Chapter 12 - Week Five: Vegan Week (Part 1a)

Few things could distract Shana from her work in the Baking Contest tent, but one of them was perverse sense of curiosity in other people's private affairs.

And there was something going on between Robert and Rebecca.

Of course, there had been at the beginning, and she had only been so glad to encourage it: passing around phone numbers, digging in elbows to ribs, rearranging people at the curry house when Robert—who on the outside could seem so self-confident, but who on the inside Shana thought might be a bit of a quivering puppy—failed to leave the chair next to him free for the tardy makeup artist. She caught their whispers, their exchanged, lingering smiles. Extra time spent in the makeup tent together. Rebecca hovering a bit too long over his workstation, even back when she was still on a diet.

And most of all...the fact that she definitely wasn't on a diet anymore.

Shana liked Robert (everyone liked Robert), and she really liked Rebecca. They'd bitched together when Shana complained about the filters in last year's competition turning the darker-skinned contestants yellow. Rebecca rolled her eyes over the judges' aversion to anything spicier than a korma. Shana recommended makeup brands for Black skin that Rebecca took seriously enough to write down in her notebook, and she’d brought some samples with her to production the following weekend. Shana may have even appreciated the view once or twice when she bent over.

They hadn’t talked in a few weeks, of course, since norovirus stalled production and they were no longer allowed to speak on the phone. In person, their conversation had grown a bit more reserved since The Memo was passed around (and when Will, that rhyming-slang-Jeremy Hunt, had accused Shana of cheating instead of, oh, she didn’t know, assuming that she might have owned one or two of Judy’s cookbooks). But she and Rebecca were still friendly enough, and still in close proximity enough that Shana could watch some…interesting developments.

Rebecca hadn’t been a hard-body before. Shana’s wife would have described her as ‘skinny-fat’, a particular brand of unfitness that came with minimum cardio and a lack of protein, marked by smooth, pliant skin that hugged the bones but belied no hint of real muscle beneath. She had average breasts (B-cup; Shana was very good at guessing), a stomach that went neither in nor out, and nice, high neck that sloped gracefully into narrow shoulders. Her hands were quick and slim-fingered. Her face was naturally on the rounder side, and would be no matter how much weight she lost, but it suited her and probably meant she was carded buying vanilla extract at the supermarket.

Now?

There was a new roundness to the face as she held her tongue between her lips, carefully applying eyeliner above Shana’s upper lashes. Extra flesh that hung beneath the upper arms as she swept Shana’s hair up into a plait. A new belly lipped over her jeans like a well-risen blueberry muffin, jiggling as she brushed. Her shirt rode up as she worked, revealing a little sliver of white skin and a red welt that stretched across the flesh, marked by a central indent of a button.

Shana wanted to say something. She had never been very good at holding her tongue, and it had taken every gram of self-control she had not to reach over and tweak the roll at Rebecca’s side like a child’s nose. Instead, she simply smiled, said, ‘Thank you,’ when Rebecca had finished, and walked out the door.

Robert was standing outside.

‘Well done,’ she said when she passed him.

‘For what?’ he asked.

Shana smiled. ‘You’ll see,’ she said.


**

Robert hadn’t taken the bait. Rebecca had checked her profile just this morning, and while she’d received a handful of (admittedly weird, though flattering) comments, none of them were from Pandamonium. She clicked through to his profile. He hadn’t been on in days.

Grumpy, nervous, and still hungry after a meagre full English from her budget Airbnb, she began set-up in the production tent, trying to ignore the bits of her that jiggled as she did so. _What’s the point of this?_ she thought. _What if he doesn’t even notice? I haven’t spoken to him in weeks. What if he’s moved on? The cheese shops could have been for anyone. Maybe his sister loves a good Double Gloucester. Maybe this all was a big, fat mistake._

Her work clothes were too tight. She’d chosen the trousers to be scintillating, but only felt constricted. She regretted not having left her suitcase with her comfy clothes in the boot of her car.

‘Guessing you didn’t get the noro, either, then?’ Shana asked her as she began with the foundation, using the sponge to blend it into Shana’s hairline.

‘No,’ Rebecca replied. ‘Thank God.’ Then she realised what Shana was implying—no one with norovirus would have gained what must have been nearly a stone in the past three weeks. Her grumpiness shifted slightly, and she allowed her a smile. ‘Why do you say that?’

Shana blushed. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘No reason.’

They didn’t talk business—it was all pleasantries. Hairdresser-conversation, nothing that could be misconstrued as Rebecca helping Shana ace a technical at the expense of her fellow contestants.

Then it was Robert’s turn. Rebecca sent Shana out, and her mouth went dry.

She waited a moment, heard a few muffled snippets of conversation.

Then Robert walked through the door.

It would sound stupid to think so later, but the very first thing that Rebecca noticed about him was that he was wearing a jumper. It was blue, and cabled, and quite fitted, and very flattering on the physique of a man who worked in a lumberyard. Rebecca had never realised how much she loved a good jumper before, especially when the sleeves were rolled up the forearms. When this aired, he was going to cause every shop on the high street to sell out in mere minutes.

Then she spotted his expression.

What was it? He certainly didn’t look like a man who had forgotten about her over the past three weeks. In only a moment, there was no doubt in Rebecca’s mind that those cheese shop photos had been for her.

‘Hi,’ Rebecca said.

Her body seemed to vibrate with that one word—no, not vibrate, _jiggle_. She could suddenly feel every swollen inch of her: her love handles spilling over the tight waistband of her trousers, her thighs pulling whiskers into the fabric, her blouse—one of her roomiest—straining across the bust. Her breasts threatening to overspill her bra. Her arms at her side brushed the round roll of her spare tyre. Her tummy—suddenly the largest part of her—felt like a statement, or a confirmation of something.

A confirmation of what? Well, they both knew the answer to that.

His reply came a moment too long in coming, as though he’d barely registered her voice. His eyes flickered to her face.

‘Hi,’ he said.

Rebecca suddenly remembered one of the first things Robert had said to her: that he was a second-choice contestant, originally shelved for not being engaging enough on screen. Was the casting director _insane_? Robert crammed more feeling into one glance that Will had in his entire body. They were standing seven feet away from each other, but Rebecca could practically feel his thoughts—as though in their heads they had met in the middle, and he was gently beginning to unbutton her snug blouse, or slip his fingers into her waistband to undo the straining button.

Rebecca licked her lips. ‘All right?’ she asked.

‘Eh?’ he said. He was blushing, a becoming pink spreading over his cheekbones. ‘Oh.’ He smiled. Rebecca’s knees nearly gave way. ‘Yeah. You?’

‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Fine. Have a seat.’

He sat. She adjusted his chair. She could feel the heat radiate from his long, lanky body.

‘Important question,’ Rebecca said, trying to distract herself from the way his forearms looked, from the strength of his neck, from the way his lip was slightly shining, as though he’d just licked it…and not succeeding, not at all. ‘Aren’t you going to get too hot in that jumper?’

‘Oh.’ Robert looked down, as though he’d forgotten. How could anyone forget when they looked like that? ‘Good point.’

He pulled it off over his head. Rebecca mourned for a moment, then stopped when the T-shirt travelled with the jumper half-way, exposing a hard, flat stomach and trim waist, a dusting of dark hairs trailing from beneath his navel.

(cont. in next chapter)