Malik leans forward as I stand up. “Um, Caitlin. We haven’t eaten.”
She looks surprised, as though she hadn’t thought that we would be hungry after cooking all afternoon, but she recovers quickly. “What was I thinking? Take a look at the menus. Pick a place, get an order together. At this time of night, it would be faster if I had a PA pick it up for you.” She turns to me. “Peyton, we can chat after you order your food.”
I nod, not sure what the producer of the show wants to talk to me about. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned from eavesdropping on the PAs, it’s that when Caitlin says jump, you don’t ask how high. You jump and hope it’s enough.
“Sure, Caitlin,” I say, giving her my brightest smile.
It takes about ten minutes for us to all agree to order from a Thai place a few blocks away. After placing my order for pad priew wann and spring rolls, I head out of the kitchen to find Caitlin. It doesn’t take long. She’s standing outside a door near the master bedroom scrolling through her phone. As I approach, she looks up. “Peyton. Let’s talk in here.” She pushes the door open to reveal a small office. Or at least it used to be an office, but now the space has been converted into a small studio with a barrel chair facing a camera. Behind the camera is another chair and a small table.
“What?” I ask. “Wait, is this the confessional room?”
“Something like that,” Caitlin answers. “From time to time, you will all come in here and have one-on-one chats with the PAs. You know, so the audience can get to know you a little better.”
“Right.”
“I want you to look at something,” she continues. “This is the package we’re going to show when we introduce you on the show. I thought you might like to get a peek.”
Without another word, she pulls a tablet from her purse and sets it down on the little table. I sit down in the chair closest as she starts the video. As the technical credits role, she flips off the light. The first shot is of me sitting on the rail of a horse ring, looking off into the distance. It was shot at a horse ranch near my house. In all the preparation to get here, I’d totally forgotten about it. My red hair is blowing in the wind, and my eyes look even greener than they do in real life. Then the voice-over starts, and a stranger begins to sum up my life story.
I watch as the images blur from the tears that I refuse to let fall. The package is emphasizing the very things and moments in my life that I came here to escape. For three minutes, I watch as this edited version of all the hardships and pain in my life plays out in full color. They talk about everything from my dad going to jail for embezzlement to my mom losing the house and her ballet studio when she couldn’t keep up with the bills. There’s even an interview with my boss at the diner. He talks about how I always pick up double shifts and how the customers love my pies. This part makes me smile, but only a little.
The part that sends me over the edge is when the voice starts talking about how we were forced to move in with my aunt. They even got a nice big shot of my aunt’s double-wide trailer, complete with the lattice fencing that hides the frame it sits on. As the final image of me sitting in the community garden looking thoughtfully toward the horizon transitions to a promo shot of me in my turquoise jacket (which they must have taken during today’s filming), I’m clenching my fists so hard I know I’m going to have fingernail cuts on my palms.
“What do you think?” Caitlin asks as she flips the lights back on.
“Is that what y’all think of me?” I ask, unable to bite back my accent. I don’t know if it’s ever been this thick before, but then again, I don’t think I’ve ever been this angry. “That I’m some sort of trailer trash pauper looking to be magically lifted from squalor by this show?” I can feel the heat even in the tips of my ears.
“No,” Caitlin assures me. “Of course not.”
“Because it really seems like that from the package.”
“Peyton,” Caitlin says, her eyes wide with astonishment. “No one meant—”
“I don’t care what you meant; I look pathetic. I came here to give myself a shot at getting away from all of that. Now the whole world is going to see me as the poor girl trying to claw her way out of the trailer park one cupcake at a time.”
She tries again. “I—”
“You even interviewed my dad. In prison.”
The next thing I know Caitlin is sitting in the interview chair. The woman moves with the grace of a cheetah, and there is a glint in her eyes that reminds me of one. She meets my glare, unapologetically. “I’m sorry you didn’t like the package. I’ll see what we can do and maybe we can change a few things, tone it down here and there.”
“That’s a start.”
“But it’s not going to change much,” she says, shaking her head. “Everyone on the show was selected based on two criteria: Could they cook better than the other applicants, and did they have a compelling backstory or quirky personality? Something to keep the viewers wanting to know more or see what they do next.”
My eyes narrow as I process what she means. “I take it I wasn’t picked for my quirky sense of humor.”
Caitlin rolls her eyes. “No, but your story is compelling. In spite of what your family has gone through, you’ve taught yourself to cook. And not just to cook, but you’ve proven yourself to be one of the best in the country.”
“Wait, so you’re saying that without my sob story, I wouldn’t be here?”
“Does it matter? You earned your spot because I said so. The way I see it, you didn’t do anything to deserve the consequences of your parents’ actions, so why not use them to your advantage? Show the world that you are resilient. It’s a great angle.”
“What if I don’t want to do that?” All this time I had been under the delusion that I was someone special. That maybe I had enough talent to achieve my dreams. But in one fell swoop, Caitlin smashes all my confidence and hope.
“Oh my God. Peyton, you are the rags-to-riches story. We brought you here with the hope that you will be the one who reinvents herself. And from what I’m hearing, that’s what you want, too.”
“Yeah, but I don’t want to be a national laughingstock.”
“I don’t want that, either,” she says, slapping her hands on her thighs as she stands. “We want you to show everyone that they can transcend the life they are born into and become the star they are meant to be.”
I resist the urge to roll my eyes. She’s the producer, after all. “It just feels wrong.”
“What?”
“Exploiting my parents. Using my past to get sympathy.”
Caitlin shrugs. “You gotta give the audience someone to root for.” She reaches into her bag and pulls out a folder, tossing it next to the tablet.
“What’s this?” I ask.
“Your profile.”
“My what?”
“Your profile. It’s why we chose you. This is who we want you to be for the show.”
“But this is a cooking competition. I came here to bake, not act.”
Caitlin pauses for a moment, and I swear I can almost hear her counting down from ten before continuing. “This is reality television in the form of a cooking competition.”
“Right. The key word being real.”
“And it is reality.” Caitlin slides her arm around the back of my chair and leans over me. “A very carefully and meticulously planned reality.”
Her words deliver the warning she intended. I flip the folder open and begin reading. According to my profile, I’m a small-town North Florida girl from a low-class family. Okay, that’s not great, but it’s the truth.
“So, what, you just want me to open up about my—” I lift up some of the papers and begin reading “—‘bittersweet relationship’ with my locked-up father. Oh, and how embarrassed I am to accept charity from my aunt just so we have a place to live since my mom ‘can’t hold down a job.’ Is that all?”
“Did we miss anything?”
I look up at her. “Can’t I just focus
on cooking? You don’t know what it’s like to be the family the whole town talks about when you walk down the street. If I talk about this on camera, it’s going to make it worse for my parents.”
“So?” Her face is unreadable. “That was their life. This is yours.” She straightens up. “Do you want to win?”
“Yes. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”
“Then do what it takes to win.”
“But my parents—”
“Are grown-ups who can deal with it.”
Okay. That was harsh. But Caitlin isn’t finished. “Do you think your dad was thinking about you when the FBI showed up at your house to arrest him? Was your mom worried about you when she spent who knows how long crying in her bathrobe instead of getting up off her ass and taking care of her daughter? I’m willing to bet they weren’t.”
I have seriously misjudged Caitlin. At the live auditions for the show, she struck me as a sweet, earnest person who wanted to help me achieve my dreams of going to culinary school, but I was wrong. She is stone-cold when it comes to doing her job. “So?” I ask back.
“So this is the moment when you need to think about Peyton. You need to put Peyton first.” She takes the file out of my hand. “As far as I can see, if you don’t, nobody else is going to care about you.”
Stone. Cold.
I slouch back against the chair, shaking my head.
Caitlin lets out an exasperated sigh. “I’m not saying you should say anything bad about your parents. In fact, I would prefer that you keep the story focused on you. But the audience needs to know where you come from. They need to know you’re a survivor. So let us show the world that you are more than just a small-town girl who got dealt a bad hand in life.”
“And if I don’t?”
She slips my file into her purse. “Then you can kiss any chance of winning the scholarship goodbye.”
“What?”
“The network wants ratings, and I want to keep my job.”
“Are you threatening me?”
Caitlin sighs. “No, I’m trying to help you. Believe it or not, I want you to do well in this competition. I was the one who fought to get you on this show.”
“Why?”
“Because I know it can change your life. And quite honestly, you deserve a shot. Let this show be your shot.”
I’m quiet for a moment as her words sink in.
“Here is a question for you. When this competition is over, what are you going to do next?”
“I plan to win and go to culinary school.”
Caitlin laughs, but the sound is hollow to my ears. “You all think that, but only one person can win. What if it’s not you?”
Her frankness stops me in my tracks. What would I do? Would I go back home and work at the diner? Marry the least loser guy I can find and hope he doesn’t run off with the divorcée three trailers down? No thank you.
“You don’t have a plan, do you?” Caitlin asks. “Well, let me give you something to think about. Let’s say you stick around on the show long enough, you’re going to get fans.”
I can’t help but laugh. “Are you serious? Me? With fans?”
She nods. “Even the person who leaves day one will have some fans. But it’s the ones who make it through the early eliminations that will start to get the real followers. People who are invested in what happens to you and are rooting for you to win.”
“Yeah, but there’s no live vote on the show. They can’t save me from elimination.”
“True, they don’t have that kind of power. But they can make a big difference after the show is over with their feet and their ‘cha-ching.’” She rubs her thumb and middle finger together to indicate cash.
She watches me to make sure I’m following before continuing. “When this is all over, there will be restaurants lining up to hire you. You might even be a reality celebrity. At least for a while.”
“Whatever,” I scoff.
“I’m serious. Restaurant owners are going to be willing to pay top dollar for you to work in their kitchens. You’ll bring in customers who’ll spend money to eat your food. They’ll take pictures of it and post it on social media and rave about how amazing and sweet you are when they meet you in person.”
“Seriously?”
“Of course. It’s free publicity. But how many of those fans do you think are going to come to see you in that pit of a diner we found you in?”
She doesn’t wait for me to answer. “None. But play your cards right, and you could end up touring the country, hosting pop-up kitchens acround the globe.”
“And all I have to do is…”
“Try not to burn your signature dish again.”
I groan.
“There is one more thing,” she adds.
“What?” The more Caitlin talks, the less I trust her.
She just smiles. “It’s nothing, really. I mean, there might be a storyline or two that you’re involved with, but we have to see how things shake out during this first week.”
“I’m not very good at acting.”
Caitlin rolls her eyes. “And no one expects you to. Just be yourself. We’ll give you the nudge when you need it. Just do what I tell you, and I promise everything will work out. Do you think you can do that?”
I turn and look out the window, my eyes scanning the skyline. Things like this show don’t happen to girls like me. And they sure don’t come around a second time. This could be my only chance.
I nod my head.
“Great,” she says, pushing herself away from the wall. “Now, I need to talk to the rest of the cast members. I trust everything we’ve talked about will stay between us.”
I look at the camera. “I suppose you’ll know if it doesn’t.”
“True. But Peyton—” she pauses “—this competition can really change your life if you let me do my job.”
With that, she walks over to the door and leaves without another word.
I follow Caitlin back to the living room, where Lola and Paulie are playing pool with Hakulani and Malik. Caitlin motions for Hakulani to follow her.
He hands me his pool stick as he walks past me. “Fill in for me?”
“How do you know I’m not bad at pool?” I ask.
Malik snorts. “Trust me, you can’t be any worse.”
The others laugh as they turn their attention back to the table.
Leaning over the rail to line up the cue ball, I think about what Caitlin said about putting myself first. She has a point. And as much as I don’t like the idea of making my life into one big sob story, this experience, win or lose (though hopefully it’s going to be a win), could change my life. I mean, I can’t throw this chance away, right?
CHAPTER
TEN
BY THE TIME THE PA ARRIVES WITH OUR FOOD, I’M starving.
“Do you think they’ll care if we take our food to our rooms?” Inaaya asks.
“You know what they say: it’s easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission,” I answer, picking up my containers and a set of chopsticks.
She grins, picking up her own meal and following me down the hall.
“Where are you going?” Hakulani asks as we pass him. It’s the first time I’ve seen him since he left to talk to Caitlin.
“Roommate bonding time,” Inaaya says. “See you tomorrow.”
When we get to our room, our luggage is sitting in a pile.
“Oh good. It came,” Inaaya says.
“Yeah, but when did it come? I didn’t hear the door open and we were in the living room.”
“Maybe there’s a secret entrance we don’t know about.”
“It’s like they’re watching every move we make,” I say, putting my food down on the nightstand.
“They are,” Inaaya reminds me.
“Right. Well, they can watch me unpack later. I’m starving.”
I reach for my dinner and she does the same. “So, what did you really think of the competition today?” she asks, peeling back
the aluminum lip that was keeping the lid in place.
I breathe in a deep whiff. “Holy cow. What is that?”
“Spicy basil fried rice. It’s my favorite. Want some?”
I shake my head. “It smells amazing, but I’m good.”
“So, about the competition,” Inaaya presses.
I pick up a spring roll and dip it in the sweet-and-sour sauce before taking a bite. I chew thoughtfully before answering. “It was chaos.”
She pauses, chopsticks halfway to her mouth. “Of all the words you have to describe the day, you go with chaotic?”
“Well, those of us who aren’t in the front of the class might have had a different experience,” I say.
“I didn’t ask to be put up front. Besides, it sounded like you guys were having more fun than we were. I heard you laughing all day.”
“It was especially hilarious when I sliced my hand and the medic took his time getting it wrapped up.” I hold my hand up for her to see.
“Is that when your pie burned?”
I groan. “Yes. It was so embarrassing.”
“But you had everything ready to make another one,” she says.
“I got lucky. If I hadn’t, the judges would have raked me over the coals.”
She nods. “Yeah. I get the feeling Angelica is that judge that rarely has anything nice to say about anything.”
“Totally agree. But do you think she’s like that because deep down she’s got a heart of gold under that tough exterior?” I can’t stop from laughing.
“It must be really deep down,” she says, kicking off her shoes as she slides across the bed until she’s leaning against the wall. “I haven’t been on my feet this long since my summer waitressing job.”
“I waitress, too,” I say, surprised that we have anything in common, much less that we wait tables. “It’s your typical small-town diner where the only strange faces belong to people whose cars break down on the highway.”
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