The Perfect 10 Read Free

that.
    It’s becoming harder, being seen. I notice people looking, men looking, and although these should be tiny triumphs, glances that spell sexual desire from the opposite sex, they unnerve me. I don’t want men looking at me uninvited, thinking things about me that I can’t control. I don’t want them picturing me late at night with one hand on the remote and the other in their pants, the way that men do with women they’ve seen during the day. And yet here I am drinking my low-calorie drink, about to go to the gym, to burn and bruise off this week’s two pounds of fat, on a quest ultimately to prove to the man that didn’t want me that he was wrong, that he should have had some imagination, should have guessed what I could be.
    It is frightening to go unnoticed for so long and then suddenly pop into everybody’s sight with a magician’s puff of smoke and screaming ‘Ta-da!’. Some women have dealt with it all of their lives and either enjoy it or ignore it or have at least learnt to live with it. I was invisible before, which is ironic considering I took up twice the space. Nothing suddenly gets simple, no matter what the WeightWatchers Slimmer of the Year might tell the Sunday Mirror . When you win a bit, you always lose a bit too.
    The three brothers grim descend on to the table next to me, landing themselves on metal chairs that scrape the pavement, squabbling. The red-haired horror shrieks as his older brother snatches away the piece of wood he has been playing with, and begins banging it on his legs and the table. And this is no musical child prodigy; I can’t even make out a rhythm, never mind a tune.
    ‘Charlie, give it back to Dougal,’ their tall and exhausted mother demands.
    I smirk at the name Dougal, although I don’t know why. You hear much worse these days. I can’t think of a soap star called Dougal at least. Strangers sometimes smirk at my name when they hear it for the first time, but I am proud of it. I think that anybody who fails to see something positive in Sunny must have their own issues to deal with.
    ‘Sit there and be quiet. No, actually, come with me.’
    All the children shriek in unison, and the youngest tugs at his mother’s hand to drag her into Starbucks. I pray she will usher them inside, but she accosts a stray waitress who has, in a moment of craziness, decided to come and clean tables. The mother asks for three fruit juices and a Skinny Mocha, and tries to settle the boys at the table again. I stare off into the distance until the oldest brother begins to run round and round my table, and little shrieking Dougal follows his lead. Short stumpy slightly unsure legs make adash for a tree ten yards away. I glance over my shoulder to see what their mother is doing while they run amok – she is negotiating a straw into the youngest one’s mouth while furtively glancing towards her other two sons. I don’t know what I expect parents to do with their children, I just don’t think they should be allowed to shriek. If I ever have children of my own they will be impeccably behaved in public. They will have character, and be witty and charming, but they will not bang things, and they will not scream. They will only be allowed to do those things at home.
    ‘Dougal, come back here! Charlie, for God’s sake put it away!’ Their mother’s voice raises at her eldest son, who has decided to urinate up against the tree. Both children momentarily freeze, and Charlie pops his little penis back into his shorts. They start running round my table again – children burn off so many calories without even realising it. The older boy, Charlie, nudges my chair every time he passes, and I hastily put my coffee cup back down on the table rather than risk a stain on my white Lycra vest top with built-in cooling something or other. I check my watch – the gym will be open in twenty minutes. It is an 8 a.m. start on a Sunday, as if God won’t allow exercise before morning has truly broken