Twisted tales - страница 4

Amanda, in her youth, was a wisp of a thing, a veritable sylph, if sylphs harboured ambitions of silver screen stardom. Her dreams were Technicolour epics, filled with sweeping romances, heartbreaking tragedies, and roles so characterful, they practically vibrated with life. She envisioned herself as the next Olivier, but with more mascara. There was, however, a fly in the ointment, a chink in her theatrical armour, and it came in the form of a cream puff.

Amanda adored pastries. More specifically, she worshipped them. A delicate eclair was to her as a sonnet to Shakespeare. Each bite was a tiny curtain call, each sugary crumb a standing ovation. Time, that ruthless stage manager, began to play his part. Amanda's waistline expanded, a slow, relentless expansion, mirroring the rising action of a particularly long play. Her once sharp features softened, blurring around the edges like a watercolour left in the rain. The leading roles, those glittering prizes, began to slip through her fingers like sand.

Yet, Amanda persevered. She saw herself still upon the stage, perhaps not as Juliet, but as Nurse, a role that, she argued, required a certain… amplitude. The silver screen beckoned less frequently, but character roles, the eccentric aunt, the gossiping neighbour, these were still within reach. Amanda, ever the pragmatist, adjusted her sights.

Years marched on, each one leaving its mark like a heavy-handed makeup artist. Amanda, no longer a wisp, had become a substantial presence, a veritable galleon in a sea of supermodels. Her hair, once the colour of spun gold, was now a wispy grey cloud framing a face etched with the stories of a thousand unbaked cakes. She was a fixture of the local theatre, a grumbling, generous, talented old soul. Her backstage pronouncements were legendary, her on-stage presence undeniable. She may not have been a star, but she was, without a doubt, a force of nature.

And why wouldn't she be? After all, she owned the theatre, having inherited it from her father, a renowned pastry chef who, in a stroke of genius, had invested all his profits into the building. The stage was not her passion, rather, it was her inheritance, but the pastries she sold at the intermission allowed her to fund her true love: the creation of even more delectable treats!

Beatrice Bumblebee adored Art. Not in that stuffy, gallery-going, sherry-sipping way, mind you. Oh, no. Beatrice loved Art with the fervent passion of a lovesick baker for a perfect crème brûlée. She haunted theatres like a persistent ghost, consumed plays like a starving man devouring a five-course meal, and practically lived in the velvet-lined world of musicals, humming along just slightly off-key. She declared each performance “utterly devastating,” “breathtakingly poignant,” and “worth more than its weight in gilded doorknobs.”

One Tuesday, mid-intermission of what Beatrice declared was “a particularly moving tragedy about… well, something with emotional baggage,” she found herself chatting with a bewildered-looking gentleman struggling to navigate the overflowing throng. He was, as far as Beatrice could tell, quite taken with her enthusiasm. So, naturally, she launched into a dazzling, breathless monologue about the current season. “Oh, darling, have you seen the one with the, you know, the thing? The one with all the… feelings? Simply divine! And then there’s that other one, with the chaps, the costumes, and the, ah… you know… theatrics! Positively splendid!”