24
Sweat: This refers to the gentle cooking of vegetables in butter or oil under a lid, so that their natural liquid is released to aid the cooking process.
Often, vegetables cooked this way will end up looking translucent.
2016
January wasn’t as much a letdown after the holiday season.
Life was pretty good.
Love life.
Work life. Soup kitchen life. Routine, but rewarding. Even Sean had dulled back into the quiet he’d fallen into before New Year’s.
And Cut! aired.
Everyone congratulated him on making it to the final round, consoled him for being second.
All in all, Gale was proud of his performance, not that he’d do it again.
Just watching it was enough to make his heart race and his head light.
He didn’t remember feeling those things during the actual cooking, only during the in-betweens when producers did their thing, the judges judged, and he and the other contestants were in what passed as a green room, waiting.
He watched the first airing at his parents’ house with them, his brother, Jenara, Mrs.
Bizzarro, and Alicia.
Watched the DVR of it again with Kyle, Nando, and Jimmy at the apartment.
The one he most wanted to watch it with was Regina, but, though she’d been invited to the family viewing, she hadn’t come. Neither did Marco. He’d worked alone that Tuesday night so Gale could have the shift off. Frances hadn’t been pissy about it, but she refused the shift, citing personal reasons. Gale was pretty sure those reasons were of the envious variety, but they’d been otherwise getting along, so he didn’t call her on it.
Dropping his keys in the bowl on the table, Gale flopped onto a kitchen chair and put his head in his arms.
Lunch service at Marco’s had been pretty exhausting.
Ever since the episode aired, people came to the restaurant specifically when he was cooking.
Marco loved it. Frances hated it, though she pretended not to. Gale was ready for it to die down.
“Dude.”
Kyle shuffled in, pulled out the chair opposite.
“Hey, Kyle.
Not working?”
“Not tonight.
I’m too beat, and Samantha needed the hours.
You in? Or you going to Regina’s?”
“Regina has Mom helping out.”
“Yeah? She’s okay?”
“She is,”
Gale said.
And she was.
His mother thrived in Regina’s kitchen, maybe as much as he did himself.
“No Jenara?”
“Not tonight, no.”
“Cool-cool.”
Kyle grinned.
“That you’re here, I mean.
We don’t see much of each other these days.”
Gale had been looking forward to some quiet time on his own; it was one of the reasons he wasn’t seeing Jenara.
Much as he enjoyed her company, it was sometimes a lot.
Her mother was noisy.
Her daughter was noisy. Jenara was noisy even when quiet, strangely enough. She had an energy he loved, but sometimes it wore him down. Added to that, their conversation New Year’s Day played out in his head—Never lie to me—whenever he saw her. Even if he never had, depending upon whether or not omission of fact constituted a lie.
“Want to play video games?”
Kyle asked.
“Absolutely.”
They played on the sixty-five-inch television—Nando brought it home one day and no one questioned it—in the tiny living room for a couple of hours.
They cobbled dinner together from whatever was in the kitchen and ate it while watching Chef for the thousandth time.
Food trucks, cooking, beating the odds—Kyle got a little melancholy, even if he’d been the one to suggest it.
Just Eggs languished, not for lack of passion, but lack of funding not even sixty-hour weeks could provide.
Maybe Kyle wasn’t the greatest chef, but his idea was a good one and he deserved better.
At least the place doesn’t stink of eggs anymore.
When Sean did show up, Gale remembered why he shouldn’t miss him.
“I guess I better get some shut-eye.”
Kyle stretched, yawning.
“It was good spending some time with you, bud.
I’ve missed this.”
“Yeah, me too.”
And he did.
Truly.
Gale made a mental note to be better about making time for his friend in the future.
Kyle was the only one who had stuck with him through the drug years, all the ups and downs, after Sean died. The rest of their friends—and Gale didn’t really blame them—ditched him. Hard. And permanently, apparently, because none of them had even come out of the woodwork after the show aired.
Only nine o’clock.
Gale wasn’t really tired.
It was a rare thing for him to have so many hours to himself, even if he’d spent many of them with Kyle.
He’d be at Regina’s all day tomorrow, breakfast through dinner. Setting a mental reminder to be in bed by eleven, Gale opened up the laptop to go through long-overdue emails.
Because he hated doing email on his phone and rarely touched the laptop these days, there were a lot.
Several hundred.
Mostly spam.
He found a few from the Food Network, all old stuff pertaining to the show. The producers had typically called, only sending follow-up emails to cover their bases. Gale saved them all in a file he labeled, “second best,”
so he could always look back and remember.
He had a few emails from his fellow contestants, with whom he’d promised to stay in touch.
Some were a couple of months old, but he answered them anyway.
He really did want to stay in touch; having chef friends was a good thing, any way he looked at it.
After deleting the exhaustive list of spam, Gale found an email from his mother, dated before the competition but after agreeing to do it.
Hey, buddy!
Here’s a few more cooking shows you should check out.
They’re old! But these are the people who came before all the celebrity chefs we hear about nowadays.
Love you,
Mom
Too late to go down that rabbit hole of links and videos, Gale put the email in the “second best”
folder.
Maybe he’d check them out at some point.
One thing he learned in the weeks leading up to the taping was there were way more cooking shows, competitions, and celebrity chefs than he’d ever dreamed possible, even before the Food Network came along.
Mouse hovering over the shutdown, Gale heard the ping of another email coming in.
From the producers.
He moved the mouse to it, clicked it just as his cell phone chimed.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Gale Carmichael?”
“That’s me.”
On the screen, he read half-sentences.
“Who’s this?”
“It’s Bernadette, from the Food Network.
Remember me?”
In charge, but not in charge.
Bernadette had done all the coordinating, start to finish.
“Crazy.
I just got an email from you.”
“I only just sent them out,”
she said.
“Did you get a chance to read it?”
“Not really.”
“Then I’ll just tell you.
Ask you, I suppose is more like it.
I won’t go into the spiel in my email.
Bottom line, we’re doing a show pitting runner-up contestants against one another. The ones we really thought got a bum deal. We’re calling it a Grand Redemption Championship. Fifty grand to the winner. And we want you to be one of those contestants . . .”
Four qualifier rounds.
The winner from each qualifier would compete in the Grand Championship worth .
.
. Fifty. Thousand. Dollars. Bernadette hadn’t asked for an answer, only for him to think about it. She had other calls to make before it got too late.
“We start taping on this soon,”
she’d finished, “so don’t take too long.
We’d really like to give you a second chance, but if you don’t want the spot, we have a long list to pull from.”
He’d been one of sixteen runners-up, chosen out of .
.
.
how many? Gale couldn’t even fathom. Reading and rereading the email, he couldn’t seem to process all the information. Bottom line—could he do it? Three rounds had been nerve-racking enough. Three to qualify, then, in the improbable event he won, three more to get through for fifty. Thousand. Dollars.
He needed to speak with Regina.
It was too late.
Mom? Jenara? Maybe Kyle wasn’t asleep already.
Afraid waiting until morning meant waiting too long, knowing that was stupid but fearing it anyway, Gale tapped into his contacts. His finger hovered.
What are you even doing, man?
“Not now, Sean.”
That sigh that could have been wind in the drainpipe, water in the pipes.
You know what they’ll all say.
And even if someone advised against it, it’s not what you want.
“I don’t know what I want.”
Sure you do.
You always do.
You just look for someone to validate it.
Gale didn’t argue.
Sean was right.
He rarely made a decision without consulting someone else first.
Because he didn’t trust his own wants, his own judgment. Though there was huge precedent for that.
You gotta stop thinking that way, man.
“It’s hard not . . . hey.”
Hey, what?
“I knew you could hear me the way I hear you!”
Ooops.
“Fucker.”
Gale laughed when he said it.
Maybe it was the wind or the water, but he thought he heard Sean laugh, too.
Opening up the email from the network, he keyed in his response.
“This could be big for him.”
Marco filled her plate with spaghetti, twisting it into a nest and topping it with a huge meatball.
“Big for me, too.”
“If he wins.”
Regina sprinkled cheese on her pasta.
Freshly grated.
Marco knew better than to put anything less on the table.
“Even if he doesn’t.
Nights he works are even busier than the weekends since the show aired.”
“That’s got to go over like a lead balloon with Frances.”
“She’s not happy.
I’m afraid I’m going to lose her.”
Marco filled his own plate.
They sat across from each other, after hours, at the prep table in Marco’s.
They’d been alternating kitchens every Thursday since that first dinner in her apartment.
Regina had come to appreciate Marco’s dishes, the same ones she used to consider lacking in sophistication. Homey. Comforting. Delicious. The gastronomic world of microgreens and foams had its place, but while such fads changed with the season, the relevance of tradition remained constant.
“You’re more likely to lose him,”
Regina told him.
“Forceful as she is, Frances is unfortunately timid.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
Marco’s voice rose an octave.
“You never met her.”
“I know the type.”
She tapped her temple.
“Talented, but her aggression comes from lack of confidence.
The women-in-the-kitchen bullshit has gotten into her head.
It’s why she’s so pissy about Gale being on the show. Why him and not her, you know? I can guarantee she never even applied. It feeds her anger, justified or not, and keeps her a big dictator-fish in her steamy little pond. She’ll wait him out.”
“Interesting.”
Marco twirled his spaghetti against a spoon, ate a mouthful.
“I never thought about it that way, but you’re probably right.”
“You’re a man.
You never had to.”
“Is that why you were such a nut?”
“Partially,”
Regina said.
“I had to be a hundred times better than less-talented men.
Good thing I was.”
“Are.”
He twirled again.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”
Regina smacked his hand.
“Stop that.”
“Stop what?”
“Twirling with a spoon.
It’s barbaric.”
Marco’s laughter boomed.
Were there anyone in the restaurant, they’d have come running.
“Now that was all Queenie B! This is Marco’s off Wooster Street, not your posh Cucuzza.”
“Stop.”
But she laughed, too.
“Cucuzza isn’t mine anymore, anyway.”
“It’ll always be yours, no matter who owns it.
It’s still there, the jewel of Manhattan, still serving all your dishes.”
Regina paused, midchew.
“You’ve been?”
He tsked.
“Talking with your mouth full? Now who’s barbaric?”
“Fuck you.
When did you go?”
Marco started a twirl, glanced her way, and purposefully set down his spoon.
“Can I be honest without you punching me in the face?”
“My punching-people-in-the-face days are over.
Spill it.”
“After I saw you in the market,”
he confessed.
“Don’t get pissed at me!”
“I’m not.”
“I know that pissy look.”
“I always look this way.
Ask Gale.”
Regina twirled and twirled and twirled her pasta.
Not against a spoon.
“How’d it look?”
“Exactly the way it did when you were there.”
He winked.
“Whoever owns it now knew not to mess with anything.
Your picture is still in the lobby.”
Pride and satisfaction mingled with smugness, a little fear, and a smidge of reluctant excitement.
“Who sold it?”
Marco asked.
“You or Oz?”
“Hell if I know.”
She ate the overtwirled spaghetti, swallowed before speaking.
“My lawyers were too good to sit back and let me give Oz everything, but I didn’t get involved in who got what.
I told them to do it.
I let them deal with my husband, my child, my whole world.”
She sighed.
“At least he got something out of our marriage.
Whatever he got, he earned.”
“Hmph.”
Marco poured diet soda into her glass from the lovely carafe he saved just for her.
“So, you going to do more of those mystery crates for Gale?”
She wagged her fork at him.
“What was that about?”
“What?”
“Don’t fuck with me.
You hmphed.”
Marco set the carafe down.
“It’s none of my business.”
“I’m sure it’s not.”
“Then forget it.
I was thinking maybe I’d do a few crates for—”
“Don’t make me beat you.”
“I thought your punching-people-in-the-face days were over.”
“You’re really starting to piss me off, Marco.”
His jaw worked back and forth, eyes focused on the food in his plate.
Setting his fork down, he met her gaze across the prep table.
“You want to know? Fine, I’ll tell you.
You were no innocent, Regina, but neither was Oz.”
“Oz?”
Regina shook her head.
“What are you talking about? He wasn’t the freak show.”
“Give me a break.
Osvaldo Balcazar has never been a victim a day in his life.
You think he didn’t bask in all that drama?”
“You’re not being fair.”
“To who? The man who profited, really profited! Off your reputation? The long-suffering husband role suited him just fine.
Poor, charming, sophisticated Osvaldo,”
he whined.
“Fuck that shit, Reg.
I wasn’t there to witness it all firsthand, but I still knew you.
And I knew what Oz was from the first time I met him.”
“You hated him because I loved him.”
“I admit that.”
Marco slammed a hand on the table, rattling dishes and cutlery.
“You did a great job of cutting me out of your life entirely, but I watched through the years.
The whole world couldn’t help watching.
Like a freakin’ pileup on the freakin’ highway.”
He leaned across the table, hands gripping the edge.
“Did you ever see the interviews he did on TV after you vanished? Read his exclusive in Gastronomica? Or the big spread he did for Food Regina lifted her shoulders, let slide some of that blame.
Enough to see, truly feel, the truth in Marco’s words.
The truth beyond their past, together and apart.
Beyond his broken heart then and his full one now.
Something like relief or joy or gratitude warmed her belly.
Whispered truth, finally acknowledged, crackled like static along her scalp.
Regina Benuzzi, Regina Balcazar, Queenie B reached across the table.
Marco flinched. She rested her hand to his cheek rough with stubble and wrinkled by years, remembering so clearly when his skin was taut and his hair black as cured olives. His eyes still were.
She hadn’t wanted him.
Not then.
Not even when they were living together, sharing a bed.
He’d been a placeholder; more truth skated over once, and finally acknowledged. Marco had been everything she was running from without even truly knowing she was in motion. Oz had been the shine on her horizon. Blinding. Exciting. He was a whole world the unwanted little girl in her craved. And now?
Regina leaned.
Marco leaned, took her chin tenderly in his fingertips.
Caressing.
Gentle. The kiss wasn’t fireworks; it wouldn’t have even set off a sparkler. It was an oven door left open to warm a whole room when the heat went out. It was soft sheets. It was a cool hand on a fevered brow. What it was not—thank every god in the history of humankind—was the crash and burn it had been with Oz. Those hovering and wrung-out days when it was all so exciting. Thrilling. Desperate. Love not happily-ever-after, Marco was right, but not toxic. Not in the beginning. But in the end when everything good had been burned away.
By both of them.
Because Oz had been as addicted to the drama as she was to the drugs.
But mostly her.
Because she had been addicted to both.
Rising from her chair, Regina took her plate and her kiss with her.
“Your turn to wash.”
She and Marco fell into the meditative process—wash, rinse, dry, rack—honed in their youth, in those dishwasher days before success.
Across timelines and terrain.
Common ground lived once together, then separately during those years she hardly ever thought about him at all.
Then never. Regina couldn’t remember what she had thought about. It was all such a blur. And a waste.
She had it all.
She lost it all.
“Hey, bull in a china shop, you want to be careful with that carafe? It was my nona’s.”
Regina hid her smile.
Maybe not everything, after all.
Setting the carafe down, she took Marco by his soapy hands.
She led.
He followed.
The puzzled furrow of his brow smoothed when she let go of one hand to untie her apron. Marco pulled it over her head, drying his hands on it and tossing it onto the prep table. He led her now. To his office. To the couch there. No windows. It smelled like cigarettes and garlic and onions. Like Marco. Like the past, before everything. Maybe like the future. Maybe. And for once, in her whole damn life, Regina let herself be led, with no kicking or screaming at all.