‘Relax, babe. You’re in show business now,’ the woman said with a wink.
Mae rolled her eyes. ‘Fine. But don’t have me looking like a Kardashian.’
‘As if I’ve got the time,’ the make-up artist said and began dabbing at her with a brush. ‘Not a bad canvas you’re working with, though.’
Mae thought that might be a compliment, but she couldn’t be sure, so she just kept it zipped.
‘That’s the spirit,’ Neil beamed from the front of the bakery. ‘Okay, let’s… yeah, can we swing that light round a bit? Yes, that’s nice.’
‘Boom in… sound speed… camera rolling…’ someone intoned, brisk and bored.
‘And… just be yourselves,’ Neil said. ‘Callie, maybe ask Mae about what you’re going to be doing with Sam today. Nice and light. We’re just grabbing texture.’
Mae resisted the urge to ask what the fuck he meant by ‘texture’. Callie took a breath that only Mae noticed.
A red light appeared.
‘So,’ Callie began, her voice trying to find its level, ‘er… Mae. What are we… what are we doing today?’
Mae looked at her properly then.
‘God knows,’ Mae said. ‘They’ve not told me.’
Someone snorted. Neil made a frantic throat-cutting gesture just out of frame.
Callie’s lips twitched a little wider. ‘You’ve not been briefed?’
‘I was told “a baking lesson”,’ Mae said. ‘No one said what.’
‘Well, what do you think?’ Callie said, settling into it despite herself. ‘What could you teach the culinarily challenged?’
‘Doughnuts?’ Mae suggested. ‘Unless a deep-fat fryer is too much for you.’
Mae wasn’t sure what it was that swept over Callie’s face then. But something seemed to change. No, not change. It revealed something familiar.
‘Can we make those ones with the raspberry cream filling?’
Mae felt like she was suddenly a teenager again. And she was looking at teenage Callie. Her oldest and dearest friend.
The things she’d never said rose up like vomit.You left. You never came back. You never rang. You never—
But she didn’t say any of it. ‘That cream filling is quite delicate. I reckon you’d fuck it up.’
The boom op shifted, nearly chuckling, then caught himself. Neil spoke again, like the voice of a nasal god. ‘Why don’t you talk about what it’s like to come back?’
‘It’s nice to see you again. It’s been a long time,’ Callie said suddenly, flatly, unhappily. ‘Since… you know.’
Mae blinked. ‘Since you had a decent doughnut?’ she said, pointedly obtuse.
Callie hesitated, then let out a breath. ‘The village. The bakery.’
‘Well, it kept going without you,’ Mae said, sharper than intended.
A tiny silence. Nobody on the crew moved, but Mae could feel them listening a bit closer. Of course they were. This was exactly the kind of ‘real moment’ Neil prayed for.
Mae reached back and adjusted a cooling rack, though everything was already aligned perfectly.
‘I didn’t mean…’ Callie began.
