“Can it, Lane.”
And because there was something in Jennifer’s voice—something that wasn’t quite her usual snarling confidence—Audrey canned it. “Jennifer, are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be? I’m having glorified bean soup in a second-rate gastropub with the most frustrating woman I’ve met in my entire life. And, may I remind you, I work with Grace Forsythe.”
“All of which you’ve chosen to do.”
“Chosen’s a strong word. We had a limited budget for season one and Grace is so desperate to stay relevant she’ll work for gin and peanuts.”
This was pretty typical Jennifer evasion. But she didn’t normally seem this uncomfortable. And that was complicated, because Audrey didn’t want to be viewing every interaction she had with Jennifer through the lens of a low-dose SSRI. But also, you shouldn’t ignore people’s context. And Jennifer’s context was that she preferred standing behind a camera being inventively rude to people to, for example, talking about her feelings. Or aboutanything. At least anything she couldn’t control. Which made the show a pretty safe topic. And Audrey, sap that she was, wanted Jennifer to feel safe.
“Oh, come on,” she said. “Expectationsis too well put together for me to believe that you didn’t pick Grace for a reason.”
“I told you. She was cheap.”
“And?”
“And”—Jennifer sighed—“she tests well. She’s got a good relationship with the BBC. The public loves her. The contestants love her. And for all she’s a washed up, pretentious, overrated, pseudo-intellectual luvvieish fame junkie, she’s got strong instincts. Thethree darlingsthing is pap but it works.”
It’s pap but it worksseemed to be how Jennifer saw the show in general. Which was something Audrey had always found odd. “You keep saying things like that,” she tried. “But if you feel that way, why make a show likeBake Expectationsin the first place?”
Jennifer had a range of scornful expressions, and the one she reached for now was number seventeen, the one that said quite specificallyI am disappointed that I have to explain this to you, but I shouldn’t have expected better.“You understand that the TV industry is anindustry, right? It’s not about your heart’s secret truth. It’s about selling shit to pricks in suits by convincing them they can sell it to pricks in suburbs.”
“To an extent,” Audrey admitted. “Maybe. But you’ve poured your whole life into this show. It must meansomethingto you.”
“It means I made a lot of money and a lot of powerful friends.”
While Audrey was making her sceptical face, the waiter circled back around with the drinks.
“There must be more to it than that.”
Jennifer wrapped her hands around her cup like she was tryingto stop crows from stealing it. “Sorry, if you’re hoping I’ve got some saccharine story about how I used to bake every Sunday with my dear old grandmama and I wanted to share that feeling with the nation, then you’re out of luck. I don’t.”
“So, what?” It wasn’t clear to Audrey whether it would be more naïve to accept that Jennifer was really that cynical, or naïve to assume she wasn’t. “You just thought,What do people I have complete contempt for like? I know, baking!”
“You missed a couple of steps and a whole lot of workshopping, but basically.”
“I don’t believe you.”
Jennifer shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
Audrey could have left it there. But she was a compulsive not-leave-it-there-er. “What about the workshopping?”
“What about it?”
This was going out on a limb and Audrey knew it. She was familiar enough with the mechanisms of broadcast media that she could make overconfident statements to the other contestants, but Jennifer was an actual pro, so there was a good chance Audrey was about to talk largely out of her arse. “Well, my industry’s different, but getting something all the way from pitch to finished product takes—I mean it takessomekind of motivation. Faking it ’til you make it is one thing, but if you really gave as few shits as you say you do, I think you’d be even more miserable than you’re currently pretending to be.”
“What makes you think I’m pretending?”
That was a good question. And Audrey hoped she had a good answer. Or else she was just making a fool of herself over another ambitious, emotionally unavailable woman who would always see her soft, sentimental, and lacking.
You do so love to blame me for things, don’t you Aur?sighed Natalie.
“Because,” Audrey went on doggedly, “if you really didn’t give a damn about anybody or anything, Grace wouldn’t like you enough to interfere in your love life, and you wouldn’t like her enough to let her.”
“Is that what you think happened?” Jennifer was sounding more guarded than usual. Or perhaps guarded in a different way—shutting off rather than pushing back.
“You could very easily have never seen me again. But you did. And you still are.”
