all looking at the events. Do you want me to send you weekly stats?’
‘Only if you translate them first.’
‘Don’t worry, I won’t blind you with science. I can text you the number of unique visitors and the number of people who’ve signed up for events each week.’
‘How many people signed up this week?’
He held up his finger, took out his phone and started texting.
My phone pinged.
196 signups, 700 unique views. Next update in a week. Rob
‘You couldn’t just tell me?’
‘If this is a business, we should follow protocol.’
‘What does protocol say about more coffee?’
‘I’d need to check the handbook but I think it says we should have lunch if we’re going to go to the wine tasting at three. I’m pretty sure that section was amended after what you told me about last time.’
I knew I shouldn’t have told him the details about the club’s first wine tasting last month, when I’d made the mistake of not eating beforehand. The hotel’s sommelier, a dapper Frenchman with handlebar moustaches, had poured me a glass of bubbly when I arrived. I’d felt very Continental, swanning around the grand rooms to check on the arrangements. But planning events for the club was a little trickier than doing it for ladies-who-lunched. London socialites demanded low-GI food or a certain brand of bottled water. Our clients needed wide doorways (for the occasional mobility scooter) and sturdy chairs. We didn’t want anyone crashing to the ground amidst the splinters of Louis XVI furniture.
The hotel had followed our instructions to the letter – sturdy banqueting chairs surrounded the enormous polished wood table. Armless and indestructible, they were the overweight person’s friend.
So there hadn’t been much to do in the hour before the guests arrived except flirt with the sommelier, whose accent was pant-strippingly sexy. By the time everyone turned up we’d finished most of the first bottle.
I fell off my chair some time around the Loire Valley Chenin Blancs. I’d hardly felt the bump on my head when I hit the table. One minute I was eye-to-eye with thirty people. The next I was giggling on the floor. It hadn’t been my finest hour.
Rob and I made our way to the wine tasting after a stomach-lining lunch. It felt like a typically dreary January morning. Which would be fine except that it was mid-May. The dank, stained arches and industrial rubbish bins blocking the narrow pavement felt better suited to Dickensian London than East London.
Rob and I saw the problem as soon as he held the restaurant door open for me.
‘We’re all ready for you,’ said the manager, gesturing to the long table in the middle of the narrow restaurant.
‘Thank you,’ I said, preparing my diplomatic approach. ‘There’s just one thing. There’ll be eighteen of us.’
He looked at the table, bobbing his fingers as he counted. ‘Yes, eighteen, that’s right. We’ve arranged enough chairs.’
Well done on being able to count to eighteen. ‘It’s just that they’re a little close together. Could you add a couple more tables to the end?’
‘I don’t see how I could.’ He looked around the room as if he couldn’t imagine where he might find another table in a restaurant full of them. ‘It’s a very small restaurant.’
‘Yes, but we’re not very small people. I’m sure you can see the issue.’
‘There should be enough room.’ His manner turned chilly. For someone whose restaurant wasn’t usually open between lunch and dinner, who didn’t even have to pay any chefs or waiters, and who was pocketing our wine tasting fees as pure profit, he could have toned down the attitude.
‘Fine, then I’ll show you what I mean,’ I said. ‘Rob, please sit here.’ He did as he was told. I sat beside him, scootching my chair close to his. ‘Now,’ I said to the manager. ‘Why don’t you sit beside us?’
Being no mere slip of a man himself, his position at the table put him halfway between two place settings. ‘Do you see our problem? We’re the curvy girls … and boys club. We need a bit more room. I’m really sorry about that. We did mention it in our emails.’
He reluctantly hauled over two more tables, clearly put out that we really did live up to our name.
Everyone arrived within half an hour. A few were Slimming Zone regulars, and felt like old friends. A few others, like Arthur, were regulars and felt like pains in the neck.
‘Katie! This should be a fun afternoon. Although it would have been better perhaps to concentrate on the lesser known French regions. But never mind. You did the best you could. Shall I sit here next to you?’
This was Arthur’s idea of a compliment. He could make me cry when he wanted to be mean.
‘Thanks, Arthur. And I’d love for you to be next to me, really, but I thought you might like to sit next to, erm,’ I looked quickly at my list, ‘Jade. You remember her from the book club meeting?’ I felt bad (momentarily) about inflicting him on a perfectly nice woman like Jade, but I’d put a lovely man on her other side. One hand giveth, the other taketh away.
Despite what Arthur said, the wine tasting proved almost incidental to the afternoon. I’d noticed this over the past months and at first it bothered me. I lost sleep over the plans I concocted. They bloody well should appreciate them. It took some time for me to realise that they did appreciate them, very much.
Sometimes being fat was isolating and sometimes isolated people got fat. It didn’t matter which was chicken and which was egg. The end result was that for some of our members, these outings were their social life. They were just as happy to taste wine in the company of others as they were to watch a film or listen to music in the company of others. People naturally focused on the curvy part of our name, but it was a social club at the end of the day.
I sneaked a glimpse at Jade. She didn’t look too angry about Arthur. In fact, she looked …
‘Rob. Are you noticing what I’m noticing?’
Rob was staring down the table. He smiled, then quietly started a passable Barry White rendition.
Everyone was talking to, nay, flirting with their neighbour. ‘Is it the wine? What have we started?’
‘I’m not sure,’ he said. ‘But this might be the highest-rated event yet. Did you have a method in your seating plan?’
‘Of course not. I threw it together on the Tube ride over to you this morning based on who I knew.’
I had noticed that more than the usual number of men had signed up for today. Maybe the high male quotient was making everyone randy. Even Arthur was talking to the woman opposite him, and she seemed to be answering of her own free will.
While it was nice to see everyone getting along, it reminded me of an uncomfortable development. ‘Pixie thinks we should start a dating business,’ I told Rob as the wine guy poured us another red.
