by Natasha West
‘A bit,’ Robyn replied.
Jodie had nothing to say to that. She needed to pull herself together, get her ducks in a row. So she looked back at her magazine and prayed to be left alone. Eventually, some busybody granny came in and that seemed to occupy Robyn. Soon, the room was filled with the eight other people who would compete with her. And then the presenter came in, all chummy. Jodie didn’t buy her act for a second. She could smell a fake a mile away.
***
In the enormous, brightly lit studio, painted in light blues and whites, everyone was put in front of individual kitchen islands, equipped with everything you could need to bake anything you could think of. Jodie did a quick assessment of the equipment, all top of the line. She had always made do with what her dad had left behind, unable to shell out the level of cash for the fancy shit. But now she had everything at her disposal. A mixer she knew went for about five hundred quid, one of those big fridges that looked like a classic car, a slide and hide oven with warming drawer, not to mention the assortment of mixing bowls, spatulas, cake stands, rolling pins, Kilner jars, cutters, and icing bags. It was kitted out to the tune of thousands, and that was just hers. The other eight islands had the same. The amount of money sitting in this room before you even looked at a camera was gobsmacking. Jodie wasn’t easily impressed, but she couldn’t help but feel just a slight twinge of awe at the set-up. She wondered if it would change how she baked. Would it help or hinder her? If she were spoiled by an abundance of equipment and ingredients, would she try harder or slack off? She supposed she was about to find out.
As the crew worked around her, setting up lighting and calling mysterious things to one another like, ‘I need a second redhead in here, and someone needs to open those barn doors on the blonde a bit wider!’, Jodie stood, waiting patiently for things to kick off. She glanced around at the islands set two by two, and she saw that the person she was situated next to was Robyn. She wasn’t looking her way, she was busy having a little poke about in her cupboards. Jodie thought Robyn would probably be far less impressed by the equipment than she herself was, she probably had a lot of this stuff because she looked wedged. But then Robyn looked at the mixer and whispered to herself, ‘Jesus, it’s an Artisan 175.’ Jodie pushed a smile away.
Madeline Murphy walked in with an assistant at her back that she didn’t seem to notice. ‘Madeline’s on set, she needs a touch-up from make-up,’ the assistant said. A woman appeared from nowhere with a make-up case and began to brush powder onto Madeline’s face. ‘Hi, everyone, we’re gonna get cracking quite shortly. The judges are in the back, they’ll come out in a minute, and you can meet them,’ Madeline called from behind the brush.
‘Oh, no,’ said Dorothy, ‘Please tell me Adam’s in a good mood today?’
Everyone laughed, including Madeline. ‘Don’t worry, guys. He’s nicer than he seems. Sort of.’
‘Are you talking about me?’ said a short, swarthy guy with a cocky look in his eye, wearing boot cut jeans and a shirt with its tails out.
‘Adam!’ Madeline said cheerily. ‘I’m just telling everyone that you might be tough on baking, but you’re a nice guy most of the time.’
‘Mean makes better TV, as you must all you know. But don’t worry. I’ll be fair,’ he told the contestants.
‘I’ll make sure of it,’ said an older lady wearing a twinset and pearls.
‘And of course, here’s Imogen,’ Madeline smiled at the lady.
Imogen gave a friendly wave and smile. ‘Hello, everyone. Looking forward to getting to know you all over the coming weeks.’
Jodie watched everyone around her going all gooey over these minor celebs, and she felt her face fall into disdain. She locked eyes with Adam. He’d seen, and he didn’t look very happy about her attitude.
Shit, that was probably not a great way to start.
Five
Robyn was whisking. There was a cameraman standing a foot from her. She was trying not to look at him. It was worse than Alex’s hovering. There were six handheld cameras moving about the room at all times, dancing around the contestants as they put together the first recipe of the series. But she would have to learn to ignore it because she had things to bake. Muffins. The first challenge was to make something tried and true, a recipe you felt you did well.
Robyn had considered doing classic sweet muffins, but in the end, she thought that might be a bit boring, so she was going savoury, courgette and feta. She had to make twelve of them, and they had to be precisely uniform. Though she’d made them on at least seven occasions, she was worried that somehow, this time, even with all these resources at her disposal, she was going to balls them up. All the lights and cameras and the judges and Madeline and the other contestants, the whole circus was throwing her.
But she put her head down and went to work, mixing flour, bicarb, baking powder, eggs, salt, and milk. She glanced to her side to see what her nearest neighbour was doing. Jodie was making what looked to be simple chocolate chip muffins, her head down, unmoved by the swirling activity around her. Again, Robyn felt that resentment bubble up. Who the hell was she to be so confident and indifferent? Was she a cyborg? Would she rip off her wig at the end of the day to reveal a skull made of aluminium?
Meanwhile, everyone else was darting around their kitchens like headless chickens. Like normal people should.
‘How are you getting on?’ asked a smooth voice behind her, and Robyn’s knife, instead of cutting into the rather firm courgette she was trying to chop, slipped along its body and shot the vegetable across the room. ‘Shit!’ she cried.
‘Ha, I think we’ll have to bleep that one,’ Madeline chuckled, moving around to face her. ‘Golden rule. No swearing.’
‘God, I’m sorry,’ Robyn said, horrified.
‘My fault. I should have announced my presence a bit better,’ Madeline said.
‘No, no, no…’ Robyn said. ‘This is on me. Sorry I swore.’
‘It happens,’ Madeline told her with a warm smile. ‘So tell us about what you’re making?’
Robyn gave a somewhat stuttery account of her muffins while Madeline nodded and smiled. ‘Sounds delicious.’ Robyn felt a blush rise up her neck. ‘Thanks.’
‘Mack, head to Jodie, I’m going to see her next,’ Madeline instructed the cameraman, and he moved off, leaving Madeline and Robyn the closest to alone that could be reasonably achieved on the set. ‘You’re doing great,’ Madeline said with a small smile. ‘You don’t need to be so scared.’
‘Can’t help it. I don’t know what I’m doing here,’ Robyn confessed.
‘You’re here because you add to the room,’ Madeline told her.
‘Do I?’ Robyn asked, interested.
‘Yes, of course. You’re a good baker and likeable. So, relax,’ Madeline told her frankly, touching her shoulder briefly before she moved off.
Robyn didn’t know what to do with that.
She looked over to see that Madeline was now with Jodie. Jodie, of course, couldn’t have given less of a shit about Madeline’s presence. She didn’t even stop to talk to her, just went right on prepping while she answered the questions in a flat, basic way, keeping her eyes on her job. Madeline moved on quickly.
So if Robyn was here because she was ‘likeable’, then why was Jodie here? Because that was the last thing she was. She clearly revelled in her arsiness.
Maybe that was it. Was Jodie a villain? An arrogant ice queen meant to provide a bit of conflict, perhaps? From Robyn’s years of watching, she knew that Bake It! didn’t really go in for that sort of thing. Personal conflicts were rare. Most contestants were simply battling against an unruly loaf of bread or a soggy cake.
Robyn thought she should probably not worry about the master plan of the show. Best to keep her mind on her muffins and her muffins on her mind. If she was doing this, she had to do it right. If she were to get chucked out in the first week, embarrassing as that would be, it would be worse if it was because she was getting distracted by non
-baking matters. Jodie’s attitude was her own problem.
***
Robyn placed the finished muffins on a platter and positioned it in front of her.
‘And that’s time. Ladies and gentlemen, step away from your muffins,’ Madeline called.
Robyn took a step back, wiping her sweaty palms off on her apron. She’d really been up against the clock towards the end, but now she had a batch of muffins that would, frankly, have to do. They weren’t uniform. She could see it. Half the muffins were bigger than the other half. She wasn’t even sure why it had happened. She never messed up like this. Then again, she was working with an oven she didn’t know. Her own oven could be temperamental; there were spots in it that didn’t have an even temperature. Robyn had learned how to work around it. But here she was with equipment that was in perfect working order, and she’d fluffed the batch.
Bloody nerves. They’d gotten her.
‘Right, Adam and Imogen are coming around to taste your bakes,’ the stage director told the contestants.
It took a while for the judges to get around to everyone, Robyn would be in the last few to be judged. Adam was critical of everyone, Imogen was kinder, but in the end, it was plain to see who’d made a bodge job of their muffins, and who’d come up smiling.
From what Robyn could tell, Dorothy and Susan appeared to have done well on their bakes, both making sweet muffins that went down a treat with both judges. Sanjay, Darnell, and Reuben had all been a bit experimental and gotten mixed reviews, particularly Darnell, who’d tried a vegan earl grey number that left the judges foxed. Matt and Jen were bottom two, Jen taking last place with rum cupcakes that were rather a high proof. That only left Robyn and Jodie.
Robyn was up next. Adam and Imogen approached her island, smiling assassins. Adam went first. ‘First thing I notice, it was a bit of an uneven bake.’
Robyn nodded. She had no excuse.
‘But not a bad looking bunch on the whole,’ Imogen added for balance. ‘Good colour, nice presentation.’
Adam picked a muffin off her platter and stuck a thumb into the centre, breaking it apart. He ran his finger along the inside. ‘The bake is good on this one,’ he said and then picked up another and broke it. ‘But you can see that it hasn’t quite finished on some of them.’
Robyn felt personally embarrassed by this assessment, as though someone had told her she’d wet herself without realising. How could she not? Robyn was her baking.
Adam bit into one of the ‘Good’ muffins. He chewed for a few seconds and swallowed. ‘OK,’ he said neutrally. Imogen bit into one too, and Robyn felt like she had a gun to her head.
Adam finally delivered the verdict. ‘That’s a good muffin.’
‘Great flavours,’ Imogen added.
‘Yeah, overall, you need a bit more attention to detail, but there’s a good flavour and a pleasing texture on the better half of your batch,’ Adam said. The judges left.
Robyn was flying. Half her muffins were crap. But half of them were good. Which meant she was good. Or half good. On balance, it sounded about right. Maybe she didn’t have to feel so awful…
Robyn listened in while Jodie got her judging. Her ‘basic’ chocolate chip muffins received a rave review that pissed on everyone else’s. That’s when Robyn realised that Jodie wasn’t there to provide any kind of drama. She was simply there because she was really, really good. Robyn’s resentment, bubbling through the day, shot through the roof. Damn that woman. Why couldn’t she have shown one chink in her armour today? Why did she have to be so perfect? It wasn’t fair.
Just to really drive it home, Jodie took the praise with a measured, ‘Thanks.’ Nothing more. She wasn’t like the rest of them, living or dying on the praise or the disapproval. Robyn thought that people tended to overuse the word ‘hate’, that it was a very strong term indeed. But Robyn’s teeth began to grind slightly as she looked at the side of Jodie’s perfect head, and she wondered if it might be a word she’d come to use about the woman on her neighbouring kitchen island.
Jodie glanced across, catching her eye. Robyn looked away quickly. When she looked back a moment later, Jodie was wiping away at her station.
The stage manager called, ‘We’re wrapping there for the day!’ and cameras were lowered, lights shut off. Madeline addressed the room. ‘Wow, that was day one, great work guys. The production is putting you up in a nice hotel tonight, back in the morning for day two.’
Six
God in heaven, Jodie was tired. She’d worked so hard today on what were really only twelve muffins. But she’d known she had to be perfect. And perfect took everything Jodie had. However much Billy liked her baking, she knew this would be harsher and since she knew she was last in line for appraisal, she was going up against everyone’s best. She was so exhausted by the time the judges came around, she could barely mutter out a response.
Still, she was fairly confident that the first challenge had gone reasonably well. The judges seemed to like it. Though they’d warned her that she had been a bit basic on flavours, she’d sort of expected that. This was her plan, keep it simple to start with. If she went too big early on, she’d crash and burn. Like that Matt guy, the burly mechanic. He’d made pistachio and liquorice muffins. Anyone could have told him he was playing with fire, but he’d tried to dazzle straight out the gate. They’d been a flop. Adam and Imogen had barely touched them. Whereas Dorothy’s jam and custard muffins? Simple with a slight twist and done well, that was the sweet spot. Imogen had finished hers, and Adam had eaten a second.
But Jodie wasn’t trying to play against the big contenders, who it seemed to her on the evidence of day one, were Dorothy (obviously) and Susan. Oh, and maybe Robyn. Her judging had seemed to imply that half her muffins had gone weird for some reason, but if she’d been judged by the other half, she’d have nailed it.
So those were the top three. Jodie had no intention of messing with them. Her ethos was the same as an animal trying to outrun a predator. Not to try and get to the front of the pack. Only to outrun the slowest of the herd.
***
Jodie was lying back on a huge bed, flicking through a million channels. There was nothing on, but it was nice to have more choices of things she didn’t want to watch. The hotel was nice. Almost worth the journey up to the big city on its own. And all she had to do to earn this room was bake things that were judged by a couple of bastards who were more interested in being entertaining than fair and maybe cement her reputation as a sub-zero bitch on national TV. Easy.
Well, there was no point worrying now. The seal was broken. The time to back out had gone. Whatever wobble she’d had was mostly passed. She was gambling, but she’d always known that. Now the dice had been rolled. The saying went that the house always won; she supposed that was true here as well. Madeline, Adam, Imogen, the producers, the channel, they’d get a good show whatever she did. Because they had a foolproof recipe. Take a bunch of wannabee bakers, add competition, a nice judge, a dick judge, delicious cakes, total disasters, tears, and wonder. Can’t go wrong.
Jodie started to feel hungry. She’d been tasting food all day, but she hadn’t actually eaten anything proper. She called reception to see about room service, only to be told it was off tonight, food was only served in the restaurant. She’d better go down before she got too tired to bother. It was already eight-thirty, so everyone else would have eaten already. Which was great because she had no desire to bump into any other contestants, eat with them, talk with them, pretend they weren’t all ready to slit each other’s throats for the prize of first place on Bake It! Needless to say, Jodie did not consider this an opportunity to make new friends.
Jodie took the lift down to the ground floor, just in time to see a collection of familiar faces roll out of the restaurant. Dorothy, Jen, Darnell, Reuben, and Matt were all laughing at something as they headed down the hall. With them - but not laughing - were Sanjay and Susan.
‘Oh, look!’ Dorothy cried. ‘Jodie! You should have come
down earlier, you could have eaten with us!’
‘Yeah. Shame. I was just having a nap,’ Jodie lied.
‘Oh well,’ Matt said, ‘See you at breakfast.’
Off they toddled to go to bed and not sleep while they sweated tomorrow’s round of baking.
Jodie entered the dining hall, and a guy sat her down at one of the last empty tables. She looked at the menu for a few minutes, trying to decide between seabass and steak.
As she pondered, something pricked her ear, a familiar voice. Jodie looked up and saw Robyn talking to the maître d', who was pointing at her. Jodie saw Robyn’s eyes widen, and Jodie could pick out the words, ‘Any other tables?’ The waiter replied in the negative, and Jodie understood what was about to happen. They were being asked to sit at the same table because they didn’t have any free ones left, and he assumed that since they were both there under the auspices of the show, they would be OK to sit together, might even want to.