40
Scald: To heat a liquid just below the boiling point (to 180 degrees); to blanch fruits and vegetables to facilitate removal of the skin.
2016
Regina paced the observation room.
Side to side.
Front to back.
Corner to corner. She tried not to look down at those judges taking way too long to decide whether the woman’s perfect ice cream trumped Gale’s ingenuity. In all honesty, she didn’t know which way she’d go herself. Gale’s dessert—according to them—tasted like heaven. The right amounts of sweet and salt, acid and fat. On the one plate. They had to judge him on the other three that didn’t get the coconut cream. It was the only thing sinking him. An incomplete dish was an incomplete dish, and the woman, while not necessarily innovative, had done simple to perfection. That went a long way.
“You’re going to pace a hole in the floor.”
Saskia barely looked up from the laptop she tapped away on.
“They only just started deliberating.
Try to relax.”
Leaning on the arm of Saskia’s chair, Regina read over her shoulder.
“Were you here for the other parts of the competition that haven’t aired yet?”
“I was given access to the episodes.”
She straightened.
“You still have them? Gale’s?”
Click, tap, tap—Saskia’s screen changed from document to video.
“I can send it to you, if you want.”
“Can’t I just watch it on your computer?”
“I’m working, if you hadn’t noticed.”
Regina pushed off the armrest, went to the observation window.
The damn boom obstructed her view of the judges.
She didn’t have to see Harold to know what he said, how he said it.
Exacting. Barely reined acerbic. Fair. He hadn’t changed a bit. His vote would go to the simple perfection. Or maybe the innovative. Damn it all to—
A quick rap on the observation-room door already opening sent Regina scooting behind an insufficient tower of boxes.
“Saskia, are you—”
“I made it clear I wasn’t to be disturbed.”
Saskia wasn’t quick enough putting her weight against the door.
Harold Javian was already in, one hand pressed to the door, the other to the jamb, smiling a puzzled smile.
“I missed you downstairs.
I heard you were up here and wanted to say hello.”
“Hello, Harold.
Nice to see you.
Now if you don’t mind . . .”
“You’re being weird.”
He smiled, perfect and pearly.
He was older, most certainly, but even closer up, had truly aged well.
The boxes Regina hid behind weren’t enough; she tried becoming a shadow behind them causing them to sway.
Harold’s brow furrowed. Squinted eyes went wide, homing in. Another step into the room. This time, Saskia didn’t try to stop him. There was no hiding. No going back.
“Queenie?”
Saskia wrung her hands, teeth biting into her lower lip, eyes welling.
“I didn’t do this. I swear.”
Harold was coming closer, hands outstretched, face lit by wonder and maybe a little love.
Fight or flight, Regina could do neither.
This was it.
The risk she’d been willing to take because after all, hindsight proved intention was a terrible liar. She wasn’t there for Gale; if that were so, she’d be back at the soup kitchen, still anonymous, waiting along with everyone else. Waiting on the sidelines had never been her style. She’d come to the studio for her. To feel it all again, just a hint before the article that would bring it all swarming back, through Gale.
Stepping out of box-shaped shadows, not Regina or Queenie, both, and neither, newly born, not newly risen, she took Harold’s hands still reaching for her.
“Hey, Harry.”
His mouth worked.
A fish on the butcher block having no idea it was about to be gutted.
“I .. . have no words. You’ve rendered me speechless.”
“Grab me a jacket, hell just froze over.”
Regina flashed Queenie’s smile.
It felt, if not appropriate in this moment, on this precipice, natural.
She motioned to Saskia.
“Shut the door, please.”
“Oh, yes.
Of course.”
Saskia pressed the door gently closed, as if she didn’t want anyone to notice.
As if the jig wasn’t totally, completely, and most royally up.
Because there was no way Harold Javian was keeping his mouth shut, even if Regina could still get out of the studio without being seen.
He would keep it to himself until the decision was called; the man did have integrity. But Gale would know, so she couldn’t skulk off and pretend she hadn’t been there the whole time. He’d be hurt, if he won. Embarrassed, if he didn’t. And the culinary world would be abuzz before morning with the news that Queenie B had shown up on the Cut! set, to watch her protégé compete for fifty thousand dollars.
Regina’s carefully laid plans for the soup kitchen, for Gale, for this day of competition splattered like a mixer set too high.
The way from infamy to obscurity had been all ducking and dodging.
She should have known obscurity wasn’t that patient or wily when seeking fame.
She had to salvage this, turn it right, make it work. And if she couldn’t do it Regina Benuzzi style, she’d do it Queenie B’s.
“Did you already make your decision on the competition?”
she asked.
Harold blinked, shook his head slightly.
“Yes? Before coming up here.
Meera and Karin are still debating. Why?”
“And you can’t change it once it’s been handed in, right?”
“Right.
Jesus, Queenie, my head’s about to explode.
What the hell is going on?”
What the hell, indeed.
Below, muffled calls for Harold Javian ruffled about the studio.
“Get back down there.”
She shoved him toward the door.
“Don’t say anything.
We’ll talk after taping’s done.”
“But—”
“Seriously, Harold.
Don’t say a word.
I mean it.
Let me handle this my way.”
That cocky half grin.
“I see some things haven’t changed.”
But he was right.
Queenie would have threatened.
Regina would have run.
She reined them both in with a deep, deep breath. “Listen,”
she said.
“Gale Carmichael is my friend.
He doesn’t know I’m here and my presence can’t in any way change the outcome of this competition.”
“It’s insulting you’d think—”
“Please, Harold, for old friendship’s sake, go back down there and keep your mouth shut until after the competition’s called.”
“Does that mean you’ll be down after it is?”
Regina looked to Saskia.
Wide eyes went wider.
She nodded.
“I won’t be vanishing again, that’s for sure.”
She kissed his cheek.
“It’s good to see you, Harry.”
And shoved him out the door.
Saskia closed it firmly behind him.
“Will he keep quiet?”
“We can only hope,”
Regina said.
“What are you planning?”
“Planning? I’m winging this, Sas.
Do you have a lipstick?”
“Just the color I have on.”
It would have to do.
Regina took the tube of lipstick Saskia dug out of her purse—red, but not Queenie B red—muscle memory making a mirror unnecessary.
She pulled the elastic from her hair, gave it a shake.
Streaks of white in her otherwise black hair. Jeans and button-down. The new Queenie B allowing only traces of the old to identify her. It was kind of perfect, if she did say so herself.
“It’s amazing, how such little effort brings her back.”
The understatement of the century.
In so many ways.
Saskia smoothed stray flyaways, smiling slightly dreamily.
“Do you have any idea how much I loved you, back then? How hard it was for me to leave you when I did?”
“I wish I could say I did,”
Regina told her.
“I didn’t know much of anything, back then.
How do I look?”
“Like you.”
Dreamy smile faded.
She looked beyond Regina, to the set below.
“Looks like they’re about ready.”
The judges sat at their table, contestants returning.
Only a matter of moments now.
Gale would win or lose.
Either way, Regina would be there.
“Let’s go.”
Saskia only nodded, opening the door Regina had only just pushed Harold through.
In her mind’s eye, she saw it all unfold.
Not watching from the wings and confessing it to Gale in an airplane—Regina hoped; Queenie knew—winging across the ocean.
Nothing like the soft open of the interview she’d planned. It was now cameras and booms, startled expressions turned whoops or groans. It would be a circus, the kind she’d been hiding from for over a decade. She’d blown it, but Regina Benuzzi was a survivor, and Queenie B was nothing if not opportunistic.