Introduction
Esi “Plumpkin”– Esi, a plus-size lady, faces the pressure of being plump, despite her beauty. However, she sails through these challenges and becomes a respected career woman.
Chapter 1: Hijacked at the Gym
I was at the Eden Fitness Club three weeks ago when I was approached by a very fine lady. I could tell she had routine body exercises, and her figure seemed to have gotten the attention of most of the guys in the gym.
“Boys will always be boys.” She said, and rolled her eyes when she approached me. “Hey, Nana Asempa. What’s up?” She asked me.
I just nodded because I couldn’t recognise her from anywhere. “Please remind me. Have we by any chance met before?”
“Oh no. An enthusiastic reader of yours who keenly follows your updates told me I could find you here. I have a story for you.” The lady smiled.
“Wow. Okay.” I checked my wrist watch and figured I could spare her about an hour or two.
“Do you have somewhere to be?” She asked.
“Don’t worry about that. I can spare a few moments for your story. I’d get us a drink so that we could sit outside and talk. I got her a bottle of oranpine fruit juice, then took out my phone to take some notes and asked her if I could record.
“Sure. You can.” She was confident. I had a feeling it was going to be one of the best stories yet.
“Esi Plumpkin, Round Esi, Esi Hipsy,” she started. “These were the usual names I was called when I was in primary and junior high school. I was quite chubby and round then, but I was so pretty and sweet, so people found a nice way of body-shaming me. I had all my friends telling me how my chubbiness made me cute. I was so confident being plump as a child.
However, you know the dynamics of the boarding school system in Ghanaian senior high schools; I started losing weight due to the regular food shortage and the like. My beautiful curves, which came with being plump, died down to the extent that I qualified for my school’s annual beauty pageant and became the first runner-up in my final year. I became well known by virtually everyone in the senior high school space since our pageantry spread far and wide.
Chapter 2: Drink-Up
Fast forward, I made it to the University of Ghana and started gaining more flesh, but I just wasn’t plump yet. However, friends who knew me from junior high school maintained the usual nicknames they called me: “Esi Hipsy, Esi Plumpkin.”
One day, a childhood friend invited me to her drink-up, which she organised to celebrate her twentieth birthday. The drink-up was to take place in her room, so I passed by her room to celebrate her new age, but I was met by a room full of guys and a few ladies. There was so much love to spread, so many games to be played, and a lot of dancing too; it was an impressive indoor event.
I couldn’t hold myself. I danced till every organ in my body leaped at a beat. While I was dancing, I felt the eyes of one particular guy peer at me, and he laughed at my dance moves when he thought I wasn’t watching.
While I danced, my friends cheered me on, and soon, everyone joined my groove. The guy didn’t say a word to me that night, but my ears couldn’t get rest after that night. It was as though my friend had a fortune to make in matchmaking.
“Esi, Kofi can’t get enough of you. He’s been asking for your number since the drink-up, but I want us to pull his legs.” My friend told me one afternoon after lectures, and I laughed. “Kofi and I can’t keep a conversation, but ever since that drink-up, Kofi can text me every single day to ask me questions about you. It makes me wonder if you have done some kind of charm on that boy, Esi.” She would add.
My friend lied to him. She told him I was already engaged and about to be married soon, so he should forget about me.
“Kofi didn’t buy the ‘fiancé story’ o, Esi.” My friend told me. “He’s insisting he just wants to be friends.”
Chapter 3: Kofi
It was an endless conversation about Kofi day in and day out, but we were playing hard to get. Kofi was to get my number after we were satisfied with our mischief.
I would go to my friend’s room after lectures, and Kofi would see me, but I’d pretend to be on a phone call. He would even pass by my friend’s room, and yet, I would still not be done with my fake phone call. I would laugh so hard as though I were laughing at something someone said over the phone, but it was all a charade.
When I didn’t show up at my friend’s and Kofi showed up, she would tell him I went home to meet my fiancé, but he never bought the story.
We couldn’t keep the mischief up for long either.
One evening, I was jamming to some tunes in my room after a terrifying impromptu test I had taken when I heard a knock on the door—it was Kofi.
“Hi,” he said.
I was completely confused. “Kofi.”
“Esi, I can chase you my entire life, but that’s not what I want, so please let’s stop running and take a pause.” Kofi told me, and I laughed.
“How did you find my room, Kofi?”
“Desperate situations call for desperate measures.” He said, and I laughed again.
“Come in.” I finally invited him into my room, and he spent the entire time cracking me up and figuring me out. Kofi was fun. Kofi was a guy every lady would like—and even love—but there was one thing that worried me.
Kofi was manly and fairly built; however, he disliked the sight of big ladies. He didn’t mean to disregard them, but his mannerisms showed it, and sometimes it worried me.
However, Kofi was Kofi—he could blind you with all the charming things about him to the extent that you envision him flawless. I didn’t have a picture-perfect kind of guy in mind, but when Kofi and I started talking, I knew he was it—he was everything any lady could ever wish for.
It was not rocket science that Kofi eventually asked me out. With the lengths he went to get my attention, it was obvious he wanted more than just friends, and of course, getting a prince charming in your life without even requesting for it, I was ready with a response if he was planning on proposing.
Chapter 4: Million-Dollar Proposal
Kofi’s proposal was an intensive one. My department was having their weeklong celebration, and I was volunteering as the committee head for the event. Kofi spoke to all my committee members and chose the climax of the celebration to propose.
We had a rising guest artiste, Kidi, coming that night. Kofi was from a wealthy home, so by virtue of this, getting Kidi for the event was not difficult, and of course, he collaborated with the artiste for his grand proposal.
After going up and down, running errands, and getting things in order, I decided to catch my breath. I sat with a few friends and cheered as Kidi sang our famous grooves. Suddenly, I saw Kofi on stage, singing along with the celebrity, and then, of course, I started laughing. He got the crowd to turn down their cheers and then gave the most amazing speech.
The speech ended like this: “Esi Ampofowaa Duncan, make it official. Do me the honour of being my personal supermodel, my personal fashion icon, and the woman of my dreams. Be my girlfriend.”
I was tired, but I screamed so loud. “Yes!”
Kofi and I were the talk of the campus. No one needed to be told twice about anything concerning the cutest couple—it was us. If Kofi had an event to plan, everyone knew there was a genius woman behind his ideas, and it was the same for me. His hostel porters knew me and literally watched me go in and out of the hostel late the night before and early the next morning. Everyone was in our relationship. People were literally picking outfits for our wedding already.
Kofi and I did our national service with his father’s firm. I was in the marketing department while he was with engineering and operations.
After national service, our parents were already talking about marriage, so we didn’t waste time.
We had a small dinner with friends and family, and that was when Kofi proposed. He asked me to be his wife. The wedding was a beautiful one. Every student on campus who followed our beautiful love story was present, and soon we were married.
Chapter 5: My Husband
I was married to the man every woman wanted, and I managed to be the woman he drooled over. One evening, I tried putting on an old nightgown, but it was quite small, so it couldn’t fit. When Kofi saw this, he made a relatively insensitive comment, but I laughed it off. “You should consider eating less. I don’t want you getting fat. Skip lunch in addition to your routine exercises if you have to.”
A few months later, my fertile husband got me pregnant, and I couldn’t do my routine exercises anymore. However, I started getting wild cravings and resorted to eating as and when I felt like it. I managed to take walks with the bump when I felt I needed to burn some fat.
One unfortunate night, Kofi came home late and found me lying in bed. “Fat woman, move to your side of the bed!” He shouted.
“Oh Kofi, don’t you want to wrap your arms around me? I’m quite cold.” I said.
“Me? Are you out of your mind? You want me to caress fat? Esi, you don’t respect me!”
After that night, Kofi started getting home late, stopped caring about me, and even came home drunk most nights. I had become a huge ball of mess to my husband that he found me unattractive.
I was getting offended by Kofi’s harsh words and sudden change in behaviour, so I did his bidding. I decided to manage my cravings. When I craved a particular snack or meal, I drank a glass of water to suppress the craving, and resorted to rigorous exercise when I ate more than three times a day.
One morning, while I was in the gym at home, I lost my balance and fell down. I screamed so loudly as I saw blood walking down my legs. Kofi got home very drunk the night before, so I knew he wouldn’t hear my scream, no matter how hard. At that point, I knew I had lost my very first child.
I tried standing on my feet, but the more I tried, the sharper the pain I felt. So I sat on the floor with tears in my eyes as I watched blood walk down my legs, and unconsciousness took over.
I woke up in the hospital, and my parents sat by my bedside. “I want a divorce.” Those were my first words.
Chapter 6: Plus-size Model
My parents told me to calm down and recover so that we could discuss, but I didn’t want that. I had made up my mind. Everyone saw it as a trivial thing to want a divorce over, but I didn’t. If someone could become a monster because of a plus-size wife, then he wasn’t worth my time. He wasn’t worth all the love I had for him.
I had a good lawyer who managed to get me compensation for damages caused by my husband, and then we got a divorce.
I resigned from his father’s company, got a full one-month bed rest, and got into the marketing department of Standard Chartered Bank. I developed a schedule for routine exercises, ate good meals, and shut down the switch on any form of romantic relationship. I started life afresh.
While working with Standard Chartered, I got the opportunity to further my education in the UK. So I worked with Stanchart for just a year and went abroad.
I completed an MSc in Marketing and Communication Studies for two years, sailed through to do my PHD in Public Relations and Communication Studies for another two years, and worked with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) as a public relations officer for two extra years.
I am currently the Communications Director of the company I currently work for and the youngest person on the Board of Directors.” Esi laid down her achievements, and I stared at her in awe.
“Being a plus-size isn’t a crime, Nana Asempa, but what you do with it matters. No one should be discriminated because of who they are. They should be guided and shaped towards a better image of who they want to be.
I’m not exactly skinny or slim now, but with my weight and my curves, I command the eyes of men when I step into a room. I command confidence, despite my awful experience as a plus-size pregnant wife.
Nana Asempa, I hope your readers find a reason to own who they are and fine-tune themselves to be better versions of themselves.” Esi ended her story, and I was in complete awe. I couldn’t wait to put out the story, so I went straight to my car, took out my laptop, and got to work.