The Art of French Kissing

by Brianna Shrum

  He looks right back at me and I feel the weight of his stare like a physical, tangible thing.

  “You were the one who started the game, Reid.”

  Reid’s eyes narrow.

  He gives me this wicked smile and stretches his hand out to me. I shake it.

  He says, “Then let’s play.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “You will have ninety minutes to complete this challenge,” Dr. Kapoor’s clear voice rings out, and my immediate reaction is relief—because no weird baskets of ingredients, twice the time we had last challenge. The next response is crippling fear.

  Twice the time and no bizarre basket means something impossible is coming.

  I clench my hands at my sides and stare straight ahead. I plan to ignore Reid completely, though that’s barely possible. I can feel him over there, smirking at the judges, like he’s won already.

  He doesn’t even know what we’re making.

  Part of me is hoping that his little declaration of war yesterday won’t stand, and that we can just move on with our lives and actually compete. In the school-sanctioned kind of way. But the other part of me can feel it, even from here. That confidence radiating off him isn’t because he’s just so cocky that he can’t imagine failing, even without any information at all. He’s cocky because he’s planning to get revenge on me.

  I curl my fists tighter, short nails digging into my palms. Whatever. I’ll just have to pay very careful attention. I’m sure as hell not going to go after him again, not after I about drowned in the guilt last night. I’m playing to actually win today, thank you very much.

  “Dr. Freeman,” says Dr. Kapoor, “if you would be so kind.”

  Dr. Freeman steps out from behind the judging table, producing a giant bowl from under it. Her heels click on the floor when she holds it out to Dr. Kapoor.

  “You will be making desserts today, chefs,” he says, and Riya’s face beside me breaks out into a wide smile. That’s her sweet spot.

  Pun not intended.

  Dr. Kapoor reaches into the bowl and his grin is pure evil when he reads whatever is written on the slip of paper in his hands. I glance nervously at Riya, who doesn’t seem to notice. She’s too focused on the category itself, celebrating a small victory.

  “Today, both teams will be completing the same challenge.”

  The same challenge. Sabotage could really, really screw things up in a direct, side-by-side dish comparison. But no. No, I’m not thinking about that. Not today. Today I am thinking about victory. At least this small one. Today I am focused.

  “The dessert you will be making today is baked Alaska.”

  A ripple of terror goes through the kitchen.

  “Baked Alaska?” I say through clenched teeth. “We don’t have enough time!”

  “That’s the point,” Tess hisses, lip curling.

  Baked Alaska involves pound cake, a perfect meringue, and baking ice cream without melting it. (Or sometimes, just setting the thing on actual fire.) It’s freaking impossible to make perfect in six hours, but in an hour and a half?

  Now I’m panicking. But hey, we’re all panicking, so it’s fine. It’s all fine.

  Reid’s team has nine people while we still have the full twelve, and the second the timer chimes out our start, I’m thinking maybe they actually have an advantage, because twelve is too many. We’re scattering around like rats over here.

  In a kitchen. I shudder at that mental image and sprint over to somewhere in the middle-ish of a dozen freaking out teenagers.

  “OKAY,” Andrew booms out, and I have to lend it to him, he does have a voice that carries. “I’ll start on the pound cake, with . . .” He cocks his head, then points to Riya, some pretty, tall girl I don’t know, and another cute, really small girl I also haven’t really met. “You, you, and you.”

  “No,” says Riya. I raise my eyebrows and Riya straightens, jaw hard.

  “What?”

  “Absolutely not. I’m not touching your damn pound cake, and you’re not the head chef of this kitchen. We let you run it last challenge and the only reason three of us are still standing here is because Reid apparently sucks at walking, so no. No. I will not be joining you on the pound cake.”

  My eyes have got to be the size of a surprised anime character’s—covering like a full three-quarters of my face. And there is complete, shocked silence.

  Then a small kid who looks like he’s maybe in the ninth grade says, “I got it,” and joins the other two with Andrew.

  “Desserts are what I do. I’m taking the ice cream machine. Two of you come with me.”

  Andrew furrows his big brow, still standing there just totally, deliciously stunned, and says, “Wouldn’t it be easier to just use some ice cream from the freezer? We’re short on time.”

  Riya tosses her head and walks off, laughing. “Yeah, I’m sure it would. Bet you a full ride scholarship that’s an empty freezer, stud.”

  Riya does not slow down on the way to the ice cream machine, and three people (one more than she bargained for) scamper after her. She sends two back toward the pantry immediately, and I blink back at Andrew.

  “I’ve got the meringue,” I say. “Addie, you want to come with?”

  “Yeah,” she says.

  The other two sprint back toward the pantry and in a few minutes, everything is running smoothly. I’m still not sure how freezing Riya’s ice cream for presumably barely an hour is going to work out when we should have like eight to do this right, but they know. They know they screwed us on time. They want to see how we fix it.

  I look around the kitchen, a flurry, then calm down.

  We have a little time before we need to make the meringue; it’s really Riya who needs to be freaking out. “I’m going to use the ice cream machine” is usually the death note for anyone on any cooking competition show, ever. But she is cool and collected, waiting while her ice cream churns, and like five people are hanging out with her now. I notice Andrew staring at the group with intense, unblinking, creeper eyes. He can’t stand not being in charge today.

  I smile, then watch as Riya takes her ice cream out and, miracle of miracles, at least from here, it looks perfect.

  She tastes it quickly and the absolute sunshine on her face says it tastes perfect, too.

  The other boy at the ice cream machines waits a little before he takes his out, and his sharp, “Shit, shit, shit, shit,” can only indicate one thing: his ice cream is butter.

  I do a tiny little fist pump in the air and wait out the ice cream’s too minimal freezing time until the clock starts to tick down, and it’s time to make the meringue.

  One of the ingredient-fetchers scampers up to me while Addie cleans the beaters with a slice of lemon, and says, “I don’t—I couldn’t find the cream of tartar. It’s kind of a mess back there but I swear it just isn’t here—”

  She doesn’t have to finish her sentence. I cut one sharp look across the kitchen to see exactly who has it. Because he has a bowl and beaters and eggs and of course. Of course Reid is doing the meringue for his team.

  I throw my shoulders back and try to look regal marching across the kitchen.

  Reid has a mixing bowl in one hand and a teaspoon of white powder in the other. There’s cream of tartar and a couple other boxes of stuff I don’t care about open behind him.

  I clear my throat.

  Reid turns around and raises an eyebrow at me, leaning on his elbows against the counter.

  “What d’you need, sugarplum?”

  My nostrils flare at the nickname and I say, “That,” cocking my head toward his left hand.

  His eyes flick over to the teaspoon and then back down at me. He stands straight and tall, then takes a step toward me so there’s hardly space between our chests.

  Suddenly I’m shaking a little, and that’s frustrating.

  “You want this?” He holds out the teaspoon.

  “Yes,” I say. I’m not looking at the teaspoon; I’m looking at him.


  I can feel the brush of his breath over my ear when he leans in and whispers, “Say please.”

  I clench my jaw. I can feel his cheek move when he smiles.

  “Screw yourself.”

  “Rude,” he says, but he’s smirking when he hands me the teaspoon, which is way more than I actually need for the meringue.

  My eyes are still burning into his when I snatch it from him. Well as much as someone can snatch something when they’re trying like hell not to spill it. Then I get out of his side of the kitchen as fast as I can and practically throw the powder I need into the egg whites and sugar.

  Time ticks down.

  Addie has the stuff on as high a speed as she can manage and the meringue isn’t coming together like I’m used to, which is stressful but we should have expected it. We whip and whip and whip, and I can feel the frustration bubbling up in my chest, filling every available space.

  “What the hell?” I say. “Why aren’t the peaks . . . peaking?”

  “I do not know,” says Addie, accent coming out stronger in her panic.

  Finally, they start to form, not as strong as I’d like, but enough that we can make it work. This turned out not to be complete disaster.

  Riya takes her ice cream out of the freezer and gets it on top of Andrew’s pound cake, which is irritatingly pretty (I mean, it’s a good thing. It’s irritating because it’s Andrew’s), and we spread the meringue on top of it. The ice cream isn’t as solid as it should be, but it also isn’t butter, which has got to work in our favor, and they didn’t give us eight hours. They had to have expected this.

  The meringue goes on and it . . . doesn’t look as gorgeous as my meringue usually does, but it’s fine. It’s pretty enough. We have less than a minute—no time to waste mourning, no time to taste anything; we barely have time to burn the top. Tess gets her hand on a blowtorch, which kind of seems like a bad idea to give us access to, and she lights the thing up.

  The meringue is a little melty from that, but the lines are pretty and it’s holding up well enough, and the brown running through the white meringue swirls is pretty damn delectable-looking, if I say so myself.

  We cut slices and get the plates out with four seconds to spare.

  I’m feeling good, proud standing in front of the judges today. Maybe Reid and I are in a truce, which would not be the worst thing. Tit for tat, the end.

  We can go through the rest of this competition as respectful competitors, not archnemeses. The other team is praised widely for their presentation—four tiny baked Alaskas rather than one giant one in slices. It’s adorable, and I wish I’d thought of it. A graham crackery thing on bottom instead of cake. They went with chocolate ice cream—bold, but the judges all seem to agree that though it’s not correctly done, and it’s a little odd, the buttery, slightly melty texture of their ice cream does go surprisingly well with the dark chocolate flavor. The technical flaw is points against them, but it could have been worse.

  I smile over at Riya and she’s beaming. Her ice cream is perfect. Frozen, barely melty at all inside, and sweet, perfectly textured strawberry. The judges take their bites. And every one of their faces instantly puckers. Down the line, like a terrible, heart-wringing version of The Wave.

  My stomach drops into my feet.

  The ice cream, and the cake—they’re both hailed as perfect.

  “The meringue, though,” says Dr. Pearce. He just blinks, and something like electricity shoots down my spine.

  Dr. Kapoor says, “I agree,” and everyone takes another bite, just the meringue.

  I look over at Addie, who throws her hands in the air in a shrug, and behind her, Andrew is staring daggers at me.

  “It’s . . . the texture is a bit odd, to be sure,” says Dr. Lavell. “But the flavor is utterly bizarre.”

  “Vinegar,” Dr. Freeman adds in a confident baritone, “was a . . . bold choice.”

  That’s not possible. It’s not.

  “Bold is certainly a word for it,” says Dr. Kapoor and the matter is settled. There is vinegar in the weird-textured meringue and it all goes very strangely with the strawberry and somehow, I, or Addie, or the other two who got us the ingredients . . .

  We are dismissed, and I stand there for a full six seconds before I can build up the will to look at Reid. His mouth is tugging up.

  Then I rush over to his station and pay attention to the boxes I ignored earlier. Graham, sugar, stuff someone used for the crust, I’m sure.

  And open. White vinegar powder.

  The teaspoon flashes through my mind. He wasn’t going to use it; he was waiting for me.

  Not just waiting for me to grab it mindlessly.

  He told me to beg for it.

  My eyes fly open, fury crashing over me like a storm. I catch his eye just as he leaves, and he grins with one corner of his mouth, then throws me a lazy, two-fingered salute.

  He moves through the doorway and disappears.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Andrew slams his shoulder into mine that night at dinner and my whole tray goes crashing to the ground. Spaghetti, garlic bread, one rogue meatball that has made its way across the whole dining hall to a table in the corner furthest from me. It’s on the floor, it’s on me. Freaking fantastic.

  The hall falls silent after the clatter, and I just stare at Andrew, slack-jawed.

  “Oh shit,” he says, too slowly to be believable. “I’m so clumsy.” He tosses me a single napkin and heads to his table with a few others from his team. Catty asshole.

  Reid walks into the cafeteria about half a second later, and there I am, drowning in red and noodle, and my face is probably the same color as the sauce. He stops short and blinks. “Do you need—”

  “Get the hell away from me,” I hiss, and he purses his lips, then straightens and walks off to the line with the long, confident strides of a boy who is not, and does not foresee himself ever being, drenched in marinara.

  “Will’s picking up an extra plate for you,” says Riya, crouching down next to me like it’s nothing, like I haven’t just been completely humiliated in front of every freaking person here, like when I stand, my shoes don’t squeak and slip against the sauce on the floor. She picks me up by the arm and I take my tray. We move together, allies, to the trash can where I dump everything, and then I follow her, nose in the air like I am a damn sixteenth-century monarch, to our table.

  “Red’s your color,” says Will the second I sit, and my eyebrows jump up. There’s a half-second of silence, and I can feel Riya tense beside me, and then a laugh just bubbles out of me.

  “You asshole,” I say.

  “Asshole who brought you some non-floor-contaminated spaghetti and garlic bread, thank me very much.”

  “Thank you very much,” I say, and he smirks and takes a bite of his pasta.

  Riya says, “It could have happened to anyone.”

  “This disaster or the kitchen white vinegar powder disaster?”

  “Both.”

  I blow out a breath. And eat.

  And feel everyone’s eyes on me like a tangible thing, whether or not it’s real.

  I chew and swallow mechanically, the smell of oregano and basil and garlic soaking into my skin, until I just can’t. I just can’t stay here for one more second.

  I leave the table without saying a word to Riya or Will and practically run to my room.

  I miss everyone. Back at home—Mom and Dad and Jillian and Em and everyone who is not here. Everyone who sees me as more than a tool to help them win or a competitor for them to beat.

  I slam my door and strip out of my shirt and pull on this too-big cheap Star Wars Keep it, it suits you shirt that Jillian got me one Christmas. And I can feel myself just begin to relax.

  It smells like home.

  Mom and Dad are both working, and Em is working and probably trying to seduce Pool Girl at the same time, but Jillian works online while she’s home on break.

  I pray she’ll answer.

  “Hey, baby sister,�
�� she says on the first ring.

  And what I say is: “Hrggghhh.” Which is what happens when you open your mouth and start to form words but start sobbing instead.

  “So I guess I shouldn’t ask how things are going?”

  I gasp. And I’m so annoyed that all these jerks can affect me like this. That they have me doing that gulping crying thing I haven’t done since I got stood up at homecoming in the tenth grade, and Em had to step in and be my date.

  “I’m okay,” I say.

  “That’s what I was gonna guess, yeah.”

  “God, Jillian, everyone here is just. Mean. They’re mean. I don’t know how else to say it or how to fix it but I miss you.”

  “You miss me? Damn, things must really be shitty over there.”

  She says it in this teasing tone that I can picture coming with a flick to my nose. Jillian and I have had our share of fights over the years, but we’ve always been each other’s favorites.

  “I miss you too, Bug,” she says.

  “Yeah?”

  “Well, I miss your cooking. We’re slowly wasting away over here in House Lane.”

  I laugh. It comes out a little watery but it’s a real laugh. “Jerk.”

  “Of course.”

  “Does it make me a little kid to say I think I’m just . . . sad? To be away from home?”

  “Nah, it makes you sound like a college freshman.”

  I smile.

  “Listen,” says Jillian, “I’ve been brushing up on my muay thai so if you need me to come kick some little chef asses, I will, but until I can get there, why don’t you turn on Mean Girls? I’ll turn it on at the same time.”

  “You wanna watch a movie with me? When I should be socializing?” I roll my eyes even though she can’t see it and say in fake exasperation, “Ugh, she doesn’t even go here.”

  And Jillian says, “God, have you found it yet? I’m old. Or getting there.”

  I giggle and swipe through streaming apps until I find one that has it, thank everything.