say I’ve got a little something up my sleeve.” He paused, his eyes darting to the camera operator. “How was that? Do you have everything you need?”
They did, as it happened, have everything they needed, and Alain stepped away from the tangle of lights and mics and booms to join Rosaline. Who had been lingering, unable to decide whether talking to someone she might be interested in was exactly what she wanted right now. Or very much not.
“Well, that went well,” he said. It was a sentence Rosaline hardly ever heard nonsarcastically, but from the way Alain was smiling he seemed to mean it. “And thank you so much for letting me look at your books this morning—I don’t think I’d have won if you hadn’t.”
She shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. Looking at the recipe didn’t do much for me.”
“Nonsense. You did far better than a lot of people.” He might have been right. Or he might have just been trying to be nice. It was hard to tell because it was the sort of show where only the top and the bottom mattered and everyone else was in the middle. “Honestly, I’m starting to wonder what I’m even doing here.”
“Rosaline, Rosaline.” He gazed down at her, his eyes alight with warmth. And then took both her hands. “Come and sit down.”
She let him lead her over to a log that seemed to have been literally designed for people to sit on in the evening and have intimate conversations as the moon rose over the duck pond. Oh God. Oh help. He was doing kindness at her. Rosaline couldn’t cope with people doing kindness at her. It made her feel like she’d shoplifted a lipstick. Except the lipstick was made of time and emotional energy.
“I’m being silly.” She waved what she hoped was a dismissive hand. “Honestly. I’m fine.”
Turning his body slightly towards her, he reestablished his look of compassionate understanding. “It’s all right. Everyone has moments of uncertainty. I suppose you’re worried this is taking time away from your studies.”
What studies? Fuck. Those studies. The ones she’d pretended she was doing so she’d look cool or worthwhile or just . . . better. Like someone Alain might be interested in. It was time to come clean. She had to come clean. She couldn’t keep taking advantage of him like this. “Um,” she heard herself say. “A bit?”
He was silent a moment, giving real thought to her imaginary problem. “The way I see it, yes, this is time that you could be spending on your course. And you’d probably achieve a higher class of degree if you stayed home every night and studied—but that would be the case whether you were on the show or not. And I’m sure most of your classmates will use the time you’re using to bake to do Jägerbombs in the student union and, from what I’ve heard about medical students, leave severed heads in each other’s bedrooms.”
This would have been an amazing pep talk if she’d actually been at university. “Yeah, but . . . what if the show distracts me too much and I end up, like hypothetically, not becoming a doctor at all?”
“That won’t happen, Rosaline. It’s only eight weeks, mostly over the summer. You’ve already accomplished so much and your whole life is waiting for you, and even if you get eliminated before the semifinal—which I really don’t think you will—it’ll be another string to your bow when you move on.”
Once again. He’d nailed it. For a different person. Because Rosaline’s problem was she didn’t have a bow. And so coming on this show was just giving her a useless pile of string.
“I mean,” he went on, “you’re not like—oh, what’s her name. Josie? The . . . Are we saying plus-sized these days?”
Rosaline gave him a slightly confused look. “I think we’re not judging people by body type?”
“Are we not?” He gave her a conspiratorial smile. “Or are we just politely pretending not to?”
She wasn’t sure what to say to that. Because she wanted the answer to be No, certainly not, but she was pretty sure for a lot of people it was Yeah, kinda. And she wasn’t sure if being honest about it was courageous or unhelpful.
Before she could make up her mind, Alain had circled back to his point. “Anyway, for someone like Josie, a vicar’s wife whose entire job is to arrange flowers and keep the Victoria sponge flowing at parish meetings, this competition is basically it.