The Secret Ingredient (17 page)

“I started when I was seven. My mother took me to a ballet, and I knew right then. My classmates were mean about it, but they were just jealous because I got to hang out with beautiful girls all day. Of course, they didn’t know that I was batting for the other team.”

After a while, there is a general sense of bewilderment
due to the fact that dinner has not yet been served. The drinks have been refilled, but the appetizers lie in sad heaps on the trays, long discarded. Finally, a man I assume to be the head butler comes out and whispers extensively in Len’s ear, making him turn bright red. Afterward, Len clears his throat and says, “I’m afraid my chef is a no-show. Would you all mind terribly if we ordered in?”

I picture us eating out of containers in this beautiful house, and it just seems wrong. “Well, I could take a look and maybe whip something up?” I offer.

Len’s eyes widen, and even the writer, who has been a little stiff all night, seems to loosen at the mention of a home-cooked meal.

Next thing you know, I am amid all the black-and-white-uniformed people who apparently only know how to unwrap food and pour drinks. I open the huge pantry doors and see a large box of whole-wheat penne. I fill a big pot with water, pinch in some salt, and search the fridge for some sauce ingredients. Someone named Pepe hands me some really good olive oil, like he knows that’s exactly what I was looking for. I find a block of feta cheese, a clove of garlic, some tomato paste, and a half-filled container of heavy cream. As I frantically try to put it all together, the staff watches me, their mouths open. While the pasta boils, I grab the cookbook out of my bag. Toward the end there’s the recipe for beef stew and Rose’s familiar writing underneath:

Made for a party
.

But then scratched and made meatballs
.

Sometimes you have to just stick with what you know
.

I slip the book back into my bag and strain the pasta. I scour the place for the finishing touch, that last component that will make the dish. There’s nothing in the pantry or in the small compartments of the fridge. Defeated, I turn around to a smile from Pepe, who leads me with his finger to a narrow door that looks like it once held an ironing board, the kind that folds out. I open it and
boom
, there it is—black truffle. I shave some on top of the dish and give the staff the go-ahead to take it out. They are all giggling with delight.

Halfway through the meal, Len raises his wineglass and says, “Bruschetta, you’ve done it again!”

“Just don’t start calling me Penne. Bruschetta has a better ring to it,” I reply.

Enrique gives me a smile so wide it looks like his face might fall off. Since his mouth is full, the director can only say “Mmmm,” while the writer kisses the tips of his fingers. In that moment, all my worry is lifted and I feel like I am exactly where I need to be. I think about Theo, telling me that very same thing. He seemed so genuine. So kind. How could it all have been an act?

They talk more about ballet, and I’m amazed at how articulate Enrique is. It’s strange when you see your parents in real-life situations and realize how intelligent they are.

“People are intimidated. But you don’t have to know the positions to understand it. You simply have to watch it,” Enrique says. “For the dancer, it is all mind-driven. If ballet were a sport, it would be tennis. Yes, the physicality is important, but a lot of it is in the head. And you have to train, train, train. It is cruel, really, for the dancer. Always striving for perfection. I was dancing in Mexico’s greatest company, and I still never felt good enough. But there is nothing in this life that could take me so far away. It’s like living in another world, on the stage, and when you get close, when you can almost smell the perfection, magic happens.”

Silence falls over the room as people wipe up the remaining sauce on their plates with bread. When you make pasta, it is very important not to oversauce. After you are finished, there should be enough sauce left for two swipes.

As the coffee is served, the writer guy starts talking about the film they’re shooting, and how the cast is unreliable. I excuse myself to go to the bathroom, but before I’m out of the room I hear Ross, who has been frantically texting someone, say that his location manager is “back off the wagon” and screwed up booking their restaurant shoot for the next day.

“So basically I need a fully working restaurant for forty-eight hours starting tomorrow at noon,” he says. “Good times.”

I turn around and walk back to the table, unable to
contain my excitement. Enrique’s eyes light up. He has the same idea. I put my hand on the director’s shoulder. At first he’s shocked, but then he says, “Yes?”

“About the restaurant. We may be able to help you out with that.”

CHAPTER 24

I convince Janice that being on a set would help me in my job, so she lets me leave at one o’clock.

When I get to FOOD, I barely recognize it. There are several trucks parked outside, a slew of boom microphones, and a city of lights. Production assistants swarm the place with their black shirts and walkie-talkies. I find Bell in the kitchen, telling the cooks to pretend it’s just a regular night, as that’s what the director wants. When he sees me his face brightens and he motions for me to come into the walk-in cooler. He sits on a box of potatoes and gets choked up, but this time out of joy.

“The onions?” I ask him.

He smiles.

“Ollie, I can’t believe this. They’re paying us fifteen
thousand
dollars. It’s not going to solve everything, but it will buy us some time.”

“Great. Maybe you can form a relationship with the studio, you know?”

He smiles again, but there’s a hint of condescension. “Look at you, my little businesswoman.”

“Dad, we’ve got to save this place. It’s your everything.”

He wipes at his left eye with the dish towel he’s holding.

“Ollie,
you’re
my everything. Now let’s get out of here, it’s freezing.”

“Okay.”

When we come out of the cooler, I notice there’s a crowd on the street checking out what’s going on. The trailers for the talent are here, and Ross is scoping the place out. When he notices me, he runs over and gives me a hug. He takes me into the biggest trailer, where the main character, whom he calls “the star of the picture,” is warming up. Her name is Jasmine, of course, and she’s tiny, with short spiky red hair and big blue eyes. A mini version of me, if I chopped off my hair and starved myself. I’ve seen her in a commercial for something. She looks bored. A heavyset woman is dabbing powder on her cheeks.

“This is a crucial scene,” Ross tells me, “and the place is perfect. Our girl here has got a secret, and she needs to reveal it in a public place.”

“I’m telling my boyfriend that I’m a lesbian,” Jasmine says, as if it’s not a big deal.

“And …,” Ross says.

“And I’m in love with his sister.”

The makeup woman gasps. Ross smiles and says, “I didn’t write it, I’m just directing it.”

Ross continues taking me around, and there are three assistants hovering like flies around him. One of them has been trying to give him a bottle of water for twenty minutes. He doesn’t even seem to notice them but is fixated on me, and even though I’m not sure why, it feels good to seem important.

“What should she order?” Ross asks me. “I mean, what should she be eating? Nothing too complicated, but I want to show that she’s still hungry. That she’s so comfortable with her revelation, she can still have an appetite.”

“How about a salad with a protein?”

“Perfect.”

“Tuna or chicken?”

“Definitely chicken,” he says. “Tuna is too feminine.”

I smile and he says, “You see how important my job is? I constantly have to worry about things like protein. These people,” he whispers, pointing to the gaggle of assistants, “probably don’t even know how to make a sandwich. Their idea of lunch is a Snapple and a cigarette.”

We choose the table by the window because, as Ross tells me, “Film is all about reflection.”

He is called away by the arrival of the male star, and Bell comes up and whispers in my ear, “Jude Law is here!” I smile and follow him into the main dining room. Sure enough, it’s Jude Law. He doesn’t have an entourage, and
he’s joking around with one of the PAs. I’ve never cared about the few celebrities I’ve met with Enrique, but this is totally different. Kind of a rush, actually, especially because we’re at FOOD.

The first time Ross yells “Action,” the whole room takes on a sense of magic, a heightened expanse of time. All the preparation has led up to this moment, and everyone is wishing for the perfect take. Jude Law’s reaction to the news is calm during the first take, and he starts moving the silverware around, distracting himself, I guess. Jasmine is surprisingly good, her eyes boring into him effortlessly. The news comes out fairly believable, and I’m impressed by her craft. Jude’s character gets more and more angry as the scene progresses, and he ends up swiping the whole table with his hand on the last take, breaking two of our glasses.

As I walk home, I realize I still have Theo’s necklace on. I’ve worn it pretty much all the time since he gave it to me. I wonder what he could possibly have to say, why he went to Jeremy looking for me. How could he have been so blatant? I knew there was probably someone else from before. There’s no way someone as cute as Theo spent a year without hooking up with someone. I wouldn’t have expected him to. But not now—not after we … I just wanted everything to be out in the open, but I didn’t pressure him to tell me what I wanted to know because I didn’t want to push him away. I feel like he walked into the agency for a reason, and it’s connected to other reasons, like routes
on a map. The trouble is, no one tells you which turns to take or even where you’re going. And now we’ve reached a dead end.

Jeremy stops by Saturday morning, and as I pour us each a bowl of cereal he looks at me suspiciously.

“You’re not experimenting with drugs, are you?”

I have to laugh, seeing Jeremy’s face, trying to look like a concerned adult.

“Not unless Advil is all the rage.”

He smiles and takes a spoonful of his cereal.

“You never make cereal. It’s not a dish.”

I shrug. My bag is already packed upstairs and my stomach is twisted in a hundred knots. I can’t tell if I’m excited or scared about Laguna, or if the sick feeling inside me is all about Theo.

Jeremy eats with his mouth slightly open, and though it’s pretty gross, I’m used to it.

“What’s going on with the Dads?”

“Well, the movie shoot bought the restaurant some time, with some left over for the house, but I’m not sure how much more we need for that.”

“What?”

“They owe a lot of back payments on the mortgage.”

“Crap. It doesn’t end. This deal better go through.”

“Yeah.” I sigh.

Jeremy slurps up the milk at the bottom of his bowl and looks at me. For a moment, all the confidence is drained from his face. He looks like a frightened animal waiting for someone to save him. I glance at his guitar leaning against the wall and think about his dream, how hard he’s worked and how he’s never given up. I hug him and whisper in his ear, “It will go through.”

“Hope so. Thanks for the Honey Bunches of Oats.”

“They don’t call me Chef for nothing.”

He grabs his guitar and does a little hop toward the door.

CHAPTER 25

On the way to Laguna, Lola tells me that she actually asked Jin out.

“That’s awesome!”

“I think he was a bit flustered—don’t you think that’s a good sign?”

“Yes.”

She asks me why I don’t have the necklace on, and I decide that I can tell her about what I saw without completely breaking down, so I do. She’s just as baffled as I am.

“Well, we’ve got other food on our plate at the moment, don’t we?”

She enters the HOV lane, and I tell her about Jeremy putting an old scarecrow in the passenger seat of Bell’s car just so he could ride the lane to his friend’s concert in
Long Beach. She laughs. The road stretches out before us like a chance.

“When I said goodbye to Bell, I could feel the secret in the air between us,” I say. “It’s the one part of this whole thing that feels off. Bell thinks I’m just going to hang out with you. Which is not a lie, but also not the total truth.”

I think of Rose not telling Kurt the whole Eloise story.

“Well, if it’s bugging you, why don’t you call him right now and tell him?”

“I feel like that would be a cop-out. I’ll just tell him in person when I get back. He lied to me about my mother remaining nameless, so in a way we’re even.”

“I’ve told you this before, but I like the way you think, Livie.”

Our hotel is perched on a cliff on the coastline, and as Lola checks us in I sit on one of the white couches and stare out the window. There really is nothing more beautiful than the ocean. For the second time since the Stingray Trauma, I don’t get a panicked feeling. It actually looks approachable.

A father and his young son step up to the glass, and I hear the boy say, “All the oceans in the world are connected.”

The father looks at him, and I can tell he’s amazed that the kid has grasped this concept. As they walk away I think about what he said about the ocean. Maybe my fear
comes from more than the stingray. Maybe I’ve always just been overwhelmed by the power of it.

I guess I look exhausted, because when Lola comes back, she asks what’s wrong.

“I’m just tired.”

“How does a nap sound?”

“Great.”

“Okay, I’m going to have a late lunch with my cousin, so let’s meet in the lobby at seven.”

“Sounds good.”

Our room is huge and smells like fresh lemon. I lie on the bed closest to the window and listen to the long, slow breath of the sea. Despite everything, the sound of the waves has always been soothing to me. I think of the surfer girl whose arm was bitten off by a shark, and how two months later she was back in the water. Having that kind of courage is unfathomable to me. But here I am in Laguna, in search of my mother.