44
Confit: Meat cooked slowly in fat.
1989
The apartment is a mess.
Regina hasn’t had a chance to clean up, and Marco is even more useless than she is at cleaning.
Someday, when they have a restaurant or two of their own, they’ll be able to afford a cleaning lady or something.
Today, she’ll meet the PBS people at the coffee shop down the street; they’ll spring for coffee.
Regina is pretty sure she doesn’t have the three bucks in her wallet to buy her own.
“You sure you don’t want me to come?”
Marco is scrambling about, his chef coat open and in need of a wash.
“I can call in.”
“No, go to work.
We can’t afford for you to lose your job.”
Kissing her, Marco grabs his keys from the bowl by the door.
“You going to mention the name I came up with?”
“I don’t even know if they’re going to offer me the spot yet.”
“Come on, baby.
You’re brilliant.
Too big for local access.”
“PBS isn’t exactly network.”
“It’s not local access, either.
You going to tell them?”
Regina rolls her eyes.
“It’s so stupid!”
“Regina Benuzzi is fine, but Queenie B has class.”
“I think you mean kitsch.”
“You could just mention it.”
“Fine.”
She pulls him into another kiss.
“I’ll mention it.
Now get the hell out of here.”
Regina stands by the door to their two-room-plus-bathroom apartment, arms crossed over her chest, waiting until the door two flights down slams behind him.
Only then letting go the long breath of relief.
She doesn’t have the heart to tell him she doesn’t want him there, that he tends to take over.
It is she PBS is coming to see and, much as she loves him, Marco will blow it for her if they think he’s part of the package.
Regina started her local access show on her own, attracting the biggest audience in Citizens Television history.
Granted, the station is fairly new, but that’s beside the point.
It is this audience PBS wants to tap into, and Regina Benuzzi is young enough, talented enough, pretty enough, and charismatic enough to make it happen.
In the pitted mirror of their bathroom, Regina brushes her long hair into a ponytail, then decides against it.
She’s so used to tying it back, it always takes her by surprise to see how pretty it actually is.
Sorting through the old lipsticks in her basket, she pulls out a bubblegum pink.
Gross.
She tosses it in the trash, wipes it from her lips.
There’s a brownish one that looks nice.
Marco likes it, at least.
Very early eighties.
She tosses that one, too.
Digging into the bottom of the basket, she pulls out the tube of Bésame red lipstick she’d stolen from the makeup counter at Macy’s a couple of years ago.
She wore it the first time she went out with Marco, and hardly ever since.
It makes her lips look too big, accentuates the slightly crooked bottom teeth foster care hadn’t seen fit to give her braces for.
Swiping it on, Regina studies herself in the mirror.
She looks ...
glamorous.
Pulling her ankle boots on as she hops out the door, she doesn’t think about how she looks or Marco or foster care.
She keeps her mind focused on the future.
On the food, the all, the everything, she lives for.
If she gets this gig with PBS, she could have it all.
She would have it all.
And then the world would know Regina Benuzzi—Queenie B? Maybe it did have a ring to it—isn’t just a chef.
She is a star.