Sunday #4
“Nicer about what?” asked Jennifer, just distracted enough that it seemed like a sincere question, rather than a burn.
“Kicking me out. I’d have gone anyway. I only needed, like, five minutes.”
Reaching up, Jennifer slipped her headset off again. “Are we having this conversation now?”
“No?” Audrey tried to keep her tone light. “I mean, we don’t have to. I just…I wanted to say it.”
For a moment Jennifer looked like she wasn’t registering a word Audrey said—then she let her head flop back, made a garbled sound of frustration, lifted her mic to her mouth and said, “Colin, tell Grace I’m going to fucking kill her.” Finally she turned back to Audrey. “What did she say to you?”
“She seems to want us to get together,” explained Audrey only slightly sheepishly.
“That talentless interfering hack.”
The instinct that made Audrey defend more or less anybody Jennifer was having a go at stepped up once again. “I don’t think her interest in your love life has much to do with her ability as a presenter.”
“Don’t you believe it. She’s just trying to get in my head so I don’t fire her.”
Even for one of Jennifer’s blasts of drive-by cynicism, that seemed unconvincing. “She said you were friends.”
“Grace doesn’t have friends. She just has bits that flake off her ego.”
Audrey did her best to look sardonic, but it wasn’t an expression she’d had much practice with. “Whereas you’re surrounded by well-wishers and loved ones?”
“Excuse me, for all you know I have a thriving social life.”
“True. But do you, actually?”
Jennifer glowered. She had a good glower. “I get by.”
“We all get by, Jennifer. But don’t you want…I don’t know?”
“To date an annoying journalist? Not especially.”
Standing up, Audrey took off her headset and put it down on the desk next to Jennifer. “Fine. I tried. See you, I don’t know, next time you’re threatening to sue the Echo I suppose.”
Jennifer was silent until Audrey had her hand on the door and then she said, very softly, “Just sit down.”
“Pardon?”
“You heard.”
“I really don’t think I did.”
From where she was standing, Audrey could just make out the tension in Jennifer’s jaw. “I said, will you please sit down. You’ve come all this way. You might as well see the day out.”
“Might I?” Audrey was still of half a mind to leave. Well, a third of a mind. “Because if you think you’re doing me a favour…”
“I would like you to stay,” clarified Jennifer through clenched teeth.
It would have been churlish to make her say it again, and while Audrey sometimes saw the appeal of churlishness, she didn’t want to risk a good thing. So she returned to her seat and wasn’t too surprised when Jennifer went straight back to work without saying another word.
* * *
Audrey had seen the judging of Bake Expectations from two directions already, as a viewer and as a contestant. Seeing it as…whatever she was now, a sort of unofficial adjunct to Jennifer Hallet, was a different experience again.
Here, as in both of her previous perspectives, the process still began with each baker bringing their bake up to the judges to receive their feedback, and then from the contestant’s-eye-view there was another round of interminable waiting while the judges made a decision.
But from the viewer’s position there was a seamless transition to Wilfred, Marianne, and Grace sitting around a table in a lovely, sunny—or sometimes slightly drizzly; this was still England, after all—gazebo talking about how everybody had done and who was safe and who was in danger, which would cut away coyly before they actually reached a conclusion.
Rationally, of course, Audrey knew that the conclusion was going to have been reached long before that spot was filmed. But it was weird seeing it. Especially because they were on the cosy table set, just with Jennifer Hallet leaning by a wall glaring and calling the shots.
“I don’t care which,” she was saying, “just lose a disposable and give me a win for somebody who needs one.”
The disposables, it turned out, were Jim, Joshua, Reggie, and either Linda or Meera, because apparently production didn’t really need them both.
“Linda did genuinely well this week,” Marianne Wolvercote said, “but I don’t think she’ll make it all the way.”
Jennifer frowned. “We can’t have the good-but-insecure one going out in the semi though—we did that last year.”
“I think”—even off-camera Wilfred Honey didn’t quite lose his grandfatherly edge—“that she’ll either plateau or crash next week. Might be nice to give her a win before she’s out.”
That got a nod from Grace Forsythe. “And it’ll look like classic winner’s curse. I think this week we probably need to give Jim the We needed to see more or to give Reggie the One experiment too many.”
“Did he do one experiment too many?” asked Marianne. “I thought he actually played it fairly safe this week.”
“Then he gets the This should have been your week but you got complacent?” suggested Audrey, who only realised she probably shouldn’t be speaking when it was already substantially too late to stop.
Wilfred Honey looked around. “Sorry, pet, can I just check why you’re here?”
To spare Audrey from having to explain herself, but most certainly not to spare her from several different kinds of embarrassment, Grace Forsythe stepped in. “Jennifer wants to get into her pants.”
“You are so fucking fired,” said Jennifer in a tone that suggested it wasn’t the first time she’d said it that series or, indeed, that afternoon.
“Face of the show, darling. Besides you know I’m right. As, for that matter, is our lovely guest—Sorry you got complacent works perfectly well as an arc finisher. Although I think it’s probably more of a Drag Race beat than an Expectations one if I’m honest.”
Marianne Wolvercote had been nodding along quietly with the discussion. “I think on balance we lose Jim? I don’t think he’s shown us much.” She looked up. “Jennifer, no plans?”
“Nope, can the fucker. And give the win to Linda. I agree with Wilfred that she needs the old”—she mimed something going up, exploding, and crashing. “And make sure you emphasise that Doris has been coming close every week because if she makes it to the final without a win we’ll get letters.”
“We could give her this week,” Wilfred Honey suggested. “She’d deserve it. She made two kinds of gingerbread, and her decoration was good.”
Jennifer seemed to be thinking about it, but in the end she shook her head. “No, she might wind up peaking too early. She and the teen need two more wins between them, but we’ve got space to make that happen. Everybody good?”
Everybody was. Well, everybody with the slight exception of Audrey, who was feeling a little awkward at quite how disillusioning this view of the show was turning out to be.
“Great,” said Jennifer. “Action.”
And as if it was the most natural thing in the world, Wilfred Honey, Marianne Wolvercote, and Grace Forsythe turned to each other over the little gingham-covered tablecloth and smiled. “Well,” said Grace Forsythe, “the contestants have given you a lot to think about this week.”
Wilfred Honey gave a deep, knowing nod. “That they have, that they have. Some of them did very well, but there’s one or two I’ve got my concerns about. What do you think, Marianne?”
And so they went on, dancing around a conclusion that everybody present knew they’d already reached.
It was sad in a way, being behind the curtain.
It was like seeing how a magic trick was done.
And, yes, as she’d told Linda, on some level you knew it was all mirrors and wires.
That the lady in the box wasn’t really sawn in half.
That the card wasn’t really lost in the pack.
But having it confirmed still kind of marred the experience, especially when you weren’t quite close enough to appreciate the artistry involved.
With the decision made and the segment in which the decision was meant to be made filmed, Audrey followed Jennifer back to her trailer to monitor the endgame.
Having already watched the baking from a distance, Audrey thought she’d be prepared for watching the elimination, too, but she wasn’t.
The baking, for all it was a tactile experience, was also a solitary one, so observing everybody from a monitoring station outside the building wasn’t that different from observing them from across the ballroom.
But the elimination was shared, a joint tension of thinking, Will it be me?
and Thank God it wasn’t me, Fuck it was me, or Sorry, it was you.
And now it felt isolating. Like she’d switched sides.
A week ago, she’d been in the same boat as these people. Today everybody else was still tossing about on the sea while she was safe and warm in some fancy club hanging out with retired admirals.
When Jim was eliminated, everybody hugged him goodbye and trooped outside to do their exit interviews.
So for a while Audrey was just left staring at a live feed of an empty ballroom.
And then Jennifer rose, pulled on a jacket, and gave Audrey a look that was mostly still daggers, but might have been the trick kind that slid back into the hilt when you stabbed somebody with them.
“Well,” she said. “Back to Kansas with you, sunshine.” And then after a moment’s pause she added, “Thanks for your help.”
Audrey stared at her. “Did you just thank me for my help?
“Clearly having your cunt on my face made me a better person.”
“Clearly it didn’t.”
“You’re right. Fuck off.”
And, for some reason, Audrey was laughing as she left.