Skinny Bitch Gets Hitched (20 page)

“No way. He'll be hotter than ever.” She sat back up and slid her glasses on top of her head. “Sometimes, when Joe's being a real jerk, I do find myself wondering what became of Gil, if I should track him down just to get him out of my system. See him so I can finally forget about him. You know what I mean?”

“I know exactly what you mean. As does Aunt Jocelyn.” But as I'd told Zach, when I'd run into my ex-boyfriend of two years, out walking his yellow Lab and looking gorgeous as always, instead of the dagger-in-the-gut feeling I used to get when I saw Ben Frasier, who'd dumped me out of nowhere for a wannabe-model barista, I'd felt zippo.

At least I could check
that
one off Jocelyn's list.

“What if seeing him again doesn't get him out of my system, though?” Sara asked, taking a sip of her bottled water. “What if I see him and fall for him all over again?”

“Maybe that's why Jocelyn put it on her list.” I pulled the list from my bag. “ ‘Close all doors to the past by revisiting—mentally
or for real—any former beaus you've never been able to forget. Say good-bye once and for all.' ”

“Wouldn't I be
opening
a door?”

“Everything is information.”

She whipped out her phone. “Googling.” She clicked the little keyboard. “Holy butterballs. Gil Gilmore
is
a car salesman! Brentwood BMW. He lives so close to us!”

Maybe she'd take one look at Gil Gilmore and realize an unrequited college crush had been stronger than her feelings were for Joe. Or maybe she'd feel nothing and wonder why she'd been so in love. Either way, Jocelyn was a smart cookie. Sometimes you had to know if you
could
say good-bye. And if you couldn't . . . “Let's go test-drive something on our way back.”

Sara grinned.

In a showroom of many slick-looking salesmen, I picked out Gil Gilmore in two seconds because of the eyes. Sara wasn't kidding about the electric blue. He had almost-black hair, so the eyes stood out.

“Swoon,” she whispered. “He looks exactly the same but older.”

While I feigned interest in a brand-new, metallic-red Z4 convertible roadster, Sara sidled up to Gil, who was finishing up with a couple. Before she could launch into her “You look so familiar” spiel, he stared at her and called out, “Omigod, it's Sara!”

Her face lit up with surprise. “You remember me?”

“Who wouldn't?” He reached out to shake her hand. “Wow, you are so awesome! Guys, look, it's Sara from
Eat Me
. We love that show. Man, the way you took down Joe the other night when he was killing that guy on the Italian-sandwich throwdown—epic.” Three slick-looking sales dudes came over to shake her hand, and one asked her to sign the back of his business card.

“I try,” she said, clearly enjoying the attention. “But, you know, you look familiar to me. Hey, wait a minute.” Pause. Deep thinking. “Wait a minute. Did you go to Cal State? Baxter Hall dorm?”

“Yeah! You too?”

“Sara Macintosh. I had the sickest crush on you.”

He seemed to be trying to remember. “Wait a minute. Were you that girl who used to walk up to me all the time and tell me a joke?”

“Yes!”

“Yup, now I remember. You know what's funny? I had a crush on you back then but I was kind of intimidated by you.”

“By me?”

“I never got any of your jokes. I thought you were too smart for me.”

“I do have a brilliant sense of humor.”

“Too funny. I was kind of shy back then. I remember really liking how brazen you were.”

She grinned. “I'm even worse now.”

He smiled back. “Well, if I wasn't happily married with a two-year-old, I'd ask you out for old times' sake.”

“I'm engaged, Don Juan,” she said, holding up her left hand. “So even if you did, I'd have to say no.”

“Well, it's good to see you again, Sara. My wife will be so impressed that I not only saw her favorite celebrity but that I actually
know
you. Did you want to test-drive that roadster?” he asked me.

Sara made a show of looking at her watch. “I wish we could, but we just stopped in to look. We're kind of in a rush.”

She took one last look at Gil Gilmore and then we left the dealership.

Back in my car Sara said, “How insane is that? All those years, all this time, I thought he thought I was a big fat loser. And he liked me back. Not that I give two figs now, but it's just freaky how you can be so deluded.” She stuck her feet up on the dashboard. “Huh. Makes me think.”

So she had been able to say good-bye. Did that mean she did love Joe? Or that time had taken care of an old crush? “About what?”

“About what else I'm letting get away. Like my supposed career. I'm getting recognized for being a snarky cohost on a cooking show, but that's not acting. I fell into it by just being myself. That's the opposite of acting.”

“Still pretty cool, though.”

“Yeah, it is. But it's not what I want. I want to be an actress—it's all I've ever wanted. I want a regular role on TV on a sitcom. I want to make people laugh.”

“So let's head home. Look at the list of stuff you wrote up
about what you need to do to get what you want and make it happen. Would you actually quit
Eat Me
?”

“If it interfered with going on auditions, yeah.”

“How do you think Joe would take it?”

“I don't know. He can be really supportive. But sometimes he's like a caveman.”

“Zach too. He always thinks he's right.”

I thought about how he'd spent an hour trying to get me to agree to raise the price of my soups, which were seven bucks for a good-size bowl. Zach charged thirteen at his steak house and thought I should do the same. But if some fool wanted to pay $37 for a piece of bloody meat, of course they'd fork over thirteen bucks for bland French onion with croutons and a slab of thick cheese. Overcharging for lentils and herbs wasn't going to bring back customers. Good soup at a reasonable price was.

He was that adamant about soup? I'd have to make my business plan beyond solid to turn his “not a good idea” into a “do it, Clem.”

“Did you hear from him today?”

Stab to the heart. Stab stab. “Just a text. He's thinking of me. He misses me.” I shrugged.

“Well, it's not like he
didn't
say those things.”

Why didn't that make me feel better?

W
hen I arrived at the restaurant on Wednesday, the kitchen was spotless, and Alanna had left the books in perfect order on my desk. But when she came in at three, she looked as if she hadn't slept in days.

“Hey,” she said with a sigh as she put on her chef's jacket.

This couldn't be good. Had the boyfriend made good on his ultimatum? “You okay?”

Before she could answer, Keira arrived, as animated as Alanna was lifeless.

“Guess what?” Keira said. “I'm pulling a Clementine! I'm going to be a contestant on
Eat Me
!”

I almost choked on my chai. “How'd that happen?”

“I called the producer, told him I worked for the vegan chef who took down Joe ‘Steak' Johansson and that she
taught me everything I knew. And that I could whip his ass too.”

This was a new, tough-talking Keira. Still, no way would she survive five minutes onstage with Joe. At her core, Keira was a princess. A nice princess, but royal to the core.

Keira glanced at the listing of specials I'd put up on the bulletin board and began setting out mixing bowls and utensils at my and Alanna's stations. “The producer loved the idea of a ‘rematch” of sorts with your protégé. Someone chickened out for next week and I got her slot. We're taping next Thursday. Any pointers? Your friend Sara, the cohost, will help me out, right?”

“That's her job. But, Keira, why do you even want to be on
Eat Me
?” I almost added,
It's not like you need the money
. Her wealthy parents lavished her with everything she needed and wanted, including calling in favors from soon-to-be daughters-in-law.

She carried a basket of tomatoes to my station, then went back to the produce bins for the eggplant. “I need to pay for culinary school myself,” she said. “I want to become a chef. Being here these past weeks has me convinced this is what I'm meant to do with my life. I know I have a ton to learn and I'm starting at scratch. But I've never felt more . . . me than I have in this kitchen.”

Not a peep out of Gunnar, which was saying something. She'd been proving herself lately. Listening. Working hard. Going above and beyond. And when I got home last night,
she'd already e-mailed me twice about videos on braising tofu and sauté temperatures.

“That's awesome, Keira,” I said. “And I know the feeling. But won't your parents spring for school?”

“My mother said yesterday that my father has already paid for a very expensive private-college education and that they'd both like me to go into philanthropy and sit on boards like Avery. But Avery loves that stuff. I don't. I want to
cook
.”

“So just talk to them,” Alanna said.

Keira dropped her head back and let out a hard sigh. “My father said, ‘Our family cook is a
servant
. That's what you want to do with your life, be a lowly servant, cooking for other people?' Do you believe him? I talked until I was purple in the face and he still told me I was ‘talking nonsense.' Then he said he'd consider paying for law school if I could get a decent score on the LSATs. I never even mentioned law school!”

No wonder Dominique was so pushy and controlling. Her husband was a thousand times worse. She probably had to dig her claws in about the simplest things just to get through breakfast. “Why can't they just let you be what you want?” I asked. “What is with all this pushing other people around? I don't get it.”

“It's always been that way,” Keira said. “My dad's ears are closed, and my stepmother—well, you know Dominique, Clem. She won't help me get through to my dad.”

“Well, then I think it's great that you're going to try to win the money to go to cooking school,” I said. “But to beat Joe,
you have to (a) know what you're doing, and (b) not get flustered. If you can do those two things, you have a good shot of winning over the audience and getting the taste testers to vote for you.”

“Will you help me practice?”

“We'll all help you,” Gunnar said, surprising me. “What are you thinking of challenging him with?”

Keira picked up a tomato, tossed it up, and caught it. “The producer said it has to be vegan, since that will get the audience riled up. I was thinking lasagna.”

“No one can touch Clementine's Mediterranean lasagna,” Alanna said. “Make that and you'll beat Joe.”

“Thing is,” Keira said, looking at me, “I want it to be my lasagna. It has to be
mine
. Just so I can prove to myself that I can do it. Maybe I can take your recipe, Clem, and make it my own?”

“Definitely. And you can come in early every day and work on it here, if you want. Just clean up.”

“I'll have my daughter this weekend, but I'll come in Monday and show you how to prep the vegetables,” Gunnar said.

Monday was everyone's day off. Pretty decent of Gunnar Fitch.

“Me too,” Alanna said.

“Ditto,” one McMann twin said, and then the other.

Oh, hell.
“I'll see you Monday at noonish.”

Keira beamed. “You guys are the best. First you all hated me and now you love me.”

“Well, I don't know about
love
,” Gunnar said, throwing a slice of pepper at her with a smile.

I had to admit I unexpectedly liked Keira. She'd grown on me. And she'd need more help than she realized. Lasagna was complicated and she was a newbie. “Okay, tell you what. I need to work on my lasagna for the
New York Times
reporter. People are always amazed when lasagna is so delicious and it turns out to be meat and cheese free. We'll work on ours side by side.”