CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Next morning, I woke feeling bleary-eyed after all the stress of presenting the Pudding Club the evening before.
I stretched lazily, still partly in that dreamland place between sleep and waking. At least now I could relax for a while. I had a week to prepare for the steamed pudding session, which meant lots of delicious practice whipping up mouth-watering sponge puddings.
It had gone well, that first meeting – better than I ever thought it would. Maybe it was down to the good food we’d prepared and the delicious wine that Ellie had served, but the mood was already fun and relaxed by the time I started making the puddings, and everyone – especially the older women in the audience – seemed to enjoy my little potted history of puddings, including Millicent’s account of making food stretch further in wartime.
Then I remembered something, and my floaty euphoria vanished in an instant.
After all my excited anticipation, in the end, Jensen hadn’t appeared.
With a groan, I pushed back the covers and headed for the shower. I’d been pinning my hopes on that poster with my face on it, hoping he’d see it and come along. If he continued to remain elusive, would Loli ever agree to let me get tested as a donor? And would I be forced to spend the rest of my life remembering what a great guy I’d let slip through my fingers, always wondering what if ?
A message pinged through and I dived on my phone, still thinking about Jensen. Which was ridiculous, I realised a second later, because he didn’t even have my email address.
It was an email from The Flour Mill, weirdly.
Dear Annalise
Thank you for entering our competition and for sending us your golden syrup sponge pudding.
We will be sampling all the entries and will be back in touch as soon as we have selected the six companies we would like to take further on this exciting journey.
Flo and Mark at The Flour Mill
I sat down on the bed in a state of bewilderment.
What on earth?
I stared at the email, trying to make sense of it. But with my head still foggy with exhaustion from the day before, joining the dots didn’t seem to be working. One thing I knew for certain was that I had definitely not entered that competition!
Then I recalled Loli asking me to bring in one of our puddings for her library friend, Tina. I’d taken her one of our golden syrup sponge puddings...
Loli!
*****
I couldn’t believe Loli would do that, without even telling me. She must have entered the competition and given my name as the contact, sending in the pudding I’d brought in, supposedly for Tina. Had Tina been in on it? I supposed she must have been. Who else could have made sure the pudding was delivered safely to The Flour Mill! It was quite funny, really. I couldn’t help admiring the sheer audacity of the pair...
But I wasn’t going to worry about it. Vintage Puddings probably wouldn’t progress beyond the tasting in this competition. The next email I received would more than likely be thanking me for entering but saying that I wasn’t going to be progressing to the next stage . And that would be absolutely fine by me!
But before I went into the hospital to confront Loli about her astonishingly sneaky behaviour, jI had a very important task to perform – something that was making my heart leap in excited anticipation.
I’d made it clear at the shelter that I’d like to adopt Barley if no one came forward to claim him. And no one had. So today, I was going back there to fill in the forms that would allow me to take Barley home with me!