by Chris Negron
“My mom and my sister, Paige,” I say, nodding. “I hope they’re okay.”
“Why wouldn’t they be ok—” one reporter starts, but a louder and closer one wedges his question in first.
“What about friends? Starting with you, Pepper.”
Pepper blinks. Everyone’s staring at her. When she leans toward the mic, a piercing tone shrieks out of the speakers. Several reporters tilt their heads and stick fingers into their ears.
“Um . . . ,” Pepper says when the spike of noise fades. “Friends. Yeah, sure. I have lots.”
“I bet they’re rooting you on big-time back in Boston, aren’t they?”
“Here’s your chance to name a few!” another reporter shouts.
Pepper puts her hand on the microphone’s base. She twists her fingers around it a couple of times. “Um . . .”
“Shout-out to my friend Tre!” I say, and I don’t know if anyone else notices Pepper give me a tiny smile for rescuing her, even though I have no idea what I just saved her from. “He better be rooting for me!”
It feels kind of good to make a roomful of people laugh all at once.
Bo and Kiko list out some close friends, too. Joey must name half his school. He only stops when Wormwood clears her throat.
“Joey, tell us about your uncle Frank. He owns some restaurants in the Chicago area, doesn’t he?” a mustached reporter in the middle of the room asks.
Joey nods. “Yeah, there’s Vito’s on second, and Violante’s on East Superior, and—”
“Did he inspire you to start cooking?”
“Well . . . I would say I’m definitely here because of him,” Joey agrees. “Uncle Frank and my dad are always cooking stuff together, and I’ve gotten to visit all the restaurants and help out in some of the kitchens, too.”
“Bonifacio, your family’s in the food industry, too, aren’t they?” The mustached guy gets some dirty looks from the others for firing off his third question in a row.
“Sí, for a long time we have owned some groceries and taquerias, starting with my great-grandparents and now down to my mother and father.” He stops and sighs heavily, then waves at the cameras. “Hola, Mamá! Hola, Papá!”
“I have a question for the young ladies,” a tall woman with glasses and long, straight gray hair says from her position leaning against the wall. “Pepper, from the videos we’ve seen in your submission and on your website, it’s clear you have a desire to be the best at whatever you do. Meanwhile, according to our research, Kiko has finished first in I can’t count how many other competitions, from math to spelling to archery. As the only girls in the contest, have you found some common ground in the way you both excel at everything you attempt?”
Joey and I rock back in our chairs to give Pepper and Kiko a clear line of sight to each other. They lean forward to look at each other as they answer at the same time.
“We are staying in the same room,” Kiko says flatly.
“We’re becoming really good friends,” Pepper counters.
Chef Wormwood’s stern voice seems to slice through a sudden thickness in the room. “We only have time for one more question.”
“Okay, okay,” says a twitchy, skinny guy who seems to be moving on fast-forward. “You can’t pick yourself. Going down the line . . . if not you, then who do you think will win?”
“I think it will probably be Kiko,” Bo says into his microphone immediately.
Kiko, sitting next to him, turns in shock. “Thank you.” She hesitates. “But I cannot make such a prediction.” She looks down the line at the rest of us before glancing at Bo again. “Everyone here is very talented. We are all trying our best.”
“Yeah, like, why would I answer that?” Joey says. With a sudden movement, he turns to face Bo, and even though I only see the back of his head, I can imagine the eye daggers he’s shooting at his little friend. Maybe their alliance will end before it ever had a real chance to start.
If I were going to answer the question, I’d probably be with Bo. Kiko seems to be the most talented of us, and she’s already in first, even if she only has a single point on me. But I also admire her for other reasons, too, like the answer she just gave, so when it’s my turn, I echo it.
“I agree. Doesn’t seem fair to try to pick one.”
And Pepper immediately says, “Me. You say I can’t pick me, but that makes no sense. You want to know who’s going to win, and I’m the only one here who’s the best, so of course it’s going to be me.” She leans back, folds her arms across her chest, and surveys the room with a confused expression. “Was it supposed to be a trick question?”
Wormwood takes advantage of the short silence that follows. “Okay, I’m afraid that will have to be the last question. Thank you so much for attending. As Chef mentioned last night, Mr. Modestino’s ‘Evening with the Super Chef’ will air tonight, and the second one is Sunday night, featuring Ms. Carmichael.” Pepper’s arms unfold and she sits up straight in surprise. “The rest of the competitors will next appear Monday night for the second challenge. Eight p.m. as usual.”
When she finishes, Wormwood gestures for us to stand. We start to push our chairs back.
“Where is the Super Chef?” someone yells. By the time I look for the source of the voice, though, it’s lost in the crowd.
A few other reporters nod. They start to stand, and it gets even harder to match question with face. “Yeah, why isn’t he here?”
“This press conference is over,” Wormwood repeats with a scowl.
But now the mass of reporters is surging forward, shouting about the Super Chef. “How often have you seen him? Does he give you pep talks? What’s the biggest thing you’ve learned from him so far?”
The woman with the long gray hair and glasses stands up on a chair, rising above her colleagues. She points at us with her pen. “These kids already look tired, just one challenge in. What are the working conditions like? Where is the Super Chef? This is his contest, isn’t it?”
I notice Wormwood look over the top of us at Kari with a piercing glare, and the producer gets the message. She races out and starts to corral the Super Five into a tight circle. Our handlers rush forward, too, helping keep the reporters back. Soon the huge security staff join in. The reporters become a single-minded blob, pushing and shoving forward to get closer to us, continuing to rapid fire questions.
Kari barely manages to keep us together and guide us off the stage. She stays connected to the Super Five, leading our compact huddle all the way up the stairs and into the dorms. She slams the door shut, turns the lock, and leans her back against it for a few seconds, breathing heavily and hugging her clipboard.
25
“How do you think it’s going?” Pepper asks, impatiently tapping a finger on her schedule. Joey’s been gone for a couple of hours already.
The rest of us shrug.
Pepper refuses to accept that response. “You saw what he was wearing, right?”
Joey had come out of his room wearing the most extra clothes I’d ever seen on a twelve-year-old. Almost a tuxedo, with a bow tie and even a pocket square. His dark hair was slicked back with what must’ve been two handfuls of gel. When Kari and his handler, Craig, came to collect him, they both did a double take.
We knew the one-on-one meeting must be airing on TV—live, Chef Taylor had assured his home audience multiple times—but that didn’t matter. We had no TV. No internet, either. So while we desperately wanted to see what was going on between them, we couldn’t. And it was pretty obvious why—we weren’t supposed to overhear the questions the Super Chef would be asking Joey. That would give us an unfair advantage for our meetings, one he hadn’t had for his.
Meanwhile, we’d tried to find other tasks to keep us busy. Made dinner, cleaned up first the dishes, then the dorms. Bo’s handler, a big college intern from Wisconsin named Brett, supervised us the whole way. But now we aren’t really sure what to do with ourselves. All we know is none of us wants to go to bed before Joey gets back. No way am I mi
ssing the chance to interrogate him about how his meeting went. I need as much intel as possible in order to develop a plan for keeping mine, whenever it ends up happening, on track. Cooking and food focused.
I don’t end up having to wait much longer, though, because a few minutes later the front door bursts open and Joey storms back into the dorms.
“Take the L, losers,” he yells out. Using the thumb and index finger of one hand, he sticks an L on his forehead. He grabs his belt buckle with the other, then starts kicking his feet out like he’s in a rodeo. The “Take the L” dance from Fortnite. “I’ve got this thing . . . In. The. Bag.”
“Your meeting went well,” Kiko, sitting up, says more than asks.
Pepper twists in his direction. “What kinds of questions were there? Did you have to take a test?”
“It went awesome!” Joey shouts. He stops dancing and thrusts a fist into the air. “He loves me.” He glances at Pepper. “I can’t tell you the questions. You trying to cheat?”
Pepper turns back fast, facing forward again. “Fine. Be that way.”
“Congratulations, Joey,” Bo says, but Joey ignores him.
“Yeah, great,” I add, because I don’t know what else to say. I mean, not that I care, but it should be impossible that the Super Chef, who always said he built his empire from scratch, from totally modest beginnings, would have some kind of special connection with this silver-spoon-in-his-mouth Chicago kid. Joey must be exaggerating; he can’t possibly be Taylor’s favorite.
Mo or Joe or whatever they call him back home is still flossing when I quietly slip into the boys’ dorm to brush my teeth.
We hit our first Saturday in New York, and the closest I’ve come to my father is the brief moment he stood in front of me during the Teamwork Challenge. Seconds before he stole away just about everything I’d picked out of the pantry. There was a time I guess I assumed part of the deal in coming here was going to be learning directly from him, but the reality is we’ve spent tons more time with Wormwood and Graca.
I know I’m not the only frustrated one, either. Every time one of the Super Five thinks we’ll see the Super Chef—at the press conference maybe, or on a training day—he’s either not there at all or far enough away he might as well not be there. Up in the balcony, looking down on us. Or pacing across the stage, camera people and sous chefs and black-shirts creating an impenetrable wall around him.
I’d caught Pepper complaining about it to Kiko last night. I’d come out for a glass of water before officially going to bed. Kiko was listening attentively to Pepper’s rant, but when it was over, she only responded with “But they did warn us this would happen.”
She’s right, they did. Hearing about something happening and actually being in the middle of it going on, though, can be two really different things.
A bunch of maneuvering out in the common room wakes me up. I rub the sleep out of my eyes and glance over at the bunk bed. Empty, both top and bottom this time. Joey and Bo, at least, must be out there already. When the clock tells me I slept way in, I figure everyone else probably is, too. I scramble up and out of our room, propelled by the jumbo-size FOMO suddenly gripping my spine, steering me forward like I have a handle on my back. They’re not all in the common room crowded around the Super Chef, are they?
When I race out and my eyes adjust to the activity, however, they find something even more weird. My new, brash Chicago friend is actually being charitable, dishing out breakfast to all the others. Never expected to see Joey volunteering to cook, let alone waiting on everybody.
Bo interrupts his chewing long enough to scold me as Joey pushes a slice of fluffy egg from a cast iron pan onto the plate in front of him. “You are missing the frittatas.”
I sigh out a little bit of relief. At least I’ve only missed food and not Chef Taylor. My jealousy reports in for duty, making sure I know that Joey’s upbeat attitude must be a result of his one-on-one really going as well as he’s been claiming it did.
On his way back to the kitchen, Joey stops in front of me. He tilts his pan. There’s one wedge of egg-y wonderment left. I can’t help but smell it. My stomach grumbles.
“Is that lemon?” I ask, voice quavering.
“Yep, with leeks and goat cheese. You game?”
I scratch my head, feeling my hair pointing in all directions. For the first time I notice everyone else is dressed, too. I’m the only one still in pajamas. “Sure. Thanks.”
“I’ll get you a plate.” He winks at me, and it’s not even sarcastic like it usually is.
I wander toward the table and sit at the head of it. “Why didn’t someone wake me up?”
“We tried,” Kiko says after a swallow.
“You were out cold,” Pepper agrees.
Bo gulps down another forkful. “I shook your leg. You kicked me in the stomach.”
“Sorry.” I glance up at the cameras. “What did I miss? What are we doing today?”
“It’s Pepper’s meeting tomorrow night,” Bo says. “With the Super Chef.” He sounds genuinely excited for her.
“I know. We heard that at the end of the press conference.”
“Well, it’s confirmed now.” Pepper holds up a white index card.
EVENING WITH THE SUPER CHEF #2
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 17
PEPPER CARMICHAEL
7:00 P.M.
“All I got was this,” she complains. “We haven’t seen anyone in person all morning.”
“Super quiet,” Joey agrees as he slides a plate in front of me. The frittata slice is in the direct center, and somehow it smells even more amazing than a few seconds ago. “The silence is startin’ to freak me out a little, you know?”
I look at him. He’s smiling at me like we’re best friends. “Freaked out,” I agree. “Yeah.”
“It’s the clam before the rainfall,” Bo agrees.
“Calm,” Pepper corrects him. “Before the storm.” She picks up her empty dish and walks it toward the sink, then makes eye contact with me. “I’d eat and get dressed quick if I were you. You know how things are around here. There’s basically two speeds. Waiting around and—”
“Pandemonium,” Kiko finishes for her.
26
A half hour later Kari leads us downstairs, through the Super Chef Arena kitchens, into the elevator, and out the front door of the building. At first it feels good to breathe in the crisp November air. Then a car honks and a cab driver starts shouting at a truck driver, and I remember: Super Chef Arena might be a tough place, but out here it’s 100 percent New York City and probably a whole lot more dangerous.
I feel more comfortable when I see Mel and the other four handlers approaching from down the block. For some reason, even though they’re as much a part of the competition as Kari or Wormwood is, these college kids feel like they’re on our side.
We pile into two vans idling at the curb, each of us wearing winter jackets with sweatshirts underneath. It seems about twenty degrees colder than it was just three days ago.
The drive—lots of waiting for pedestrians to cross and taxis cutting us off—takes maybe forty minutes. We pull to a stop, and a security guard yanks the side door open. The giant sign right outside the van tells me we’ve made it to a place called Leah Square Park.
“What are we doing here?” Joey asks, looking around at the trees and grass and benches.
Kari walks around the front of the van. She points to the far side of the park. For the first time I notice the black-white-and-red food truck parked there. The diamond-shaped Super Chef “SC” logo shines from one side. “You’re doing that.”
It takes a minute or two to march across the park to the food truck. Chef Wormwood is waiting for us when we get there, rubbing her hands together to ward off the chill. No chef’s coat, just a heavy sweatshirt and jeans. My eyes find the Super Chef in the distance. He’s dressed as casually as his sous chef, talking with some guys near the end of a long line that starts in front of the truck’s service window and winds
away into the distance, curling in on itself multiple times.
“I’ll be around, okay?” Mel assures me in his usual warm but confidential tone. He and the other handlers head out to help Taylor manage the crowd. I look up at the only adult left with us. Wormwood.
Behind her, the people in line wear ratty clothes and carry heavy backpacks. Some have dogs on leashes, a few drag giant black garbage bags along the ground. One or two push shopping carts filled with more bags and cans and blankets.
“Are they homeless?” Pepper asks. She takes a step back.
“Line up,” Chef Wormwood warns. Pepper forces herself forward again.
Wormwood peeks at the line over her shoulder before turning her attention back to us and continuing. “Saturday mornings, Chef Taylor’s food truck sets up in a local park to offer up a meal to those in need. This week you five are going to help.” She begins to pace down our line, handing out blue plastic gloves for us to pull on.
“Is this part of the test?” Kiko asks. She looks around, probably noticing the same thing I am. No cameras.
Wormwood’s serious expression doesn’t change. “Everything’s part of the test.”
“Every Saturday he does this?” I ask as Wormwood stops in front of me.
“That’s what I said.”
“It’s just . . . I’ve never seen it on Super Chef before.”
“No,” Wormwood says as she pushes gloves into my chest. I have to reach up to grab them. “You haven’t, have you?” As she paces to Bo next, she adds, “There are some things that aren’t done for television. It isn’t the point.”
Inside the truck, we form an assembly line. Each burrito we make is the same recipe. Pepper warms the tortilla and passes it to Joey, who fills it with ground beef and some cheese. He slides it to Bo, who folds it, then pushes the completed meal toward Kiko. She wraps it in white paper.
I man the window, handing out a burrito and a bottle of water to each new person. I don’t have to worry about taking money or making change. Everything is free.
After about a hundred no-charge meals, my bicep starts to grow sore from all the repetitive reaching. There’s still no end in sight to the line. In fact, when I lean forward, I see more and more people arriving to join it at the back. The Super Chef’s out there, too, traveling up and down, talking to the people waiting, laughing with them, hugging them.
