As the production crew put the final, final touches on theeighth season ofBake Expectations—exit interviews with the runners-up, texture shots of the lawn, the obligatory scenes of people hugging and being excited—Audrey let herself take a moment to just…be there. To savour having been part of something. Something that wasn’t exactly going away but wasn’t exactly sticking around either. Something that was ending and beginning and changing and staying exactly the same all at once. Something that, for a half of a half of a heartbeat was singularly, perfectly,now.
And then it was done. The celebratory noises had died away, the camera operators were putting down their cameras, the cleanup crew began thanklessly picking paper plates off the formerly pristine lawn, and Colin Thrimp came scampering over to where Audrey was standing. “Umm,” he offered. “Jennifer says you were right. She was the best choice.”
“Yeah,” Audrey said, looking at where Meera had been before the crowd swallowed her. “She really was.”
“She also says turn around.”
Audrey turned around to see Jennifer Hallet, wireless mic still pinned to her lapel, sauntering across the grass towards them.
“That’s a wrap, Lane.”
She wasn’t sure, but Audrey thought she heard a note of melancholy in Jennifer’s voice. “And you’re okay with that?”
“Always wanted to go out on a high note.”
Cautiously, Audrey took Jennifer’s hand. “So what now?”
“If you’re up for it, I still say we have a go atDead Fish and Sad Children.”
There were a hundred reasons why they shouldn’t. A thousand. Right then, Audrey couldn’t bring herself to give a single solitary shit about any of them. “You know what,” Audrey replied. “Let’s fucking do it.”
Jennifer actually looked shocked. “What, really?”
“Were you not serious?”
“I’m as serious as a brain tumour. But I thought you’d still be all,Ooh no, it’s too soon, what if—”
“Oh, shutup, Jennifer. It’s a risk. Of course it’s a risk. Butlifeis risks and I’m in the mood to take one.”
“Even if—”
Audrey smiled a smile that somehow managed to be both aggressive and sappy. “Which part of ‘Oh, shutup’ didn’t you understand?”
The intimate-ish moment of planning her entire future life and career with an annoying sweary woman was interrupted by a tap on her shoulder. Turning, Audrey saw a woman in maybe her sixties who, though her face was less lined and her hair closer to grey than white, was the absolute image of Doris.
“Excuse me,” she said. “Are you—I don’t mean to be weird, but are you Audrey Lane?”
“You’d better fucking believe she is,” said Jennifer Hallet, helpfully.
“My mum’s said a lot about you and I think—I mean I know—she didn’t win, but I think it’d mean a lot to her if you were with us right now.”
Audrey blinked in confusion. “Isn’t this sort of a family time?”
Beside her, Jennifer was scowling. “Fuck me, Lane, you’ve been all over this woman’s business for months. Go tell your friend she did well.”
“I’m Susan, by the way,” said Susan. Because of course she was. Who else would she have been?
And Audrey said, “I know,” which thankfully Susan didn’t think was odd and let herself be led over to where Doris and her family were waiting.
“This is my brother Robert,” said Susan conversationally, “and my sister Maggie.”
They both waved, although it seemed Maggie, all these years later, was still bad with strangers.
“This is my husband,” Susan went on. And then she went on, and on, and on, introducing partners and children and children’s partners and children’s children until Audrey wanted to break down and cry. Because she’d barely thought about this side of Doris’s life. The side that the rest of the world saw every day, the side that was, in its own way, just as much a monument to Doris’s legacy as any story Audrey could tell. A side she wouldn’t be complete without.
Doris’s voice—a voice she’d heard so often over the last few weeks that she could hear it in her sleep—brought Audrey sharply back to the present. “Hello you. This is a nice surprise.”
“We thought you’d want to see her,” said Susan.
