Fry Another Day

by J. J. Cook

  “Now what do you think is in here?” He pulled at the beautiful lavender-colored ribbon.

  “Like he doesn’t know,” Ollie muttered.

  When the package was unwrapped, he read the card inside, as everyone around us was reading their cards. Waiters began serving the meal. Chef Art finally passed the card to me.

  “Now that you’ve had a chance to see your personal information,” Patrick said, “I’m going to explain what it means.”

  My card said: Do it in the red. I had no idea what that meant.

  “We’re gonna get cutthroat here, campers! That personal message you received is your tag for tomorrow’s challenge.”

  “What kind of tag?” Ollie snatched the card from me.

  “What does it say?” Uncle Saul asked.

  “What do you mean by tag?” Reverend Jablonski asked from his usual table at the front.

  “Tag. You’ll understand better when we talk about the next part of tomorrow’s challenge. Two food trucks are going home tomorrow before we head to Mobile. They won’t pass go, and they won’t collect fifty thousand dollars. Remember that when you figure out what your tag is all about.”

  That brought a round of applause from everyone at the Biscuit Bowl table, Shut Up and Eat, and Grinch’s Ganache. I didn’t applaud, and neither did the team at Our Daily Bread’s table.

  “We don’t understand, Patrick,” Reverend Jablonski said. “Could you be clearer?”

  Patrick laughed a trifle like a bad guy in a B movie. Kind of bwahaha. “That’s up to you, Our Daily Bread team. No one will force you to use your tag. However, a word of warning: I’m sure the other foodies in this room will use theirs. Especially once they hear the challenges for tomorrow.”

  I stared at the empty chair next to me where Miguel should’ve been sitting. I wasn’t a bit interested in the dried-up chicken, green beans, and rice on my plate.

  It was hard to get into the spirit of the race knowing that the police were questioning Miguel again. I wished there were something I could do to help. Sitting here and playing games wouldn’t make any difference. It made me want to give up and go home.

  That’s not a bit like me, but I hadn’t been sleeping well in the hotel rooms, and the stress of being part of this race, let alone a murder investigation, was beginning to take its toll on me.

  “What about us, Zoe?” Ollie asked. “What are we gonna do?”

  “I don’t know. I’m thinking about giving up and spending my time helping Miguel stay out of jail instead of worrying about whether or not we’re going to get tagged in this race.”

  I explained to him that the police had Miguel and Tina, while new girls in bikinis brought out the electronic board again. The cameramen were setting up the lighting. A makeup artist was checking Patrick’s face. It all seemed so pointless.

  “But that’s good news that Helms believes him, right?” Ollie asked.

  “I hope so, but she’s not the only one involved.”

  “Zoe, there’s nothing you can do for Miguel,” Chef Art said. “If you quit now, think how that will look for me. I have a lot at stake. If you do your best and don’t win, that’s different. No one likes a quitter.”

  “I’m sorry. I can’t think how else to help him.”

  Delia hugged me. “I completely understand. You have to do what you think is right.”

  “Don’t listen to her,” Ollie said. “We’ve been through a lot to get to this point. If you give up, that means we did it for nothing.”

  “He’s right.” Uncle Saul surprised me by agreeing. “Miguel wouldn’t want you to quit, either. He’s a smart boy. He knows how to handle this type of situation.”

  “Fine.” Chef Art threw down his napkin. “I’ll send my lawyer over to help the two of them, Zoe, if you stay in the race. Happy? Will you stay?”

  It was a generous offer. Chef Art’s lawyer could do a lot more for Miguel than I could hanging around the police station. Even though I knew Chef Art was offering to help for his own purposes, I didn’t care.

  “Okay. We’ll go on. Thank you.”

  “Now what about tagging?” Ollie asked me again.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Before I could admit that I had no idea what the tag was all about, Patrick got everything set up and was ready with tomorrow’s challenge.

  “These two challenges are gonna be tough.” He opened the big, secret envelope and scanned its contents.

  I saw the enigmatic smile on Chef Art’s face and knew he had a hand in creating the challenges.

  “The stakes are going up. Tomorrow, each team will have to sell two hundred dollars in product. Remember this has to be your main menu item. You’ll have as long as you need. There is no time limit, but again, the first person to reach two hundred dollars wins.”

  That sounded easy enough. I should’ve known there was more to come.

  “Now the fun part of this challenge.” Patrick demonstrated how “fun” it was by laughing almost hysterically. “Everyone on the teams has to dress in bikinis, just like our girls up here. Ladies, take a bow.”

  The two young women bowed gracefully.

  “One of our sponsors, By the Beach—featuring beach toys, towels, swimsuits, and other fun items—now found at more than one hundred locations across the Southeast, has donated bikinis for our teams in every shape, size, color, and style. In other words, we’ve got you covered! No excuses.”

  Daryl Barbee stood up at his table and tossed down his big hat. “I am not wearing a bikini tomorrow. This is a stupid challenge.”

  Everyone watched him storm out of the room. The cameras followed him, loving the controversy. His wife, Sarah, blushed and shrugged but didn’t comment on her husband’s temper tantrum. One of the assistants followed Daryl out of the dining room, probably for a personal interview.

  Chef Art was so busy chuckling to himself that I wanted to hit him. No doubt he thought Delia wearing a bikini as she sold biscuit bowls in downtown Birmingham was a winning idea. Or he just wanted to see her in a bikini. Who knows?

  “Good one!” Ollie held up his thumb.

  “What’s good about it?” Uncle Saul asked. “Have you ever seen a man wearing a bikini? What do you think we’re going to look like tomorrow?”

  “Who cares?” Ollie asked. “Nobody in any of the other food trucks is hot like Delia.”

  “There’s Bobbie’s daughter,” I reminded him. “She couldn’t skate, but I bet she’ll look good in a bikini.”

  “Oh yeah. That’s right.” He frowned a moment and then lightened up. “Maybe that’s where we’ll use our tag.”

  “That’s the spirit,” Chef Art commended him. “Wait. Patrick has more to say.”

  Now that the interruption was over, Patrick continued. “Did I mention we’re gonna have a little bikini beauty pageant? Everyone will get a turn on the stage. The winner of our pageant will get a one-week, all-expenses-paid cruise to the Caribbean for their team. This is from another sponsor, All Star Cruise Lines, hailing from the port of Mobile, Alabama.”

  That was popular enough, even though it meant that all team members would have to participate. Ollie and Delia didn’t care. Uncle Saul was a little upset, but I knew he’d come around. I’d be okay if they had the right bikini for me.

  They did a spin on the board and lit everything up to show us again what our stats were. Nothing had changed. It was a little anticlimactic. The dinner began to break up, vendors heading back to their rooms.

  “I’m going to get something real to eat! This was tasteless fare.” Chef Art got to his feet. “I’m buying. Who’s with me? I’m sure Birmingham has something better to offer.”

  “I’m in,” Uncle Saul said. “I had some basil and tomato alligator stew here in Birmingham once. Best I ever had.”

  I couldn’t believe it. “That would be like me eating a cat. What
about Alabaster? How is she going to feel about you eating one of her kind?”

  He shrugged. “What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”

  The doors to the room burst open as everyone was headed in that general direction. Dante Eldridge, from the ill-fated Stick It Here food truck, ran in.

  “Wait! Stop! I found my food truck. I want another shot.” He was shouting and waving his big, muscled arms.

  Patrick started to speak but was pulled aside by one of the producers. After a short conversation, he picked up his microphone. “It looks as though Stick It Here will be joining us tomorrow on the street.”

  “How does that work?” Bobbie Shields asked. “Why does he get to come back?”

  One of the men behind the scenes, who always seemed to have the last word, came forward and took the microphone from Patrick. “Dante wasn’t kicked out of the race because he failed a challenge. He was a victim who has managed to get his food truck back. I think that requires us to allow him back into the race. Thank you.”

  Bobbie, about five-foot-five, maybe early fifties, walked up close to Dante, who was a big man, tall and muscular, probably in his thirties. “Well, you won’t look too good in a bikini now, will you? I’m not worried. Good night!”

  “Bikini?” Dante glanced around the room for an explanation.

  “Come up here,” Patrick said. “I’ll get you up to speed.”

  The rest of us left and were guided to another big room by one of the bikini-clad girls. It seemed fitting when she opened the door and the room was filled with bikinis. There had to be every color known to man in that room. There were micro-bikinis, thongs, halter tops, string tops. I’d never seen so many bathing suits in one place.

  Of course, the cameramen were there watching and recording the whole thing. Some people made use of the small closet to try their bikinis on. Others just grabbed what they knew was their size and left.

  I had an idea as soon as I saw the bikinis. I called my team together, and the closest cameraman zoomed in on us.

  “Everyone grab a red bikini,” I said. “I don’t care what kind it is. Our tag is Do it in the red. All of us should wear red.”

  Ollie did that frown that went from the tattoo on his head to his chin. “How do we know that’s what we’re supposed to do, Zoe? Maybe we’re supposed to shoot someone in the face with ketchup or spray-paint their food red as they’re trying to sell it.”

  “I’m sure it’s the bikini colors. See? Red. Green. Yellow. Blue. It’s the bikinis. We’re going to get something for figuring it out.” Uncle Saul picked up a red bikini with a halter top and twirled it around on his finger. “I’ve admired these on many shapely women over the years. I’ve never thought about wearing one myself.”

  “Whatever.” Ollie shook his head. “Let’s find the most revealing bikini we can for Delia. I’ll start over here.”

  “You look for your own, big guy,” she told him. “I know what works for me. I don’t need your help.”

  After that was over, we were boring to the cameraman, who moved to where Bobbie’s daughter was trying on blue string bikinis. Bobbie either didn’t get the tag idea or was going to ignore it. She was looking at yellow bikinis.

  With our plan in motion, I set about finding a red bikini for me.

  The thing about bikinis is that they only look good on you if you have a perfect body. By perfect, I mean tall, thin, and shapely. I was only privileged to be in that last category. I got the shapely part from my mother, but tall and thin wasn’t me. I didn’t look bad in a nice one-piece. Bikinis scared me.

  I definitely didn’t want a string bikini. Not that any of the other types hid anything. Some of them were barely patches held together by almost invisible string. I quietly picked out a red halter-neck top with a modest bottom.

  Ollie and Uncle Saul were having a hard time—not surprising. We found bikinis that would fit both of them. No doubt they wouldn’t be particularly flattering, but that’s not what the producers had in mind.

  It was too bad Chef Art didn’t have to wear a red bikini, too. He probably would’ve dropped that brilliant idea if that was the case.

  “I’m not shaving my legs—or any other part of my body except my head—for this race,” Ollie told me.

  “I don’t think anyone expects you to,” I assured him.

  “I personally plan to strangle Chef Art when this is over,” Uncle Saul said. “Of all the stupid—”

  The ministers from Our Daily Bread were fussing and feuding like a bunch of schoolboys. It seemed that the race had finally found their soft underbelly.

  “Don’t criticize yet,” I said. “Chef Art might have set this up to get Delia delivering biscuit bowls in a bikini, but it might get our competitors so upset that they lose their edge, too.”

  Uncle Saul shrugged. “So be it. I’ll be glad to get back home.”

  I hugged him. “Have I said how much I appreciate you being with me through all of this?”

  “You don’t have to say it, Zoe. I love you, and we’re family. That’s what family is for.”

  “I don’t want to be part of a family that requires its members to wear a red bikini,” Ollie interrupted.

  I looked up at him. He was at least a foot taller than me. Sometimes it was easy to forget that this man was a tough ex-marine who was still in fighting shape. He was such a sweet person.

  “You don’t have to wear if it bothers you too much,” I said. “You can sit this one out. No one will think less of you for it. I appreciate everything you’ve done.”

  “Like I’d do that.” He hugged me, almost lifting me off the floor. “A man can gripe, can’t he?”

  “Yes, he can.”

  Delia had her bikini. We were ready to go. There was still so much going on in the bikini room that we were able to walk out unmolested by any of the camera crew.

  “What?” Uncle Saul grinned. “No deep questions about what red bikinis mean to us or what our plans are for tomorrow?”

  I laughed. “Not when you’ve got a bunch of angry ministers trying on bikinis.”

  “Good. I’m hungry, and I need a drink.” Ollie sniffed. “I smell food coming from that way.”

  Chef Art still had other plans. He was waiting close by when we emerged. “Hey. We’re still going out to eat some decent food, right? My limo is waiting.”

  Uncle Saul and Ollie glanced at each other and then high-fived.

  “All right,” Ollie said. “Let’s go.”

  “I’m right behind you.” Uncle Saul slapped him on the back.

  “Let me run up and stash these bikinis.” I was nervous about losing one of them before tomorrow. I gathered Ollie’s and Uncle Saul’s with mine.

  “I’ll just go up with you and drop mine off, if that’s okay.” Delia smiled with a hint of blush in her cheeks and whispered, “I don’t like my clothes to touch other people’s clothes.”

  I smiled back at her, after I pushed the elevator button, thinking she was joking. “You’re serious?”

  “Yes. It’s a habit of mine, I guess.” She shrugged. “It’s a thing I learned to do when I was a kid. It’s hard keeping clothes to yourself when you have five sisters.”

  We got in the elevator and I hugged her. I could see she was uncomfortable even discussing it. “That’s okay. We all have weird things about us.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Like what?”

  “Oh. You mean like my weird thing?”

  “Yeah. What do you do weird—besides sleeping with your evil cat?”

  “Is that weird?” I’d never thought of sleeping with Crème Brûlée as weird. “No. I was thinking about when I quit my job to run a food truck.”

  “I think sleeping with the cat will do.”

  The elevator door chimed and opened. We went to our room and dropped off the suits. I gave Crème Brûlée a little hug an
d a kiss on his nose.

  We went back down in the elevator. The men were waiting in the bar. I wished Miguel was there, too. How long could the police talk to him about what happened to Alex?

  When we got into Chef Art’s limo, I took the opportunity to ask him if he’d heard anything about Miguel.

  “Zoe, I only called my lawyer while I was waiting for you and Delia. We talked about it over dinner, remember?”

  “This is stupid. I don’t understand why they keep interviewing him.”

  “Maybe because they think he killed someone?” Ollie said. “I’m not saying he did. But the police can get pretty nasty when they think you’re lying to them.”

  We went out for drinks at a private club where everyone knew Chef Art. We all had a little too much to drink knowing someone else was driving us around town. Uncle Saul and I talked about what he had planned for the biscuit bowls the next day. I was surprised and pleased by his choices.

  Chef Art was welcomed with a big hug from his friend who owned the exclusive restaurant where we went for dinner afterward. He ordered champagne, and we all had elaborate meals with wine.

  By the time we’d stopped for drinks again after dinner and then gone back to the hotel, I was a little on the wobbly side. The elevator seemed to be going in the wrong direction. Delia wasn’t as affected by it. She helped me get on and off the elevator with a smile.

  “You aren’t used to drinking so much.” She took my key card after the third time I couldn’t open the door.

  “Not so much.” I grinned at her. “Thanks.”

  “Can you make it to bed by yourself? I’m going back out for a while with Ollie.”

  “I’ll be fine. Good night, Delia. I hope our clothes never touch.”

  She laughed at me and closed the door on her way out.

  I was getting undressed, but my shoes were proving difficult. Someone knocked at the door. Hoping it was Miguel, I ran for it, almost tripping over my own feet.

  It wasn’t Miguel. It was Macey Helms. I looked past her for Marsh, but there was no sign of him.

  Great. Like I can talk straight about who killed Alex right now.