37
Curdle: When egg or fat-based mixtures are cooked too quickly and the protein separates from the liquids, leaving a lumpy mixture behind.
2016
The Grand Redemption Championship filmed in a few days.
The interview was done and already on its way to print.
Everything Regina had been planning for, preparing for, was so close, the pins and needles she lived on never let up.
She worried for Gale.
Not about the competition; he’d smoke that, she was certain.
He was just strangely calm about his breakup with Jenara.
Regina had handled his drunken tears easily enough. They were familiar in the most personal way. This calm, she had no idea what to do with.
“He’ll be okay,”
Marco assured her over the prep table in his restaurant.
“You, of all people, have to trust him.
How’s Her Highness doing?”
“Fine.
Settling in.
It won’t be long before the landlord figures out she’s gone.
Hopefully, I’ve timed it all right so that Queenie B’s lawyers can handle whatever comes of that.”
“Whatever the backlash, we’ll handle it.”
Marco took her hand across the table.
Sex was easy, comfortable, and surprisingly good.
It was his gestures of love and support Regina found hard to deal with, but she was trying.
She was going to need him when all the shit hit the fan. He steadied her in ways she’d forgotten about in those years after she ditched him for fame and fortune.
And Osvaldo Balcazar.
Oz.
No matter how long it had been, what she’d done or he’d done or they’d done, Queenie had loved him.
Maybe it was the toxic kind Marco claimed, but there had been joy and passion and the sort of forever-after found mostly in movies and novels.
She couldn’t help the twinges in her body when she thought of him, even with Marco holding her hand across the table.
Regina was no fool; Queenie or Regina was never going down that road again. But for the first time in a very, very long time, she could remember their days with some of the good, rather than all of the bad.
Oz would most certainly contact her when the interview dropped.
Through his lawyers.
He’d get ahead of all the surprise and joy for the beloved culinary star, back from the public-dead.
The detractors. Those claiming it was all a publicity stunt. Those taking bets on when her first big disaster would hit the headlines. He’d be ahead of the old friends coming out of the woodwork, whether sincere or hoping to board her crazy train back to stardom. Yes, Oz would contact her first, because Marco was right; if there was another fifteen minutes of her fame he could latch onto, he would. He was also the only one who knew how to reach her, even if he didn’t know her at all anymore.
Like a summons, the phone in her pocket vibrated.
Regina pulled her hand from Marco’s to answer it, almost expecting to see his number on the screen.
Newark, NJ.
The hair on the back of her neck prickled.
“Hello?”
she said over the long beep in her ear. “Hello?”
“Regina? That you?”
She would not cry.
“Holy shit, Troy.”
But she did.
“Holy shit.”
“It’s me.”
Troy howled.
“Damn! How’d you find me? Did Her Highness finally remember?”
“No, but she had your name and a phone number pinned to her refrigerator.
Dammit, Troy! Why haven’t you called me?”
“Now how was I supposed to do that? No phone in the kitchen and it’s not like your number is listed or whatnot.
I called Gladys, gave her the number, and hoped she’d remember to tell you.”
Marco was making Who is it? What’s going on? gestures.
Regina put up a hand, turned her back.
“Tell me what happened.”
Priors as far back as the eighties.
Burglary.
Liquor stores.
Convenience stores. Petty thefts. The house Troy robbed in 2009 was the one that would have put him away for a while, had he and Petunia not skipped bail.
“The law finally caught up with me,”
he finished.
“Gladys made a fuss when they took me away.
I felt so bad, leaving her all on her own like that.
How is she?”
Thank goodness they hadn’t caught up with her too.
“She’s fine.”
Regina sniffed.
“With me.”
“At the kitchen?”
“Yeah.”
She blew the word through her lips.
“There’s been a lot .
.
. since you . . .”
Another breath.
“It’s complicated.
What about you? Do you have a lawyer?”
“Had,”
he said.
“You know they got to give me a lawyer.
It’s all said and done.”
“How long?”
Troy laughed.
Softly, not at all sadly.
“Probably the rest of my days.
I’m an old man, Regina. This place is minimum security. Bunch of men too old, too ugly, or too harmless to be interesting. I get three squares, a roof over my head, and ain’t no way even I’d drink the liquor they got in here. I’m good.”
“But you don’t belong in prison, Troy,”
Regina said.
“You’re a good man.”
“Nah, I ain’t that.
I tried, but .
.
. I never hurt no one. I swear that. But I did wrong to all them people I stole from, to my own daughter. It’s time to pay up.”
The counter bubbled up in Regina’s throat.
In a few months, she could hire lawyers, get his sentence reduced.
Something! But there would be no arguing with him, like there was no arguing with her once her mind was set.
They were, after all, birds of a feather. Except she’d never gone to prison outside of her own making. Because poverty exacted its own price. And if money could fix it, it hadn’t been a problem for Queenie B.
A muffled voice on the other end gave Troy five more minutes.
“It’s real good to hear your voice,”
he said.
“I can almost smell the kitchen in it.”
“Everyone misses your scrambled eggs.”
“Lot of the same faces?”
“Some,”
she told him.
“You know how often they change.”
“Sure do.
Except for our Burger Queen.”
And you, until a few months ago.
Regina bit her lip until it stopped trembling.
“I’d bring her to see you, but—”
“She don’t remember me.”
“I think she would, if she saw you.”
“That bad, huh?”
“Pretty bad, yeah.
It’s gotten worse this past year.”
Silence fell and lingered.
Regina’s heart sat heavy in her chest.
All this time, and they had so little left to say to each other.
Rather, she had so much to say and couldn’t. Not now. But even he’d know, soon enough.
“Don’t you come neither, Regina.”
She should have predicted his train of thought; it might have hurt a little less.
“All around better that way, know what I’m saying? I been the best person I can be these last years with you.
I mean that.
It’s why I here in prison, doing my time. You’re why I ain’t dead, like Petunia, when I should be. When it shoulda been me.”
The countering argument got stuck in her throat.
He was her friend, no matter what he’d done.
No matter how many times he gave himself over to his demons.
The fact was, visiting him wasn’t happening anyway. The approval process would take time, and by then, she’d be long gone. Not even Regina anymore. At least, not only.
“Can I call you again?”
“I’d like that.
You leave a message, I’ll call you back.
I can call you too, during hours.”
“If you ever need anything . . .”
“Like I said,”
he told her, “I got all I need.
I even got some buddies I play cards and such with.”
“We’ll talk soon, then.”
“Yeah, real soon.”
“Okay, well . . .”
“Yeah, well.
G’bye, Regina.
Tell Her Highness her driver say hello.”
“Will do.”
She tapped out, head hanging.
Marco stood behind her but didn’t touch her.
Good call.
How well he knew her. How lucky she was. To have this, now. With him. A man she’d abandoned, but not broken. He wasn’t dazzling. Not in any way. Marco was Marco, content to be who he was. Not content. Proud. Happy. Whole. In Regina’s eyes—though she’d never let on—he shined all the brighter for that. Not everyone was lucky enough to find a Marco. Troy never had.
“You okay?”
“Yes, thanks.”
Tucking her phone, and the conversation, into her back pocket, she turned to face him.
Tomorrow, she’d tell Gale about their old friend.
Right now, the slow simmer of her life was building to a full boil she’d never have guessed at a year ago, but one that had been building since she left Bova.
One thing at a time.
Isn’t that what she told Gale?
“Did you talk to Frances yet?”
It took a moment for Marco to catch up, but he nodded.
“No.
Tomorrow, before her shift.”
After Gale’s.
“How sure are you she’ll go for it?”
“Executive chef?”
Marco snickered.
“Even if it’s only interim, she’ll jump at it.
The bonus pay’ll sweeten any reservations she might have.
Which she won’t. Gale’s not going to be happy, though, being under her again.”
“In theory, and only until after the competition.
He’ll never actually have to be her sous.”
“He’s still going to be pissed.”
“Better pissed than freaked the hell out before he competes.”
Regina put her arms around Marco’s waist, looked up into his face more owl-like now than the lupine contours of youth.
“I have to do this.
All the parts are in motion, and there’s no stopping it.
But Gale can’t be the cost. I won’t jeopardize him. I won’t be the reason he fails.”
“You’re being a bit dramatic, aren’t you?”
“Fuck—”
Marco caught the rest of her curse in his mouth, holding her tight and close as if his kiss or his touch could soothe her temper.
If only it had ever been that easy to accomplish.
“I know you’re right,”
he said.
“I know this is for Gale.
All of it.
I know, I know, I know.”
“But?”
He pulled back just enough.
His kiss hadn’t soothed.
Neither had his touch.
As always, with Marco, he didn’t take it personally. He got her, and that soothed way better—and less perilously—than passion.
“It’s a lot to juggle and hope it comes off all right.
This could all go tits up.”
“How very British of you.”
She gave him a squeeze.
“You have to admit, it’s fun.”
“Is that what we’re calling it?”
She let him go to clear their plates from the prep table.
He was right behind her with the rest.
Side by side, he washed, she dried.
Normal. Easy. Quiet. For a little while longer, anyway. Her roller-coaster car was click-clack-clicketing near the first apex. In her mind’s eye, her arms were going up and a whoop gathered in her throat. And Regina remembered what it felt like, all those years ago, to be on the precipice of something great.