LITMIR.BIZ

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part of the immaculate crowd who drive up in their huge sparkling clean SUVs, looking like they’ve just come from the salon. They don’t usually talk to me, just stare like I’m something they’ve accidently stepped in. They probably go off to their gyms afterwards to perfect their already perfect bodies. Meanwhile I turn up in the same tracksuit from the day before, with no makeup and dirty hair, shove the children out the door and go home to eat the remains of their breakfast. Plus all the biscuits I can find in the house. It’s depressing. If we had the money I’d hire a nanny just to do the school runs.’

      Ellie squeezed Jane’s hand.

      ‘Oh, it’s all right, sweetheart. I’m not the only slummy mummy at the school gates. It just feels like that sometimes. So anyway, I’d accidentally boxed her car in and instead of just telling me to move, she mentioned that her daughter loves Abigail and it went from there, really. When she mentioned her work I thought I had nothing to lose by telling her what we were doing. She loved the idea and pitched it to her editor. So then we did a telephone interview about the club. She told me not to get my hopes up, so I didn’t mention anything, but then it came out tonight.’

      ‘I wonder if anyone went on the website to have a look.’

      ‘Call Rob!’ Pixie and Ellie said at once.

      ‘Okay, okay.’ My hand was already on my phone. ‘Though it’s dinnertime. I’ll text him in case he’s eating.’ I tapped the short message about the article and pressed send.

      ‘We could try getting into other papers,’ I said. ‘If the Evening Standard were interested then maybe the other local papers will be too.’

      ‘The Evening Standard isn’t local,’ Ellie said. ‘It’s national!’

      ‘No, Ellie, it’s London’s local paper.’

      She shook her head. ‘It’s not national? I just assumed.’

      ‘Spoken like a true southerner,’ said Pixie. ‘No, my love, it’s just for London. Katie’s right though, we could try other locals like the Ham & High.’

      ‘And maybe the nationals would be interested too,’ said Ellie. ‘Imagine getting into The Times or The Guardian. Jane, do you think it’s possible?’

      She nodded. ‘It’s possible, but probably more likely for the local papers. I’d be happy to write a short PR piece and send it round to the editors. I can get contact details from work.’

      ‘Then it’s official,’ I teased. ‘You’re our head of PR.’ With Jane’s connections at Channel 4, where she worked as a programme developer, I couldn’t think of a better candidate.

      It was funny how we’d slipped naturally into the roles that suited us – Rob on the website, me organising the events and now Jane handling the PR. Pixie and Ellie didn’t have as much free time as we did – Trevor resented any time Pixie wasn’t slavishly looking after him or the children, and Ellie’s time was tied up between her second job and lovely Thomas – but they came to most of the events and had become the de facto hosts.

      ‘Sure, I’m happy to be our publicist,’ Jane said, looking chuffed with her new role.

      ‘This is all starting to become official now, isn’t it?’ Ellie said. ‘I mean, the Curvy Girls Club is a going concern.’

      ‘Do we need to formalise anything?’ I asked. ‘Now that we’re charging a fee, do we need to register somewhere, or tell HMRC?’

      Pixie shrugged. ‘We’re not exactly Philip Green yet.’

      ‘No, but we should probably set up something simple,’ Jane said. ‘When my brother started his business he did have to register with HMRC, even though he wasn’t making any money at first. I can ask him about it. We’d probably just need to nominate ourselves as directors and file some paperwork.’

      ‘Does that mean we get to be on the board of directors?’ Ellie’s eyes shone. ‘And have a president and everything?’

      ‘I nominate Katie for president,’ Pixie said. ‘After all, you’re doing most of the work, love.’

      ‘I second it,’ said Jane and Ellie at the same time. ‘All in favour?’

      ‘Aye!’

      My phone pinged with a text just as the waitress set the results of our first executive decisions before us. (I chose the cheese-less seafood pizza.)

      Website is going nuts, Rob’s text read. As Chief Brody once said, You’re gonna need a bigger boat. Let’s talk about upping the bandwidth. Off work tmrw, let’s meet.

      I showed everyone the text. ‘I guess that means the article has worked,’ I said, grinning. ‘Maybe it’s time to think about an official launch.’

       CHAPTER ELEVEN

      It was after eleven the next morning by the time I met Rob. He’d suggested an address in Hackney that I had to use my iPhone to find. Not that I felt particularly comfortable waving it around in the desolate neighbourhood.

      Come through the red door under the arches, he’d said. Yeah right. That was how sadistic horror films started. Tentatively I knocked, ready to spring into the road if necessary.

      ‘Hello!’ Rob said, looking at his watch. ‘Is everything okay?’

      ‘I’m really sorry I’m late. I didn’t sleep well again last night.’ I stifled a yawn, which sparked him off.

      ‘Come inside,’ he said, throwing open the big metal door. ‘I got you a coffee but you probably want to heat it up.’

      It took me a second for my brain to register what my eyes were seeing. ‘What the heck is this place?’

      ‘It could be your bigger boat,’ he said.

      ‘Hmm?’

      ‘Technically it’s my cousin’s studio, but it’s huge and he only uses a little bit. He said we can use it for meetings whenever we want.’

      We were in a damp, strip-lit space with a very unusual décor. I stared at the seven-foot-high grizzly bear wearing a jaunty bowler hat.

      ‘That’s Pete,’ he said, making introductions.

      ‘And your cousin does what exactly?’

      ‘Taxidermy. I’d have thought that was obvious. Should we warm up your coffee? Come on, I’ll show you around.’

      I followed Rob to the makeshift kitchen as he explained about his cousin, David. He liked to work at night, he said, so we’d probably never see him. David’s clients usually picked up their newly stuffed pets quickly but every so often they’d fail to return for their dearly departed. Which explained the menagerie around the place. A rather angry-looking Pekingese wearing a tiara stood guard on one of the desks.

      I shifted a tiny mouse orchestra to the side with my now-too-hot coffee cup.

      ‘I didn’t expect you to have a cousin who stuffed animals for a living.’ Rob looked warm-blooded, for one thing, with thick brown, lively looking hair and sparkly blue eyes. ‘Don’t you find all this a bit ghoulish?’

      He laughed. ‘I’m used to it. You should see my cousin. He looks like Marilyn Manson. But he’s a nice guy and I thought this might work as an office space for the club. As you can see there are loads of desks and David is fine with us being here. He just asks that we replace the teabags if we use them.’

      I couldn’t argue with a bargain like that. ‘Well thanks, I think it’s great. And I suppose I’ll get used to the dead animals eventually. Lucky none of us is vegetarian.’ Still, I didn’t think Ellie would be crazy about this place.

      I stifled another yawn as we brainstormed

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