‘Hi,’ she answered.
Petey was nowhere to be seen and Christa wished he would come back and make small talk so then she could run out the back and climb the fence and never let Marc see her shame again.
‘We need to talk,’ he said.
She was silent for a moment.
‘I don’t know what to say to you. It was stupid bet and one I thought I would win but I was arrogant and it showed me I have been kidding myself my whole life. It always was Simon who was the star and I hid behind him because I was too afraid to do anything myself.’
Marc went to speak but she put her hand up to stop him.
‘And whatever we had, whatever attraction we had has gone since I made such an idiot of myself, but that was because of Simon, not because of you. I have some pretty serious thinking to do about myself and where I’m going in life.’
Marc put his hands up now. ‘Sorry, I have to stop you there,’ he stated. ‘Here’s the thing, Christa. You won.’
She shook her head. ‘No I didn’t, you chose Simon’s soufflé.’
Marc pulled out his phone and played with it. ‘Are you texting someone?’ she asked. ‘It’s considered rude to do that in the middle of a conversation.’
He handed the phone to her and pressed play on a video.
She saw herself leave the kitchen and then she saw Avian and Simon arguing and then him swap the soufflé from her oven to his and his to hers.
‘Oh. My. God,’ she said, replaying it and watching it several times.
She looked up at him.
‘God, I knew it. I put everything I had into that soufflé for you.’ She started to cry. ‘I did everything right and he did everything wrong. I had the eggs at the right temperature and his were cold. Everyone knows you get stronger peaks with room temperature egg whites.’ She threw her hands up and then slammed them down on the table.
‘I didn’t know that but go on,’ he said.
‘And he didn’t cool the chocolate before putting the yolks in. It would have tasted too eggy.’
She paused, trying to stop crying but she couldn’t stop now she had unbottled her pain.
‘I wanted it to be the best – the best chocolate, butter, eggs – everything was so carefully chosen…’ She hiccupped from crying. ‘And then when I stirred the chocolate as it melted I thought about you.’
He took her hand. ‘What did you think?’ he asked softly.
Christa sobbed, feeling every injustice Simon had ever put on her during their marriage. The gaslighting, the dismissive comments, the gloating when he got mentioned in a review, his teasing that was supposed to a joke about her weight, her clothes, her background.
‘I thought about love,’ she said, not self-censoring anymore. If she wanted to be brave in life, then she had to start right now.
‘I thought about the way you look at me sometimes, and the touch of your hand, and what it would be like to kiss you,’ she said. ‘And I know that probably won’t ever happen but I put love into that dish and I wanted you to know it, to taste it.’
‘To look at you like this?’ he asked and she lifted her eyes from the table to his.
‘And to touch you like this?’ he asked and swept her hair from her forehead.
She sat very still.
‘And to kiss you like this?’ He paused and she smiled a little at him, unsure if he was serious or not.
The touch of his lips on hers showed his sincerity and as they melted into each other, sitting at Petey’s table, Christa wondered if she was dreaming until there was a knock at the kitchen door.
‘Come in, Petey.’ She laughed, wiping her eyes.
‘Just got to get my bits and bobs and pop down to the pub,’ he said.
