The World's Greatest Chocolate-Covered Pork Chops

by Ryan K. Sager

  Cannoli’s nostrils flickered. “Still burning.”

  Zoey said, “Mind if I grab a chair from the back? This might take a while.”

  Cannoli coughed and wheezed like he’d swallowed a flaming porcupine. Panzanella hurried back to the kitchen in search of something colder than ice water. An Arctic spring, maybe.

  “Forty years…” Cannoli pounded his fists on the table, a rope of saliva dangling from his puffy lower lip. “…I work like the slave…but Pao…and you…is my turn…is my turn for win…”

  A cameraman unpacked his camera and hoisted it on his shoulder. A reporter with wavy red hair and glue-on eyelashes stepped in front of the lens and raised a microphone to her chin. “We’re live in La Cucina di Cannoli, where Cannoli appears to be having a heart attack. Will he live? Will he die? Will someone other than myself come to his rescue? Stay tuned as Channel Three brings you this breaking story.”

  The other newspeople scrambled to unpack their gear, eager for their own pieces of the breaking news action.

  Cannoli’s face was redder than a garden beet. He clutched the sides of the table, arms trembling. “Buffone! No is the heart attack. Is the peppers.”

  “And not just any peppers.” Zoey spun on her heel to face the cameramen, all of whom had their cameras on their shoulders, tapes rolling. She held her arms out wide like a ringmaster welcoming an audience to a circus. “They’re Trinidad moruga scorpions, the hottest peppers in the world. Cannoli here just ate five. You’d be surprised how small they get in purée form.”

  Panzanella came to the table with a glass of ice milk. Cannoli gulped it. Milk spilled down the sides of his chin, onto his white jacket. (If you’re gonna spill something on a white jacket, may as well be milk, right?)

  Zoey continued her address to the reporters. “Cannoli here thinks if he drinks enough cold stuff the burning will go away. He’s wrong. He could lick the frost off Santa’s sleigh; it wouldn’t help. Only one thing will stop the heat. I’ll tell you all what it is, but first…” Zoey winked at Cannoli. “…let’s take a stroll down memory lane, shall we?”

  Panzanella took the glass of milky ice cubes and stepped back, unsure of what to do next. “Maybe we should call an ambulance.”

  A few reporters nodded like that was a good idea, but no one did anything.

  “Let’s see here.” Zoey paced back and forth, hands clasped behind her back, like a lawyer in a courtroom. “Mr. Cannoli, when I informed you of my plan to open a restaurant, you discouraged me. You said running a restaurant is all work and no cooking: taxes, audits, employees, injuries, lawsuits, Code Browns, et cetera, et cetera. When that didn’t work, you came to my house—uninvited, mind you…”

  A reporter gasped.

  “You said you had no idea who the third Golden Toque candidate was. ‘It’s between two Indian chefs,’ you said. ‘Close your restaurant for a night,’ you said. ‘Come work for me. Here’s a check for an unholy amount of money! Help an old man, please, for the love of all that is sacred!’ You knew Golden Gate Mag had its eye on me, didn’t you?”

  Cannoli’s lips formed an O. He sucked air like a high-powered vacuum cleaner. The fresh air, cold in comparison to the goings-on in his mouth, may have provided some relief, but it wouldn’t be enough.

  “Two days ago…” Zoey lengthened her lawyerly strides to make full use of the space between Cannoli and the press. “…someone snuck into my restaurant—that’s trespassing, by the way—and contaminated my ingredients with cockroaches, centipedes, and tarantulas. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

  A reporter tapped a cameraman on the shoulder. “You’re getting this, right?”

  “Oh, I’m getting it,” the cameraman said.

  “But you didn’t stop there!” Zoey said. “That same night, at three in the morning, you sent one of your goons to tamper again with my trolleys.” Zoey shot an accusing glance at Panzanella. “Isn’t that right, Ponytail?”

  Panzanella shrieked. “He made me do it! He bribed me! And blackmailed me! I’m too pretty to go to jail!” Bawling, she fled to the kitchen.

  Tears skidded down Cannoli’s purple cheeks. He wrapped his fists around his ears. “My ears! I can’t feel my ears!”

  “Your eyeballs are next.” Zoey gestured to the cameramen and reporters. “Tell the fine folks of this jury what you’ve done, and I’ll tell you how to stop the burning.”

  Snarling like a gassy pig, Cannoli pointed a quavering finger at Zoey. “Ragazza male, fuori dal mio ristorante!”

  Zoey winked at the cameras. “I don’t know what Cannoli just said, but I bet it wasn’t ‘More peppers, please!’”

  The reporters and cameramen sniggered.

  Resuming her lawyerly back-and-forth strides, Zoey spoke in a loud, clear, and dramatic voice so the news crews’ microphones would capture her every syllable: “Last night, someone tampered with my restaurant’s brakes, causing a multi-block traffic accident that nearly killed dozens, maybe hundreds, of innocent people. Tell us, Cannoli (if that is your real name), why you did it. Reveal your dastardly shenanigans to the world.”

  Cannoli collapsed to his knees, clutching the sides of his head like his brain wanted to burst out of his skull. “It burns!”

  The cameramen moved closer. Not to help, but to get better shots.

  Zoey got in front of Cannoli. She leaned forward, her hands on her thighs, her face close to his. “This ain’t complicated, bambino. You confess. I make the burning stop. The truth will set you free.”

  Cannoli’s sweaty face contorted like bread dough in a KitchenAid Pro. His chest heaved. “The Golden Toque is mio.”

  Zoey tsk-tsked. “So stubborn.” She turned and made for the front doors. The newspeople stepped aside, clearing a lane for her.

  “But…” Cannoli reached out with both hands. “You cannot to leave.”

  “I know a lost cause when I see one,” Zoey said, each step taking her closer to the exit.

  She was bluffing, of course. She would never leave him like this. He might die or explode or both. She wasn’t like him. She wasn’t willing to kill to win, even if she was in the right.

  Come on, Cannoli. Fess up.

  She shoved open the front doors. The sounds of the city—car motors, hydraulic brakes, horns, sirens, seagulls, the bellow of a distant steamboat—quadrupled in volume. Stopping in the doorway, she turned, glared at her rival. “Last chance, Cannoli. Once I leave, I’m never coming back.”

  “You…” Cannoli wheezed, his shoulders heaving. “…are young and new. People…” He coughed, then gagged on the cough. “…like things new. In forty years, no one wi—” Wheezing. “…no one will have the care about you.” Gasping. “No one is to remember your name.”

  “Suit yourself,” Zoey said. The final bluff. Once outside, she’d be out of moves.

  She turned 180 degrees.

  She raised her right foot.

  Her sweaty toes wriggled inside her boots.

  She waited for Cannoli to break. Say something. Call me back in. Please.

  Not a peep.

  She glanced back to make sure Cannoli hadn’t died. He hadn’t. He was on his knees still. Watching.

  Zoey stepped outside.

  The doors closed behind her.

  Epic fail.

  Now what? Jail, of course. But after that? What am I supposed to do with the rest of my life? On the verge of tears, she considered her options:

  Join the circus.

  Move to a trailer park and adopt cats.

  Join Knuckles’s biker gang.

  Move to Tibet, join the monks.

  Embrace mediocrity. Live in obscurity. Never dream, never strive, never create. Work at TGI Friday’s for forty years. Retire. Become “that weird old lady” who does her laundry in the bathroom sinks at the public library….

  “IOOOOOOOOOO CONFESSOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

  The cry came from inside the restaurant.

  Thank goodness.

  Zoey dashed bac
k into the restaurant. The old restaurateur was on his knees, sobbing like a baby, clothes drenched in sweat.

  “Talk,” Zoey said.

  Cannoli hung his head. “Io confesso. Everything Zoey said is truth. The bugs, the brakes, all of it. I did the sabotage to Zoeylicious. And New Shanghai. It was me.”

  A reporter stepped in front of the cameras. “Breaking news: Chef Cannoli’s shocking admission that he, not Chef Zoey, is responsible for last night’s vehicular rampage…”

  Justice.

  Zoey reached into her skirt pocket and took out a silver packet of Kraft Mayo.

  Zoey sat on a chaise lounge on her back patio, watching the sun set in the fog. For the first time in months, she wasn’t dressed in chef attire. She had on a black hoodie and black jeans. Bare feet. It felt good to wear normal clothes. Relaxing. Liberating. Part of her wanted to never wear a toque and chef jacket ever again. The other part of her—the honest part—knew it was only a matter of time. You can take the chef out of the kitchen, but you can’t take the kitchen out of the chef.

  Gershwin walked out of the house holding two golden-brown milk shakes in Mason jars, with bendy straws. He sat down on the chair next to Zoey, handing her one of the milk shakes. In silence, they sipped and pondered and watched the boats and ferries dock at Fisherman’s Wharf and Pier 33. Seagulls squawked. Engines vroomed. Somewhere on Jefferson Street, a blues band played T-Bone Walker’s “Stormy Monday.”

  “Penny for your thoughts?” Gershwin said.

  Zoey didn’t feel like talking. Except she did feel like talking; she just had so many thoughts and feelings knocking around in her head she didn’t know where to start. Except she did know where to start. She felt like…like…

  “I’m just so sick of everything.”

  “Who are you and what have you done with Zoey Kate?”

  “Not the cooking. I love the cooking. And I love sharing my food with other people. But everything else.” She licked a glob of milk shake off the rim off her jar. “Royston Basil Boarhead posted a ten-page article online, chronicling his harrowing escape from ‘Reaperlicious: Chef Zoey’s Trolleys of Death.’ He didn’t even mention Cannoli. He knows it wasn’t my fault. He knows I was sabotaged. He posted the article anyway. Oh, and get this: he called my Chocolate-Covered Pork Chops ‘underwhelming.’ One minute I’m Mozart, and the next I’m underwhelming. Can you believe it?”

  “I can.”

  “Why aren’t you as mad as me?”

  Gershwin sipped his milk shake, his brow creased like he was deep in thought, giving careful consideration to what he’d say next. “This Boarhead guy, you place a lot of value on his opinion of you. Why?”

  “He’s an acclaimed food journalist.”

  “An acclaimed chef too, no doubt.”

  “Well, no.” Zoey felt like she was back in New Shanghai, explaining the Golden Toque to Dallin. “Most food critics aren’t chefs.”

  Gershwin smirked. “It’s a funny little world we live in it, isn’t it? Our film critics aren’t filmmakers. Our book critics aren’t authors. Our music critics aren’t musicians. Our food critics aren’t chefs. And yet we all put so much stock in what they say about us.”

  Gershwin had a point. Had Thomas Keller or David Chang or April Bloomfield called her pork chops underwhelming, that would be one thing. But Royston Basil Boarhead? What had he ever done besides write about what other people had done? Also, his mustache was stupid.

  Gershwin added, “No matter what you do in life, no matter how much beauty and good you bring to mankind, there will always be someone there to criticize you. But time is on the side of excellence. History remembers the great ones: Bach, Shakespeare, da Vinci, Franklin, Chapman, Ellington, Einstein, Disney; but no one remembers their critics. Why? Because their opinions don’t matter, and things that don’t matter don’t last.”

  “I wish I had a trillion dollars,” Zoey said. “I’d buy a ginormous airplane and fly around the world and cook for every single person on earth. I wouldn’t even charge money. I just wanna see people enjoy my work, you know?”

  Gershwin raised his jar in a toast. “To the artist’s plight.”

  Zoey clanked her jar against his. “To the artist’s plight.”

  She drank.

  Such a delicious milk shake.

  Zoey bounded out of her house, rocking an oversize T-shirt with Dallin’s face on the front and back. A megaphone and sparklers jutted out of her purse. She carried a box of homemade macarons shaped like footballs. Zoey was ready for some football.

  As she traipsed down her driveway, she kept her head down because, one, her red leggings and glitter-gold Doc Martens boots looked like Peanut Butter Twix wrappers, and that was awesome, and two, she wanted to avoid eye contact with the three reporters waiting on the sidewalk.

  The time was 6:45 p.m., fifteen minutes until kickoff. The reporters—two women (one blonde, one brunette) and one man (Tall, Dark & Handsome)—had been there since noon, waiting, watching, pining for an interview. Zoey didn’t know what news outlets they were from or how they had obtained her address.

  By law, they couldn’t step foot on the Kates’ property unless invited, but they could stand on the sidewalk (public property) for as long as they pleased. The reporters acted like they didn’t notice Zoey. Until she reached the sidewalk—then they sprang.

  The blonde reached Zoey first. She jostled a digital recorder in front of Zoey’s face. “Chef Cannoli claims he’s innocent, that you fabricated the charges against him. Your response?”

  Zoey was in no mood for interviews, but how could she not respond to that one? “Cannoli is guilty. We all saw his confession.”

  “Cannoli insists his confession was coerced,” the blonde pressed, “that he was under physical duress and afraid for his life. He called you a ‘delusional, sociopathic liar.’ Your comment?”

  “It’s good to hear his vocabulary improving. Excuse me.” Zoey sidestepped the blonde. “I’m late for an appointment.” (She thought “appointment” sounded more urgent than “my buddy’s football scrimmage.”)

  As Zoey marched up the sidewalk, the brunette walked alongside her like an excited puppy keeping pace with its master. “Chef Pao says he was cheated out of this year’s Golden Toque prize.”

  “I know the feeling,” Zoey said.

  “Last night on Twitter, Pao challenged you to a cook-off: winner gets the Golden Toque.”

  “So I heard.”

  “Do you accept his challenge?”

  “No.”

  “What are you afraid of?”

  “Listen, the only thing I care about is great cooking and delicious food. Anything else is noise.”

  “Chef Pao says—”

  “If another Golden Toque means that much to Chef Pao, he can have it.”

  The brunette fell back as Tall, Dark & Handsome caught up with Zoey. “You’re the talk of the town, Chef. Most of it ain’t pretty. We’re offering you the chance to set the record straight. Why won’t you take it?”

  “I promised my friend I’d go to his game.”

  “Oh. Who does he play for?”

  “The Marina Middle School Penguins.”

  Tall, Dark & Handsome made a you-gotta-be-kidding-me face. (If you’ve ever asked your parents to let you skip school because you had “the zombie flu,” you’ve seen it.)

  “Hold on, now. Think about what you’re saying. I write for the LA Times. Blondie back there, the Seattle Times. The brunette, the San Francisco Chronicle. Combined, we got two-million-plus readers. You’d pass that up for a small-potatoes, middle-school football game?”

  Nearing Hyde Street, Zoey heard a cable car humming up the hill: her ride.

  “I’ll have to catch you another time,” she said, “because I wouldn’t miss tonight’s game for the world.”

  The lights were on, the bleachers were packed, the marching band was playing “Louie Louie,” the cheerleaders were doing whatever it is they do, and Dallin was leading his team onto the fie
ld. Zoey lead the fans in a chant of “PEN-GUINS! PEN-GUINS!” as she distributed sparklers and specialty macarons among them.

  Dallin played a great game. In the first quarter, he got two quarterback sacks. In the second quarter, he blocked a field goal attempt. In the third quarter, he tackled the other team’s water boy. In the fourth quarter, he intercepted a pass and ran the ball for a touchdown.

  The fans cheered for Dallin, but no one cheered louder than Zoey. (The megaphone, remember?)

  When the game was over, Zoey whizzed onto the field. Weaving through a fray of helmets, shoulder pads, and unholy smells, she made her way to Dallin. His helmet was off, his face sweaty, his uniform smeared in grass and mud. Were they not such good friends, Zoey might’ve thought he looked rugged and handsome.

  Dallin raised his hands for a high ten.

  “I don’t think so,” Zoey said, flinging herself at her best friend, wrapping her skinny arms around his thick neck. “I’ve been a self-centered snot burger and I’m sorry I skipped your scrimmage. Will you ever forgive me?”

  “You’re choking me,” Dallin said.

  Zoey squeezed harder. “Please forgive me.”

  “I can’t breathe.”

  “I’m not letting go until you forgive me.”

  Dallin patted Zoey’s back. “Hey, you came tonight. That counts.”

  “So we’re cool?”

  “We’re cool.”

  Zoey released Dallin, but only for a little bit because as they trotted off the field, side by side, she wrapped her arm around his arm.

  “Are you gonna fix up the trolleys?”

  Zoey brushed a clump of grass off Dallin’s cheek. “Nope. I got bigger plans now.”

  “Bigger than three trolleys and a jazz band?”

  “Way bigger.”

  “So what are they?”

  “You’ll have to wait for the sequel. But enough about restaurants. Let’s talk about your game. Number seven on the other team, what was his problem?”

  “I know, right? After every tackle he’d tug on my leg hair. So annoying.”

  “Everyone was psyched when you hammered him. Even his parents applauded.”