Fire In the Kitchen

by Donna Allen

  She drew the line, however, when they started discussing spraying auburn highlights into her hair. Cassidy did not want to look even remotely like Valerie.

  Dante approached and took a cursory glance at her made-up appearance. He pursed his lips. Miffed, the male makeup artist asked him what seemed to be the problem.

  “She’s too beautiful for tacky red lipstick. You need to be more subtle.” He pointed to a bronze color on the palette. “How about that one?”

  “Thank you,” Cassidy mouthed at Dante as the others became intent on finding another shade.

  “You’re welcome,” he mouthed back, and watched as the change of lip color was made.

  Cassidy looked at herself in a handheld mirror and smiled.

  “Better,” Dante agreed and held out his hand to help her down from the high-legged chair she’d been sitting on. “Come and check out the new sets.”

  Cassidy grinned as she saw two side-by-side benches. One was stainless steel and spotless enough to eat off. It was adorned with a piece of modern art in the form of a delicious antipasto platter copied from Dante’s original competition dish, and a glass of champagne.

  The other bench was made of rustic wood and it had deep creases in it, made by knives cutting directly onto it. It was splattered with flour, broken eggshells, milk, and a bottle of not-so-discreetly-placed branded maple syrup.

  Wordlessly, Dante stood behind the messy bench and Cassidy behind the tidy one. Cassidy looked around the room as if it were the most natural place she should be and then put on her apron and straightened it. She was careful not to look at Dante because she knew the laughter would ruin her makeup.

  “Very funny, guys. Swap places.” Eric obviously didn’t have their sense of humor. “Time is money, people, move it.”

  Without further ado, they traded places, trailed by the hair and makeup teams and the lighting technicians, all holding things up against their faces.

  “Right, Cassidy.” The person behind the camera walked up to her. “I want you to pick up the maple syrup and hold it so the label is facing outward for the camera. But don’t make it too obvious, we want it to be a subliminal cue for our viewers. Got it?”

  Cassidy held up the syrup. “How’s this?”

  “Lower,” he responded. “Lower…bit higher. Got it. Now, move your chin down a bit. Shoulders back. You got it. Thanks.”

  They encouraged her to smile and be herself, suggesting she might even cook up a batch of pancakes because the ingredients were all there. They started filming. I could get used to this, Cassidy thought as she got into the spirit and flipped a pancake high in the air. I’m a new brand of show-off. She wasn’t sure about the brand of dessert syrup because of the artificial flavors, but she decided it was a small price to pay for finishing the competition.

  Her time in the spotlight was over quickly, but her cooking energy had been reignited. She sat on a nearby chair to watch the rest of the commercial being filmed, and accepted a glass of wine as her reward for getting through it relatively unscathed, at least in the producers’ eyes. She took a sip and wished she could have a morsel from the antipasto plate in front of Dante.

  During Dante’s shoot, his fiery temper returned in full force. Things had been going quite smoothly until they’d asked him to hold up the packet of processed supermarket ham for the cameras.

  “That is not what I used for the platter.” He picked up a cold piece of the meat and wagged it in the air as if it were a dead mouse. Cassidy stifled a giggle she knew would be unwelcome. “Look at it,” he continued. “It’s processed rubbish from who knows where. I wouldn’t feed it to a stray dog.”

  “That’s not the point, Dante, and you know it. Stop trying to play us.” Eric sounded even angrier than Dante. “Can’t you just pretend to like it so we can move on? You know we’re going to show this brand of ham on the commercials whether you like it or not. Just get over yourself.”

  Cassidy knew his answer wasn’t going to be pretty.

  “Put my name to this and I’m out, you rude son of a bitch. I’ve told you how I feel about this. We had a deal.”

  “It’s only one more episode,” Eric spat back. “Your threats can’t penetrate these walls the way they did at your own place when you treated your staff like puppets. Yes, we’ve heard all about your dictatorship.”

  Cassidy could have played a tune in time with the nerve pumping up and down in Dante’s neck. She got up and walked over to him with a placating palm toward the producer. She pushed Dante’s short dark hair behind his ear.

  “Don’t let them win by making you angry,” she whispered into it. “Just let them put the ham on the end of the bench and grin and bear it. How can I say I beat the maestro Dante tomorrow in our final challenge if you’re not there? Can’t we make it all about me?”

  She smiled at him, and he bent down until their foreheads touched. In that moment, no one else existed.

  “Just breathe,” she continued in a low voice. “You’re almost there. Compromise, humor them a bit. I have to leave you so I can practice for tomorrow’s final, it’s getting late. So suck it up, Dante. We’ve come this far, please don’t leave now. Not like this. Okay?”

  “A-O-K.” He made a small circle with his thumb and index finger.

  “People always say ‘A-O-K’,” Cassidy replied. “Have you ever heard anyone say ‘B-O-K’? Because I truly want you to be okay.”

  “Thanks, Cassidy.” He kissed her on the cheek and she knew that was her signal to leave him alone to cook. She picked up the ham and put it on the far edge of the cooking bench and winked at him. The producer put his hands in the air and pointed his index finger at the cameraman to continue.

  Cassidy knew they needed these ads to be good, and the sooner they finished them, the sooner they could show them during prime time. If she heard ‘it’s all about the ratings’ one more time, she thought she might scream.

  She left them to it as she made her way to the commercial kitchen. Tomorrow they could cook whatever they liked, but she had no idea how much time would be allocated to them. Therefore, she needed to have a few more dishes in her repertoire. She had to use the time they gave her wisely. They would mark her down if she chose a recipe that had too much of a steady pace without any time pressures, and likewise if she chose a dish too challenging within the time allotted and she couldn’t finish it.

  When Cassidy arrived in the main kitchen, she looked around it with a sense of accomplishment. She’d made it to the final challenge. She’d cooked against award-winning chefs and come out as one of the top two. It was a privilege for her to have made it this far alongside a man with extraordinary talents, a man she adored. She was going to do him proud with her newfound independence, and perhaps just a small leap of faith. Cassidy decided on an entrée, main course, and dessert, with all three dishes complementing each other, in case they had a couple of hours to cook an entire meal.

  She wasn’t worried too much about the dessert. She’d used the citrus pudding recipe her mother had found on the floor and given her, and she’d adapted it to make it more special. She was glad she’d brought the scrap of paper with her to the competition, otherwise it would have been lost in the fire.

  Satisfied she’d done enough, she turned off the kitchen lights and yawned as she made her way to bed.

  Cassidy looked at the three flights of stairs leading to her well-deserved night’s sleep. Her feet were killing her and her shoulders were stiff from leaning over the bench. If she were handed a pillow, she’d be happy to fall asleep right where she was.

  Her mind was full of the order of food she had to prepare the next day without the aid of notes…Dante…the knives she had to sharpen…Dante…sleeping through the night without being excited about the next day…and Dante, Dante, Dante. Once she’d made the decision she could trust him again, the rest had been easy.

  Exhausted, she looked up at the numerous steps again. What if she bit the bullet and just raced up them? Her mind was willing, but he
r body resisted. She was going to have to give in to it, she thought, as she grasped the handrail and made her way up, one long weary step at a time.

  As she reached the top, she heard footsteps clacking on the hard, wooden floors. They were approaching fast and they could belong to only one person: her best friend…not. Did she have time to race back down the stairs to get away from her? Maybe, but the thought of climbing the stairs again was too painful to consider.

  Valerie rounded the corner and they came face to face.

  “Cassidy, daaarling, so good to have you back.”

  This woman is everywhere I don’t want her to be.

  “Hi, Valerie. How are you?”

  “I’m wonderful, thank you. How did the commercial go?”

  “Good, thanks.” Cassidy’s smile was forced and she wondered how much polite chit-chat was necessary before she could excuse herself and get as far away from Valerie as possible.

  “Dante give the producers a hard time over the sponsors?” Valerie said with too much familiarity in her tone.

  Hands off, lady.

  “Yes, he did, I’m afraid.” Cassidy sighed.

  “Oh well, he won’t have to worry about that after tomorrow,” Valerie said. She formed a small ‘o’ with her mouth and put her hand over it, as if she had divulged too much information.

  “He will if he wins,” Cassidy responded. “He’ll have to promote more products than ever. The promoters will be scrambling to get him to cook with their products, but he probably has a few plans up his sleeve to ensure he doesn’t have to endorse them directly.”

  Oversharing. Way to go, Cass.

  “Cassidy, Cassidy.” Valerie let the pins out of her hair and shook it so it fell over her shoulders. She looked sexy, and Cassidy could see what Dante had been attracted to. “If you’re intimate with a man, you need to know what makes him tick.”

  Sensibility took over. She knew Dante. She knew the way he felt when they were together, physically and emotionally.

  “I know his passion is the Slow Food movement. I know he encourages and cooks with fresh local produce. I know he’ll do everything he can to endorse that way of life, and he’s sacrificed a lot in his life to promote it.”

  “Yes, he’s even sacrificing winning against you tomorrow.” Valerie’s smile was insincere. “Did you know the only way you were going to be allowed to return to the competition was if Dante agreed to let you win?”

  “Oh no.” Cassidy felt a rush of emotion she struggled to define. When she guessed what it was, it hit her like an anchor, thrown from the sky.

  She loved him.

  She loved this gorgeous, highly strung man who was willing to give away a prime-time opportunity to share his cause so she could have her time in the spotlight. A massive sacrifice. She knew Dante could have found a way around the promoters if he’d really wanted to.

  “He did it for me,” she said to Valerie. “He knows I have nothing left but the show. But I can’t let him do that. I refuse to be a token finalist.”

  Valerie’s laugh tinkled like a piano incorrectly tuned.

  “Your naivety is refreshing,” she said. “He did it for himself. He’s always been about number one.”

  “You’re free to think whatever you like. I have to go to bed now,” Cassidy said as she tried to maneuver herself around the other woman without making physical contact. “I know Dante had to fight for them to allow me back, and I’m grateful to him.”

  Valerie patted Cassidy on the back.

  “He didn’t decide to lose the competition for you, sweetie. We’ve been given our own show if he bows out of this one gracefully.”

  “I don’t believe you.” Cassidy stepped away from her. “He would never do that to me. I trust him.”

  “Trust is overrated. You didn’t really think you were that good a cook, did you? How naïve. You will be what the producers say you will be—no more, no less.”

  Valerie turned her back on Cassidy and continued to walk the hallway in the other direction.

  “Why don’t you ask the love of your life if what I’ve said to you is true?” she said over her shoulder as she went. “I’d never lie to you. We sisters, as the minority, need to stick together.”

  Bitch. How on earth am I going to get a good night’s sleep now?

  Chapter 20

  As expected, sleep didn’t come. For a couple of hours, it fought Cassidy every step of the way to nowhere. She tried reading recipe books as they usually relaxed her, but after her clock hit two o’clock in the morning, her rational mind went into crisis talks with its new friend, Miss Stressed Out. The contents of her suitcase were splayed everywhere and she considered having a clean-up. Then she decided against it. She’d be throwing it all into her suitcase as soon as the grand finale was over tomorrow, or should she say later today? What on earth had made her think she was really a good cook?

  After everything they’d been through, she couldn’t believe Dante was going to throw the competition in her favor for a less-than-honorable reason.

  “That’s it,” Cassidy said to herself as she swung out of bed. She threw on an oversized T-shirt and flip-flops. She thought about putting on track pants, but reasoned there would be no one around at this unsociable hour, and she was too tired and too upset with Dante to want to stay in her tiny room for a minute longer than was necessary. It was tempting to go and confront him, but she knew her body would forgive him before her mind was ready to. As angry as she was, the sight of him answering his door with his shirt off would just make her want to devour him. Exhaling heavily, she went down the stairs instead of across the long hallway.

  She snapped on the light in the industrial kitchen. Looking at the spot where she believed a hidden camera would be, she waved at it, deciding her top was long enough to keep her modest. Her footsteps echoed on the tiled floor as she walked to an oven and set it to preheat. It was an odd sensation to be the only person in there, when it had been the hub of activity for the past few weeks.

  It was now down to the two of them, and Dante had decided to let her win. Not because he believed in her cooking talents, but because he had another show he would be prouder to present with Valerie. After all she’d been through with Dante…they’d helped each other through the tough times…they’d made love…now he was betraying her in the eleventh hour? It was hard to comprehend, and a large part of her wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt.

  There were a lot of things she could be doing to prepare herself for the grand finale, but her gritty eyes and scrambled brain weren’t going to help her prepare anything gastronomic.

  Suddenly, it was almost as if she could hear her father whispering in her ear.

  Bake some bread, Cassidy. It represents something simple, basic, and good you can make with love. It’s just a few ingredients, but if made right, it will bring you—and those you make it for—great joy.

  As she kneaded the dough and put it into a bowl to proof by the warm oven, Cassidy felt all of her troubles being released. She felt her eyelids starting to close as she waited for the dough to be ready for the next stage and decided fifteen minutes for it to rise would have to be long enough. She expertly formed it into a free-form loaf and tossed it into the oven. Now all she had to do was wait, she thought, as she closed the oven door. It was going to be so delicious with real butter and a good cup of coffee.

  She crouched against a wall and allowed herself to sink down to the floor into a firm ball.

  Just like my bread.

  Her eyes closed of their own accord. She felt as if she’d already climbed the three flights of stairs and crawled into her bed for some serious shut-eye.

  She heard an insistent beeping and reached out to turn off her alarm clock. But it wasn’t there. Confused, she heard Dante’s voice in the background, cursing. A loud bang of the oven door followed and her nostrils filled with the smell of smoke.

  “Who left the burnt offering in the oven?” he growled, throwing it in the sink with a clunk.
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  “Go back to bed, Dante,” Cassidy moaned as she rubbed her eyes. “Save your Superman Chef comments for the battle tomorrow. Of course, you never would have let anything burn in your kitchen, would you?”

  “Cassidy? Where are you?”

  She heard his footsteps as he made his way toward her and found her crouched in a corner hidden by the bench tops.

  “What are you doing? I came to see you in your room earlier so we could spend our last night in this place together, but you weren’t there. I meant to find you again later, but I fell asleep. Now I find you here?”

  “Maybe I just didn’t want to answer the door for you.” Cassidy felt the sarcasm coming out of her mouth as if there was a freight train pushing it out. She hated speaking like that to anyone, but couldn’t stop it. He’d hurt her so much and she wasn’t going to leave things unsaid before the big finale. “What makes you think I would have let you in?”

  “Er…I’m not sure where this conversation’s heading. Are you okay?” He sounded concerned as he reached for a tray and flapped it in the air to blow away the smoke and stop the annoying warning sound of the smoke detectors. “You’d have thought with the show’s huge budget they’d have connected these darned things to the fire department. What if I hadn’t come down to find you when I did?”

  “Fire in kitchen number three I suppose, if you count my first day here and the one that burned the café down. Makes for better ratings—isn’t that the normal catch cry?” Cassidy replied through clenched teeth. She stumbled to stand as Dante put out his hand to help her up. She tried to push him away. “I don’t need your help and I don’t want it.”

  He pulled her up anyway. “I don’t understand. Why are you being like this?”

  Ignoring him, she took a few steps to the sink and moaned as she saw what had happened to her item made with love. She grabbed a tea towel, picked up the hot loaf, and threw it into the bin. Charred bits flaked onto the floor, but she left them there.