~BBW, Eating, Introspection, Romance, ~SWG -an itroverted librarian expands in more ways than one
Part One
"Excuse me," the man said, "where are the books on Vedic thought?"
Carly, at the library's issuing counter, shot him half a glance. She saw grey hair, probably a greying brain, nothing of interest.
"Ask at the enquiry desk over there," she said, pointing vaguely to her left, where her superiors sat looking helpful and interested, ferreting out facts, checking books and databases. They'd know what Vedic thought was.
Carly yawned. Quite why she'd trained to become a library assistant was now beyond her, especially on Monday mornings. At the time it had seemed something useful. It was safe, not too taxing. She liked reading, and order. She'd been told at school she had neat handwriting. It made some kind of sense.
But oh, the boredom of it. The hours of sitting on her bony backside in this concrete bunker in the heart of London, blankly serving the clientele -- office workers, pensioners, students, the homeless sheltering from the rain -- passing the magic pen over barcodes, saying "There's a thirty pence fine on this one"! Or, worst of all, shelving. The curse of shelving! It was their first chore of the day; that and straightening, aligning the books so their spines matched, at least for a few minutes before the public arrived. She liked a neat row of books as much as anyone, but wasn't it fruitless? What was the name of that Greek mythical chap who spent eternity pushing a rock up a hill only to see the rock roll down and the process start all over again? Sisyphus, that was it. Well that was her life, at the age of 24.
The only good thing about shelving and straightening was the gossiping. The girls - Abby, Donna, Ellen, Jenna, Lorna, Ruth, Zuleika, an alphabet soup -- would chat about the night before: what they did, where they went, troubles with boyfriends. Not that Carly had anything to report. She was reasonably pretty, medium height, slim (all the library girls were slim), with ash blonde hair sometimes tied in a ponytail tuft, sometimes cascading down to her neck. But there were no boyfriends. No meaningful company at home either, not even a cat that clawed furniture: just a rented flat in the suburbs shared with the unprepossessing Natalie -- two small bedrooms, a sitting room with a portable TV, an empty fridge. Food never interested her, as her figure showed: breasts no bigger than door-knobs, hips that scarcely existed, slender limbs. 119 pounds of skin and bone, usually draped in drab colours: pale green, grey. Behind her back they called her the Mouse.
But today, as Carly sat at the front desk, she had something positive to think about. America. Marriage had whisked her sister Sandra off to Chicago two years before, and she had booked her ticket for a visit. She'd wanted to go before, but there was a fear of flying to conquer. So much water to fly over. So far to fall. No, no, she couldn't. But Sandra kept nagging. Resistance worn down, Carly had finally said yes.
Borrowers lined up to take out their books - Elvis biographies, light fiction, out-of-date computer manuals. Carly never caught their eye. She was busy imagining graceful skyscrapers, fridges big enough to live in, police sirens screaming: images from the movies and TV, the only America she knew.
"Apparently you don't have any books on Vedic thought." It was that man again, on his way out, empty-handed. He was smiling.
"Oh," Carly said. She couldn't have cared less.
*****
On board her nerves became agitated and her spirits plummeted. So many couples, families, business people bristling with purpose. And here she was, alone, with only platitudes from family and people she never cared about to send her on her way. Her ice-cold father, on the phone, had mumbled "Bon voyage". Her mother had advised caution crossing roads.
"Have a good time!" library colleagues had said, showing no enthusiasm.
"I'll try," she'd replied, the voice flat, as it usually was.
Even when embarking on an adventure Carly seemed disconnected from life. Something had died in her: curiosity, a sense of fun, squeezed out by parents who only excelled at instilling guilt and sabotaging self-confidence. Over time shyness had become withdrawal, nervousness timidity. On the plane she sat fingering the in-flight magazine, finding fault with the page numbering, looking with an outsider's gaze at the adverts featuring bodies far more bronzed and attractive, she felt, than hers. The main meal she actually enjoyed; it was bland, small, just the
right size. The movies she couldn't be bothered with.
Sandra met her at the airport; the elder sister with the get up and go, who got up and did the adult things, like getting married, moving continents, finding freelance work in publishing. They hugged. Carly noticed that she had put on weight; she found it somehow unsettling.
"Is that all your luggage?" Sandra said, jowl flickering round her face, looking at Carly's battered suitcase.
"I'm only here for two weeks."
They went quickly. Sandra took time off to take her sister round the obvious sites, the art galleries, Sears Tower, Lincoln Park Zoo. But Carly was happy enough aimlessly walking downtown. "Everything's so big," she kept on saying. The buildings. The cars. The fridges: Sandra, as she expected, had a whopper. And the food portions; Carly had to tiptoe around menus, choosing what she hoped were the tiniest, most calorie-free meals.
And the coffee shops! In London Carly was never inclined to go into them. But here a sit-down and a drink seemed the perfect pick-me-up after a slog round the museums.
"What's this?" Carly said, sipping a dark drink in a tall glass topped off with cream. Sandra had whisked her off to an old-fashioned place, the Cherry Tree Restaurant, and had insisted on ordering.
"You don't know the taste?"
"I never have anything like this. Dad would call it "surplus to requirements"."
"You really don't know? My God, Carly, it's chocolate."
She stretched back into childhood memories. She saw the dining table, and the family eating in silence. She saw the Christmas chocolate box, the usual gift from their Auntie Delia, and her father launching into a sermon on tooth decay.
"It's been so long," she murmured.
"You've got to start living, Carly. The problem is you let our parents stifle you."
"You had self-confidence. You weren't the baby of the family. And you could swim."
Another memory returned. She saw herself, spindly and twelve, being held in her father's grip at the local swimming pool. There was the water, turquoise with chemicals; the dolphins curling on the wall tiles; the municipal crest with its Latin motto.
"Enough of the rubber ring," her father was shouting. She was kicking her legs, splashing up a storm. He was going to dump her into the water, she knew. She was going to slip through his fingers into her grave.
"Some apple pie would go nicely with that hot chocolate!" It was their Cherry Tree waitress, hovering with a smile.
"No, I better not."
"Oh come on," cried Sandra, "you don't need to watch your weight. You're not a model. You could do with gaining a few pounds."
Carly, snapped out of her reverie and blushed. She was embarrassed enough by her body as it was; but the thought of her breasts, her waist, her limbs and face fattening up was too much to contemplate.
"Oh I don't think so," she said, trying to avoid her sister's eyes. One chubby face in the family was enough.
It was colder in Chicago than Carly had expected, and she soon realised she needed more fuel than salads and carrot soups.
"You need to go native!" Sandra kept saying. One day Carly ventured into the avant-garde and ordered a Royal Canadian Mounted Burger. She felt, she said, like she'd eaten a horseshoe. Sandra also coaxed her into fruit pies, pecan pies, served with vanilla ice cream. And often at some corner of the day, chocolate.
"Why don't you marry an American and move here! What's keeping you in London?" It was a suggestion Sandra kept making. Carly would always shift uncomfortably, only too aware of her barren life: a dull job, a poky place to live, social contacts bordering on zero.
"I couldn't do that," she said. "Besides, who'd marry me? No-one even likes me."
They were back at the Cherry Tree. She looked about to cry.
"Carly!" -- Sandra held her hand gently -- "I don't say this to hurt you, but -- you don't let people like you. People need a way in. So often you've got the drawbridge down. You're closed for business. Open yourself up!"
Carly stirred her chocolate drink with the spoon.
"Oh I don't know," she said, half-heartedly. "I've just got no experience with men, with 'business'."
"Any desserts today? Apple pie?" said the waitress.
"Yes please," said Carly suddenly.
*****
"I suppose you found it all rather strange," her mother drawled on the phone. "Did you watch out crossing the roads? Easy to forget they drive on the wrong side."
"It's the other side, mother, it's not necessarily wrong. Yes, I took care." She was tired, dead tired; overnight flight, the long haul from the airport, and now the dreaded phone call home.
"Did the suitcase hold out? How was Sandra?"
"Blooming. She's gained a bit of --"
"Oops, can't talk any more. Got to go to church. I'm sure your father would like a word, but he's up a ladder painting the kitchen ceiling."
Carly was left holding the receiver, wondering where love went. For a minute she sat fingering the phone, looking at the dingy wallpaper the landlord wouldn't allow them to change, at the ugly table lamp with the raffia shade, the carpet coffee stain shaped like Australia. She tried to blot out the bedroom sounds of Natalie's rock music, thumping, grinding. And then she looked at the day ahead: Monday, work day, back to the library, running a pen over bar codes. "Oh well," she sighed to herself. "At least I've been away."
"I've had a good time," she announced as she hung up her jacket in the staff locker. She thought she'd better chip in first, in case no-one noticed her return.
"That's good," said Ruth, a brunette beanpole, the closest she had to a friend at work. "You've been shopping, I see."
Underneath her loose grey cardigan, Carly was wearing an orange sweatshirt, an impulse buy at the airport. "I LOVE CHICAGO," the lettering said, right across her chest.
"It's a little different. Not your usual style."
Oh God, Carly thought, confidence sinking. That means it looks awful.
"What did you do in Chicago?" Jenna poked in, bright and malicious, face like a shrimp. "Go to any libraries, did you?"
She tried to think of a smart answer, but her imagination failed. "I did things, went to places, restaurants, museums, the zoo..."
The chief librarian, Mr Tregaskin, swept through with his clipboard. Gossip over. Time to work. Carly looked at the day's rota. One hour checking databases. Two hours checking incoming books. Drudgery.
She sat in the library's back offices, scrolling down the computer screen, books piled neatly by her side. Ordinarily Carly faded into the scenery, hair and cardigans hard to spot among filing cabinets and the fluorescent lights' glare. Today she stood out. The sweatshirt helped; but there was something else, a spark of electricity that made colleagues take notice. Hair worn down, she even looked faintly seraphic.
"Carly's a bit perkier than usual," Ruth said, sharing her lunchtime with Jenna and an egg and watercress sandwich. "And she's actually wearing a bright colour."
Jenna made a grimace. "Underneath her cardigan, Ruth, not on top."
"It's a start, isn't it? And do you think she's gained a few pounds?"
"Can't say I've noticed. I don't look too closely at the Mouse."
"Maybe it's my imagination. I just thought she'd filled out a bit in the face."
"To put on weight, Carly would have to enjoy her food. It's hard to think of her enjoying anything. Anyway, who cares?"
"You really don't like her, do you?"
Jenna drained her black coffee and shrugged. "What's there to like? She never talks, and when she does she sounds like a zombie. Coming for a smoke?"
Lunchtime brought a rush of borrowers. Carly sat at the front desk, checking the books in and out. Ordinarily her eyes scarcely strayed from the date stamp; today they managed at least half a glance at the book titles and customers. Pensioners with hospital romances, one book indistinguishable from the other: "Nurse Cartwright's Big Night", "Heartglow in Ward 7b". "25 Ways to Boost Your Confidence" ("Maybe," she thought, "I should borrow that"), "Sleeping Rough in Tunisia". But who was returning "I'll Take Vanilla: A Social History of Ice Cream"?
It was a vaguely familiar face. Then the penny dropped. Vedic thought. He seemed shy. And not old at all; his hair, she realised, only had a little patch of grey, a premature burst around one ear. Kind of cute, in a way. "Thank you, that's fine," she said routinely, only to find him staring intently, a little longer than politeness allowed. As soon as their eyes met he turned away, awkward, embarrassed.
"What on earth was he staring at?" Carly wondered. "Do I have a smudge?" She checked her face in her hand mirror during lunch. She could see nothing.
It was a long day. She still felt jet-lagged. And her bones ached. Cooped up in a plane, and now sitting at work. She needed exercise. More than that, she needed a soak in a bath. In Chicago Sandra could only offer a shower: brisk and efficient, but not the place to linger. And besides, Carly had kept thinking of "Psycho".
Before catching her bus home, Carly roamed the supermarket shelves, looking for a bath lotion. Nothing too fragrant or sexy, she thought: just enough silky bubbles to refresh. "Evening Primrose" seemed the answer. Also some food shopping: spaghetti, tomato sauce, enough for a quick meal. Spotting chocolate bars by the tills, she scooped up a couple.
"Might come in handy," she thought.
Her bath was not enormous: with a pea-sized bathroom how could it be? But it was long enough for her to lie reasonably flat, the knees slightly bent. She stayed still for ten minutes, limbs and torso poking through the bubbles, and let the memories of her holiday play in her head. Then she eased herself up, soap in hand. Progressing downwards from her shoulders, past her arms, her breasts, onto her stomach, a thought gradually took hold.
Her body felt different. Instead of rib bones and hard surfaces, she now felt a little layer of fat, covering her stomach like a winter blanket. Just below her navel, she could pucker up the flesh in her fingers. She could do the same to the sides of her waist. It was very odd, like feeling the body of a different person. Curiosity mounting, she advanced to her thighs. No change there at least; slim and contained as ever, weren't they? Weren't they? She hesitated. No: on reflection they too seemed a fraction fleshier. Nervous now, soap discarded, she returned to her breasts, holding them in her hands. Still the same door knobs. But did they have this little bounce before? Door knobs don't bounce.
She had put on some weight, that was obvious. She recognised why; a body used to the minimum intake doesn't suddenly start feasting without something happening. Towards the end of her stay in America she thought her jeans felt tighter than usual around her waist, but had let the thought go. Was this how it had started with Sandra: the hand on the body, feeling the tummy's cushion of fat, seeing the pounds sitting there, winking?
How much had she gained? Three pounds? Ten pounds? There was no way to tell. They had no bathroom scales at the flat. Before stepping out of the bath, she gave her tummy a little rub, fingers gliding over the skin. Was it the fat that made it feel so soft, or the "Evening Primrose" bubbles, or both? She felt perplexed and vulnerable. She was afraid of change, and her body had changed. Something forbidden had taken place. Towelling herself down, she cursed their lack of a full-length mirror to check her physique, but felt vaguely reassured. Her frame was still slim; a few extra pounds here and there surely wouldn't make much difference?
By the time she had dried her hair and dressed, Natalie had returned from her law offices -- she answered the phone and shuffled papers around -- and was fussing about in the kitchen.
"What's this?" Natalie said sharply, finding the chocolate bars on the kitchen table. They might as well have been rock samples from Mars.
Carly felt herself colouring. "I got them for work. Shall we have a little pasta?"
"That's fine. It's been a pig of a day." Natalie kicked off her boots. "The phones rang like crazy. I lost an entire file of correspondence. And nobody noticed my new suit."
And as the spaghetti cooked on the stove, the question Carly was afraid to ask finally emerged. "Natalie -- do you think I've put on weight?"
"Not that I can see." She looked again. "Why, do you think you have?"
"Just wondering. I was eating a bit more on holiday, that's all."
"Back to the normal routine now, though."
"That's right." Carly stirred the spaghetti in the saucepan. She felt relieved. It wasn't noticeable.
COMPANY'S COMING
By Swordfish
By Swordfish
Part One
"Excuse me," the man said, "where are the books on Vedic thought?"
Carly, at the library's issuing counter, shot him half a glance. She saw grey hair, probably a greying brain, nothing of interest.
"Ask at the enquiry desk over there," she said, pointing vaguely to her left, where her superiors sat looking helpful and interested, ferreting out facts, checking books and databases. They'd know what Vedic thought was.
Carly yawned. Quite why she'd trained to become a library assistant was now beyond her, especially on Monday mornings. At the time it had seemed something useful. It was safe, not too taxing. She liked reading, and order. She'd been told at school she had neat handwriting. It made some kind of sense.
But oh, the boredom of it. The hours of sitting on her bony backside in this concrete bunker in the heart of London, blankly serving the clientele -- office workers, pensioners, students, the homeless sheltering from the rain -- passing the magic pen over barcodes, saying "There's a thirty pence fine on this one"! Or, worst of all, shelving. The curse of shelving! It was their first chore of the day; that and straightening, aligning the books so their spines matched, at least for a few minutes before the public arrived. She liked a neat row of books as much as anyone, but wasn't it fruitless? What was the name of that Greek mythical chap who spent eternity pushing a rock up a hill only to see the rock roll down and the process start all over again? Sisyphus, that was it. Well that was her life, at the age of 24.
The only good thing about shelving and straightening was the gossiping. The girls - Abby, Donna, Ellen, Jenna, Lorna, Ruth, Zuleika, an alphabet soup -- would chat about the night before: what they did, where they went, troubles with boyfriends. Not that Carly had anything to report. She was reasonably pretty, medium height, slim (all the library girls were slim), with ash blonde hair sometimes tied in a ponytail tuft, sometimes cascading down to her neck. But there were no boyfriends. No meaningful company at home either, not even a cat that clawed furniture: just a rented flat in the suburbs shared with the unprepossessing Natalie -- two small bedrooms, a sitting room with a portable TV, an empty fridge. Food never interested her, as her figure showed: breasts no bigger than door-knobs, hips that scarcely existed, slender limbs. 119 pounds of skin and bone, usually draped in drab colours: pale green, grey. Behind her back they called her the Mouse.
But today, as Carly sat at the front desk, she had something positive to think about. America. Marriage had whisked her sister Sandra off to Chicago two years before, and she had booked her ticket for a visit. She'd wanted to go before, but there was a fear of flying to conquer. So much water to fly over. So far to fall. No, no, she couldn't. But Sandra kept nagging. Resistance worn down, Carly had finally said yes.
Borrowers lined up to take out their books - Elvis biographies, light fiction, out-of-date computer manuals. Carly never caught their eye. She was busy imagining graceful skyscrapers, fridges big enough to live in, police sirens screaming: images from the movies and TV, the only America she knew.
"Apparently you don't have any books on Vedic thought." It was that man again, on his way out, empty-handed. He was smiling.
"Oh," Carly said. She couldn't have cared less.
*****
On board her nerves became agitated and her spirits plummeted. So many couples, families, business people bristling with purpose. And here she was, alone, with only platitudes from family and people she never cared about to send her on her way. Her ice-cold father, on the phone, had mumbled "Bon voyage". Her mother had advised caution crossing roads.
"Have a good time!" library colleagues had said, showing no enthusiasm.
"I'll try," she'd replied, the voice flat, as it usually was.
Even when embarking on an adventure Carly seemed disconnected from life. Something had died in her: curiosity, a sense of fun, squeezed out by parents who only excelled at instilling guilt and sabotaging self-confidence. Over time shyness had become withdrawal, nervousness timidity. On the plane she sat fingering the in-flight magazine, finding fault with the page numbering, looking with an outsider's gaze at the adverts featuring bodies far more bronzed and attractive, she felt, than hers. The main meal she actually enjoyed; it was bland, small, just the
right size. The movies she couldn't be bothered with.
Sandra met her at the airport; the elder sister with the get up and go, who got up and did the adult things, like getting married, moving continents, finding freelance work in publishing. They hugged. Carly noticed that she had put on weight; she found it somehow unsettling.
"Is that all your luggage?" Sandra said, jowl flickering round her face, looking at Carly's battered suitcase.
"I'm only here for two weeks."
They went quickly. Sandra took time off to take her sister round the obvious sites, the art galleries, Sears Tower, Lincoln Park Zoo. But Carly was happy enough aimlessly walking downtown. "Everything's so big," she kept on saying. The buildings. The cars. The fridges: Sandra, as she expected, had a whopper. And the food portions; Carly had to tiptoe around menus, choosing what she hoped were the tiniest, most calorie-free meals.
And the coffee shops! In London Carly was never inclined to go into them. But here a sit-down and a drink seemed the perfect pick-me-up after a slog round the museums.
"What's this?" Carly said, sipping a dark drink in a tall glass topped off with cream. Sandra had whisked her off to an old-fashioned place, the Cherry Tree Restaurant, and had insisted on ordering.
"You don't know the taste?"
"I never have anything like this. Dad would call it "surplus to requirements"."
"You really don't know? My God, Carly, it's chocolate."
She stretched back into childhood memories. She saw the dining table, and the family eating in silence. She saw the Christmas chocolate box, the usual gift from their Auntie Delia, and her father launching into a sermon on tooth decay.
"It's been so long," she murmured.
"You've got to start living, Carly. The problem is you let our parents stifle you."
"You had self-confidence. You weren't the baby of the family. And you could swim."
Another memory returned. She saw herself, spindly and twelve, being held in her father's grip at the local swimming pool. There was the water, turquoise with chemicals; the dolphins curling on the wall tiles; the municipal crest with its Latin motto.
"Enough of the rubber ring," her father was shouting. She was kicking her legs, splashing up a storm. He was going to dump her into the water, she knew. She was going to slip through his fingers into her grave.
"Some apple pie would go nicely with that hot chocolate!" It was their Cherry Tree waitress, hovering with a smile.
"No, I better not."
"Oh come on," cried Sandra, "you don't need to watch your weight. You're not a model. You could do with gaining a few pounds."
Carly, snapped out of her reverie and blushed. She was embarrassed enough by her body as it was; but the thought of her breasts, her waist, her limbs and face fattening up was too much to contemplate.
"Oh I don't think so," she said, trying to avoid her sister's eyes. One chubby face in the family was enough.
It was colder in Chicago than Carly had expected, and she soon realised she needed more fuel than salads and carrot soups.
"You need to go native!" Sandra kept saying. One day Carly ventured into the avant-garde and ordered a Royal Canadian Mounted Burger. She felt, she said, like she'd eaten a horseshoe. Sandra also coaxed her into fruit pies, pecan pies, served with vanilla ice cream. And often at some corner of the day, chocolate.
"Why don't you marry an American and move here! What's keeping you in London?" It was a suggestion Sandra kept making. Carly would always shift uncomfortably, only too aware of her barren life: a dull job, a poky place to live, social contacts bordering on zero.
"I couldn't do that," she said. "Besides, who'd marry me? No-one even likes me."
They were back at the Cherry Tree. She looked about to cry.
"Carly!" -- Sandra held her hand gently -- "I don't say this to hurt you, but -- you don't let people like you. People need a way in. So often you've got the drawbridge down. You're closed for business. Open yourself up!"
Carly stirred her chocolate drink with the spoon.
"Oh I don't know," she said, half-heartedly. "I've just got no experience with men, with 'business'."
"Any desserts today? Apple pie?" said the waitress.
"Yes please," said Carly suddenly.
*****
"I suppose you found it all rather strange," her mother drawled on the phone. "Did you watch out crossing the roads? Easy to forget they drive on the wrong side."
"It's the other side, mother, it's not necessarily wrong. Yes, I took care." She was tired, dead tired; overnight flight, the long haul from the airport, and now the dreaded phone call home.
"Did the suitcase hold out? How was Sandra?"
"Blooming. She's gained a bit of --"
"Oops, can't talk any more. Got to go to church. I'm sure your father would like a word, but he's up a ladder painting the kitchen ceiling."
Carly was left holding the receiver, wondering where love went. For a minute she sat fingering the phone, looking at the dingy wallpaper the landlord wouldn't allow them to change, at the ugly table lamp with the raffia shade, the carpet coffee stain shaped like Australia. She tried to blot out the bedroom sounds of Natalie's rock music, thumping, grinding. And then she looked at the day ahead: Monday, work day, back to the library, running a pen over bar codes. "Oh well," she sighed to herself. "At least I've been away."
"I've had a good time," she announced as she hung up her jacket in the staff locker. She thought she'd better chip in first, in case no-one noticed her return.
"That's good," said Ruth, a brunette beanpole, the closest she had to a friend at work. "You've been shopping, I see."
Underneath her loose grey cardigan, Carly was wearing an orange sweatshirt, an impulse buy at the airport. "I LOVE CHICAGO," the lettering said, right across her chest.
"It's a little different. Not your usual style."
Oh God, Carly thought, confidence sinking. That means it looks awful.
"What did you do in Chicago?" Jenna poked in, bright and malicious, face like a shrimp. "Go to any libraries, did you?"
She tried to think of a smart answer, but her imagination failed. "I did things, went to places, restaurants, museums, the zoo..."
The chief librarian, Mr Tregaskin, swept through with his clipboard. Gossip over. Time to work. Carly looked at the day's rota. One hour checking databases. Two hours checking incoming books. Drudgery.
She sat in the library's back offices, scrolling down the computer screen, books piled neatly by her side. Ordinarily Carly faded into the scenery, hair and cardigans hard to spot among filing cabinets and the fluorescent lights' glare. Today she stood out. The sweatshirt helped; but there was something else, a spark of electricity that made colleagues take notice. Hair worn down, she even looked faintly seraphic.
"Carly's a bit perkier than usual," Ruth said, sharing her lunchtime with Jenna and an egg and watercress sandwich. "And she's actually wearing a bright colour."
Jenna made a grimace. "Underneath her cardigan, Ruth, not on top."
"It's a start, isn't it? And do you think she's gained a few pounds?"
"Can't say I've noticed. I don't look too closely at the Mouse."
"Maybe it's my imagination. I just thought she'd filled out a bit in the face."
"To put on weight, Carly would have to enjoy her food. It's hard to think of her enjoying anything. Anyway, who cares?"
"You really don't like her, do you?"
Jenna drained her black coffee and shrugged. "What's there to like? She never talks, and when she does she sounds like a zombie. Coming for a smoke?"
Lunchtime brought a rush of borrowers. Carly sat at the front desk, checking the books in and out. Ordinarily her eyes scarcely strayed from the date stamp; today they managed at least half a glance at the book titles and customers. Pensioners with hospital romances, one book indistinguishable from the other: "Nurse Cartwright's Big Night", "Heartglow in Ward 7b". "25 Ways to Boost Your Confidence" ("Maybe," she thought, "I should borrow that"), "Sleeping Rough in Tunisia". But who was returning "I'll Take Vanilla: A Social History of Ice Cream"?
It was a vaguely familiar face. Then the penny dropped. Vedic thought. He seemed shy. And not old at all; his hair, she realised, only had a little patch of grey, a premature burst around one ear. Kind of cute, in a way. "Thank you, that's fine," she said routinely, only to find him staring intently, a little longer than politeness allowed. As soon as their eyes met he turned away, awkward, embarrassed.
"What on earth was he staring at?" Carly wondered. "Do I have a smudge?" She checked her face in her hand mirror during lunch. She could see nothing.
It was a long day. She still felt jet-lagged. And her bones ached. Cooped up in a plane, and now sitting at work. She needed exercise. More than that, she needed a soak in a bath. In Chicago Sandra could only offer a shower: brisk and efficient, but not the place to linger. And besides, Carly had kept thinking of "Psycho".
Before catching her bus home, Carly roamed the supermarket shelves, looking for a bath lotion. Nothing too fragrant or sexy, she thought: just enough silky bubbles to refresh. "Evening Primrose" seemed the answer. Also some food shopping: spaghetti, tomato sauce, enough for a quick meal. Spotting chocolate bars by the tills, she scooped up a couple.
"Might come in handy," she thought.
Her bath was not enormous: with a pea-sized bathroom how could it be? But it was long enough for her to lie reasonably flat, the knees slightly bent. She stayed still for ten minutes, limbs and torso poking through the bubbles, and let the memories of her holiday play in her head. Then she eased herself up, soap in hand. Progressing downwards from her shoulders, past her arms, her breasts, onto her stomach, a thought gradually took hold.
Her body felt different. Instead of rib bones and hard surfaces, she now felt a little layer of fat, covering her stomach like a winter blanket. Just below her navel, she could pucker up the flesh in her fingers. She could do the same to the sides of her waist. It was very odd, like feeling the body of a different person. Curiosity mounting, she advanced to her thighs. No change there at least; slim and contained as ever, weren't they? Weren't they? She hesitated. No: on reflection they too seemed a fraction fleshier. Nervous now, soap discarded, she returned to her breasts, holding them in her hands. Still the same door knobs. But did they have this little bounce before? Door knobs don't bounce.
She had put on some weight, that was obvious. She recognised why; a body used to the minimum intake doesn't suddenly start feasting without something happening. Towards the end of her stay in America she thought her jeans felt tighter than usual around her waist, but had let the thought go. Was this how it had started with Sandra: the hand on the body, feeling the tummy's cushion of fat, seeing the pounds sitting there, winking?
How much had she gained? Three pounds? Ten pounds? There was no way to tell. They had no bathroom scales at the flat. Before stepping out of the bath, she gave her tummy a little rub, fingers gliding over the skin. Was it the fat that made it feel so soft, or the "Evening Primrose" bubbles, or both? She felt perplexed and vulnerable. She was afraid of change, and her body had changed. Something forbidden had taken place. Towelling herself down, she cursed their lack of a full-length mirror to check her physique, but felt vaguely reassured. Her frame was still slim; a few extra pounds here and there surely wouldn't make much difference?
By the time she had dried her hair and dressed, Natalie had returned from her law offices -- she answered the phone and shuffled papers around -- and was fussing about in the kitchen.
"What's this?" Natalie said sharply, finding the chocolate bars on the kitchen table. They might as well have been rock samples from Mars.
Carly felt herself colouring. "I got them for work. Shall we have a little pasta?"
"That's fine. It's been a pig of a day." Natalie kicked off her boots. "The phones rang like crazy. I lost an entire file of correspondence. And nobody noticed my new suit."
And as the spaghetti cooked on the stove, the question Carly was afraid to ask finally emerged. "Natalie -- do you think I've put on weight?"
"Not that I can see." She looked again. "Why, do you think you have?"
"Just wondering. I was eating a bit more on holiday, that's all."
"Back to the normal routine now, though."
"That's right." Carly stirred the spaghetti in the saucepan. She felt relieved. It wasn't noticeable.
