“Underblanched.” Rosaline almost cried.

She wasn’t sure how she got through her end-of-day interview. Mostly she nodded and smiled and tried to think of different ways to say, “Well, I thought that went okay, but it could also probably have gone better.” Her sense of reality was still on the wibble. Maybe it was just because what they were doing was so artificial anyway, but filming involved so much stopping and starting and waiting to be told what to do that nothing felt connected to anything else.

Her mind kept drifting to what she’d be doing if she were home. If she’d really A-plussed her mothering, she’d already have convinced Amelie to do her spelling, and if she’d really A-plussed her life, she’d have done the laundry on Friday and would have managed to put off visiting her parents until Sunday, so Saturday—assuming she didn’t have a shift at work—could be officially declared an Our Day. That meant they each got to choose something they wanted to do—or, in practice, Amelie got to choose something she wanted to do and Rosaline chose something she secretly knew Amelie wanted to do. Sometimes they’d go to the park, or the swimming pool, and sometimes, Amelie would want to go to space and they’d have to improvise a rocket out of two armchairs and a vacuum cleaner. Quite often, they’d bake. And admittedly, Amelie’s help tended to make the final product a bit more, as the judges might have said it, “rustic.” But—crammed into the tiny kitchen with her daughter, covered in a range of ingredients Rosaline would swear they hadn’t been using—it was also one of the few things that made her believe everything was going to be okay. That maybe they were okay already.

Of course for the next eight weeks every Saturday would consist of Amelie waiting at home with whoever Rosaline could beg to babysit for her while Rosaline herself missed out on yet another sliver of the too-short window in which her daughter would enjoy spending time with her. And how was that worth it? She’d spent hours on a train and a night in a farmer’s attic just so she could put in a mediocre performance in a baking competition.

She should have called home, but with the baking and the judging and the underblanched almonds and the increasing sense of having made yet another terrible decision, she wasn’t totally sure she’d be able to keep it together. And while Amelie probably wouldn’t have minded if she didn’t keep it together, it wasn’t exactly parent-of-the-year behaviour to ring up your kid and have an existential crisis at them.

Maybe she could go and find Anvita and have an existential crisis at her. That was the kind of thing you could do with someone you’d met once, right? But then, as she was crossing the lawn she caught sight of Alain finishing up his own post-victory interview. The long day was just beginning to catch up with him, although that only meant his artfully tousled hair was looking slightly less artful and slightly more tousled. It suited him, in a way, that faint hint that his composure could be gently unravelled given the right circumstances. Or the right unraveller.

“Well, obviously I’m very pleased,” he was saying, with a little half-smile that Rosaline was certain several key demographics would go nuts for. “I do think I got a bit lucky, but . . . yes. I’ll take it. And as for tomorrow, well, let’s say I’ve got a little something up my sleeve.” He paused, his eyes darting to the camera operator. “How was that? Do you have everything you need?”

They did, as it happened, have everything they needed, and Alain stepped away from the tangle of lights and mics and booms to join Rosaline. Who had been lingering, unable to decide whether talking to someone she might be interested in was exactly what she wanted right now. Or very much not.

“Well, that went well,” he said. It was a sentence Rosaline hardly ever heard nonsarcastically, but from the way Alain was smiling he seemed to mean it. “And thank you so much for letting me look at your books this morning—I don’t think I’d have won if you hadn’t.”

She shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. Looking at the recipe didn’t do much for me.”

“Nonsense. You did far better than a lot of people.” He might have been right. Or he might have just been trying to be nice. It was hard to tell because it was the sort of show where only the top and the bottom mattered and everyone else was in the middle. “Honestly, I’m starting to wonder what I’m even doing here.”

“Rosaline, Rosaline.” He gazed down at her, his eyes alight with warmth. And then took both her hands. “Come and sit down.”

She let him lead her over to a log that seemed to have been literally designed for people to sit on in the evening and have intimate conversations as the moon rose over the duck pond. Oh God. Oh help. He was doing kindness at her. Rosaline couldn’t cope with people doing kindness at her. It made her feel like she’d shoplifted a lipstick. Except the lipstick was made of time and emotional energy.

“I’m being silly.” She waved what she hoped was a dismissive hand. “Honestly. I’m fine.”

Turning his body slightly towards her, he reestablished his look of compassionate understanding. “It’s all right. Everyone has moments of uncertainty. I suppose you’re worried this is taking time away from your studies.”

What studies? Fuck. Those studies. The ones she’d pretended she was doing so she’d look cool or worthwhile or just . . . better. Like someone Alain might be interested in. It was time to come clean. She had to come clean. She couldn’t keep taking advantage of him like this. “Um,” she heard herself say. “A bit?”

He was silent a moment, giving real thought to her imaginary problem. “The way I see it, yes, this is time that you could be spending on your course. And you’d probably achieve a higher class of degree if you stayed home every night and studied—but that would be the case whether you were on the show or not. And I’m sure most of your classmates will use the time you’re using to bake to do Jägerbombs in the student union and, from what I’ve heard about medical students, leave severed heads in each other’s bedrooms.”

This would have been an amazing pep talk if she’d actually been at university. “Yeah, but . . . what if the show distracts me too much and I end up, like hypothetically, not becoming a doctor at all?”

“That won’t happen, Rosaline. It’s only eight weeks, mostly over the summer. You’ve already accomplished so much and your whole life is waiting for you, and even if you get eliminated before the semifinal—which I really don’t think you will—it’ll be another string to your bow when you move on.”