Page 18 of The Golden Spoon
BETSY
“I feel badly for Gerald, I really do. But what a mess.” She sits in the gazebo across from Archie, the day’s bakes laid out in front of them. The opening behind them frames the tent, set back across the lawn and Grafton Manor rising behind it. This picturesque spot is where Betsy has always done her final judging. Normally she speaks only to the cameras, but now of course she must have an actual conversation with Archie about who will leave the tent and who will be the day’s winner. She finds herself bracing for an argument. But Archie agrees with her instantly.
“You just can’t get that thrown off by a mistake.” He nods solemnly. “You really have to pick yourself up and figure it out.” Betsy is pleased to see him givingBake Weekthe respect it deserves. She finds herself exhaling a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding.
Betsy doesn’t understand what happened today with Gerald. She’d been all the way across the tent, scolding Melanie about unflattering camera angles, when the yelling started. Gerald had sounded so deeply distressed that at first she’d worried someone had been physically attacking him. As Gerald fled dramatically through the back of the tent, Archie strode quickly over to her and Melanie and in a hushed voiced explained the situation. Well, he’d kind of explainedit. Something about Gerald’s ingredients being spoiled? She still isn’t quite sure what prompted the meltdown. She wonders if Archie had something more to do with it than he let on.
He’d never seemed particularly keen on Gerald, teasing him a bit yesterday about his homemade flavors. She’d even caught him rolling his eyes once as he’d walked away from filming a one-on-one. Maybe he wanted Gerald to fail. It’s a shame, Betsy thinks. Aside from whatever it was that happened today, Gerald’s bakes were some of the very best, neat and well planned. His ingredients were inspired, a miracle given the limited amount of time they had to work with.
“I just wish he’d finished his bakes,” she says honestly. It wasn’t good for the show to have people walk off set that way. She suspected she’d be having a long conversation with the producers and Francis about optics. Would it look as though Gerald had been bullied?
“How do you think the others are doing?” Archie pushes through, changing the subject. There is no hint of him being rattled from the conflict, Betsy notes.
“Stella’s pies were a bit lackluster,” Betsy says. It would be obvious to anyone watching this episode that if Gerald had done well today, Stella would be the one going home in the morning. At the beginning, Betsy had predicted Stella would be the first to leave, but so far she’s been saved.Twice.
“They were poorly baked is what they were. Not well planned at all,” Archie agrees, an edge of his formerCutting Boardpersona creeping into his voice.
“Well, she did have that mishap with the peaches being burnt,” Betsy says, trying to appear understanding, though if she were being honest, she’s already had it with Stella. Every time Betsy walked past Stella’s table, she looked up, following her with those moon eyes. It was unnerving.
“She shouldn’t be making that kind of mistake this far into the competition.”
Betsy gives a curt nod in agreement. “Who did well today?”
“I think Hannah and Pradyumna both did well,” Archie says. “Hannah’s pies were really something special. To make two different crusts like that—”
“Pradyumna also made two different crusts,” she reminds him.
“Yes, but Hannah’s fillings were really top-notch. The decoration too.” The way he is talking about Hannah makes Betsy stop and look at him more closely. There’s something familiar about it. He doesn’t have quite the same tone of voice as he does when he talks about the others.
“She does have very tidy piping, and her flavors were quite good,” Betsy agrees, begrudgingly. “We’re in agreement then?”
“Yes, I think we are.”
“Always so sad to see them go.” She says it as wistfully as possible for the cameras.
“You’re such a softy, aren’t you?” Archie says. It is part of the script, making Betsy appear sensitive, grandmotherly. But there is something in the way he says it that makes her pause. It doesn’t sound like a compliment. There’s a tone there that implies something else. It’s almost as if he is toying with her. Or is she just imagining it? Being around Archie has made her question herself more than she has in years. She hasn’t felt this insecure since—Betsy’s heart pounds with recognition.
She realizes suddenly that Archie reminds her of her ex-husband, Roland. Not in appearance, since they look nothing alike. Roland is the most blue-blooded WASP Betsy has ever encountered, and Archie, well, it’s obvious Archie does not come from of any kind of pedigree. But there is something in their mannerisms, their performative confidence. Mostly it is in the way they both make Betsy feel about herself. Like she’s a child who needs to be coddled or a doddering old fool who doesn’t deserve their respect. Neither would say it out loud, of course, but Betsy can feel it in the way they speak to her. The subtle inflections. Of course, Roland also cheated on her with a much younger woman. She recalls with painful clarity the way hespoke aboutheras well. The look in his eyes of trying to conceal a lie while also desperately wanting to brag about what he’d done. She gives Archie a prim smile.
“Shall we?” Betsy stands. She is suddenly desperate to talk to Francis and find out what he knows.
“After you.”
The cameras follow them as they make their way back to the tent to deliver the final verdict. If Archie is anything like Roland, then Betsy knows one thing is for certain—he is not to be trusted.
STELLA
I walk out onto the front steps, past the stone lions. The sun is still visible over the mountains, but the air has cooled, and the breeze that rushes up across the great lawn has a bite to it. I like how it rushes against my cheeks. I take a deep breath, filling my lungs with clean northern air. I feel better outside. I can walk around freely without worrying about getting lost within the endless maze of rooms and hallways inside. I want to take advantage of being here, away from New York and the problems that will begin to pile up as soon as I set foot in my old life again.
I take off at a brisk pace across the lawn, walking through the space between the manor and the tent. Things are quiet. It seems like I’m the only one out here; the crew must have left for the day. I feel like I’m sneaking around where I shouldn’t be and remind myself that Betsy was the one who had suggested we explore. I cut to the left and hug the side of the manor. Over here it is shaded and damp. Tendrils of ivy creep like tiny veins across the stone. They pull themselves around the window frames and up to a stone balcony, which is almost covered by vines.
The house gazes down on me. Its leaded glass windows are uniform and opaque, reflecting the gray sky like the one-sided mirrorsyou see on cop dramas. Anyone could be looking out at me right now, I think. A shiver takes hold of my back, rattling up through my shoulder blades.
I pass through a trellised archway that looks out over rows of terraced gardens. They are overgrown and wild. Tall weeds mingle with patches of flowers. I walk down a set of crumbling stone stairs. There are several small statues here. A woman holding a jug with a hole in it stands in a shallow basin filled with dead leaves; clearly it was once a fountain. Behind it a sundial is caked with moss. I continue deeper into the garden, reaching a cluster of rosebushes. They’ve been neglected, but some small roses have still managed to bloom on the ends of their spindly branches. I lean forward to smell one, breathing its powdery scent. In the center of the rosebushes is a lone dogwood tree, its pale green flowers just starting to bloom. The gardens beyond here are wild, and I can go no farther into the tangle of thorns.
I make my way back up to the manor, walking around the other side of the house and emerging near the gazebo on the edge of the front lawn. The front of the house is in stark contrast to the back. The hedges are neat and uniform. The grass a close-shorn emerald green. Everything is tidy and controlled. I’m sure the other gardens were once like this too, manicured and beautiful. I wonder if Betsy has trouble maintaining the house. The thought takes me by surprise. I can’t imagine Betsy Martin having trouble doing anything.
I start when I notice a dark figure sitting in the gazebo. It’s the camera guy, I realize, the one I’d made eye contact with earlier. He’s slumped down in one of the judging chairs, his feet propped up against the other. He is staring down his phone and doesn’t see me. He looks out of place framed in the delicate white latticework, a large, muscular man, with a frown creasing his face. Exactly my type a few years ago.What are you doing? I feel younger Stella asking me impatiently.Go talk to him. Shut up, I tell her. He puts something to his mouth, and a thick cloud of smoke fills the gazebo. I am about to turn around and give him his privacy, when he raises his arm in a wave.
