Chapter 8
T HE PAIN WASN’T as horrible this time. Less ice-pick-to-the-brain and more like rinsing her sinuses with a neti pot filled with rubbing alcohol. Eye-wateringly, foot-stompingly, whimper-inducingly painful, but not quite bad enough to bring Sam to her knees.
Slowly, the pain lessened, receding to a dull, ignorable ache in her temples. She blinked open her eyes, one at a time. First the left, then the right, keeping her lids low. Pinpricks of light filtered in through small slats in the ceiling, the room otherwise unlit and dim.
She was in a basement, maybe? Possibly a cellar, but the room was missing the cool dampness that normally came with subterranean spaces.
In fact, it was sweltering down here, sweat beginning to bubble on her brow and above her upper lip.
So, not buried alive, thank God, but definitely salted away somewhere small, able to touch the walls around her, even with her arms not fully outstretched.
Faintly from above, the sound of applause filtered through the ceiling-slash-floorboards and Sam strained to hear what was happening overhead.
“Welcome to a very special episode of Daphne’s Inferno.
Four chefs entered our arena today with the goal of wowing our judges with their culinary creations.
Now only two chefs remain, competing for the win.
Who will it be? I’m your host, Daphne. Let’s welcome our contenders back and take a look at the secret ingredient for our dessert course, shall we? ”
A cold sweat broke out across the back of Sam’s neck.
Episode of what , now?
A tinny-sounding clank came from somewhere to her left, her only warning before the ground began to shake and the slats above her parted, a beam of light flooding the room, blindingly bright and hot to boot, her scalp prickling with sweat.
It wasn’t a cellar but a shaft, an elevator or dumbwaiter more like, the floor beneath her a platform, and it was rising fast.
Sam blinked into the brightness, her eyes needing a moment to adjust, for her vision to sharpen and her surroundings to come into focus.
She was in some sort of amphitheater. On all sides of the round, recessed arena where she stood, seats rose bleacherstyle, a sea of blurry faces.
The Colosseum came to mind, with its tiered seating and travertine limestone and giant Corinthian pilasters and crowd of boisterous spectators who may or may not have been out for blood. Her blood.
Dressed in a pale pink tweed knit cropped cardigan and matching miniskirt, the demonic thorn in Sam’s side sashayed over to the now slightly elevated round dais where she stood, trailed by a camera mounted on a dolly.
Daphne flashed a megawatt smile at the camera and Sam resisted the urge to flip her off.
“First, we welcome back Chef Samantha Cooper. A culinary virtuoso hailing from Grosse Tête, Louisiana, and now the executive chef of Manhattan’s three-Michelin-star restaurant Glut, Chef Cooper is renowned for her innovative and playful approach to French cuisine.
From intricately composed seasonal tasting menus to signature dishes that exemplify Chef Cooper’s Southern roots, Glut offers guests a fresh take on fine dining.
For those of you watching at home just now joining us, Chef Cooper wowed our judges during both our appetizer and entrée rounds, serving up pan-seared turbot and julienned fennel with a chai-infused beurre blanc, and a creamy uni and yuzu étouffée prepared with broken rice.
Chef Cooper, tell us, how are you feeling ahead of the dessert round?
I’d wager that being here feels like a wish come true, doesn’t it? ”
Daphne turned slightly, cheating out so the camera could still capture her face, and gave Sam one of her butter-wouldn’t-melt smiles.
“That’s certainly one way of putting it.” Sam spoke through clenched teeth, smiling tightly at the camera, biting her tongue.
Because get-out-of-jail-free card or no, threatening to put murder on the menu in front of a live studio audience wasn’t among her brightest ideas.
Her answer must’ve sufficed, satisfying Daphne, the producers, technical director, whomever , because without fur ther ado, the floor panels opposite her, just to the other side of Daphne, parted, to show who she could only imagine were her competition, rising from their own holding chamber beneath the stage.
“Next, going head-to-head with Chef Cooper in our sweet-treat smackdown, we welcome back”—Daphne tossed a look at Sam over her shoulder that she couldn’t begin to parse—“Chef Hannah Liu!”
Hannah?!
“I guess anyone can call themselves a chef these days, am I right, folks?”
Hannah laughed along, but Sam could tell she was perturbed, because she knew Hannah and her face and all the many micro-expressions it could make like she knew where all the silvery scars and freckles were on the back of her own hand.
Hannah’s smile didn’t quite reach her eyes and the space between her brows remained smooth, the little wrinkle that appeared over the bridge of her nose when her laughter was genuine missing.
“Originally joining TikTok as a beauty and lifestyle creator, after her from-scratch Pepsi recipe that no one asked for and no one wanted went viral last winter in part for its absurdity, Chef Liu has become better known for her cooking mini-vlogs, where she prepares elaborate if not controversial dishes from scratch while dressed in hot-off-the runway, impractical designer fits. Part of the growing trend of creators pivoting to food content, Chef Liu has amassed a following of nearly two hundred thousand, all thanks to her compulsively watchable content that has been likened to a car crash in the sense that no one really wants to watch and yet they find themselves incapable of looking away. Welcome back, Chef Liu. How are you feeling going into the dessert round? Your last dish was a little shaky; your baked Dijon turbot with capers was well received, but the judges thought your mashed potatoes were mealy.” Daphne cringed.
“Yuck. Would you say that this has shaken your confidence?”
Hannah shook her head, resolute and seemingly unflappable in the face of the litany of backhanded compliments and outright insults Daphne had just hurled at her. “Absolutely not. I’m actually feeling really—”
“That’s nice.” Daphne smiled, mouth closed, at the camera and Hannah floundered for a moment, guppying, visibly taken aback by being so brutally cut off. “I don’t know about you all, but I am eager to get started! Let’s take a look at our secret ingredient.”
A third panel opened in the floor, a foot in front of Daphne. From beneath the stage, a pedestal rose, reaching her waist, a silver cloche atop it.
“For anyone tuning in for the first time, here in the Inferno , we do things a little differently from other cooking competitions topside.” She rested her hand atop the dome.
“Each round, our contestants are presented with a secret ingredient that must be fully integrated into their dish. Furthermore, they must significantly alter the ingredient—no slapping some frosting on a muffin and calling it a cupcake.”
A chuckle rose from the studio audience, and if Sam hadn’t been able to sort of see the first five or so rows, she’d have assumed it was a canned laugh track.
“In addition to presenting our contestants with a secret ingredient, we like to really test their mettle in the inferno by requiring each round that they use either a particular cooking technique or kitchen gadget. Our chefs were required to blanch a portion of their appetizers, and the entrée round necessitated the use of a zesting machine. Without further ado, let’s find out what’s in store for our contestants during our third and final round! ”
Daphne whipped the lid off the cloche, revealing a chocolate sheet cake and, beside it, a book of matches.
“What we have here,” she said, “is a decadent devil’s food cake, and to really put the prowess of our contenders to the test, their dish must be, in some way, kissed by fire.”
Charbroiling, flambéing, and br?léeing sprang to mind as the obvious options for cooking with an open flame.
“Each of our three esteemed judges will award our contestants up to forty points for taste, fifteen each for plating, creativity, integration of the secret ingredient, and implementation of the technique or gadget, for a possible one hundred points. The chef with the highest total score will be named the winner of tonight’s show.
As always, you have unfettered access to both the pantry and cold storage, which are fully stocked with a wide variety of ingredients.
Your stations have gadgets and gizmos aplenty, and if at any point you can’t find something, look harder. ”
Sam rocked back on her heels, peering around Daphne, trying to meet Hannah’s eye.
When that didn’t work, Hannah too focused on Daphne as she rattled off a few final reminders that Sam probably should’ve been paying attention to but couldn’t have cared less about when her entire reason for being here stood only a few feet away, Sam sneaked a glance at Hannah’s left hand.
Her ring finger was naked.
Sam frowned. Were they not engaged? Or had Hannah taken the ring off for the competition? Were they together in this reality her wish had spawned? Did Hannah even know her? If Hannah would just look at her, Sam was sure she’d know, sure she’d be able to read it in her eyes.
As if someone far more benevolent than Daphne had decided to grant Sam’s silent wish, Hannah turned, lips fixed in a smile and—
Sam’s shoulders sagged.
There wasn’t even a flicker of recognition in Hannah’s eyes.
Well, fuck.
What was she supposed to do now? Compete against Hannah in this farce of a competition? To what end? A trophy? A chance to win ten thousand dollars? Bragging rights?