by Jeff Oliver
“You sold us out,” she seethed at her co-judge. “What did Sara promise you? Tell me now, you greedy son of a bitch.” She grabbed her purse and stood up, but Duvall steadied her, gently sitting her back down. “What are you doing?” Bilha hissed. “This is a travesty!”
“Wait for it,” whispered Duvall.
“For what? You fucking sold us out,” said Tekeli.
“I also want to announce an additional, more spiritual victory for Team Mise En Bouche,” CJ Bazemore said. “On top of your winnings, an additional $5,000 from Oakley’s Beans will be donated in your name to a charity very special to our esteemed judge Bilha Tekeli: the East Jerusalem Orphaned Animal Shelter.”
All cameras pointed to Bilha, who quickly flipped her frown and blew a kiss to the winning team.
“Bravo, Mise En Bouche,” she said in her thespian best. “The orphaned animals thank you.”
Mise En Bouche celebrated with more hugs and hooting.
Duvall turned to Bilha. “Everything copacetic?”
“What’s important is the orphans,” Tekeli said.
After the announcement, the plan was to shoot fallout reality back at the Cast Mansion and then think of an excuse to bring over the terrorists. But a genuine in-the-moment reality scene broke out when Chef Clora walked off from her celebrating team and approached the terrorists all by herself.
“We’ve got a runner,” Sara said into walkie. “Get there quick.”
The cast members watched in shock as Clora engaged with the enemy.
“Hi, I’m Clora,” she said to the row of masked men. “Look, we’re all chefs here, no matter what we do in our free time. So why don’t you guys come hang out at the cast house tonight? In fact, you should stay with us—there’s plenty of extra beds and towels.”
“Clora, what the heck!?” shouted Cowboy.
“Those guys murder children,” Joaquim reminded her.
“So does peanut butter,” Clora fired back.
CHEF ETIENNE (INT.): “The terrorists are standing there, sulking like petite bitches, when Clora invites them all to the house to chill out. I guess it was pretty cool of her.”
CHEF COWBOY (INT.): “Are you fucking kidding me? I’m not having those dirt bags anywhere near my sweet Clora. This means war.”
CHEF TANYA (INT.): “Who knows? Once we get those masks off, one of them might be cute.”
The cast mansion was sick. Located eleven miles off the main beach in the Almog Hills, the fourteen-room seaside palace featured indoor/outdoor hot tubs, a fully stocked tiki bar, a hookah lounge equipped with a 108-inch LCD screen, ping pong and billiard tables, Sonos speakers, and bidets in all the bathrooms. Not to mention a view of the Gulf of Aqaba from all three balconies. Rumor had it Cat Stevens found Islam while doing K on the upper veranda.
The cast spent most of their time at the mansion tanning, drinking, and either fighting, or screwing in the open air, or pulling pranks. The newest prank was waiting until someone fell asleep and then duct-taping their butt cheeks together. Although the cast members were too young to recall the famed “Breakfast Club” reference, they’d heard about it and thought it was rad.
The only respite from hedonism was when the producers needed scenes to happen. On this particular evening, Clora needed to confront Tanya about hooking up with Brandon before he got kidnapped. It was an important story-beat to grab because extra footage of the season-long rivalry between Clora and Tanya had been requested by the Network. So they needed it. After that, the girls could go back to whatever the hell they wanted to do.
The scene was set at the lower hot tub. They wanted a slow burn scene: Tanya would be sitting there reading a magazine and Clora would say she wanted to talk to her in private. Clora would say how meaningful Brandon was to her as an ex-boyfriend and how hurt she was when she found out Tanya had hooked up with him without asking how she felt about it. She would ask how serious it was between Brandon and Tanya. Then there would be tears and anger but ultimately a reconciliation that centered on concern for Brandon’s life as a prisoner of evil fundamentalist terrorists. Post would love to flashback to Brandon’s fall and kidnapping during the Jugular Challenge, so if the producers could make them talk about that, even better.
Cameras were up. Tanya sat by the hot tub and Clora walked over, arms crossed just as planned.
“Tanya, we should talk,” she said.
“Um, okay, Clora. What about?”
Clora began, but out of the corner of her eye noticed a van pulling up to the mansion gates. It was packed with the terrorists from the challenge. Clora considered the terrorists her domain. She was the one who had invited them over, and she’d be damned if one of the other chefs was going to steal the scene when they arrived.
“Uh, I just … it’s about, what I wanted to say…” Clora grabbed a drink off the edge of the hot tub and tossed it in Tanya’s face. Then she pounced on top of her, grabbing her hair with both hands. Goodbye slow-burn scene. “You fucked my man and now he’s kidnapped!” screamed Clora.
“He wasn’t even yours!” Tanya yelled.
They rolled on the floor clawing at each other and pulling hair. Some other cast members broke it up.
“You can have him!” Tanya screamed. “He’s clingy as shit and his balls are weird.”
Clora got up, straightened her hair, and turned to the Producer: “You got it?”
“Pretty much,” the Producer said, shrugging.
“You fucked up my hair,” Tanya complained. “Now I gotta get all pretty for ISIS or whatever.”
“Not if I get to them first,” said Clora.
Nine men in black ski masks filed into the reality TV mansion carrying army rucksacks and machine guns.
“Glad you made it,” said Clora, twisting her wrist around a glass of Pinot. “Allow me to show you to the boudoir.”
Clora led the masked men to their quarters: a Pee Wee’s Playhouse-themed funhouse with bunk beds that looked and smelled like strawberry chewing gum.
TERRORIST #7 (INT.): “The room was so gay it made Behind the Candelabra seem like Die Hard … *What does that even mean?” (*trimmed in edit).
The terrorists showered up, and put on fresh kafiyahs and ski masks that had been cleaned, starched, and pressed by the production team. When they came up for food, the cast of Natural Dish-aster was waiting for them, standing in a row with their arms crossed and looking a bit sinister. For a moment, the whole thing looked like a trap. The terrorists clutched their guns, ready to engage, when Chrissy raised her beer.
“As a blogger transitioning to mainstream print, I understand your struggle for self-determination,” she said. “While as a group we may disagree with your methods, in a way, we get it.”
“Tonight, let’s put all that aside,” Chef Joaquim stepped in. “We’re all cooks here. We care about the food. Am I right?” The terrorists said nothing. “Right. We’re all just cooks, grinding it out behind the line, loving the adrenaline of a dinner rush, getting tattoos, doing coke in the pantry. Anyway, tomorrow we may be back to being mortal enemies, but tonight… we party.”
“Yeah!” The cast members hooted, raising their glasses. Time of Our Lives by Pitbull and Ne-yo came on out of nowhere. The terrorists flinched as all the chefs besieged them with hugs and pats on the back. Cowboy even handed one of them a beer.
“Our religion forbids it,” said one terrorist, causing a recordscratch type silence. Cowboy looked as if he didn’t understand.
“Of course,” Chef Ghana said, a glimmer of cultural sensitivity lighting her eyes. “How rude of us. And that’s exactly why we brought a little gift.” She raised a Ziploc bag filled with pink and green pills.
“Go pills! Go pills! Go pills! Go pills!” the cast members sang in unison and then collapsed in laughter as the music blasted back on.
Minutes later, terrorists and cast members alike lounged on couches playing Xbox. Spliffs were lit; ski-hill-sized rails were chopped on bathroom sinks. A blur of sticky pink drinks and r
aucous laughter took over.
Audio caught tidbits:
“So, are you guys like part of some community theatre troupe?” // “Ha! Tanya, this guy said he got his ink in an Israeli prison. I call bullshit!” // “Do you guys watch Homeland? Oh my God, you have to. It’s all Islamic terrorists, but like crazy Islamic terrorists, not like you.” // “Check out my dazzling Ahmadinejad iPhone cover! Are you so into it?” // “If you can snort that whole long rail, I’ll totally flash you my tits!” // “DRINK! DRINK! DRINK!” // “Dude, let’s blindfold wrestle. C’mon! I thought you were tough. You’re a pussy!… Shit, dude, are you okay? I think I have your tooth. Ha! Ha!” // “Let’s see how many of us can fit in the hot tub at once.” // “NAKED PARTY!” // “I’m Mormon; it’s been really hard.” // “I’m Roman Catholic; it’s been really hard.” // “My dad is so fucking rich; it’s been really hard.” // “Do you have any idea what it’s like to be halfblack, half-Vietnamese in Texas?” // “I tried to commit suicide. Twelve times.”
// “I was the only four-year-old in rehab.” // “You guys are straight, right? If you kiss, I’ll let you watch while I give Nisha a lap dance.” // “I’ve had this erection so long I think I’m going to get gangrene!” // “Where did all those hash brownies go? You did? Uh… you’ll be fine.” // “What time is it anyway? (in unison): FOUR TWENTY! FUCK YEAH!” // “Get it? An ‘axehole’ is a guy who is an asshole who wears too much Axe body spray.”
“Yeah, that’s already a thing.
“I’m thinking of writing like a Fifty Shades of Grey for guys with small dicks. In like six months, well-hung guys are going to be growing their bush just to compensate.” // “A little too close to home, dude.”
“Yeah, that’s awkweird. Ha, awkweird! That should be a thing!”
“It is.” // I hate when people call Trump ‘Cheeto,’ because I always loved Cheetos. Flamin’ Hots are my everything…”
“Ain’t nothing wrong with President Trump neither…” “Shut it, Cowboy.” // “And that, my friends, was what I call a Butt-Cheek Bieber.” // “If we kiss, will you guys kiss?” // “Dude, I just got booked at UCLA to talk about my celibacy oath. Five grand. Aren’t you there doing a sobriety panel? Dude, we should totally hook up, get shitfaced, and bone some freshmen.” // “Cowboy’s gonna wax his chode on camera!”
Ruti sat in the control room with Sara watching it all like some anthropology experiment. “Do these idiots ever sleep?” Ruti said.
“Most of ’em are in their twenties,” Sara said. “Sleep is an inconvenience.”
“What’s happening now?” Al-Asari said, waking from a nap.
“Still partying,” Ruti said.
“How is it possible?” said Al-Asari.
“It’s what they do best.”
Sara peeked at a text from her brother Nathan: “Tattooed guys came again. I hid like u said. When r u coming home?”
Sara wrote back: “Soon, buddy. Emergency phrase?”
Nathan: “Chasing Pavement is the worst song ever written. ”
Sara: “Good. Go to bed. Love you.”
“Luv u, Minecraft ,” wrote Nathan.
In the kitchen, Etienne sat at a table reading Balzac’s La Rabouilleuse and frowning. Chef LizZ went to the fridge and poured herself some ginger ale, then added some cubes.
“Not in the partying mood, huh?” she said to the sulking Frenchman. “I heard someone’s waxing their chode. That oughta be a blast.”
“Children bore me,” Etienne pouted, without looking up from his book. “They know nothing of culture.”
“Renaissance man, huh? Hence the door-stop-of-a-book?”
“Just European. We don’t need to act like petite imbeciles to feel joy.”
LizZ sat across from Etienne and smiled. “For me, it’s the program,” she said, and took a sip of her ginger ale. “Thirty-three months clean today, thank you very much.”
“Mazel tov,” said Etienne, uninterested.
“Still, I did love my junk,” LizZ went on. “All of it. To this day, I wish to God I could just lose myself in a book or something like you’re doing. Sometimes when I cook, it starts to happen. That voice disappears, but most of the time it’s shouting in my ear to cop some.”
“You have voices in your head?” Etienne grinned.
“All the time,” LizZ smiled. “I try to focus on getting through each moment, you know. But yeah, the junkie in me is a real blabbermouth.”
Etienne folded his book. He looked both ways to make sure no one was listening. “It speaks to me too,” he admitted, finally looking up at LizZ. She was surprised to see that his eyes were wet. “I feel weak most of the time. And the bastard just laughs at me, like he knows I’m going to fall off.”
“I got you,” said LizZ. She took Etienne’s hand. “Look at us, right? A couple of Anthony Bourdains: cool, even after we kick?” She grinned. “You know who I pretended to be when I was high? Anne Burrell. Fucking Invincible Anne Burrell, with her corny blonde hair and sparkle tattoos, if you can believe that shit.”
“I was Ludo,” said Etienne. “Master of the fuck-you stare. Now I sweat when I talk. I feel like a nervous wreck most of the time.”
“I know.”
The two chefs sat there for a minute in silence.
“Let’s cook something,” said Etienne. “Together.”
“Whoa! Hold up. The lone wolf wants to collaborate? You sure you’re not high?”
“Let’s make something that reminds us of what it’s like,” said Etienne. “That feeling.”
“I’ll grab the butter,” said LizZ.
“Skip it. Duck lard,” said Etienne.
“Oh, you are one sick-ass junkie.”
Away from the cameras, which were covering an epic beerpong battle, Tanya stumbled around the mansion grounds, a quarter bottle of Café Patron in her hand, searching for where all the action was. She staggered out to the back garden and spotted one of the terrorists. He sat cross-legged next to a palm tree, lit softly by the moon. He wrote in a small journal, scribbling notes, scratching them out, then scribbling some more. His ski mask was pulled up over his forehead, revealing full lips and soft, youthful cheeks. Tanya kicked a pebble and the terrorist fumbled to get his mask back on.
“Too late, Habib. I already saw you,” said Tanya. “I could describe you to the authorities with a pot lolli in my mouth. You’re pretty young for a bad guy, aren’t you? Like a kid?”
“I’m a man,” the boy said, forcing his voice low. “I have many wives.”
Tanya walked up to him, plucked the mask off his head, and hurled it into a tree.
“Hey!” the terrorist said.
“Relax, David Foster Wallace,” said Tanya. “I won’t turn you in. You’re too cute.” She sat across from him, settling the bottle of Patron on her lap. “You working on some kind of suicide bomber manifesto?” she said.
The terrorist frowned.
“Just kidding! Jesus, I never heard of a sensitive terrorist. What’s your name anyway?”
“Ramin,” the boy said, then immediately regretted it.
“Whatcha writing, Ramin?” Tanya leaned over to peek. “Short, even lines, huh? Looks like poetry to me.” She lay down on her side, allowing the full moon to light her. “Well, what are you waiting for? Read a pretty girl a poem.”
“It’s not nearly finished.” Ramin squirmed. “I wouldn’t feel comfortable.”
“Oh, don’t be a wuss,” Tanya said. “I get poets. When I was on tour with Def Jam, I made out with Common.” She flashed her bright blue eyes and leaned in. “Honey, sometimes in life, you gotta step up, and this is one of those times. I mean, look at the moon. The moon is begging to hear some poetry.”
“It’s not polished,” Ramin muttered.
“Boring! Gawd, don’t they teach you about women in Islamic summer camp? We like confidence. Even false confidence works.”
“Okay,” the boy said. “But you can’t laugh.”
“Scouts’ honor,” Tany
a said, giving the Star Trek sign.
Ramin took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, and peered down at his journal. “A coral bouquet shakes in my sweaty palms,” he read, voice quavering. “I pull the mermaid’s chair and inhale her sea urchin perfume. ‘That’s sweet,’ the mermaid says, accepting the flowers, ‘but this still isn’t a date. You’re a fish, I’m a mermaid.’ ‘It’s not unheard of,’ I say. But she says ‘This is just a favor to my Aunt Farrha.’ She brushes her flowing golden hair to the side and puckers her pillowy lips.
“The waiter arrives with our food. ‘See,’ she says, pointing to my plate of worms. She slices greedily into her tilapia entrée. I look away. I knew the tilapia from high school drama class. ‘Your eyes are luminescent,’ I say and, despite myself, pop a worm in my mouth. She smiles. ‘You’re cute.’ I feel hope in my heart, as if anything is possible if you are brave and true. Then a massive hook impales my face and I am lifted out of my chair and through the roof of the restaurant.
“The pain is excruciating. ‘Be right back!’ I manage as the Mermaid looks up in horror. I ascend through the murky water, tugged by the hook; up, up, up and out of the water into the horrible hot air. The sun burns my eyes. The oxygen suffocates me. I flop in the hands of a ghoulish pink giant, gasping for breath.
“The giant smiles at me with horrible teeth, shows me off to a smaller giant, then rips the hook savagely from my face, leaving a gruesome hole. Death is near, but all I can think of is how I stiffed the Mermaid with the restaurant bill. How embarrassing. Should have prepaid. Life escapes me. Breathlessness. Weightlessness. Emptiness. White light and cool calm, and then… SPLASH! Cold water surrounds me again and I breathe!
“I’m alive! I swim down into the depths as fast as I can but catch my reflection on a silver minnow and behold my deformity. My face is a mangled mess. When I reach the restaurant, the mermaid is sobbing, but the waiter, a handsome merman with golden hair and a square, manly jaw, is soothing her.
“My Mermaid wipes tears from her face, looks up at the merman, and leans into his muscular chest. I imagine pulling them apart, staking my claim as her man, telling her that I love her, proposing right there. I’ve got the ring and everything. But that cannot be. It is just a fantasy for a fish like me—a fish filled to the gills with cowardice. Then there’s my deformed face to deal with. Still, it is a wonderful fantasy. A fantasy so delicious that I gorge on it for miles, as I swim away to the East, the loneliest fish in all of the Red Sea.”