Deep Dish (31 page)

T
ate!” Val saw him walking rapidly toward the front of the lodge, Moonpie close by his heels. “Tate, wait up,” she called again, but if he heard, he was ignoring her.

She heard the front door closing, and when she went to the front windows, she was just in time to see him shooting off into the darkness on his golf cart. Let him go, she thought.

Val sat on the steps of the porch and lit a cigarette. She leaned back on her elbows and surveyed the grassy lawn. Gigantic bugs flitted around the coach lanterns flanking the sidewalk, and she could see fireflies twinkling in the treetops. She inhaled deeply and smiled. One more day. Tonight’s loss was a setback, but tomorrow, Tate would be on his game again. She’d make sure of it. And then, she would gladly trade the deep green scent of fresh-mown grass and magnolias for insects whose names she knew, and the comforting smell of the hot asphalt and carbon monoxide fumes of Peachtree Street.

And if all went well, not long after that, they would be packing for New York. All she had to do was find a way to talk her pigheaded star out of thinking he was in love. She tilted her head back and blew a smoke ring, watching it dissipate into the soupy night air. One more day.

L
isa’s ebullient chatter was a welcome distraction. “Can you believe it? All you have to do is win tomorrow, and we’re a lock. Zeke won’t say anything, he’s got this crazy idea he has to be impartial—I mean, what is he, a friggin’ Supreme Court Justice—but I can tell he thinks you should win.”

“That’s nice,” Gina said wearily, dropping her clothes to the floor of their room.

“Where do you think we’ll live in New York?” Lisa went on. “Zeke lives in Brooklyn. I always thought Brooklyn was kind of a ghetto, but he says it’s actually very nice. He takes the subway to work every day. Can you imagine—he doesn’t even own a car. I told him, no way am I giving up my car, but he says nobody in New York owns a car. I mean, how do you get to Target?”

“Don’t know,” Gina managed.

She showered and put on a cotton voile nightgown, and when she came out of the bathroom, Lisa was propped up in bed, a pair of reading glasses perched on the end of her nose, a book open.

“You’re reading? When did this start?”

“Very funny,” Lisa said, not bothering to look up. “I read. Sometimes.”

“Since when?”

With an exaggerated sigh, Lisa held up the book. It was a thick hardback tome—Robert McKee’s
Story.
“Since Zeke gave this to me. It’s about screenwriting. And it’s amazing. All the big Hollywood producers and writers have studied with this guy.”

“Not to mention Lisa Foxton,” Gina said. “Are you actually interested in screenwriting?”

“Oh, yeah,” Lisa said. “Zeke thinks I should go to film school. He says I have a natural talent for storytelling.”

“Is that the same thing as being a gifted liar?”

“Zeke says UCLA has the best film program in the country,” Lisa went on, ignoring the dig. “But NYU is very well respected too. If I went there, I could keep working part-time as your personal assistant while I go to school.”

“Don’t count your chickens before your eggs are hatched,” Gina warned. As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she realized with regret that she sounded just like Birdelle. She dropped down onto her bed and stretched out on top of the bedspread. Even though it was nearly midnight, their room was stifling, the fan merely stirring up the hot stale air.

“I almost forgot,” Lisa said. “Mama called while you were in the
bathroom. She nearly popped a gusset when I told her you won tonight. She wants you to call.”

“Maybe tomorrow,” Gina said. She reached over and turned off the light on her nightstand. Lisa’s voice trailed off.

“Oh!” she said. “One more thing. I know what tomorrow’s challenge is. I heard Barry and Zeke talking about it while you were AWOL tonight.”

“Lisa!” Gina interrupted. “Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. It wouldn’t be fair to Tate.”

“Oh, pooh, fair,” Lisa said. “How fair was it that he’d been to Eutaw before?”

“I don’t care,” Gina said. “Don’t say another word. I’ve got to get some sleep.”

“Have it your way,” Lisa said airily. “But it wouldn’t matter if you did know what the challenge was.”

B
arry Adelman ushered Tate and Gina onto the kitchen set. Once again, their counters were covered with white sheets.

“Now, no peeking,” he said, wagging his finger.

“Fuck that,” Tate said, lifting the corner of the sheet with his little finger.

“Hey!” Barry said sharply. “I’m not kidding around here. We’ve gone to a lot of trouble to make this competition strictly fair and on the up-and-up. TCC’s reputation is on the line here, my friends.”

“For God’s sake, Adelman. It’s television, not the Olympics,” Tate said. “Who really gives a rat’s ass?”

A vein twitched on Barry’s forehead. “Who gives a rat’s ass? Is that what you just said to me?”

“We all do,” Val said, materializing at his side. “We all care deeply, Barry. Don’t mind Tate. He’s just overtired.”

“Look around you,” Barry said angrily, gesturing toward the crew. “You see anybody here who isn’t sleep-deprived? You see anybody who isn’t giving one hundred percent so we can make a piece of quality entertainment?”

“No, Barry,” Val said soothingly. “This crew is amazing. The
whole production is amazing. Food Fight is going to be a ratings sensation. I just know it.”

“Goddamn right it is,” Barry muttered, shooting a sidelong glance at Tate.

“We’re ready to roll,” Zeke called from the production table. “On five.”

Val hustled off the set. Barry’s sullen expression faded. His shoulders lifted, and he seemed to smile with his whole body.

“Welcome, everybody, to our third and last challenge of our exciting and first-ever Food Fight. If you’ve been watching for the past couple nights—as I’m sure everybody in America has—you’ve seen our contestants, Regina Foxton, of the award-winning public television series
Fresh Start with Regina Foxton
, and Tate Moody, the host and star of Southern Outdoors Network’s
Vittles
, face off over two difficult, and yes, dangerous even, challenges.

“On the first night of the competition, our challenge for these star southern cooks was to gather and cook a meal, based only on what they could find here in the beautiful wilds of Eutaw Island. Tate Moody astonished the judges with his wild hog dinner and won that first round. But then Gina Foxton came roaring back the second night, when we asked the competitors to prepare a meal with the kind of mundane everyday contents they might find in any ordinary kitchen. Gina wowed the judges with a chocolate tomato soup cake, oven-fried chicken made with Frosted Flakes cereal and chili powder, bacon-braised cabbage, and an unusual vinegar pie.”

The cameramen panned from Gina, rested and relaxed after a full night’s sleep, to Tate, who stood with his back to the stove in his kitchen, not bothering to suppress a tonsil-baring yawn.

“What’s he doing?” Val whispered to nobody in particular. “Stop that!” Sitting beside her at the production table, Scott Zaleski smirked his appreciation.

“Tonight’s challenge is both simple and deceptively complex,” Barry said. He whisked the sheet from Gina’s counter and then Tate’s.

“We’re asking our contestants to prepare the exact same recipe,” Barry said. “They have all the ingredients necessary to make a dish
that’s a staple in every southern cook’s repertoire—bourbon pecan pie! They can, of course, do their own twist on the recipe, but only using the ingredients they have available in their kitchens. Gina, Tate, you have two hours—starting now.”

The starting buzzer sounded, and Barry stepped away from the set.

Gina looked down at the counter and couldn’t help but smile. She’d been baking pecan pies since she was eight years old, and had, in fact, once taken second prize at the Ware County Fair with Birdelle’s aunt Ludie’s pecan pie recipe. Of course, since Great Aunt Ludie was a foot-washing Baptist, her recipe had never called for bourbon. Which was a good thing, since Ocilla, where she lived, had been a dry county.

She managed a sidelong glance at Tate, who caught her eye for only a second before turning away. For a second, she actually felt sorry for him. He might be a whiz at barbecuing and frying, but just how good was he at baking? Was it really fair to ask a man to bake a pie?

Yes, she thought grimly. It was just as fair to expect Tate Moody to bake a pie as it was to ask Regina Foxton to catch and cook her own dinner on an island. She rolled up the sleeves of her shirt and reached for the sack of White Lily flour. The game was on.

H
e hadn’t missed that pitying look. He wanted to laugh. Or maybe not. He had a job to do. He skimmed the recipe and the list of ingredients. It was, as Adelman had explained, a pretty basic recipe for pecan pie.

Lined up on his counter he had flour, a pitcher of ice water, salt, sugar, butter, eggs, a bowl of shelled pecans, dark and light corn syrup, vanilla, and yes, even a pint bottle of bourbon.

He grabbed a mixing bowl and dumped in flour, salt, and sugar, mixing them with his fingertips. Tate took a knife and cut the stick of butter into cubes, which he then dropped into the bowl of flour. Looking furtively about, he uncapped the pint of bourbon, took a swig, and set it aside.

He found a pastry cutter and began cutting the cold butter into the
flour. Butter! He shook his head. Trust a bunch of Yankees to supply them with butter instead of lard for pastry. Well, at least somebody had the good sense to buy unbleached all-purpose White Lily flour.

He still remembered a kitchen assistant Val had hired to help with his first season’s show. He was doing smothered quail and gravy over biscuits for an episode called “Early Bird Special.” Val had sent the assistant, who was fresh from a fancy California cooking school, to the grocery store with a shopping list. While he prepared the biscuit dough on camera, the girl was busily working away in the prep kitchen, fixing the dough that would be used to make the biscuits that would actually get baked. Unbeknownst to all of them, this particular California girl had gone out and bought self-rising Betty Crocker flour. The resulting biscuits looked fine, but when the time came for him to split them and cover them with the smothered quail on camera, the biscuits had been so hard he would have needed a hacksaw to cut them in half.

Heather, the girl, had sobbed for hours after the catastrophe. He’d gently taken the time to explain the difference between “soft” southern wheat flour and “hard” bleached flour, and she’d perked right up. They’d had some good times together after that, and the show’s raw footage had been his favorite scenes in the “best-of, worst-of” bloopers tape Val always compiled for the end-of-season crew party.

Tate paused from cutting the butter into the flour and took another sip from the bottle of Jack Daniel’s.

Using his fingertips again, he made a well in the middle of the bowl of flour and dribbled in some ice water, which he quickly worked into the dough. When the dough looked right, he sprinkled more flour onto the countertop, gathered the dough into a thick, round disc, and flopped it onto the countertop. After coating both sides of the disc with flour, he dumped it onto a piece of waxed paper and put it in the refrigerator to chill.

Wiping his hands on a clean dish towel, he snuck a peek at Gina, who, it happened, was doing the exact same thing. He smiled smugly and shot her a thumbs-up. Her returning smile puzzled him. What the hell was she thinking? He raised the bottle of Jack Daniel’s in a salute and sipped again.

“Cut!” Barry called. He gave Zeke a meaningful look.

“All right, people,” Zeke said, “let’s take a break.”

U
h, Tate.” Zeke cleared his throat and looked down at the yellow Post-it on his shirt sleeve. “Barry’s a little concerned.”

“About what?” Tate was sprawled out on the porch steps, Moonpie at his feet.

“Well, uh, he wants to make sure you understand that this is absolutely our last night of taping. The judges will pick a winner of the Food Fight based on this last challenge, and then we’re all packing up and leaving in the morning.”

“Got that memo,” Tate said, yawning. “I’ll see you at the ferry dock bright and early, right?” He slapped Zeke on the back. “It’s been real, buddy.”

Zeke peeled the Post-it off his sleeve and crumpled it up. “The thing is, Tate, we can all see that you’ve been dipping into that bottle of Jack Daniel’s on the set, while we’re taping.”

Tate scratched Moonpie’s ears. “There a rule against that? Because that’s one memo I didn’t get.”

“Barry feels…” Zeke pushed his glasses back up to the bridge of his nose. “Oh hell, Tate. You can’t be drinking during the show. You know that. Our demographic for this show is strictly Middle America. Our sponsors for Food Fight are the American Dairy Council and the all-new Subaru Forester. Think about it—milk and mid-size imported SUVs. We can’t have our contestants cooking under the influence. Our sponsors will freak if they see something like that. Barry
is
freaking.”

“Riiiight,” Tate drawled. He stood and stretched, and swayed just slightly. “Tell Barry to relax. The Tatester has everything under control.”

F
or the fourth time since she’d put her pie in the oven, Gina opened the door and peeked in. She couldn’t understand it. She’d set the oven at 375—just as the recipe had specified. The
baking time should have been forty minutes, tops. But the pie was nowhere near done. Her crust hadn’t browned, and when she gave the pie pan a slight jiggle, the unbaked pecan bourbon filling sloshed over the sides and onto the baking sheet she’d set the pie on. The filling definitely was not setting up.

The big time clock ticked off the seconds and minutes. Thirty minutes. She had only thirty more minutes to get the pie baked, cooled, and ready to serve to the judges. And pecan pie took a notoriously long time to cool and set. How many times had her daddy tried to rush things by cutting a pie and been rewarded with a burned tongue?