Adventures with Max and Louise (28 page)

One look at her glittering eyes, and I can tell Charlotte would be more than happy to kick me senseless with her Italian pumps, leap out of the helicopter ahead of me, and trade places onstage with Katie. The only thing holding her back is my status as her son’s potential girlfriend. As the chopping throb of the turbine engine fills the cabin, the idea of trading places becomes increasingly appealing. After all, the audience would never know the difference, and Charlotte did claim to slavishly read and clip all my columns. Liz would be much happier with a stylish tigress like Charlotte, who would never burn her hand, swear like a sailor, or crash awkwardly down a mountain in borrowed skis.

Chas holds out his hand. “Come on, Molly, they’re waiting!”

“Get out there, you big bleedin’ baby!” Max cries indignantly. I shuffle closer toward the hatch.

As I pass Chas, he squeezes my shoulder. “Go get ’em, tiger!” he says, growling.

“How romantic,” Louise complains as the door to the helicopter swings open. The police officer offers me his hand.

Egged on by a production assistant, the crowd has begun to chant, “Diner X, Diner X, Diner X!”

Ducking my head outside and concentrating on a graceful entry, I gingerly step down with my good foot. Taking the police officer’s hand in a death grip, I step again, until I realize that my sprained ankle can hold a little weight. I release his hand.

A man with a thick brown ponytail and NBC windbreaker shakes my hand. “Molly, I’m Carl Heffron, the segment producer. Right this way.” My eyes dart around, searching for Liz’s face. She’s nowhere in sight.

Limping slightly, I follow Carl’s navy blue back across the uneven cobblestones, trying to ignore the throbbing pain in my ankle. We reach the first step of the stage. Carl presses the receiver in his ear, motioning for me to wait.

“Okay, now.” He motions for me to climb the steps. “Watch the cables.”

Katie Couric and Matt Lauer, perched on their ubiquitous director’s chairs, grin from the plywood stage, which is covered in crimson carpet. Behind them the fishmongers from Pike Place Seafoods throw glistening salmon to one another like trained seals.

“Molly! Over here!” I turn to see Martin and Angeli, grinning like idiots, blowing me kisses from the front row.

“Break a leg, Mollykins!” Martin screams.

“Don’t listen to him. Don’t break anything!” Angeli says and laughs.

Dad is beside them, waving in his navy blue cop uniform, his sergeant chevrons glinting in the sun. Beneath the shiny brim of his cap, his eyes shine. My heart squeezes tighter. Something about my dad in uniform makes the world safer. Next to him, grinning, warming her hands on a latte, is Gwen in a neon yellow windbreaker embroidered with purple daisies.

By the time Carl and I are within a few feet of the
Today Show
set, the NBC peacock logo nailed below gray clouds, I hear Katie Couric reading from my bio. Carl steadies my elbow and brings me closer to the stage. A stage director points at a white chalk
X
on the plywood. We stand there and wait.

“. . . two years as Diner X, wowing the city with her frank and entertaining insider’s view of the restaurant scene . . .”

My eyes wander the dense, shifting mob. There are a lot of people, more than I’d imagined. My heart travels higher, nearly to my throat, choking me. I spot Liz behind me in a tight charcoal gray suit and boots, her purple scarf whipping in the wind. She whispers something into a cameraman’s ear before darting out to intercept me. Over the noise of the crowd and the show I hear her spiky footsteps on the cobblestones.

“Quick, there’s no camera on you. Get sexy,” she barks, unbuttoning my blouse so that my cleavage is exposed. She musses up my hair and applies a quick gloss of red to my lips, correcting the line with her pinkie.

“There!” she gloats. “You’re done!” She hugs me tightly, with great emotion, which startles me more than all her nasty comments, and hurries back into the mob.

A second later, Carl pushes me toward the stairs with a “good luck” as the camera swings toward me. As I reach the stage, I lift my head, and for the first time I understand the scope of the crowd. It spreads in a sea of faces and Starbucks cups like tentacles on the market’s narrow streets. My step slows, conviction ebbing away, sucking my resolve away like low tide. Soon I’ll be a fish caught on the beach, gasping for air.

“Just put one foot in front of the other, luv,” Max coaches.

I take another step.

“See?” he gently responds. “Six more like that, an’ you can rest yer bum on a nice, comfy chair.”

I take two steps; so far so good. There is Matt Lauer in a puffy down coat and bright red scarf, clutching his Space Needle coffee cup for dear life. Katie Couric, a few yards away in a bright orange fleece vest, smiles encouragingly. As if sensing my fear, she jumps up from her seat and half-pulls, half-welcomes me onto the stage.

“Wow, that was quite an entrance,” she says, giggling. Her voice echoes through speakers.

We both squint into the sky as the cameras swing around to catch a glimpse of the helicopter soaring across the bay.

“I missed the bus,” I say.

The audience laughs, not just polite titters but hoots, cascades of laughter. Even Katie and Matt are chuckling. Success: a complete anomaly. I am used to the teeth-gritting courage it takes to dig oneself out of a hole, a klutzy fall, a blurted confession, an embarrassment, but what to do with this?

How do you follow a witty comment when the witty comment isn’t planned, when witty on national television just isn’t in the cards for someone like me? Matt is saying something, something I can’t hear because of the blood raging in my ears. The whole show is beginning to unravel in my mind. I focus on a white spot on the edge of the carpeted stage. That white spot is a life ring, and I am a
Titanic
survivor waiting for the sharks.

My animal instincts must be taking over, because it strikes me that if I just remain stock still, everyone will ignore me. The audience will grow bored; the hosts, prodded by busy schedules, will hop a plane back to New York. I will be left here to contemplate my early mornings with Mom, back when the market meant nothing more to me than a place to get a warm cinnamon roll. Now Katie Couric is saying something, lifting her coffee mug. What is she talking about? The wind tugs my shirt, exposing my chest where Liz undid the buttons. I can feel the skin, still raw from surgery, puckering. What will it look like on camera, shiny and exposed? Both hosts wait politely for me to sit, while I freeze on the spot like a statue, unable to make the last few feet to my chair.

“Look into the bloody crowd,” Max urges. “Find some ’at you know.”

I tear my eyes off the stage and right into the orbit of what seems to be the calmest place in the universe. He stands with his elbow resting on the rump of the huge brass pig statue. Our eyes meet, and he pats the pig’s rump and grins. I smile back. I feel reassured. Wolf is here.

Navigating the cable-strewn stage without falling, I find my seat opposite my hosts. They are impossibly smooth, shiny, and tan, with teeth white as milk. Katie’s scarf is as fluffy as bright green moss. The wind whips her highlighted hair into her sparkly pink lip gloss. She picks it out casually as she turns toward me.

“Molly,” she says kindly, “are you okay?”

I wipe the red gloss from my lips, button my shirt, and nod, all business. “Yes,” I say firmly. “I’m okay.”

She squeezes my knee eloquently and turns toward the stage director with a thumbs-up. “Okay, Eddie.”

Eddie lifts his hand, checks the monitor, and counts down. “And one and two, and ‘We’re live in Seattle at the Pike Place Market . . .’”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

I
T’S SURREAL, APPEARING
on television, let alone the
Today Show.
My earliest memory of the show involves a little yellow TV my mom sometimes kept on the kitchen counter. “That Katie Couric is the only person I can stand before I have my morning tea,” she’d say, I can still see her, stirring pancake batter, one eye on the little TV.

Tilting my head, I look up at the clouds, hoping Mom is watching, perched on a cloud with some good friends and a mug of Morning Thunder tea. The red lights of camera 1 blink on; I pivot my head, wondering where to look. Camera 2, busy scanning the audience, swings around like a robot, its lens gaping broadly three feet from my face. Liz hops around offstage, agitated and waving, trying to catch my eye. I ignore her as she mimics someone unbuttoning their shirt. I pointedly ignore her, gazing off into space, wondering whatever happened to the little yellow TV. This drives her nuts. She pulls open her shirt at the throat in a trashy pantomime until she realizes that the first few rows of the audience are watching. I turn to focus on Katie, all blond smiles and confidence. Out of the corner of my eye I see Liz, ready to explode in anger.

“So, Molly, tell us about
The Evolution of Eating
.” Katie holds an advance copy of the glossy book in her arms. It looks great. “Why don’t you start by telling us about this crazy cover, which, by the way, really caught my eye.” She shows the audience the shot of me splattered with soup.

“That’s a funny story,” I begin, taking my time. “The whole thing was an accident.” Leaning back, I take a deep breath, summon my courage, and stare into that live, straight-into-the-kitchens-of-America TV camera and make it my friend. Max coaches me through the first, rockier segment, when I need a reminder of how I’ve come up with a certain recipe or the tricks to grow one’s own herb garden year-round. He tells me to turn my body toward the audience instead of Katie, reminding me to keep my shoulders back and my chin up and to laugh a lot, which I do.

During the commercial break, Katie leans forward to tell me how great I am doing, how the audience is genuinely engaged. “I can tell when they’re just tolerating a guest out of politeness and when they’re really into it. They’re into it.”

I’m in love with this woman.

Right before the camera comes on, Louise offers a gentle reminder to focus on the Northwest. “They came all the way out her, dear. Make it shine.”

During the second segment, after the commercials, I move in front of the stove and feel, for the first time, totally at ease. This is the world I know. It doesn’t matter who watches or what they do. In a kitchen, I am queen. Ingredients jump into formation and assemble themselves into tidy salads, luscious sauces, and savory appetizers. The wind blows the hair out, not into, my eyes. Even the seagulls politely wait to screech during a lull in my dialogue. I talk about cooking with my mom, how she taught me to make three-cheese baked macaroni when I was eight; how she’d take me to the market, picking out the freshest ingredients, talking to all the farmers, even if they were Hmong or Korean and didn’t share the same language. She’d compliment their produce or fish or cheese with her smiles, and they loved her for it.

“She must be very proud of you,” Katie says, after tasting the macaroni.

“She is,” I smile, quickly blinking back the tears.

As I open the oven to take out the seafood hot pot, Max says something about looking up. Louise cuts him off and tells him to shush.

“She doesn’t need us, Max,” she insists.

“She bloody well does,” Max argues.

“Look at her, Max,” Louise says quietly.

They are quiet for a moment before Max says, “She’s bloomin’ fabulous, innit? Spot on.”

I swear I can feel Louise tearing up with pride.

After the cameras shut off, there is pandemonium. The crews start breaking down the set as fast as they can move.

Katie Couric shakes my hand. “You know, we see a lot of cookbooks on this show. I took this one home and gave it a spin. It’s a lot of fun. My girls loved the macaroni and cheese. Can you sign my copy?” I nearly cry as I scribble
To Katie from Molly, Keep on Cooking!

Matt Lauer shakes my hand and tells me that he doesn’t do much more than grill these days, but he’s going to give his wife the book, and would I mind signing it? I sign it and shake his hand so hard that I realize I’m not letting go. His smile turns into a grimace. I finally release his hand.

“Wow. Quite a grip,” he says, rubbing his hand. “Thanks for being on the show.” I want to kiss his feet, but he makes his escape through the crowd and into a limo.

Liz practically runs me over trying to get to Katie, who, although very polite, walks backward as she talks.

“I’m sorry, I have to catch a plane,” Katie says with another of her blinding smiles.

I grin back like a dolt, saying “thank you” for the hundredth time. When Katie leaves us, I wave like a five-year-old saying goodbye to her mommy at the classroom door.

“I don’t buy her girl-next-door shtick for a second,” Liz snarls as Katie slides into the limo with Matt. “She’s a gold-plated bitch.”

“I think she’s really nice.”

“Whatever.” Liz digs in her purse for a cigarette.

The crowd sweeps us along the street as we head toward a Starbucks. Every few feet someone stops to talk to me, chatting as if they know me. It is a strange feeling, this immediate intimacy people assume. They tell me about a recipe they enjoyed, a column that made them laugh, or a new restaurant I just have to try. I try to be nice, but it is tiring. Liz charges ahead down the cobblestones of the market, and I limp behind, trying to catch up. Suddenly, someone reaches out, squeezing my arm.

“Hey!” I scream, jerking my arm free.

I turn around, and there is Wolf.

“Sorry, lady,” he says and grins. He’s wearing a pair of khakis and a navy fleece jacket. “I just wanted to tell you that you were awesome.”

“Oh, Wolf. I’m sorry. This is just, well, it’s too much.”

“We really have to go,” Liz says, tugging my arm. Her smoke wafts into his face.

“I know.” He winks at me through the smoke, waving it away. “Great job.” He gives me a little wave and disappears into the crowd.

“What’s he doing here?” Liz complains. “Doesn’t he have some hemp to grow or something?”

“I don’t know.” I watch his broad shoulders move steadily through the people. He turns and gives me a thumbs-up. It’s really corny, but I can’t help it; I do a thumbs-up back at him. “He just showed up.”