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“I’m sorry.” She looked up at me, blushing. “I shouldn’t have touched you.”
“Why not? We’ve touched before.”
She shook her head. “You’ve touched me.” She bit her lip then, and I wondered if she was remembering the way I’d used my fingers to silence her. I hoped so, but I didn’t make a big deal out of it. She seemed embarrassed enough already.
“I know, but we’ve touched by accident as well… like when we’ve been preparing foods.”
“Even so, I don’t want to make you feel uncomfortable.”
I smiled at her. “I don’t think you could, Ella.”
Her blush deepened. “Are you sure about that? Because I—I noticed your reactions when Kennedy and Vivian have been around, and…”
“And you thought I had a problem with being touched in general?”
“It seemed that way.”
“Well, I don’t. I just prefer to choose who’s doing the touching.”
She smiled at me then. “Don’t we all?”
It seemed to me that moment meant something significant… a mutual understanding, maybe? Or possibly that she felt as comfortable around me as I felt around her? I couldn’t be sure, but whatever it meant, I liked it.
As I say, since then we’ve become closer, and although there’s nothing overtly intimate about it, I love being near to her. I love spending so much time with her, too… and even though the job is hard work, I wouldn’t have it any other way. She’s made us lunch a few times since that first week, although it’s always been a bit more rushed, and occasionally, other members of the crew have joined us, too. It’s impossible for me to object to their presence, but I prefer it when we can be alone. I think she does, too.
If there is a cloud on the horizon, I guess it would have to be that I don’t know whether she’s free. I keep thinking she must be… especially when she looks at me the way she does. But then I remind myself that I could be over-thinking… over-interpreting, because I want her to want me, like I want her.
I’ve tried fishing several times, to find out if she’s seeing anyone, but short of asking outright, I’ve not been able todiscover anything. I don’t know whether that’s good or bad. All I do know is that, when we have to work late, she never seems to worry about what time she’ll be getting home.
And that’s got to be good… right?
I’m so relieved it’s Friday, and we’ve almost finished for the day. It’s been a tough week – nearly as difficult as our first one – and Ella’s apologised for that so many times I’ve lost count. It’s not her fault, though. The ‘problem’ we were given was someone who wanted to cook and eat healthier versions of takeout food that didn’t take too long to make. Ella was a genius, as usual, and came up with three different ideas, and while they all look and taste incredible, I’ve struggled with learning and remembering all the processes involved.
The sticky rice which is going with the Thai green curry had me flummoxed, and as for making pizza…
Ella went into lengthy explanations on Monday morning about how the pizza base would normally contain yeast, and take a lot longer to prepare. I pretended to pay attention, and to understand what she was talking about, while thinking that I’d missed seeing her over the weekend. I wished there was something I could do about that, and by the time I realised she’d moved on to actually making the dough, I’d missed the order she’d put everything into the mixing bowl, and she had to go through it all again. She didn’t seem to mind and repeated it all to me with a smile on her face, which made it even harder to concentrate.
I found rolling out the dough really difficult, but we both knew it was something I’d have to master and ‘perform’ on the show, so we took our time, and I got there… eventually.
“You see? You can do it.” Ella did her best to sound encouraging, even though it had taken me four attempts to get a reasonably circular round of pizza dough, which looked nowhere near as good as hers.
“Thanks to you, yes.”
She nudged into me. “Stop putting yourself down. I’ve had years of training, and you’re doing all this in a fraction of the time.”
I hadn’t been putting myself down at all. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t under the illusion that I was a budding culinary genius, but the only one in the room who deserved any credit for what I’d achieved was Ella. I opened my mouth to say so, just as Gavin barged in with a technical question for Ella, and the moment was lost.
Fortunately, when it came to the recording yesterday, I rolled out the dough quite well… well enough for the cameras, anyway. In fact, most of the cookery elements went okay, but they were especially difficult, and I was tired, so I messed up quite a lot of my lines… which is why today has been so busy. We’ve been re-recording several sections, mostly of me just talking to camera and filling in gaps. All I’ve got left to do now is the final element… adding the garnish to the curried chicken that forms the basis of the last dish, while rounding off the show… because I didn’t get that quite right yesterday, either.
The bowl of chicken is sitting in front of me, and on the chopping board are some pre-chopped coriander leaves.
Cilantro, not coriander. Cilantro, not coriander…I mutter the words in my head as Ruby counts me in for my final speech and I look up at the camera and plant a smile on my face.
“Okay, so we just need to scatter some chopped cilantro over the top…” I put actions to my words, picking up a handful of the leaves and sprinkling them over the chicken. “And there we have it.” I push the dish over towards the ‘guest’; a young woman, whose name for the purposes of the show is Amanda. “Three of the best take-away dishes in town, all made in the comfort of your own…”
“Cut!”
“What?” I look up to see Ruby frowning at me, her finger to her ear. On recording days, she wears an ear-piece so she can communicate with Linus in the booth, and she’s nodding her head.
