The Serial Dieter Read online

  The Serial Dieter

  The second book in the ‘Serial’ series

  Rachel Cavanagh

  Titles by Rachel Cavanagh

  Fiction

  The Serial Dater — 31 dates in 31 days

  The Serial Dieter — 31 dishes in 31 days

  more Serial novels to follow

  Oh Henry — the first of the Henry Houdini dog detective novel series

  Henry Goes to the Beach — A Henry Houdini short

  more Henry shorts and novels to follow

  The Serial Dieter

  Copyright 2020 © Rachel Cavanagh

  ISBN: 978-1-913633-21-9

  The rights of Rachel Cavanagh to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  Published in 2020 by August Publishing UK.

  Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publisher or author/s or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issues by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  The locations are or were real, although Rachel has taken ‘artistic licence’ in some instances, especially given that some were closed for the duration of the final edits! She’s ever grateful for her friends Messrs Google and Wikipedia for the research materials including maps and mouth-watering menu photos.

  www.augustpublishing.co.uk

  Cover design/co-editing by Caroline Vincent

  Where we are…

  Following on a year later from the end of The Serial Dater where Northampton-based technology journalist Isobel MacFarlane had to date thirty-one men in the thirty-one days of May, her best friend and health and beauty colleague, Donna Evans, takes the helm, with challenges being thrown at her from her colleagues and life!

  This book is dedicated to my septuagenarian uncle Michael

  to whom I owe a lot and will be forever grateful.

  He lives not a million miles from Donna’s mum, Lesley.

  Or he would… if she were real.

  And fond memories of my father who would

  have turned ninety-one on the day this novel was released.

  Chapter 1 – A Year Later

  Monday 23rd April

  “Busy?”

  I look up and there’s Izzy. My BFF. She looks happy. Not that that’s a rare thing, she’s often happy, more so since William asked her to move in. Can’t believe they’ve been together nearly a year.

  “Donna?”

  I shake my head to snap myself out of Wizzy… or is it Willizzy. I laugh.

  “Come on. Share the joke.”

  I shake my head again. “Oh, nothing. Just my brain, you know.”

  Izzy goes all serious. “I do.”

  I may come across as a dizzy blonde but she knows better. Knows all about my semi-photographic memory. Normally.

  Izzy’s my colleague, best mate (in reverse order). She does the technology column (this time last year, a dating column!) and I do health and beauty. So you see that’s why I have to be the way they expect me: healthy and beautiful. It’s hard though.

  Anyway, enough self-pity. I am happy… most of the time. Duncan’s lovely, really lovely. He’s the ‘one’ and I couldn’t be… well, happier. He was Izzy’s first date so we’ve only known each other about a year. We met at a speed-dating event Izzy invited me to, but I’ve known about him, via Izzy, for a bit longer. And he’s gorgeous. Tall (not that difficult when you’re five feet two and a half), dark and… I know, a cliché. And my soulmate. There, another cliché.

  “Busy?” Izzy repeats and I laugh again.

  “Sorry. I have so many balls in the air, it’s like being at David Beckham’s training camp.”

  “Golden Balls.” Izzy smirks. I blush.

  “Someone said that,” I say. “About David Beckham’s training camp. Can’t remember who. Funny though.” And if I can’t remember maybe no one did.

  “Too busy for a drink?”

  I look down at my empty mug, sitting on my desk next to my empty green Coke glass, and shake my head. I think of the brain cells I’m killing with all this shaking but reckon I’ve got plenty to spare.

  I did some research on this fact some months ago when I was doing an article on brains vs. beauty (using celebrities as examples mostly) and remember that the BBC, amongst others, quashed the only-use-ten-percent myth.

  “Quash,” I say, then lisp a ‘myth’, only to realise that Izzy’s gone… probably to the kitchen.

  “Keeping brain tissue alive consumes twenty percent of the oxygen we breathe, according to cognitive neuroscientist Sergio Della Sala,” I quote under my breath as I walk, with mug and glass, to the kitchen.

  Sure enough, Izzy’s there, kettle rumbling, two mugs, probably with hot chocolate powder covering their bottoms. I smirk.

  Izzy smiles. “It’s so lovely to see you so happy,” she says as she pours water into the mugs. “After…”

  I shake my head, put my previous mug and glass in the dishwasher, and take the new mug she offers me. I go to wrap my hands around it but know it will scald me so I change my mind.

  The elephant in the room is the baby I lost… or rather the baby that I may have lost. I was ‘late’, you see, and got all excited because I thought Duncan and I were going to be parents. We’d not talked about timing but we both wanted one, a boy or girl, it didn’t matter. I’d even bought a pregnancy test, three actually, but hadn’t needed any of them as late turned out to just be late and not stopped, so it wasn’t meant to be. I told Izzy, of course. I tell her everything.

  Izzy points to one of the empty tables. It’s ten in the morning so too early for elevenses, everyone else being studious at their desks but we work on Izzy-and-Donna time, taking breaks whenever we like. Not that we don’t work hard in between but we prefer an empty room, easier to discuss sensitive topics.

  I don’t really want to talk but Izzy looks like she has something on her mind so we sit.

  “Are you okay?” she asks and I give her a weak smile. It’s the best I can do but it seems to satisfy her.

  “And you?”

  “Yes, good, thanks,” she says with an equally weak smile so I wait for her to speak again, and she does. “I’m a little worried about moving in with William.”

  “Oh?”

  “I don’t want to burden you…”

  Part of me wishes I hadn’t said anything but I know it was the right thing to do. It feels like we’re both at the same stage… Duncan and I have talked about living together but not made any firm plans. Izzy and William aren’t the baby type, unless it comes to parrots in William’s case, but I know Izzy feels badly for me. It’s not easy being happy all the time. Sometimes I wish I was like Izzy; no pretence, take her as you find her.

  “It’s fine,” I say. “Really, it’s fine. It would have been too soon anyway.”

  She smiles sympathetically and changes the subject. “We’ve booked a holiday.”

  I grin… and mean it. I love holidays, even if it’s not me going on them. “Ooh… where?”

  “Larnaca.”

  I catch my breath. It’s one of my favourite places. “You’re so jammy. I love Cyprus.”

  “You should come with us!” She’s Cheshire catting. “You and Duncan.”

  Though it’s a great idea, it’s bad timing. We’re not exactly… what’s the saying? Love’s young dream. We’re actually younger than Izzy and William but you know. We’re finding it difficult to talk at the moment, which is strange b
ecause talking’s one of my favourite things to do.

  “Next time,” I say. “So why are you worried?”

  “Worried?”

  “About moving in.”

  “Oh, yes. Too used to my independence, I suppose.”

  “Can’t say I blame you. I’d be the same, although I’m only renting my flat so it’s easier. It’s a big step regardless.”

  Izzy nods.

  “Have you found someone to rent yours?” I ask.

  “Yep.”

  “You’re still doing the rooms thing?”

  “That way if it doesn’t work out…”

  “Do you think it won’t?”

  She shrugs. She’s always been the cautious one of the two of us. But she’s taking the leap first. “That way I can come and go whenever I like, if I need to, and I’ll still have the box room for my stuff, and the loft.”

  “It makes sense.”

  Izzy’s the logical one. If I owned my house… flat, I’d probably rent out the whole thing but she’s getting lodgers for the two double bedrooms. “Monday to Fridays or full-time?”

  “One of each actually. Amanda’s full-time. Works at St Andrew’s Hospital. Tom’s Monday to Thursday – doesn’t work Fridays – at Barclaycard. Married, two er… three children maybe, from Harrogate.”

  “Nice. I love Harrogate.” I do. Duncan and I went there last year for a music festival.

  “It does look lovely.”

  Izzy and I don’t usually struggle for conversation but I can’t think of anything else to say. Thankfully, William appears in the doorway, his head not far off the top horizontal beam. Izzy’s facing me so she hasn’t noticed. I tilt my head, pointing my chin at the door. She turns round.

  “Oh hey. Did you want me?”

  William opens his mouth to say something but closes it again. I’m guessing he doesn’t want to say no and is thinking of something more tactful.

  “Me?” I offer and he smiles.

  “When you’re ready.”

  Though Izzy’s dating him, we both know William’s ‘when you’re ready’ means now or thereabouts so I pick up my mug, whisper a ‘catch you later’ to Izzy and follow William into his office.

  Chapter 2 – Mission Possible

  William stops by the door and points towards his visitor chair. It’s not an annoyed point, I note, but a ‘please will you sit’ point. My sunken heart lifts a little.

  He closes the door and sits opposite me.

  I want to ask him if everything’s all right but decide to let him go first.

  “Donna…”

  I want to say his name back but again, I wait.

  “How’s work?”

  I’m not sure what to say to that. Of course I’ll be positive, I always am with William, with pretty much everyone other than Izzy when I’m feeling low, but it wasn’t quite what I was expecting. I put on a semi-broad smile. “Enjoying it, thank you.”

  “Busy?”

  “Uh huh.” Then feel irreverent. I want to apologise but say nothing.

  “I have a… er…”

  I raise my eyebrows in anticipation of what he’s going to say next. Favour? I look down at his desk. Cold cup of coffee? I look back and semi-smile again.

  “A project I’d like you to do.”

  Knowing Izzy’s ’thirty-one men in thirty-one days project’, my heart re-sinks. I think he won’t be getting me to date anyone though because he knows I’m seeing Duncan and they get on almost as well as Izzy and I do. I raise my eyebrows again. “Absolutely, William. Happy to.” Happy might be stretching things, certainly until I know what he has in store for me, but he’s my boss so I don’t have a lot of choice. Besides, it’ll take my mind off… things.

  “Following on from Izzy’s successful er… project last year, the board…” He points to the ceiling. “Wants something similar. Don’t worry, not dating.” He laughs, and I smile and shake my head. “No, something in keeping with your usual column. With…” He looks down at a copy of the paper, turned, I see, to my page. The one on… I look closer… the hot-stones back massage treatment. Not William’s usual reading material, I think.

  “There’s been a lot done about beauty so probably not suitable for the kind of thing I have in mind.”

  Izzy had dated thirty-one men in thirty-one days… or that was the ‘brief’. She, and I, actually went speed dating in the middle so it was forty-something. I try to recall. Sixteen that evening so forty-seven. Doesn’t quite have the same ri– Then I realise William’s waiting for me to speak. “Sorry?”

  “Any suggestions?”

  “For…” I feel particularly dumb as I’m not sure whether I’ve missed anything since he dismissed beauty. So it’s got to be health-related. “Spa treatments?” I blurt without really thinking they’re more beauty than health, although some can fall under both categories.

  “Erm… not really the kind of thing I was thinking. Got to be a bit more substantial. Something more regular, to fit in with the thirty-one theme.”

  I nod, unable to come up with anything helpful.

  “No, something food-related.”

  “Oh, okay, sure.” I must admit that is more appealing. I may eat relatively sensibly, more salads than Izzy’s ice cream and Disaronno, but trying out different food to what I might normally eat, especially if the paper’s paying for it, is something I could do for a month. Then it dawns on me. It’s the twenty-third of April. May has thirty-one days. Izzy’s project happened in May. “When…”

  “I’m giving you a bit more notice than I gave Izzy… Seeing as it’s been done before it was easier to come up with the concept, but again, the order’s only just come down from on high so…”

  “No, that’s fine. I can do that. Yes, I can absolutely do that.” And I can. I know my stuff. I know my stuff but I need clarity. “So are you asking me to try different diets or different dishes, only it’s not really possible or practical… practical or possible… to do thirty-one different diets in thirty-one days. You need to do one for at least a week to show any…”

  William’s nodding so I stop.

  “Thirty-one dishes in thirty-one days?” I suggest. “Low calorie, under… say, five hundred, a bit more of a challenge.” Because the concept in itself isn’t enough. “Healthy eating in preparation for the summer, something like that?”

  “Sounds perfect.”

  “Is there any other remit than that?” I ask, hoping he says ‘no’.

  “Not really.”

  I wait for the explanation of ‘not really’.

  “There is… one slight complication.”

  Here we go. All the food needs to be white – popular with those who’ve just had their teeth whitened. Or green… veg, smoothies. I could easily do that, as long as it’s not the powdered shakes. They’re nice but not for a whole month.

  “I need you to cover for Veronica.”

  “Ver…?” Veronica? Who’s Veronica?

  “Your counterpart. Down in Hemel.”

  I remember. We’ve never met but I’ve spoken to her a couple of times, emailed back and forth more often. Lovely, from what I can gather. “Oh, sure. Will they email me her files or something?” I’m hoping it’s not what I think it is.

  “Ah no. I need you to be in situ. Just for a month, the month. Would tie in quite nicely. Can you hold your workload that long?”

  I’m not sure but nod all the same. We seem to be doing a lot of nodding between the two of us. I want to look outside William’s office to see if anyone’s watching us, imagining that we’re like those dogs on car dashboards – those old English bulldogs, Churchill types – but William would see so I resist.

  I just say a blanket ‘yes, no problem’ and let the whole concept sink in. So I have to live in Hemel Hempstead for the whole of May? Then I realise William’s not a mind reader. Izzy is when it comes to me but… and I wish she were here. I wonder why she didn’t say anything. “So I have to live in Hemel Hempstead for the whole of May?” I repeat but al
oud this time.

  “Please.”

  Again, it’s not the kind of please that is a request. It’s a you-have-to… or rather I-have-to kind of please.

  It could be worse. Hemel’s not the most salubrious of places but I have family nearby so at least I can stay locally. William will likely know this from Izzy but it still all fits in a little too neatly and I begin to think that it’s a set-up somehow but I’m not sure why.

  A week isn’t long to make arrangements. My mum will be delighted as it’ll mean I’ll stay with her during the week. Her twin sister and my uncle live in the next road so I’ll get to see them too – it’ll make up for the once every three weeks currently.

  “We’ll pay reasonable expenses, of course,” William adds then looks towards the door as if the conversation’s over.

  I go to speak but am stopped by William’s desk phone ringing.

  “Thank you, Donna,” he says, hand hovering over the receiver.

  So I leave his office.

  I then realise I won’t have another weekend with Duncan, not a full one anyway, before I leave Sunday afternoon. I’ll be back every Friday, or he can visit and stay at my mum’s, but it won’t be the same. He doesn’t often work late on a Friday, because he tends to during the week, so we get quality time but I suspect I’ll be spending some of that on the M1 motorway, going north with all the other commuters, albeit from junction eight rather than the heart of London.

  Londinium, I mouth without saying the word aloud and it reminds me of the TV programme Time Team. I don’t watch it – not a fan of history – but my mum loves it. I think she has a crush on Tony Robinson. I loved him as Baldrick, with his very uncunning cunning plans, but no, it was Blackadder for me. Bearded series two rather than geeky gawky series one. Izzy’s the geeky of the two of us.

  With project assigned, my first instinct is to speak to my oracle but she’s on the phone when I get back to my desk. I wonder if it’s to William but when I look at him, he’s striding towards his door. My eyes follow his path as it leads to my desk.