by Mindy Klasky
“She knew me better than I thought she did. She knew exactly how to push my buttons—getting her picture in the paper with a different guy at a different gala event every single week. During spring training four years ago, she redid this entire house floor to ceiling, all flowers and lace. It looked like some wedding had exploded in here. When I complained, she told me I could have Aspen the way I wanted it. New York, too.”
He remembered his frustration, how hard it had been to explain that he wanted a place that felt like home, a place he could come back to after a game, a place that was comfortable and familiar and right. She’d laughed off his concerns and spent more money on decorators.
Harper had known exactly what she was doing in the divorce, demanding the Aspen and New York homes. She was cutting off his balls, telling him who was in control.
The first thing he’d done when the divorce was final was gut the house, ripping out the frilly wallpaper, painting over all the pastel colors. He’d paid some idiot thousands of dollars to stage the place; he’d lied and said he was selling it. He just wanted it to look nothing like Harper. Nothing like the years he’d wasted on a loveless marriage that had cost him most of his money and all of his heart.
But he’d carved out a space for himself in the house they once had shared. The kitchen was exactly the way he wanted it. The bedroom too, and the gym downstairs.
It had felt strange, at first, sitting in the living room with Ashley the day before. But after a few hours of swapping magazines back and forth… After pulling her onto his lap and confirming that she really wasn’t wearing anything beneath his sweatpants, beneath the T-shirt that fit far too loosely for his taste…
He sighed. “What else do you want to know?”
“Nothing,” Ashley said. “I just… It felt weird, knowing I was in her house, and you’d never mentioned her.”
“It’s not her house. It’s mine. She took everything else, but the house is mine.”
He rolled over and slipped his arms around Ashley’s waist. She let him pull her close, but he could feel tension lingering in her arms, in her legs, in the way she carved out a space between their bodies.
“She was a mistake,” he said. “One that cost me a lot. I send her a check every month; I will till the end of this year. But that’s it.”
Her words were so soft he felt them more than heard them. “Did you cook for her?”
In the moonlight, Ashley looked so vulnerable, so exposed. He wanted to tell her he’d never fed Harper, never given her that intimacy. But he wasn’t going to lie. “At first,” he said. “When she’d let me.”
“Let you?”
“She was always worried about gaining an ounce. One month she wasn’t eating carbs, the next it was fat. No gluten, no lactose, all paleo, whatever. The last straw was when she told me she was going vegan, and the paper published her picture at some charity ball, eating lamb chops and laughing with some Hollywood asshole who was out here filming a movie.”
He heard the anger in his voice, realized he hadn’t done as good a job getting over the bitch as he’d thought. But saying the words made him realize something else, made him discover the truth. “Screw me,” he said. “There’s something really broken about taking care of someone who doesn’t want to be cared for.”
“I’m sorry,” Ashley whispered, and he felt like a shit for talking about all that old crap, about all the ways Harper had screwed him up.
“It was a few years ago. I’m over it now.”
“It was still a crappy thing for her to do.” She pulled closer to him, setting a feather-light kiss on his lips. “You can cook for me anytime,” she said.
His fingers tangled in her hair and he pulled her mouth back to his. By the time she slipped her hands inside his boxers, he could barely remember standing on the back porch by the smoker, barely remember the cold. And Harper was only the faintest memory of how wrong some relationships could be, because everything with Ashley was the best it could possibly be.
~~~
Ashley looked around the green room, wondering how long her competitors had worked on their main dishes. She’d thought about hers for weeks of course—before she’d learned about the special ingredient of cabbage. In the end, she’d only had yesterday to do the actual cooking. Before then, before Tuesday morning, she hadn’t been able to pull herself away from Josh, from the warmth of his kitchen, from the easy camaraderie as they cooked, as they watched bad TV shows, as they talked and talked and talked.
As they made love.
She’d never been with a man as imaginative as Josh, as creative in finding ways to make her melt beneath his touch. When they were in the same room, her entire body was aware of him, as if by wearing his clothes, she’d sensitized every inch of her flesh to his touch.
After she’d come back to her own apartment, she’d felt chilled to the bone. She’d piled on sweaters, added a muffler knotted tightly around her neck, even though the thermostat told her she should be toasty warm. Three different times, she’d considered driving back to Josh’s place.
But he’d needed time to prepare his dish for Who Wears the Apron. And she’d needed time to make hers. They were competing against each other, after all. Both of them wanted to—needed to—win the grand prize, the money and the consultant and the year-long lease at Rockets Field.
So she stayed home. Even if it felt like she was betraying him by spreading her ingredients on her kitchen counter. Even if she felt an uncomfortable lick of jealousy as she rifled through her spice rack, as she considered adding cumin to her meal, just to show the judges what she could do with the spice. Even if she felt sorry for herself, staring at the solid head of red cabbage that she’d bought at the grocery store.
But she’d cooked. She’d forced herself to stop thinking about Josh, and she’d devised a strategy that she hoped would make her the one woman who moved on to Round 4.
Now, standing in the green room, Ashley surveyed the other contestants who’d made it this far. They all looked like they were at a junior high dance—the men stood on one side of the room and the women on the other. She was grateful that Josh had his back to her. She wasn’t sure she could pretend to be disinterested in his dish, in him.
But she had to keep her distance. She couldn’t let anyone know where she’d spent her extra-long weekend. Bad things happened when relationships were made public—that was the most important lesson she’d mastered at Mid-Atlantic Culinary Institute, the one that had cost her a diploma, her pride, and her sense of well-being.
Even if she was pretending she didn’t know the man, she knew exactly what he’d cooked—she’d seen him load the pork butt and brisket into his smoker. That morning, as she gathered with the other contestants, she’d watched him hand his dishes over to Marta, who was doing her level best to preserve the anonymity of everyone on the show.
And Ashley had to watch the green room monitor as the judges sampled Josh’s food. His North Carolina barbecue filled one side of the plate, chopped pork spicy with bright bits of pepper carried on a vinegar-based sauce. On the other side of the plate lay thick slices of Texas brisket, flavored with nothing more than salt, pepper, and the cumin that had been his special ingredient. Separating the two meats were traditional accompaniments—collard greens stewed with fatback and plump, crisp hush puppies.
She’d watched the judges taste the meal. She’d seen their pleasure as they sampled the smoked meats. She knew Josh had the best chance of being the male contestant selected to move on.
If only she felt as confident about her own chances. One woman had presented a crown roast of lamb, a gorgeous piece of meat that crackled with fat. Her special ingredient must have been mint; at least, the judges had raved about the delicate green sauce she provided on the side. Another woman had made individual chicken pot pies; she’d already boasted to the other contestants that she’d had no trouble incorporating the tarragon she’d been required to add. Pork tenderloin had been an easy answer to Golden Delicious apple
s, and the last woman had added required morel mushrooms to her boeuf bourguignon.
That had left Ashley’s offering: a deconstructed Brunswick Stew. In the earliest days of North Carolina’s culinary history, Brunswick Stew had featured squirrel, but nearly everyone made it with chicken or pork now, stewing the shredded meat for long hours in a savory mixture of lima beans, corn, tomatoes, and onions.
Ashley had roasted chicken thighs in a slow oven, keeping the meat moist by basting it with a homemade onion broth. As the skin crisped up, she’d drained off the fat, using it to cook thick pork chops. She’d substituted elegant fava beans for limas and carefully shucked silver queen corn in place of the traditional yellow, combining the vegetables into a delicately flavored succotash. A bed of red cabbage brought all the elements of the plate together; she’d shredded the vegetable finely and pickled it for just a few minutes to soften its flavor. The cabbage’s deep color provided a perfect balance to the other elements—or so she hoped.
She fidgeted as the judges tasted her work. She watched them pick up their knives and forks, waited as they cut into the rich meats. She actually bounced on the balls of her feet as they chewed and swallowed.
“Sublime,” Judith Burroughs said, and Ashley’s relief was so intense she nearly crashed to her knees.
“Excellent,” Bill Morton agreed.
The other judges chimed in, evaluating her work, commenting on her ingenuity, questioning her use of cayenne in the pan sauce she’d spooned over the pork chop. Not one of them mentioned the cabbage. All too soon, Bill Morton was setting down his cutlery and smiling into the camera. “Well, ladies and gentlemen,” he said. “Our contestants are determined not to make our jobs easy. We’re going to take a brief commercial break, but when we come back, we’ll have our scores for Round Three of Who Wears the Apron.”
“And cut!” called out a producer.
Marta Corman immediately threw open the door to the green room. “All right, ladies and gentlemen! Onstage, please. Quickly now! And good luck to all of you.”
Once they were on the set, Marta guided Ashley to stand next to Josh. “The navy of your jacket is perfect against that blue work shirt of his,” the intern said.
That blue work shirt. The blue work shirt Ashley had worn the first morning, after she’d awakened in Josh’s bed. When Josh grinned at Marta’s words, she knew he’d worn it on purpose. “Mr. Cantor,” Ashley said by way of greeting, intent on keeping up appearances.
His eyes glinted as he nodded a polite reply. “Ms. Harris,” he said. But his gaze darted toward her chest for just a fraction of a second, and she knew he was noting that she wore a bra beneath her blouse. A bra and the most staid underpants she owned; she looked like a nun beneath her navy suit. She’d wanted to remind herself she was a competitor, that an entire restaurant and her professional future hung in the balance.
The producer called out, “And we’re back in five, four, three…”
Bill Morton picked up his cue, looking jauntily at the camera. “Our contestants are waiting to hear their scores. As you all recall, each judge could award ten points to the appetizers served in Round 2. There were twenty points available from each judge in Round 3. And our final round—the dessert round where we’ll have only one man and one woman compete to see Who Wears the Apron—will be worth ten points from every judge.”
Ashley resisted the urge to cross her fingers. With a perfect score from the appetizers, she should have some leeway. But not everyone liked cabbage. And the other women had offered up amazing dishes.
Just to torture her—or so it seemed—Mr. Morton read the men’s scores first. Ashley tried to concentrate, tried to pay attention, but she honestly couldn’t focus on anyone other than Josh. His barbecue plate obviously impressed all the judges—he received a total of fifty-eight points, the highest among any of the men. Combined with his high first round score, he had eighty-six points. He was the man proceeding to the final round.
Everyone applauded politely when Josh’s victory was announced. Ashley felt like her smile was stretched, fake, and she was grateful when they cut to yet another commercial break, even though all the other female contestants groaned at the continued suspense. She was spared the need to say anything innocuous to Josh by the clutch of men who gathered around to shake his hand, to wish him luck in the final round of competition.
Then they were back on camera. Lamb Roast received an eye-popping fifty-six points. Chicken Pot Pie got forty-two; she burst into tears, exclaiming, “It’s not my fault if some people don’t like tarragon!” Pork Tenderloin landed fifty points, and the judges gave fifty-three to Boeuf Bourguignon.
Ashley couldn’t remember the second round scores of any of her competitors; she didn’t know what she needed to win.
Mr. Morton held the final slip of paper, the last tally from the judges. He stretched out the moment in front of the cameras, reminding the audience that Ashley had a perfect score on her appetizer. “And today,” he said, “with a total of sixty points possible to pick up, Ashley Harris has…”
She thought she was going to faint, the buzzing in her ears was so loud.
“… fifty-two points. Congratulations, Ashley! That gives you eighty-two points, and you move on to Round 4 of Who Wears the Apron!”
She barely heard the applause. She imagined what it would feel like to throw her arms around Josh, to kiss him, to celebrate their mutual victory, at least as much as propriety and daytime TV allowed. But she couldn’t do that. She couldn’t even look at him. No one could know where she’d spent the weekend. Just the thought of making their relationship public made her feel nauseated.
She was still trying to think of something to say, some appropriate way of reacting, when Bill Morton raced ahead. “But wait!” he called over the rising hum of the studio audience. “We have one more thing left to share with you this morning, one special surprise to finish off this round of Who Wears the Apron.” The announcer lowered his voice, inviting everyone to join him in barely suppressed excitement.
Ashley’s stomach tightened. She didn’t like surprises. Especially not on camera. Especially not when her entire future hung in the balance.
She glanced at Josh, but he seemed to be taking the announcement in stride. He was grinning at Mr. Morton, looking like there was nothing he’d rather do than wait to hear what exciting new challenge Wake Up Wake County had dreamed up for them.
Mr. Morton’s eyes twinkled as he said, “Our contestants learned their skills in a variety of places. And as we contemplated the best way to make today’s segment as fulfilling for them as it has been for us, we realized we could rely on those mentors. We’ve had ten people waiting backstage, but we only have time to bring you the mentor for our highest-scoring contestant, for our star, Josh Cantor. Ladies and gentlemen, please give a warm welcome to Ms. Marjorie Cantor, the woman who taught Josh everything he knows about cooking. Now Marjorie, as Josh’s grandmother, you’ve known him from the day he was born, haven’t you?”
~~~
For one moment Josh thought everything would be all right. He saw Angel blink under the studio lights as the cameras swung toward her. She wore a cardigan buttoned up over a blouse, and someone—Janice, no doubt—had dressed her in a knit skirt, in conservative shoes so she wouldn’t trip. He hurried to her side and brushed a kiss against her cheek as he helped her to a chair in the middle of the crowded set.
She patted his hand as she settled, as if she wanted to comfort him. But she immediately started rocking back and forth. It wasn’t much, little more than a tremor, but he realized Angel was nervous. The trip to the studio and the excitement of being on TV were more than she could handle. He shifted from foot to foot, glancing into the wings to see if Janice was waiting, if she could help cut short this potential disaster.
Bill Morton sat near Angel on the couch, his broad smile doing its best to make her comfortable. “Mrs. Cantor, I’m sure our audience is dying to know. What’s the first thing you ever taught Josh how
to cook?”
“Josh?” she asked, like she’d never heard his name before in her life.
“Your grandson,” Bill prompted.
Josh had to do something; he had to ease her confusion. So he took a step forward and tried to ignore the bright red light that ignited on top of one of the cameras. “Come on, Angel. Tell everyone about the butterscotch cake I made for your birthday.”
“That’s right,” she said, and he was relieved to see her gaze sharpen a little. She stopped rocking, and she leaned closer to Morton. “Josh baked me a cake, and it was a disaster!” The studio audience laughed, and Josh let himself relax. She was focused again. Her memory had kicked in. With any luck, the viewers would think she was just a bit hard of hearing, dazed by the studio lights and the excitement of being on the air.
“But something obviously changed between then and now,” Morton said. “When did Josh become as expert in the kitchen as he is on third base?”
A smile blossomed on Angel’s face—she clearly knew the answer to that question; she was eager to share her response. Sure enough, she reached into the handbag that hung over her forearm, and she pulled out a handful of papers.
No. Not papers. Photographs.
The world stopped. It was like a baseball game, like the timeless moment when a runner was digging for three, when Josh was watching the center fielder scoop up a well-hit ball, set his weight on his back foot, and hurl the ball toward third base. On the field, Josh could see everything with perfect clarity, the runner barreling in, the ball streaking toward him, the opposing team’s third base coach sweeping his arms up and down in the timeless signal to slide. In the game, Josh could execute his role flawlessly. He could pluck the ball out of mid-air, step on the bag or tag the player, whatever it took to get the out and keep his team in the running.