Just Desserts

A clatter of dropped pans snatched her attention to the studio’s third stage set. The evening’s final pair of contestants were preparing their workstations in readiness for the next round of filming. A blushing man knelt over a set of empty pans he had dropped. He picked them up and Trudy saw that one of his fingers was bandaged by a blue plaster. There was something about his posture that seemed familiar. Even more maddening, when he half-turned, she recognised his face but she didn’t know where she knew him from.

‘Who’s that guy?’ she asked Daryl, pointing.

‘Which one? The unsuccessful pan juggler?’

He was standing up and had turned so she could now see him properly. He wore a badge that identified him as Victor but the name was of no help. Trudy figured, if she’d met him before, she either didn’t know him well enough to know his name, or had known him by a different name.

‘I don’t know him,’ said Daryl.

Trudy felt sure she had met him somewhere before. She tried to picture him without the bald head and the goatee but her imagination refused to participate in the identification game. There was something in his eyes, narrow and unsympathetic, that stirred a prickle of unease.

‘Do you want me to go and find out who he is?’ Daryl asked.

‘No,’ Trudy said. ‘I’m sure it will come to me eventually.’

Tom Yates joined them. He was shaking his head in bewilderment over the ferocity of Carlos’s outburst and asking Trudy what they could do to address Nicola’s upset. ‘The poor lass is in bits,’ he confided. ‘And she’s so angry. She says it’s a shame Carlos didn’t choke on her blintz.’

Trudy shrugged sympathetically. She could see Tom was getting ready to ask a favour and she had a foreboding of what it might be.

‘The director will be over here in a moment,’ Tom explained.

Trudy shook her head.

‘He’ll want one of us to taste Nicola’s blintz,’ Tom went on. ‘Are we going to toss a coin or draw straws? Or do you have a penchant for sampling something that’s been described as irradiated dog shit?’

‘Tom,’ she began, ‘if Nicola’s blintz tastes as bad as Carlos made out, I’m not sure I want to eat it.’

Tom dismissed her objection with a wave of his hand. ‘You know what a drama queen Carlos is about these things,’ he reminded her. ‘It’s an apple blintz. How bad can it really taste?’

Probably not too bad, Trudy conceded, although she had never been a big lover of the combination of cheese and apple. Nevertheless, she nodded agreement and said she would keep an open mind if she was called on to judge the blintz.

The director approached and asked Tom to give a second opinion on Nicola’s apple blintz. Trudy resisted the urge to sigh with relief.

‘Trudy could do it,’ Tom suggested.

‘You’ll be better,’ the director insisted. ‘We need her to calm down and you’re the man for the job.’

Trudy tried not to give a grin of triumph.

Tom nodded an unwilling consent and made his way across the studio with the director. In fairness, Trudy thought, Tom was a natural diplomat and always seemed to know the right thing to say. She knew she didn’t possess any of his considerable people skills and felt sure Nicola was in good hands with him. Daryl stepped back to her place behind the cameras when the assistant director led Trudy and Carlos to the evening’s final pair of contestants.

‘Did it really taste that bad?’ Trudy asked Carlos.

‘It was the most disgusting thing I’ve had in my mouth since I was a teenage boy and experimenting with my sexuality.’

She found herself smiling. ‘You really upset the poor woman.’

‘She’ll get over it,’ Carlos said. ‘She’s basking in her fifteen minutes and I suspect she’s got a new best friend in Tom.’

Trudy glanced toward the pair.

Nicola was hugging Tom and laughing with him as the pair finished off the blintz she’d made. Tom was smiling enthusiastically and hurling dismissive waves in Carlos’s direction.

‘How does he do that with people?’ Carlos marvelled. ‘How does he get them to like him so effortlessly?’

Trudy wanted to tell him it was probably easy if you didn’t insult them and their hard work, but she kept the opinion to herself. ‘Everybody loves Tom,’ she said quietly.

‘Everybody loves him,’ Carlos repeated. ‘That sounds like the surest way to get a disease.’ He shrugged the matter aside and stepped forward to meet the final contestants.

Alongside the bald and goateed man called Victor was a shy young woman, Amy, who seemed petrified by the TV cameras. Trudy said hello to them both and then studied Victor’s face more closely.

‘I’m sure I know you from somewhere,’ she told him.

He raised an eyebrow and seemed curious. ‘Where?’ he asked.

She shook her head. ‘I can’t remember. I guess it’ll come back to me soon.’

‘Let me know when it does.’

His smile, while civil and polite, seemed to be masking something. She wondered if he already knew where they’d met before, and then dismissed that idea as paranoid. Why would someone keep such information secret?

Then the hubbub of the show was beginning and Victor and Amy were being rushed off to their separate workstations where they were working on the next stage of the evening’s desserts. Victor was making crêpes tulipes with raspberry sorbet whilst Amy had elected to serve a traditional apricot-almond clafoutis. Some preparation had been needed for both dishes and the chefs quickly immersed themselves in their work beneath the intense pressure of the cameras and the lights.

Trudy wanted to spend some time on Victor’s station so she could solve the mystery of his identity. To make the situation even more infuriating, whenever she tried to chat with him and learn a little more about him, Victor seemed strangely evasive and uncommunicative.

She mentioned this to Daryl, who told her she was worrying for nothing.

‘He’s a chef,’ Daryl reminded Trudy. ‘You’re all peculiar when you’re cooking. I’ve seen Charlotte concentrating over her pizzas like she’s giving birth to an immaculate conception. You can spend days brooding on a single flavour if you don’t think it’s quite right and I’ve seen Bill go –’

She stopped abruptly.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean to talk about him.’

‘Do I really spend days brooding on a single flavour?’

‘Days,’ Daryl agreed. ‘How long were you working on your mocha-chocolate ganache recipe?’

Trudy nodded reluctant agreement. She couldn’t recall exactly how long she’d been working on that dessert but she did know that the worst parts had covered a stressful couple of weeks. Although Daryl hadn’t finished voicing her sentiments on Bill, Trudy knew that he could sometimes be aloof when his thoughts were preoccupied by something in the kitchen.

‘In other words, I don’t think his behaviour is particularly peculiar,’ Daryl said. ‘It’s certainly no more peculiar than the rest of you moody culinary types.’

As an explanation, Trudy knew it made sense. And, even though it wasn’t a satisfying response, she refused to let herself dwell on the problem any longer. She went to find Nicola and see how she was coping after Carlos’s unforgivable outburst.

Fifteen minutes later the desserts were finished and served. Trudy complimented Amy on the lightness of her clafoutis whilst Carlos exclaimed enthusiastically over Victor’s tulipes. Another break was called while the three judges retired to a small room where they discussed their choices and made a final decision on the winning two contestants for the week. The format was now so familiar to her that Trudy was the first to speak when the door closed behind them.

‘Amy needs to be in the final,’ she explained. ‘Her clafoutis is gorgeous.’

They argued and cajoled for half an hour. There was a cameraman with them, filming as they exchanged cutting comments about each other and murmured compliments and condemnations about the chefs and the dishes they had prepared. Eventually, the three of them went out to face the contestants and announce their verdict.

‘It’s been a close debate,’ Tom explained, acting as spokesman. ‘But we’ve finally come to a decision. The two contestants going through to the semi-finals are Amy and Victor.’

There was good-natured handshaking and murmurs of congratulations. Victor and Amy hugged and the scene ended with a shot of Nicola scowling at Carlos. Trudy pulled her gaze away from the woman’s expression of pained animosity. She didn’t like to see someone so upset and she tried to find something of interest to watch that would give her a reason to look in a different direction.

Her gaze fell on Victor.

She watched him walk away from the studio’s set of kitchen work surfaces and cookery paraphernalia and step over to someone in the front row of the studio audience. It was not unusual for contestants to have family and friends in the audience to offer support. Trudy wondered if a glimpse of his friends and family might give her a clue where she knew him from.

Victor bent down. From the way his shoulders were bent, Trudy guessed he was whispering confidentially to his friend. The lights on the studio set were so bright it was difficult to see beyond their glare. Trudy craned her neck and shielded her eyes to peer, still anxious for a clue to his identity. She sat quickly back in her chair when she saw who he was talking with.

Victor was a friend of Donny.

5

The air inside the Sweet Temptation HQ was rich with the scent of maple syrup and pecan muffins. The fragrance was intoxicatingly sweet and made Trudy’s stomach growl. She had always thought there was something compelling about the smoky caramel tones of maple syrup. It was one of those flavours that made her mouth water and urged her to give in to hunger cravings. Blended with the other ingredients, the smell was a constant distraction and dangerously irresistible.

Trudy had just finished working on her column for the week. Inspired by Kali’s mini carrot cakes at the wedding reception, Trudy had charted a brief history of the carrot cake and included in the article a couple of eighteenth-century Georgian recipes for carrot pudding. She would have been happier if she could have included a copy of Kali’s recipe in the text but she knew that was too much to ask from the pâtissier. Also, she relished the challenge of trying to recreate her own mini carrot cakes as a homage to Kali’s speciality. Uploading one of the photos she’d taken at the wedding, Trudy thought the article looked good to go.

After a final read-through she attached the document and the photograph to an email and sent it to her editor. As a reward, she told herself, she could go down to the bakery below and sample one of the maple syrup and pecan muffins.

It wouldn’t even be a snack, she told herself. She could look on it as an exercise in quality control, ensuring that the products Sweet Temptation supplied were up to the high standard she wanted to maintain. Almost won over by the argument, Trudy slipped out of her chair and started moving slyly towards the door.

Charlotte burst into the room. She was grinning and brandishing a bottle of champagne in one hand and a trio of crystal flutes in the other.

Trudy checked her watch. It was only just eleven in the morning. Champagne at this time of the day seemed positively decadent. Or deviant. She eyed the bottle suspiciously. ‘What are we celebrating?’

Charlotte checked the door before responding. ‘I’ve called Daryl up here too,’ she said. ‘She needs to know this as well. But I wanted to tell you first.’ She stepped close and lowered her voice as though sharing a secret. ‘Harvey proposed.’

Trudy hugged her friend. The rush of happiness was so intense that it was almost a strain keeping back the tears. Charlotte and Harvey were a beautiful couple. Yes, there was an age difference. But age differences weren’t necessarily a bad thing for some couples. And they hadn’t known each other a year. But they made each other happy and Trudy didn’t think anything else mattered in a relationship.

‘Congratulations,’ Trudy whispered. ‘That’s wonderful. What did you say?’

‘What do you think I said?’

It was, Trudy knew, a ridiculous question. But it gave Charlotte an excuse to break their embrace and display the huge diamond she now wore on her ring finger: a princess-cut oblong set on a white gold mount. Trudy admired it and grinned and congratulated her friend again.

‘Did this come out of the blue?’ Trudy asked.

Charlotte popped the cork on the champagne and filled all three flutes.

‘Obviously the subject of marriage has been bandied around a lot recently.’ She had the courtesy to blush. ‘What with Harvey being Bill’s best man and with Bill…I mean…’ Her voice trailed off into an embarrassed, apologetic murmur.

‘It’s no big deal,’ Trudy said, squeezing her friend’s hand. ‘You know I’m excited for you.’

Charlotte regarded her suspiciously.

‘For both of you,’ Trudy promised. She raised her flute of champagne and tilted it against Charlotte’s drink. ‘To your happiness,’ she said. ‘May there be lots of it filling your days.’

‘To happiness,’ Charlotte echoed. ‘And there’s something I need to ask you.’ Her blushes deepened as she added, ‘Except it’s a little awkward.’

‘Awkward?’ Trudy raised an eyebrow. ‘Go on.’

Before Charlotte could speak, Daryl opened the door and stepped into the office. Her face looked like thunder. Her eyes were the pained red of promised tears. Her upper lip trembled as though she was struggling to contain her misery.

‘Daryl?’ Trudy began.

‘Hon?’ Charlotte asked.

Daryl shook her head and pressed her lips tight together.

‘What’s the matter?’ Trudy asked. ‘Who’s upset you?’

Daryl slumped into an office chair. Her shoulders trembled and her eyes blinked constantly.

‘Who is it?’ Trudy repeated.

‘What’s happened?’ Charlotte pressed.

‘It’s Donny,’ Daryl said eventually.

‘What the fuck has he done now?’ Charlotte demanded.

She was pulling her mobile from her pocket. Whatever the awkward question she had been about to ask when they were alone, it was now clearly off the agenda for the day. Charlotte was focused on resolving Daryl’s issue.

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