9
Grind: To break something down into much smaller pieces; for example, coffee, peppercorns.
2001
“You can’t.
Saskia, come on.”
Queenie paces, her body vibrating almost as hot as her brain.
“Not just before the awards.
After, fine.
Go. I’ll give you a great reference. Please.”
Saskia won’t stay.
Not this time.
She can see it in the young woman’s face.
Something inside Queenie slumps even if it doesn’t show on the outside. Pacing, pacing, pacing to keep from jumping out of her skin.
“I just can’t do this anymore, Ms.
Balcazar.
I haven’t been able to help you, and I can’t just wait around for you to die.”
“You’re being dramatic.
It’s just too much caffeine.”
“Only if there’s caffeine in cocaine.”
Queenie yanks at her hair.
“I’m just trying to get through this week! The festival is my baby, Saskia! I’ve got to be on my game.
Especially after .
. . everything. This is the year everything changes. I feel it.”
“Same story, different day.
It’s always something, Queenie.”
No Ms.
Balcazar.
Just Queenie, sadly spoken.
This is it. Saskia’s history.
Queenie tries to do that deep, cleansing breath thing.
It used to work.
It worked for a little while.
She pretended it did.
“I’ll stay with you through the festival awards,”
Saskia tells her, “on one condition.”
“Anything. Name it.”
“Mr.
Balcazar comes to stay.
Just for the week.”
And Julian? Queenie hasn’t seen him in months.
Not since that leaked photo her PR people couldn’t squash fast enough.
The one Osvaldo did see.
Fucking paparazzi. And it hadn’t even been recent. “Give me my BlackBerry.”
Saskia hands over the cell phone.
Reluctantly.
She’d taken it away when she caught Queenie calling her dealer.
As much as she appreciates the girl’s genuine love for her, Queenie has no patience for it, this week of all weeks. It’s not like she’s completely gone over the wall. She can catch herself. It’s just a little cocaine, not booze. Everyone knows cocaine isn’t addictive. All she needs is a little help to get through the food festival.
“Osvaldo, it’s me.”
“Hello, Regina.
How can I help you?”
Always Regina.
Never Queenie.
“You going to pretend you and Saskia didn’t cook up this little babysitting deal?”
He sighs.
Queenie pictures him pinching the bridge of his long nose.
“She cares,”
he says. “I care.”
“I know.”
She says it, but she doesn’t intend to.
It’s nevertheless true.
“I’m good.
Really. Fine. Saskia is being overly cautious. I’ve had way too much coffee today, and—”
“Are you really trying to lie to me? Me?”
Now it is Queenie’s turn to sigh.
“I know you don’t believe me, but this is the first little lapse since rehab.
I fucked up, Oz.
I’m sorry. But do you have any idea what my schedule looks like right now?”
“I know exactly what it looks like.
You stretch yourself too thin.
I used to think the alcohol and drugs were the result of that.
Now I know better.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
The silence lingers too long.
Long enough for Queenie to imagine, now, the sorrow in storm-blue eyes that once held her in awe.
“I don’t know what it means,”
he says at last.
“I just want it to end, Regina.
I want you to be okay.”
“I told you.
I’m fine.”
“Then why are you calling me?”
“So Saskia won’t quit.”
“And why is she threatening to quit?”
“Are we really doing this?”
Queenie growls, less under her breath than she means to.
“Will you come?”
Oz sighs.
The kind that says he’s done, but not done in. “I will.”
“Will you bring Julian?”
Another silence, this one only long enough to half imagine his wild brows furrowed.
“Not at first,”
he said.
“In a few days, if you’re .
.
. okay, I’ll send for him. Maybe we can go to the award ceremony together. As a family.”
The sommelier and the chef.
Together again.
Tears spill down Queenie’s cheeks before she can even think about banishing them.
She hands the phone to Saskia. “Make the arrangements. I’m going to get in the shower. Have a cup of tea ready for me when I come out.”
She hands her assistant the little vial only just delivered that morning.
“And get rid of this.”
Osvaldo is an asshole.
She’s done as he asked, not a drink or a snort or a pill all week.
This week, of all weeks! Just so he and Julian would be at her side in her triumph.
Didn’t that count for anything? It was only three shots. Maybe four. If he can’t cut her a small break, then fuck him. How the hell is she supposed to cope when every moment, from opening ceremony to the awards, rides on her shoulders. She has to be witty and sage and beautiful, all at the same time. Everyone wants a piece of her, and she has to give it to them or fade away like every other has-been in this business. This festival is everything. Everything! A new, more dignified stage of her career. The great Queenie B is back on her game. With the success of the festival, after last year’s horror, she can slow down, maybe even let go of one of her shows. PBS has been trying to make changes she is unhappy with, anyway. Cohost? No way.
Osvaldo doesn’t have to take Julian and go, her beautiful boy crying, arms outstretched, right there in front of everyone.
But he does, just to spite her.
To punish her.
Their friends, colleagues, all those wannabes pretending to be thrilled at seeing the two of them together again are now snickering as she stands on the steps of the stage. Waiting for her cue. No Oz. No Julian. Just Queenie B.
She doesn’t make a scene.
Queenie blows a kiss, as if Osvaldo is only taking their overtired, special needs child out of a stressful situation.
He’ll go along with the story, once he hears it.
He doesn’t want the bad publicity any more than she does. But he won’t let her see Julian again, damn him. As if he has the right to keep her from her child.
Which he does, according to the court orders.
“Queenie?”
She shakes herself out of it, shoulders back and chin up.
Her heels are high, the steps are wobbly, and she’s not exactly sober, but she nods to the kid wearing the headset and holding the clipboard.
He points to the woman on the stage.
Linda? No, Lydia. The woman PBS wants as her cohost. Lydia steps closer to the microphone.
“Few of us in the culinary world are recognized outside of it.
We are big fish in small ponds, but!”
She raises a finger.
“Our pond is getting bigger.”
Laughter.
A few whoops.
Applause.
Lydia waits. She knows how to work an audience, Queenie will give her that. “We all owe a huge debt to our keynote speaker. Not only a brilliant chef, but a charismatic woman who has been instrumental in elevating our art to celebrity status. The two thousands will usher in amazing things for the culinary world, for all of us. And we owe it in great part to our own, our magnificent, Queenie B!”
The applause.
It is dizzying.
Queenie climbs the steps, the headset kid giving her a hand.
She looks amazing in her Zac Posen gown; her long hair drapes like an accessory. Her signature smile, the one made into a logo for both her shows, on cookbooks, menus, and personal stationery, sparkles in the spotlights more brilliantly than diamonds. It feeds her, this adulation. It proves them all wrong. Every relative and foster family who gave her back. Every smack and kick and curse aimed to break her. This moment validates everything. Almost everything.
Queenie takes her place center stage, waiting.
Basking.
A pair of attractive young men approach from the left.
Unfolding the crisp black chef coat they carry between them, they wait on either side of her. To slip her arms into the sleeves. To cover the designer gown with the one item of clothing worn by every chef, from the prep cooks to Queenie B herself.
Arms raised over her head, she listens to the roar.
Then she lowers her arms, lowers her head, and takes the bow they’re all waiting for.
The bow she has fucking earned.