Jane's Gain

chapter 1

Jane felt a pang of hunger. It was the first day back at work after the holiday season and Jane’s body had gotten used to a much more relaxed timetable. They had both preferred getting out of bed a little later, a slower start to the day and eating whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted. It felt weird to be back at work. The office staff had assembled to listen to their manager make a speech about how the new year was filled with new opportunities. She was pretty sure that he’d recycled most of it from the speech he'd given the year before. Within hours, people would be doing impressions of him. Some would be pretty good and some would be pretty scathing. Without realising it, he was giving the office its in-jokes for the rest of January.


She had tuned out a lot of what he was saying and sat daydreaming. Her work clothes had felt a little tighter when she put them on. Now they felt even tighter because of the way she was sitting. Obviously, it wasn’t just the way she was sitting, Jane wasn’t delusional. Her hand drifted to her stomach and it felt soft. Well, softer. She had never been the skinniest, but the holiday season had clearly had an impact.


Jane felt another twinge in her stomach and this time it was accompanied by a rumble. She looked around, only the guy stood nearest to her seemed to have noticed and he quickly went back to listening to the speech. He was new enough not to have heard it before. Jane reached into her handbag and instead of the feast she was craving, she pulled out a stick of chewing gum. She wondered for a moment which was less disrespectful: chewing gum or cacophonous stomach grumblings.


She opted for the gum and leant over to her left so that one of the guys from accounts obscured her manager’s view of her. Jane popped the gum into her mouth as subtly as she could. She felt like she was back in school. Before she knew it the speech was over. She had been daydreaming again. Jane looked down. Her hand was tucked into her blouse and at her abdomen again. She hadn’t even realised what she was doing. It felt soft, warm and somehow reassuring.


People had begun filtering out of the room and back to the desks. Jane saw a group of mostly women all stop by the noticeboards. Curious, she pulled herself up to standing and wandered over to see what the draw was.


There was a large poster that read: ‘Indulged Over The Holiday Season? New Year’s Resolution To Lost Weight? Join Our Award-Winning* Diet And Exercise Plan!’ There was a photo of a very toned man and woman dressed in spandex smiling. Jane’s eye whipped back to the asterisk attached to phrase ‘Award-Winning’ and assumed it meant ‘not Award-Winning’. She chewed thoughtfully as she searched the advertisement for the explanation.

“Are you interested?”, said Barbara.

Her scouring the poster for another asterisk had been misconstrued as a keenness to take part.


Jane looked over at her. Barbara was probably ten years older than Jane and had probably never been anything, but extremely thin. Yet, here she was scrawling down a phone number to lose weight she didn’t have.


Jane looked at the bottom edge of the poster. There was a tear off slip with contact details and yet Barbara was writing it on the back of her hand.

“Why don’t you just take one of these?”, Jane said as she reached over and tore it free from the poster.

“It’s the last one”, said Barbara, “I don’t like to take the last one.”

Barbara paused, she looked down at Jane’s middle and her untucked blouse.

“But, if you can find a use for it.”

“I have a use for it”, said Jane.

Barbara’s mouth fell open as Jane pulled the gum out of her mouth with one hand and wrapped the slip of paper around it with the other. She then flicked the little parcel into the trash can by Barbara’s feet.

“I do have a new year’s resolution, but that isn’t it”, Jane said as she brushed past Barbara.


Barbara turned towards the door and saw her colleague pick up a donut from the box on the table by the door. Then as Jane turned to leave, Barbara could suddenly see two more donuts in her other hand.