22
Henrik brought both sourdough loaves over to his father’s house the following morning. His father wasn’t impressed.
“Are you still using that old starter?” he asked, distaste written all over his face.
“Indeed I am. It makes the most delicious bread.”
“I love sourdough!” Anita said. “I’ve never understood what you’ve got against it, Hasse.”
Hasse shrugged. “I just think it’s overrated.” He turned his head away. “That starter and the whole history behind it almost cost your grandfather the business,” he muttered.
“That smells delicious—can I have some?” Elnaz asked as she entered the kitchen. Henrik smiled as she cut herself a slice of bread and spread it generously with butter. She smiled back. “I love your sourdough.” Hasse scowled at them.
“So it’s time to trim the tree,” Elnaz informed them through a mouthful of bread.
They had their makeup done in Hasse’s study. Ellen showed up just in time, and smiled stiffly when Tom gave her a rather clumsy kiss on the cheek. Then they all took up their positions around the tree, surrounded by boxes of tinsel, fairy lights, and ornaments. Then they set to work decorating the tree, listening to Christmas music and enjoying Christmas treats as they did so. The children had fun, and Henrik found he was able to relax as he stepped into his role as the cheerful son of Hasse Eklund.
Then it was time for Henrik and his father to bake their saffron buns. Before the cameras, they got along just fine, agreeing on the elasticity of the dough, the amount of saffron to include, and the fact that the milk shouldn’t be too hot. Hasse came up with an anecdote about when Henrik was a little boy and didn’t have the patience to wait for the dough to proof. Henrik listened with half an ear, but smiled anyway. He knew most of it wasn’t true; Hasse had no special memories of his children, because he had never spent any time with them.
Hasse patted Henrik on the shoulder as he told his stories, gazing at him as if his son was very special. Love in front of the cameras was so unconditional! The worst thing was that Henrik always treasured those brief moments when his father was like this. He was doing it even now, but then he reminded himself that this was the same person who’d decided to compete with his own son’s TV show just because Henrik had stood up to him.
They paused for a coffee break in the middle of the scene.
Hasse stared at Henrik as they helped themselves to the refreshments provided by the production team. “So have you found something else to do?”
“Sorry?”
“In the fall.” The loving expression was completely gone.
“There are no plans to cancel Let’s Get Baking .” Henrik sat down at the table and sipped his coffee. He hoped his father would go and sit in the armchair by the bay window as far from him as possible.
“No?” Hasse narrowed his eyes and took the chair opposite Henrik.
Tom joined them, but Hasse didn’t care. Maybe he wanted Tom to hear this.
“This is what I was afraid of,” he went on. “You don’t have enough backbone.”
Henrik looked wearily at him. “What do you mean?”
“You’ve had everything served up to you on a silver platter. A job, a business. Fame. All I’ve ever wanted from my children is for them to put in a little effort, and it’s a great disappointment to me that you can’t come up with something to do on your own terms.” He got to his feet, picked up his empty plate, and left the room.
Henrik couldn’t bring himself to look at his brother and instead focused on his meatball sandwich. But he had lost his appetite.
When filming resumed, they took out the dough that had been prepared the previous day and checked its elasticity.
“Perfect!” Hasse exclaimed, laughing heartily. “No one makes better saffron dough than you, Henrik.” He smiled warmly and leaned closer. “Don’t tell Tom,” he added quietly, but loudly enough for sound to pick it up. Henrik grinned, even though he felt nauseated. How long could he put up with this nonsense?
Filming finally came to a close with Camilla arranging the floral centerpiece for the dining table. Henrik could hardly wait to get home. He was supposed to meet up with the guys; they had been friends since high school and went out for a meal on a regular basis, even though he couldn’t always make it. He sent a text, made his excuses. He just couldn’t face it. Instead he went out for a run in the cold night air, then took a long, hot shower, poured himself a whiskey, and fell asleep in front of an old episode of Seinfeld .
The following morning, he was right back at it. When he arrived at the mansion, they all changed into pajamas so it would look as if they’d slept over. The first scene featured Christmas breakfast with rice pudding, and ham on freshly baked wort bread. They all praised Anita’s new rub, which made her happy.
Then they filmed lunch. Anita’s son, Niklas, and his family showed up, and they filmed Henrik, Camilla, and Tom carving the ham and piling meatballs and potatoes on gold-trimmed serving dishes that had come from his grandfather’s childhood home. Henrik cut generous slices of the previous day’s sourdough. He really wanted to tell the production team the story of the starter; he knew they would love it. But of course he kept quiet.
When his mother and Vanja arrived, the atmosphere grew chilly. His parents greeted each other with a formal handshake and awkward air kisses. Vanja followed suit. If there was anyone who loathed Hasse more than Henrik’s mom, it was Vanja. Henrik couldn’t understand why they had agreed to be in the show at all.
They were filmed watching Donald Duck and His Friends Wish You a Merry Christmas as a family. (Recorded, of course.) Then they went for a festive walk together before dinner.
The snow lay thick on the ground, creating a magical atmosphere. Darkness was falling and the air was chilly. All the moisture had frozen, forming tiny, shimmering ice crystals everywhere.
Henrik walked alongside his mother, but the cameras were on so they couldn’t talk about anything personal. He watched his father, walking out in front of the group between Camilla and Niklas, chatting and laughing like a jovial patriarch. The production team only wanted to film a short section of the walk, but it was good to get out of the stuffy house.
“Have you talked about the board meeting?” his mother said once the cameras were far enough away. Her words formed little white clouds in the cold. Henrik had told her about his disastrous conversation with his father, and she had given him lots of encouragement.
He shook his head. “As far as I know, Camilla and Tom are still in favor, but I haven’t discussed it any more with Dad.”
The evening ended with a traditional lutefisk. Hasse shared his personal recipe, of course. The fish preparation had already been filmed that morning, so all that was left was for Tom and Henrik to whip up a white sauce. Though it was a short scene, Henrik found it increasingly difficult to keep up the facade. He tried to play along and chat about any of the approved conversation topics, but the pretense had become almost physically painful to him. How much of his life was a sham?
When they had finished, Elnaz came over to him.
“Don has seen the latest clips from Let’s Get Baking , and he wants to talk to us and Ted—do you have a few minutes?”
He followed her upstairs to his old bedroom, which had long ago been converted into a library, and Elnaz got them all on speakerphone.
“Okay, Don, we’re all here.”
“I’ll come straight to the point. This is the most boring crap I’ve ever seen—I don’t feel anything . Watching paint dry would be more exciting. I want to feel something, for fuck’s sake. Do you understand?”
“I like this flirting idea,” Elnaz said, managing a strained smile. “Henrik and Nora went out for a drink the other night, and you had a nice time, didn’t you?”
“Yeees . . . ,” Henrik began.
“If you’re going down the romance route, something has to fucking happen. Fireworks. A nuclear explosion, okay?” Don broke in.
“No problem,” Elnaz said, looking encouragingly at Henrik.
“No problem,” he heard himself parrot.
“I’d like to see a few scenes where you try to provoke Nora,” Don went on. “See what you get. I think you might be sitting on something really good, and you’re just wasting it. Fiery characters always make good TV.”
Henrik hated the way Don talked about Nora.
They ended the call, and Elnaz looked wearily at Henrik.
“Like I said before, that angle doesn’t feel right. I’ve had enough of humiliation TV. But I still like the idea of a flirtation. A romance,” Elnaz said.
Henrik realized he had had enough. He was already pretending to be part of a loving family—he couldn’t bring himself to pretend to be in love as well.
“I don’t know, I ... Do you really think it will work?”
“Are you ready?” The production assistant had appeared in the doorway. “We need to get going again. It’s your scene, Henrik—dessert wine and Christmas desserts.”
Henrik breathed a sigh of relief at the reprieve. He and Elnaz hadn’t finished their discussion, but he couldn’t think about that right now. He stood up and left the room.
The adults gathered to sip dessert wine in the living room. The open fire was crackling, and the snow was still falling. It was as if everything had been perfectly staged for a cozy family celebration.
“So how’s business, Vanja?” Hasse asked, rolling his cognac around in his glass. He wasn’t a big fan of dessert wine.
“Fine.”
“I hear you’ve taken a look at Henrik’s proposal for a bakery.”
“That’s correct. Or rather one of my colleagues did. It was a solid business plan.”
Hasse snorted. “I regard the fact that the bank approved the plan as pure nepotism.”
“As I said, it was a colleague who checked it over,” Vanja replied calmly.
“Henrik makes a good saffron dough, but he’s no entrepreneur,” Hasse continued.
As usual, no one said a word, once Hasse got going.
Henrik sat very still, hardly daring to breathe, as if his breath might ignite the tense atmosphere. He kept his eyes fixed on the dancing flames.
“Enough, Hasse,” his mother said.
“Don’t you dare tell me what I can say and do in my own house!” Hasse roared.
“The way you speak to your children ...,” Vanja began, but Henrik’s mother placed a hand on his arm and he fell silent.
She looked at her ex-husband. “Vanja is right. The way you speak to my children—I’m tired of hearing it.”
“So what are you doing here? In my house?”
Mom swallowed hard but didn’t reply.
“Henrik needs to hear the truth. The reason I’m hard on them is because they haven’t had to learn a thing for themselves. They were born into all this, the celebrity status, the money. If you take a chance on every crazy idea, you’ll run the family firm into the ground. Henrik is too much like his grandfather in that respect. Henrik proved he’s no businessman with that fiasco with the Coffeepot. He can bake, and he’s good on TV, but he will never run a business successfully.”
Henrik recoiled as if he had been slapped across the face. Why was he so shocked, though? Hasse had never believed in him.
A second later Elnaz came in, all smiles. “Everyone ready?”
“Absolutely.” Henrik did his best to bury his humiliation. God knows he was used to it by now—it shouldn’t be hard. He took a big gulp of the wine, which was so sweet that his whole mouth tingled. Then he stood up and took a deep breath. The smell of burning wood stung his nostrils.
As filming began, he made a decision. He was going to fight back, Hasse wasn’t going to get his new show in the fall. The Let’s Get Baking Christmas special was going to be the best Christmas special ever. Longtime viewers would be surprised, and the buzz would attract new viewers. He was going to make sure everyone was talking about it.
He’d been faking things his whole life, so he might as well keep going. If a hot romance was what they wanted, then he would give it to them.