‘Of course.’ Petra’s return smile is suddenly so flirty I’m surprised she hasn’t written her number on his arm.
Which makes sense actually; what she was saying before about there being some kind of tension between us was kind of weirding me out a little, but I now realise that she must just have been trying to establish whether there was anything between us before making a move on Jake. If he finds true love with her, I’d be quite happy, actually. I’d have lost the challenge, butI’d rather go on a love therapy weekend by myself than the team-building one with him.
Jake does not show a natural talent with a needle, so Petra is forced to keep coming over to help him. I sayforced; she seems more than happy to spend lots of very tactile time with him.
I find it slightly annoying, actually. I mean, it’s hardly professional, is it?
At the beginning of the second break, we’re all asked whether we’d rather eat at tables on the other side of the room, orcontinue to embroider through the break. Jake and I both elect to sew while we eat; having snuck glances at some of the others’ canvases, we know we’re way behind everyone else.
‘I think it was because it took us so long to thread our needles.’ I realise that I’ve been staring so hard at my canvas, trying to get my stitches right, that my vision’s gone slightly blurry.
‘Yeah.’ Jake’s staring at his own canvas. ‘How is everyone else so good at that? And also why is it not hurting anyone else’s fingers?’
‘You aren’t supposed to keep poking yourself.’ I look more closely at his hands. ‘Have you smeared blood on your canvas?’
‘Might have done. But not to worry. I’m going to sew over it.’
‘Delightful.’
He nods very seriously. ‘It doesn’t matter if you mess up, it’s how you recover that counts. Always sew over your blood.’
‘You’re so right. Why didn’t Petra tell us that?’
Our freakishly civilised and friendly little exchange is terminated by the arrival of our food, and then we’re both busy juggling cutlery and needles until our embroidery companions retake their seats, and then everyone continues in near-silence, because this is, frankly, a ridiculously challenging task to be completed in the time available (or, indeed, at all).
When we finish, Petra does her clapping thing and then says, ‘Okay, so it’s time for the big reveal.’
‘Would you like to go first?’ Jake says.
‘Love to.’ I turn mine towards him and his eyes widen.
‘Wow,’ he says. ‘You have a genuine talent there. I mean, it slightly looks like me and it fully looks like a person. It’s… amazing. I’m genuinely impressed. It’s as though you – the prolific author – are naturally creative.’
‘Why thank you.’ I’m a little stunned by Jake beingnice. Maybe he’s just doing it to impress Petra. ‘Now yours?’ Petraleant over him alotwhile he was doing it; maybe she helped and it’s actually going to be very good.
‘Here we go.’ He moves it from side to side in a building-suspense fashion, and then suddenly turns it round.
And then we both just laugh.
When we eventually wipe our eyes, I say nothing. There are in fact no words for how bad it is. If you had to guess the age of the person who did it, you’d probably say five or six.
I lean forward. I’ve just noticed something. ‘Did you spill some of your curry on it? As well as the blood.’ I indicate the browny splatters to the top left of it.
‘Yep.’
‘No time to sew over it?’
‘Yeah, there’s only so much genius I can produce in one evening.’
‘Itisgenius,’ I say.
‘I know.’ Jake turns the canvas back towards him and shakes his head. ‘Three hours of my life gone doing this.’
Petra claps. ‘Well done everyone. I’m proud ofallof you, every single one of you.’ She looks long and meaningfully at Jake, and I catch sight of his right foot doing a little backwards and forwards circle, and wonder whether it’s due to slight sexual attraction or discomfort over the (what I would call) OTT flirting. ‘Now. It is of course your choice as to what you do with your finished embroideries, but one suggestion is to make a present to each other of them. A lovely memento of this evening.Oryou can keep them, as a lovely embroidered memento portrait of each other.’
We look at each other for a long moment, during which I think no thank you very much, I do not want a memento of Jake. He clearly thinks the same thing, because we suddenly, as one, shoot our arms out and exchange them.
Which, frankly, doesn’t make any difference because it’s still a memento, just one ofhiswork rather thanmywork. To be fair, his work has actually given me a lot of pleasure. You don’t cry with laughter every day.
