The Art of French Kissing

by Brianna Shrum

The judges eat. They love the first two dishes, but the lack of dessert is going to screw them. Every one of us in this room knows it. And every one of us knows they would have won this round without it.

  We are all dismissed for the evening.

  I walk as quickly as possible out of the kitchen after I strip out of my apron, hoping to outpace Reid. Maybe he won’t confront me at all. Maybe he thinks this was his screw-up.

  I cross the grass in record time and breathe a sigh of relief as I hit the doors.

  But Reid’s hand is at my arm, and I spin around, back to the brick wall of the old dorm.

  “Are you serious?” Reid says. There is still sweat beaded up around his forehead. His hair is sticky and damp, falling over his eyes.

  He is standing so close, eyes pure anger. Anger and . . . embarrassment.

  I fold my arms over my chest. “About what?” I flick my eyes to the ground and I know I look guilty as hell.

  Reid just blinks down at me, and I can feel the fury radiating off his chest, flames on the side of his face.

  Then he makes this scoffing noise that gets me feeling frustratingly guilty, shakes his head, and walks away.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I have elected to eat in my room, because it’s pizza, and that’s a total eat-it-in-your-dorm kind of thing.

  We both change into pajamas, and Riya says, “Cool if a couple girls come over? Not to like stay up and throw a rager or whatever, just yeah. Hanging out.”

  My eyebrows shoot up. “Is everyone here from West Virginia?”

  She laughs. “No. Only one I know from before is Will.”

  “So you’ve made friends here already? Good lord, what is your life?”

  She laughs again and shrugs, this dainty little maneuver on her somehow, and I settle onto my bed, because people can be here, but I am free of my bra already and no one is getting me to put it back on.

  I will remain in my natural habitat: this bed surrounded by shitty dorm room pillows, as the lord intended.

  “What do you want to do?” asks Riya, and I furrow my brow, then glance over at her.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like with food. You graduate, what do you do?”

  I sigh, and it comes out embarrassingly dreamy. “It’s not realistic,” I say. Like I need the qualifier. But it’s . . . I mean, it’s not. You have to be Someone Big to do what I want to do and I am Someone Perfectly Medium. “I want to go somewhere really cool. Paris or Rome or Tokyo, somewhere with amazing food. Learn a few things, a couple specialty courses? Then come back to the US, a newly minted Julia Child, and own my own restaurant. In New York. L.A. Denver. Somewhere kickass.”

  Riya whistles. “See the world and own your own place. You are in for some sleepless nights, my friend.”

  I shrug. I don’t tell her that the last vacation I was on was to a lake forty minutes away and we slept in a little tent, and that apart from this one time I visited my grandparents in Nebraska, I don’t remember ever leaving Montana. Because my childhood was good—it’s been good and it still is—but we barely have money for rent, and sometimes we don’t even have that. I can never remember having money for an actual vacation. I don’t say I want to see the world because I haven’t even seen my own country and, by now, my own country has kind of lost its mystique. I don’t say that I know that’s out of the realm of reasonable. I just smile and say, “I don’t mind giving up sleep. What about you?”

  “I want to work at a top bakery. Maybe go see the world, maybe stay, I don’t know. Probably not in West Virginia. But I’m a science kind of girl; I love the precision of baking. This much flour and this much baking soda creates this reaction and at this altitude the air reacts with the dough just this way.”

  “Sounds like you want to be a chemist.”

  She says, “Same thing.”

  I smile. I love cooking because of the messiness. Grease is going to pop and burn you and sometimes stuff will turn out and sometimes it won’t. And you just throw it all in the skillet and kind of see what comes together. I love the uncertainty of it all. You have to master it for food to turn out for you.

  “My grandpa cooked,” I say. “Both of my parents are kind of terrible at it, and when Grandpa died, Mom had a really hard time with it. So I kind of just slid into that opportunity to start making dinner for everyone because I’d done it with Grandpa since I was super little. And seriously, to call what either of my parents ever made from scratch ‘edible’ would be, like, high praise.” She giggles. “So I’d been in love with the whole experience since I was five and got my first wrist burn from a sizzling pan, and when I had the excuse to take care of everyone, this is what I picked. It’s like . . . part of me, or something? Which sounds so cheesy. I just heard it.”

  “Not cheesy. Baking is kind of an anti-anxiety thing for me, I think. Always calmed me down when I was freaking out over a test or one of my friends being a bitch. Betty Crocker would never let me down. Not if I combined the ingredients just so. It’s been me and my Easy-Bake Oven since I could walk.”

  “Easy-Bake Oven, oh man,” I say.

  “The most mythical lightbulb ever created to cook food.”

  I’m grinning just thinking about it. I swear, sometimes my thoughts surrounding food and the utensils with which one makes it are more romantic than anything else. And here it’s like, so are everyone else’s. They all love this so much, want it bad enough to give up a whole summer here. And I guarantee, no one here views it as giving anything up. I bet they all write sonnets to butter and caramelized onions in their sleep. They all get heart eyes for macarons and flutters in their stomachs for a perfectly braised lamb shank. These are my people.

  My people, who I will have to try to brutally destroy in every round of competition from here on out.

  Someone knocks on our door and Riya says, “Come in!” And I shit you not, three different girls walk in and Riya hugs all of them like she knows them. Three girls. In like twenty-four hours. How is that even possible?

  There’s this tall black girl name Tess with square glasses and an amazing afro; a short, round girl with a southern accent named Addie; and a particularly pale girl named Patricia who has light blue braces and freckles on her nose. They say hi to me, but I refuse to move from my blanket cocoon, so pretty quickly, all three of them head over to Riya’s bed.

  Addie snuck in a little alcohol somehow, and normally I would be interested but tonight I’m exhausted. Partially because it’s just been . . . a lot. And thinking about Grandpa’s cooking, and then Mom and Dad back in Montana, well. It has me suddenly missing everyone, bad enough it almost hurts. Like I’m some little kid who can’t handle a sleepover.

  I shoot both my parents a quick, nonchalant, Miss you love you text, and Mom hits me back with three lines of emojis, which both eases the kiddish pang in my chest and sharpens it.

  The other complication, the other thing making me want to shut out all these nice girls invading my room, is that even though I shouldn’t, I feel bad about Reid. And I can’t stop thinking about the look on his face when he just sighed and walked past me in the quad.

  So they laugh and drink and whatever, and it’s fine. But I pass out to a lovely chorus of guilt in my head. Reid scowls me into sleep.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “The winning team this week should come as no surprise,” says Dr. Pearce, and it is only now that I realize he has a British accent, which I can only assume is because I’ve never actually heard the man speak. He’s gained minimum fifteen hotness points just from the way he forms his vowels. I blink down at the ground to get that out of my head (until he speaks again) and look up.

  We’re all gathered outside in this little amphitheater for judging; we are gonna be spending so much time in the kitchen that they kind of look for reasons to gather us together outside it, so here we are, sitting on stone, breathing in actual water from the sky.

  “The blue team presented us some rather flavorful and creative dishes, albeit with some incon
sistencies in the main course, though their meal was not entirely cohesive. But, while their overall meal had several small issues which the judges discussed both with you all and in private deliberation, the red team ultimately only presented us with two courses. Red team, while your jackfruit reduction had a lovely texture and flavor, a drizzle of a sauce is, unfortunately, not enough to qualify as a dessert.”

  A grumble rises up from half the students, though Riya and two of the girls from last night are basically vibrating with happiness in their seats around me. I feel another twist of guilt wrench my stomach. I wasn’t just sabotaging Reid; it was his whole team. They’ll eat him alive for this. If he makes it past this week.

  “Three students will be going home this evening. Before we commence, I want to say that it is an honor having you all here, and it is with my deepest regret that we must, alas, send several of you back to pack. Blue team, in tonight’s judging, you are all safe.”

  A lone whoop slices through the night, and I don’t have to look to know it’s Andrew. I can’t even think his name without rolling my eyes.

  “Abigil Petrovi, Ingrid Evers, Will Malik,”—Riya sits up straight—“Peter Williams, Reid Yamada, and Timothy Parker. If all of you would please step forward.”

  There’s a shuffling, and a ton of clearly angry grumbles over on the red side. We naturally separated ourselves. In the dorms, we can be unified. But out here, it’s a battlefield.

  “When it came to the individual challenge, one of you here before us had far and away the best dish of the night. You are safe. It was flavorful, perfectly done, one of the most expertly crafted meals I’ve had the pleasure of tasting, particularly on the first night, since I began judging four years ago.” Riya is mouthing the words chicken biryani right along with Dr. Pearce as he names the dish and says, “Will Malik, congratulations. You will be staying with us another week. Well done.”

  Will’s shoulders drop in relief and he scans the crowd, smile wide and bright, for Riya, who gives him a thumbs-up when his gaze catches hers. Then he goes back to sit, practically falling back into his seat.

  “Ingrid,” he says, “while your teamwork in the kitchen on the group dish was admirable, I’m afraid your individual dish was well conceived, but rather dry, and we all wanted to see more flavor from you in the buttercream on top of the cupcake. We appreciate having gotten the chance to work with you, but you will need to head home this evening.”

  Ingrid glances at the floor but clenches her jaw and handles it.

  It goes like that until Peter has been sent home, too, and the last people standing are Timothy and Reid.

  “Reid,” says Dr. Pearce, and I hold my breath. I didn’t actually want to get him sent home; I wanted vengeance. It really was supremely shitty, what he did to me, and I don’t think I’m totally off-base wanting a little vindication. But guilt is dissolving me from the inside. They all took a major hit. Because of me.

  And now maybe Reid is going home.

  And going home doesn’t just mean leaving. It means going to the airport, hanging out by the gate on standby at who knows what ungodly hour, for a flight you pray you will not get kicked off of. The school has a deal with the little airport that gets us flights for cheap, at the cost of certainty in one’s flight and convenience in the time it takes off. It’s like an extra degree of humiliation.

  I’m tapping my fingers so fast on the stone seat in the amphitheater that Riya looks at me and raises an eyebrow, but I can’t hear what she whispers because I am completely focused on Dr. Pearce. And on Reid’s back. He’s standing so straight, fists clenched at his sides, as Dr. Pearce goes over each of their individual dishes, saying how Reid’s was utterly masterful and Timothy’s borscht was oddly textured and low on flavor, but it was such an ambitious choice that they were considering giving him a pass. The thing is, everyone knows Reid made some of the most beautiful chocolate cages of all time, and everyone knows he was the one who dropped them. So what it comes down to is, does it send him home?

  I’m grinding my teeth—I can feel them squeaking against each other. But I can’t quit.

  “Ultimately, we have decided that one of you should get another chance,” says Dr. Pearce, and I want to shake him. Because who? Who? My body was not built to withstand such guilt; it is built to last under heavy intake of butter and cheese and ballroom dance via YouTube tutorial, when I’m not feeling too dorky to admit I’m into that. But guilt—guilt is its weakness.

  “Mr. Yamada,” he says, and my whole body tenses. All my bones are going to snap right here, right now, and I will be the first student in history to explode into a pile of bloody goo during judging. “We have determined that clumsiness, while something we do not plan to be overly tolerant of in the future, is not a determining factor in regard to one’s culinary skills, and it would be a waste of your potential to send you home for faulty footwork. Do not let it happen again.”

  “Yes, sir,” says Reid, and I can hear the shaky relief in his voice.

  I practically liquefy down into the stone. I am the Wicked Witch of the Midwest—I’m melting.

  Riya gives me a bizarre look for the second time tonight and I don’t even summon the will to pay attention.

  There are a few sniffles from the eliminated contestants and I grit my teeth to ward off the guilt, but dammit, if they’re going home already, they would have gone home eventually.

  I repeat that to myself silently as I stew here in this semi-secret shame. And have to force myself not to look at Reid, then stand up and confess it all right here, right now.

  Dr. Freeman stands and says, “Go enjoy the rest of your night, competitors. We’ll see you in the kitchens tomorrow at ten a.m.”

  We disperse. Except Reid, who is sitting there, face on his knees, hands clasped behind his neck. No one sat with him during judging, I realize, which is a far cry from where he was at breakfast yesterday morning—surrounded by people just begging for his attention. I stand and am about walk off with Riya and her friends, a group which now includes Will, because we currently exist in that lull between judging and a new challenge, which means we can invoke a temporary peace treaty.

  But dammit again. Curse my brain. I cannot stop looking at Reid. He looks like someone literally poked a hole in him and deflated him. And the guilt is spidering everywhere in me now; I can’t contain it. I definitely cannot physically ignore it.

  I brush my hand over Riya’s shoulder and say, “I’ll catch up with you guys later, okay?”

  She frowns but says, “Yeah. See you later,” and then they disappear and it is just Reid and me in the huge, quiet amphitheater. Nothing but Georgia insects, which I assume are all twice the size of Montana insects, whirring and buzzing and quietly cricketing in the trees that wind their way through campus.

  It’s getting dark now, so everything feels dramatic. Like we’re on Survivor, or contestants in the Hunger Games, not a cooking show.

  Every time you shift on these stone benches, it practically echoes.

  So when I stand, I’m sure he hears it. And when I start toward him, I’m sure he hears that, too. He doesn’t look up, though, even when I’m right beside him. Just sits there like a dead balloon, long fingers digging into the nape of his neck.

  “Reid.”

  “What. The hell,” he says into his own knees, “do you want?”

  “Dude, come on—”

  He barks out a laugh, then actually looks at me, and it’s so sharp it physically hurts. “Come on? Come on? Really? Do you get what you did, Carter?”

  I take a step backward, arms folded across my chest, and he stands.

  “I know I might have overreacted a little—”

  “A little? Carter, you got three of my team members sent home and you know we would have won if you hadn’t pulled such a dirty—”

  “Whoa,” I say. “You started this. You were the one who screwed me over when I hadn’t done anything to you.”

  “Yeah, barely. You had to substitute some cheese;
big whoop. I didn’t physically hurt you—”

  “Yeah, we should get you to the ER for tripping, Reid—”

  “—and I didn’t humiliate you in front of everyone. Do you get that my whole damn team hates me right now? Do you get that no one will speak to me? I’m a leper; there’s like a ten-foot radius around Reid Yamada, beyond which no red team member will venture.”

  “I’m sure they’ll get past it.”

  He narrows his eyes and his nostrils flare lightly. “So not even an apology? This is all I get?” He takes a step closer to me, hands at his hip bones, and it’s just like it was in the hall. We are outside, in this empty cavern of space, but suddenly it’s hot and everything feels extremely close and extremely . . . like I’m caught in his orbit somehow and we’re the only two in a tiny room.

  I see his jaw tighten when he swallows, the slightest flex in his bicep when he shifts his arm and digs his fingers into his bones, the stretch of the worn fabric of his Avatar: The Last Airbender T-shirt.

  I open my mouth to apologize, to say I did more damage than I planned to, that I really am sorry, and can we call a truce? But he’s just so smug and cocky and pissed that suddenly I don’t want to. He’s looking down at me because he has to, because he’s at least half a foot taller than me, but the stone in his eyes makes me feel like even if I had five inches on him, he would still find a way to look down his nose at me.

  I feel bad. But he started this, I didn’t. He feels like shit for letting his team down? He should. He made his bed. I lock my jaw and lift my chin.

  “You asked for this,” I say.

  “I said I was sorry.”

  “That didn’t change what you did.”

  “You want me to get a damn time machine? I am not the Doctor; I don’t have one at my disposal.”

  My heart flutters traitorously at the sudden and unexpected casual geekdom, but I force it to return to its cold, dark state and say, “Then no. I’m not sorry.”

  Reid puffs out a laugh and looks up at the dark, sparkling sky. He’s quiet for long enough that I think maybe he won’t tell me what he’s thinking at all. Then he finally says, “Fine.” His mouth curls up. “That how you want to play with me, sweetheart?”