Major rubbed his dry, burning eyes and looked around the condo one more time, just to make sure he hadn’t missed anything. Which he knew he hadn’t, since he’d been up at 4:00a.m. to clean an already spotless apartment.
Maybe he should vacuum one more time.
No. He’d vacuumed twice already. He stepped into the kitchen and caught sight of the clock on the back of the stove. They would be here in less than fifteen minutes, and he wasn’t even dressed.
The producer from Alaine’s show who’d called yesterday had suggested Major not wear his chef’s jacket for the segments. He slid the closet door open and shuffled through his button-down shirts. Solid blue in a variety of shades; blue with stripes and patterns; white with blue stripes of various widths ... didn’t he have anything other than blue? Yes—gray. The producer had wanted him somewhat casual—“weekend wear,” she’d called it. Well, he didn’t really think that sweats and a ULB T-shirt were appropriate. Instead, he donned a plain white T-shirt, khakis, and a blue-gray waffle-weave pullover that allowed a bit of the white undershirt to show at the neck.
With just a few minutes remaining, he ducked into the bathroom to brush his teeth, again. He should have gotten his hair cut before today. It was going to be flopping down onto his forehead all day. After cleaning the sink and counter with a disinfecting wipe, he straightened the hand towels one more time.
He jumped at the rifle-shot sound of the knock on the front door. When he opened it, a plain woman of indeterminate age wearing a Channel Six–logoed Windbreaker stood on the other side.
She extended her right hand. “Major O’Hara? I’m Pricilla Wilson. We spoke on the phone yesterday.”
“Yes. Please come in.” He stepped out of the doorway into the space between his living room and dining area.
The cameraman who’d come with Alaine to the tasting last week entered behind her, pushing a cart piled with equipment cases.
“Can I help with anything?”
The cameraman grunted, which Major took as a no, and Major pointed him toward the kitchen.
“While he sets up the lights and cameras, let’s sit and discuss the plan for today.” Pricilla pulled out one of the chairs and sat at the table, scattering a stack of papers all over it in a matter of seconds. “We’ve got a lot of stuff to film and not a lot of time to do it.”
Eight hours sounded like quite a lot of time to Major.
“The girl doing your hair and makeup will be here in about forty-five minutes—”
“Hey, Priss”—the camera guy came around the corner—“you’d better come look.”
Major followed them but stood in the hallway outside the kitchen, since three people wouldn’t fit.
Pricilla hit a couple of keys on her phone and pressed it to her ear. “Hey, it’s me. We’ve got no joy here.”
Mortification rang in Major’s ears and burned every surface of his body.
“Kitchen’s way too small for the equipment we need for filming.” Pricilla came out of the kitchen to pace the length of the living room. “Of course not. We expected a chef would have at least a decent home kitchen.... You want what?”
She brushed past Major again and pulled the phone away from her ear. “Nelson, pack it all up. We’re going.” Back to the person on the other end of the phone, she said, “Yeah. We’ll see you in about twenty minutes.”
Major followed her back to the dining table, where she scraped up all her papers—and the placemat.
He reached over and rescued the mat. “What’s going on?”
She stuffed the papers into her bag. “We can’t shoot here. Your kitchen’s too small. So we’re taking all this elsewhere.”
“Where?”
“Alaine’s place.”
Major stopped cold. “Where?”
“Alaine Delacroix’s place. She thinks her kitchen will work better, so bring what you might need that she may not have, and let’s get going. We’re on a tight schedule today.” Pricilla turned her back on him and made another phone call.
Major had to wait until Nelson got all of his equipment cases out of the kitchen before he could go in. He looked around for what to take with him and grabbed his knife case right away. No chef ever went anywhere without his knives. But what about everything else? Food processor, blender, steamer, butane warmers...
The whole point of what they were doing today was to familiarize people with stuff they already had in their home kitchens. What better way to do that than in the kitchen of someone who didn’t have professional-quality products? He tucked his knife case into his duffel bag and joined the production assistant and cameraman at the door.
“I’ll follow you over there.” He locked the door behind them and trailed them out to the parking lot where, this time, Nelson accepted his help in loading all of the equipment back into their van.
The van headed toward Old Towne and into an older part of the townhouse development where Forbes lived. Major had looked at a couple of units here when he’d moved back to town, but even though he’d much preferred the kitchens, the price on his condo had been more palatable.
He parked one space away from the van to give them room for taking equipment out, just as a small, sporty Mazda with dark windows pulled into the driveway at the townhouse across the roadway.
Alaine sprang out of the little black car—but if Major hadn’t known she was meeting them here, he might not have recognized her. Dressed in jeans and a black sweater, she wore her hair pulled up at the back of her head haphazardly as if done on the fly, and she didn’t have any makeup on, making her look pale and wan.
“I had a great idea on the way over here.” Alaine jogged across the street to help with equipment. “Hey, Major.”
“Hi, Alaine.”
“What’s this idea?” Pricilla asked.
“Were you working at the Food Network when Gordon Elliott did that show where he went around and dropped in on people and made a meal from whatever they had in their kitchens?”
“That was before my time, but I watched it pretty regularly.” Pricilla heaved a large case onto the cart. “You want him to do something like that?”
Major loved being talked about as if he weren’t standing right there with them.
“Similar idea. What if he were to fix a meal just from whatever I have on hand in my kitchen? He could explain what he’s doing but also go ahead and give recipes and tips and a cooking demonstration along the way.” Alaine finally turned to acknowledge his presence. “What do you think?”
Considering he hadn’t wanted to do this in the first place? “Sounds like it would be better than me trying to demonstrate how different things work or explain what they’re used for.”
“Try to use as much of the stuff that I have in my kitchen as you can—there are a bunch of things in there that I don’t even know what they are. My mom gives me stuff for my kitchen every year on my birthday and at Christmas. I guess she hopes I’ll eventually stop hating to cook and start using all of it.” She wrinkled her nose like Samantha on Bewitched when she grinned.
He couldn’t help but laugh. Why did everyone he know hate to cook? “I’ll see what I can do. But if you don’t like cooking, am I going to have any ingredients to work with?”
“I went to the grocery store last night. I always have the greatest intentions, but I never follow through. Fortunately, Mama likes my kitchen better than her own, so she usually comes over one night during the week and cooks up a bunch of meals for me.”
Oh, to have a mother who could do stuff like that without burning down the building. “Great. Let’s go see what you have, and I’ll come up with a menu.”
He followed Alaine through the one-car garage—which was empty, so it looked as if she actually used it for her car—up several steps, and into a utility room/pantry. He stopped and looked at the dry goods on the shelves. Flour, sugar, baking powder and soda, spices, dried herbs, canned vegetables and fruits, and cereal—lots of cereal.
Alaine’s cheeks were red when he finished his perusal. “I’m a big cereal-for-supper girl. And breakfast.”
Meredith had been that way, too, until he’d stepped in and started making sure she had decent meals to take home with her every day. “Show me to your kitchen.”
Jealousy struck instantly when he stepped out of the utility room and into the main part of the house. Though not huge, the fact that the kitchen was completely open to the living and dining rooms made it feel huge. And she had upgraded stainless appliances, including a gas stove built into the eat-at island that divided the kitchen from the rest of the space.
“So, Chef, tell me what you think.” Pride laced Alaine’s voice.
“It’s great. I didn’t know any of these units had kitchens like this. The ones I looked at were much smaller and more closed off—they just had pass-through windows.”
“The people who owned this before me completely renovated it based on something they saw on TV. The colors were hideous—tomato red walls and a green tile backsplash so it looked like Christmas all the time—but that was a pretty easy fix. And I got the place for a song—I mean, most buyers can’t stand the fact that the front overlooks a bunch of old, dilapidated warehouses across the highway.”
“But you don’t care about the view?”
Alaine turned slowly around, her arms extended. “When I could have this?”
“I see your point.”
She looked at her watch and sighed. “While I’d love to stay and watch you work, I’ve got to get back to the station and finish writing some stories for today’s show. Have fun, and leave me some leftovers.” She winked and left.
Pricilla and Nelson brought in the equipment and went to work setting it all up while Major explored Alaine’s kitchen. At first, he felt odd going through all the drawers and cabinets, until he started seeing the quality of her cookware and small appliances. Not quite professional quality, but definitely top of the line.
Once familiar with where everything was, he pulled his spiral notebook out of his duffel and went to the fridge. Inventorying its contents, he started writing down ideas for dishes that were moderately simple and quick, that pretty much anyone could cook if given the right instruction. The freezer offered up even more ideas, especially once he saw the lamb shoulder steaks and artichoke hearts. He took them out, filled half the sink with cold water, and put the plastic-bagged meat in it to start thawing.
The makeup gal, Charla, arrived and had Major sit on one of the stools from the island, which had been moved into the middle of the living room. She tucked paper towels around his collar and went to work. Pricilla took the opportunity to wire him up with a lapel microphone—which she had to run up under his shirt from the battery pack clipped to the back of his belt. As he could throughout the process, he wrote recipe ideas, trying to figure out exactly how to explain the processes and eliminating several ideas as too complicated to explain.
“Have you ever thought about getting your teeth whitened?” Charla asked.
“No. Can’t say as I have.” What—were his teeth that bad?
“Hmm.” Charla shrugged and made a face as if to say, Your funeral.
Great, one more thing to be self-conscious about. Pudgy face, check. Bad hair, check. Hideously discolored teeth, check. He’d hit the trifecta.
He held his breath to keep from sneezing when Charla dusted powder over his whole face. “Now, whatever you do, don’t touch your face. Don’t scratch your nose or rub your eyes.”
Immediately, his entire face started itching. “I’ll do my best. What about sweating?”
“This makeup can withstand a lot of moisture, but try not to sweat too much. If you feel like you’re going to need it, turn the thermostat down or open some windows to cool off.” She closed up her makeup kit—which looked like a fishing tackle box—and shrugged into a coat with a huge furry collar. “I’ll be in and out all day for touch-ups.”
“Thanks.”
“Keep those paper towels in your collar except when you’re filming. I guess they didn’t tell you not to wear white up on your neck.”
“No. Sorry.”
“That’s okay. Just try to keep your head up at all times so your makeup doesn’t rub onto the white shirt.”
Great. Now everyone involved in this project was frustrated with him. “Will do.”
“Chef, we’re ready to get some test shots of you,” Pricilla called.
They’d set the tripod camera up across the island from the cooktop, and Nelson had another one on his shoulder.
“Here’s the deal.” Pricilla pulled one of the stools over beside the tripod and set her clipboard down on the seat. “This is the camera you’re going to talk into, and I’m going to be running it. Nelson is going to be getting shots from more of an over-your-shoulder perspective. We may have to run through some of the steps a couple of times so that he can get close-ups of what you’re doing.”
“Did I hear Alaine say you used to work at the Food Network?”
“I did two internships there as an undergrad and as a graduate student and then worked there a couple of years after college.” Pricilla smiled for the first time this morning. “Having a cooking segment on Alaine’s show was my suggestion.”
Now he knew whom to blame for this entire fiasco. He went around to the stove. Pricilla adjusted the fixed camera’s angle. “Move around as if you’re cooking—go to the sink and the fridge, move to the side of the stove where you’ll chop vegetables....”
Major moved around the kitchen as directed, doing his best not to be freaked out that a big guy with a large camera on his shoulder was following his every move. The lights they’d put up in every corner of the triangular kitchen were really heating up the place, and he hadn’t even turned on the stove or oven yet.
“You good, Nelson?” Pricilla asked.
“Yep.”
“Let’s go through your menu, Chef, and figure out the best order for doing this. We want it to be real time as much as possible—meaning that if someone was really making this for a meal, they’d have to be working on multiple projects all at once. We aren’t just going to do a dish at a time.”
Forty-five minutes later, he pulled the paper towels out of his collar and began explaining to the camera how to thaw frozen meat safely.
“Let me stop you for a second, Chef.” Pricilla came out from behind her camera.
His heart pounded, and he really needed a bottle of water from the case he’d seen in the pantry. “What’s wrong?”
“First, you need to remember to breathe. You’re talking way too fast.”
“Right. Breathe. What else?” He took a couple of gulps of air to prove he could do what she said.
“Don’t say all right at the beginning of each sentence and end each sentence with okay, okay?” She nodded her head.
“Right. No all rights or okays.”
“Ready to go again?”
He gave her a thumbs-up. “Ready.” He launched into his explanation of defrosting meat again, trying to slow down the words tumbling out of his mouth and stumbling each time he was about to say the no-no words.
“Let me stop you again, Chef.” Pricilla sounded a little more frustrated this time. Major knew just how she felt.
“Still too fast?”
“A little bit. But the problem is that you don’t sound like you’re talking to a person. You sound like you’re talking to a camera. Forget that it’s a piece of equipment. Pretend that there’s someone you know really well, who doesn’t know how to cook, sitting right here across from you. Talk to that person. In your head, carry on a conversation with them. Imagine their reactions to what you’re saying. Can you do that?”
“Imagine a person, right.” A person. A person who didn’t know how to cook. Slowly, a grin split his lips. Meredith. Of course. The one person he’d love to spend time with in the kitchen more than anyone else. Imagine Meredith sitting here, taking cooking lessons from him. Imagine this was his kitchen and Meredith was here with him, lending her moral support and gazing on him affectionately with those wonderfully expressive brown eyes.
“Let’s try it again.” Pricilla made another notation on her clipboard and moved back behind the camera.
For the next six hours, Major talked to Meredith—through the camera—and created dishes he knew she would be able to recreate if she put her mind to it. Finally, at four o’clock after Nelson got closeup shots of the plated dishes, Pricilla called it a wrap.
Having cleaned as he went—as he’d been taught to do by Aunt Maggie—Major didn’t have much cleanup to finish, so he immediately set to it, eager to run up to the office to find out how everything had gone today.
“Now, when you come in Thursday to do the voice-over—”
He whipped around at Pricilla’s words. “What? Where am I supposed to go Thursday?”
“Didn’t I tell you we’d need you to come in and do some voiceovers for where we’ve edited the segment down?” The corner of her mouth pulled down in a sheepish expression.
“No. I wasn’t told I’d have to do more than just filming on Tuesdays. How much time do you think it’ll take?” He couldn’t afford any more time away from work. And if he started the restaurant, he’d need every hour he could get.
“An hour, maybe ninety minutes. You’ll get to watch the edited segment through and write out what to say to bridge where we’ve condensed. Remember, this is fitting into a fifteen-minute segment. It’s just too bad that everyone at the studio won’t get a chance to taste it, because just what you fixed us for lunch was fabulous.”
“Thanks.” Yeah, having to cater lunch for all of Alaine’s coworkers would be the cherry on top of this hot-stress sundae. He rummaged around in her cabinets for storage containers. He separated all the food out into single serving sizes and labeled everything with the masking tape and marker he found in one of the drawers. Too bad he hadn’t thought to bring a disposable takeaway box so that he’d have something to take back to Meredith.
He hummed as he worked, enjoying the sense of accomplishment that washing the last few dishes gave him. By the time Alaine’s kitchen was as spotless as it had been when he’d walked in, Pricilla and Nelson had finished loading their equipment in the van.
Pricilla came back in and closed the garage door then ushered Major out the front, locking the door behind them. She gave Major a funny look as they walked down the steps.
“What?”
“You’re going to want to wash that makeup off as soon as you get home. Most people complain that their faces break out pretty bad if they wear it for more than a couple of hours.”
His face suddenly started itching again. “Thanks. I’ll do that.” He had to go right past his complex on his way to the office, so he might as well stop and do it there.
“See you Thursday,” Pricilla called, swinging up into the passenger seat of the van.
He waved and climbed into Kirby. As he drove home, he reviewed the day. Thank goodness Pricilla had the idea to tell him to imagine talking to someone. He’d be forever indebted to Meredith for helping him make it through his first day of filming. Maybe one day he’d really have the chance to spend that much time with her one-on-one.
He just hoped it wasn’t so she could cook for Ward Breaux or any other man.