She moved around them as best she could, trying to fill the waiting time with some cleaning. But it was hard to ignore the man sitting on her proving cupboard like it was a park bench.
‘Sorry, love,’ the sound guy said as she looked him up and down disapprovingly. ‘Nowhere else to sit.’
‘There’s outside,’ Mae said mildly.
He laughed, thinking she was joking. They always did.
Neil suddenly popped up, like a genie who only grants unwanted wishes. ‘Hi, can we borrow you for a sec?’
‘For?’
‘We were just thinking…We’ve got some spare time. And we thought we could just get a couple of shots with you and Callie before Sam joins. A bit of, you know… banter. Old friends reunited. That sort of thing.’
‘Mmm,’ Mae said, a cold sweat breaking out on her back.
‘Is that a yes?’
‘No.’
‘Right,’ Neil said with a light chuckle. ‘It’s just that, haha, I ran it past Callie and she seemed rather keen. I’d hate to tell heryousaid no.’
What?Wasshe keen? Or was this bullshit? The thing about Neil was that he never seemed sincere, so it was actually quite hard to pinpoint a lie.
‘OK,’ Mae said.
Wait, what?
‘Brilliant,’ Neil smiled.
No! No! What the hell have I done?!
‘Let’s get you out front, shall we?’
No, let’s not! Let’s set me on fire instead!
But it was too late; she was being shunted through the doors, a victim of her own mouth’s betrayal.
Callie stood vaguely in the middle of the seating area, the front-of-house light catching on her hair and the faint sheen on her cheekbones. Mae was struck again by how little her mahogany eyes seemed to have changed in energy. They still seemed to give nothing away and far too much all at once.
‘They shoved me out here,’ she said.
Callie’s gaze flicked briefly to the crew, then back to her.
‘Hi,’ Callie said, and there was a tiny hitch in it. ‘You… OK?’
Mae made her face look calm. It took far too much effort. ‘Awesome,’ she said flatly. ‘I love the idea of being on TV. It’s my dream.’
Callie’s mouth twitched, the faintest start of a smile, as if she couldn’t help it. There was the ghost of the girl Mae remembered, snorting at the back of the assembly when someone missed a note of a hymn.
It hurt to look at.
‘OK, Callie. Can we have you closer to the counter?’ Neil asked.
Callie stepped closer. Just a few inches of Formica between them now. The neat rows of pastries and iced buns forming a sugary demilitarised zone between them.
‘Isabella, can you give her a touch-up for the camera? Your best two-minute work?’ Neil called. Suddenly, a catlike creature with perfect eye makeup appeared and came at Mae’s face far too fast.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ Mae asked her.
