Valerie Foster waited until the Fresh Start crew was preoccupied with sucking up to the black-suited men from New York. When the moment came, she seized it, as she always did.
Grabbing one of the paper plates from a stack on the counter of the Fresh Start set, she scooped up a huge mound of the shrimp remoulade. Setting another plate atop the shrimp, she heaped it with Regina Foxton’s Granny Smith apple and mint slaw. A third plate held a thick slab of buttery lemon pound cake with oozing layers of lemon curd.
Whisking a piece of aluminum foil from the pocket of her slacks, she neatly covered the whole pile, and within a minute was hurrying away from the set, with Tate lagging a few feet behind.
“Jesus, Val,” he said sharply.
“What?” She turned and gazed over the tops of her dark glasses at him. “You have a problem?”
“You just looted that set,” Tate said, moving up beside her. “What if somebody saw you? What if Adelman and his lackey saw you?”
“Nobody saw me,” she said, although she picked up her pace just in case. “Anyway, so what if they did? This is research.”
“It’s poaching,” Tate said. “You don’t know that they don’t need that food for the rest of their shoot.”
“Too bad if they do,” Val said breezily.
She moved through the darkened concrete block hallway at a near gallop. Not because she actually feared being found out. Valerie Foster feared little, and anyway, she did everything at the same speed, Tate thought. Flat out, full tilt.
When they’d reached the doorway to the makeshift Vittles set in the parking lot of Morningstar Studios, she stepped aside, her hands full of the filched food, to allow Tate to open the door.
“Hey, Tate,” yelled BoBo, one of the cameramen, “I think Moonpie’s looking for you. He was barking and whining and scratching at the door of your camper. I let him out on his leash a little while ago, and he peed, but he still hadn’t settled down.”
“Thanks, BoBo,” Tate called. “But it’s not a camper. It’s a travel trailer.” He hurried toward the Vagabond, and while he was still a dozen yards away he could hear the dog’s whimpers.
“Hey, buddy,” he said, standing outside the Vagabond’s screened door. “Settle down. I’m coming.”
As soon as he opened the door, the dog jumped down and sprang up and planted his paws on Tate’s chest.
“Hey, now,” Tate said, ruffling the dog’s ears. “I’m back. What’s all the fuss about?”
Tate sank down into a lawn chair under the awning, and the dog hopped up into his lap.
“Cute,” Val said, ducking under the awning. She set the plates of food down on the top of a folding aluminum table and pulled up another chair alongside it.
“Mmm,” she said, after her first taste.
In an instant, Moonpie was off Tate’s lap and crouching down at Val’s feet.
“Don’t even think about it,” Val said, poking the dog with the pointed toe of her shoe. “Bad Moonpie.”
The dog whined softly. Val licked her fingers and held the plate out to Tate.
Reluctantly, he picked up a shrimp, dipped it in the remoulade, and chewed thoughtfully. Wiping his hands on the napkin that had covered the plate, he took another shrimp, hoping that the first had been a fluke. It wasn’t. In fact, the second taste revealed yet another subtle layer of flavors. He tossed a shrimp to Moonpie, who caught it in midair.
“So much for her piddly little regional television show,” Tate said ruefully.
“What’s that?” Val asked, between bites.
“Regina Foxton,” he said. “I met her in the makeup room this morning. She obviously knew who I was, that I was the competition. When I asked her what she did, she just said she had some little sorry-ass regional show.”
“She’s right. It is sorry-ass,” Val said. “Did you see that set? It’s held together with duct tape and chewing gum.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Tate said glumly. He pointed to his plate. “This is what matters. We’re screwed.”
Val kept chewing. The pile of discarded shrimp tails grew on her pilfered plate. She picked up one of the thin slices of lemon that was tossed in with the peppery pink shrimp, and sucked on it.
“So we don’t do shrimp for today’s show,” she said finally. “What’s plan B?”
“You tell me,” Tate said, using his fingertips to dip into the apple slaw. “I can’t fry shellcrackers for these guys. Not after they’ve seen that and tasted that incredible flounder of hers.”
He licked his lips, and then his fingertips, then scooped up another mouthful of the slaw.
“Damn,” he said, when he’d finished chewing. “Sour cream instead of mayonnaise for the slaw dressing. With apple cider vinegar. And slivers of fresh mint. Damn.”
“Too precious,” Val said dismissively. “Can you imagine what your fans would say if you suggested they use something besides good old cabbage for cole slaw?”
Finishing up the last of the shrimp, Valerie moved on to the pound cake with her usual efficiency.
Tate reached over and pinched off a corner of the cake, tossing it into his mouth, savoring the immediate lemon rush.
“Amazing,” he said finally. “My granny made lemon pound cake, and I thought hers was the best I’d ever tasted. Until just now.”
“So go back to Possum Trot and smack your granny,” Val said.
“She’s dead,” Tate said.
“Whatever.”
“And I’m from Pahokee, not Possum Trot.”
“Tell me something new,” Val said, yawning. “Like what we’re going to do about today’s show.”
“Not fish, that’s for damned sure.”
“Fish is exactly what you are going to do,” Val said. “It’s too late to change the show now. We don’t have time to shop and rewrite, and anyway, the crew’s been working on prepping everything all morning. Not to mention the fact that I don’t intend to waste that gorgeous footage we shot of you yesterday.”
Tate shook his head. “We’ll look like rubes next to that show Regina just shot.”
“Not at all,” Valerie insisted. She leaned closer to Tate and took his hands in hers. “Look at me,” she said, squeezing tightly.
“I am. You’ve got a little green thing on your tooth. I think it’s maybe a piece of mint.”
“Funny,” she said, running her tongue across her teeth.
“It’s gone now,” he said.
“Seriously,” she said. “I want you to look at me and listen closely. No more funny business. Do you remember what you told me the night we met in that bar down in Costa Rica?”
“That I would have won the fishing tournament if the damned airline hadn’t lost my tackle box with all my good-luck rigs,” Tate said promptly. “And that wasn’t a lie. You can’t win a billfish tournament using borrowed equipment, I don’t care how good you are.”
“What else did you tell me?”
He thought about it. “That you were the most beautiful woman I’d ever met, and my roommate was passed out drunk back at the dock, and that you’d never made love until you’d done it in a hammock?”
“Speaking of semi-true,” she said dryly. “But that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about what you said you wanted out of life.”
“Oh. That.”
She dropped his hands and pushed her chair away. “You remember?”
“I’d been hittin’ the cerveza pretty heavy. I remember that part. And I remember you turning down my offer of the hammock.”
“You’re starting to piss me off,” she warned, looking at her watch. “And we don’t have a lot of time to waste right now.”
“Okay,” he said with a sigh. “I told you the only thing I really wanted out of life was a life—a real life, spent outdoors, doing things I was passionate about. Fishing, hunting, a good dog, a good woman. Like that.”
“And I told you?”
“You told me I could have it all, if I hired you to produce my show.” Tate said. “And if I wanted it bad enough.”
“And do you?”
He reached down and ruffled the soft white fur on Moonpie’s head. “Yeah. I do.”
“Good,” she said, standing up. “Then let’s go get what we both want. Barry Adelman is down here because he’s seen all your shows. He approached us, not the other way around. He sees something he likes in you, Tate. Just like all those girls in the Bargain Mart. And those horny housewives sitting in their Barcaloungers in Birmingham. Not to mention the NASCAR guys. You let me worry about little Suzy Homemaker and her kitchen tricks. You just do what you’ve been doing. Right?”
“I guess,” Tate said. He crumpled up the empty plate and tossed it in the trash barrel by the Vagabond’s door. He coaxed the dog inside by tossing him the last bit of fried fish.
“Sorry, buddy,” Tate said, fastening the screen. “Time to get back to work.”
“Just a minute,” Val said. She leaned in close and wiped a trace of sour cream from his upper lip, then unbuttoned the top two buttons on his work shirt. “There,” she said, satisfied.
He blushed.
“One more thing,” she said, stopping him with a hand on his arm. “No more stalling. Tomorrow you go see D’John, and let him work his magic.”