Saturday
SOMEHOW, ROSALINE HAD done pretty well in the blind bake—a type of street biscuit from Delhi that Anvita had made the fatal mistake of baking to the recipe she’d learned from her Punjabi grandmother instead of the one Marianne had put in front of her. Flush with relative success, Rosaline dragged Alain up to her room immediately after filming. He was more than willing, and the combination of urgency and privacy gave the whole thing an intensity that Rosaline found liberating.
“My God,” Alain said afterwards, still slightly breathless. “You’re amazing.”
She was, as it happened, feeling pretty amazing. “Thanks. You’re not bad yourself.”
“Clearly you bring out my wild side.”
“Yep. That’s me. Wildy McWildface.”
He laughed and pulled her down so she lay across his chest. They were silent for a few minutes, Rosaline drifting in a sleepy, afterglowy haze.
“Whatever are we going to do,” Alain murmured, “when I can’t keep up with you.”
Was that flattering? Or was he implying she was some kind of insatiable pastry slapper? “You’ve been doing fine so far.”
“I don’t mean that. It’s just, I know you’ve been with . . . a variety of people, and—”
“Hang on. I spent the last eight years raising a child. We’re still in single figures here.”
“Yes, but you’ve been with women as well as men. And I suppose I’m wondering if you wouldn’t come to feel you were missing out.”
Oh, not this again. They always asked eventually. And while Rosaline accepted that it probably came from a good place—a sincere desire to accommodate her needs—she’d never quite worked out how to handle it. “Um. Well, do you?”
“Do I what?”
“Feel you’re missing out when you’ve chosen to be with someone?”
“Of course not—although I think everyone in a monogamous relationship wonders a little about the other grass, as it were. And I can only imagine that would be more pronounced if you were accustomed to a larger garden.”
“I don’t think,” said Rosaline, in her best I’m going to be patient and not ruin the evening voice, “it’s about what you like in your garden. Some people are into monogamy. Some people aren’t. I’m personally a fan. And when I’m with someone I’m not particularly looking for anyone else. No matter what their genitals are like.”
“Don’t be like that, Rosaline-um-Palmer. I’m not judging. I just wouldn’t want you to feel that being with me meant making any sort of compromise.”
She didn’t like to generalise, but dating men would be a lot easier if they’d admit when they were worried about something. “Oh Alain, being with you isn’t a compromise. It’s a choice.”
“Well”—his fingers traced the butterflies down her spine—“I suppose, unlike me, you’ve already had your adventures.”
“You do remember I lied about going to Malawi.”
“You’ve still done things. Things I’d never have dared to do.”
Tilting her head, she gave him an intrigued look. “Is this your way of telling me you’re bicurious?”
“Not at all,” he said quickly. “Not that there’d be anything—I mean . . . ” He stuttered to a halt for a few seconds. “I mean . . . it’s like your tattoo. All my friends at university talked about maybe getting one, but nobody ever did and then it became, well, how would you feel about this in ten years, what if you want to run for Parliament one day. Whereas you went all the way with it.”
“Yeeeeeesss. But being bisexual isn’t quite the same thing as getting a tattoo.”
He made a kind of “oof” noise. “I’m sorry, I’ve said this all wrong. I suppose I’m thinking of my ex, who always thought she might be, you know, bisexual, but never found the opportunity to explore it.”
Honestly, Rosaline wasn’t quite sure how she felt about Alain suddenly bringing up his ex in what was still very much a post-boink conversation. “I guess for me,” she offered, “sexuality is about what you feel more than what you do. Especially when you’re bi or pan or something, because people are always going to make assumptions about you based on who you’re with.”
“I think with my ex it’s just we never moved in the right circles.”
Turning onto her back, Rosaline stared at the ceiling, trying to figure how to help this person she’d probably never meet. “Look, there’ll be LGBTQ people who don’t agree with me on this, but my feeling is that, on some level, how you identify is informed by, well, circumstance. I honestly believe that there are people out there who pretty much define as straight who might have gone a different way if they’d met a different person at a different time in their lives. But as long as you’re happy, it doesn’t really matter.”
Alain hummed noncommittally.
“I suppose,” Rosaline went on, “and I don’t want this to come across like I’m telling your ex how to feel. But your sexuality shouldn’t be defined by FOMO.”
“I know. But she wonders, sometimes—and I think it might ease her mind if she had a safe way of, well, finding out for certain.”
“There are places to meet people, real and virtual. But I can’t give any more advice because everyone’s different.”
He propped himself on his elbow and ran a hand lightly over the curve of her hip. “Don’t worry. You’ve been very kind. I suspect she’d be happier if she could be more like you.”
And before she could ask exactly what he meant by that, he suddenly became very, very distracting.
Sunday
SHE DIDN’T WANT to jinx it, but things were going pretty well. Rosaline had made up three different types of biscuit dough, her jam was setting, and Marianne had already remarked approvingly on the quantity of alcohol she was using.
Across the ballroom, Claudia—who remained a total mystery to Rosaline, aside from having a vaguely high-powered career and an uninspired approach to bread sculpture—was having the “No, I haven’t had time to practise” / “Do you think that’s a good idea?” conversation with Grace Forsythe and the judges.
“No,” she was saying, “it’s obviously a terrible idea. But it wasn’t a deliberate strategic decision. I haven’t watched the show and thought to myself, Ah yes, every time someone tries a bake that they haven’t previously practised it goes exceptionally well for them and the judges are hugely impressed. Unfortunately, I had a busy week and that’s sometimes just the way the custard creams.”
Rosaline was busy measuring off-brand Irish cream liqueur for what, were they not on the BBC, would have been a Bailey’s Buttercream but was instead an Other Varieties of Creamy Alcoholic Beverages Are Available Buttercream.
“So lad.” Wilfred Honey landed at Alain’s station and Rosaline’s head came up in semi-appropriate curiosity. “What have you got planned for us. Is that lavender I can see? It’s a tricky thing, is lavender.”