He smirked. “That’s for me to know, and for you to find out.”
Rosaline glanced between them. “So, what has he told you about me?”
“Not very much. You know what he’s like. He’s not the kiss-and-tell sort.”
“Which means,” Rosaline pointed out, “he did mention kissing.”
“I mentioned kissing. He demurred. But he did say you went to Cambridge, you’re very pretty, and he likes you very much.”
Shading his eyes with his hand, Alain shifted uncomfortably. “You’re embarrassing me, Liv.”
“I’m intending to, Alain. You’re rather adorable when you like a girl.”
“Ah yes,” he said wryly. “Adorable is exactly how an adult man wants an adult woman to see him.”
“I’m sorry, darling.” Liv did not sound at all repentant. “And Rosaline, you don’t have anything to worry about. He’s been nothing but uncharacteristically sweet about you. He said you’re fun and brave and doing well in the baking competition. In fact, if I didn’t know him better, I’d think he was a little bit jealous.”
“I’m not jealous,” Alain insisted. “I just had one bad week that I now regret telling you about.”
Rosaline’s cocktail was finally delivered by a penguin on day release, and she took a slightly needy sip. It was fine. Probably not worth the exorbitant cost, but definitely summery. “He’s got nothing to be jealous about. He’s doing far better than I am.”
“I suppose”—Liv reached for her own drink—“it must add at least the tiniest charge to the relationship, being in competition.”
Alain rolled his eyes. “We’re not in competition, Liv.”
“We’re both doing our best,” Rosaline agreed. “And whatever happens happens.”
“Well, that’s very magnanimous of you.” With one finger, Liv traced the rim of her glass, making it sing. “Especially since we both know Alain is competitive AF.”
Did Rosaline know that? Looking back, she thought she probably did know it, but maybe didn’t know she knew it. Also, who said “AF” in real life?
“I’m not competitive”—Alain was pouting slightly and not wholly playfully—“I just set myself high standards. And I wouldn’t have invited Rosaline to meet you if I’d known you were going to gang up on me.”
Liv’s gaze darted briefly to Rosaline and back again. “Sorry, Alain. Us girls have to stick together.”
It was a principle that Rosaline mostly agreed with—although she wasn’t quite sure how it applied to two friends snarking at each other over cocktails.
“But anyway.” Liv leaned conspiratorially forward. “Enough about us. Tell me something about Rosaline-um-Palmer that’ll surprise me.”
Okay, so that was cute when Alain said it. At least, she’d assumed it was cute when Alain said it. But it was weird coming from somebody else. “You were surprised I had a kid.”
“I was surprised Alain hadn’t mentioned you had a kid. It’s not quite the same thing.”
“I wanted to let her tell you on her own terms,” put in Alain. “She’s sensitive about it.”
“Sensitive” wasn’t the word Rosaline would have used. But since, as Alain enjoyed pointing out, she’d concocted a fake trip to Malawi—and did Liv know about that too?—to hide her actual child from him, she was a bit low on legs to stand on.
Liv hmmed thoughtfully. “That makes sense. I suppose some people can be quite judgemental.”
“You get used to it.” Rosaline shrugged, not wanting to have a repeat of her conversation with Josie. “But I’m not really a very surprising person.”
“That’s very far from true.” Alain was giving her one of his Think better of yourself, Rosaline looks. “You’ve done a lot of things most people only talk about.”
“Have I?”
“Well, take Liv here. She’s been saying she’s going to get a tattoo for years. But does she have one? Does she bollocks.”
“It’s true,” Liv admitted, blushing slightly. “The truth is, there’s quite a lot I’ve been meaning to explore in my life that I’ve always backed away from at the last minute.”
While she appreciated that Alain saw the best in her—well, usually saw the best in her—Rosaline wasn’t quite sure if she was okay with him using her to make his friend feel bad about herself. Except making each other feel bad seemed to be kind of their thing. “I think, for me, it’s always been that old cliché about how I’d rather regret some of the things I’ve done, than all the things I’ve never dared to do.”
“But what if it changes who you are? Or people don’t understand.”
Rosaline didn’t consider herself the least neurotic person she’d ever met, but this seemed conservative even by the nice middle-class standards she was accustomed to falling short of. “It’s just a tattoo. No one has to know about it.”
“I’ll know.”
“Then it’ll remind you of who you were in a different time, and that can be nice. I mean, it can be sad, too, sometimes. But I like remembering I can be the sort of person who does something because she wants to and does it all the way.”
“I think,” said Liv softly, “I’m beginning to understand what Alain sees in you.”
“Um. Thanks?”
She had a nonspecifically wistful look. “I wish I could be more like that.”
This was beginning to make Rosaline feel depressingly hypocritey. Because, while she could be like that, she mostly wasn’t. After all, being a sexy butterfly who went where the wind took her wouldn’t have created an environment she wanted her daughter to grow up in. Or maybe she was still like that, but like that looked different now. When she’d been seventeen, she’d wanted to get a tattoo and to get laid, and she’d got both. Now she was twenty-seven, she wanted to provide for her daughter, show the nation she made nice cakes, and, um, get laid. And wasn’t she, in her own way, working on all three? It was just that they took a bit longer than a trip to a tattoo parlour or a quickie in Lauren’s room before her mum got home.
“It’s not magic,” Rosaline said, “and I’m not special. If you want to do things, you can do them. And if you don’t, that’s okay as well. Not everyone needs a tattoo.”
There was a thoughtful silence.
“Why don’t I”—Alain rose—“get us another round.”
Despite the setting and a shaky start, the evening wasn’t going as badly as Rosaline had feared. Even so, with Liv’s slightly too-interested gaze upon her, she very much welcomed the cushion of another drink.
Saturday
“HELLO,” BOOMED GRACE Forsythe, “good morning, and welcome, my fabulous, flaky final five.”
A pause so the cameras could gather shots of them looking bashfully pleased to have made it this far and adorably apprehensive of what was to come.
“This time you’re in Marianne’s hands because we’re about to delve into the intricate world of madeleines and meringues, macarons and mille-feuille, pièce montée and Paris-Brest. That’s right, it’s patisserie week.”