Folding her sandwich box into a neat square of cardboard, Nora smiled. “See, when I’m enjoying a book, I bring it with me.”
“Not all books require the same degree of focus. I prefer—”
Suddenly unable to maintain even a facade of politeness, Rosaline laughed almost literally in Alain’s face. “Oh my God. Just admit you haven’t read the fancy book that you’re only reading anyway so people will be impressed that you’re reading a fancy book, you gigantic hipster piece of shit.”
This had clearly made Nora’s day.
As for Alain, he flushed and then paled, and then raised an eyebrow. “Is ‘piece of shit’ really the wittiest insult you can come up with?”
“Probably.” Rosaline shrugged. “Because unlike you, I don’t spend my free time coming up with inventive ways to be cruel about people just to make myself feel less pathetic.”
“Somebody who has made your life choices,” he drawled out in his poshest, nastiest voice, “is in no position to call anybody else pathetic.”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, Alain, Alain, Alain. I’m sure that would have been devastating if I gave a crap about what you think.”
“Well, you cared enough to turn Liv against me.”
“No, you did that yourself. Because, funnily enough, women don’t like it when you try to make them fuck your girlfriend. Now come on.” She stood and helped Nora gather up the remains of her lunch. “We should be back on-set.”
In the ballroom, Grace Forsythe and the judges were already assembled, and the three finalists hastened to their stations for the briefing.
“I hope you’re ready, mes amis boulangers,” began Grace Forsythe, “because for your final, final baketacular of the final, final episode of this series, which is to say the final, we have a doozy of a challenge for you. We want you to produce your finest, most elegant, most exquisite, most trophy-winning, series-ending entremets.”
She put on her exposition face for the sake of viewers at home. “These are layered mousse cakes originally served between courses or entre mets as the French would have it. And because they often need to be frozen overnight, you’ll be starting work now and finishing tomorrow just in time for the celebratory high tea. You have three hours from the count of three. Three, darlings.”
Okay. This was it. Really it. The final it. Everything came down to this: Rosaline’s ability to get mousse to set, biscuit to snap, and mirror glaze to, well, mirror.
It felt strange knowing this was the last time any of them would be in the ballroom, trying to make something ludicrous and extravagant in far too little time in an environment totally unsuited for it. Could it really only have been a couple of months since she’d stood here, forgetting how to blanch almonds, and terrified she’d never done anything except make bad decisions and disappoint people?
Because she’d finally worked out that life wasn’t the blind bake. The aim wasn’t to follow someone else’s vague instructions in the hope you’d produce something they’d approve of to a set of standards they hadn’t told you.
It was your ex-girlfriend coming through for you when nobody else did.
It was yelling at your kid’s teacher for being casually biphobic.
It was having the same goddamn argument about brushing your teeth every night for four years.
It was maybe meeting someone who was like nothing you thought you were looking for.
It was winning a TV baking competition. Or not winning it.
Or getting chased by a goat you thought was a bull.
It didn’t matter what it was. It just mattered that it was yours.
Sunday
“WHAT I’VE GOT for you today,” said Nora, placing her bake, or technically her freeze, before the judges with a lot less ceremony than everybody else used, “is a tiramisu entremets. It’s the flavours of a tiramisu, which I like, but it’s an entremets, which I’ve never made before.”
Nora’s cake was a pristine disc of shiny dark chocolate, decorated with truffles and uncharacteristically delicate sugar work.
“I’m impressed with your presentation,” said Marianne Wolvercote.
“Well”—Nora gave a slightly pleased-with-herself smile—“it is the final. I thought I’d push the boat out. First time I’ve done spun sugar. Won’t lie: probably be the last.”
Marianne Wolvercote gave a stately nod. “It was worth it.”
Meanwhile, Wilfred Honey cut out a generous slice and angled the layers towards the camera. “Now what have we got here?”
“I think they’ve probably got fancier names,” Nora said, “but as far as I’m concerned you’ve got the chocolate bit, the coffee bit, and the vanilla bit with the mascarpone.”
“That’s good enough for me.” Wilfred Honey popped a generous forkful into his mouth. “By ’eck, it’s gorgeous. Perhaps I just never got past the seventies, but the way I see it you can’t go wrong wi’ a tiramisu.”
“You can definitely go wrong with a tiramisu,” put in Marianne Wolvercote, “but I’m pleased to say you haven’t in this context. Your layers are distinct, even, and well-defined, everything’s perfectly set”—she took her own sample—“and the flavours come through clearly. I will say that I’m not the biggest fan of tiramisu—I think it’s hard to interpret it in a modern way. But I think you’ve succeeded admirably here. Well done, Nora.”
There was a pause, Nora blinking back a few tears. “Thank you. Thank you very much.”
Rosaline gave her arm a squeeze as she sat back down. And then it was Alain’s turn.
“This is a spiced apple entremets,” he explained, with slightly less conviction than he normally did. “Oh, um, with saffron.”
Shit. Rosaline had been so focused on her own work that she hadn’t paid much attention to what everyone else was doing. And Alain, of course, was doing apple as well. At least she wasn’t only doing apple. But the comparison was still . . . unhelpful.
And his bake did look rather special. It was sort of Alain all over: glazed in a delicate, almost honey tone and decorated with an elegant minimalism. Just an artfully placed cinnamon stick and a spiral of fresh apple that the fucker had probably picked from his private orchard.
“The apples,” Alain continued, “have come from my garden.”
“This is very you,” said Marianne Wolvercote, in that ambiguous tone that was sometimes worse than criticism. “It’s certainly chic, it’s modern, it’s understated. I could see this in the window of a number of patisseries.”
Alain bobbed his head. “Thank you.”
“But of course”—Wilfred had his knife at the ready—“it also has to taste good.”
The judges took a moment to determine whether it tasted good and decided that it did.
“The apple gellee,” said Wilfred Honey, with the air of someone who didn’t like having to say “gellee,” “is tart but well-spiced and contrasts well with the white chocolate mousse. And the dacquoise is perfectly executed.”
“But I’m not getting the saffron,” added Marianne Wolvercote. “To be honest, I don’t miss it—I think there’s enough here already—but if you’re going to the trouble of including a spice like saffron, it should bring something to the dish and I should be able to taste it.”