still planted into his stomach area.

“Well I was sleeping next to you until you decided to give me such a painful awakening.”

Aw. What a sweetheart my fiancé is. “You slept there all night?”

Removing my feet from his abdomen, Callum slides up onto the sofa with me. “Of course I did, darling. I would have missed you too much in that big empty bed otherwise.”

Despite soreness from waking up on a cramped sofa, my betrothed and I make better use of the couch. We have morning sex and it really helps to work out all the kinks in my bunched up muscles. So that’s a bonus.

Alas, not even hot and heavy love making can push away all thoughts of yesterday. “I guess I’d better get on over to the cafe.” I grumble, still lying next to a spent Callum.

“Correction,” he does his neck nuzzling thing on me again. “We will both go to your cafe.”

Oh yes. I’d forgotten my wonderful man had said he’d take the day off work to help with the disaster clean up. “You’re so sweet, honey.” I drag my fingers through his dark hair. “But you have to go to work today and find Oliver.”

Sighing loudly, I think my affianced is in agreement. “If you’re sure you’ll be all right on your own.”

I am sure, and I won’t be on my own thanks to Anika who text me this morning saying she’ll help with the cafe clean up.

By the time I actually get up off the sofa I’m fearing it’s already late in the morning. It’s still only 7am though, so I’m guessing my body woke me early due to uncomfy sofa squashedness.

Despite the early hour, I run upstairs, shower and get dressed quickly. I’m in a hurry to get to the cafe and when I reach the halfway point of running back down the stairs, my jeans slip all the way down to my ankles, I trip and I tumble and roll, falling all the way to the ground floor landing.

***



I have never been so happy to fall halfway down the stairs in all my life.

Callum comes bursting into the hallway. “Are you all right?” He asks, bending to help me to my feet.

“I’m perfectly wonderful actually, look!” Once I’m upright I point at my jeans that have pooled around my ankles. “My jeans are too big, Cal. I’ve lost weight!”

Callum frowns and shakes his head. “Are you sure you didn’t bang your head? Em, you just tumbled down the bloody steps.”

“It’s okay… honest… I’m fine!” I’m more than fine. I’m positively ecstatic. Not even the prospect of having to clear up my trashed cafe could bring me down now. Bending, I scoop up my jeans and head into the kitchen. Callum follows. “I’m going to have to cut a tighter hole in my belt, honey!”

And that’s exactly what I do. Grabbing a knife from a drawer, I stab and work a new hole into the black leather of my belt. When I tighten up my jeans I have to admit that it does look a bit silly all bunched up around my waist.

“Hang on.” Fluttering the loose fabric of my blue t-shirt, a smile burst across my face. “I think I’m finally losing mass in my breasts too, Cal!”

Flinging his head back in mock outrage, my fiancé’s reaction to my boob shrinkage is way over the top. “Noooooooo!” He cries like a war torn film actor.

“Oh quit it.” I slap him playfully on his arm.

He frowns like a pouty baby. “I demand you stop whatever dieting and exercising you’re doing. I don’t want to lose these.” Leaning, he puts his head on my chest and gently rubs one of my breasts as though it’s a treasured object.

I bat his hands away. “You’re such a brat.” I laugh and run away quickly.

Ten minutes later I’m driving up to the back entrance of my cafe. I park my car in the one allotted space and hop out. Pushing open the cafe door I chuck my handbag onto an over turned office desk and get to work tidying up. After only thirty minutes of clearing away things I’m starting to sweat. Well, that’s good. At least I can gain some benefit from this disaster if it means that cleaning up gives me added exercise.

“Hello, boss lady!”

Ah. Anika has just come in through the rear entrance. I look up to find she’s not alone.

“Paige?” I question the frizzy haired lady from the health food store. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m here to help, of course.” Paige smiles at me, but I don’t return the grin because of the thing that’s floating next to her.

I see red for a second and my hand starts to shake the broom I’m holding. “What’s that thing doing here though?”

Anika notices the panic in my eyes. “Do not worry, boss lady!” She extends her hands and runs over to me. “Paige’s robot is normal.”

Normal? “Are you sure, Anika?” I ask, thinking the girl must be bloody brave. “Fiona couldn’t even bring herself to come in today after being traumatized by the robot yesterday!”

“This robot is small and okay.” She points at the ladder shaped robot. Paige is talking to the thing and soon it springs into action. It’s as though the little bot knows exactly where everything goes. I watch in amazement as the thing practically clears everything up all on its own.

“Hang on!” I shout to Paige as her robot heads towards my back offices. “I’d like to do that clearing up myself please.”

Paige shrugs her shoulders. “Suit yourself,” she says to me before ordering her bot to cease and desist in its clean-up efforts. “By the way, Emily.” Paige wanders towards me again with her floating ladder bot in tow. “I wanted to help you out with your wedding menu, okay? Especially after the supermarket horse meat scandal, you don’t want any of that grocery store crap at your wedding, now do you?”

What’s all this then? “Are you being serious, Paige? You’re going to supply me with food for my guests?”

“Why sound so surprised, Emily?” Paige gives me a manly slap on the back, exacerbating her lumberjack, plaid shirt appearance. “After everything you’ve been through, I wouldn’t want you thinking you had to push your wedding date back or anything.”

Why does everyone keep assuming I’ll be changing my wedding date all of a sudden? Okay so I have had a few minor setbacks up until now, but I’m a tough girl and it will take more than malfunctioning robots and a week in bed to keep me from marrying my soul mate!

“Knock, knock.” A voice emanates from the rear of the cafe.

Oh bloody hell. “Who’s there?” I question mildly, even though I feel like throwing out our newest intruder. When I see who it is, I’m even more convinced that this person will not be staying on these premises.

It’s the lifeguard boy from the Meli Spa and he’s shown up with Brenda.

***



Apparently there are a lot of helpful people in this town. Callum’s mum had heard of my cafe disaster plight and so had the boy who works with her. Why Brenda had let him tag along is beyond me, but they’re both helping with the kitchen clean-up efforts, so I’m not complaining too much about their presence.

“Have you found Oliver yet?” I’ve snuck into my trashed office and I’m talking to Callum on the phone.

“Nope sorry, babe. The man is an elusive ghost.”

I frown deeply. “Have you been doing online RPG again?” My slightly nerdish fiancé only talks like this when he’s been sneaking in some internet Role Play Game time while at work.

“Nooooo.” Callum’s voice sounds guilty down the phone line.

When I ring off with him I call Anika into my beyond cluttered office. “So how do you think the robot got in?” I ask her.

“What do you mean, boss lady?” She answers my question with a question. “I thought you decided to keep the robot because it was here in your office.”

“It what…? It was…?” This is strange news indeed. “Do you mean the robot was here the whole time I was away and stuck in bed?”

Anika nods. “It stood right there.” She points to the corner of the room we’re in. There’s nothing in here now though. No sign of the behemoth black oven-robot anywhere. Just heaps of mess left in the bot’s destructive wake.

Scratching my head I’m feeling clueless as to how the robot got back into my cafe. I know I left the thing outside for Oliver to collect last week.

“Oh my god.” Suddenly, I realise something. When the robot disappeared from the back entrance outside, I’d just assumed Oliver had picked it up. It must have been then that the bloody thing had floated back into my cafe. I must have failed to notice it in the dark corner of my office.

“Is something the matter, boss lady?”

“No, no.” I reassure Anika. “Nothing to worry about, you can have the rest of the day off if you like.”

She puts her hand on my shoulder and looks me in the eye. “Are you sure you don’t want me to stay. Maybe you will recant your offer later today.”

Recant my offer? Oh! I get it. It’s her word of the day and she thinks I’m going to go back on my word. “Honestly, Anika, you more than deserve a day off after filling in for me for so long.”

I reassure her that she can go and I set to work on clearing up the disaster hole that is my office. Once I’m finished tidying up I come out into the main cafe area fully expecting everyone to be gone by now.

I was wrong. There are a couple of people still here. Brenda is sweeping up some final remains in the kitchen area and the lifeguard boy has organised the table tops quite nicely.

“Oh hey, thanks so much for your help, Brenda. Really, you didn’t have to—”

“Nonsense, my dear,” she says, standing fully upright and stretching her back. “This is great exercise.”

She’s right about that. I’ve been sweating my face off all day and at this rate of perspiration I might just go in another notch on my belt!

“Talking of which, you haven’t even taken one of my classes at the Meli Spa yet.”

I’m slightly horrified by Brenda’s statement. She was there when I’d been electrocuted in that pool. Surely she doesn’t expect me to—

“I expect to see you tonight at eight sharpish.” She says, cutting off my thoughts of precisely the opposite ideas. “I’m doing a beginner’s tummy toning class which you could desperately use before the big day.” Brenda rudely eyeballs my middle. She then has the audacity to pat the bulge just below my newly cinched in belt.

Okay so admittedly my tummy fat still pooches out a bit, but I thought I’d done good having lost an entire jeans size this morning.

Leave it to Callum’s mum to crush my spirits instantly.

“I don’t think she needs to work out.”

The lifeguard boy has joined in on our wonderful little conversation about my fat.

“Thomas,” Brenda shakes a finger at the young man. “You wouldn’t know the first thing about a woman’s body and—”

“Okay!” I interrupt in attempts at saving myself from further embarrassment. “Thanks for your help today, but I need to run some errands now.”

Quickly, I start to shoo them out the back exit.

“I’m terribly sorry I brought Thomas along, Emily.” Brenda whispers to me behind the blonde boy’s back. “But he was so adamant about coming to help clear up today, why, he even jumped right into my car!”

That’s sounds familiar because it’s exactly what the lad had done after rescuing me from electrocution by swimming pool.

This kid is turning out to be some kind of freak, as far as I’m concerned. When he tries to kiss me good bye on the back stoop of my cafe, I’m more than pleased to slam the door shut in his face.

***



Taking a good look at my fingernails I decide they need fixing, fast. All the cafe clearing up has left me with torn cuticles and cracked tips. If I don’t let Tina down at the salon sort them out now with a manicure, my hands will be a mangled mess by wedding day.

Grabbing a bottle of water out of the fridge I take a swig and come up light headed. I really should grab something low calorie to eat, but I just don’t have time to stop by the store right now.

“Can you fit me in, Tina?” I gab to her on the phone.

“You’re in luck, we had a cancellation this morning.”

That is rather lucky. Normally I’d have to wait a week to get booked in at Tina’s beauty shop. “Thanks, I’ll pop in now.” I ring off and drive down to her salon. Upon opening the glass front door I’m smacked in the face by the smell of nail acrylic. I don’t mind the scent so much, it’s just that today I’ve already done a lot of strenuous work and I skipped lunch. My stomach knots up a bit and my head swims, but I carry on into the salon regardless. I figure I’ll get used to the smell eventually.

Tina gets to work on my hands with gentle oil products. “What have you done to your poor digits, darling?” She asks me. She’s got her black hair up in a bun and is wearing her trademark hot pink salon uniform today.

“I had a bit of cleaning up to do at the cafe today.”

“So it’s true then.” Tina looks astonished. “I heard your assistant went berserk and smashed up the place.”

I snort a laugh. “You’ve got to stop listening to salon gossip, Tina.” I reprimand her. “It was a berserk robot that actually smashed up my cafe.”

Now it’s Tina’s turn to laugh, and she does so with great gusto. “Who me stop listening to the latest goss? What else do you think there is to do around here?”

I shake my head. “Oh I don’t know, nails perhaps?”

As we both chuckle away we get some dirty looks from the other ladies at manicurist tables.

“Go on then,” I whisper more quietly. “Tell me the latest goss.”

Tina grins wickedly at me. “Well, if you truly want to know something horrific, I had a client come in the other day who had cuticles as bad off as your own.”

“Hey!” I take slight offense to that, but Tina shushes me with a gentle slap of her nail file on the back of my hand. As she continues to work on my nails, she carries on with the gossip.”

“I told the batty girl to get Savlon in the blue tube to help heal her cuticles. I told her that antiseptic rub was great for healing all sorts of skin problems.” Tina lowers her voice further and we both lean so closely together now we nearly bump foreheads. “Do you know what that daft girl did? I’ll tell you what she did. She bought Bonjella instead by accident because it’s also in a blue tube, and she used it on a more pressing matter that was bothering her worse than her torn cuticles. She put Bonjella on her sore *!”

Yanking my hand away from Tina’s grasp I have to smack it over my mouth to keep from bursting into laughter.

“Oh… oh my god,” I gasp, after finally composing myself. Tina is still giggling a bit. “That is so not funny. That must have hurt the poor girl so much!”

“You’re too bloody right it did. Bonjella is for lip ulcers, but not your nether-lips.”

This time I completely lose the plot and burst out laughing. I’m not even bothered about getting dirty looks. When I compose myself again I apologise to Tina. “Forget what I said about ignoring town gossip. From now on I’m coming in here weekly just to talk to you and have my spirits boosted.”

Tina looks at me. “A bit stressed about the wedding, are we?”

A bit stressed is putting it mildly. In combination with robot fiasco setbacks, I’d say my stressor levels are at cracking point.

“Well, I’ve got something to show you that might cheer you up.” Tina bellows at her colleague. “Stacy, bring in the new fangled thingy.”

The what angle whatty?

A blonde girl gets up from her seat at the till and heads down a corridor. When she returns I stand up immediately out of my seat. “All done, Tina.” I state, not as a question. “I’ll leave the twenty here.” Smacking a twenty pound note down onto her table, I run towards the front door.

“But…? I wanted to show you—”

I know exactly what it is Tina wants to show me, because it’s a salon trolley shaped robot that’s floating out of the corridor next to Stacy, and it’s heading straight towards me. “It’s okay, Tina. My nails look great now! I gotta go!”

And with that I take myself, my manicured fingernails and my newly growing fear of robots, out the door.

***



I put the salon robot out of my thoughts completely as I drive home. This bloody town is becoming infested with bots and if I don’t stop panicking about the floating devices, I really am going to lose my mind.

Upon arrival at home I head straight into the kitchen where I grab a banana to eat. I’m chowing down on the carbohydrate filled fruit, but I don’t care. I’m starving and light-headed after coming face to face with yet another robot. A banana is the only thing I do eat though, washed down with a bottle of water from the fridge.

Shaking off guilt pangs of ingesting such a high carb fruit, I dash upstairs. Grabbing as many clothes as I can fit into my arms from the wardrobe, I run back out of the house and shove everything into the car. I’m taking my clothes to Mia’s haberdashery. She’s good friends with, and supplies most of Lara’s bridal gown accessories. Mia also does regular clothing alterations, unlike Lara who only alters wedding apparel.

I’m so chuffed that my clothes actually need taking in that I don’t think twice about the last stupid new robot I almost met today. At least, I wasn’t thinking about robots until noticing there’s yet another bot now in the vicinity.

I’ve barely taken two steps inside Mia’s shop and already I’m confronting a hovering robot.

Of course she has one of Oliver’s bots. Like I was contemplating before, this town is definitely being overrun by mechanical gadgetry.

Dumping my armful of clothes onto the countertop, I steer clear of the tub shaped robot. “Can you take these in by, like, one inch?”

Mia is standing behind the wide counter. “I could, but then they probably wouldn’t fit right.” She comes around the cutting tables and whips a measuring tape off from around her neck. Like Tina’s hair, Mia’s black locks are swept up into a messy bun. However, I have a feeling her hair is being kept in place not by clips, but by all the pens and knitting needles she’s got stuck in there at odd angles.

“My, my.” Mia smiles and the two sewing needles she had stuck between her lips, fall to the floor. “Someone’s lost weight.” She’s pushing at my waist with her hands while poking at the measuring tape she’s wrapped around my middle. “You, bot!” She suddenly shouts. “Take note of these measurements.”

With a whirl and a few clicks the tub shaped robot lights up and floats nearer to us. My hackles are raised and my body stiffens the closer the bot gets. “Relax, Emily.” Mia says. “Your shoulders are tense and messing up my measurements.”

Difficult as it is to relax my shot nerves with a possibly maniacal robot close by, I manage to relax my shoulders a bit. Mia dictates measurements to her tub bot who bleeps in response each time. If I hadn’t had such incredibly horrific interactions with every robot I’ve met thus far, I’d be tempted to say Mia’s bot is quite cute. When the thing belches a sudden spark through its undercarriage though, I change my mind quickly.

“Is that all the measurements you need?” I back away from Mia just as she wraps her measuring tape around her neck.

“Yep, finished. I’ll take in your clothes by two inches and you can pick them up in a couple of days.”

I’ve already got my hand on the door, but when Mia says this I turn back around. “Two whole inches?” I’m positively ecstatic when she nods in reply. This time when I leave the presence of a new robot, I’m not burdened with fear of the thing because I’m positively brimming with the news that I’ve lost two inches off my curvy personage!