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This week’s Kitchen Challenge was omelettes. Jemma scoffed when she’d first heard about it. How tough was that? Even she could make an omelette.
But that was before she had tasted one made by Paul Almeida.
She ensured each station had all the necessary tools, double-checked the carts were filled with the optional items the contestants could choose from, and then hustled to her vantage point off stage as the floor director called everyone to attention and taping began.
As the remaining contestants cracked and beat eggs, chopped peppers and grated cheese, her mind wandered to the evening before.
It had been—companionable, she guessed. Paul raided the newly stocked fridge, scolded her gently for her lack of fresh spices, and expertly whipped up a savoury omelette. While he’d been doing that, she scraped and scoured the pot Miriam burnt. Her arm ached by the time she scrubbed off the blackened remains. They worked easily together in the narrow space, occasionally brushing an arm or a shoulder. She did her best to ignore the frisson that skittered under her skin whenever that happened.
She had assumed he would stay and share the meal. However, he dished it onto two plates, escorted Miriam to her chair with many giggles on her part and smiles on his, and left, with a soft apology for not washing the dishes.
Her disappointment had been surprisingly sharp when he closed the door behind him. It hadn’t stopped her from enjoying his amazing omelette, however. And it hadn’t kept her up late into the night. That had been something else.
What had he wanted to talk to her about? Had he been going to try and explain The Kiss? What else could it be? Would he try and talk to her again? If so, when?
A motion from the set caught her eye. Fenella gestured impatiently.
As the Kitchen Challenge was taped and edited, the PA’s were allowed on set when needed. Jemma hurried to Fenella’s station.
“Powdered sugar,” she said. “There’s none on the cart. Four tablespoons.”
“Got it.” Jemma trotted around the false wall of the kitchen set to where the supplies were kept. A bag of powdered sugar sat on the shelf.
Right next to a bag of powdered salt.
Jemma hadn’t known such a thing existed until she’d been told to purchase it for an earlier Kitchen Challenge. She stretched out her hand to the sugar bag.
Fenella and Lawrence Larrey were rigging the show.
She scooped one tablespoon of sugar into a glass bowl.
When today’s challenge had been announced, Jemma was positive Fenella’s smug smile betrayed her prior knowledge of the test.
She scooped another tablespoon of sugar.
Paul was a good man. Too good to be deceived this way.
A third tablespoon of sugar.
Naomi poked her head around the corner. “Fenella’s starting to steam. Hurry it up,” she hissed, and vanished.
Jemma dipped a tablespoon of salt.
She added it to the sugar, stirred it together, and carried it gingerly to Fenella’s counter. Her sweaty fingers left prints on the sides of the bowl.
“It’s about time.” Fenella snatched it and dumped the contents into her carefully beaten eggs.
Heart hammering, Jemma slipped into the shadows.
Her knees wobbled when she considered the enormity of what she had done. Too disturbed by her actions to stay near the set, she searched for a quiet corner in which to hide. If someone wondered why she wasn’t at her post, she would say she felt ill.
It wouldn’t be a lie.
Monitors were scattered about the studio, showing the video feed as the viewers at home would see it. Most had the sound off, so as not to interfere with the live audio being recorded, but Jemma found one with the volume on low. She quietly dragged over an ancient vinyl chair and curled onto it, tucking her legs underneath and huddling in on herself.
Calynn beamed at her from the screen, smiling the smile that attracted a million viewers. “Cooking an omelette seems simple. Crack eggs, cut up peppers, chop ham. But it takes a subtle hand to create a truly delicious omelette. Let’s see what our contestants came up with.”
Paul moved from dish to dish, Calynn coaxing him for his comments. Jemma chewed her fingernails. He reached Fenella’s dish, Number Six.
He lifted a forkful to his mouth. His jaw moved once, twice. Jemma held her breath. Maybe the extra salt hadn’t affected the taste. Maybe nothing would happen. She rocked forward in her seat, gaze fixed on the screen.
Casually Paul reached for a cloth napkin and raised it to his lips.
“What is it?” Calynn asked, her sharp eyes missing nothing. “Is there something particular about this presentation?”
He wiped his mouth and cleared his throat. “It’s...ah...it’s certainly unusual.”
“In what way?”
“I’d have to say it has perfect consistency, and is by far the most attractive omelette we have here. Unfortunately, too much salt definitely detracts from the overall flavours.”
Heat flushed Jemma from head to toe. She’d done it. She’d sabotaged the show. There would be no mercy for her if anyone found out.
The taste testing ended, and Calynn called for Paul’s decisions. His announcement of the winning omelette was greeted by squeals from a curly-haired brunette. She hugged Paul and Calynn with glee.
“I’m afraid dish Number Six is definitely the lowest ranking this week,” Paul continued.
Fenella stepped forward, legs stiff, arms rigid at her sides. Hot spots of colour glowed on her cheeks.
Calynn wrapped the segment, recapping the results and promoting the Date Day episode. The screen went blank, signaling the end of taping, and Jemma collapsed into the seat like a spent balloon. In a minute she’d have to go to the set and start her clean up duties.
In a minute.
––––––––
The on-air lights on the cameras winked out and Paul willed his shoulders to relax. When they were taping, he did his best to mimic Calynn’s casual, natural manner, but after more than a month he still found his neck and upper back tensing the moment the floor director signaled ‘go.’
Thankful the day was over he headed for the edge of the set. Before he could escape, Fenella confronted him.
“My omelette did not have too much salt.”
He didn’t want to have this conversation. Why couldn’t the woman leave well enough alone? “I’m sorry, it did.” He sidestepped around her but she gripped his sleeve.
“It was perfect. I know it was.” Desperation oozed from her. He could see her trembling.
The interested gazes of the nearest crew and contestants itched on Paul’s skin. “No, it wasn’t.”
To Paul’s surprise, Lawrence Larrey hove into view. The producer usually made himself scarce as soon as taping was done.
“What’s this? What’s this?” His tone was jovial, but his eyes were sharp and wary. “Is there a problem here?”
Fenella swung toward him. “My dish was the best. Why didn’t he pick it?”
Larrey patted her shoulder awkwardly. “Now, now, I’m sure he had his reasons.”
“I didn’t put in too much salt. I didn’t.” Temper tinged the words, but she reined it in and turned a melting look on Paul. “Could you taste it again?”
Paul shook his head. “It’s too late. We’re done taping.”
“Please? One more time?” She laid slender fingers on his chest.
“I don’t need to. I know what I tasted.” Over Fenella’s shoulder he saw Jemma clearing the omelettes from the table. “Wait, though. Jemma!” She looked up, face blank. “Can you bring me dish Number Six?”
For a moment she simply stared. Then she brought it over, keeping her eyes lowered, hiding behind her long fringe of bangs. He took the plate, unable to resist the temptation of sliding his fingers over hers as he did so. She clomped away the moment he held it.
“Here.” He offered it to Fenella. “You taste it.”
She snatched the fork and scooped up a large mouthful.
If Paul hadn’t felt sorry for her, he would have laughed at her expression. She chewed and swallowed gamely.
“I-I don’t understand.” She scowled at the remains of the omelette, as if it could give her the answer.
“I’d guess you added the salt twice. It wouldn’t be hard to do, especially with all the pressure.” He smiled. “I once used baking soda instead of baking powder. My cookies were absolutely inedible.” He didn’t tell her he had been fourteen at the time.
Larrey huffed and hawed. “What’s done is done. Nothing we can do about it now.”
Fenella shot him a venomous glare, caught Paul watching, and instantly turned on the charm. “I’m sorry if I came on a bit strong. I was just so upset. Now I understand you were right.” Her laugh jangled, hard-edged and cutting. “I guess I’ll have to hope your date is a bust.”
––––––––
Paul thought he was an easygoing guy. He demanded a lot of his employees, had high expectations for himself, but when it came to friends and family, he was pretty sure he could get along with anyone.
Until his date with Magdalene Comerford.
A dark horse in the competition, she’d been coasting through, neither at the top nor the bottom. Now she had his attention, however, she was doing her best to keep it. At full volume.
She’d never golfed before and at first her intensity had been cute. After five holes, her squeal drilled through his skull like chewing aluminum foil with a filling.
“I hit it! I hit it!”
His eyelid twitched and he forced a smile. “Good for you.” At least the production company had cleared the course for the shoot, so he didn’t have to apologize to others for Magdalene’s excruciating, full-volume outbursts. Her clubs rattled and banged as she raced less than fifty yards to where her shot landed. He followed. Behind him trailed the television crew. Every second of this agony was being recorded, and he hoped he wouldn’t come off too grim in the final edit. His jaw cramped from clenching it and a nerve throbbed behind his left eye.
“What club should I use? This slanty one?” She held up a nine iron.
The lost little girl persona was Magdalene’s second most annoying trait. “You’re about a hundred yards away. Until you have more practice, I’d stick with your five.” He handed her the club. “It’s more forgiving to a new player.”
She grasped it clumsily. “Can you show me how to hold this again? I can’t get it right.”
He readjusted her fingers on the shaft. As he did, he caught sight of Jemma, glowering behind a videographer. She watched Magdalene with narrowed eyes as she wiggled and wriggled through her practice swings. Once she’d hit the ball, Jemma’s gaze switched to Paul. The lines between her brows deepened when their eyes met. She jerked her chin down and marched with the rest of the crew as they moved to Magdalene’s next shot.
After two more tries Magdalene’s ball made it to the green. Paul’s second shot lay on the fringe, and he chipped it smoothly, dropping it a few feet from the cup.
Magdalene cooed her approval. “Ooooohh! Good shot. Maybe someday I’ll be as good as you.”
Paul refrained from rolling his eyes.
She lined up to make her putt, but stepped away and sent him a pleading look. “Can you help me? I’ll sink it, if you’ll help.”
Remembering Jemma’s frown, Paul curved his body over Magdalene’s and covered her hands with his. She leaned into him, pressing her rounded butt into his groin.
“Now, don’t strangle the club. Hold it gently.” He spoke into her ear. Her hair blew into his mouth. He casually pulled at the strands, glancing over his shoulder as he did so.
Jemma was staring gloomily in the opposite direction.
Paul enjoyed the rest of the afternoon immensely. He took every opportunity to touch Magdalene in the guise of teaching her. By the time they wrapped on the eighteenth green, the flags of temper on Jemma’s cheeks matched the fuchsia tips of her hair.
“I had so much fun!” Magdalene bounced up to him. “And you did, too, you flirt.” She smacked a kiss on his cheek and fluttered her eyelashes. “See you tomorrow!” With a jaunty wave she flounced off.
He exhaled in relief, grateful to Magdalene for two reasons—unwittingly showing him Jemma wasn’t as blasé about him as she wanted to be, and for making tomorrow’s elimination decision easy.
Because there was no way he was ever going on another date with her.
––––––––
Jemma shoved the plastic tote onto Greta’s cracked vinyl seat. A couple of weeks ago she’d limped the Civic to a mechanic and had the necessary repairs done. She no longer had to say a prayer when she turned the key in the ignition, and it hadn’t cost her first-born child, either. At least something was going her way.
She returned to Benedict. He was surrounded by various bins and boxes, each of them filled with supplies the banty director declared necessities when on location. Pens, paper, laptops, coffee cups, donuts, clipboards, tape, staples, stopwatches, headphones—the list filled a page. She hefted another container. As she turned to head to her car, she saw Paul crossing the parking lot toward her.
“Jemma! Wait.”
She didn’t. She lengthened her stride. Not that it mattered. Paul could catch her easily. She cursed her lack of leg length.
“We need to talk,” he said from close behind.
“No, we don’t.” Of course they did. But not here. Definitely not here. “Go talk to Magdalene. You need to know her better if you’re going to propose. Although why anyone would want to get married at all is beyond me.”
“You don’t believe in marriage?”
She squeezed the box between her hip and the car and struggled with the door handle. “I don’t see what the big deal is. It doesn’t guarantee endless happiness.” Just ask Miriam.
He nudged her aside and opened the door. “I didn’t chase you down to have a philosophical discussion on marriage. We need to talk about why I kissed you.”
She tossed the bin on top of the first. “Don’t mention that here.” She slammed the door.
“I tried to talk to you at your place, but then everything with Miriam...” He raised both palms in a helpless gesture.
“What’s to say?” She’d seen enough this afternoon. The kiss had obviously meant nothing to him. Not that it meant anything to her, either, but—“You kissed me. Because I made you angry. I think that’s what you like.”
He squinted at her, head tipped. “What the hell does that mean?”
“I watched you today. Magdalene was driving you crazy after two holes. But the more frustrated she made you, the more you touched her, flirted with her. You like annoying women.” She waved her hands in front of her face. “Women who annoy you, I mean.”
Shaking his head slowly, he muttered, “You got that right.”
“I know.” Did he have to agree so quickly? She wanted to tromp on his foot, kick his shin. Instead, she yanked open the driver’s door.
“But you have the wrong woman.”
She froze, one foot ready to step into the car. Carefully, as if it might break at the slightest contact, she lowered it to the ground. She spoke over her shoulder. “Wrong woman?”
“The only annoying woman I want to kiss is you.”
She closed her eyes. “We can’t do this,” she whispered. “You’re going to get me fired.”
Yesterday, when Paul asked her to bring over Fenella’s omelette, she’d almost had a heart attack. She was certain she’d been found out, that Fenella would accuse her of sabotaging the dish. She couldn’t believe she’d been so stupid as to jeopardize everything over something so unimportant as a reality show.
And now this.
She opened her eyes, made herself meet Paul’s. “Leave me alone.” She enunciated each word deliberately, painfully. And ignored the clenching of her heart. “Just leave me alone.”
Miriam was all that mattered right now. She couldn’t put anything ahead of caring for Miriam.
Including her own happiness.
––––––––
Beatriz locked the door after the last lunch customer and turned to Paul. “You want bread?”
“No, thanks, Mom. This is fine.”
He scooped up a rigatoni noodle from the steaming bowl of soup. Chunks of chicken, dark green couve leaves, and spicy chunks of salsicha completed his mother’s special comfort meal.
The hands on the red rooster clock above the door to the kitchen pointed at 2:30 p.m.. He had an hour before he had to head to the sound stage for the elimination show. Good news for Fenella, bad news for Magdalene. A chance to at least see Jemma even if he couldn’t talk to her.
“You want to tell me about it?”
He put down his spoon and leaned back, the red vinyl of the booth squeaking. Beatriz sat opposite him. He could hear the banging of pots and pans as his father scrubbed up in the kitchen. Their workday was nearly done, but it was never a bad time for family to stop by for a meal.
“Tell me again how you and Dad met.”
Roses bloomed on his mother’s round cheeks. “Oh, Paul.” She rubbed a dishtowel over the shiny, varnished wood table. “You don’t want to hear that story.”
“Yes, I do.”
A smile curved her lips, brightened her eyes. “We grew up in the same village. Everyone knew everyone else. No one new came to live there, but many, many left.” Her eyes drifted over his shoulder, and he knew she didn’t see the worn floor, the starched curtains, or the empty tables. She saw low roofed cottages with walls of white plaster and green doors, heard the crash of surf on black, volcanic beaches, smelled flowers vivid with colour. “Your father was so handsome, so strong! He could carry anything, work all day without getting tired. I would walk past his family field, though it was out of my way, so I could see him.”
Paul didn’t know if every son had as much difficulty as he did picturing his father as young, vibrant, desirable. He caught flashes of that man on the rare occasions João smiled. Most of the time he was so dour, so stern, it was an impossible flight of fancy.
“How did you know you loved him?”
She smoothed the towel, folded it precisely in half, in half again. “He came to me. Told me he was leaving our village, was going to Canada, a country so rich, so big, we could not imagine it.” Her blue eyes met Paul’s, alight with memories. “I said I would wait. And I did, for three years. We wrote each other every week. When he asked me to come to him, to come to his new country, I said yes.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“I would have waited for him forever. I would be waiting yet, even if he had never asked.”
He leaned forward, spooned up another mouthful of soup. Beatriz sat quietly, waiting. For him, this time.
He wiped his lips with a paper napkin. “Her name is Jemma. Jemma Hedge.”