Total pages in book: 29
Estimated words: 26959 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 135(@200wpm)___ 108(@250wpm)___ 90(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 26959 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 135(@200wpm)___ 108(@250wpm)___ 90(@300wpm)
Still, who cares? Again, we work in industries where image is everything, and my boyfriend is an expert at projecting a dominant alpha male vibe, with his brooding blue eyes, dark-as-night hair, and muscular physique. Does it matter if we’ve never actually slept together? In the eyes of the public, I’m dating a powerful male celebrity who’s growly and possessive, with millions at his fingertips.
So I smile again while trying to summon the goddess within.
“Okay. Will do,” I say. “Got it. We’re channeling Victoria’s Secret.”
Still, personally, I feel the designers are reading the era wrong. I thought the Victoria’s Secret look was out, with its big, bouncy hair and emphasis on the color pink. But judging from the excitement outside, this is exactly what the brand wants. La Bianca seeks to project sexy, feminine, and curvy girls who fill out their swimsuits with wide, swinging hips as opposed to thin, scrawny girls with the frames of twelve-year old boys. Again, I should be grateful to be here at all.
“Look alive, Ainsley,” Justin hisses from the corner of his mouth, as I wait in a line of girls waiting to go onstage. “It’s almost your turn.”
I nod in the shadows, my heart beating rapidly. You can do this, the voice in my head encourages. So what if your boyfriend sucks? He’s annoying, but he’s right. Smile, stand tall, and show them what you’re made of because this could be your big break as a plus-size model, Ainsley.
Then, it’s my turn in the spotlight. An assistant beckons to me, pulling the curtain open.
“Ainsley O’Lachlan,” he mutters, checking his clipboard. “It’s all you! Go get ‘em, girl!”
With that, I step out from behind the curtain and into the spotlight. It’s as bad as I thought. I’m temporarily blinded from the bright lights in my face, but the assistant hisses at me again.
“Go, go, go! Go!”
Ah yes. La Bianca is paying me to strut my stuff down the runway in their clothing, so I better get to it. I smile even wider, still unable to see, and begin to stalk down the runway with confidence and verve. It’s so bright, though, that the audience is just a mass of dark shapes as flashes explode at the far end, photographing my curvy form.
I suppose it is flattering in some ways. I grew up a bigger girl, and no amount of dieting and exercise could “fix” it. After my parents died, things got even worse. I ate to soothe my sadness, and ate even more to counter the despair. I ballooned in size until I was considered medically obese, and it wasn’t until my doctor stepped in that things turned around.
“We need to get your sister help,” he told my brother Patrick. My big bro is almost twenty years older than me, and was already an adult when our parents passed. It was natural that he became my guardian, looking out for me as a parent more than a sibling.
“What do you mean?” Patrick asked the doctor, his black brows lowered. “Ainsley looks fine to me.”
The doctor shook his head and clucked, his voice hushed as if that would prevent me from over-hearing.
“No, Ainsley is medically overweight and could stand an intervention. An early intervention,” he stressed. “Your sister is only in her pre-teens, and by teaching good eating habits, as well as the benefits of staying active, we may be able to curb her weight gain.”
“What are you talking about?” my brother demanded. “Of course she’s going to gain weight! She’s still growing.”
“Yes, but the weight is coming on too fast. I can show you growth charts, Mr. O’Lachlan, so you get a better sense of what girls her age weigh, and where Ainsley is on that scale. In fact, our growth charts can be mapped over time, and you’ll see that Ainsley has been gaining too much weight, too fast.”
My brother looked livid, but he managed a curt nod of acknowledgment. I never loved Patrick more than at that moment because my brother’s always been protective of me. He’s always tried to shield me from the unfairness of the world, although of course, he couldn’t shield me from our parents’ death. But my older brother did everything in his power to protect me, and has never stopped although I’m now in my early 20’s. I suppose I’ll always be a little girl in his eyes, needing care, comfort, and oversight, and it’s not so bad. At least Patrick didn’t die too, in the horrific car accident that claimed our parents’ lives.
But the long and the short of it is that when I was a pre-teen, I joined the equivalent of a Weight Watchers Junior in Ireland, with carefully scored “points” for different foods, as well as support meetings and weekly weigh-ins. They sucked, and I hated being there with a room full of girls just as miserable as me because we were allegedly “too fat for society.” Even worse, the program didn’t work for me. I carefully tabulated my food points, did my “quality workouts” as prescribed by the program, and monitored my sleep, breathing, and heart-rate, in addition to my monthly cycle. But all it did was the opposite! If anything, the stress and anxiety from being on a diet made me eat more, and I gained more weight, to the chagrin of my doctor.