He went back inside and Nora beamed at him. “Well, hi there!” she said loudly. “Welcome!”
Elnaz frowned. “Cut. There’s no need to overdo it.”
“You told me to pretend.”
“Just say hi—even you ought to be able to manage that,” Henrik said. “And maybe you could try to be pleasant, unlike the first time we actually met.”
He went outside, feeling her death stare on the back of his neck. He reentered the café. At first her expression was mutinous, but then she gave him a welcoming smile.Well done.
“Hi, Henrik Eklund.” He held out his hand, and she did the same.
“Nora Jansson. Welcome to Nymans.” Her hand was unexpectedly warm, and the feeling of her fingers lingered after he had let go.
“Cut. Perfect, we can use that.” Elnaz held up her pad and appeared to tick off the scene—one of many. “We could keep going from there, with Henrik ordering coffee and something to eat—if that’s okay.”
Henrik was expecting an objection from Nora, but she simply nodded.
“Excellent—let’s go.”
When the camera started rolling, Henrik examined the cakes and sandwiches laid out in the glass display case. “I’d like a cheese roll, please.”
“No problem.” She picked up a roll with the tongs and placed it on a white porcelain plate. White was fine, but he would probably encourage her to swap them out for stoneware. The coffee cups were a good shape, but they ought to be gray instead of that dated dark blue.
“And a cinnamon bun. And a macaron and maybe a cookie. Which would you recommend? No, wait—I want to try a piece of that shortbread. I didn’t think anyone under ninety-three made it anymore.” He let out a little snort. Nora’s eyes narrowed again. He decided to keep the thread going. “How many kinds of cookies do you actually bake?”
“Thirteen,” she said proudly.
“Wow. And you sell out of all of them?”
She looked wary. “Most of them.”
“How much time do you spend making cookies?”
“For God’s sake, this is a patisserie. I spendsometime making cookies. Is that really what the show is going to be about? Cookies?”
Henrik looked wearily at Elnaz, who quickly smiled. “It’s fine, I think we’ve got enough.”
Henrik picked up his tray while Nora remained where she was. The scene was to begin with him on his own, and he went over to a table. One of the production assistants followed him with a cup of coffee—just a dash of milk, exactly the way he liked it when he was having something to eat. If he wasn’t eating, he preferred black coffee.
Ted had finished his conversation with Don and joined the camera operator. Henrik began with the cheese roll. The bread was perhaps a little dry, but generally okay. The cheese, however, was uninspiring, and there wasn’t enough butter. He took a bite of the cinnamon bun, which was delicious. He already knew that, but as he’d already pointed out, it was unnecessarily large.
He took a sip of his coffee and almost spat it out. He looked straight into the camera. “That’s disgusting! Undrinkable.”
“Good,” Ted said, pushing a plug of snuff farther up behind his top lip. “If you know what you want to say, we can bring Nora in.”
“Can we take a short break?” Nora called from behind the counter. “I need to fix up an order that’s just come in.”
“Fine—I need a break too,” Henrik said.
Elnaz slipped into the seat next to Henrik. “Can we have a chat? Why were you so late this morning?” she asked as the others headed for the coffee machine.
“Something came up last night—I thought I emailed you?”
“I didn’t get an email.” Elnaz was clearly annoyed. “We were trying to reach you all morning, but you didn’t answer.”
“Like I said, something came up, maybe I forgot to send you an email, and ... I apologize, but I switched off my phone.”
“You know the TV24 team is stressed, especially sinceChristmas with the Eklundsis going to be recorded in the middle of all this. We need every minute we can get.”
