Authors: Mary Kay Andrews
She pulled a tissue from the box on his bookshelf and blew her nose. “Okay,” she said, her voice unsteady. “I’ll do my best. I just have one question.”
“What’s that?” he asked.
“What’s the E stand for?”
“Huh?”
“E. Scott Zaleski. You know, your résumé. I never knew Scott wasn’t your first name.”
He rolled his eyes.
“No more secrets, remember?”
“Eugene,” he said. “Now you know the worst.”
S
omehow, she managed to get through the rest of the day. After the lunch break, Scott was back in his usual seat, guiding the new crew patiently through the process of filming a fairly technically complicated cooking show.
They filmed through the dinner hour, and once the last segment was in the can, Scott congratulated everybody on a good day’s work, and sent them home.
“I’ll call you later,” he whispered to Gina as he was packing up his laptop for the day.
She smiled. Officially, their romance was a secret. But she was fairly certain Jess and the others knew that she and Scott were an item.
After Scott and the crew had gone, she walked around the kitchen, letting her fingertips trail across the scarred countertop. Spotting a grease spatter on the stainless steel cooktop, she buffed it out with the edge of a paper towel. It might be a crummy kitchen, but it was, for four more days, her crummy kitchen.
Feeling weirdly melancholy, she decided to hit the break room for a Diet Coke before she headed home for the night.
“Oh!” she said, spotting a tall man with his back toward her. He turned. It was Andrew Payne, her lighting engineer. He was tacking a note to the bulletin board.
“For Sale,” it said, listing a Fender guitar and amps, a Seadoo Set Ski, and lastly a 2006 Harley-Davidson Fat Boy. “Awesome condition. Sacrifice at $18,000.” All his toys.
“Oh, Andrew,” she said softly, squeezing his arm. “You’re selling the Fat Boy?”
“Got to,” he said, his jaw clenched. “Heather’s pregnant.”
“I’m so sorry,” Gina said. “I only found out about the show today.”
He shrugged. “Heather hated that bike.”
“But you loved it. It was your baby.”
“Got a real baby on the way now. And no job.”
He turned away and headed for the door.
“Andrew,” she called.
He turned around, his face unexpectedly sullen. “Yeah, I know. You’re sorry. Scott’s sorry. Everybody’s sorry. And me and Eddie and Jackson are the sorriest of all. Cuz we’re out of work. You have a nice life now, Gina. Okay?”
She felt stung by his simmering anger. “Andrew, I really am sorry. I could kill Wiley Bickerstaff. You know what they’re doing, right? Pulling our show because they think NASCAR racing is the next best thing to sliced bread. Can you believe it? The women who shop at Tastee-Towns don’t care about NASCAR. They want to know how to fix simple, delicious meals for their families.” She shook her head. “I don’t get it. Not at all.”
Andrew’s smile was bitter. “That what Scott told you? The guy’s got balls of solid brass, I’ll give him that.”
“What do you mean?” Gina said, feeling a familiar chill run down her spine. “Tastee-Town has a new marketing guru. He somehow persuaded Wiley that car racing makes more sense than cooking.”
“Man,” Andrew said. “Zaleski’s really got you snowed, doesn’t he?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Gina said, her voice chilly. “I’m sorry the show’s been canceled. Even sorrier that you and the others lost your jobs. I’m out of work too, now, you know. But it’s business. You can’t blame that on Scott.”
“Business?” Andrew hooted. “Monkey business maybe.”
“You’d better go,” Gina said, turning her back on him. “Before I forget how much I like you.”
“Don’t worry,” he said, turning. “I’m outta here.”
She heard the heels of his cowboy boots clomp across the linoleum floor, and then heard the break-room door swing shut. More footsteps echoed in the empty corridor.
“Wait,” she called, running after him. He was at the rear entry door when she caught up with him.
“Now what?” he asked, his voice nasty.
“What don’t I know?” she asked, afraid to hear it, afraid not to.
“You really want to know? All of it? The truth?”
She lifted her chin and met his belligerent stare with her own. “The truth.”
He hesitated. “Aw, hell, Gina. Jess said we should all just suck it up and keep our mouths shut. But the hell with that. You got a right to know who you’re dealing with.”
“Just tell me,” Gina said.
He scratched his chin. “I don’t know anything about the NASCAR thing. That’s a new one on me. Maybe that’s the story Wiley put out to save face. What I do know is that ain’t the reason Wiley Bickerstaff canceled your show.”
“And the real reason is?”
“Crap.” He said it under his breath.
“Just tell me,” she urged. “I’m a big girl. I can take it.”
Andrew took a deep breath. “Last week, when you were down in Odum, visiting your folks? Scott was visiting the Bickerstaffs. Only Wiley wasn’t home at the time. In fact, Scott wasn’t visiting at the Bickerstaff house at all. The way I heard it, he and Danitra Bickerstaff were checked in at the Ritz-Carlton in Buckhead.”
“What are you saying?” Gina whispered.
“Mr. Bickerstaff got to wondering how come Danitra had book club every Thursday night, but she never had any books around the house,” Andrew said. “Dumb bitch. Book club! Have you ever met Danitra? The only book she’s interested in is Wiley’s checkbook. I heard he hired a private investigator. Had her followed. And last Thursday, the detective followed her to the Ritz, where she checked into a suite. Not five minutes later, Scott Zaleski showed up at the front desk, introduced himself as Mr. Bickerstaff, and asked for the key to the suite. You believe that? The bitch checked in under her own name. And with Wiley’s American Express platinum card!”
“That’s a lie,” Gina said heatedly. “Scott wouldn’t do that.”
“You wouldn’t think so,” Andrew agreed. “No matter what else
you think about the guy, you can’t say he’s stupid. Still, he did screw the boss’s wife and manage to get all of us fired in the process.”
“How…how do you happen to know all of this?” Gina asked, her voice breaking. “It’s probably just vicious gossip.”
“Nope, not gossip,” Andrew said. “I’m sorry, Gina. But if I’m lyin’, I’m dyin’. Jessica went to Paideia School with Meredith Bickerstaff, Wiley’s daughter by the first Mrs. Bickerstaff, and Danitra’s stepdaughter, who happens to be a year older than Danitra. Meredith told Jess the whole story last week, right after it happened. Half of Buckhead’s heard it by now.”
“Not the half I live in,” Gina said.
S
he was a zombie. Driving aimlessly around Interstate 285, circling the city, mesmerized, as usual, by the sight of the downtown Atlanta skyline illuminated in the orange-and-blue glow of an early summer sunset. At some point, she turned off the Honda’s struggling air conditioner and rolled down the windows, wanting the feel of the hot, moist air on her face, wanting the burn of exhaust fumes in her nostrils, the smell of hot asphalt, to remind her that she was, despite all indications to the contrary, alive.
When the transmission began its ominous knocking sounds, the numbness began to wear off, and she allowed herself to recognize feelings and emotions. Tears streamed down her face. She pounded the dashboard and swore a blue streak. Damn Scott Zaleski. And Danitra Bickerstaff. And for that matter, damn Mrs. Teasley, her fifth-grade teacher, with her frizzy home permanent and pursed-lip disapproval of Regina Foxton’s big ideas about growing up to become a famous writer in New York City.
“Little girls who can’t diagram compound sentences don’t grow up to become writers,” Mrs. Teasley had told her, after she’d stood before the blackboard, flummoxed by gerunds and participles and all the rest.
Damn Iona Teasley, Gina thought. Her caustic predictions of a dead-end future had filled a fifth-grade Regina Foxton with a steely determination to succeed no matter what. To prove Mrs. Teasley wrong. Middle school, high school, college, the years were a blur. Back in Odum, Birdelle had turned her old bedroom into a shrine of plaques, trophies, and framed certificates, all of them attesting to Gina’s superlative abilities.
Mama. Oh, Lord, what would Mama and everybody else back home think when they found out their hometown star was a dud—a has-been at thirty. Maybe that’s where she would end up—back home in Odum, after her condo was repossessed and the Honda gave out.
It was only when she parked the car in front of the renovated brick midrise in Virginia Highlands that she had a clear idea of her destination for the evening.
Normally, a visitor had to call up and be buzzed into the slate-floored lobby. But Gina knew the key code, and she punched the four numbers in with a fury that surprised her.
She didn’t wait for the elevator, which was slow anyway. She climbed the three flights of stairs, and wasn’t even winded by the time she was ringing the doorbell at Unit 3C.
She didn’t actually ring it, as much as lean on it.
Scott opened the door. Music boomed from the ceiling-mounted stereo speakers. His theme song: “Eye of the Tiger” from one of the Rocky movies. He was bare-chested, wearing only a pair of loose nylon shorts and sparkling white athletic shoes. He was glistening with sweat, and clutched a plastic water bottle in his right, gloved hand.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hello, Eugene,” she said, sailing uninvited into the condo.
His rowing machine was set up in the middle of the wood-floored living room. His racing bike hung from hooks on the wall, and his T-shirt was draped across his treadmill. Aside from the weight bench, set up in front of a wall of mirrors, the only other furniture in the room consisted of a tan leather sofa, a glass-and-chrome coffee table, and a huge, wall-mounted, sixty-inch flat-screen television.
“Don’t call me that,” he said. He picked up the remote control and shut off the stereo.
“Why not? It’s your name.”
“Now what?”
“You slept with Danitra Bickerstaff. And that, dear
Eugene
, is why Wiley shut down my show.”
His face was suddenly alive with emotion. “Who told you that?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Gina said. “And don’t bother to deny it, because I know it’s true.”
“Christ,” he muttered, picking up a towel and mopping his chest with it. He pulled the T-shirt over his head and took a drink of water from his bottle. “What do you want me to say? You’ve already got everything worked out in your head. But it’s not all black-and-white like you want it to be.”
“It seems pretty black-and-white to me,” Gina retorted, perching on the back of the sofa. “First you screwed me. Then you screwed Wiley Bickerstaff’s wife. Wiley found out. He canceled my show. Seems to me I got screwed twice. But I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much this last time,
Eugene
.”
“Yeah, this is all about you, Gina,” Scott said, suddenly animated. “Your show got canceled. You’re out of a job. You got screwed. You, you, you. How about me? Did you ever think about good old Scotty? Hell, I’ve got two years of my life invested in this show. When I met you, you were just a wannabe foodie. No sense of style, no talent. You were a fuckin’ joke! With your goofy-ass glasses and home-ec lady turtleneck sweater. I’m the only reason you ever got on television,” he said, poking her in the chest with his index finger.
“Don’t do that,” she said, her voice low.
“I
saw something in you,” he continued, poking her in the chest again.
“Don’t—”
“
I
packaged you,
I
pitched you to Tastee-Town, and
I
won us two regional Emmys. When Wiley started making noises about cutting back the ad dollars,
I
went to Danitra, because she was such a big fan of the show, to see if she could talk Wiley into renewing our contract. So yeah, maybe I got a little too chummy with her, maybe I made a mistake. But don’t fool yourself into thinking this is all my fault, Gina.”
His face was pink with anger. He jabbed her again.
“Scott, stop!” she said.
But he was wound tight as a tick.
“I
went—”
poke
“—to the wall—”
poke
“—for you—
“And this is the thanks I get,” he raged, poking her so hard she had to take a step backward to get away from him. She stumbled, and when she regained her footing, he was inches from her face.
“A bunch of jealous bullshit!” he screamed.
She ducked instinctively, but nothing happened.
“Christ!” he said, dropping his hands to his sides. He was winded, panting. “I’m sorry,” he said finally. “You know I’d never intentionally hurt you, Gina.”
She shook her head, wanting to clear the image of his towering over her, fists clenched.
“Gina…”
“I shouldn’t have come here tonight,” she said. She took a last look around the room, and then she walked out.
D
riving home, Gina tried to make her mind tackle practical matters. She still had four more days of shows to tape. With Scott. The memory of his face, twisted with anger, was still too fresh. No matter. She was a professional. She would get through this.
But then what? A new job. Where? Her old job at the
Constitution
had been filled long ago, and anyway, her heart wasn’t in newspapers anymore, even if there were any job openings. Television? What was it that Scott had called her? A wannabe foodie? Home-ec lady?
She pulled into the parking space in front of her town house, but left the Honda’s motor running. She found herself smiling at the thought of her home. She thought about the paint colors she’d agonized over, the window treatments her mother had sewn for the bedrooms, the thrift-store sideboard she’d stripped and refinished for the dining area. She couldn’t bear to think of those rooms, stripped, her furniture and belongings loaded in a moving van. A
SOLD
sign tucked in the front window.
Speaking of that window…the living room lights were on. She groaned. Lisa. With all the trauma of the past day, she’d forgotten about her little sister. She did not have the strength to deal with telling her about the day’s events. Not tonight.
Gina turned the key in the lock of her front door and with her last ounce of strength pushed it open with her hip and staggered inside. Dropping her pocketbook and laptop on the floor, she flopped down on the oversize down-filled sofa and kicked the shoes from her swollen feet.
“I want my mama,” she said, groaning.
The skinny blonde sprawled on the carpet in front of the television with a headset and Xbox controls looked away from the screen, where she’d just aced another killer in her seventeenth game of Halo that evening.
“What?” she asked, removing the headset and scooting over to where her big sister appeared to be in a near coma state. “What’d you say?”
“Mama,” Gina repeated. “I wish Mama were here. She’d rub my feet and fix me some supper and bring it to me on a tray in bed, and brush my hair till I fell asleep.”
“I thought that’s why you were sleeping with Scott Zaleski,” Lisa quipped.
“Lisa!” Gina said, horrified. “Who says I’m sleeping with my producer?”
“Not you,” Lisa said. “You never let anything slip about your sex life. But you are, aren’t you?”
“No comment,” Gina said.
“But you totally
are
screwing him,” Lisa persisted. “I know you’re on the patch. I see the box in your medicine cabinet. How is he, anyway? He seems kind of distant when he’s around me. My guess is, he’s an animal in bed. My friend Amber says those Nordic types are usually hung like a horse.”
“Scott and I are over,” Gina said dully. “Anyway, we are
not
talking about this.”
“Over? Did you two have a fight?” Lisa said eagerly.
“I refuse to discuss my private life with you,” Gina said wearily.
“Oh, give up the prissy-sissy act,” Lisa said. “We both know you’re no virgin. And neither am I. All these late hours you keep when you’re supposedly working? My ass! I bet the two of you were screwing like bunnies. So let’s stop this two-maiden-sisters charade.”
“No,” Gina said, sitting up with an effort. “Mama made me promise to keep an eye on you while you’re in Atlanta. You’re only nineteen. When I was your age—”
“You and Mike Newton went all the way at the Wayfarer Motel on Jekyll Island after you split a bottle of Southern Comfort. It was
spring break, and you told Mama and Daddy you were going to the beach with your sorority sisters.”
Gina’s eyes goggled. “How did you know that? I never—”
“I found your old diary in a shoebox in the bottom of your closet,” Lisa said, swigging from the bottle of Natty Lite she’d left on the coffee table. “Everybody at home thinks you were a model citizen. Miss Teen Vidalia Onion. Only I know the real truth. You were a bad little girl, Regina Foxton,” she said, wagging the beer bottle at her.
“Give me that,” Gina said, taking a swipe at the beer bottle and missing when Lisa jerked it out of her range.
“First off, I was only runner-up Miss Vidalia Onion. Ashley Johnson won the pageant that year, because her daddy sent her to Jacksonville for a nose job her junior year of high school. And if you ever tell a single soul in Atlanta that I was once entered in beauty pageants, I will personally snatch you bald. After I kick you out of this condo and slap your tiny hiney on a Trailways bus all the way home to Odum.”
“You wouldn’t,” Lisa said confidently. “You don’t want me ending up like Mama. Forty pounds overweight, sitting on the sofa all day watching Dr. Phil and calling up her Sunday school friends on the prayer chain.”
“Watch your mouth,” Gina said severely. “I’m not kidding now, Lisa. Mama and Daddy have made a lot of sacrifices for both of us. It’s not easy for her being home now, with both of us grown and living on our own in Atlanta. Her blood pressure’s way too high, and she can’t teach anymore—”
“Yada, yada, yada,” Lisa said mockingly. “I’m just messin’ with you, Gina. I love Mama. I really do. You know that.”
“You don’t show it,” Gina said. “When was the last time you called her? Or went home for a weekend?”
“I’ve got class,” Lisa replied. “And work.”
“Speaking of which,” Gina said, “what are you doing home tonight? I thought you have a computer lab on Monday nights.”
“It’s after ten,” Lisa said, yawning theatrically. “Lab got out an hour ago.”
“You cut class,” Gina said. “Didn’t you? I tried to call earlier and the line was busy for an hour straight. You weren’t at computer lab, Lisa. You were sitting right here playing that idiotic video game.”
Lisa shrugged, not bothering to deny it. “The teacher’s assistant who runs the lab is the world’s biggest doofus. I gave my password to one of my friends, and he logs me on to the computer. This guy will never notice I’m not there.”
“Lisa!” Gina said. “You have got to quit cutting. You’re only carrying two classes as it is. If you flunk this class, your grade point average drops below three-point-oh, and you lose the Hope Scholarship. With Mama taking early retirement, they can’t afford to pay tuition and housing and everything else.”
“I’m not gonna flunk,” Lisa said, tossing her long blond hair over her shoulder.
“You flunked out of Georgia Southern last year,” Gina reminded her. “A whole year’s tuition down the tubes. Do you have any idea how upset Daddy was?”
Lisa bit her lip. “I
said
I was sorry. I got a job waitressing at Hi-Beams and paid back every dime, didn’t I? And I’m here, going to Georgia State, living right here under your thumb to save money, aren’t I?”
“Do not mention Hi-Beams to me,” Gina snapped. “If anybody in Odum ever saw you skipping around that juke joint in those booty shorts and that hot-pink tube-top uniform, our parents would never be able to show their faces in town again. You looked like a ho in that getup.”
“I made eighty bucks a night in tips,” Lisa said defiantly. “A hundred sixty a night during football season. Paid off the note on my car, and bought Mama a Kitchen-Aid mixer for her birthday. It was the best damn job I’ve ever had. And I’d still be doing it if you hadn’t stuck your nose in where it doesn’t belong.”
“Enough!” Gina said, sinking wearily back into the sofa cushions. “I’ve had the worst day of my life. All I want tonight is a glass of wine and a hot bath.”
“About the wine…”
“Oh, Lisa,” Gina said, shaking her head. “Is there any more of that nasty Natty Lite of yours?”
“One,” Lisa said. “I’ll get it. Are you hungry? How ’bout a Hot Pocket?”
“I’d rather be hungry,” Gina said. “Is there any yogurt?”
In answer, Lisa handed her a carton of plain nonfat yogurt, a clean teaspoon, and a freshly opened bottle of Natty Lite beer.
“Thanks,” Gina said, taking a sip of beer. She scooped up a spoonful of yogurt and ate it, quickly finishing off the whole carton in eight neat bites.
“I don’t get it,” Lisa said, sitting down in the club chair opposite her big sister. “You’re around food all day. Why don’t you just eat on the set?”
“No time today,” Gina said, not wanting to elaborate. “We shot two shows back to back. I was gonna have a piece of apple pie from the second show, but the crew kids devoured the pies as soon as we’d shot that segment. Just as well. They were loaded with sugar. I don’t need the extra calories.”
“Ha!” Lisa guffawed. “You are the skinniest now that you’ve ever been in your whole life. I never see you eating anything except yogurt, or maybe an occasional piece of fruit. Hey. You don’t have an eating disorder, do you?”
“No. I have a perfectly normal appetite,” Gina said primly. “I just have to really watch everything I put in my mouth. I’ve got the Sewell women’s curse—small bones, big butt. And you know the camera adds twenty pounds.”
“I bet you don’t even wear a size eight,” Lisa said. “I tried on your Juicy Couture tracksuit, and it looked like it had been spray-painted on me.”
“Good. Stay away from my velour tracksuit,” her sister ordered. “You have a bad habit of staining and tearing other people’s clothes.”
“Bitch.” Lisa mouthed it—but slowly, so her sister could tell just what she was not saying. “You’re home later than usual tonight,” she said, changing the subject. “What’s up with that?”
Gina felt her right eye twitch. “It’s the last week of taping for the season,” she said finally. “We’re running out of money and time. Trying to cram two weeks’ worth of work into one. I’m going to bed now. Turn out the lights and lock up, okay?”
But Lisa had the headset on again, locked and loaded for her next video battle.
Gina trudged into her bedroom and shut the door behind her. In the bathroom, she dropped her clothes on the floor and stood under a scalding shower so long she looked like a boiled lobster when she finally emerged from the water. She knew she should slather eye cream on her face to combat the dark circles that were already emerging. She should blow her hair dry and lay out her wardrobe for the next day’s shoot. But she was too tired. And anyway, what did it matter?
She pulled back the coverlet on her bed and folded it neatly at the foot, as she always did. Got under the sheets and reached out a hand to turn off the lamp. Sitting in the middle of her bedside table, she saw her answering-machine light blinking. Call waiting.
Let it be Scott, she thought. Let him be calling to apologize. To tell her it was all a horrible practical joke. Let everything go back to the way it was before today. Her hand hesitated, but finally, she punched the play button.
“Hello? This is Mrs. Birdelle Foxton calling for Regina…” Her mother’s voice, sweet, slow, and southern as sorghum syrup, dripped concern. “Honey, your daddy’s cousin Flossie called here today, because she’d picked up your cookbook at a yard sale over in Bessemer. Flossie said she’d used your applesauce cake recipe, but it didn’t come out too good. I had her read me the recipe, and sure enough, it only called for two eggs. Gina, you know I always use three eggs and an extra stick of oleo, and my cake never comes out too dry. I think you should call up those publisher folks and have them change that…”
Not tonight, Mama, Regina thought wearily, punching the machine’s stop button. She cut off the light and lay back on the pillows, willing herself to sleep. Her stomach growled loudly.
No! she thought. Absolutely not. She rolled onto her stomach. Five minutes later, it growled again. She turned on her right side, and
then her left. She tried to clear her mind, tried to meditate. It was no good. Her brain wouldn’t shut up.
Growwwl.
There it was again.
With a sigh, she got out of bed and padded over to the dresser. She opened the top drawer and rooted around among the neatly folded garments until her fingertips felt the crackle of cellophane. She snatched the bag from its hiding place, avoiding looking at herself in the mirror.
Tucked back under the covers, she ripped open the cellophane bag and shoved a handful of fried pork rinds into her mouth. She closed her eyes and let the pure piggy pleasure, the sandy, salty crunch, work its magic.
There, she told her rumbling tummy. There now. Shut the heck up.