by Kim Barnouin
I grabbed my phone and punched in his number. Come on, answer. I let it ring and ring and ring, which meant he saw it was me and was letting it go to voice mail. For like the tenth time.
“Sara, come watch Eat Me with me,” I called out. I told her about the call. “The producer wants me to make sure I can handle it.”
“Ha.”
“I know.”
“Okay, making popcorn,” she said, then came in a few minutes later with a big bowl and sat down next to me. “And handle what? Carrying all the money out the door at the end?”
Two seconds later, we both understood what the producer had meant. Neither of us had ever actually seen the show; we just knew Johannsen’s schtick from his commercials and what we read about him online. He was always trending on Twitter for some very un-PC thing he said or did.
From the moment Joe “Steak” Johannsen appeared onscreen, he was as obnoxious as we’d heard he could be. He made dirty jokes about spaghetti. He made fun of his female challenger’s body, which was on the ample side. And not ten minutes into the challenge for Spaghetti Carbonara, Johannsen had reduced the challenger to tears because her pasta maker had gotten jammed. He slapped a hand against his forehead and laughed for a good minute, then shouted, “Damn fool can’t even work the pasta maker!”
The audience went wild, jumping to their feet and chanting “Damn fool!” at the poor woman who flung down her sheet of pasta and continued crying.
“Awwww, she’s crying!” Johannsen shouted. “Poor baby!”
“Poor baby!” the audience chanted.
The challenger’s assistant, a skinny guy in kitchen whites, walked over to Johannsen and decked him.
“Oh!” the audience shouted. “Pow!”
“I’ve been bitch-slapped by slices of bacon tougher than you,” Johannsen shouted, laughing in the guy’s face.
The audience went wild, standing up and clapping and cheering. I pointed the remote at the TV and clicked OFF. I’d seen way too much as it was.
“Sara, how’d you like to tell Johannsen to suck it on national TV? I need a mouthy assistant.”
“Oh my God,” she shouted. “I am so going to be on TV and we are so going to kick this ass’s ass!”
I did what I always did when faced with cooking challenges. I drove up to Bluff Valley on Wednesday and made my Eggplant Parmesan—which I’d been working on for the past two days—for my dad. He shook his head at the first attempt. The sauce wasn’t right.
The second try got the nod.
Now that I could actually relax, I went outside and walked around the fields, trying to get Zach off my mind. But the fence where I’d carved “Justin Cole sucks” in seventh grade because he’d asked me to some dorky dance and then took another girl at the last second reminded me of how Zach Jeffries sucked, too. And the spot on the big rock that overlooked the bluffs, where my high school boyfriend had said, “Clementine, despite everything, I kind of love you,” and I’d said it right back, reminded me of Zach even more.
I used to be able to come up here and forget everything, because being up at the farm reminded me only of my family. But now being here made me think of Zach and that amazing night we’d had at his ranch house. The incredible sex. The way he looked at me. Everything between us.
I was supposed to be mad at him. But all I did was miss him.
Text from me to Zach that night: Wanna come see me beat Joe Asshole Johannsen in a cook-off on Thursday night?
Zach: You know I do.
Me: I’ll drop off a ticket in your mailbox.
Zach: Better yet, knock.
I did knock.
He opened the door, pulled me inside, and we did very little talking for an hour.
“I’ve missed you,” he said as we lay in his bed facing each other. His hands were in my hair.
“Me, too.”
“We’re not going to agree with each other on every little thing. I think we know this already.”
“Every big thing, either.”
“That, too,” he said. “But no matter what, I think you’re amazing, Clem. Everything about you. And what Jolie said about that ex of mine. It’s long over and has nothing to do with why I don’t want Jolie to get married. And it has nothing to do with us. What’s past is long past.”
“Stop making me like you,” I said. “Sometimes I wish you were a total asshole, not just partial, so I could—”
I shut up fast. There was no way I’d say what was just about to come out of my mouth.
Jesus.
“So you could what?” he asked.
I tried to kiss my way out of it, but he pinned me down, his dark blue eyes intense on mine.
“So you could not fall in love with me?”
“I didn’t say that.”
He laughed. “Yeah, I know.” He stared at me for a second, then trailed a finger down the side of my face. “But you were about to. Don’t deny it, Cooper.”
“I will deny it,” I said, smiling at him.
“Well, know this, then. No matter what comes out of my mouth when we’re arguing, I have nothing but respect for you—everything you’re doing, trying to do. Everything.”
I wasn’t going to tell him all I qualified for was a pathetic fifteen hundred bucks business loan. Zach didn’t seem like the “See?” type, but still. And I didn’t need a loan anymore. My Eggplant Parmesan was all the net worth I needed.
“It’s the same for me,” I said. “I hate when we’re fighting. Everything feels off.”
“I know. And plus, I need a date for my sister’s wedding.”
I grinned at him. He might have the asshole businessman in him, but he wasn’t a total loss. “She set a date?”
“Labor Day weekend. If you don’t hate my guts by then.”
Before I could say anything he pulled me on top of him and gave me one of those kisses that made it so hard to hate him for longer than a half hour.
Chapter 21
On Thursday, Sara and I drove to Studio City and finally found Eat Me’s soundstage inside a huge building. The set was wild. State-of-the-art double kitchens with maybe ten feet between them, no barrier or partition, so that Johannsen had full view of the challenger to heckle. The kitchen was built on long stainless steel counters that stretched across the length of the stage: six-burner stove top, oven, sink, garbage hole. Behind the counter was another stretch of table with pots and pans, dishes, utensils, and silverware.
The producer had us arrive three hours before the show was set to begin. A guy with a clipboard had met us at the door and had tried to take our bags of ingredients and my cases with my trusty sauté pans. Yeah, no. I didn’t trust Joe Asshole Johannsen for a second. My ingredients and my pans were not leaving my sight. We carried them in ourselves and put them on the counter in front of us.
The audience seats were empty, which was probably why Joe Johannsen was nowhere to be seen. No audience, no need to appear. The producer talked our ears off for the next fifteen minutes, explaining timing and that I should keep an eye on the big blinking red digital clock on the wall. Sara would be my time watcher and let me know how much time I had left every fifteen minutes. I’d have ten minutes to prep, twenty minutes to cook, five minutes to plate twenty servings, and then the remaining time would be watching the tasters try both versions and record their favorites. The last five minutes of the show would be declaring the winner.
“You’ve seen the show, so you know what to expect,” she said. “If you let the heckling get to you—from Joe and the audience—he’ll win. And that’s no fun. Give it back to him.”
“Oh, we will,” Sara said.
Then it was off to hair and makeup. Sara and I sat in huge swivel chairs in front of a wall of mirrors. It took more than an hour for our makeup artists to make us look completely natural.
By the time we got back to the stage, the audience began filing in, a bunch of staffers directing them to their seats and explaining cue cards and instructions. I heard one woman tell the audienc
e to scream and shout whatever they wanted, to have fun with Joe and his challenger, not to hold back. But no cursing was allowed; anyone who cursed would be escorted out.
One guy raised his hand and asked if “damn” was a curse. No, it was not, a producer assured him.
There were about two hundred people in the audience, their attention taken at the moment by staffers. The first row of the audience was only ten feet or so away from the long kitchen counter, which faced the audience. I looked around for Zach and spotted him in the third row. He winked at me, and I shot him a smile. I’d been given ten tickets to give away (but those names were disqualified from being taste testers). Ty and Seamus were a few rows behind Zach, and they gave me a wave. Julia from the coffee lounge, who’d become a friend, my sister—who’d let me know yesterday that Eva was cooperating on the Prime issue—and her fiancé rounded out the rest.
“Ten minutes to showtime,” the producer told Sara and me. “Why don’t you get in position and begin setting up? You can’t actually start prepping, but you can put your ingredients and cookware on the counter.”
Johannsen had yet to make an appearance. All the more to rile up the crowd when he did walk on, I figured. Sara and I put all my stuff on the counter. I was ready.
“And five. Four. Three. Two. And live,” called the producer.
The clapping and cheering and “Eat me!” chanting started up immediately. While I started slicing the eggplant, Johannsen appeared and called out, “My challenger calls herself Skinny Bitch! And she doesn’t eat or wear or use anything that comes from an animal. I think she could rename herself Stupid Bitch!”
The audience hooted and clapped. “Stupid Bitch!” they chanted.
What a moron. I totally ignored him.
Sara focused on measuring out the dry ingredients, then shouted at Johanssen, “I’ve already renamed you Knuckle Dragger. Totally fits the Neanderthal over there, right?” she said to the audience. They clapped and cheered and wolf whistled. “I got this,” she whispered to me. “No problem.”
I heard everything from “Go, Clementine!”—at least twice from Ty’s booming voice—to “You suck, Johannsen.” Which elicited a “Suck this” from my challenger across the stage. I glanced over and he was holding an eggplant up to his crotch.
Classy.
As I sliced and cut the eggplant into square pieces, Sara had my spices in their measuring cups and spoons ready to go as I asked for them. I got on the tomato sauce and Sara kept her eye on the amazing bread I’d baked myself that morning as it toasted in the oven.
“Too many ingredients over there!” Johannsen shouted, jabbing his finger at me. “What do I always say is the key to good cooking, folks?”
A producer held up a giant cue card. “Kiss! Kiss!” the audience chanted back.
“That’s right!” he shouted. “K. I. S. S. Keep it simple, stupid!”
The audience cheered.
“Eggplant,” he shouted. “Marinara sauce—made from tomatoes and some garlic and salt. Bread crumbs. Good mozzarella cheese. Done! She’s got all of Whole Foods over there!”
I rolled my eyes and focused on my cheese sauce.
“Gross—tofu!” Johannsen shouted, sticking his finger down his throat.
“You’re gross,” Sara shouted back.
He laughed. “How gross am I?” he chanted to the audience.
“So gross!” they shouted back.
This was a cooking show? Seriously? I was getting more and more embarrassed to be there at all, but for $25,000 I needed by the 15th? I’d suck it up.
“Let me tell you something, folks,” Johannsen said, slapping mozzarella cheese on his slabs of bread crumb–coated, marinara-soaked eggplant. “That crap she’s putting on her eggplant? Not cheese!”
“Not cheese!” the audience chanted back.
Someone shouted, “Go, Crunchy Vegan. All the way back to the farm!”
“Crunch this,” Sara shouted at the guy, which elicited claps and cheers and boos.
“I like this chick,” Johanssen shouted at the audience, jabbing a thumb Sara’s way. “Too bad she’s gonna lose!”
More clapping. More cheering.
The more this crap went on, the more grateful I was that Alexander hated my guts and wouldn’t answer his phone. He would not have survived five minutes up here. Sara perfectly walked the line between focusing on assisting me, watching the time, and shouting back at Johannsen and the audience. Oscar-worthy performance.
“Fifteen minutes,” Sara and Johannsen’s assistant called at the same time. I carefully laid each square of eggplant in the four sauté pans.
“Aww, how cute!” Johannsen shouted. “She’s so dainty with her planty-loo!” He practically threw his slabs of eggplant in his pans, sauce splattering.
“Aww!” the audience shouted.
“Five minutes!” Sara and the other assistant shouted.
We plated the Eggplant Parmesan, which looked and smelled amazing. I glanced over at the mess Johannsen was serving up.
That money was mine.
The nineteen taste testers were seated at a long table onstage, in front of the kitchens. Each had two plates in front of them—the one that was clearly Johannsen’s, with its thick oozing mozzarella cheese and pile of sauce, and mine, which looked a thousand times more delicious than Johannsen’s.
They cut bites. They chewed. They took more bites.
Finally, Johannsen took the mike. “Okay, taste testers. Whose Eggplant Parmesan did you like better? Mine or the Skinny Bitch’s? No matter who wins, $25,000 goes to the American Heart Association. But if Blondie here wins, she also gets twenty-five thousand big ones. So who’s it gonna be?”
One by one, he went down the table of taste testers. They shouted out “Johannsen” or “the Skinny Bitch.” I had seven votes so far. Johannsen had eight.
“Four more votes!” Johannsen said.
“The Skinny Bitch!” shouted the next taster, flashing me a thumbs-up.
“Johannsen!” said the next guy.
Shit. He had nine votes. I had eight.
Unless the next two voted for me, I’d lose.
“Okay, taste tester number eighteen,” Johannsen said. “Who’s it gonna be. Me, right?”
“No! The Skinny Bitch,” the guy shouted. “Hers is fantastic. And I love cheese!”
Shit, yeah. I was so close. So close. I shut my eyes for a second, willing the next guy to say “Skinny Bitch.”
“Taste tester nineteen!” Johannsen boomed. “The vote is tied. Who’s it gonna be? Drumroll, please.”
Indeed, there was a drumroll.
“Your vote is . . . ” Johannsen shouted.
“I vote for . . . ” the guy said, drawing it out, per the cue card that said to. “Oh, man, I can’t believe it, but the Skinny Bitch’s rocks. Sorry, Joe!”
“You won!” Sara screamed. She jumped up and down. “Clem won!”
Johannsen faux stabbed himself in the heart. “And the winner of the Eggplant Parmesan cook-off is . . . shockingly enough, Clementine Cooper!”
The audience leapt to their feet, cheering and chanting, “Skinny Bitch! Skinny Bitch!”
I did it. And I wasn’t talking about beating the gross slob, though I did do that. I won the money. Clementine’s No Crap Café was mine.
Text from Zach later that night: Can’t wait to celebrate your win. I would have liked your Eggplant Parmesan better, too.
Me: You hate tofu.
Him: But I love YOU.
I went completely still for a second. But instead of texting something back, or calling him, I just stared at that text for the longest time. So long that the next thing I knew, birds were chirping like crazy and the sun was shining.
I love you, too, I was thinking.
So why couldn’t I say it?
Chapter 22
I took another look at the text that had turned me into a zombie and tried to get all therapisty on myself to figure out what exactly I was thinking, feeling, but got n
owhere and started on my orders for today. Three hours later, vintage Bee Gees cranking, I was covered in whole wheat pastry flour and unsweetened applesauce and had three dozen vanilla chai cupcakes, three loaves of Irish soda bread, four dozen glazed cinnamon rolls, and a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, a favorite of Sara’s, to celebrate her audition.
When the clock struck nine, I called the real estate agent and made an appointment to fill out an application to rent the space on Montana. I’d never been so excited to deal with stacks of paperwork in my life.
Zach called just as I was ready to head out. “No response,” he said.
I wasn’t proud of how I’d left him hanging. But if I was going to tell Zach Jeffries I loved him, it sure as shit wouldn’t be via text.
It wasn’t about to come out of my mouth, either. Not yet, anyway.
“I have a response,” I said. “I’m just—”
“Not saying it.”
“Yeah.”
“Meet me at your place. I have something to show you.”
“And I have something to tell you. Guess who just put in an application to rent that little place on Montana for Clementine’s No Crap Café?”
Dead silence. “That’s a little far up, though, isn’t it?”
At least he was consistent. “Yeah, for your crowd, maybe, Zach. People who have to use Laundromats and take mass transit pass it every day.”
“Meet me in front of The Silver Steer at five o’clock.”
“Why?”
“Told you. It’s a surprise.”
I hated surprises.
My hand was happily numb from filling out that enormous application. But when I handed it over, I felt like I did when I won that sparkly blue ribbon at eleven. When I graduated from the Vegan Culinary Institute. When I got my first job. My first promotion. When I beat that slob Johannsen.