Fat Girls and Fairy Cakes by Sue Watson Page B

in agreement...”
    When the words finally came, I barely heard them.
    “Stella”, MJ said, her face twisting into an evil smile, “you’re suspended, pending a full investigation.”
    I stood up in a daze. Part of me was screaming: You put fucking Gerard on the programme. You fed him to Al. This is your doing, you evil, miserable old hag! But I said nothing. There was no point. She had me; I was the producer and the buck stopped with me. I had to hand it to her – she had finally got what she wanted. I was finished at Media World. With my eyes swimming, I turned away from her and made my way to the door.
    I stumbled back to my desk and slumped into my chair, feeling tears pricking at my eyelids. It was only just sinking in – my career, all that I had worked so hard for, could be over.
    As I was staring blankly at the computer screen in front of me, my eyes wandered to the postcard stuck in the top right-hand corner. It was from Mum, sent from one of her many holidays. This one was from Malaga and I pulled it off the screen and turned it over to read the back. Blue seas and wall-to-wall-waiters , it said, in Mum’s usual jokey style. Just wishing that I’d come here sooner . I looked at the shiny picture of frothing waves and white sands and thought about how Mum had taken almost 65 years to get to where she wanted to be. In that moment I knew I wasn’t prepared to wait that long and spend my life wishing that ‘I’d come here sooner’; it was time to take control.
    Opening up my desk drawer, I took out the folder containing all gardening contacts and information and then I opened a bottle of ‘Perfectly Peachy’ Lighter Lift. The smell of fake peaches filled the air as I poured the orange slime into the cardboard folder. Rubbing it in like a lotion, I massaged and pummelled every bit of paper, every telephone number and every permission document associated with the series. The liquid worked like cleaning fluid (God knows what it had done to my insides) and I swirled it and mashed at the soggy paper, everything washed away on a sea of ‘Perfect Peach’. I dumped all the soaking, peach-scented illegible mush into a wastepaper bucket and headed up the stairs to MJ’s office – for the final time.
    I opened her door without knocking.
     “MJ, I believe that as I am suspended, you’ll be needing all the paperwork for God’s Garden ?” I said.
    She looked up and I don’t know what surprised her most – the fact that I was holding a wastepaper bin or that I was smiling warmly at her. “Yes, I will need everything.” She clipped, lips extra-tight.
    “Well, here it is, all the vital information I’ve been working on for weeks that will be invaluable for my excellent replacement.” I said. With that, I walked up to her desk and, leaning over, slowly turned the bin upside down over her perfectly groomed head.
    Orange goo and mashed paper landed with a squelchy thud and the air in her stuffy little office was suddenly permeated with the chemical stench of fake peach. It took her a couple of seconds to realise what was happening, but as the peach slime ran down her white designer blouse and seeped onto her knees she leapt up, screaming in horror. The gloop dripped off her, landing in fluorescent globules on her new office carpet and creating an instant neon stain.
    “No need to sack me, MJ,” I continued, “the pleasure’s all mine. I quit. I quit Gardening, I quit Media World, and best of all, I quit you. Goodbye, you miserable cow.”
    For the first time in her life, Mary-Jane Robinson was lost for words.
    I marched out of the now sickly-smelling office, head high, and suddenly felt delirious, relieved, liberated. I wanted to kiss everyone. MJ’s assistant was staring, open-mouthed and several people on the office floor were stifling their giggles. I hadn’t shut MJ’s door – and I hadn’t spoken quietly, either. I ran back down the steps, waltzing on air. I had finally taken control of my own