“Quiet on the set! Take eleven? I mean, take eleven!” SNAP!
Angie took a deep breath. Looking straight at the camera she tried her best, under sweltering lights that hung within inches of her face, to smile instead of cry. What she wanted more than anything was to wipe away the perspiration dripping from her forehead. But that would smear her quarter-inch-thick TV makeup. Considering that the makeup artist’s idea of female beauty was a face that resembled a Barbie doll, that might not have been a bad idea.
The director, cameraman, and assistant—the only ones there besides her—were hidden in the darkness, while she stood in a two-by-four-foot area with a sink, range, and butcher block counter, wearing a once-gorgeous Oscar de la Renta blue dress with the sort of understated simplicity she’d thought would look elegant on TV.
It did, before she began to drip with perspiration and flour. Behind her, cardboard had been painted to look like kitchen cabinets and a window overlooking a giant sunflower-filled garden, reminiscent of the road to Oz. Maybe that’s where she was, come to think of it.
“I’ve put two cups of flour and two cups of mashed potatoes into this bowl,” she said, smiling broadly as she tilted the bowl toward the camera. Her head bobbed up and down so that she could look at the camera and not drop the bowl—as she had back in the fifth take.
“Now it’s a matter of mixing the two together so that they form a sticky pasta dough for your gnocchi. Remember, even though it’s spelled to look like ‘ga-no-chee,’ it’s pronounced ‘nyohk-key’.” She smiled again.
“Watch those smiles! Television is serious business,” growled the director, who clearly fancied himself the Ingmar Bergman of cooking shows. He’d already interrupted her during take four to explain that this was a cooking lesson, not a lecture on Italian pronunciation or an advertisement for cosmetic dentistry. Takes one, two, and three hadn’t made it to the insults stage. But after that, things had gone from bad to worse.
Stiffening her shoulders, she put the bowl with three cups of flour, one large potato, mashed, and one and a half cups of water under the mixer, hit the On button for the heavy tongs to whir, and jumped back out of the way. At take six the director had upset her so much that she failed to add the water, so when she turned on the mixer dry flour shot all over the studio, burying her and the set in a cloud of white powder. She still had some in her hair. So much for her $175 styling job. Instead of sexy blond highlights, she had aging white globules.
The next take had ended because they hadn’t gotten all the flour off the camera—or the cameraman—and it looked like she was cooking in the middle of a snowstorm. A sneeze ended take eight. The film ran out on take nine. And an attack of giggles from the director’s assistant ruined take ten.
But now the mixer whirred nicely. When the dough looked to be the right consistency, she stopped the blades, grabbed a dollop of the mixture, pulled and tugged at it, and then broke off a tiny piece and tasted it.
“Fine. Now we’re ready—”
“WHAT do you think you’re doing?”
“Testing it.”
“You’re not supposed to play with the product with your fingers!” The director stormed into the lights to face her, waving his hands in the air. “And we certainly don’t advocate eating raw dough on our program. Tell the people what it’s supposed to look like, Miss Amalfi, so that they can see for themselves if it’s ready.”
“But…you can’t tell by just looking.”
He got down on one knee. “Pretend, Miss Amalfi. This is television, after all.”
She wasn’t in the least amused by this man’s histrionics. “Fine,” she said.
He got up and went back to his chair. “Let’s start from this spot.”
In the dark, someone snickered.
“Three, two, one. Take twelve.” SNAP!
“See how the flour and potato have combined to form a dough. Once that’s done, it’s time for you to make the gnocchi. Here’s a simple way to do it. Take about a half cup of dough.” She grabbed a small handful of it. “Then roll it into a long tube, about a half inch around. After that’s done, lay the tube down on a cutting board and cut it into two-inch-long pieces. See these cute little tubes? That’s the way you need to make them. Then, you take that lovely cut glass bowl that’s been sitting in your dining room, probably doing nothing but gathering dust, and you carefully turn it upside down—”
“Stop! Right there! Hold everything!”
The director marched over and planted himself in front of her, his arms crossed over his chest.
She gave him a cold stare. “Yes?”
“You think this is some kind of joke, don’t you?”
“Not at all.”
“You think that because you don’t like the name Angelina in the Cucina that you can come here and make a laughingstock out of this show!”
“What did I do?”
“If you tell people to take that damn bowl and put it on their heads, you’re out of here, lady. Do you understand?”
“All I’m doing,” she explained calmly, “is trying to show my audience the best way to make the gnocchi.” She turned the bowl upside down. “You take one little tube of rolled dough,” she said, demonstrating as she spoke, “and put three fingers along the tube, then press down in the center and r-o-l-l it along the cut glass. This way, you get a hole in the center of the tube, and indentations from the cut glass make a pretty pattern. You can also roll it along a cheese grater, but that’s tacky for television.”
“I’m not going to have you stand here and tell people to poke their fingers into pasta and roll it on the outside of bowls! Television is art, Miss Amalfi. Not play school!”
“But if you don’t form the gnocchi properly, the center will be doughy and heavy and taste horrible!”
“Do it some other way!” he bellowed.
Angie got down off the phony kitchen platform. “I’ll do it right, or not at all. After all, I know what I’m doing, which is more than I can say for you!”
“How dare you! You…you ptomaine pusher!”
“I’ll bet Yan Can Cook never had this kind of trouble.” She picked up her bowl, gave a harrumph, and marched out of the studio.
He sat on a stool in the basement telephone closet just off the garage of Angelina’s apartment building and studied the phone lines and cabling. If only I could show you, Angelina—my Angelina—how truly brilliant I am, you’d be even more impressed with me, he thought. The lines were marked to the different apartments, but to be certain, he used the cellular phone he’d lifted from an unlocked Lincoln Town Car in the garage. The phone book showed an A. Amalfi. He dialed the number.
“Hi. This is Angie. I can’t answer your call…”
Smiling, he attached her phone wire to a large metal box and turned up the volume control to listen to the rest of her message. The very sound of her voice was enough to make him hard with wanting her. Sitting with her at lunch had been an exquisite torment.
Her answering machine beeped, waiting for his message. When none came, it waited patiently for a few seconds, then not so patiently shut itself off.
But not completely. His phone trap blinked knowingly at him, telling him it was on and working. Listening, invading her apartment. Her privacy. Her.
“It was horrible, absolutely horrible.” Angie stood in front of Paavo’s desk and burst into tears.
He jumped to his feet. He’d rather face a murder suspect any day than Angie crying. “What is it?”
“Oh, God. They were so mean, so…so evil!” Her sobs grew louder. “He even called me a ptomaine pusher!”
The other detectives were watching. Even without looking their way, Paavo could feel their grins, their knowing glances at each other, their curiosity as to what Angie was involved with now.
He hustled her into an interview room, grabbing a handful of Kleenex from Inspector Mayfield’s desk as he went by.
“Here.” He handed Angie the tissues and shut the door. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
Angie wiped her eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to carry on like this, but I tried so hard. I wanted everything to be so perfect. I even cut my fingernails for the gnocchi, and now…”
He pulled one of the chairs out from the metal table and helped Angie sit. “Does this have anything to do with your audition this morning?” he asked, standing before her.
She nodded.
“It didn’t go well, I take it.”
She shook her head, wiping the tears that had started once more.
“Wasn’t this your first audition, Miss Amalfi?” he said, keeping his expression serious, his tone professional.
She glanced at him. “Yes.”
“Do you know how many times even the biggest TV stars had to audition before they got a show?”
“No.”
“Well,” his voice grew soft and gentle, “I have it on good authority that Leno went through dozens of auditions, and no one would touch Letterman for years. Julia Child wore out an oven before anyone would pick up her show.”
She gave a half smile. “You’re just saying that.”
“Would I lie?” He sat in the chair beside her. “Nobody expected you to be perfect the very first time you tried it.”
She used more Kleenex. “I did.”
“I know.” He covered her hand with his. “Did they tell you specific things they didn’t like?”
“Just about everything.”
“But some things more than others.”
She had to think about this. “I guess so.”
“Good. That’s a place to start. Think about what they didn’t like, what you can do to change or improve what you did, and then get out there and try again.”
She dropped her gaze. “I couldn’t do that. I feel like such a fool.”
He lifted her chin and looked into her teary brown eyes, trying to gauge the extent of her disappointment. “You’re no fool, Angie. You’re clever and beautiful. If you want it enough, you’ll probably be on TV some day, and then there’ll be no stopping you. You can be anything you want.”
Her arms circled his neck, and she pressed her cheek to his. “I wish I believed in myself half as much as you believe in me, Paavo.” Then she raised her head again and sighed. “I know I try to talk big, but sometimes I feel like such a fraud.”
He stroked her back. “You’re no fraud, Angie. Not at all. The only problem you have is being impatient. Have patience, and believe me, you’re going to do just fine.”
“Do you really think so?”
“I know so.”
She hugged him a long while, her eyes teary for another reason now. “What would I do without you?”
“Probably quite well.”
“Never!”
He stood and helped her to her feet, then glanced at his watch. “Why don’t we get out of here and have some lunch? I think a nice dessert in particular will make the world a much brighter place for you.”
“Lunch? Oh…I…I can’t. It’s Lent.”
“Forget the dessert, then.”
“Well, I’d like to, but I’m…busy.”
“Oh?” He frowned. “Something important?”
“No. I mean, yes. My…my mother. I promised Serefina I’d meet her. I’d better get going.”
“I see.”
“Maybe dinner?” she suggested.
He hesitated. He knew he could get away for a while now, but by tonight, he wasn’t sure. “I’ll know better later. I’ll call.”
“Hmm. Maybe you’ll get some help in one of these cases soon,” she said with a sudden cat-that-swallowed-the-canary smile.
“It would certainly help.” Especially help us, he wanted to add.
“See you tonight.” She gave him a kiss that scorched, then slipped from his arms, left the interview room, and headed out the door, waving a cheerful good-bye to the men in the office. He knew he was going to be in for a lot of ribbing about this little visit.