Chapter 13 #2
“You can’t. I’m not even supposed to be talking to anyone back home. I just don’t know what to do. I think I love him, Aly. For the first time I thought I’d met a man who got me, you know?”
“Oh, honey, I do know. I’m so sorry.”
There was only silence on the line. She couldn’t help but feel like there was no hope for her and Remy. “Everyone knows we’ve been dating.”
“I’m sure they will all be kind to you,” Alysse said.
“You always were so trusting of others,” Staci said. She knew that having Remy’s lie exposed in front of the others was going to be hard. She didn’t want their sad looks.
“I want to run away.”
“If that’s what you think you should do, but you’re not someone who lets their problems drive them into hiding. You’re a fighter, Staci Rowland,” Alysse said. “Don’t forget that.”
She wanted to believe what her friend was telling her but a part of her, a really big part of her, was scared. She didn’t know how to make this work. She didn’t know how to move on from what had happened.
“What should I do?”
“I’d go back to the show and hold your head up high. You still have a competition to win, right?”
“Uh...”
“Listen,” Alysse said. “I don’t know how you’re doing in the competition but if it were me I’d channel all that anger into kicking his butt in the kitchen. Show him and the others that you’re stronger than anyone, Remy included, ever expected.”
Staci liked the sound of that. She checked herself in the mirror and this time she saw the woman that Alysse had just described.
Staci had been fighting her entire life and she certainly wasn’t going to let Remy steal this from her.
He’d shaken her faith in men. To be honest he’d probably delivered the death knell to her faith in herself.
But that was okay, she knew the way back and she’d succeed or put every last ounce of her sweat and skill into the fight.
“Thanks, Aly.”
“You’re welcome, honey. You know I love you. And text me later to let me know what happened.”
“I will if I can. I’m going to win this thing. At least cooking is something that’s just for me.”
“Your cooking is for the world,” Alysse said.
“You’re right.”
Staci hung up the phone and left the coffee shop, feeling a million times better.
As she walked back to Times Square and her hotel, she felt the weight of that bracelet Remy had given her.
At the concierge desk, she slipped the bracelet off her wrist and put it in a envelope to be delivered to Remy’s room.
She wasn’t over what had happened by any means but she was in control again and she knew that she was headed in the right direction.
TWO HOURS LATER REMY GOT the text he’d been waiting for. He hadn’t been able to find Staci anywhere in the city and he suspected that when he did find her she wasn’t going to be in a mood to listen.
Which put him in a really bad mood. But he tried to shake it off as he walked upstairs to the meeting room where he found Jack waiting outside.
“What’s the verdict?”
“The judges want to talk to you,” Jack explained. “If they agree to let you stay I’ll need some extra filming time with you and I’d like to include an interview with your father.”
“Why?”
“He’s the reason you were pretending to be someone else, right?” Jack asked.
“Yes, but I don’t think that has anything to do with the show. My parents didn’t even know where I was. I needed to disappear.”
“And you did, which was great for you and of course our good luck that you can cook but you still misrepresented yourself,” Jack said.
“My dad won’t do it, Jack. I know the man and he doesn’t think much of reality TV,” Remy said.
“Okay, go and see the judges. I’ll try to think of an angle...but your dad disapproving of what we’re doing might work.”
Remy just shook his head. The room he entered was a board room with a large dark wooden table in the middle and several large armchairs set around it. On the wall were black and white photos of iconic New York City landmarks.
“Have a seat, Remy,” Hamilton said from the head of the table.
Lorenz and Greg were seated on either side of him. The men were all dressed in suits and had very serious expressions. As they should, Remy thought. He pulled out a chair at the end of the table directly across from Hamilton and sat down.
“We’ve had a long talk and we can see why you did it,” Hamilton said. “To some extent we even admire it.”
“Thank you, Chef,” Remy said.
“It’s our decision that you can remain in the competition,” Lorenz said. “We haven’t spoken to the rest of the contestants yet. You will have to go on camera and explain what you were doing and why. Jack will have Fatima explain that we’re giving you a second chance.”
“Thank you so much,” Remy said. “And again I’m sorry for what I did.”
“We accept your apology. If you will move down here by us, we are going to call the rest of the contestants in for you to explain the situation to them. We have to give them a chance to adjust to this news before we all go to Ramsfeld’s tonight.”
“Do you think it will affect the competition and the elimination challenge?” Remy asked.
“Not on our part but we want your peers to have a chance to hear the news and discuss it. Then we can move on.”
Remy nodded. He was as ready as he’d ever be to face the remaining chefs. “Is Staci with them?”
“Yes, she is,” Hamilton said. “She said it didn’t matter to her what name you used, she was still going to beat you.”
Of course she did. Leave it to Staci to pull her defenses back around her and start showing the world her game face. He wished she would have at least let him explain privately what had been going on, instead of just assuming he was lying to hurt her.
Pete got up and left the room and Remy could only assume it was to get the other Premier Chef contestants. He hadn’t expected to feel nervous but his palms were sweaty and he realized he’d rather have a cook off against every single one of them than have to tell them he’d lied to them.
He suspected more than one of them might want him kicked out of the competition. “Why did you decide to let me stay?” Remy asked.
“Your skills,” Lorenz said. “We started this competition to find the best chefs in the country and highlight them. We’ve been surprised in each series how many good chefs there are around the country. To a certain extent you are the epitome of that.”
“What do you mean?” Remy asked.
“The Cruzel family doesn’t cook outside of New Orleans but brings Michelin judges to their part of the world. You’re the head chef at a three-starred kitchen, that counts for a lot. And you didn’t have to go to France or Britain or New York.”
“My father thinks everyone deserves to have a fine dining establishment wherever they live,” Remy said.
“I agree,” Hamilton said. “That’s why I do so many shows. I want audiences to know they don’t have to settle for the same menu and the same dishes each time they go out for a meal. There are more choices, but unless people know about them then often the small, truly creative places close.”
“I agree,” Remy said.
Jack entered the room with a camera crew and placed one cameraman at either end of the room and then made sure they all had microphones on. “I might not use this but I thought it could be useful later.”
The door started to open and Remy watched as his peers filed into the room. Dave and Christian on one side. Erin, Whit and Staci on the other. Staci wouldn’t meet his gaze but even from this distance he could tell she’d been crying.
He felt a rush of emotions so strong that it was all he could do not to go to her. Those emotions were quelled when she finally did look at him and he saw how cold and glacier-like her gaze could be.
“There is no easy way to say it other than to tell you that Remy Stephens is not this man’s real name,” Greg said.
“He is the son of famed Michelin starred chef Alain Cruzel. I’ll let Remy explain his reasons to you and then we will listen to your comments.
We have already conferred and agreed that he may remain in the competition. Remy.”
Remy looked at each of the chefs remembering all the time they’d spent together in the kitchen, but it was when he looked at Staci that he felt the real need to explain.
“I know we all have different reasons for entering a cooking competition, some of us are doing so to prove something to ourselves, others to prove something to the world.
“I’m in the former category in that all my life I’ve been treated like I was a master chef simply because of my last name.
I have prepared dishes that were developed by my father and grandfather and won praise for them.
But I never knew how much of the praise was because of the Cruzel name and how much of it was due to my skills.
“My father has asked me to take over as Chef Patron of Gastrophile—our family’s restaurant in New Orleans. But I didn’t feel ready to take on the task until I knew for certain that I was worthy of the title.
“To find out, I left New Orleans and cooked my way across the country. And when I heard about this competition and read the terms and conditions I knew I could enter and use the Anglicized version of my middle name as my last name. In truth I wasn’t lying too much, I am Remy Etienne or Stephen but that’s neither here nor there.
“I can only say I’m sorry that I deceived you, but I wanted a chance to be treated like everyone else and to have to prove myself one dish at a time.”