Page 39 of Just Date and See
‘You didn’t mean to do it?’ she repeats back to me. ‘I’m supposed to believe you did it accidentally?’
‘Come on, look at me,’ I say, resorting to self-deprecation to get Leila back on side. ‘And you saw me last night. Is it really a surprise?’
Leila glares at me.
‘You know, Billie, I thought you were a girls’ girl,’ she tells me through a scowl, her jaw so tight her voice doesn’t sound like her own. ‘I was wrong.’
She turns on her heel and walks away, without waiting for a reply, not that I would have known what to say to that anyway.
I pull a face to myself. A girls’ girl? What does that even mean? Does she really think I’m the kind of girl to drop a bowling ball on someone’s foot on purpose? Surely no one is that bad. I would feel worse about it, if I had actually hurt her, but it just slipped through my fingers, landed on the floor and sort of clipped her foot – she’s clearly unharmed, though, because she walked away from the incident absolutely fine and she marched away from me pretty fiercely just now.
‘That looks like the face of a woman who knows I’m not very good in the kitchen,’ Rocco says as he approaches me.
‘Oh, it’s just Leila,’ I tell him. ‘I don’t think she’s very happy with me after last night.’
‘She’ll be fine,’ he replies. ‘Oh, look, it’s Tobias.’
‘How about you call me Toby and I call you Rocky?’ Tobias replies as he wraps an arm around Rocco. He shakes him excitably. ‘The boys, the boys!’
‘How you doing, buddy?’ Rocco asks him, politely ignoring his request.
‘I’ll be better if Billie will be my partner tonight,’ he says, looking at me optimistically.
‘Oh, I’m sorry, I already promised Rocco I’d be his partner,’ I reply through gritted teeth.
‘Are you not pairing up with Leila?’ Tobias asks him.
‘No, we haven’t spoken about it,’ Rocco tells him. ‘Go for it.’
‘Come on, let’s head inside, I am freezing,’ I insist, defusing a semi-awkward situation.
Inside one of the units, there’s a room full of large square tables. Not unlike the tables in theGreat British Bake Offtent, each one is fitted with hobs, sinks, ovens and fridges – one of each on either side of the table.
A small woman in her fifties hurries around the room, counting heads by tapping each of us on the shoulders as she passes us.
‘Right, okay, hello,’ she calls out. She might be small, but her voice is loud and powerful. I suppose it needs to be, when you’re managing rowdy groups of people at this sort of thing. ‘My name is Margarita; I’ll be hosting today. It seems like everyone is here so get into your pairs and make your way to a table, please.’
Rocco and I naturally gravitate towards the nearest table to where we’re standing.
I notice Tobias chatting with Leila before the two of them join us, on the other half of our table. Fantastic, working opposite them, just what I wanted.
‘Okay, okay, settle down,’ Margarita shouts. If I thought things felt like school earlier, you can multiply that feeling by a thousand now. Margarita has big food tech teacher energy, for better or worse. I never really enjoyed food tech at school. I feel like it should have been a fun break from lessons like English, maths and science – and one that included food – but it always felt like more trouble than it was worth, for something underwhelming like a fruit salad that would be all brown and mushy by the time you got it home. My mum, God bless her, would always dutifully try whatever I made.
‘This evening we will be making scones,’ Margarita announces. ‘And then you’ll be judging each other’s, so it isn’t me you need to worry about impressing, it’s your worktop mates.’
Rocco gives me a subtle nudge with his elbow, as if to say we’ve got no chance, if it’s Leila and Tobias we’re supposed to be impressing.
‘You will find all the ingredients at your station,’ she tells us before running us through the rules and the time we have.
‘Scones should be easy,’ Rocco whispers to me.
‘Anyone who thinks scones are easy to make is wrong,’ Margarita announces, in a spooky coincidence. ‘There’s a lot that can go wrong. Your ingredients need to be right; your timing needs to be right. Do not over or underwork them. Do not over or undercook them. As we like to say here: the proof is in the pudding. Okay, get to work.’
Leila and Tobias spring to action – you would think it was a race, not a competition.
‘We beat you guys at bowling and we’re going to beat you at baking too,’ Leila smack-talks us.
‘Yeah, may the best team win,’ Tobias adds.