by Lee Hollis
Hayley sat on the edge of one of the beds, which she was certain she would be sharing with Liddy since Mona was a restless sleeper and tossed and turned between her loud honking when she snored.
Both she and Liddy had picked up earplugs at the Bangor International Airport gift shop before the Bangor to Boston leg of their trip, knowing they would be sharing a room with Mona.
The butterflies in Hayley’s stomach were already flapping so hard she had trouble catching her breath.
Liddy sailed out of the bathroom, feeling right at home in the plush accommodations, and noticed Hayley’s pale face. She sat down beside Hayley on the bed.
“Honey, you’re going to do a great job tomorrow. You have nothing to worry about,” she said. “You’re Hayley Powell, food-and-cocktails columnist for the Island Times! You’re a star!”
Hayley smiled and rested her head on Liddy’s shoulder. “Everybody at home is going to be watching and I just don’t want to blow it.”
Suddenly it sounded as if a man had burst into the room and was yelling at them, and they both jumped, but it was just Wolf Blitzer on The Situation Room.
Mona had found the volume button on the remote.
“Now it’s after five, so we all know what that means,” Liddy said.
They all responded in unison.
“Happy hour.”
“Exactly,” Liddy said, standing up and crossing to the desk to pick up the room service menu. “So let’s calm our nerves with a cocktail since it seemed to do the trick on that horrific and traumatic flight here. We can also order some snacks and have a fun girls’ night in a five-star hotel.”
It sounded heavenly.
And it was.
At least it started out that way.
The freewheeling, loose slumber party began with a round of cosmos because that’s what the girls on Sex and the City used to drink, according to Liddy. That led to a variety of martinis and a selection of entrées and appetizers from the room service menu, and before long they were cackling and gossiping, and Hayley was feeling much more relaxed and confident about the TV show taping tomorrow, and that’s pretty much when the rest of the evening became a blur.
The next thing she knew she was lying on top of the bed wondering where she was as the sun streaked through a crack in the closed curtain and hit her directly in the face.
Hayley wrestled open a bloodshot eye and looked around.
The room was a mess.
Mona was face down on the floor and Liddy was a lump underneath the bed covers.
Or at least she hoped it was Liddy.
The floor was littered with empty food trays.
The minibar was ripped open and emptied.
It was like an all female version of that movie The Hangover.
At any moment, she expected a live goat to walk out of the bathroom.
She had no idea when the evening took such a wrong turn. Or what time it was.
Hell, she wasn’t even sure what day it was.
And then it hit her so hard she was instantly clear eyed and sober.
It was Friday.
The day of The Chat taping.
She popped open her other eye and sat up on the bed, scanning the room for a clock.
She spotted one on the nightstand next to Liddy.
8:45 AM.
She was due to report to the set of the show at 8:30 AM for hair and makeup and pre-interview before the 10:00 AM live taping.
She was already fifteen minutes late.
“Liddy! Mona! Get up! We have to move now!”
She saw the lumpy figure underneath the bed wrap move slightly.
Mona was still passed out, her face hugging the rug, snoring.
Hayley leaped over Mona’s body to get to the bathroom and frantically rummaged through her travel case for the eye cream she brought to treat the heavy dark bags underneath her eyes that were heightened now due to her partying the night before.
There was no time for a shower. She would just have to use extra deodorant.
Her hair was an unruly disaster and she prayed the professionals on call at the studio would be able to perform some kind of miracle.
She rummaged through her suitcase for the smart outfit she had chosen for her appearance. She had planned to iron it and make sure it didn’t look bunched up and wrinkly.
No such luck.
She never got to it and when she pulled it out it looked as if she had slept in it all night.
There was no time to do anything about it.
She quickly dressed and shot out the door. Liddy and Mona would just have to fend for themselves and find their way to the taping if they were going to watch from the studio audience.
Hayley raced through the lobby and spotted one of the porters by the revolving glass door. “Taxi! I need a taxi!”
He looked a little scared as she ran toward him, eyes wild, hands in the air. He was probably debating whether to hail her a cab or run for his life.
Ever the professional, he scurried out the side door with a whistle and was flagging down a yellow cab as Hayley pushed through the revolving glass door so fast that she banged her shoulder taking too much time to step out into the street.
The porter had the door of a taxi cab open for her, and she practically did a swan dive into the back seat, reaching around to press a five-dollar bill into the porter’s white-gloved hand.
“Thank you!” she screamed before turning her attention to a gruff-looking heavyset man behind the wheel smacking his gum and looking as if he’d rather be anywhere else.
“Where to?” he growled.
She had absolutely no idea.
She had left the detailed directions to the TV studio—so carefully printed out before the trip and placed in an envelope—on the desk in the hotel room.
There was no time to go back and get them. It was now past nine o’clock.
“I’m taping an episode of The Chat this morning!”
“Good for you,” he said, unimpressed.
“Do you know it?”
“Yeah, it’s that show with all those clucking women. I get that every night at the dinner table with my wife and her sister.”
“Do you know where they tape it?”
“Yeah, actually their studio is—”
Hayley cut him off. “Take me there, please! Now!”
“But, lady . . .”
“I don’t have time to talk! I need to get there right now!”
“I know, it’s just—”
“Now! Now! Now!” she shrieked, pounding her fist on the glass divider that separated them and jolting him into action. As he swerved away from the curb and into passing traffic Hayley sat back, relieved she was finally on her way.
And then, after a few seconds, the car stopped again.
“What’s going on? What are you doing? Why did we stop?”
He looked at her wearily through his rearview mirror. “We’re here.”
“What?”
Hayley looked out the window. The studio building was half a block from the hotel. If she had walked she would have gotten there faster.
The fare was a whopping two dollars and some change and that was mostly because it was the base fare.
She hurled a five at him through the divider and clamored out the door. “Thank you!”
She raced into the lobby where a harried production assistant was waiting for her. “We’ve been trying to call your cell for the last hour. What happened?”
Hayley had meant to charge it when she went to bed, but of course that never happened, because after all she hadn’t even remembered to take off her clothes before going to bed, so the battery had probably died during the night.
“Never mind. There isn’t any time to explain,” the girl with thick black glasses and a T-shirt with The Chat logo on it said, as she ushered Hayley into an elevator and up to the eighth floor where she was then led into hair and makeup.
A very fabulous, very gay, very large black man with earrings and a p
urple blouse that flowed down his ample belly like a caftan grabbed her by the arm and forced her down in a chair.
He took one look at her hair and shook his head. “Girl, you got hair going in every direction. It’s like a large crowd running out of a burning building! Not to worry. Calvin’s got you covered.”
He made her feel slightly more relaxed. She turned to the production assistant. “Do you have an iron? I’d like to smooth out my shirt and pants before the taping if there’s time.”
“I’m sure we can find you one,” the production assistant said, before glancing up from her clipboard. “Now, did you bring the ingredients for your bacon dish?”
Hayley’s mouth dropped open.
She hadn’t brought any ingredients.
She had submitted her recipe via e-mail to the show’s producers, but no one had said anything about providing her own ingredients.
She was about to go before a national television audience and prepare Bacon-Wrapped Jalapeño-Stuffed Chicken Thighs with no bacon, no chicken, and no jalapeño to stuff it with.
This did not bode well for her first TV appearance.
Chapter 5
After a hair and makeup session that was as speedy as a NASCAR racing pit crew changing a tire, Hayley was bundled into a silk robe and quickly ushered down a hall to a door while her shirt was being pressed.
The panicked production assistant lightly tapped on it.
There was a growl from inside. “Come in!”
The assistant turned to Hayley and forced a slight smile before gently opening the door.
A loud booming voice was in the middle of a tirade. “I’m not just going to sit here and take this! If you people can’t do anything about it, then I will!”
It was Rhonda Franklin.
Hayley’s whole body shrunk from fright.
She had read the gossip pages.
Temper tantrums on the set.
Twitter feuds.
Scathing op-ed pieces excoriating any public political figure who disagreed with her very strong, strident views.
Rhonda Franklin did not suffer fools lightly.
And right now Hayley was the biggest fool in the building for daring to show up to prepare a bacon dish with no ingredients.
Hayley jumped as she heard something smash against the wall inside the dressing room.
She pictured Rhonda hurling her phone across the room.
“Don’t hover outside! I hate people who hover! Get the hell in here already!” Rhonda bellowed.
The production assistant grabbed a fistful of Hayley’s silk robe and gave her a strong shove into the dressing room.
Rhonda was in an orange pantsuit, her dark brown hair in curlers, and her face caked in makeup. Her frame was large and imposing and her piercing green eyes stared at the shaking production assistant with a laserlike focus. “Whose brilliant idea was it to put me in this orange pantsuit? I look like a mutated pumpkin!”
“I’m sorry, Rhonda, I don’t know who—”
“Well, find out, and when you do send him or her to my dressing room! Now!”
The production assistant nodded vigorously and skedaddled, leaving Hayley to face the TV host’s wrath alone with no obvious means of defense.
It took Rhonda a few seconds to realize there was someone still in the room. “Who the hell are you?”
“I’m . . . I’m . . .” Hayley couldn’t remember her own name. “I’m on the show today . . . making bacon. . . .”
What the hell was she making?
Her mind was a blank.
Rhonda was unamused.
“Bacon-wrapped Hayley . . . I mean jalapeño. . . .”
Rhonda suddenly brightened. “Stuffed Chicken Thighs? Oh my God, is it you? Are you Hayley Powell?”
Hayley managed a nod and a half smile.
“I saw the show notes! That’s one of your best recipes ever! I can’t believe I’m finally meeting you! I’m a huge fan!” Rhonda squealed, her arms outstretched as she lumbered over and grabbed her in a tight hug.
Hayley felt as if her bones were cracking and she couldn’t breathe.
But the pain was nothing compared to just a few seconds earlier when she imagined Rhonda was going to physically pick her up and hurl her out of the dressing room.
“I was so excited when I heard you had agreed to be on the show! I never miss your column! You crack me up with your stories! What a hoot! I have to say—”
A man’s voice interrupted her.
“Excuse me, Rhonda. I just wanted to drop by to say a quick hello before we go on the air. . . .”
Rhonda’s megawatt smile dimmed slightly and she rolled her eyes, annoyed as she did a quick half turn toward the door. “Okay, Bradley, see you out there.”
Hayley glanced at the gentleman standing in the door frame.
Tall, gorgeous, with curly brown hair.
His handsome face was very familiar.
Bradley lingered a few seconds longer, but Rhonda had already turned back to Hayley. “Do you know I had never even heard of a Lemon Drop Martini before you wrote about it?”
Bradley shrugged and walked away.
And that’s when it dawned on Hayley. “Was that Bradley—?”
“Cooper. Yeah. He’s on the show today,” Rhonda said, before leaning in and winking at Hayley. “Between you and me, he’s a bit needy.”
Hayley’s knees buckled.
She had just been in the same room with Bradley Cooper.
“Look, I want to show you,” Rhonda said, taking Hayley by the hand and leading her over to a small cupboard, which she opened to reveal a fully stocked bar. Prominently displayed in the front were the necessary ingredients for Hayley’s Lemon Drop Martini. “I figured we can have one after the taping!”
Hayley was overwhelmed by Rhonda’s charm and effusive personality. She was so different from the angry, intimidating Rhonda who was bellowing when she’d first entered the room.
Hayley caught the time on a Mickey Mouse clock hanging on the dressing room wall.
9:50 AM.
The taping was scheduled to begin in ten minutes.
She had to tell someone she didn’t have the ingredients for her recipe.
She took a deep breath and blurted out, “Rhonda, I forgot to bring the ingredients for my bacon recipe and I don’t know what to do.”
She closed her eyes, expecting the first, less friendly Rhonda to come charging back.
But she didn’t.
Without missing a beat, Rhonda said softly, “Do you have a list?”
She did.
In the front pocket of her slacks, which were at this moment being ironed.
She had put it there last night before her cocktail hour (or hours) with Liddy and Mona for safekeeping because she knew she would be wearing those pants to the TV taping.
She told Rhonda where her list was.
“Lily! Get in here!” Rhonda shouted.
A preppy redheaded girl in a stylish top and designer jeans and wearing red-tinted wire-rim glasses suddenly appeared through a side door that connected to another room.
“There’s a piece of paper in Hayley’s pants that are being pressed right now. Go get it and hightail it over to the Whole Foods around the corner. Buy everything on that list and be back in ten minutes!”
“Right!”
She flew out the door.
With a smile, Rhonda turned back to Hayley. “That’s Lily, my personal assistant. She’s so much more reliable than any of the idiot hipsters they got working on this show. Most are here because they’re the lazy spawn of some network executive or corporate sponsor. Lily’s different. She’s worked hard to get here.”
Hayley still couldn’t believe all this was happening.
She was in New York.
Hanging with Rhonda Franklin in her dressing room.
And they had just blown off Bradley Cooper.
It was like a dream.
She was jolted back to reality by something crawling up her leg
.
Startled, Hayley looked down to see a potbellied pig at her feet, his snout up underneath her robe, sniffing and snorting.
Hayley jumped.
Rhonda clapped her hands. “Pork Chop!” She bent down to pet the little pig.
Hayley was impressed by Rhonda’s limber move given the bulk of her body.
Rhonda lifted the pig and he nuzzled her ample breast. “How are you doing, my little piggly wiggly?”
“There he is! He’s always breaking free to explore!”
A statuesque woman in a bar-code-print paneled silk dress with a feathery hat and dark sunglasses swept into the now crowded dressing room. She picked up the leash that was attached to a diamond-studded collar the pig had around his neck that was probably worth more than Hayley made in a year.
“I hope he hasn’t been bothering you,” the woman purred.
“You know I love this pig!” Rhonda cooed, planting five kisses on top of the pig’s head. “Olivia, this is Hayley Powell, the chef I’ve been raving about.”
“Chef” was a fancier title than Hayley deserved. She just experimented in her kitchen on occasion and wrote about it.
“A pleasure, Hayley,” Olivia said, holding out her hand, waiting for Hayley to take it. She quickly obliged and the woman continued. “I never miss reading your column when I’m visiting the island.”
Hayley knew exactly who this woman was.
Olivia Redmond.
Heiress to Redmond Meats, the leading supplier of meat products in the country, if not the world, with a specific emphasis on bacon, their top seller. The family owned a sprawling estate on Mount Desert Island, which they opened to the public every Fourth of July for a catered barbecue that employed almost as many locals as the ones who attended as guests.
Olivia’s father had passed away after a long illness not too long ago and she was left pretty much the whole enchilada, and was installed as the company’s new CEO. The Island Times did a story on how there was a lot of company infighting over Olivia taking over, but Olivia’s father had enlisted an army of lawyers before his death to insure his only living child became the sole heir and dominant shareholder, so there was very little the Board of Directors could do to stop it.
Rhonda gave Olivia a light kiss on the cheek and handed Pork Chop back to his mommy. “So glad you could make it. How could we do a Salute to Bacon without you?”