Deep Dish (6 page)

V
alerie 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.”

T
ate felt himself relax as soon as he heard the
Vittles
theme music piped through the studio. He ignored Barry Adelman and his unnamed assistant and gazed steadily into the camera, doing the same thing he’d done that first time Valerie Foster aimed her handheld camcorder at him on that beach in Costa Rica.

He grinned easily—as easily, Val said, as if he were talking to his mama and daddy, down in Pahokee, Florida.

In fact, that’s how she’d instructed him to start the show. “Don’t think about talking to an audience,” she’d suggested. “Just think about talking to your folks.”

“Hi, Mama, hi, Daddy,” he’d always say at the start of every show, flashing his dimples, as if to say, “Look at your boy now.”

His viewers loved that kind of cornpone stuff, according to Val. And the smiling and the dimpling came easy to him, just as most things in his life did.

“Today,” he said, once the theme music faded, “I’m going to take you with me, out to a little lake just outside—”

“No,” Val called.

The cameraman glanced over at her.

“Today, Moonpie ’n’ me are gonna take y’all to a little bitty ol’ lake,” Val coached, laying on her version of a phony southern accent that set his teeth on edge.

Tate’s grin disappeared. “I’m not illiterate,” he said evenly.

“I’d never suggest you were,” Val agreed. “You’re just folksy, okay?”

He shook his head and frowned. But Val winked and gave an
almost imperceptible nod in the direction of Adelman, who was seated right beside her at the editing table.

“Folksy,” Tate said finally.

“Just pick it up with the lake bit,” Val said. “And while you’re at it, go ahead and walk over to the fridge while you’re talking, and get out the dish with the fish fillets.”

“The fillets are right here on the counter,” Tate said, pointing to them.

“Well, I want them in the fridge. It’s too static and boring having you just stand there like that. Could you do that for me, please?”

“There’s a dish of fillets already in the fridge,” offered Darryl, the prep chef. “Do you want them already soaking in the buttermilk? Or, we could have him add the milk on camera?”

“Let’s have him mix up the buttermilk and…what goes in it?” she asked, looking down at her notes.

“Hot sauce,” Darryl said, holding up a bottle of Texas Pete.

“Right,” Val said. “Yes. Let’s have him do all of that on camera. We’re cutting the shrimp segment we’d planned, so we can afford to have him stretch out the fish fry a little bit.”

“No shrimp?” Darryl’s thin face darkened. “When was that decided?”

“Just now,” Val said firmly, letting him know the subject was closed. “Tate, just take all the steps slowly. You know, pour the buttermilk, add the hot sauce, like that.”

“All right,” Tate said.

“You can blather on about the stone-ground cornmeal, and what to substitute if you don’t have cornmeal or buttermilk—”

“If you don’t have the buttermilk or cornmeal, you oughta just forget the whole thing, and go to Captain D’s,” Tate said.

“But if we’re going to eat fast food, we don’t need
Vittles
, now, do we, sweetie?”

“Right,” Tate said. He leaned against the counter and watched as Darryl poured vegetable oil into the deep-fat fryer.

“How long do I have before that thing starts sputterin’ and smokin’?” he asked.

“Five or six minutes,” Darryl said. “And don’t forget to check
the temperature gauge before you submerge the basket with the battered fillets,” Darryl said. “According to the manufacturer, you want it right at 425 degrees.”

“Good point,” Val said. “Make sure you tell what the oil temperature should be when frying fish, even if you’re just using whatever pan you have at home.”

“Like a cast-iron skillet,” Tate said.

“Perfect.” Val beamed. “In fact, say something like that. You know, like, ‘Mama, this new fryer’s great, but it’ll never beat your old cast-iron skillet at home.’”

“My mother never fries anything,” Tate said. “I don’t think she even owns a cast-iron skillet.”

“Keep that to yourself,” Val advised. “The point you want to make is that kitchen safety is right up there with God and country at Tate Moody’s house.”

“Trailer,” Tate said.

“Whatever,” she said. “Let’s get this show moving.”

T
hat’s it, everybody,” Scott said, after they’d finally finished with the setup shots for the next day’s show. It was close to six, and the crew had been working steadily since eight. Adelman and his assistant had slipped away much earlier in the afternoon, but Regina felt as if she’d completed a triathlon.

She slipped out of her shoes and reached down to massage her aching calves. At the start of the new season, Scott had insisted that she wear heels for the show because he said it made her look sexier.

“The viewers at home can’t see my legs,” she’d pointed out.

“No, but the heels make you two inches taller, and they make your boobs look bigger,” Scott said.

She’d looked down at her chest, her feelings hurt.

“You know what I mean,” Scott said quickly. “The heels accentuate what you’ve already got. And that’s a good thing.”

Gina watched now as Scott, standing behind the editing table, chatted with Deborah Chen, the station’s publicist. His blond hair contrasted sharply with her shining, blue-black, shoulder-length hair. She laughed at something he said and pretended to slap his face. Scott looked away and caught Regina watching.

Gina looked indifferent. Or at least, she hoped she looked indifferent. Or insouciant. Gina longed to be insouciant. For now, she tucked the hated high heels under her arm and padded, barefoot, toward her office.

“Great show,” Scott said as she walked past, intent on ignoring him. “Adelman loved you.”

“He’s nuts for you, Gina,” Deborah agreed. “He asked me to have a bunch of color publicity stills shot of you tomorrow.”

“He did?” Despite her indifferent insouciance, Gina felt her pulse blip.

“Absolutely,” Deborah said. “I was just telling Scott, be sure you wear something really neutral tomorrow.”

“Neutral?” Regina frowned. “Won’t that make my skin and hair look washed out?”

“Not at all,” Deborah assured her.

“Hey,” Scott said. “Why don’t we go catch some dinner and talk it over? If we leave now, I know we can get a table at LaGrotto. I’ll call Gino and tell him it’ll be the three of us.”

“LaGrotto! Yum!” Deborah said. “Are we celebrating already?”

“I don’t see why not,” Scott said. “I snuck over to the
Vittles
set and watched Tate Moody for a little while this afternoon. I thought Adelman looked bored out of his gourd. I don’t think Moody is gonna be towing that double-wide of his to Manhattan any time soon. How ’bout it, Geen?”

“No, thanks,” Gina said quietly. “Remember? You told D’John I need to be blonder if I’m going for national exposure? He’s going to put the color on tonight.”

Deborah looked from Gina to Scott, trying to assess the situation.

“Oh?” she said.

“But don’t let that stop you two,” Gina said. She wondered what was up with Scott and Deborah Chen. Was he sleeping with every woman in Atlanta? And how had she not noticed before how chummy the two of them had gotten?

“Another time, then,” Deborah said.

“Maybe,” Gina said. She was getting good at feigning indifference, she thought.

Walking out through the studio’s now deserted reception area, Gina realized, when she caught sight of the deepening sky, that she hadn’t seen daylight since leaving the town house early this morning.

Morningstar Studios was more glamorous sounding than it was in reality. Located in what had once been a gritty warehouse district
off Monroe Drive, in the shadow of the Interstate 85 overpass, the studio, formerly a commercial printing plant, was nothing more than a shoebox-shaped cinder-block affair. The studios took up half the building, and the other tenants consisted of three or four photographers, a caterer, and a wholesale florist.

It was early July, but a faint chill hung in the early evening air. From the clump of pine trees at the far edge of the parking lot, Gina could hear the hum of cicadas, and when she inhaled, she smelled the honeysuckle that grew on the parking lot fence. She was glad of the light cotton sweater she’d thrown on over her sleeveless tank.

The parking lot was mostly empty, with the exception of a dozen cars parked near the far end of the studio, where she saw the glint of sunlight on an odd-looking vehicle.

She walked on past her own car, and toward the vehicle. She passed a crudely lettered sign that read
Vittles
with an arrow pointing toward a pair of doors to the studio. As she got closer, she saw that the vehicle was a vintage travel trailer, with quilted aluminum siding and a shape reminiscent of a canned ham. Was this the double-wide that Scott had been referring to? Did Tate Moody really live here?

As she got closer, she could hear…something. A high, plaintive keening.

Quickening her step, she bypassed the double doors that led back toward the
Vittles
set and followed the sound.

Now the trailer was directly in front of her. It was hooked up to a gleaming red pickup truck—an old Ford—the kind with the humpback wheel wells and varnished wood truck bed. The gleaming red paint of the pickup truck drew her like a beacon, and in the slanted rays of the late afternoon sun, the highly polished aluminum trailer reminded her of some kind of magic bullet.

But what was that sound?

A blue awning extended over the door to the trailer, leaving it in deep shadows, but as she got closer, she could see that the trailer’s aluminum outer door was propped open, leaving a screen door exposed.

Now the keening subsided, and she saw a shape, a medium-size dog—white, with big caramel-colored patches over each eye, and
floppy, feathery ears, standing on his hind legs, pawing frantically at the screened door.

“Hey there,” she cried, rushing over. “Hey there, sweetheart.”

In answer, the dog threw itself against the door, fell over backward, then scrambled back to his former position, tail wagging a mile a minute.

“Poor baby,” she crooned, putting her hand up against the screen. The dog licked her hand through the screen, and her heart melted.

She looked around. Nobody was in sight, and clearly, this poor penned-up creature was in dire straits.

“Did the bad man go off and leave you all alone?” she asked, in a singsong, babyish voice.

In response, the dog hurled himself again at the door. He stood up, a little wobbly-legged this time.

She tried the door, but it wouldn’t budge. She grasped the handle again and yanked, hard.

The door flew open, and the dog shot out like a rocket.

“Whoa!” Regina cried. The dog ran over to one of the pine trees, lifted his leg, and relieved himself, taking what seemed to her at least five minutes.

“Poor thing,” she said again. “I’ll bet you were about to explode in there.”

When the dog was done, he trotted over to Regina.

“Good boy,” she said encouragingly. “Come on. Let’s get you back inside.”

The dog cocked his head to one side, and she could have sworn he winked at her. She took a step forward, one hand extended, as though she had a delicious treat to offer him.

When she was within a foot of the dog, she reached out to grab his collar, and without warning, the dog took off.

“Hey,” she called, as he zoomed across the asphalt. “Come back!”

He appeared to be headed straight for the double doors leading to the
Vittles
set, and he was barking his head off, as if to tell his master he was coming home.

One of the doors opened, and the dog ran inside.