With the insanity going on in my life right now, and having a husband who was obsessed with a skinny Russian prostitute, my ego could use a boost. Discovering that Michelangelo appreciated a chocolate sister with curves lifted my spirit.
Today, the contestants were being challenged to prepare my special meatloaf, glazed carrots, collard greens, and biscuits and gravy. I didn’t care if Michelangelo’s dish looked like dog food and tasted even worse; he could count on me for a high score.
LaTasha got her hair under control and then touched up her makeup, but instead of leaving, she continued to hang around my dressing room, talking nonstop and helping herself to the coffee that was on hand for Gina, Clayton, and Robin. Personally, I didn’t touch the stuff. Green tea was all I needed to get my day started.
Weary of hearing LaTasha’s mouth, Gina rolled her eyes. I could tell she was ready to toss LaTasha out of the dressing room. But I found the bubbly contestant to be amusing and encouraged her to give me the four-one-one on all the contestants.
She gulped coffee and smacked her lips. “This stuff is good. You’re lucky they don’t make you drink the swill they give us. The coffee we get tastes like dishwater. I thought it would be free-flowing considering all the pressure we’re under on the show, but the contestants only get one measly cup per day.”
I grunted in a noncommittal way. I didn’t want LaTasha to get the idea that venting to me would change her circumstances. Suffering was a part of being a contestant on a cooking reality show. Everyone knew that.
Of course, I’d gone from college straight to culinary stardom and had no idea what it was like to struggle. I didn’t want to know, either.
“At the hotel, I was sharing a room with Heather. She’s pretty cool,” LaTasha said. “From what I could tell, she didn’t have any annoying quirks or bad habits. Seems like the moment I got used to her, they moved me to a different room with a new roommate. And they did it in the middle of the night. Seems like the people who run this show…” She paused and looked at me sheepishly. “I’m not referring to you, Cori, but those other folks seem to want to keep us disoriented and tired. Now, I’m sharing a room with Becca. Since we’re not allowed to leave the hotel, the only way I can get away from her and have some personal space is to either hang out in the group suite or go sit in the lobby. It’s like we’re in jail.”
LaTasha and her complaints were starting to irk me. “You were well aware of the rules when you signed on.”
“But you don’t understand. That Wiccan chick is such a disgusting slob. I complained to some of the show’s staff that she has a drinking problem, but instead of them trying to help her, they give her more alcohol. There’s more booze being offered than coffee, and coffee is what we need since they only allow us a few hours of sleep every night.”
I’d heard that the contestants were all sleep-deprived. The producers felt that keeping them frustrated and in a state of confusion would trigger high emotional responses when they were involved in stressful situations during the show. To have a contestant completely lose it during an episode ensured great ratings. But they always edited out anything that made the show look bad.
“Becca shouldn’t be on this show,” LaTasha continued. “She should be in rehab. Sharing a room with her is starting to mess with my sanity. Did I mention that last night she was walking around the room butt-ass naked and drinking straight out of a whiskey bottle? Having her as a roommate is abusive. I shouldn’t have to look at her naked, boney ass every night. Could you put in a word and try to get me another roommate?”
I was through being nice to LaTasha. I’d provided her with beauty products, hair equipment, and coffee. Now she wanted preferential treatment. I swear, give a bitch an inch…
I was on the verge of telling LaTasha to go kick rocks when Ellie walked in.
“Listen, you need to rejoin the other members of the cast,” I told LaTasha sharply.
“Why? It’s so warm and welcoming in here. And I was having a good time,” LaTasha whined.
“You’ve worn out your welcome, now beat it,” Clayton said with bass in his voice.
LaTasha guzzled down her coffee and grudgingly headed for the door. Once she’d exited, Ellie gave me a look that I couldn’t read.
“Bad news?” I asked softly.
“Not really.” Ellie’s eyes shifted from Clayton to Gina.
“Do you two need privacy?” Gina asked.
“Yes, could you and Clayton excuse us for a few minutes,” I said in an apologetic tone.
After Gina and Clayton left us alone, I turned expectant eyes on Ellie. “Well?”
“I spent several hours wooing your surrogate. And after appealing to her womanhood, I told her that you feel awful that you can’t carry your own child and that you’d feel much more comfortable with the situation if you and Maverick got to know her on a more intimate level. It wasn’t easy, but I convinced her to forgo protocol and have sex with your husband,” Ellie announced, looking downward.
“Yes!” I squealed, pumping a fist into the air. I felt bad dragging Ellie into such a bizarre mess, but I had no choice. If my husband wanted to squander his seed around, then dammit, I wanted to get a baby out of it. There was no reason for him to know that Sophia was our hired human incubator and had already been paid a portion of her fee to carry our child. I’d make him believe she was another bimbo from the escort agency. And when she turned up pregnant… Well, I’d cross that bridge later.
Feeling jubilant, I hugged Ellie. Having been witness to my jealous rages when the thots of the world so much as smiled at Maverick, Ellie gazed at me curiously. She had no idea why I was setting up my husband with the surrogate. Actually, it wasn’t any of Ellie’s business. She was paid to be my mouthpiece and to handle my business. I wasn’t obligated to provide her with an explanation for my actions.
CHAPTER 9
“I smell burned onions.” I crinkled my nose as I ventured to Becca’s workstation while TV cameras captured the moment.
“I had the flame up too high, and now I have to sauté them again,” Becca replied, her face flushed with embarrassment. Or perhaps her reddened complexion was the result of too much alcohol.
There was a lot to hate about a cooking competition show, but contestants particularly loathed having to discuss the components of their dishes while in the midst of cooking. It was distressing to try to appear knowledgeable and personable while keeping an eye on whatever they were preparing. And my cheeky comments didn’t help to ease their discomfort.
“Are you using truffle oil?” I inquired in a horrified voice as she drizzled oil into the pan.
“Um, yes. I could have sworn I tasted truffle oil during the blind taste test,” she babbled nervously.
“Did you? Hmm,” I replied mysteriously, causing her to question her palate.
We were filming the cooking segment of the show, and as host, I was expected to criticize some of the contestants and praise others. It didn’t matter how their food tasted; it was simply the luck of the draw.
I roamed over to my next victim, the Baptist preacher. After learning that he was a troublemaker, it gave me wicked pleasure to see him struggling with the glaze for the carrots. Frowning, I stared at his pan. “There’s an awful lot of sugar in there, and it’s making your glaze sticky and thick. You may want to add another ingredient.”
“Should I add more butter?” he asked anxiously.
“You’ll have to figure it out, but you’re going to have to do it fast. Otherwise, you might be getting the boot tonight. You’ve been hanging on by a thread, but you’re still here. Could it be that your congregation back home has been sending up prayers for you?”
“That’s right, Cori. My congregants and I love the Lord, and we strongly believe in the power of prayer.”
“That’s good, but you may need more than prayer to keep you from having to take that walk of sha
me, tonight,” I added spitefully. Church-going folks annoyed me with their hypocrisy. Always talking about prayer and loving the Lord, all while treating their fellow man like crap.
The preacher nodded miserably and then tossed in more butter, which was a bad move. He had more than enough butter in the pan. What the dumb fuck needed to do was add the tablespoon of lime juice that my recipe called for. If he studied my cookbooks as much as he gossiped, he’d be aware of that.
Hamming it up for the cameras, I stood next to the preacher and spoke in a theatrically hushed and solemn voice. “Reverend Dunlap has been in the bottom three twice. One wrong move tonight, and his luck will have finally run out. Will he be joining the cheerleader from Texas, Doralee Harper, who was the first to go?”
The reverend was an emotional wreck by the time I left his station and sauntered over to Ralphie, who my favorite contestant this season. I wanted so badly to pull him aside and tell him that he would never make it to the final four if his black foster mother didn’t lose some weight and do something about her four missing front teeth. But the rules prohibited me from giving the kid a heads-up on the social aspect of the competition.
“How’s it going, Ralphie?” I inquired in a somber tone that was meant to distress him.
“It’s going well, Cori,” he said confidently as he sliced shiitake mushrooms. “My meatloaf is in the oven, and my biscuits are going in next.”
I scrutinized his glazed carrots that were simmering in a pan, and tasted them. “Mmm. Tastes exactly like mine. Maybe better,” I added. “But I’m curious, what are you going to do with the shiitake mushrooms you’re slicing?”
“They’ll be added to the gravy.”
“So, you tasted mushrooms in my gravy?”
“No, but I wanted to add a component that would give your gravy a little more flair.” He smiled impishly.
“That’s a brash move, and I hope it pans out for you, Ralphie.”
“I’m sure it will!”
Ralphie was self-assured, not boastful, and I liked that about him. It was a shame that Josh considered him an embarrassment to white people and wanted him gone.
I meandered over to handsome Michelangelo while he was rhythmically moving to music in his head as he reached for a whisk. The director decided he wanted a different take of him grabbing the whisk, and he wanted more dance moves involved. The shot took about forty minutes, and by the time they got it right, I’d forgotten the clever line I’d planned for the hot hunk. The only thing that came to mind was, “Do you always dance when you cook?”
“I do a lot of different things when I cook,” he responded in a tone that sounded suggestive, to say the least.
At a loss for words, I fanned my face and said, “Whew, it’s getting hot in here.” There were chuckles from the crew and the other contestants, and Josh gave me the thumbs-up signal. He liked the sexual innuendoes and playful bantering.
“I see you’re working on the gravy. May I have a taste?”
“Suuure.”
The way he stretched out that one word, seemed to make it ooze with sex. Instead of focusing on his gravy, my gaze was fixed on his luscious lips, and I had to force myself to tear my eyes away. Of course the camera caught it all—my seemingly girlish infatuation and his sensuality and charm.
The way the competitors, the cast, and crew all applauded when the take was finished, you would have thought that Michelangelo and I had successfully completed a torrid sex scene.
After I’d collected myself, I decided that the scene with Michelangelo needed to be reshot. As an accomplished chef, I didn’t want to come off looking like a love-struck schoolgirl. I didn’t want to personally deal with Josh, and so I texted Ellie and told her to let him know that I wasn’t satisfied and wanted to redo the scene with Michelangelo.
I continued my rounds in the kitchen, treating some of the contestants nice and being downright vicious to others—like Lionel. As usual, he was wearing those yellow suspenders that he thought were cool and quirky, but I detested.
Lionel’s biscuits tasted amazing, but I told him he’d put too much salt in them. I also informed him that his meatloaf was so dry, and that it was hard to get down. Pretending to choke, I coughed exaggeratedly until one of the contestants handed me a bottle of water.
Looking distraught, Lionel turned several shades of red, which pleased me immensely. The bastard said my food should be banned from TV and I was going to do everything in my power to send him packing.
• • •
Josh refused to reshoot my critique with Michelangelo and I refused to vote Ralphie off the show. Following the script, Azaria Fierro wrinkled her nose when she tasted Ralphie’s gravy, and said that the shiitake mushrooms gave it a strange, bitter taste. The other judge, Norris Buckley, criticized Ralphie’s biscuits, claiming they’d been left in the oven too long, and that the texture wasn’t quite right.
Their critique was utter bullshit. Ralphie’s food was cooked to perfection, and I was willing to go to bat for him. I’d never claimed to be a perfect human being; Lord knew I had my faults, but I’d always had a soft spot for the underdog. Since it was my show, my vote vetoed both Azaria’s and Norris’s, and I was able to keep Ralphie safe for the time being.
The preacher’s prayers were answered, and he was saved. Lionel and his suspenders, however, were sent home.
Surprisingly, we wrapped up at a decent hour. Leaving the studio at seven-thirty in the evening seemed early compared to most nights. In a hurry to get home, I asked the driver to take the quickest route to my apartment.
I’d informed Maverick in a text that Katya was booked and I had set him up with someone else. I told him that the woman I’d arranged for him to fuck wasn’t into chicks, so there wouldn’t be a threesome. I was rushing to get home so that I could speak with him face-to-face before he went to meet Sophia at the hotel.
He’d have to meet all the escort bitches in hotels from now on. No more hoes in our apartment—that was my new rule.
When I arrived home, Maverick was relaxing in boxers and drinking a beer. He was watching a tape of himself interviewing a rookie football player.
“Why aren’t you dressed? Sophia is probably at the hotel by now.”
“I’m not going.”
“Why not?”
“I’m comfortable with Katya; I’d rather wait until she can fit me into her schedule.”
I was stunned. “You’re willing to be put on the waiting list of a sleazy hooker who barely speaks English?”
He took a swig of beer. “It’s not like I’m hard up for sex. Why’re you so eager for me to get with another woman? Seems strange, especially since you’re not participating.”
“I never really enjoyed that girl-on-girl mess. I only did it for you.”
“Well, thanks. I appreciate it. We usually do threesomes on special occasions, and I’m finding it weird as hell that out of the clear blue, you’re suddenly hiring escorts like you’re ordering takeout. First, Katya, and now this chick, Sophia. What’s going on, Cori?”
I swallowed guiltily. “Well…I’m going to be so busy with the show for the next few months, I wanted to make sure that you don’t feel neglected. Is it a crime for a woman to want to keep her husband sexually satisfied?” I caressed the back of his neck. “Sweetie, I’m a member in good standing with the Chasity Martin escort service. If you cancel at the last moment, I could lose my membership altogether.”
“So what! There’re lots of escort services in New York. Besides, it’s not as if we hire escorts more than a few times a year.”
“But…I thought you wanted to see Katya again.”
“I do, but I was hoping you’d be able to make arrangements with her outside of the agency. Pay her under the table.”
“I could make that proposal to her, but I don’t have any way of communicating with her other than through the agen
cy. After I make contact with her again, I’ll be sure to get her personal information. In the meantime, if you want me to keep my gold membership with Chasity Martin, then be a good boy and go meet Sophia.”
“What does Sophia look like? Is she hot like Katya?”
I hesitated. “I wouldn’t refer to her as hot, but she’s attractive. She looks more like the housewife type.”
“Why’d you pick a boring housewife?”
I shrugged. “Change of pace. If you’re not feeling Sophia, then make it a quickie…or tell her that all you want to do is talk,” I said with forced laughter as my insides twisted with anxiety. If Maverick didn’t take his ass to the hotel and pump some dick into Sophia, my plan would be totally screwed.
CHAPTER 10
There wasn’t a married woman in the world, besides me, who could get a peaceful night’s sleep while her husband was across town in a hotel fucking another woman. But I honestly wasn’t concerned about a plain-Jane like Sophia stealing my man. My only concern was Katya, with her freaky self. But since I had no intention of ever using her services again, there was no reason to waste another thought on that bitch. With a contented smile, I plumped my pillow and waited for sleep to overtake me.
For some unknown reason, my mind was filled with memories of Grandma Eula Mae. I could clearly hear her voice in my head, divulging secrets about her scandalous past. No one in my family was aware that she’d left a box of cassette tapes in the attic. Voice recordings that she’d begun when she first noticed she was becoming forgetful. She’d wanted her family to understand what her life was like back in the old days.
Despite enjoying the benefits that her immoral lifestyle had provided, my mom and Aunt Chloe considered their mother’s past to be an embarrassment. Had they known of the existence of the tapes, they would have destroyed them. They had rewritten Grandma Eula Mae’s history, telling their acquaintances that their mother had accrued her sizeable income from her restaurant, hotel, and by making good investments.
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