‘Let’s make brownies,’ Rosie said decisively, shutting the recipe book.
A flash of annoyance passed over Suzanne’s face. She reached over and opened the book again, flipping through it to get to the right page. ‘We’re making macarons.’ She pointed to the ingredients laid out across the table. ‘I got everything ready.’
Rosie let out a huffing noise. ‘Why does it have to be macarons? If we make brownies, we know they’ll turn out good.’
They looked at each other, belligerent. I reached out and took the recipe book, sliding it towards me to see the first step. ‘Egg whites and caster sugar in a bowl,’ I read out in my firmest voice. ‘Four egg whites, seventy grams of sugar.’ I opened the box of eggs. ‘How do you just get the white bit?’
Suzanne laughed, her face relaxing. ‘You have to separate them.’
Rosie still looked mutinous, now with a side of betrayed. I avoided her gaze, opening the bag of sugar and weighing out seventy grams.
‘Rosie and I used to make brownies a lot,’ I said to Suzanne. ‘Basically because they’re really easy.’
‘And they taste good,’ Rosie said, a sulk in her voice.
Suzanne had cracked an egg against the side of a cup and was manoeuvring the yolk from one half of the shell to the other.
‘Remember that time we tried to put treacle in them?’ I said to Rosie.
‘Oh my God,’ Rosie said, dissolving into laughter. ‘It was like sludge. Actual sludge.’
‘When it came out of the oven it had turned into a brick,’ I continued, grinning at the memory. ‘We had to put it straight in the bin.’
‘So they didn’t always taste good?’ Suzanne asked, her voice teasing. She was on to the third egg, her fingers deft and shiny with eggy remnants.
‘The treacle was a mistake,’ Rosie conceded. She seemed mollified by our reminiscing, and she leaned across me to look at the book. Her hair tickled my face. ‘But usually they were great.’
‘These will be great too,’ Suzanne said. She poured the egg whites from the cup into the mixing bowl, gesturing to me to add the sugar.
‘A new tradition,’ I said, doing so. Suzanne’s whole face seemed to lift at these words, making her look suddenly very young. She smiled at me, hopeful.
‘They better be good then,’ Rosie said.
They weren’t.
The macarons we pulled out of the oven did not in any way resemble the beautiful, colourful treats I’d seen in books and patisserie windows. The circles we’d piped on to the tray had ballooned in the oven and merged into several gigantic cracked blobs.
‘Oh,’ Suzanne said. She looked confused.
‘We piped them too big,’ Rosie said.
‘Oh, did we?’ Suzanne’s voice was sarcastic. ‘What was your first clue?’
‘It’s just the first tray,’ I said quickly, before Rosie could respond. ‘We’ll pipe the rest smaller, and with more space between them.’
We took no chances with the next batch, piping small discs of the mixture into lonely pink islands on the tray. They turned out perfect and they tasted like sugary almond heaven. We took the broken pieces from the first batch and, with the help of cream and raspberry sauce, salvaged them into a gloopy, delicious mess that we heaped into one bowl to share.
Together we squashed on to the sofa in the living room, Suzanne in the middle with the bowl on her lap, the two of us on each side with a spoon each.
‘Did you know it’s Suze’s birthday in a couple of weeks?’ Rosie said to me, and Suzanne made a face.
‘No!’ I said. ‘Why didn’t you say something? What are you going to do?’
‘It’s not a big deal,’ Suzanne said.
‘It’s your sixteenth – of course it’s a big deal,’ I said, thinking about the hall my parents had booked for my birthday. ‘Are you having a party?’
‘Where would I have it?’ She gestured around the living room, which was indeed too small for revelry.
‘You could hire somewhere,’ I suggested. I picked a piece of broken macaron off my spoon and nibbled at it.
‘That costs too much.’ Suzanne said. She shrugged. ‘I really don’t care. I don’t want it to be a big thing.’
This made no sense. ‘Why not? Your birthday is, like, the best day of the year.’
‘Not for me,’ she said tightly, and I finally got it.
‘Oh.’
There was an uncomfortable silence, before Rosie adjusted herself on her side of the sofa and pointed her spoon at us importantly. ‘I have an idea. How about you spend the whole of your birthday weekend with us? We’ll both come to yours on Friday night, have dinner or whatever, and then on Saturday we can go to the beach, meet Lev and the others, have a few drinks and stuff, then crash at yours. Then on Sunday, on your actual birthday, we’ll do things like have birthday cake and whatever. Sarah will make you a birthday cake, right?’
Suzanne nodded slowly. ‘But, the beach in November?’
‘Sure. We’ll take blankets.’ Rosie was in full-on planning mode. ‘Say yes. You can’t not celebrate your sixteenth. And you should celebrate it with us.’ She caught my eye. ‘Shouldn’t she?’
‘Definitely,’ I said.