Chapter 8 - Week 4: Cheese Week (Part 2)

She had already renewed her love affair with cheese that week, and on Thursday she threw herself into it with new dedication. Cheese straws, cheeseburgers, five-cheese pizza, a paper bag of cannoli from the little overpriced stall in the market square. She stashed a bulk bag of cheese strings in her mini-fridge at the theatre for the one-night-only show and polished it off by final curtain. She sent Robert photos of her backstage, mozzarella strings hanging from her lips, eyes out of focus. He sent her back a photo of a cheesecake the size of a spare tyre, glazed with a crisp layer of dark chocolate.

Crew went out for drinks after the show that night. She ordered two puddings. She took a photo of those, too.

By Friday, she looked at the scales but decided against setting foot on them. Instead she threw her trousers to the bottom of the wardrobe and brought forward her stretchy tunics leftover from the last Jono months last year. It doesn't matter, she told herself. I'll lose the weight when I want to. It's mostly just water, anyway. It certainly felt like water, and moved like it, too: fluid, sloshy, jiggly in her outer thighs and lower stomach and beneath her upper arms. Her face felt softer when she rested it against her palm. Her belly puddled just an inch in her lap. Her right hand ring pinched into her finger.

When she arrived at work for Cheese Week, she was whistling.

'What are you so happy about?' Eduardo greeted her, sour-faced and bitchier than usual.

'No reason,' she chirped. This is the point where she would have swept across his face with a retractable brush, just to unnerve him, but she was unarmed. Instead, she settled with a pat on the shoulder.

'You didn't get the memo?' Eduardo said.

'What memo?' Rebecca said.

It was waiting for her on her makeup desk the moment she put her handbag down. A post-it note - very high-tech.

Note to all staff: no social relationships with subjects to preserve integrity of contest. Both staff and contestants subject to disciplinary measures.

She found Will by the Welsh dressers, rearranging the cake stands.

'You can't do this,' she said, throwing the crumpled post-it down onto the chalkboard surface. Her arm jiggled. 'This isn't in the staff handbook. You can't do this.'

'It, ah, hasn't been a problem before,' Will said, very carefully avoiding her eyes.

'Why has it now?'

Will's voice dropped. He leant forward, adjusting his thick glasses, his little belly pooching over his skinny jeans.

'Ah, someone complained,' he said.

Rebecca's colour heightened. 'Who?'

He shrugged. 'Confidential. Point is, someone did suspiciously well on last week's technical, to the point where...their...piece looked like the picture in Judy's cookbook. Coincidence, or did someone leak the info on what they'd been making?'

Rebecca scowled at him, trying to remember who had won last week's technical. It hadn't been John. He'd barely squeaked out of the bottom two.

'All I'm saying,' Will said, 'is that you might want to delete Shana's number from your mobile, for both your sakes.'

Rebecca's mouth hung open. She licked her lips. Cheese dust still clung to the corner of her mouth.

'I didn't tell Shana,' she said.

'I've seen you two be friendly,' he said.

'We are,' Rebecca said, dumbfounded that as much time as Will spent watching everything, he had missed what was very clearly in front of him: Rebecca lingering by Robert's workstation, spending more time than needed perfecting his few flaws, eating almost everything he'd baked. 'But we're not cheating,' she said.

'You can be friends again when it's all over,' Will assured her.

Rebecca stalked away. 'Idiot,' she muttered.

She brought Robert into makeup first, before anyone else could arrive.

She sat him down in the stool.

'We can't be friends anymore,' she told him.

His jaw tightened. His eyes fixed on hers, clear and severe. 'I heard,' he said.

'It's another six weeks and then we can talk again,' she said, trying to sound light and failing.

'I don't want to.'

She swallowed. 'Be friends?'

He barely blinked. 'Wait six weeks,' he said.

She bent close to him, hands working, brain elsewhere. Her voice dropped to a whisper. 'I don't, either.'

She lingered with the sponge. She touched his earlobe lightly with her fingers.

He reached up and grasped her hand. The sponge fell to the floor. His palm closed over hers, warm and strong.

'What do we do?' he said, not once moving his eyes from hers.

'I don't want you to lose,' she said.

'I don't either,' he said.

'I don't want you to be penalised.'

'No,' he agreed.

'Everything you worked for.' His rough fingers tightened around hers, rubbing little ovals around her knuckles. 'Your bakery,' she continued. 'What will happen if the press gets hold of it? You'd be ruined if they thought you were cheating.'

He sighed. She opened her palm. He pressed his cheek into her hand. His eyes fluttered closed, like a cat being petted. Warmth spread through her belly like a molten puddle of chocolate.

'We can wait six weeks,' she said.

His eyes half-opened. 'You think so?'

'Yes,' she said. She stroked his stubble with her thumb. He let loose a subtle and shuddering sigh.

'What if you lose interest in me?' he said, smile small and wry. His deep voice rumbled in her palm.

'I won't,' she promised.

'How will I know?' he said.

'You tell me,' she said, testing him, already, deep down, knowing exactly what he would say.

'Well,' he said. His face bloomed hotter beneath her hand, twin points on his cheeks reddening. 'There is one thing...'

She leant forward. Bent down. Her face hovered inches from his. His knees pressed against her thighs, digging into the twin, growing pockets of fat.

'Tell me,' she whispered.

His fingers found her waistband. Snapped it.

'You could get fatter,' he said.