Sweet Heat

by Zuri Day

  “What in the world is going on in here?” Nana scrunched her nose as she stepped into the room, waving a hand in front of it. “And what did you do, spill a whole bottle of perfume?”

  Marvin listened as Naomi hid nerves behind laughter.

  “Yes, I mean, no, not the whole bottle. It was on the nightstand and I . . .” She paused and laughed again. Marvin imagined so that she could think of a believable lie. If it weren’t for the fact that his knee was throbbing and his nose was becoming way too acquainted with a box-spring coil, he would have enjoyed listening to the show.

  “You what?”

  “Knocked it off while I was dancing.”

  “Dancing?”

  “Yeah, or trying to.” He saw the bed sag as Naomi used it as leverage to get up. No! Don’t sit—!

  Only she did. The old mattress sagged, the springs sank and took away a valuable inch of breathing room. Marvin shifted his head and tried hard not to become claustrophobic. His eyes landed on a pair of what could only be described as old lady legs in old lady shoes. The same as the neighbor who’d inspired his love for baking. Pantyhose that looked a size too big and a shade too light slipped into low-heeled burgundy pumps that sported a bright gold buckle in the middle of a bow. Hi there, Miss Church Lady. Oh, she’d been to church. Of that, Marvin had no doubt. He focused on the shoes, tried to relax his shoulders and begged his neck not to cramp.

  “Remember that dance routine me and Tee made up when we were little?”

  “Y’all haven’t been little in a long time.” Nana’s brow furrowed as her gaze swept the room. “Where were you dancing, on the bed?”

  The way they’d been tousling, Marvin imagined that the bed looked like it had hosted a wrestling match.

  “Oh, no. I, um, lay down when I got home. Thought I was coming down with something, but I feel better now.”

  “Girl, you aren’t making any kind of sense. Coming down with something one minute, up dancing the next. Knocking stuff over and about to knock yourself out, the way you’re looking.” The bed shifted. Marvin gained back a much-needed inch of breathing room. He imagined Naomi going over to a mirror he remembered was hanging on her closet door. He shifted his head back and hoped a coil shape hadn’t been imprinted on his cheek.

  “What are you looking for, Nana?”

  “Do I have to be looking for anything to open your closet?”

  At the thought of being discovered had he made it to the closet, Marvin’s whole body froze up. He hadn’t talked to Jesus in a minute but mouthed a thank-you nonetheless.

  “No, but people normally have a reason and I know you can’t wear my clothes. Why are you home early anyway? You still not feeling good?”

  “No, I’m not. I told the secretary to add my name to the prayer list and then came on home.” I’m going to go take some cough medicine and go to bed, try to knock out whatever this is before it takes hold.”

  Marvin felt his leg going to sleep, even while the knee on that leg throbbed. Naomi, please take your grandma out of here.

  “Come on, Nana. I’ll make some chamomile tea with lots of lemon and honey.”

  That’s right, baby! That’s my girl!

  “What about some chicken noodle soup? Want some of that, too?”

  Marvin saw the lights go out and heard the door close. He wiggled his fingers, moved his legs and waited a couple more minutes before easing his bulk out from beneath the bed.

  What does she want me to do?

  He eased over to the window and peeked out the blinds. It looked wide enough but was up rather high. He’d have to heave his bulk over it and then try and avoid falling in a rose bush. A mess of thorns on top of coiled-spring imprints? There had to be another way.

  There was. It took more than an hour to arrive and Marvin felt like he was in a game of Twister as he dodged squeaky floorboards to reach the front door. A two-hundred-plus-pound brother trying to be light on his feet wasn’t easy, especially after spending the better part of an hour under a bed. Once outside he followed Naomi’s last request, necessary because she claimed her grandmother had ears like a bat. He put the car in neutral and pushed it two doors down before starting it up and leaving her block. Only after extracting a promise though. To finish what they’d started . . . and soon.

  12

  Usually Naomi hugged the pillow until the very last second, but the morning after Marvin’s close call, she couldn’t get out of the house fast enough. Nana had chosen going to bed over having soup, but that didn’t stop the continued interrogation when Naomi brought in a large mug filled with tea and a good amount of brandy covered up with loads of lemon and honey. Naomi had suggested turning the tea into a toddy. She needed something to fog her grandmother’s suspicious mind and knew if presented as medicine, alcohol was allowed. “To sweat the sick out,” her grandmother had explained when asked by Naomi at eight years old. Naomi hoped drinking the toddy would help her grandmother relax, allay her suspicions. It didn’t at first. Nana had asked about the spilled perfume, several times, like every time she inhaled and caught a whiff. Asked about Naomi’s delayed response when Nana had called out to her. Naomi was glad when a few sips into the healing concoction, her non-drinking granny’s eyes drooped with fatigue. Naomi gently removed the cup from Nana’s hand and set it on the table before covering her with an extra blanket besides the one already on the bed. With a night to dream, Naomi hoped that Nana would be out of questions and that the night’s events would be forgotten.

  She didn’t get her wish. After returning home almost ten hours later, Naomi found that Nana hadn’t forgotten. She didn’t have a bunch of questions, though, only two.

  “Did you have company while I was gone last night?”

  “No, ma’am.” Answered hastily, almost distractedly as Naomi beelined it to her room.

  Nana had followed her and leaned on the door. “Then who was that man the neighbor swore she saw sneak out of our house and push his car down the street?”

  * * *

  That was two days ago, and Naomi still hadn’t fully recovered. Nana hadn’t bought the argument that a friend had only dropped by to pick something up so Naomi hadn’t considered him company.

  “You know I used to be your age,” Nana had responded.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “You remember that I raised your mama before I raised you, right?”

  “I’m sorry that I didn’t remember to tell you,” Naomi said, hoping an apology would coat the lies and end the inquest.

  It didn’t. “Who was this man?”

  “One of the contestants for the food truck.”

  “What’d he come over for?”

  “A . . . garlic press.” That thought courtesy of the 99 Cents Store because they’d just gotten in a supply and Naomi had bought one.

  Nana had actually laughed out loud, shook her head and walked away, but not before a weary “Help her, Jesus,” slid through the closing door.

  Naomi needed help but doubted Jesus would give it to her. After lying to Nana, filling her room with almost-effing fumes and then the house with the fragrance of a thousand flowers, Naomi figured she was probably on her way to hell. Even worse than eternal damnation was the thought that she’d hurt or disappointed her grandma, evident in how last night the air at home was still strained. Naomi hoped that a busy Saturday focused on realizing her dream would help put the nightmare of being found out behind her. Winning the truck and that stack of cash would be her independence. Naomi was nothing if not motivated more than ever to cook for her life. She stood drinking coffee and chatting with a few other contestants, bracing herself for seeing Marvin, when somebody bumped her butt.

  “That felt intentional,” she said to the girl who’d been a teammate on the last challenge, giving herself a few extra seconds to adopt a cool façade.

  The redhead smirked as she looked behind where Naomi stood. “I think it was.”

  Naomi turned to see Marvin smiling like a Cheshire cat. Her facial expression was
bland enough. But her heartbeat raced, her kitty thrummed, and all she could say was, “You.”

  He laughed and leaned in with a greeting for her ears alone. “Hey, Juicy.” And then to the larger crowd, “Hey, everybody. Who am I beating today?”

  Marvin had thrown down the gauntlet. The appropriate responses jabbed back.

  “Naomi, can I holler at you for a minute?”

  She eyed Marvin suspiciously, the initial reaction at seeing him subsiding. “What do you want, my secret ingredient?” She hoped to make him as off-kilter as she felt.

  Just briefly his eyes narrowed, darkened, and sent Naomi a message that couldn’t be shared in mixed company, or any company for that matter. “Just want to ask you about something, that’s all.”

  They stepped away from the group and over by where craft services was busy setting up a lunch and snack spread.

  “I expected you to call me,” Marvin said, as soon as he was sure that no one was around.

  “And say what?”

  “I’m sorry, for starters.”

  Naomi made a face. “Sorry for what?”

  Marvin held up his hand and began counting on his fingers. “For not reminding me that you lived with your grandma. For not letting me know she was on her way home.” He slid his eyes over her body and took a step closer. “For limiting me to the drive-through when I’d come for a buffet.” He stepped back and arched a brow. “Need I go on?”

  She crossed her arms and was ready to deliver a sarcastic response, but aware that eyes were on them, whipped out a smile as though she were joking. “Okay, I’m sorry. But it’s not like that was planned. Nana is usually at church until at least nine o’clock, but that night she wasn’t feeling good and came home early. You heard me offer to fix her some soup.”

  “Stuffed under your bed like some clothes out of season, I couldn’t hear much of anything.”

  Naomi almost reached out to touch him, caught herself just in time. “I really am sorry about that. And just so you know, I’m suffering, too. Are you okay?”

  “I don’t know. Do I have a bedspring engraved on my face?”

  “The bed isn’t that low, is it?”

  “Not until you sat down.”

  “Oh!” Naomi’s hand flew to her mouth. “I didn’t even think . . .” She searched his face for evidence as that night’s scene replayed in her mind and she imagined her sagging springs kissing his cheek. “Sorry.”

  Almost believable, except for the giggle.

  “Girl, I know that you’re not laughing at my pain.”

  Naomi shook her head, and pressed her lips together to keep the laughter inside.

  “Yes, you are.” Marvin looked around, a sped-up replay of that night’s video playing in his head. “I guess it was kind of funny, my big ass squeezed between those springs and the floor. If I’d so much as farted my cover would have been blown.”

  They both burst out laughing at that, the situation becoming all the funnier considering how serious the sex had been just seconds before Nana’s Buick pulled into the drive.

  “Well, what do we have here, a private party?” Neither Naomi nor Marvin had heard Abbey approach. “Marvin, do you have a moment?”

  “Um, not right now,” he answered, nodding toward Ted. “Looks like we’re about to start.”

  Naomi ignored a tight-lipped Abbey and followed Marvin over to join the other contestants who’d made it to round two of the preliminaries.

  “What’s your girl’s problem?”

  “Who, Abbey?”

  “Who else? She was looking at you like she wanted to jack you up.” Marvin shrugged. Naomi blew it off, too. “What do you think we’re doing today?”

  “Entrées, I hope. Played around with a couple recipes this week that I’d like the judges to try.”

  Naomi leaned in close. “That’s not all you played around with.”

  “Don’t start nothing you can’t finish, girl, like you did the other night.” They both watched as actor and show host Ted Reynolds bounded to the stage. Marvin kept his eyes on him but leaned toward Naomi and whispered, “You probably planned it that way because you know you can’t hang.”

  Naomi almost choked on a mouthful of words she had to swallow rather than allow the outburst she craved. The competition had gone from over a thousand to just eighty in two weeks’ time. Now was not the time to lose focus.

  “Hello Food Truck Buckaroos! Give yourselves a hand for making it to the round of eighty!” He waited for the applause, whistles, and yells to subside. “Today is very important, because as impressive as it is for you to have reached this point, and for as good as you should feel about yourselves and your culinary chops, today may be your last day in this competition. When today’s challenge is over, we will have chopped the remaining number in half.” He nodded at the collective gasp. “That’s right. After today, there will only be forty spots. Does one have your name on it?”

  Naomi and Marvin joined the screams of contestants determined to make the cut. They listened as Ted gave the rules for today.

  “You’re going to pull colored knives to create eight groups of ten. Two knives out of each color group also have bands around the tip. Whoever chooses those knives will become captains, able to choose four players from the remaining group of the same color to form your team. Once that’s done, we’ll announce today’s dish. Let’s go!”

  The contestants lined up in four rows behind large butcher blocks that held twenty knives with the same thick wooden handle. Each person walked up and pulled out a knife with a colored plastic blade. Naomi and Marvin were in different rows but she watched him ease out a knife from the butcher block—green! Just like her.

  Each knife-wielding player quickly assembled with their same-color counterparts. Red, white, black, yellow, blue, and so on until all groups were formed. Naomi eyed the gold band around the tip of Marvin’s knife. He was one of the captains. Figured.

  Ted retook the stage. “Has everyone found their group?” Affirmatives abounded. “Good. What about the captains? If you have a band around the tip of your . . . knife”—Ted paused for the expected titters—“hold it up!”

  In their group it was Marvin and another contestant Naomi hadn’t met or worked with before. He had to have talent, otherwise he wouldn’t have made the cut of eighty. Still, she wanted to be on Marvin’s team. She told herself only the cooking squad. But the memory of Marvin’s stiff tongue flicking her pearl made her muscles clutch and rethink that position.

  “Alright, captains. There are representatives at each group to record your choices. Captains with one band on your knife go first. The captains with two bands go second.”

  Marvin stepped out and turned so he could see the whole group. He studied them only briefly before nodding toward his first choice. “I choose Naomi.”

  Naomi let out a relieved breath and almost skipped over to join her man, no, teammate. Fellow contestant. Mortal enemy! Blocker to her future fortune! Stay focused, girl!

  After the teams of five had been chosen, Ted announced the dish. The all-American favorite go-to snack, hamburgers and fries.

  Marvin had a plan before he chose Naomi. He gathered the team around him and quickly laid it out. “Okay, listen up. We’re doing a barbecued and bacon-stuffed cheeseburger with crispy onions, a poblano pepper relish, and sweet potato chips.”

  He began delegating jobs to the cooks around him. When he got to Naomi he told her to fry the chips.

  “I think we should do hash browns.”

  Marvin shook his head. “Sweet potatoes present a modern take on a classic.”

  “Maybe five years ago, but not anymore. Sweet potato fries are everywhere. A new take on the classic hash brown would make a louder statement. Give the judges something they’ve not had before.”

  “And may never want to eat again,” another of the contestants mumbled.

  “I’ll bet my spot in this competition on my potatoes,” Naomi said, staring down the mutterer until she turned her hea
d.

  Marvin looked at her a moment. “Remember you said that.”

  Naomi nodded, even as her heart began doing the boogie-woogie in her chest. Why’d I open my big mouth and put all that pressure on myself ?

  Ted gave the countdown. Naomi raced toward the vegetable bin, bypassed the crowd pushing for their share of Yukon Gold potatoes and went straight for the russets, which she knew made a lighter, crispier fry. She dumped those at her station and made a beeline for a shelf of waffle makers on the equipment rack. She organized the ingredients on her counter, then peeled potatoes like the devil was chasing her, passed them on to a teammate who shredded them and dumped them into a large bowl filled with cold water. Naomi plugged in the waffle irons, ignoring Miss Mutterer now smirking at her unconventional choice, spread the shredded potatoes out on the table and seasoned them.

  She quickly found out Marvin wasn’t that convinced either. “Girl, what are you doing?”

  “Helping us take first place today.”

  “With the waffle iron? Waffle hash browns are nothing new.”

  “No, but my recipe is. Just stay focused on that burger. I’ve got this over here.”

  Naomi backed up her words and turned out a stellar dish. The judges swooned over Marvin’s “Triple-B Burger” and the barbecue sauce he’d made on the spot. But they heaped piles of praise on Naomi for her “Shredded Strips.” The beauty in the recipe’s simplicity. The genius of spraying the iron with a lard-based spray, adding onions, and delivering a crispier hash brown from wedges that had been cut into strips and double-fried. They felt the pairing of her “clean” potato with the aggressively seasoned burger was a perfect match. The green team won as the best overall. Naomi’s potato lost overall best, second only to Marvin’s burger. Disappointing, but she agreed with the result. Marvin’s burger was the best ever put between a bun. It was eight of the hardest hours Naomi had ever experienced, but as she walked toward the parking structure she pulled out her phone. There was one more dish she wanted to have before she went home.