Hello, Sunshine

by Laura Dave

  Which was why when I first saw that I had an email from Louis, I actually felt a little relief. Dear Louis. He was still on my side! If that was true, the rest of it didn’t matter—the rumors, the show cancellation—we would weather this together.

  Then I read the subject line:

  Notice of Contract Cancellation

  I clicked the email open and read the entirety of the two-page, biting email in which Louis informed AUTHOR (Sunshine Mackenzie) that PUBLISHER (COOKING WITH GAS) has decided to cancel the contract for SUNKISSED: LOVE FROM THE FARM and the two additional to-be-named future cookbooks in light of author’s breech of ethical responsibility.

  We will need the advance repaid by Monday July 1st to avoid legal action.

  My heart started to race. After the apartment purchase and renovation, the book advance was pretty much the only liquid money that Danny and I had in the bank.

  I wrote him back immediately (and somewhat desperately):

  Louis, Pls don’t do this! At least let’s sit down and talk first?

  He wrote back even faster.

  I spoke to Ryan. And Danny. There’s nothing to discuss. Be well.

  Louis was too professional to say anything personal, but I knew from the undertone how hurt he was. After all, he had learned all these things about me yesterday too. I flashed back to a day in his office, telling him stories of my childhood on the farm: picking tomatoes in the field with my father, stewing over strawberry jam. I cringed, thinking of the postcard I’d given him of a little girl making strawberry jam, which he kept on his desk.

  Violet came up behind me, the file box in her hands, reading the email over my shoulder. “That’s not great.”

  I sighed.

  “What are you going to do?”

  I shook my head, anger gathering in my gut. “I’ll tell you what I’m not going to do. I’m not giving the advance back.”

  Violet smiled, impressed. “Really?”

  “Without the advance, I’m not liquid anymore. Between the renovation on the apartment, and Danny growing his business . . .”

  “So don’t! I have a novelist friend who is like ten years late on his book, and he still hasn’t given a penny back.”

  “I doubt you have a friend old enough to have spent ten years working on anything.”

  “Maybe it was more like five.” She heaved the file box higher in her arms. “The point is, what do you think Louis is going to do? Take you to court? Freeze the money?”

  I turned back to the computer. I clicked on Danny and my bank account, and it was all still there, safe and untouched.

  She was right. Louis would cool down. I would reach out when he’d had a moment to process, and convince him there was a way for us to come out the other end of this. He could publish a different kind of cookbook, with a tinge of true history. Something about how I’d gotten here.

  “Should I call the production assistants back in here, get them packing up again?”

  I shook my head. “I have a couple of emails to send first.”

  “Okay, what should I do?”

  “Figure out who did this in the next five minutes,” I said.

  She laughed, but I was completely serious. I knew if we could figure the hacker out, we could figure out how to turn the story. So I was something other than the villain.

  “I was able to do a little recon on the aintnosunshine emails,” she said. “They definitely originated in the New York area. So it’s a New Yorker.”

  “Great work . . . you narrowed the hacker down to nine million people?”

  “At least I narrowed it down!”

  I didn’t have time for her irritation, or her hurt feelings, so I blew through them. “So you’ve been trying to figure it out via the tech, right?”

  She took a seat, dropping her files on the countertop. “Right.”

  “Let’s go at it another way. Likely offenders.”

  She nodded. “So . . . like . . . who wants to take you down a peg or two?” she said.

  “I think the question is who has the ability.”

  Something flicked across her face. I hadn’t been accusing her. But it was like suddenly she was worried I would put certain pieces together.

  I started doing the math. Who had access to all this stuff? Violet and Ryan. And Violet had everything to gain. She wanted her own show. And now, wouldn’t there be a hole in the YouTube culinary universe? A hole just right for a five-foot-eleven redheaded vegan to jump in and fill?

  She tilted her head. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “When did Ryan tell you they did a flash poll?”

  “Excuse me?” she said.

  “You said they ran a flash poll. Ryan would be the only one that could have told you about that.”

  She paused. “After your kerfuffle, he said he was cooking something up and offered me a job.”

  “And what did you say?”

  She laughed awkwardly. “I said yes. Which is why I’m here now, in your studio, helping clean up files.”

  “Violet, did you do this?”

  “Hack you? I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that,” she said.

  “You know that’s not an answer, right? Are you going to work for Ryan?”

  “This is unbelievable,” she said. “I was going to give you a week. Help you, I don’t know, figure out who was behind this, find a place to hide out for a while. Like Tulsa! But I don’t need this shit. I’m so out of here.”

  She reached for the file box.

  “So you are going to work for Ryan.”

  “I’m not going down with this motherfucker of a ship, that’s what I’m not doing. Do you know, like five seconds after the photos posted last night, I had several offers in hand? Including from Ryan?”

  I stared at her, not letting her hysteria distract me from what she wasn’t saying.

  Violet headed for the door. “I actually believed that you’d find a way to turn this around. But it looks like I was wrong. You’re a sinking ship, Sunny. And while I had nothing to do with the hack, at the moment, as far as I’m concerned, whoever did do this is my fucking hero.”

  With that, Violet slammed out the door, taking the file box with her.

  9

  One of the first long articles about my show was in New York magazine’s Grub Street, which is a food diary of a notable person, following what he or she eats and drinks for a week.

  If I’m remembering, they titled the Grub Street piece something like: “Sunshine Mackenzie Pairs a Mint Julep with Sweet Potato Pie.” It was a pretty accurate title considering that, one of the nights, I’d written about going with Danny on a mini pub crawl around Brooklyn in which I was searching for New York’s best mint julep. Fresh, delicate, a little sweet. The dreamer’s drink.

  I secretly detested a mint julep. But Ryan liked the sound of the dreamer’s drink, so mint julep it was, even though I found it sticky and too rich and wholeheartedly believed that bourbon should be drunk with a little ice and nothing else.

  After the fight with Violet, and five hours of packing, I left the studio in an Uber full of my files and belongings and proceeded directly to Red Hook—and the old bar and grill where I used to work—to drink my bourbon and ice undisturbed.

  While the Uber sat outside, his meter happily running, I sat on the corner stool listening to the only other day drinker, a large tattooed guy named Sidney, who matched me drink for drink, while rattling on in detail about his wedding-planning business.

  “I have an Iranian wedding tonight at Chelsea Piers,” he said. “Five hundred people.”

  “You’re a wedding planner?” I said.

  “I don’t seem like the type, right? It was my ex-wife’s business and then it was our business together and then I took the business from her in the divorce.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  He shrugged. “I could,” he said. “What do you do for work?”

  “Nothing anymore.”

  He took a sip. “What
did you do?”

  “I lied,” I said.

  Before I get to this next part, I should make something clear. I don’t cry. I’m not one of those weepy-weepies. Hell, I’m not even a subtle sniffler. Danny’s father died on the operating table after a six-hour surgery. The doctor came out to tell us, and the whole family lost it. Everyone but me. I loved Danny’s father. On some days, more than Danny. But I didn’t shed a tear. Instead, I hugged everybody tight, took Danny home, and when he finally fell asleep, I took it out on a long run. Two hours. Staring off into space.

  Except sitting there where the whole mess started, I started to cry. Awful, ridiculous tears. Right in front of a mortified Sidney, who motioned for the bartender.

  “I’ll take a check,” he said.

  Later that night, I sat on my doorstep in front of my apartment, drunk out of my mind. I was surrounded by the enormous file boxes, the entire remainder of my working life.

  I knew I would feel better as soon as I dragged myself upstairs to the comfort of my apartment, but knowing that and actually getting everything upstairs were two different things. The Uber driver had no interest in helping me lug my things inside, which left me where I was: staring at the street, knocking my heels together Dorothy-style, quietly hoping that someone would appear to take me home.

  “I don’t believe it! Sunny?”

  I looked up to see Amber (aka Toast of the Town) walking down my block in high heels and a stunning black dress, her makeup smoky and severe, the epitome of New York chic.

  As unexcited as I was to see Amber, she looked thrilled to see me.

  “I thought that was you,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

  I drunk-reached for my keys, suddenly motivated to go upstairs, leaving the files behind if necessary.

  “This is my place,” I said.

  She tilted her head, as if she was trying to remember. “This is your apartment? I should know that, right? I’ve been here before?”

  I nodded, noting Amber’s nervousness—her over-explanation of whether she should remember the apartment.

  “It’s a shame, what’s going on with your show and everything,” she said. “Did you see my tweet?”

  “I did, thanks.”

  “Of course. How’s it all going?”

  “Not great.”

  She cringed, full of faux-sympathy. “I just don’t know why anyone would do this to you! I was talking to Louis earlier, and he was saying, we were both saying, you don’t deserve this. I mean, regardless of what you did. To be outed.”

  That stopped me. “You were talking to Louis?”

  “Well, yes. We’re putting together a cookbook. Tender Toast.”

  “You are?”

  She shrugged. “They have an unexpected spot in their catalogue. Do you think Tender Toast is too soft? We’re just rushing to get the book out and I can’t tell if it’s genius or not. Louis thinks it has a good ring to it, and he’s the best there is, but . . . I don’t know . . .”

  I took Amber in, sobering up, quickly. “Where did you say you’re going tonight?”

  “I’m just going to get some dinner with my boyfriend.”

  She pointed down the street, like proof of a restaurant. Except she was pointing toward nothing. My block was small and—at least in New York terms—far away from everything. Restaurants, cabs, stores. There was a world in which you started here to get somewhere, but there was no world in which this was the block where you ended up.

  “So are you still in a tizzy trying to figure out who’s behind this hack?”

  I stared at her, not answering.

  “That’s why I try to be nice. I’m nice to everyone, so no one would think to fuck me like this.”

  Which was when it hit me like a sledgehammer. I had been thinking that it was Violet or Ryan. But Amber had the most to gain from any gap left in A Little Sunshine’s wake. That was what she was doing on my street—my quiet, untraveled street in Tribeca. Like a serial killer, returning to the scene of the crime, she couldn’t help herself. She had to gloat.

  “It’s you.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You’re behind the hack,” I said.

  She laughed in a completely unnatural way: high-pitched and squeaky, a laugh that was trying too hard. “Have you been drinking? I have nothing to do with this. I mean, what on earth would I have to gain?”

  “Seriously?”

  “Okay, so I could see how maybe I have a little to gain,” she said, trying to hide a smile.

  It was the strangest thing—watching her struggle between proclaiming her ignorance and enjoying her victory. Sometimes being drunk can impede your seeing things clearly, though in this case, I thought it was helping me to see how shallow and silly this all was—any issue Amber thought was between us, anything that would lead her to tear so many lives apart.

  “But I’m still innocent,” she said.

  Innocent. If she were really innocent, wouldn’t she have said, I have nothing to do with any of this? Innocent was a word chosen when another word was equally weighing on your mind. Guilty.

  I reached out, grabbed ahold of her arm. It was the most forceful I think I’d ever been with anyone. “Would you just be honest?”

  Amber smiled, tightly, removing my hand from her arm. “Honesty is what you want? That’s ironic!”

  But then her faux-smile gave way to something darker. And I saw it flash in her eyes. The truth of how she felt about me; the competitive fire, the jealousy, and something uglier.

  “I haven’t not enjoyed seeing your fall from grace, considering that you slept your way to where you are now, as I suspected all along.” She paused. “And the truth is you give a bad name to us real chefs who are actually trying to make a difference.”

  “You make toast. You know that, right?”

  Her phone rang, an annoying pop song blaring through. “Hold that thought.”

  She picked up. “Hello?” she said into the phone. “Yeah, on the corner. Duane.”

  I followed her eyes to a taxi making its way down Greenwich Street. “There’s my boyfriend,” she said.

  The taxi stopped right in front of us, and out stepped a tall, handsome guy in jeans and a T-shirt.

  “Hi, A,” he said, making his way toward Amber.

  “Hi, sweetie.”

  It took a minute to place him.

  It was the cameraman—the one who had filmed the behind-the-scenes shoot for A Little Sunshine, the one whom Ryan had been jealous of. The one whom he had fired.

  It took him the same minute, his eyes widening, as he looked my way. “Holy shit,” he said. “Hey there . . .”

  My heart started pounding. I waved hello, not saying anything.

  Amber looked back and forth between us, enjoying the moment. “That’s right! Don’t you two know each other? Charlie worked for you, for a couple of days. Actually, just a day, because you fired him.”

  Charlie shot Amber a look. “Amber, what are you doing?”

  I turned to Amber, keeping my voice low. “Amber, I had no idea he was your boyfriend.”

  “Well. Now you do.”

  She leaned into Charlie suggestively and kissed him hello.

  “Sunny and I were just talking about how careful you have to be. Who you’re nice to, who you fire. Especially when you fire them for trying to stay loyal to their girlfriend.”

  “Ryan fired him.”

  “Because you asked him to,” Amber said.

  I looked at Amber in disbelief. That wasn’t at all how that had happened, but she certainly wasn’t going to believe it. That was the trouble with being a liar. No one trusted your truth.

  Charlie touched her shoulder. “Amber, I want to go,” he said.

  She kissed his cheek. “We do have a reservation.”

  “At the restaurant you can’t remember the name of? How will you ever find it?”

  She smiled. “We’ll be okay,” she said.

  She took Charlie’s hand, and they started walki
ng down the street.

  Then Amber turned around. “By the way . . . if you asked this person, the person who did this, I’m guessing they’d say it’s less about revenge and more about something else.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “Loyalty,” she said.

  And with that she turned off of my block, onto another block going nowhere.

  10

  Danny’s new job site was a gorgeous apartment on Sixty-Fifth and Central Park West. He was redesigning the penthouse: a five-thousand-square-foot stunner complete with a fireplace, floor-to-ceiling windows, and a wraparound balcony. I showed up there at 10 A.M. the next morning in Danny’s favorite dress, a yellow twisty number, which I thought made me look like a tulip, but which he seemed to love. At least he had. Whether he’d love it now was a serious question mark.

  Did I have a lot of nerve showing up there? Yes. Was it a Hail Mary? Yes. In my defense, he’d had two nights to calm down. He’d had two nights to digest the information that whatever had gone on with Ryan, it wasn’t going on anymore. And it couldn’t possibly compete with everything that was between the two of us.

  The apartment looked like it was more than two days into construction—white oak wood floors already in place, paint slabs lining the walls. Before I had too much time to think about it, though, I spotted Danny.

  He stood on the balcony in his hard hat, talking to his contractor, Ralph. The two of them were deep in conversation, which allowed me to sneak outside.

  Ralph saw me before Danny did. Sixty-five-year-old Ralph, who looked away quickly, his face turning bright red. He had probably seen the photograph. The naked photograph. Which meant everyone probably had.

  Ralph nudged Danny, who looked up and met my eyes. He didn’t try to hide how angry he was to see me there.

  Ralph was already walking away, not able to get out of there quickly enough.

  “Put a hard hat on her, Danny,” he called out.

  Danny reached under the balcony railing and pulled out a hard hat, handing it over.