‘I am an adult now, Sam,’ she said, desperate to sound dignified but unable to stop glowering at him. ‘Unlikesomepeople, it seems.’
‘So I see,’ Sam laughed, and strolled off after Meg towards their cake stall.
Amy did brisk business when the bake sale got under way– and in spite of her insistence that she didn’t care about winning a free pub meal, she gloried in the speed at which her stash of white chocolate blondies sold out.
She also saw with satisfaction that Sam and Meg’s Viennese whirls were going, but not yet gone. Was it so wrong that she wanted to beat him? Probably. But there was no point denying the impulse.
Grace appeared about an hour into the event, on the arm of a familiar figure. The sight of them together made Amy start and double-take, but there was no mistaking it: her grandmother was strolling slowly up the high street with Mr Bradley, Amy and Sam’s old English teacher and– in their final year of sixth form– the college principal. He was greyer and leaner than she remembered, but still wearing his old uniform of slacks, brogues, a button-down and a smart jacket.
What. The. Hell?
‘Amy!’ Mr Bradley exclaimed when they reached her stall. ‘It’s a delight to see you. Grace tells me you’re doing wonderfully well for yourself in the world of publishing.’
He always spoke like this, she recalled: he was formal and scrupulously polite, with an old-fashioned cadence that made him sound like someone in a period drama.
Amy cleared her throat, not sure how to respond. She felt wrong-footed by his physical closeness to Gran, as well as a little like she was seventeen again. She half expected him to launch into a lecture on Chaucer’sCanterbury Tales, or the importance of irony inNineteen Eighty-Four. It was bizarre, seeing him out of context– like encountering a llama in a library.
‘Er,’ she began, ‘yes. I work for Howard-Knight. I’m setting up a new imprint here in the Midlands, so I’ll be back in Rowton for a little while.’
‘And Nisha tells me you’re to join our book group,’ he said. ‘What a merry party we shall be.’
‘Yes,’ Amy said. ‘I’m looking forward to it. Can I get you anything while you’re here? Gran– anything for you? I’m afraid your blondies are all gone, but I still have cookies and Victoria sponge.’
‘Oh, I’m all right, thanks, love,’ Grace said. ‘Don’t like to get high on my own supply.’
Amy boggled at her, then made a mental note to ask Gran what she and Barbara had been watching on Netflix lately.The Wire?Breaking Bad, perhaps?
‘I think I spy coffee and walnut cake over there on the Ainsworths’ stall,’ Mr Bradley told Amy apologetically. ‘I’m afraid it’s my absolute favourite.’
Amy grimaced. She loved coffee, but putting it in cake was justwrong. It was typical that Sam would produce such an abomination.
‘You’re sure you wouldn’t prefer a piece of Victoria sponge? Grandidmake it, after all …’
‘Well,’ Mr Bradley said, the tops of his ears turning slightly pink as he glanced down at Grace, wearing an expression that Amy could only describe as adoring. ‘Perhaps one of each, then.’
Amy boxed up Mr Bradley’s cake and strained her eyes to see past the crowd at Sam’s table. She felt restless and antsy– alive with the need to win, in a way she hadn’t been for a long while.
The next hour or so was a blur of greeting and serving people until the bake sale wound towards an unofficial end. Most stallholders had sold almost everything they’d brought with them, and foot traffic had seriously decreased as lunchtime approached. Nisha had only a small box of her delicious-looking home-made samosas left, while Barbara’s remaining rocky road easily fitted into an old biscuit tin. Amy saw that her stall, and Sam’s, were the most depleted. He’d sold everything apart from a chunk of his vile coffee cake, while she had only a handful of cookies left over.
People began counting up their earnings, and Barbara made her way up and down the high street, bagging up coins by type and taking note of how much each volunteer’s offerings had raised.
‘Well, my goodness,’ she announced after she’d visited every stall. ‘This has never happened before, but we have atieon our hands, ladies and gentlemen!’
Amy couldn’t help an eye-roll at this. Barbara sounded like a Channel Five game show host.
‘Amy, on behalf of our dear friend Grace, and Sam, with the lovely Megan and Pearl helping him, have raised identical sums for us this year!’
So, Sam’s maybe-daughter was called Pearl. A very pretty name, Amy had to concede, that wasn’t self-consciously upper class. At the same time, she felt herself groan. Tying with Sam in a competition was almost worse than losing to him, though she didn’t know why.
A ripple of applause sounded among the stallholders and the few in-the-know villagers who’d hung around to hear Barbara’s verdict.
‘Of course,’ Barbara went on, ‘this does present us with a challenge. We only have one free dinner to give away.’
‘Amy should have it,’ Sam said loudly, nodding in her direction. She heard several appreciative coos at this, which dialled her irritation right up to eleven.
Why did healwayshave to play the part of Mr Nice Guy when in truth he was anything but? She felt suddenly furious. This was a person who’d barely even looked at her, let alone supported her, when their mutual friend had died– even after they’d sharedthatkiss.
‘No, no,’ Amy said. ‘You should have it. I didn’t even bake what I sold today. I just put things in boxes and counted out change.’