Once seated, her blue-spectacled cohort pulled her chair up close to Reese’s. In a normal voice, she said, “I realize the nobody-on-the-set-after-five rule sounds strange. You’re not the first to question it. One of the previous PAs even asked Leonie about it.”
“What happened?”
“Do you see any other PAs around?” She paused. “Actually, there was more to her sudden exit than not following orders. The woman got it in her head that she and Nick were an item. Leonie didn’t like that.”
“What about Nick?” The question slipped out before she considered the wisdom of asking it.
“Nick? Nick’s Nick. You’ve seen him in action. He can’t resist coming on to almost every woman in Manhattan.” Trudy nudged the bridge of her glasses higher on her nose, shuffled the clutter on her desk into two untidy piles and retrieved an overripe orange from a desk drawer.
Good God! That odor. Reese attempted not to gag, struggling to say, “You say that like he’s blameless.”
“He is, in a way. We all knew there was no romance involved. And we tried to tell her that. But she was convinced Nick felt something special for her.”
Reese wanted to hear more about Nick’s love life, but that foul smell emanating from the orange made it difficult to stay focused. “What happened?”
Trudy finally noticed the condition of the orange and idly tossed it into the wastebasket behind their desks. “Like you, she disregarded Leonie’s rule about staying late on the set the night before taping. Word has it she wanted to catch Nick and make him confess his feelings for her. She ran into Leonie first and wasn’t around long enough to see Nick.”
“Leonie fired her, just like that?”
“You’ve worked with Leonie long enough not to even wonder.” Trudy settled back in her office chair and bit a lip like there was something else on her mind besides gossip about ancient history. “Is it true you were a chef at some fancy restaurant here in town?”
“You heard about that already?”
Trudy gave her a small smile, lifting her head slightly. “Like I told you before, news travels fast around here. Faster than Nick makes quips.”
Reese chuckled. Nick did seem to charm everyone with his wit. After all, he’d convinced her to stay after that difficult first day on the job.
Trudy continued to chew her lip. “So I suppose you have a lot of contacts in the restaurant world?”
Contacts who aren’t speaking to me at the moment. Where was this going? “I know some folks. Are you looking for another job?”
“Oh, no!” Trudy replied. “I need this job. At least for now. I-I…”
Reese put a hand on Trudy’s. “Calm down. I’m not going to rat you out, even if you are looking around.”
As she had back on the set, Trudy checked over her shoulder. “Leonie can’t know anything about this. Okay?”
“Like she and I are going to share secrets?” Leonie hadn’t come near her since she’d shown up for work on Tuesday. She’d been too occupied familiarizing herself with the week’s food prep to initiate a conversation with the other woman.
“I got this job because of my cousin. I helped her on a catering job she did for Leonie a few years back and really enjoyed it. When I told her about my interest, she mentioned it to Leonie, who called me a short while later and offered me this job.”
“Connections are the name of the game in this business,” Reese mused, more to herself than to Trudy. Interesting. Why would the executive producer offer the job to a novice catering assistant and then fall apart when the services of another chef became available?
“So far, I haven’t learned much about cooking. Other than how to chop vegetables, purchase food, and clean up dirty pots and pans.” She swiveled in her chair, then twisted back to face Reese straight on. “I-I was wondering, while you’re here, if you might find time to…”
“Show you the ropes?” Reese finished for her, since the woman was having such difficulty completing her thought.
Trudy clasped her hands. “Uh, yeah. I know it’s a lot to ask, but your coming here, whatever your reasons, is like a dream come true for me.”
Under other circumstances, Trudy’s statement might have boosted her ego. But having witnessed Trudy’s less than professional approach to the job, she had her doubts about her associate’s dedication. “I went through three years of training at a culinary school, Trudy. This isn’t something you pick up in three easy lessons.”
Trudy rose. “You’re right. I shouldn’ta asked.”
On the other hand.
Reese caught Trudy’s wrist. “That’s not what I meant. The only way we get ahead is to ask for what we need.” Letting go of Trudy’s hand, she said, “If you’re serious about this, I’ll do what I can to help you. But it’s not going to be easy.” She chuckled. “Especially with me as your teacher.”
Out of nowhere, Trudy hugged her. “That’s terrific! You won’t regret this. You’ll see. I’ll be the perfect student.”
“Fine,” Reese struggled to say, while she extricated herself from Trudy’s hold. “Perfect isn’t required. Attentive is.”
Trudy backed off. “I can do that.”
“And Trudy? Like you said before, this is just between us, okay? I didn’t come here to run a cooking class.”
Trudy crossed her heart. “Gotcha. Look, we have to get out of here. It’s getting too close to bewitching hour on the set.” She didn’t wait for Reese but instead found her purse and hurried off.
As soon as Trudy was out of sight, Reese grabbed a pair of disposable gloves and a plastic bag from a desk drawer, extracted the offensive orange from the trash, and tossed it into the bag. “Good riddance.”
Stay or go, like a good little production assistant? This everybody-off-the-set rule intrigued her. Something must go on here the night before taping. But what? Drug trafficking? Sex parties? Tempted to stick around, in the end, she chose self-preservation over curiosity and departed the studio five minutes after Trudy. But when she’d been here a little longer, she intended to find out.
Chapter Five
“Are we alone?” Leonie asked as she breezed onto the kitchen set, where Nick had been waiting for her.
“All clear out here. Back offices are vacant too.”
“Good! It’s going to be tricky this week. We’ll need the full evening.”
He sighed. “Let’s get started then.” His tone conveyed as much enthusiasm as a prisoner on his way to the gallows.
“We’ll start first with the pork roast,” she announced. “I know it looks easy, but there’s a knack to applying the herbs and spices.”
Spices. How exciting. Just a matter of flexing the wrist and shaking it with panache. Child’s play for an actor.
However, child’s play or not, twenty minutes ticked by before his aunt was satisfied with his technique. His entire right hand ached, like he’d been hanging by it for hours.
When she was finally satisfied with the meat, she allowed him to move along to the cantaloupe balls soaked in pear liqueur. Macerated, Leonie called it. Should have been no trick to running the melon baller through the soft fruit, but the old girl had her standards. And the results of his efforts fell short—too big, too small, not firm enough.
The process continued for the next half hour. At length, he asked, “How much longer is this going to take?”
Leonie raised a brow. “The technique has to come second nature for you, Nick. Not rehearsed. You can’t pull that off until you’ve been through the motions countless times.”
“That’s just it, Leonie. All I’ve been doing is going through the motions. That’s no way for a guy to go through life. Which is why it’s time for me to leave the show.”
She closed her eyes briefly, as if praying for strength. “You just think you want to leave.”
He gripped the melon baller tighter. “Let’s not go down that path again. That you know what’s better for me.” He heard his voice rising, but he couldn’t help it.
S
he turned wide, green eyes on him. “I never said that, dear. I’m aware that actors are accustomed to short-term commitments. The time you’ve spent here must seem like a lifetime to you. You’re bored. That’s why you think returning to the stage is the answer.”
She just didn’t get it. “I’m not bored, Leonie. But I’m getting older, and I don’t want to miss out on potential leading men parts.” Should he go on? Why not? “I’m also…ashamed. I don’t like living a lie, passing myself off as a chef when the only way I look knowledgeable is through these secret weekly rehearsals.”
She sniffed, giving him a hurt look. “You say that like spending time with me is offensive.”
“What’s offensive is this ongoing farce we’re living. We don’t have to. We could stop any time.”
Her hand went immediately to her pendant. “And lose this show?”
“You only think that because you’re afraid to pitch yourself as host. Who knows? Adding yourself to the mix could be all you need to get the network interested.”
She backed away, still clutching her necklace. In a quiet voice she said, “I’m two years older than the last time I was told I was too mature.” She choked on the words.
He tried to think of something to reassure her about her age, but before anything came to mind, she reached for the bowl of melon balls and took it to the disposal unit. She’d always made a concerted effort to erase all signs of their private cooking class. When she returned, she seemed to have regained her composure, although her eyes were wider and more pleading. “I need this show, Nick. It’s all I have.” She placed the roast in a carrier to take home. “I don’t know what I’ll do when it ends.”
Was that the real Leonie speaking? Probably, underneath the drama queen delivery, but continuing to accommodate her fears wasn’t doing either of them any good. “The show isn’t going to last forever.”
Though he had tried to keep his tone sympathetic, she bristled. “I know that! And when that day comes, I’ll deal with it. Somehow.”
What could he say? Suggesting she return full time to her catering business, though the obvious solution, would only fall on deaf ears. And this definitely wasn’t the time to broach the subject of replacing him with Reese.
Leonie picked up the carrier. “That will do for tonight. Remember to make a big deal about the firmness of the melon with the production assistants.” Picking up her things, she headed across the set toward the outer door.
After he’d turned down the lights, Nick remained behind in the semi-darkness. His driver would have to wait. He needed time to regroup. At the moment, he doubted he’d even be able to drag himself down to the car. His legs were leaden, like he’d been swimming relentlessly in a bottomless, mercilessly turbulent ocean.
Why did I think one more try at the direct approach might work? She just gets better at putting me off. More “poor me” attitude, except she’d now added the kicker about him not knowing his own mind. He had to hand it to her for ingenuity.
He either had to find a way to make replacing him with Reese palatable with Leonie or be ready to simply leave. He had to think of something pretty damn fast.
****
Taping day again. Reese was preparing chili peppers in the test kitchen for the hot sauce Nick would make later in the day when Nick showed up. She sensed him more than saw him, his musky aftershave drifted her way, surrounding her like a cloud. How was a girl supposed to focus with that heady scent overpowering her senses? Concentrate, Reese. Steady. She managed to scoop out the seeds without spilling any on the counter, her knife slicing through the red pulp faster than Leonie had revised that week’s script, though her hands had started to perspire
“That’s some technique you’ve got with that knife.”
She glanced up from the container where she was storing the chili pieces, jiggling the contents so the segments wouldn’t glom together. “This should be a no-brainer for you.”
“Well, sure, I do this all the time. But you’re so economical with your movements. You’ve got the cutting edge, so to speak.” He chuckled at his own pun. “Sorry. I get a little carried away with my own cleverness sometimes.”
“Is that what that was?” What was he doing here, besides throwing her off her pace? She’d hardly seen him near the set all week. “Was there something you wanted?”
“You’re not scheduled to work tomorrow, right?’
Where was this conversation heading? “No. Why do you ask?”
“Remember that research I mentioned you helping me with? There’s a restaurant down in SoHo I wanted to check out. If you don’t have dinner plans, how about coming along with me?”
She remembered all right. He’d dangled that carrot as she’d been about to head out the door after their first taping the previous week. Though somewhat interested in his proposition, when he hadn’t said anything more about it, she’d dismissed the thought. “What kind of research?”
“We’re considering adding a restaurant segment to the show. With your background, I thought you could provide unique insight.”
She wiped her hands with a kitchen towel. Continued to pat them dry. Unique insight? He certainly had a way with words when he wanted something. What was he up to now? Was he coming on to her? Trudy had warned her. And yet, it wouldn’t hurt to hear him out.
“You see restaurants from a different angle. I know when I like the service, and the food, and the ambience, but you know what else needs to be evaluated.”
Surely that was a line? Still, she wanted to know where he was going with this. “Like what? You pretty much covered it.”
His eyes lighted on the towel she held. “Cleanliness. And safety practices. And…you are going to wash your hands with soap and water besides wiping them on that towel, aren’t you?”
Good grief. She’d grabbed the first thing available to mop her hands rather than rinse them off in the sink. He’d distracted her to the point where she’d almost made a major safety mistake. She never did that. “Of course. Your invitation threw me, that’s all.”
He returned a sly smile, like he knew exactly what he’d done to her. “So what do you say? Do you like Southwestern?”
She wrinkled her nose. “Not really.” She pointed to the chilis. “This was one of today’s tasks. But as a rule, I don’t like spicy.”
“Really? Interesting. I thought all chefs, all of us chefs, grooved on spices.”
“Guess not.”
“Is that your not-so-subtle way of turning me down?”
Sounded tempting. Too tempting. There was something more to his offer, but what? She copped a few extra seconds to think by clamping a lid on the container and walking it to the nearby refrigerator. When she returned, she said, “I’ll go with you. But I’ll leave the hotter offerings to you.”
“I can handle hot.”
She swallowed. Twice. It was all she could do not to flinch “Yes, I’m sure you can. I’ll meet you there.”
He gave her the address and indicated a time. “I, uh, should go. Need to check with Jasper on something. See you tomorrow night.”
“You won’t be here for the taping?”
“Well, yeah. That too.”
He hustled out of the test kitchen, apparently anxious to catch up with the supervising producer.
Once he was out of sight, she headed immediately to one of the prep kitchen’s coolers. What was with her? Chopping chili peppers never made her sweat like this, even habañeros. She still had her head inside when Trudy tapped her on the shoulder. “Ready for today’s taping?”
Reese jumped back, slapping a hand across her heart. “Don’t sneak up on me like that! I nearly hit my head on one of the shelves.”
Trudy squared her shoulders but took a step back. “I wasn’t sneaking up on you. I heard you talking to yourself and wondered what was going on.”
She thought fast to come up with a reason for being in the cooler. “Inventorying the food items in there. Don’t you do that before every taping?”
“Nobody’s ever told me I had to. Besides, there’s usually enough. I buy twice what we actually need.”
“That’s so wasteful. I thought this show operated on a shoestring budget.”
Trudy nudged the bridge of her eyeglasses further up her nose. “Well, excuse me! It wasn’t my idea. I was told to do that and no one’s said any different since.”
Reese stared at her partner. Things weren’t adding up…literally. Though the carrots she’d stayed late to fix the previous evening were now in the kitchen set’s refrigerator, the amount of extras she’d left in the prep kitchen cooler had diminished. The same held true for the cantaloupe.
Maybe her lack of sleep was clouding her brain. Not that worry about today’s taping had held sleep at bay. No, she’d remained wide-eyed wondering why no one was allowed on the set the night before the taping. She reopened the cooler. “There’s less food here than last night.”
Trudy stuck her head in and popped it out immediately. “Don’t get so worked up. Still enough for the taping. Save your strength for Leonie. She’s like a general heading off to war on taping days.”
Even after Trudy drifted off to another part of the prep area, Reese continued to stand there in front of the cooler, trying to make sense of her discovery. Of course Trudy could dismiss her concern. She wasn’t a food professional. She just followed orders, when she was of a mind to do even that. On the other hand, she, with her chef’s training, couldn’t dismiss the facts that readily.
“Is there a problem, Dunbar?” The “General” had arrived.
Reese blinked back to reality. “Problem? Uh, no, Ms. McCutcheon.”
“Then why are you standing there gazing off into space? Every minute counts when preparing for the taping.”
“Yes, I’m aware of that. I’m trying to figure out what happened to some of the food items I left here last night. I think someone may be stealing food from you.” She looked directly into the other woman’s eyes. “I thought you should know.”
And He Cooks Too Page 5
