by MJ Post
Then Madame Queen gave her a strike. For what? She hadn’t done anything! To teach Toby a lesson? How had the judge known that would upset him? Did Nina Lestrade know that they had feelings for each other? How could Madame Queen know that?
Toby stood up for her, and the strike was transferred to him. That was what he ought to have done, but Kacie didn’t want him to have a strike. She wasn’t sure what to do from there. She watched as Madame Queen berated him. His cheeks went red; he puffed out his chest and shook his fists at nothing, and he left. Shelley followed him.
Kacie’s mind raced. How had the judge known that there was something between her and Toby? Her mind raced. There was plenty of stuff on-camera, she could have…
The dinner. They had had dinner together. Had Toby confided in the judge? How else could the romance between the two chefs have gotten mixed up in the show? Louie and Alia’s wasn’t; neither was Buster’s pursuit of Eloise.
Toby had really been an idiot.
Kacie felt the growl building up in her, and it escaped before she could gather her wits to contain it. Now they were in this bad position, this no-win position. “Oh, how could he be so stupid?” she let slip.
Vegas said, “I’m the one who got screwed here. I finished last, got no cook-off for extra TV time, and look.”
Madame Queen had been out of earshot and engaged with Derrick, but now she was headed for the elevator also.
“It’s still all about Toby for the Queen, right? Didn’t even say a word to me.”
“You want a strike?” Kacie barked at him. “Because that’s what you’ll get if you take him on.”
“Nah, I can beat him.”
“No, she’s right,” said Eloise. “He edged me out, and I have twice the experience he does.”
“Beat me, too,” Buster said. “You’re in trouble, burger flipper.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Kacie admitted.
“Something else happened here,” Alia said. “Toby wouldn’t just start a problem like that.” She rounded on Vegas. “Did you…?”
“They were hanging out this morning when I got up,” Louie said. “They seemed fine.”
“I had your back, Lou,” Vegas said. “Why you got to do me like that?”
“Thanks for your time,” said Louie.
“So they seemed fine,” Alia said. “But then they’re fighting? It doesn’t make sense, unless…”
“Yeah,” Vegas said. “The fight was a put-on, you guys. Fake. Just for the show. Me and Toby are tight.”
“You asked him to do that bullshit?” Kacie demanded.
“No, I was just like, I’m not getting no attention. It was his idea.”
“I love it,” Buster said. “Ha! I love it! Learning from me! Go, Mississippi!”
“Seriously,” Kacie said. “Shut the fuck up. I’m in trouble because of this stupid shit.” What had possessed Toby to get involved in such a half-assed strategy? Playing for TV time? She knew from the conversation during their first date that his sister had told him to pay attention to his TV exposure, but… No, Toby had a good heart. Helping Vegas had probably been his real motive.
“You know,” Alia said, “I might have won the challenge if I hadn’t gotten distracted.”
“Forget it, sister,” said Maryann. “No one was beating me. I could suck both thumbs and still outpace you.”
“Manners,” said Alia. “I didn’t insult you. It’s all in God’s hands, but I think we’re evenly matched.”
“Okay, so you go ahead and think that,” said Maryann.
“It might have been a little crude as a strategy,” said Eloise. “But maybe worth a try. Okay, let’s let it go.”
“Voice of reason,” said Maryann.
Kacie was still seething. Just when she and Toby were poised to get closer, he had created a major obstacle. How could she trust his judgment now?
Shelley came back into the studio. “Decisions stand,” she said. “Have you all screwed your heads back on, or does someone need some private time for me to listen to your sob story?”
“I don’t,” said Maryann. “I’ll go pee.” She left.
“For the record, a dumb stunt,” said Shelley. “Chef Camacho, you have some years under your belt. A lot of weight fell on Chef Brutus for your fuck-up.”
“It was his idea,” said Vegas.
“You should have refused him,” said the director. “You used him, and I think it’s bloody low of you. He’s a good kid.”
“Amen,” said Eloise.
“You’re one to talk. You don’t exactly hold the moral high ground, Chef Hamilton. I’ve seen a fair bit of gamesmanship from you.”
“I was looking out for Toby’s good,” Eloise replied. “Anyway, I’m out of the picture now. Just being a friend.”
Sure she was, Kacie thought.
“I was figuring the weight to fall on me,” Vegas argued. “Let it fall on me. I just want some TV time. It’s worth it to me.”
“We should calm down,” Louie said. “Can we skip the sound-bytes and take a longer break?”
Shelley considered. “Yeah, we have enough on-camera drama without them, and we finished recording this challenge ahead of schedule. One hour extra break.” To the cameramen, boom operators, and other crew, she said, “You guys are free to leave the building. See you all after lunch.”
The crew, visibly excited at the time off, secured their equipment and left. Gradually the chefs scattered, some going to the dorms, to the lounge, to the bathroom. Kacie stayed and went to her station’s sink to wash her hands of some remaining fish blood. Alia joined her. Louie waited out of earshot.
“I think this really happened because Chef Winfrey visited,” said Alia. “Madame still has anger with him, and he used Toby as his excuse to show up. That’s why she’s beating up Toby so hard.”
“Yeah, but…” Kacie struggled for words. “I think Toby must have told her he likes me. So his big mouth is what got me sucked into this mess.”
“Don’t let it change your feelings for him.”
“I’m not that flaky, but he did piss me off. Look, forget me. You and Louie, are you any better? I hope you aren’t having the same kind of problems.”
“No, I think it’s just getting better for us. He calmed me down before. I really appreciated that. In fact, I owe him something.” She waved, and Louie answered the wave and came to Kacie’s station. “You were a real help before. This is your reward.” She pulled him in and gave him a slow, gentle kiss that ended with a small smack.
Louie beamed. “I would have helped anyway, but that was an awesome reward. Listen: Vegas told me... I mean, he said you have to be … Hey, you know what? Kiss me again.”
Alia raised an eyebrow. “You’re serious.”
Louie touched his lower lip. “Right here. Right now.”
“Okay, lean in.”
Kacie toweled off her hands and left them to it.
∞∞∞
Toby was in the dorm kitchen. Judging from the brown roux, the diced tomatoes, and the jumbo shrimp, he was making an etouffée. Buster, Ricky, and Vince were on the sofas watching Judge Judy; no one else was around.
“It’s not lunch time yet,” Kacie said. “And I thought you were making catfish.” She stayed back, didn’t want him to touch her just then. He picked up on it, she realized, and his jaw tightened.
“That’s later. This is for Derrick and his girlfriend, but I can give you some when it’s ready.”
“Not today.”
“Pack some for you?”
“No thanks.”
“You haven’t tried my etouffée yet.”
“I’ll wait for the catfish.”
Toby pouted for a split-second, then noticeably adjusted to a neutral expression. “I guess I have this coming. I should have told you before. Vegas and I worked out a deal.”
“I know. He confessed it. I’m not judging you for that, Toby. He threw a pity party and you invited yourself. Okay, fine, that stuff happens. But you caused us, you and me, a shit-to
n of trouble.”
“Didn’t mean to. Turns out Shelley saw that deal on-camera, told Nina, and Nina overreacted.”
“Because Boris Winfrey was here.”
“Could be,” Toby admitted. “Yeah, probably.”
“But that’s not my problem with you, Toby. My problem is that she knows about us. You told her, right?”
“I didn’t say anything about your feelings. Just that I was interested.”
“Yeah, and next thing I knew, Shelley was asking me for sound-bytes about you and me, and about you and Eloise. What good is that? This is a cooking show, not a fucking soap opera.”
Toby set down his large spoon on top of a TKN trivet. “I don’t care who knows I like you. I’ll yell it off the top of a mountain.”
Kacie saw he really wasn’t getting it. “After the show, yeah. But right now, we’re going head to head, which I really don’t want to do, and it’s happening because you flapped your big mouth to the judge.”
“It’s because she’s trying to teach me with pain.”
“Well, I hope you learned, then. Toby, I told you before, if we compete, I have to try to beat you.”
“Okay, then do that.”
“And you try to win, too.”
“Yeah. Right. I know you want it that way. Kacie, your cooking is incredible all the time. Maybe it’s better when you’re stressed. But I’m not used to being stressed like I am right now. If I’m stressed, I might mess up.”
“Don’t. Don’t make excuses, Toby.”
“I’m not. I just want to say, if I mess up, it isn’t on purpose. I do understand that you’re good enough to beat me at my best.”
“Okay, fine. Yeah. Well, I’m not planning to mess up on purpose, country boy. And if you do, we’re done.”
∞∞∞
The whole crew assembled for that night’s cook-off. Kacie got on her mark to wait. Toby stood nearby, sought eye contact. She went close to him. “Look, I don’t want to be cruel. I just need to focus.”
“Heard,” Toby said.
“It will work out. We’ll have plenty of chances to work it out later. Let’s just get through this.”
“Sure, let’s.” He nodded, a vague twist in one corner of his lips.
Camera setups followed. Finally Madame Queen herself joined them. She was holding a slip of paper, which she passed to Toby with a handclasp. “This came to me for you. It is rather grim.”
“Thanks, I guess,” Toby said.
“Don’t look at it now. That’s a royal order. Cook.”
Toby stuffed the paper into his pocket. “Okay, Nina.”
“Turn the cameras on. Recording? Good. The fault, Chef Brutus, lies not in your stars, but in yourself, that you chose to be an underling.” She was teasing him with lines addressed to Shakespeare’s Brutus; Kacie remembered that from high school.
“I didn’t,” Toby argue. “It was…”
“Shut up! I am speechifying. It is a bitter lesson I will teach you tonight, to pit you against an opponent you must but do not wish to defeat: Chef Lee. Chef Lee, with two episode wins and one cook-off defeat, you have faced both glory and shame. You must be wondering — what will a win tonight mean for your future in the competition? And what will it cost you personally?”
She turned away from the camera.
“Good,” said Shelley. “Sound-bytes. Face each other. Great. Chef Lee?”
“I don’t want to fucking do it. Let’s just cook.”
“Look,” Shelley said. “Shaun and I agree this is a high-interest match-up. So you will give me fucking sound-bytes, and right away, or I will come up with any number of ways to make you miserable. Got it?”
“Sure, I got it,” Kacie said. Shelley had been nice to her more often than not, so she decided to let it go. “Okay, fine, cue me.”
“That’s better. Right. Vince, close-up on Chef Lee, please. I want to notice how fast she blinks. Got it set? Good. Chef Lee, you heard what Madame Queen said. Tonight’s cook-off is really important. A win could elevate you to a front-runner status, couldn’t it? But it could also really affect your personal life. So what do you have to say for yourself?”
Kacie knew she was being baited into an emotional reaction, an explosion, but she didn’t want to do that on-camera. She didn’t want her parents to see that, and she didn’t want the world to see that, and she didn’t want to hurt Toby. Also, Lou Morton had told her to keep her cool till the finale. After a little thought, she gave a balanced response. “Chef Brutus is a friend, but I’m going to cook the best I can and try to win. He’s okay with that. I want him to do the same.”
The director wasn’t satisfied. “We need more drama. Take two.”
“No, Shelley. I’m sick of drama.”
“Just trust me.”
“Please. I just want to cook and get it over with.”
“Well, you can’t. Give it to me again.”
“Shelley, please don’t be a bitch.”
“That’s what my two-year-old says, and I’d like to see him tonight, so let’s get on with it.”
Kacie saw there was no way out and released a little of her contained anger. “Look, Chef Brutus is a friend, but I’m cooking to win tonight, and he’d better do the same if he wants my respect. For the record, I’m not happy to be in this cook-off just because HE screwed up.”
“Okay. Over to Toby. Sound-byte. Go.”
“Well, it seems like Chef Showdown isn’t just about food. It’s about strategy. Really, I came here knowing that. So Madame put me in a bad place going against Chef Lee when I really prefer to root for her from the sidelines. But I do respect Chef Lee, so I’ll cook my best and hope to avoid a strike.”
Shelley said, “Explain your point about strategy.”
Toby scratched his cheek. “Well, I used a bad strategy today when I insulted Chef Vegas, and I need a good strategy now just to survive.”
Shelley said, “We had a guest today who is important to you. Any comment?”
Toby: “Nina. Can I go with that?”
Madame Queen exhaled noisily. “Yes. Speak your piece. Boris and I are in detente at present.”
“My mentor and a father figure for me, Chef Boris Winfrey, was up at the studio today and he met everyone. It was great to see him, and I hope to see him again when the show is over.”
Madame stepped over to the covered display table. “Let us move on.”
“I like to be thorough,” Shelley answered. “So don’t get your knickers in a twist. All right, camera one on Madame. Camera two on the reveal.”
A pause for adjustments.
“These two chefs are experts with proteins in their own native cuisines. But what will they do with a protein rarely found at a butcher or a fishmonger? For tonight’s cook-off, I have decided that you must prepare a dish featuring top grade western diamondback rattlesnake!”
A glass case containing a live rattlesnake was centered on the table. Two platters of iced red meat framed it. There were two or three headless, skinned snakes per platter — it was hard to tell with the coils of flesh wrapped over the heads.
Kacie had reviewed all sorts of proteins in her mind in the hours before this cook-off, but hadn’t considered rattlesnake, nor had she prepared it before. She’d used alligator, which was suitable for chicken recipes. Was rattlesnake similar? She looked at Toby. He had no expression.
“You’ve cooked this before?” she asked.
“Sure have.”
Kacie nodded to herself. This was a setup for him to win, wasn’t it? Nina Lestrade knew his skill set. Well, fuck that. She, Kacie, could cook any protein expertly.
“Vince, Ricky, take ten and then meet us in the pantry,” Shelley announced. She looked at the full room of spectators. “Can some of you clear out and not come back?”
Most of the visitors, many Kacie didn’t recognize at all, moved for the elevators. Herschel remained and made another round of the competitors. Eloise approached Kacie.
“Wish I could help, bu
t rattlesnake’s banned in California. Never touched it.”
Vegas was apparently advising Toby. He was a southwestern expert — he would certainly have had an advantage had he been competing instead of her.
“I’ll figure it out,” Kacie told Eloise.
“Reptile meat’s on the bland side. You want to bring big flavors. You can do that.”
Kacie held up a hand to stop her. “You don’t seriously want me to think you’re trying to help me beat Toby, do you?”
“I’m trying to be a friend,” Eloise said.
“Okay, thanks.” Kacie thought over her previous trip to the pantry. “Okay, I figured it out. You helped, thanks.”
She broke from Eloise. “Shelley, can I head down?”
When downstairs, Kacie and Toby had to wait for more technical adjustments.
“Should we help each other out?” Toby asked. “Taste each other’s and make suggestions, like Louie and Alia did?”
“You can come taste if you want, Toby, but don’t help me. I don’t want you in my face. You’ll distract me.” She was, for the moment, tired of worrying about him and what he needed or wanted. “Get it in your head, I’m trying to give you a strike tonight. I don’t want to, but I have to.”
“But if we help each other, it’s like neither of us really loses, because we both made both dishes.”
“You don’t know Korean, and I don’t know Southern.”
“But we both know what tastes good and how to improve flavors.”
“Just — no. No, country boy. I’m mad at you, and you know why. So stay out of my face and let me concentrate.”
His face fell.
“Look, I’ll get over it. We’re still friends. Nothing’s changed, but not now, okay?”
Toby shrugged. “Not much I can do about it. You are who you are.” He was fingering something in his pocket, probably the paper Madame had given him and ordered him not to read. What could be so bad?
“Did you read it?”
“Read what?”
“That note she gave you. Did you read it?”
“Not yet.”
“If it’s bad, come talk to me, okay? After this is over. I’m worried about it.”
He humphed. “Les jours se suivent et ne se ressemblent pas.”