42
Waxing the table: Giving a guest/s special VIP treatment.
2016
No matter what else the day had become, the Cut! Grand Redemption Championship had to finish taping.
Gale and Rhiannon got herded off to do the interviews that would later be inserted in between all the rounds.
Wherever Regina was—or should he start thinking of her as Queenie B? Nah—he was certain she was dazzling everyone in her path.
He’d seen Queenie in her heyday; he knew the Regina of today. She’d find him later, she promised. The producers were sending them back to New Haven. In a much nicer car, of course. She and Gale had a lot to talk about.
“Wait in here while we make sure we have everything we need.”
Betty, no longer perfunctorily crisp, wiggled like an excited puppy.
“Just some forms to sign.
You remember.”
“Sure.”
He could use a huge glass of water.
Better, coffee.
He wanted to call his mother, talk to Kyle, tell Marco what had happened on the set, but he wouldn’t get his phone back until all those forms were signed.
You still got me, man.
But Avraam and Nucci were already descending.
“You’re Queenie B’s protégé?”
“What the fuck, kid?”
“I help out in her kitchen,”
Gale said.
They were already talking over him, not really interested in fact, only conjecture coming from their own mouths.
How had the vegetarian won when Queenie B’s protégé competed against her? It was rigged.
Had to look good. No way he wasn’t robbed just so it didn’t look like favoritism.
Gale stopped listening, edging closer to the coffee machine and the hit of caffeine he needed desperately.
“Psst! Gale.”
Rhiannon motioned to him around the side of the bank of refrigerators.
“Hey,”
Gale whispered, wiping off the coffee her psst! made him splash on his hand.
Checking over his shoulder, making sure the puffed-up pigeons were still at it, he darted around the refrigerators to join her.
“They’re a lot, huh?”
Gale grimaced.
“I’m sorry about all this.
It’s supposed to be your big moment.
In Reg—Queenie’s defense, she had no intention of upstaging anything. She was watching from an observation room.”
“Sorry? Are you kidding?”
Rhiannon’s eyes shined; her cheeks flushed.
“You have no idea, Gale.
A woman? That big in the culinary world, way back then? She’s been my idol my whole life.”
“She was a catastrophe back then.
She’d be the first to admit it.”
“That doesn’t take away from her greatness, what she accomplished.
It’s because of her I can be here, right now, winning a competition no amount of talent would have gotten me into to begin with.
And now she’s back, today of all days.
I feel like . . . like . . .”
Tears welled.
“... like it’s an omen or something.”
Yeah.
Good outlook.
I like this woman.
“Congratulations, again,”
he said.
“You really did deserve the win.”
“Thanks.
I’m over the moon.
I really did think you had it, though.”
“It’s all good.”
And it was.
Mostly.
He’d still have liked the win, so much so he was already thinking about where else he could send an application.
Confidence was arrogant like that; the more he trusted it, the bigger and bolder it would get. New Haven and Marco’s was too small for him now. Part of the same complicated life, but behind him.
Like me.
Emotion lumped in Gale’s throat. Like you.
“...not even going to cover half my loans,”
Rhiannon was saying, “after taxes and all.
I was a finance major, remember.”
Gale sipped his coffee, cleared the lump and the words inside his head that were heard nonetheless.
“You really going to use all your prize money to pay student loans?”
“I have to,”
Rhiannon said.
“The thought of them keeps me up at night.”
Gale laughed, quietly, so Avraam and Nucci wouldn’t hear.
“All the more reason to use a little piece of it to do something fun.
Go on some sort of foodie vacation.
What’s five thousand bucks in the grand scheme of things?”
Rhiannon put her hands on her hips, looked up at him through narrowed but smiling eyes.
“You’re a very bad influence.”
“I’m just saying, you got to live a little.
Quit worrying.”
For fuck’s sake, man.
Look who’s talking.
But Gale heard the cocky, amused smile only a glow out of the corner of his eye.
Ghostly. Real. He would never know for sure. Maybe it didn’t actually matter.
“Gale?”
Betty called from the doorway.
“You’re wanted on the set.”
“I am? What for?”
“Just some after-show footage.
Rhiannon, stay put a minute, okay?”
“What about us two?”
Nucci crossed his arms over his puffed-up chest.
Betty’s nose wrinkled.
“I’ll find out if you can come watch.
Hold tight.
Gale, this way.”
“One sec.”
Gale turned back to Rhiannon.
Blond, blue-eyed, the kind of girl he imagined living in a California beach movie, not Brooklyn, where she worked in that artisanal, cruelty-free steak house.
A finance major turned chef, who didn’t know how hard he’d once fallen, and how long it took for him to get back up.
No baggage to make his load heavier. “Do you go out with chefs?”
She chuckled, that deeper-than-should-be sound.
“Smooth, Gale.
Real smooth.
You’d come all the way into the city from New Haven?”
“It’s just a train ride.”
Heat crept up Gale’s neck; he smiled through it.
“Don’t get any grand ideas or anything.
I’m just trying to swindle you out of some of that prize money.”
“Hardy-har-har.”
She shoved him.
“I’d like that.”
He patted his pockets.
“I don’t have a pen.”
She pulled one from her chef coat pocket, wrote his number on her hand.
“I’ll text you once they give me my phone back.
Then we’ll have each other’s numbers.”
“Okay, good.”
“Great.”
They stood awkwardly, face-to-face.
Handshake? Hug? Rhiannon held out her hand.
“Just so you know,”
she said, “I’m only going out with you to get in good with Queenie B.”
“I assumed.”
“So, to be clear, you’re after my money, I’m after your influence.
Honesty is the best policy, after all.”
“Agreed.”
Pulling him down to her level, Rhiannon kissed his cheek.
“Talk soon.”
“Gale?”
He turned to Betty’s impatient call to follow her swinging ponytail down the narrow hall, back to the studio where Regina would be waiting to do whatever publicity thing she’d agreed to do.
And him by default.
Because of course she did.
She was Queenie-fucking-B, and he wasn’t just a guy who helped out in her soup kitchen anymore.
Harold had suggested a single course head-to-head—him and Rhiannon against Regina and Gale—insisting he was as unprepared as she when Saskia raised some concern.
“It’s okay,”
Queenie, not Regina, said.
“Gale and I got this.”
Maybe Harold had the advantage of having judged hundreds of such contests, but he’d never cooked with Rhiannon before.
Regina and Gale were a muscle-memory tag team of culinary greatness.
Poor Harold wouldn’t know what hit him.
The crate ingredients—low-sodium kielbasa, a tube of polenta, a package of preshredded cheddar, and a jar of mole—were even harder for the showrunners to put together than crazy but well-considered ones, considering the spontaneity, and the depletion of the pantry that had been set up for the Grand Redemption Championship.
Regina’s brain whirred.
Her body thrummed.
Years in the soup kitchen had taught her to be creative with less, to make do, to keep it simple. Queenie B, however, had never embraced simple.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
Gale asked.
“Shrimp and grits?”
“What? No!”
Gale snorted.
“I thought kielbasa tacos, but shrimp and grits is way better.”
“Time!”
Betty called over the chatter on set.
“Contestants, to your crates.”
Gale showed her where to stand.
The judges, now only Meera and Karin, didn’t sit at their judging table; they were to be part of the show.
Meera stood at the end of Regina’s workstation, Karin at Harold’s.
“Okay, Chefs.”
Tom stood between them.
“Open your crates!”
Regina dumped the tube of gelatinous polenta into a pot, added cream.
“Smash this up and stir it until it’s smooth.
Add the butter—”
“Got it, Chef.
Get on the rest.
Let’s show them how brilliant we are.”
Gale winked.
He winked! Regina’s heart did stupid things she’d have scolded it for that morning.
“Just don’t forget to add cheddar.”
Grabbing shrimp from the freezer—thankfully, already cleaned—she tossed them into a bowl and filled it with water.
Regina sliced the kielbasa and got it into a pan, cooking it down while the shrimp defrosted.
The mole was rather disgusting, but nevertheless a crate ingredient.
Her knife—Gale’s actually, the kid had a good kit—diced scallions, a serrano, and bell peppers like it was part of her hand, fast, perfectly uniform as she’d once demanded of the entremetier in her kitchens. She threw them into the pan with some garlic and the kielbasa, tossed it one-handed while sprinkling a bit of salt.
“Chef, the shrimp,”
she called over her shoulder.
“Heard, Chef.”
Gale took his polenta off the burner, spun, grabbed the bowl of shrimp, and dried them off.
“Tails on or off?”
“Leave them on.”
“Heard, Chef.”
Handing them off, Gale flipped the burner back on and continued stirring, now sprinkling in the packaged, grated cheddar, another knob of butter.
Even in her periphery, she could see how smooth and creamy it was.
“Don’t forget to season it.”
“Heard, Chef.”
But he smiled when he said it.
Regina allowed herself a smile back.
Spooning some of the rather-disgusting mole into the pan of veg and sausage, she tossed one-handed again.
Her wrist twinged just a little, but she was in the zone.
Taste.
Still gross. She grabbed cherry tomatoes from a pint container left on her station by the previous contestant. Smashed them with the back of a wooden spoon. Stir, salt, butter. Better. A squeeze of lemon gave it the brightness she was after, but not quite enough. Racing to the fridge, she grabbed fresh dill.
“Two minutes!”
Betty called.
Later, Meera and Karin’s comments would be dubbed in.
Tom would call his usual, “Two minutes remaining, Chefs.”
Regina heard almost nothing of what any of them were saying now.
The zone was the zone.
That fluid place Gale cooked in.
She was in his or he was in hers, but she remembered it now more intimately than when she watched Gale and knew that’s where he was. Where he shined. Where she shined too and always had. From rinky-dink local access with barely a working stove, to PBS, to the biggest, brightest sets in the world.
Regina was a little out of breath now.
She put the shrimp into the pan with the mole and vegetables, gave it another toss.
Her wrist gave, only for a second.
“Gale, plate.”
“Already on it, Chef.”
He’d gotten his polenta into a bowl and was chopping the dill while Regina spooned the shrimp and kielbasa pooling like buttery, spicy magic on top of the grits.
Gale sprinkled the dill over top while she did the same with a last pinch of salt.
“Time! Step away from your stations!”
“Whew! That was amazing!”
Gale threw his arms around her, lifting her slightly off the ground.
She didn’t insist he put her down; Regina held on tight, head back, joy flying from her lips, lipsticked red, if not Queenie B red.
No bee buzzing.
No flower to land on. That had been the glorious, thrilling, tumultuous then; she wasn’t that person anymore. Whatever she was, whoever she turned out to be, she was wiser now. Prepared for the ups and downs, the fame and the infamy. It was all still there, waiting as the world would soon be waiting, to see what she would do with them. Regina kind-of-sort-of-definitely couldn’t wait to see herself.
As if there had been any doubt she’d win.
Queenie B, having climbed out of the black hole she’d slunk into all those years ago, winning against the great Harold Javian was television too good to pass up, after all.
It was sure to hit headlines in the coming days.
Saskia was over the moon, already on the phone with her staff.
The advance buzz was going to require more than their usual copies printed.
And was there any way to change the cover of the magazine no longer heralding Queenie B’s return, but showcasing the event like a queen’s coronation?
Whether or not her win had been preordained by the Cut! producers, Regina had no doubt she earned it.
For his part, Harold was a good sport.
He was one of the great culinary rock stars, come up the same way she had.
James Beard Awards, Michelin Stars, Iron Chef. Respected. A master of his craft. Regina was just better. She had been, way back when, and she still was. There was no point in being modest about it. The modesty would be false. Whatever else Queenie B had been, she’d never lacked in confidence. Regina would be no less now. And that included what might look like hubris on anyone else.
Taping finished; people hung around.
Waiting for Queenie B to kick the party into gear.
Regina could have held court all night.
Contractually bound not to share anything that would be in the article—and unwilling to, anyway—there was still plenty of the past to talk about. She chatted, kept her cool, tried not to swear too much, though if that was all they were getting of the old Queenie B, she probably shouldn’t have been stingy. When Harold approached, what was left of those still hanging on melted away in clumps like cornstarch in warm broth.
“You going back to Connecticut?”
Harold was putting his coat on, keys in hand.
“Yeah.
You still have the place in Chelsea?”
“We do.
Charlotte is very grateful for your divorce.”
Snide humor intact.
Thank goodness.
Regina couldn’t have dealt with a schmoozy, gushy Harold Javian.
“She still hate me?”
“Queenie, for goodness’ sake.
Charlotte loves you.
You know that.”
Sarcasm didn’t bite so hard when one was in on the joke.
Charlotte had, in one of Queenie’s less obliterated moments, made it abundantly clear that not only did she hold no love for her whatsoever, but she threatened to wipe the floor with her if she ever went near her husband again.
That, Regina remembered, though she had no recollection of ever making a pass at Harold Javian.
He had never been her type, though that wasn’t saying much.
“You call her yet and tell her I’ve risen from the dead?”
“Texted.”
Harold pulled out his cell, showed her the wide-eyed emoji, followed by the head-exploding one that sufficed for his wife’s response.
“She never believed you were dead.
Something about being a bad penny.”
They chatted as they hadn’t yet been able to, catching up as old friends would.
As if there were no more to it than that.
She asked after his daughters, and the grandkids born in the intervening years.
Harold kept his own questions to the less intimate. He hadn’t spoken with Osvaldo in years, though he’d seen this and heard that on occasion. It wasn’t hard to find out what people were up to, aside from her. And then, “Gale’s about the same age as Julian, if I remember correctly.”
Regina had been braced to hear his name, but, still, it hurt. “He is.”
“Anything to that?”
“Nothing at all.”
Quickly.
Too quickly.
Ice cracked through her veins.
“What makes you think you have the right to ask that?”
Harold shrugged, his grin only a little snide.
“Better me than some reporter, no?”
Regina sagged just a little.
It was after eleven.
She was beat to hell, and her day wasn’t over yet.
“I didn’t think so, when he first came into my soup kitchen,”
she said.
“But I’m not an idiot.
I can see how it looks.”
“A soup kitchen? Is that where you’ve—”
“Shh!”
She covered his mouth with her hand.
“I wasn’t supposed to tell you that.”
“I won’t tell.”
“You have a big mouth.
Don’t make me find you and punch it.
I know where you live, Harry.”
He chuckled.
“No one calls me Harry but you and Charlotte.”
“Because we knew you when you were still a peasant.”
“We were all peasants, back then.”
Harold patted his pockets for the keys already in his hand, tossed them up and caught them, sighing a little dramatically but sincerely.
“I miss the old salad days, sometimes.
That rise to stardom.
Now that you’re not dead, I envy you, getting to do it all over again.”
“Don’t envy me.
It’s not worth the price I paid.”
Julian.
My Julian.
“But you’re a fool if you don’t enjoy every moment of it,”
Harold told her.
“If I don’t show my face on the network and commercials and side appearances for a decade, even a couple of years, the public will forget me.
You, on the other hand, are Queenie B.
By this time tomorrow, you’ll once again be the most famous culinary rock star in the land.”
Maybe not by tomorrow, but soon.
“It was so good seeing you, Queenie.”
Harold pulled her into an embrace.
“I’m very grateful I got to be part of it.”
They’d been good friends, better adversaries.
She hugged him back.
“I’m glad you were here too.”
“I want a rematch.”
He let her go, held her arms, smiled. “Soon.”
“We’ll see.
Say hello to Charlotte for me.”
“Will do.”
Regina.
Queenie B.Stood alone in the studio no longer full of people watching her every move.
Only the blonde with the tablet, still herding those left into finishing whatever tasks they had so they could all go home. She reminded Regina of Saskia.
“You ready to go home?”
As if conjured by her thoughts, Saskia stood beside her looking as weary as Regina felt.
“I thought you left.”
“I was going,”
she said, “after you and Harold battled it out but I ...this whole night got me thinking . . .”
Saskia moved to face her, laptop clutched to her chest, teeth biting her lower lip, just like when she was a young woman scared to death and completely in love with her disaster of an employer.
“What do you think of me doing a biography? Yours, I mean.
Not a tell-all from way back when, though I would have some keen insight to those years, now that I think about it.
Still, I meant yours. I’d never do a tell-all, especially after all this—”
“Saskia, stop.
Take a breath.”
How their roles had reversed.
Regina’s hopes for her future burned a little brighter.
Saskia took several deep breaths, morphed back into the accomplished woman who’d come to Marco’s that day in New Haven to resurrect the dead.
“I just thought ... you know there will be more unauthorized books. Did you read any that came out after . . . you know?”
“Not one.”
“Good.
They were all trash.
But it’s going to happen again.
You know it and I know it. It’s not just ambition, Que—Reg . . .”
“Queenie is fine.”
“It’s not just that, though I won’t deny it wouldn’t be a dream come true to write.
You deserve to have your story told.
You deserve the respect you’ve earned for all you accomplished.
There’s more to you than the shit that kept the tabloids in business all that time.”
Saskia reached out, grasped Regina’s arm.
“Just think about it, okay? It would be an honor, and an act of love.”
Slightly dramatic, but Saskia Specter was nothing if not kind, sincere, talented, and at least as opportunistic as Queenie B.
“I’ll let you know.”
“They canceled the inconspicuous car I got you here in.”
Saskia let go of her arm.
“The one the network got you and Gale is out front.”
“I heard.
Thanks, for everything.”
“Get home safe,”
she said.
“I’ll be in touch.”
“You have my number.”
Regina took herself—she couldn’t deal with the blonde and her tablet—to the break room where Gale waited for her.
He’d been chatting it up with the chef who beat him for the fifty grand.
Another little bit of curls with an easygoing nature, but everyone had a type.
Rhiannon was a chef. She understood his world. If Regina had her way, Gale wouldn’t be around to date her; it would be a long-distance relationship at best. Maybe there was something of Julian to him, but it had been buried under everything else he became long ago. Gale had walked into her soup kitchen at the exact right moment to change both their lives. If that wasn’t kismet, nothing was.