Chef Showdown_A Romance

by MJ Post

  “Of course, I know not all men are predators, but that’s not the point,” Alia said. “It doesn’t have to be all the men in the industry for there to be a problem that needs fixing. Some men get lonely and desperate. Some are on power trips. You have to watch out all the time when you’re a young woman working in a kitchen.”

  Madame Queen herself had made her entrance. She looked pointedly at Louie, who shifted over to make room for her. Eloise sat down also with her coffee cup, and Buster settled nearby. He might have finished striking out with her, Kacie thought.

  “Children,” said Madame, “it is always dangerous in our world to be a strong woman, especially a woman of color. You must be not just strong, but the strongest. Fight with tooth and nail for your place and for your way. You know the men will. How many women in the industry have slept with older chefs to advance? I have, to my shame.”

  “Me, too,” said Maryann.

  “I have,” said Eloise. “But only if I liked the man.”

  “I haven’t,” Kacie said. “It never came up with me.”

  “I did,” Alia admitted. “He was a handsome guy, and I didn’t have a boyfriend, and I hadn’t gotten laid in a while. Maybe if he had kept sleeping with me, I wouldn’t have felt so dirty afterwards. But the next day he said sorry, told me he should have realized he wasn’t over his ex, and helped me transition to a better-paying job working for someone else. At the time, I felt some chance he was just confused. A while after, I got mad. I realized that he was definitely troubled, but why should it be my worry to help some man I don’t really know realize things about himself? Was it my role in life to heal men by giving them pussy? I decided it wasn’t. Women shouldn’t sacrifice their own integrity.”

  “Well, I didn’t,” Eloise asserted. “Not that I don’t agree with you. I totally do, but it isn’t always like that. Two people who like each other and have plans to work together can mix in some sex just as part of their friendship. That’s if they do it as equals, of course.”

  “And if he’s your dad’s friend and twice your age?” This from Maryann. “Don’t fool yourself, sister.”

  “Age is just a number,” said Eloise.

  “We must be wise enough to avoid being used,” said Madame Queen. “Chef Hamilton, would you do again what you did then?”

  “Maybe not, but I’m not ashamed of my past. It was a different time in my life.”

  “And so now, you don’t want sex? Or you are waiting for love?”

  “Just now, my focus is different.”

  “You’re an idiot,” said Maryann. “Men use sex for power. It’s not about friendship.”

  Kacie looked over at Toby, who was stone-faced still. Was it the conversation, or was it a holdover from the previous day? She touched his hand. He enfolded hers absently.

  “Men don’t always use sex for power,” Louie argued. “There are some guys like that out there, but men can be in love, too.”

  “A man in love is like a wrecking ball.” Maryann leaned forward. “He mows down everything around him. Men in love are dangerous. Go ahead. Argue, make me laugh.”

  “Aren’t you married to a man?” Louie asked. “What about him? Wasn’t he in love with you?”

  “Yeah, he was. So I quickly accepted him and calmed him down. He’s still crazy, but I know how to handle him.”

  “A man in love,” Madame said, “believes he is right and pursues his goal no matter what it may cost. Then, if he achieves his ambition, he is liable to become disillusioned when he learns that his lover is not made of gossamer and gold, and that she farts and shits like everyone else.”

  “That’s a boy, Nina,” Toby said. “Not a man.”

  “Then I don’t know too many men, Chef Brutus. Only a lot of boys with fully descended testicles.”

  Maryann cracked up. After a moment, Eloise did too. Toby let go of Kacie’s hand, sat up. “If I love a woman, I’m all in. Whatever she is, I want her to be that. It’s not about power. That’s how a real man is supposed to feel.”

  Madame Queen shifted over and patted his knee. “Don’t be stung. No one is questioning your manhood, but you cannot deny that our complaints are valid in many cases.”

  “Sure, I guess so. Think I’ll take a walk.” He got up slowly and moved toward the elevators. Kacie followed.

  “Do you think I’m like that?” he asked her when they were alone in the hallway. “Like those assholes in their stories?”

  “No, I don’t. I did at first, but now I trust you. But you don’t trust me, or you’d tell me what was on that paper.”

  “I will, but not now.”

  “Why not?”

  “I just need to think about it.”

  Kacie was done coaxing him. “I’m going back and sit there. Come hang out with me. I’ll make you lunch later.”

  “Sure.” He turned away. “See you in a little while.”

  Kacie touched his cheek. “What will it take to make you smile at me?”

  “Just some more private time,” he said.

  “Toby, this is the perfect day for us to be together. There’s no work. So what the fuck is up with the moping?”

  “I’ll tell you. Just not now.”

  “Okay. Fuck it.” Kacie left him there and returned to the sofas, where her seat was still warm.

  The conversation had shifted. The TV was on, and they were critiquing an episode of a show on another culinary network. Buster and Vegas were on the ends of two sofas.

  Buster: “Too much garlic, bro!”

  Vegas: “Naw, man. Kick it up a notch!”

  Buster: “You’re full of shit. You wouldn’t put that much.”

  Vegas: “I’m bringing the chilies. That’s some real heat.”

  Alia: “That audience member he brought up, watch her stirring. Clockwise, clockwise, counterclockwise. Why is that?”

  Louie: “She’s scared of the garlic.”

  Eloise: “Now that’s a seriously unhealthy amount of butter.”

  Madame leaned over to Kacie. “What is troubling Chef Brutus?”

  Kacie said, “Whatever is on that paper you gave him. He won’t tell me.”

  “How bratty of him.”

  “I don’t guess it helped that you gave him two strikes in one day.”

  “He needs to be more mature. First, one was deserved for his stupid behavior. Second, you out-cooked him by a large margin. Third, had I never given him a strike, suspicions would have arisen that I was protecting him.”

  Kacie knew better than to argue.

  The group continued watching and critiquing other shows. Herschel made an appearance and hung out. Shaun Kerr came later as well. At lunch time, Toby resurfaced, and Kacie made a bibimbap, which they shared with Louie and Alia. Everyone else shared leftovers made by Hammer Chef Singaporean who was recording upstairs. Throughout lunch, Toby spoke little except to praise the food and respond to questions about cooking. After, Kacie said, “Let’s go walk around downstairs.”

  “Where?”

  “The pantry? The studio?”

  “Sure.”

  They went to Kitchen One, where they were shooed away by a team of electricians with flashlights working on the power failure. The pantry was being used for recording, so they stayed by the elevators, off to the side by a wall. Kacie searched Toby’s expression. He gave her a weak smile. She touched his cheek again. “Are you ready to tell me yet? I mean, is someone sick, are you getting sued, what?”

  “No, but it’s embarrassing.” He clasped her hand, lowered it, shifted and put his arm over her shoulders. Kacie moved closer to him to hold his thin waist, but found he was trembling. He wasn’t really holding her, either; his arm was just there.

  “I talked to Madame about the strikes. She said she had to do that or it would look like she was protecting you.”

  Toby humphed. “That’s not all she said, I’m sure.”

  “No. She also said I cooked better.”

  “You did. My dish was damn good, but yours was stella
r. You deserved to win.”

  “Toby, if you win the show, I won’t get mad. If I win, how will you feel?”

  “Not mad at you. I’m not some flake. I said before, I’m all in.”

  “So what will we do when the show is over? We won’t just walk away from each other, right?”

  “I have to go see Lillian, and check on my truck, and move my shit into her apartment. After that, we can go see your restaurant, and hang out in Chinatown. Show me the city. Empire State Building, Central Park, Statue of Liberty, Charging Bull and Fierce Girl, all that. Lillian read me stuff about all that from a guide book on the drive up.”

  Kacie tried to pull him in some more, rested her head on his chest. No good. He still wasn’t relaxing. “So we’ll start dating?”

  “I hope so. And I want you and Lillian to spend some time.”

  “You think she’ll like me?”

  “Pretty sure. You have a sister, right?”

  “Eunice, yeah.”

  “She’ll like me?”

  Kacie had to think about this. She and her sister didn’t really talk to each other about men. “I guess we’ll find out. My family’s all pretty traditional and old-fashioned.”

  “Uh huh.”

  It didn’t seem like he was going to say anything else, so she added, “I want a ride in your truck.”

  Toby disengaged from her, then pulled her in again and planted a kiss on the top of her head. “It rattles a lot.” Now he let go for sure and pushed the elevator button. “Think I’ll go lie down.”

  Kacie very much wanted to lie down with Toby. It was what had been on her mind every night since meeting him. But if they lay down together in a bed, she was sure something would happen that shouldn’t be filmed.

  “We can get a sofa and you can put your head in my lap,” she suggested. It sounded so strange to her, suggesting this. She’d never had a boyfriend; did girls talk to their boyfriends that way?

  “I meant I’ll take a nap,” he said in a low voice.

  Kacie stepped back. He actually didn’t want to stay with her! “Toby, you’re being a dick. You said you wanted to be with me. You chased me. So now I’m with you, and all of a sudden you don’t want to be with me. It’s not fair.”

  “It’s not like that.” He cleared his throat. “I just need to think things through. You’re beautiful, you’re magnificent. I just… I just want to be better for you than I feel right now.”

  “That’s bullshit.”

  “Maybe, but it’s the truth.”

  ‘Is it an old girlfriend? Do you have a baby? Are you going back to being gay?”

  The elevator arrived. Toby stepped on. “See you later.”

  “Yeah. Later.” Kacie didn’t go with him. The elevator door closed.

  “Fuck you,” she said to the empty hallway.

  Just as she had always feared, he had seduced her and dumped her. He had manipulated his way to her trust, and now he had no feelings for her, did not deserve to be trusted, deserved nothing.

  Damn it! How could she have let herself fall in love with a guy?

  But he was saying he still liked her.

  But that was just a mind game.

  Did he have a secret past?

  He said he was ‘all-in,’ what did that mean?

  He hadn’t said they were through.

  No, he wasn’t feeling anything; that was obvious.

  She couldn’t tolerate bullshit.

  Kacie went back to the common-room and sat by Alia, who was telling a story.

  “…and I saw them, and I thought, those are two women who have a TV show, they’re expert cooks, they’re professionals. I can do all those things. They’re white and I’m black, true, but that shouldn’t stop me.”

  “It shouldn’t,” Louie said. “I mean, it isn’t, it isn’t stopping you.”

  “I’m not a trailblazer or anything,” Alia said. “I’m just me.”

  Madame Queen said, “Culinary television is an excellent outlet for women to be professionals on the public stage. Still too few are black — but I shall change that. My own inspiration was not someone on television, however.”

  “Not Julia Child?” asked Vegas. “I thought she was the queen back in the day.”

  “Indeed,” said Madame.

  “Martin Yan was my queen,” Maryann noted.

  “Neither of them. Listen to your own queen. My inspiration was Mathilde LePook.”

  “Was she on public television or something?” asked Louie.

  “No, clearly not. She was a short-order cook in a greasy spoon on my side of the tracks. And to little Ninny Traylor, she was an ogress. I went into that restaurant after school every day terribly hungry. No food in my home. I had been told that if my school was so wonderful, let them feed me. The school food, and what I could scrounge from so-called friends, were not enough for a hungry girl of nine. So I took my rumbling stomach into Mama Ethel’s Country Kitchen after school and stood around looking at the hung-over Negroes staring at the rims of their unemployed coffee cups, and said, ‘I’ll sing and do a little dance for a fried egg.’ I was lucky to get a meal once a week that way. As soon as Mathilde LePook got wind of it, she came out of the kitchen with a greasy towel, walking slow and heavy-footed as a three-legged heifer, and told me, ‘Shoo out of here. Ain’t no little nigger beggar girls ‘lowed round here.’ The first time, I tried to beg off, but she gave me one with a snap of that towel, and it left some greasy scum on my dress collar, and I got the belt for that from Mama Lulu.”

  “Holy shit,” said Vegas. “Child abuse, man.”

  “The towel at the diner was not so bad as the belt at home,” said Madame Queen. “I tried the song and dance a few more times, till whenever Mathilde came out, those hungover Negroes tried to hide me under tables. I still felt that towel a couple times though. I was always hungry. One day she got me by the arm and dragged me from under the table. I kicked and screamed and punched her in the side, but I couldn’t get away. She pushed me into her kitchen and dragged me all the way into this little pantry closet she had, with a tiny yellow light bulb up top, and shoved me up against a shelf, and there were all these cans rattling like they might tumble down on my head. And she said, ‘Girl, what is your name and who’re your people?’ So I said, ‘I’m Ninny Traylor and my daddy is Little Willy Traylor and my mama is Lulu Traylor and they don’t give me no food at home and I’m hungry.’ So she looked at me kind of cross-eyed, and let me go, and said, ‘Ain’t no nigger girl goin’ to beg round me. Know why? ‘Cause once you start to think you a beggar, that’s all you’ll be. You want to grow up a beggar, little girl?’ And I said, ‘No, ma’am. I’m just hungry. That’s all.’ She said, ‘I guess you know life ain’t fair when it hands out parents, huh?’ I said, ‘No it ain’t.’ She said, ‘I heard that. But Mathilde LePook, that’s me, is more fair than that. You see them potatoes?’ I did see a big metal bowl of red potatoes. ‘Yes’m,’ I said. ‘You see that peeler?’ I sure did see it. ‘Okay, then. Every potato you peel to my satisfaction, you earn one bite. I figure a breakfast of toast and eggs is about twenty bites. Get to it.’ And from then on, I went from school to Ethel’s and peeled potatoes for one meal a day, and I watched old wall-eyed Mathilde and learned how to cook. And what I learned from her was not just food, of course. It was about working for what you get and taking pride in who you are. It’s better to be hungry than to be a beggar, better to work than stay idle, better to be hurt fighting than to be meek and safe. So do I live my life, children.”

  ∞∞∞

  Madame Queen had already left, and they were awaiting dinner leftovers from Vegetarian Delicacies with Amelie, when Shelley arrived carrying a huge iPad Pro twelve-inch tablet. It was perhaps 4 PM. “Surprise, chefs,” said the director as she plopped down on a sofa. “I wasn’t at home sleeping. I just didn’t want to be pestered while I made something for us to watch together. Want to see a draft of a promotional spot for our show? Gather around.”

  The eight competitors
clustered around her iPad, on either side and on the floor behind the sofa to watch. The video began, and those further away craned their necks.

  ∞∞∞

  DARKNESS

  MADAME QUEEN (VO)

  I came up in life the hard way to become the best Southern style restaurateur in Mississippi. Chefs! Do you have what it takes to impress your queen?

  BLUE SPOTLIGHT ON PROFILE SHOT OF MADAME QUEEN.

  MADAME QUEEN

  Do you have what it takes to be the best?

  BRIGHT FLASH. PAN KITCHEN ONE LEFT TO RIGHT WITH EIGHT CHEFS WORKING.

  JUMP CUTS TO SOUND-BYTES.

  CUT TO: CHEF HAMILTON

  Giving it your all becomes a way of life in this business.

  CUT TO: CHEF BRUTUS

  Competing is pretty stressful for some folks.

  CUT TO: CHEF WAYNE

  I’ll stomp a mudhole in your ass!

  CUT TO: CHEF LEE TO CHEF WAYNE

  Time for you to back up your big talk.

  CUT TO: CHEF CAMACHO

  You got to do things with precision, you know?

  CUT TO: CHEF KAMARA

  I always find a way to put my personal touch.

  CUT TO: CHEF ALPHARETTO

  A few adjustments and these flavors will really pop!

  CUT TO: CHEF CHEN

  You guys are idiots!

  CUT TO: MADAME QUEEN TO CHEF CHEN

  Strike one!

  CUT TO: BLACK AND WHITE MONTAGE OF BLURRED-OUT CHEFS COOKING.

  GRAPHICS SUPERIMPOSED AND READ BY DEEP-VOICED NARRATOR.

  NARRATOR

  Eight chefs. Twelve days. Head to head battles. The toughest judge imaginable.

  CUT TO: AGAINST BLACK BACKDROP, MADAME QUEEN WAIST-UP TURNS TO FACE THE CAMERA AND FOLDS HER ARMS.

  MADAME QUEEN

  Do you have what it takes to impress your queen?

  CUT TO: GRAPHICS AGAINST DARK BACKGROUND.

  NARRATOR

  Chef Nina Lestrade stars in… Chef Showdown. Monday nights at 8 PM only on The Kitchen Network. Debuts September 17.

  ∞∞∞

  When the video was over, most of them applauded. Seeing themselves on TV felt more real now. Maryann wasn’t happy. “Can you show me doing something besides getting a strike? I just won a challenge. Can’t you show that?”