For Pete's Weight

Chapter 1-1

Chapter 1“What’d you bring?” Carol asked before Bear had fully stepped into the room.

“And good evening to you, too,” Bear said, setting down his rucksack before wiping the worst of the rain off his bald head. Despite the short jog from his car, his plaid flannel shirt was soaked. He shivered. A date hunched under the hand dryer in the gents to both get dry and warm up was in his very near future. “They turned the heating off again?”

“Yeah, tight bastards. I switched it on when I got here about ten minutes ago.”

Bear peered out of the dark windows. “Bet this weather will keep a fair few of them at home tonight.”

Carol chuckled. “Worried no one will vote for you?”

Bear turned to face her. “Yeah, right.” The weight loss group was having a taster evening to mark the election of the Man of the Year. As Bear was the only man to stay after weigh-ins for image therapy, he always won by default.

Carol lifted the rucksack. “God, this is heavy. What’ve you got in here? Bricks?”

“My Crock-Pot.” Bear wondered if he should plug it in to keep the contents warm. But it was well insulated, so it’d probably stay warm, assuming they could get everyone weighed quickly and start eating without too much of a delay.

“Which one? Haven’t you got, like, five of them?”

“Ha-ha.” He had three. All different sizes, so he used them to cook different meals.

“Smells amazing.” Carol was undoing the fastenings on the rucksack.

“Careful, don’t tip it up.” Bear took the bag from her and rested it on the table. “We’re putting out the stuff here?” It was a pretty safe bet given this was the only table with a fancy cloth on it. Carol always went the extra mile to pretty things up. However, Bear wished her colour schemes were a little more…subtle. Shocking hot pink with a bright green runner offended his sense of style.

Carol dived into the rucksack, pulled out the Crock-Pot, set it down, lifted the lid, and took several deep sniffs.

“Hey, keep your nose out!”

Carol chuckled, then started to cough, the sound enhanced by her forty-a-day habit. Fortunately she’d replaced the lid and turned away. “Smells divine! What is it? Some kind of curry?”

“Chicken.”

“Did you do rice, too?”

Bear pulled out a Tupperware bowl from the bottom of his rucksack before stowing the bag under the table. “Of course.”

“I’ve said it before; you’d make some lucky guy a wonderful husband.”

“Yeah, right.” Wanting to change the subject, Bear asked, “What’d you bring?” His was the only dish on the table. “A Bailey’s cheesecake?”

It was Carol’s turn to say, “Yeah, right.”

The woman kept promising to make the boozy dessert but Bear could only remember her doing it once. It had been a hit with the other slimmers, and he’d made it himself at home but ended up scoffing the lot in two or three sittings, making him feel guilty, especially when he’d gained a pound by the next weigh-in.

“I brought soup. It’s still in my car.” She looked out of the window. “Couldn’t manage the soup maker with all my other gear. Would you be a love and…?”

Bear smiled, shook his head, and held out his hand. “Give us your car keys then.”

“You’re a sweetie.” He got both the keys and a kiss on the cheek. “You growing out your beard?” She ran a fingertip over it. “Makes you look even hotter. God, why couldn’t you be straight?”

“Good thing I’m not. Malc, remember?”

“Yeah,” Carol said quietly.

Bear wished he hadn’t brought up the subject of Carol’s husband. Malc was a jerk. He kept on at Carol about her weight problem, conveniently forgetting that, if anything, he was carrying more extra poundage than her. “The soup’s in the boot?”

Carol nodded. “Yeah, along with some paper plates, bowls, and plastic cutlery.”

If anything, the rain looked like it had increased as Bear splashed his way across the car park. Carol, being the considerate woman that she was, had taken one of the parking spots further away from the door, leaving the closer ones for her members.

The items were where Carol said they would be, Bear closed the boot, pressed the key fob, the locks engaged, and he jogged back to the meeting room. He usually showed up early to group to help Carol set up. She held a second class after his, and a member in that group usually helped her pack away. However, Bear would return to lend a hand if she needed him. It wasn’t like he had much of a social life. Just him and his dog, BJ.

After closing the door behind him and wiping off his head and shoulders once again, Bear dripped his way to the food table.

“Thanks, sweetie.” Carol stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek again. “Smooth as a baby’s bottom.”

Bear rolled his eyes but didn’t otherwise respond. Doing so would only encourage her. Carol, along with several other of the lady members, liked to cluck over him, trying to match him up with male members of their family or, most embarrassing of all, any new man who walked through the door. No wonder no other men opted to stay behind for image therapy after weigh-in.

“Gonna try and dry off a bit in the gents’,” Bear said, heading towards the back of the meeting room. He spent about five minutes contorting himself under the hand dryer. At least the social club had hot air hand dryers rather than paper towels. Still damp but a good deal warmer, Bear used the urinal—every ounce of weight lost was an ounce less on the scales—before re-entering the meeting room. Thankfully, a few more members had braved the weather and shown up in his absence.

The new arrivals—all women—were busily discussing how their week had gone.

Carol had begun to wrestle the heavy chairs into the centre of the room.

“I’ll do that. You lay out the shop.” The classes sold a variety of snack bars that, while tasty enough, were tiny and a bit artificial-tasting in his opinion.

The first of the chairs Bear set out was almost immediately taken by Olive, the oldest member of the group. She arranged her walking frame in front of her, reached into her capacious handbag, and got out her crochet hook.

“What are you making?” Bear asked.

“A hat for you. You need something on your head this weather.”

Bear laughed. “Thank you.” The last hat she’d made him had so many dropped stitches in it, Bear had been able to use it as a tea cosy. “Don’t get too comfortable, you’re up first,” he told Olive as he dragged chairs to either side of her. Because of her balance issues, Olive often had to be weighed more than once to get an accurate reading. However, as she rarely lost weight, Bear guessed it didn’t much matter. He suspected she came to group mostly for the social side of things.

As others took their seats around Olive, the ladies began to discuss the best way to roast a chicken. Bear had a rotisserie grill, where all the fat drained away, but he didn’t offer his opinion, just continued to organise the furniture into a series of wide semi-circles.

Carol approached. “Just had a text from Tina. She’s gonna be late. Would you mind supervising the weigh-ins while I look after the money and check in?”

Bear nodded. “No problem.”

Tina, like Bear, was a member of Carol’s social team, helping with various tasks within the group. Bear liked Tina and her young daughter, Grace, who often came to meetings with her. Bear really liked Rob, Tina’s husband, who, sadly, rarely came to meetings. Rob played rugby league for an amateur team a couple of towns over. Unlike a typical hulking rugby player, Rob had a compact frame and wasn’t overly tall. Bear’s usual types were twinks, and although Rob didn’t exactly fit that mould, Bear nevertheless found the man pretty attractive. But he was straight and happily married so…

Forcing his mind back to his assigned task, Bear set the scales in front of the desk, connected them to the computer, and turned everything on. Even though he’d been at his target weight for over a year, Bear always had a few seconds of panic when weighing himself, just in case he’d gained several pounds. He still adopted his weigh-in day rituals of having a small breakfast and even smaller lunch and cutting back on his fluid intake in order to make himself as light as possible.

The scales beeped, and Bear sighed in relief. He’d lost half a pound since the previous week.

The one disadvantage of manning the scales was when a member burst into tears when she found out she’d put on several pounds. More than once Bear had had to offer a shoulder to cry on. As his shoulders were still damp from the rain, he hoped no one had an emotional meltdown that night.

Bear strode over to Olive, bowed low, and said, “Your scales await, me lady.”

“Daft bugger.” She shook her head and put away her crocheting, midway through a line.

* * * *

As the minutes ticked by towards the 5:30 P.M. official start, more members began to drift in, about half bringing dishes of food. Bear hoped, as this was a taster evening, perhaps one or two of the men would stay, rather than do their usual pay, weigh, and go away. As they queued up for the scales, male slimmers tended to keep to themselves. Bear wondered if it was a macho thing, men not wanting to admit they had a weight problem. It had never bothered him. If he hadn’t have stayed to group, he was sure he wouldn’t have kept at it, lost the weight, and just as importantly, kept it off.

“Good afternoon! Ladies and gentlemen.” Carol clapped her hands. “Great to see so many of you have braved the dreadful weather tonight and instead of staying at home, putting your feet up in front of the telly, and raiding your secret stash of chocolate bikkies that you’ve hidden from your husbands/kids/dog, you’re here to learn how to get slim and stay healthy.”

There were a few titters from her audience.

No doubt sensing she was trying her members’ patience, Carol quickly continued. “Don’t know about you, but the smell of all this delicious food, brought in by you lovely people,” she gestured to the table, which held a surprisingly large number of dishes, “is making me hungry. So let’s get you all checked in, then you can head over to my glamorous assistant, who will weigh you.”

“Yeah, right,” Bear grumbled, which raised a few more chuckles from the members.

“Then you can tuck in!” She clapped again, then sat down and started scanning membership cards and taking money.

* * * *

Tina gave Pete’s knee a squeeze. “You look like you’re about to be hung.”

“Hanged. And you a teacher.”

Tina shook her head. “In science, not English. And don’t change the subject. Honestly, you’ll be okay. They won’t eat you or anything.”

Pete sighed and gazed through the rain-streaked windscreen at the lighted windows of the Sandford Social Club. “I’ll be the only bloke there. I’ll feel like everyone is staring at me.”

“Peter Benson, we’ve been through this before. No one will stare at you, make fun of you, or anything like that. Everyone in there,” she pointed to the pub, “will be there for the same reason as you, to lose weight. And trust me, you will most definitely not be the heaviest one there.”

“I know, but…” He rubbed his face.

“And you won’t be the only man in the group. Not many men stay for image therapy after they get weighed, but Bear stays. You’ll like him.”

The way Tina said that last had Pete staring at her, not that he could see much in the darkened interior of Tina’s car.

“Uncle Bear!” the three-year-old Grace yelled from her car seat in the back. “Wanna see Uncle Bear!”

Normally Grace would have stayed at home with her father, but Rob had been called out to fix a water leak, so Tina had brought Grace along with them.

“Her ladyship has spoken,” Tina said, unbuckling her seatbelt. “Are you coming in or staying there?” she asked Pete.