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Blake seems relieved by her answer, nodding his head, and relaxing. For myself, I’m not sure I like the sound of what she’s saying. It all sounds very pressured… and I’m feeling enough of that on my own account. I suppose I should be grateful, though. At least there won’t be an audience to witness my inevitable mistakes.
We head for the door again, and I wonder where we’re going to be taken next. I’m getting sick of carrying my knife case around, I could murder a cup of coffee, my head is already spinning, and even though I’ve got something of a reputation for being outgoing, I’ve never felt more like running away and hiding. I feel so completely out of my depth.
Once we’re out in the hall, we retrace our steps, going back through the double doors, and coming to a halt outside the rehearsal room.
“I’m gonna leave you to get on,” Ruby says. “Unfortunately, even though schedules are normally tight, this week is gonna be even more crazy.”
“It is?” Blake frowns down at her.
“Yeah. As I said in the meeting just now, the way we’ve organized this is that, in a normal schedule, Ella will have planned out the following week’s content on the previous Friday.”
“When the rest of us are re-recording any problems that might have arisen the previous day?” he says and Ruby nods her head.
“Won’t I be needed in the studio?” I ask.
“You might,” Ruby says. “But there should still be plenty of time for you to do your planning, so when you guys arrive on the Monday morning, your ingredients would be set up and everything would be ready for you to get straight down to work, practicing the dishes. Then, sometime on Monday afternoon, the rest of the team would join you and we’d start working on the script, so we could begin full rehearsals as soon as possible. Everything has to slot into place, you see…” She turns to face me. “As it is, we’re running late.”
The clock is ticking and I’m not allowed to forget it.
“Where do we work?” I ask, as it hits me that, not only are we going to be recording this week, which I hadn’t expected, butI have less time than I usually would to do my job… a job I don’t fully understand yet.
“In there,” she says, nodding toward the rehearsal room, her eyes darting from me to Blake and back again. “Don’t look so worried. My office is just across the hall… here.” She turns, taking a step back, and opens the door behind her. “If you need anything, just ask.”
There are so many questions… like why I thought I was good enough to do this job in the first place… who was the idiot who thought we’d be ready to record our first show just three days from now… and why I’m wasting time standing in the hall, when I should be working…
“Shall we?” Blake says, and I startle, realizing Ruby’s office door is closed. She must have gone inside, and I didn’t even notice. Blake is standing by the door to the rehearsal room, holding it open, and I pass through, taking a deep breath to calm myself.
I can do this.
I gaze at the table for a moment, but by-pass it and wander over to the kitchen area. It’s my natural domain and I feel more at home here. Blake follows, standing on the opposite side of the island unit. Between us is a five-ring hob and plenty of preparation space, which I suppose makes sense. This is a replica of the kitchen that will be used in the show, which means I’m standing where he would be when he’s presenting. Just thinking that makes me feel nervous again, and I put my knife case on the countertop, placing the file Kennedy gave me on top.
“Do you have your own set of knives?” I ask, looking up at Blake.
“No,” he says, frowning and evidently surprised by my question. “Do you?”
“Of course.” I may not have paid as much attention as I should during all of my classes, but one thing I can rememberis that all self-respecting chefs own their own knives. I bought mine the day after I graduated, by way of celebration. To prove the point, I push the blue file to one side and open my silver knife case, revealing the blades inside. Blake leans over, getting a good look, and then stares down at me again.
“Impressive,” he says, smiling.
I can’t see why he’d be impressed by a set of knives, but that’s the least of my problems, and I close the lid again, letting out a sigh. “Is it me, or does this all feel a bit rushed?”
“It feels very rushed. I hadn’t realized we were going to be recording this week.”
“No. Neither had I.”
He shakes his head, his smile fading. “I’d assumed there would be a more gentle breaking-in for both of us… with a few production meetings first, before we got down to recording next week.”
He seems to understand the process a lot better than I do, but I nod my head anyway. “I think they must have had the production meetings in our absence, don’t you?”
“I’d like to think so. But if that were the case, they ought to be more prepared than this.”
My stomach churns, my nerves returning, as I realize how much of this process depends on me. “I suppose we should get on, really…”
I open the file, pulling out the sheet of paper I glanced at earlier.
“How complicated is the first question?” he asks, before I even have time to look at it again, and for a second or two, I wonder if he’s being facetious, trying to remind me of Kennedy’s reaction in the meeting. I don’t comment, but hand the page over to him. He looks down, reading it to himself, and then looks up again. “You think the answer to this is common sense, do you?”
“Of course it is.” I can’t see why he wouldn’t think so, too. “It’s just logic.”
