Page 1 of You Spin Me Round

One

When Alex Walker was knee-high to a Jack Russell, she decided that when she grew up, she would be successful and fancy. Broke kids often do. But Alex actually managed it. It didn’t quite happen the way she planned, but if Alex was good at one thing, it was a pivot.

The road to Alex’s future career started with a bake sale when she was twelve. She and eight other kids selling their wares for cancer research. Now, Alex couldn’t bake for shit, but she was determined to sell the most cakes. Competition ran through her very blood. But how the hell was she gonna beat the other kids with no skill?

The answer came when she was drifting around the supermarket, trailing after her mother. She saw an icing pen, and a brainwave hit her. She asked her mother for five quid (it took a little haggling as her mother wasn’t flush at the time, but Alex swore to her she’d see a return) and purchased three dozen basic supermarket cupcakes, along with the icing pen.

She took them to the bake sale the next day and laid them out with a sign. ‘Personalized cupcakes.’ All she did was write people’s initials on the cakes for one-fifty a pop. Nothing more. But she sold out in less than an hour, while kids who’d baked their little hearts out went home with a surplus. Alex gave her mother double her investment and gave the rest to the charity.

The next day, Alex got a special mention in assembly and a lot of glares from the other bakers. Only the first thing mattered to her.

The experience taught her something essential that she took into adulthood. The thing itself is not the thing. The only thing that mattered was how you sold it. Branding was all.

When Alex was older, she decided to get a marketing degree, with a plan to snag a brand manager job for a global product after she graduated. She didn’t care what the product was. High-end couture, biscuits, cars, it didn’t matter. Selling was selling, and she knew in her heart she could work her way up to the top of any chain.

But things turned out to be a bit harder than she’d thought. Two years after graduation, she was still stuck in an entry-level marketing job, Tweeting, Facebooking, and Instagramming for a company that made novelty socks.

She posted ads for the company along with captions like, ‘Sock it to me, Baby!’ and, ‘Be a sock star!’ It was a heavily pun-based position.

Alex was stalled and frustrated. Until the day she was texting with an old friend from uni, Ben. He happened to mention that his sister was in a bad way.

Oh dear, Alex commiserated.

It’s rough because of the whole reality TV aspect,he texted her.

Just like the icing pen, Alex smelled opportunity. She called him.

‘Youcalledme?’ Ben said, confused.

‘Your text vibe was sad. I thought you might like a call. Reality TV?’ Alex prompted.

‘Yeah, you know about my sister, don’t you?’ Ben said.

‘No.’

‘Oh, could have sworn I’d mentioned it. Anyway—’

Alex googled ‘Winter’ and ‘reality tv’ before he could hang up. ‘You’re not Holly Winter’s brother, are you?’

He didn’t hang up. ‘You’ve seenLove Prison?’

‘Sure,’ Alex lied. ‘So, what’s up with your sister?’

‘You know how she started in all that, don’t you?’ he asked conversationally. ‘She used to be overweight.’

Alex didn’t know where the hell this was going but took the detour. The sock puns were not exactly pressing. ‘Oh?’

‘Not like there was just a little more to love. More like her heart was in trouble. She couldn’t seem to sort it by herself. We were all worried she’d die young. So she went on that show,Drop It!’

‘I don’t know it.’

He sighed. ‘Anyway, she did. Drop it, that is. Got down past her goal weight. It was one of the show’s big success stories. And if it had ended there, it would have been great. But after that, she was offered a makeover show,Plain Jane to Insane.’

‘I don’t know it.’

‘It’s massive.’

‘I usually only watch shows about bidding on storage containers,’ Alex admitted.

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