“Last season’s leftovers,” Scott had said of her bargain duds. “That’s fine for your personal life. But on air, you’ve got to look up-to-the-minute. Your viewers want to aspire to the kind of life they assume you’re leading.”
“Anyway,” he’d added, “you don’t have to pay a dime for the clothes. The folks at ZuZu’s are giving them to you—in return for a wardrobe credit at the end of the show.”
Gina grimaced again as she crammed a faded blue Atlanta Braves ball cap onto her head. She didn’t mind cooking with products and equipment donated by sponsors. But wearing freebie clothes…She shuddered a little. It seemed somehow creepy.
Today was not the day to think about this, she decided. She had too much to do.
It was only 6:00 A.M., and she had to get down to the farmers market south of the city to buy the fresh produce and the turkey for the taping, then fight Monday-morning traffic on I-75 to get back to the studio to start prepping.
By the time she’d backed the Honda out of her parking spot, her T-shirt was already sweat-soaked. “Ugh,” she said aloud. “Thanksgiving in July.”
With an eighteen-wheeler overturned just below the exit to the stadium, and the resulting snarl of fire trucks, ambulances, police cars, and gawkers, it took her an hour to get to the State Farmers Market in Forest Park.
She drove directly to Boyette’s produce stand. The Boyettes were her favorite produce dealers. Richard had traded in a successful career as a medical malpractice attorney for the life of a gentleman farmer, while Rachel, his daughter, was a talented artist whose vivid oil paintings of eggplants and sunflowers and rustic farm landscapes were interspersed among the bushel baskets of Silver Queen corn and purple-hulled peas.
Rachel, who she guessed was in her early twenties, was using a dolly to move cardboard boxes of tomatoes toward the stand. She stood up and waved tentatively when she saw Gina’s familiar car pull up to the loading dock.
“Gina?” she said, squinting. “Is that you?”
Gina lifted the dark sunglasses. “Hey, Rachel. Yup, it’s me. I’m kinda incognito today.”
“Guess so,” Rachel agreed. “Whatcha need?”
Gina pulled her list from her backpack.
“Everything. We’re shooting Thanksgiving today. So, squash, of course, yellow, acorn, pattypan if you’ve got ’em. Green beans. Sweet potatoes. I need peppers. The prettiest red, yellow, and green you’ve got, for the beauty shots. Oh, yeah. And pumpkins, of course.”
“Pumpkins?” Rachel laughed and shook her head. “You’re kidding, right?”
Gina lowered her sunglasses to let Rachel see just how serious she was. “I never kid about pumpkins. We need three or four for the beauty shots, and then, let’s see, maybe three of the small Sugar Baby ones to cut up for the actual pies.”
“Gina, you’re from South Georgia, right?”
“Odum,” Gina agreed. “Doesn’t get much more South Georgia than that.”
“They pick pumpkins in Odum in July?”
Gina shrugged. “I guess. My daddy didn’t really farm. Mama keeps a garden. Mostly tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and okra. Oh, yeah, and butterbeans.”
Rachel giggled. “Gina, you don’t harvest pumpkins in July. Daddy’s growin’ ’em, but they won’t be ready till at least the end of September.”
Gina felt a trickle of perspiration roll down her neck. She looked up and down the rows of growers’ booths in the darkened shed. “What about these other guys? I mean, I hate to give the business to anybody else, but I’ve really gotta have those pumpkins. They don’t even have to be organic.”
“Feel free to ask,” Rachel said. “Maybe somebody’s growing a variety we don’t know about. In the meantime, you want me to box up the rest of the stuff on your list?”
“That’d be great,” Gina said, handing over the sheet of paper. “I’m really running behind schedule. And I still have to find a couple fresh turkeys.”
“In July? Good luck.”
For the next thirty minutes, Gina cruised the huge covered sheds in the car, trolling for the elusive summertime pumpkin. Most of the farmers and wholesalers laughed or shook their heads when she inquired about the availability of pumpkins.
Thirty minutes later, she was back at Boyette’s.
“Any luck?” Rachel called, as Gina pulled the car alongside the booth.
“Nothin’,” Gina said, wearily opening the trunk of the Honda. “I’m screwed.”
“Maybe not,” Rachel said, starting to load the cartons of produce in the trunk. She crooked a finger at Gina. “Come on inside the office.”
Boyette’s office was nothing more than a wooden lean-to, with an oscillating fan tacked to a wall, and a couple of sawhorses and a slab of plywood filling in as a desk. Rachel’s easel took up one corner of the room.
But there, sitting square on the desktop, was one smallish but otherwise perfect cantaloupe-size pumpkin.
“Rachel!” Gina gasped, throwing her arms around the younger woman’s neck. “How on earth?”
“It was Daddy’s idea,” Rachel said. “I was telling him about the fix you’re in. He had to run home to pick up some more corn, and while he was there, he found that bad boy in the pumpkin patch. The only one with any real size on it at all.”
Gina started to pick the pumpkin up.
“Hey!” Rachel said. “Give it a minute. The paint’s still wet.”
“Paint?”
“Yup,” Rachel said. “We were assuming you didn’t want a dark green pumpkin. That’s what color they are right now, you know. Small, hard, and green. They don’t start to yellow up until they get some more size on ’em in the fall. I took some of my acrylics and just kinda painted ’er up.”
Gina bent over and examined the pumpkin closer. The body was a rich orange, with subtle shadings of red, yellow, and deep green.
“It’s a masterpiece,” she said. “I only wish I had half a dozen of them.”
“Sorry,” Rachel said. “Daddy looked all over. He said the rest of them were mostly softball-shaped, so he didn’t even bother to pick any.”
Gina sighed. “This will just have to do. I can use it for the counter beauty shots, interspersed with the rest of the produce and the finished pie. I guess, just this once, I’ll use canned pumpkin for the actual pie.” She winced as she said it.
“It’s television, right?” Rachel said. “Nobody at home is gonna know it’s canned pumpkin. Heck, my mother always uses the canned stuff. And we grow the real thing.”
Gina had heard this a hundred times before, mostly from Scott or the other members of the crew, and always, before, she’d stubbornly insisted on standing by her principles. Today, however, she’d just have to compromise.
She wrote out the check and thanked Rachel effusively. “No problem. It was fun,” Rachel said. She carefully placed the painted pumpkin in a cardboard beer box, which they then placed in the trunk with the rest of the produce. “As hot as it is, it should be dry by the time you get to the studio,” Rachel promised.
With a wave and a grateful hug, Gina drove off, already ticking off the rest of the items on her grocery list. The turkeys were the biggest thing. She was running too late even to attempt to find the fresh ones she’d hoped for. Frozen would have to do, just this once. Eggs, cream, fresh greens, and citrus to garnish the turkey platter. She’d keep her fingers crossed that maybe she’d find some bags of cranberries in the freezer section. Pecans. Yes, she needed shelled and unshelled pecans for the pies. Oh, yes, she thought, making a rueful face. And canned pumpkin.
Chapter 20
Perspiration trickled between Gina’s breasts. Her damp hair was matted to her head, and she could feel a heat rash rising on the back of her neck. The Honda’s air-conditioning was usually fairly adequate. But this was not a usual day. The announcer on all-news WGST was predicting the temperature would rise to 102, and there was a brown alert for smog. Since leaving the farmers market she’d managed to inch her way toward the studio at an average
speed of twenty miles an hour.
When her cell phone rang, she bit her lip. She knew, without looking, who the caller would be.
“Gina? Where the hell are you?” Scott’s voice held a note of high-pitched panic. “The crew’s sitting around with their thumbs up their asses waiting on you. We should be taping right now.”
“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “I’ve been stuck in traffic. There was a problem with pumpkins that I won’t get into, and then I had to go to three different Krogers to find turkeys.”
“Just get here, okay?” Scott said, cutting her off. “How much longer?”
She glanced at her watch, then up again, at the endless line of stalled traffic on all sides of her.
“I honestly don’t know,” she said. “I can’t see anything in front of me. If traffic starts moving, I could be there in maybe ten minutes. Or not,” she added lamely.
“Hurry,” Scott urged. “I can’t even get the prep girls started until you get here with the pumpkins and the turkeys.”
She wanted to tell him that wasn’t her fault. She wanted to tell him somebody else should be responsible for doing the shopping and delivering the food to the set. Instead she bit her lip again. If she got The Cooking Channel slot…No. When she got the slot, there would be a designated prep person to do the grocery shopping. But until then…at least the frozen turkeys would be fully thawed by the time she got to the studio.
“I’m doing the best I can,” was what she said finally.
She clicked the phone off and turned up the volume on the radio. The WGST traffic reporter announced that the three-car pileup that was blocking all northbound lanes on I-75 was being cleared. She sighed with relief and started rummaging in her tote bag for a mirror. She dreaded seeing just how bad she must look.
Just then, the traffic miraculously began to move. She jammed the baseball cap back onto her head, and got the Honda up to speed again. Ten minutes later, she was zipping into the parking lot at the studio, backing into the space nearest the door.
It was after three. Scott would be beside himself. She gathered up the clothing for the day’s shoot, and raced for the door. Once inside, she ran to the makeup room.
“I’m here!” she told D’John, who was sitting in the makeup chair, reading a copy of Cosmopolitan magazine. “Just let me get the food unloaded and take a quick shower. Can you let Scott know I’m here?”
“Girl!” D’John said, taking in her melted appearance. “What have you been doin’ to yourself? You look like somethin’ got run over by a MARTA bus.”
“Don’t mess with me, D’John,” she said tersely. “I am not having a good day.”
“I can see that,” he muttered. He put the magazine down and began laying out the brushes and bottles and pots and potions for the task ahead of him. “Gonna take some work to get you looking right.”
There was no time for a snappy answer. In the hallway near the back door to the studio she found the purloined Winn-Dixie shopping cart they used to move props and food and pushed it through the double doors and into the parking lot.
A cherry red vintage pickup truck was wedged tightly into the space beside hers, its rear fender millimeters from the Honda’s. The truck’s owner stood behind it, glaring at her.
“Hi,” she said briefly.
“Hi,” said the stony-faced Tate Moody.
She raised an eyebrow. “Problem?”
“You’re taking up two spaces,” he informed her. “And this one is mine.”
He was, unfortunately, correct. In her haste, she’d parked the Honda at a crazy angle that did, indeed, mean that the rear of her car was protruding a good eight inches into the space next to hers.
“Sorry,” she said, brushing past him. “I’ll have to move it later. I’m in kind of a hurry right now.”
She popped the trunk of her car and began carefully transferring the supplies into the grocery cart. The cartons of produce from Boyette’s nearly filled the cart. She frowned. There was no time for two trips. She managed to wedge the soggy Kroger turkeys on top of the produce boxes, but she had to take all the canned goods out of the bags and fit them in and around the turkeys.
Tate Moody hadn’t moved. He watched as she balanced the beer box holding Rachel Boyette’s painted pumpkin precariously atop the pyramid of cans.
“That ain’t gonna work,” he said.
Before she could respond, two cans of pumpkin spilled out of the cart and rolled, slowly, under her car.
“Told you,” he said, not bothering to suppress his satisfaction.
“Dang,” she muttered. She flopped down to her knees, inching forward on her elbows to try to retrieve the cans.
“Nice ass,” Moody commented.
“Shut up, butthead,” she said, reaching for the first can, which was still rolling. Now another can spilled from the cart.
“Dang,” she repeated, watching it roll under Moody’s pickup. “How ’bout giving me a hand, here?”
She heard, rather than saw, his laconic applause.
“Butthead.”
He sighed dramatically and lunged for the errant can, catching the rear wheel of the grocery cart with the heel of his boat shoe.
Slowly, the cart began rolling away. He grabbed for its handles, but before he could stop it, the cart rammed the rear of a gleaming black Mercedes. From its spot atop the peak of groceries, the painted pumpkin bounced from the cart’s summit and rolled slowly across the asphalt into the path of an oncoming UPS delivery truck.
The loud grind of the truck’s brakes brought Gina crawling, quick-time, out from under the Honda, a can clutched in each hand.
“What happened?” she asked, looking wildly around.
Tate rolled the grocery cart away from the Mercedes, one protective hand atop the turkeys, in the direction of the UPS van. The driver was out now, staring down at the truck’s front tires.
“What the hell is that?” the driver demanded. “Was that a cat?”
“It was a pumpkin,” Tate said.
“My pumpkin?” Gina trotted across the burning asphalt. She looked from Tate to the driver to the pumpkin, or what was left of it. Orange pulp oozed out from under the van’s tires.
“My pumpkin,” she moaned.
“At least it wasn’t a cat,” the driver said, wiping his face with the tail of his brown shirt. “You can’t believe the paperwork when you hit somebody’s cat. Now, a coon, or a possum, you can keep on going, but a cat—”
“Hey!” Gina cried. “That was my pumpkin! The only pumpkin in Atlanta. I was going to make a pie with that pumpkin. It was the centerpiece of my show.”
“Sorry, ma’am,” the driver said. “I tried to stop. I wasn’t even going that fast. It just came out of nowhere.”
“Forget it,” Gina said dully. She snatched the cart away from Tate, sending another can soaring into the air. But she didn’t stop to pick it up. She marched back to the Honda and slammed the trunk down.
Tate scooped up the can and ran after her. “Hey, Reggie,” he called. “You dropped one.”
She ignored him, pausing only to open the studio doors wide enough to allow the cart to pass. Holding the doors with her hand, she gave the loaded cart an ineffective shove with her hip.
“Hang on,” Tate said, as he reached her side. He grabbed for the doors. “Lemme help with that.”
She froze in her tracks. “Just leave me alone,” she said, through clenched teeth.
The knees of her blue jeans were ripped and streaked. Her shirt was grimy, too, and her hair was sweat-soaked, Peter Pan short. She shot Tate a feral look. He took an involuntary step backward, and then stopped short.
“Wait a minute. Why the attitude? It’s not like I ran over your friggin’ pumpkin. I was only trying to help. Hell, if it hadn’t been for me, all your damn groceries would be out there on that pavement.”
She sighed and pushed a sweaty strand of hair off her forehead. “I’m sorry,” she said finally. “You’re right. I’m hot and frustrate
d, and I forgot my manners for a minute there.” She smiled prettily. “Thank you so much for saving my turkey. Now, could you please get the heck out of my way? I’ve got a show to tape.”
Chapter 21
Using long-handled tongs, Tate deftly transferred the cornmeal-coated fish fillets from the iron skillet onto a waiting blue-and-white-speckled enamelware platter that had already been layered with cross-cut slices of grilled lemons and fresh parsley. Ignoring the mosquito buzzing around his chin, he looked directly into the camera and grinned the smile Val called the money maker.
“And that, my friends,” he said, “is what we call a nice mess of fish.”
“Amen, brother,” Val called, from beneath the shade of a jaunty striped picnic umbrella. “That’s it, everybody. Take a water break.”
Tate slapped at the mosquito on his chin, noting the bloody smear on his palm with a sense of grim satisfaction. “Water break, my ass,” he called back, unbuttoning the flannel shirt as he walked toward her. “Gimme a Corona before I pass out.”
The camera, sound, and light men put down their equipment and loped over to the caterer’s table, where a jerry-rigged tarp provided the only other spot of shade on the set. Large plastic bins of ice held bottles of water, soda, and beer, and there were trays of peaches, grapes, and bananas. They all passed around bottles of water, and Tate rolled an icy bottle of water over his perspiration-drenched chest before uncapping a bottle of Corona and chugging it down.
“Slow down,” Val said, joining him under the tarp. “We’ve still got a lot of taping to do today, buddy boy.”
“I’m hydrating,” Tate said, but this time he uncapped a water bottle. “Whose idea was it to grill out in this shit?” he asked, looking around at the pale blue, cloudless sky. “It must be a hundred degrees out here.”
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