Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake (Winner Bakes All #1) - Alexis Hall Page 0,23
delightfully surreal quality, I’ve been very starved for human drama. Tell me exactly what shape hole you’re in and precisely how dirty you’ll get trying to climb out.”
“Fine.” Rosaline sighed. “So you know how last night I told you I got stuck crashing at a random farmhouse? Well, someone else from the show got stuck there with me and we got talking and he was hot and interesting and an architect and he’s travelled and all this stuff.”
“That doesn’t sound like a hole, Rosaline. That sounds like a perfectly ordinary conversation.”
“I’m getting to the hole. The hole is imminent and now I’ve said the word ‘hole’ so many times it sounds weird. Anyway, the point of the hole—”
“Holes can’t have points, darling,” drawled Lauren. “That’s rather definitional.”
“Oh, go learn to spell. The point of the hole is that when we got to the bit where he politely asked me what I did, I panicked. And instead of saying ‘I’m a single mum who works in a shop,’ I said, ‘I’m a medical student who spent several years in Malawi.’ Which means I have to pretend to know about Malawi. Forever.”
At least Lauren had the decency not to laugh, but that was about her limit. “Three out of ten, Roz. All setup, no payoff.”
“I hate you. You know that, right?”
“To the moon and back?”
“To the fucking sun and back. And don’t take the piss out of my and Amelie’s thing. That’s our thing and it’s sweet and she’ll probably stop doing it in a couple of years and I’ll be a lonely old woman who nobody cares about longing for the days when I had a kid who actually liked me.”
“Oh please”—Lauren snorted—“in a couple of years you’ll barely be thirty. You’ll still be young enough to play a teenager on American television.”
“Yeah, somehow I don’t think that’s going to be a career option for me.”
Lauren was silent a moment. Then, “I can’t believe you’d told some man you were in Malawi. Why Malawi of all places?”
“I don’t know. I think Amelie’s dad went there once.”
More silence. In Rosaline’s experience that meant Lauren was building up to something.
“What is it, Loz?” she asked, resigned to whatever mockery was coming her way.
“Hmm? Oh, I was just trying to work out if it makes you more or less of a racist that your culturally appropriative journey of self-discovery only took place in your head.”
“To the sun and back,” Rosaline repeated. “I feel awful enough as it is without having to worry about that as well.”
“Why do you even care what this random train man thinks about anything?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I’ve been brainwashed by the patriarchy.” “You were into him, weren’t you?”
“I mean. Yes. I think?” Rosaline flumped against the trunk of the tree. “It’s a bit hard to tell because my only points of reference these days are primary school teachers, parents, and you.”
“I flatter myself that I set a high bar.”
“Well, he’s not married, and he’s never cheated on me. Which puts him ahead of you in at least two areas.”
“Ah, yes. A love story for the ages. She was a young woman trying to find her place in a world that had wronged her. He . . . wasn’t married.”
Rosaline gritted her teeth. “Look, he’s a charming, successful, good-looking guy who clearly has his shit together and who, if I’m not completely terrible at this, might like me. And it’s a little bit hard to know what I have to offer someone like that. So I freaked out and tried to offer him Malawi.”
“Just tell him the truth. If he’s not an utter prick, he’ll be fine about it. And if he is, the problem rather solves itself.”
She was right. She was right. Being right was one of Lauren’s worst qualities. “I will. But maybe not exactly this second. Because I’m going to the bar to have a drink. With grown-ups. Who I’ve met. In my life that I’ve got.”
“Good for you. Now I really need to call Allison, so bugger off and enjoy your evening.”
They exchanged hasty goodbyes, the phone clicked. And off Rosaline buggered.
Inside the bar, Rosaline found several of the other contestants huddled around a circular table, nursing an array of beverages and swapping tales of woe from the day’s baking.
“I’ll be honest,” Josie was saying, “when Marianne looked at my cake like that, I thought I was going to poop my knickers.”
Florian rolled his eyes theatrically. “Darling, you have nothing to complain about. She said my