“Probably kids,” suggested Eddie, forgetting as usual that the role of the cameraman was to remain silent.
“It probably is kids,” Ms. Waverly agreed.
A tiny, ever-so-slightly traitorous part of Audrey couldn’t help but feel that a truly excellent journalist wouldn’t be running stories to which “kids” was the ultimate solution. Of course, she’d had thisconversation with herself hundreds of times in the past. It was just that being on the show, or off the show, or peripherally involved inBake Expectationshowever she was now, was reminding her that there were things you could do under the broad umbrella of “the media,” which felt a whole lot bigger and more important than trolleys in a brook.
“And you’ve been getting a lot of support,” Audrey prompted.
Very much the kind of person to respond well to prompting, Ms. Waverly took it from there. “There’s been real community uptake,” she said. “I’ve got over two thousand followers on Instagram now, and there’s people submitting pictures from all over Shrewsbury. And further. We got one from Pontesbury the other day.”
“And what do you do with the trolleys, once you’ve found out about them?” asked Audrey.
“Well there’s a little band of us now because there’s me, and Mr. Waverly—no relation—and Donna that works down the pub. And when we get a message in, one of us will usually head down and see if the trolley is still there, and if it is we’ll take it back where it’s meant to be.”
Audrey nodded again. People liked it when you nodded. It made it seem like you were agreeing with them. “And how many trolleys have you returned since you started?”
Ms. Waverly fell silent a moment. “It’s tricky because we’ve been going since January and we’ve not kept detailed records, but if I had to put a number on it, I’d say”—she began counting on her fingers—“about six.”
Congratulating Ms. Waverly on her triumph against a half dozen inconveniently situated shopping trolleys, Audrey and Eddie made their way back to the car. As she settled into thedriver’s seat, Audrey caught herself unconsciously slipping her phone out of her pocket and checking her messages. She had none. And she’d expected none. If there was a woman on the face of the planet who’d wait at a minimum of forty-eight hours after fucking you before texting, it was Jennifer Hallet.
“Are you okay?” asked Eddie, and the fact that she’d apparently been demonstrating sufficient not-okay-ness that even he could spot it made her feel substantially less okay than she hitherto had.
“Yeah,” she lied. “Fine.”
“Still upset you got kicked off the baking thing?”
Was she going to actually have this conversation? And with Eddie of all people? Apparently she was. “Honestly, that bit was okay. But then—there’s a whole big thing where some people were upset because I’d sort of told them the thing was rigged and—”
“Wait,Expectationsis rigged?”
She had to stop saying that to people. It was becoming clear that it was the adult equivalent of walking into a primary school playground and yelling, “Santa is just your parents.”
“Not really.”
“So why did you say it was?”
“Because it is. Sort of. And also not. Sort of. I mean all those sorts of shows are.”
Eddie seemed to be having a very small crisis. “What aboutStrictly?”
“Less rigged, because there’s rules about public votes.”
“MasterChef?Dragon’s Den?” His face fell still further. “Oh my God, notDrag Race?”
Audrey nodded. “AndDrag Race UK. Then again, I suppose you could say—I mean what even counts as ‘rigged’ when the whole system is that one person gets to decide who wins based oncriteria they get to make up on the spot?”
As an alternative perspective, it didn’t seem to be helping Eddie with his existential uncertainty. “It’s not made up on the spot. It’s based on Charisma, Uniqueness, Nerve and Talent.”
“And who gets to decide what Charisma, Uniqueness, Nerve and Talent look like?”
Eddie’s mouth worked helplessly for a moment. “I’m not sure I know who I am anymore.”
“Anyway”—it seemed best to move the conversation on or back or somewhere that wasn’t destroying Eddie’s faith in humanity—“I told everybody this, and a couple of them freaked out that they stayed in while I didn’t so I had to come back on Saturday and I’m stillsort ofinterviewing Doris about the story we probably can’t run—”
“The one with too much lesbian sex in it?”
“Yeah, that one. And there wasn’t that much lesbian sex in it. Although probably thinking about it,not that muchis still more than you’d expect in a story about baking and the blitz.” Also, Audrey had to privately admit, there had been rather more in the most recent instalment. “Long story short, I sort of wound up banging the producer and now I’m waiting for her to text like I’m fifteen again.”
Eddie was making a sympathetic face. “You could text her?”
