Stars So Sweet (16 page)

Aunt Lydia took a thoughtful bite of a bright yellow macaron, chewed, and swallowed. “What I can believe,”
she said finally, “is that you figured out how to deal with this situation all on your own. I'm very impressed, my Gladiola—as usual. But if you tell your editor the truth, she'll likely take back that full-time job offer.”

Be honest,
Gladys reminded herself. “I've thought about it a lot, and I've decided I'm not ready to go full-time. I'm sorry, Aunt Lydia. I know you were excited about the idea of us working together.”

“Oh, don't worry about me,” Aunt Lydia said quickly. “Thanks to my work for Mr. Eng, I have more experience now—even if he lets me go, I bet I can find some other kind of job in the food industry. But, Gladys,” she continued, placing a hand on her niece's arm, “doesn't this mean you'll have to stop reviewing? You heard Fiona—she won't have a budget left for freelancers in the new year.”

“She did say that,” Gladys said, “and I understand that's a risk I'll have to take. But I do have one more idea to pitch to her . . . well, if she doesn't have security drag me from the building when she finds out how old I really am.”

Aunt Lydia smiled. “Drag you out? Never. If she has any sense at all, she'll find a way to keep you on board. And if she doesn't . . . well, more time for us to cook and practice French together at home! Win-win,
n'est-ce pas
?”

Gladys nodded. She had worried about what Aunt Lydia's reaction would be, but her aunt had pleasantly
surprised her almost as much as her parents had. “Thanks, Aunt Lydia,” she said. “I couldn't have done any of this without you.”

“And without you, my dear, I would probably still be on that couch in that awful T-shirt.” Aunt Lydia laughed. “Like I've said before, we make a good team.”

Her aunt slipped an arm around Gladys's shoulder and pulled her close, and Gladys hugged her right back. Her whole family was in her corner now; she was ready to take the next step.

SOMETHING SPECIAL, OFF MENU

F
IONA INGLETHORPE STOOD, ONCE AGAIN,
in the lobby of the
New York Standard
building, waiting for Gladys Gatsby. She had made another reservation in the
Standard
's executive dining room, though this time it was only for two people. She supposed that Gladys's daughter was at school today, dressed up in a costume and munching on cheap candy like all the other children. Fiona shuddered. She enjoyed an occasional square of sea-salt-dusted dark chocolate, or a nice artisan truffle, but supersweet American confections generally left her cold.

“Ms. Inglethorpe?”

Fiona spun around, then had to look down to address the speaker. “Coraline?” It seemed that the girl was not off
gobbling candy at school after all. “Your—your mother didn't tell me you were coming today.” Fiona looked around. “Where
is
your mother, by the way?”

“My mother's not here,” the girl said. “My dad came with me, but he has a business meeting, so he'll pick me up in an hour.” She turned and waved through the building's glass doors, and a man with glasses and a beaky nose waved back before taking off down the street.

“Wait!” Fiona cried—but it was too late, the man was gone. She turned to the girl, trying to stay calm. “I don't know what's going on here, dear, but I'm a busy woman and I really don't have time to babysit.”

“You don't have to babysit anyone,” the girl said, “and I'll explain everything over lunch, I promise.”

“I'm sorry, Coraline,” Fiona replied, “but unless I can speak to Gladys, I really don't think—”

“But that's the thing,” the girl said, lowering her voice. “My name's not Coraline.
I'm
Gladys Gatsby.”

With a claim like that hanging in the air between them, Fiona had no choice but to usher the girl upstairs.

• • •

The elevator ride up to the forty-ninth floor had to be the longest one of Gladys's life. Fiona stared at her with a mixture of confusion, anger, and disappointment on her face, but didn't say a word—probably because
there were several other people in the small space with them.

Gladys took advantage of the painful silence to review her proposal for Fiona once more. She had spent a lot of time in the Rabbit Room the previous weekend hammering out the details with Sandy (who had finally wrapped his head around the fact that Gladys had told her parents the truth and the world hadn't ended). They had both agreed that breaking the news to Fiona, though—and proposing a plan by which Gladys could still keep her job with the
New York Standard
—would be trickier.

Finally, Gladys and her editor reached the dining room and were shown to their table.

“Would you like to begin with a drink or an appetizer?” the waiter asked.

“We need some time,” Fiona said. “Thank you.”

The waiter retreated, and Fiona leaned across the table until her face was dangerously close to Gladys's.

“All right, young lady,” she said. “You've got five minutes to explain yourself.”

Gladys exhaled the breath she'd been holding. She and Sandy had anticipated such a challenge, and agreed that Gladys should just start at the beginning. “I guess it all began with last year's statewide sixth-grade essay contest,” she said. “I wrote my essay in the form of a letter, explaining why I wanted to become
a restaurant critic for the
New York Standard.
It didn't win the prize, but then I got an e-mail from you asking for more samples of my writing. You liked them, and then you assigned me to review Classy Cakes.”

“That's preposterous,” Fiona said. “The letter I received was an official cover letter, applying for the position of freelance restaurant critic with the
Standard.
Not a student
essay.
”

But even as the words were coming out of her mouth, Fiona remembered that something had seemed odd about that letter. First of all, it had been printed on pink stationery. And second, it had showed up in her inbox almost immediately after she'd notified Human Resources that she wanted to post an opening for a new critic. She'd always assumed they had already had this letter on file and forwarded it to her right away. Could she have been wrong about that?

But even if HR had not procured her the original application, they had to have gotten involved further down the line. “All my freelancers have to fill out a form for Human Resources with their personal information on it—full name, social security number, etc.—in order to get paid,” she said, staring Gladys down.

“I did fill out the forms,” Gladys said, remembering the long hunt she and Sandy had undertaken to find her social security card. “And I've been getting the checks; I've just torn them up rather than deposit
them, which is why you've been getting those notices from Payroll.”

Fiona frowned. “And who, then—if you are, as you claim, Gladys Gatsby—was the woman who came in here with you last time? Are you going to tell me that
that
is Coraline?”

“No, Coraline is a character from a children's book,” Gladys said. “That was my aunt Lydia. She was trying to help me keep my cover—you know, like a good restaurant critic does.” Gladys hoped she might earn a couple of brownie points with this line, but Fiona still looked livid. “I know that we deceived you, though,” Gladys added quickly, “and I'm sorry about that.”

Fiona shook her head. “This is quite the story you're telling,” she said, “and I'm afraid I'll need a little more proof than just the word of a young girl.”

It was time for the next step of Gladys's plan. “I thought you might say that,” she said, and she reached into her lobster backpack. “This is my aunt's passport, which she let me borrow for today so you could see her picture and real name. I don't have a picture ID, but here's a copy of my birth certificate, which does have my real name and age on it. And here are my last two reviewing journals, with notes from all the restaurants you assigned me to visit.” Gladys placed the books and papers in front of her editor. “And on top of that, my dad said he'd be happy to come up
and vouch for me if you want him to. Plus, he's got a bunch of pictures on his phone of us eating hot dogs together for the review I wrote over the summer.”

Fiona opened the passport and stared at Lydia's picture, then lifted the birth certificate to examine it more closely. Finally, she thumbed through Gladys's journals before sliding the stack of documents back across the table.

“Passports can be faked,” she said coolly. “Birth certificates and journals can be forged. And adults can be persuaded to lie—just as you claim your ‘aunt' did the last time you met me.”

Gladys opened her mouth to respond, but Fiona held up a pink-nailed finger to stop her.

“I'm a journalist,” she said, “and I have training in sniffing out fishy stories. I'm not entirely convinced by your ‘evidence,' but I can think of a test that would prove your identity to me.”

Here was a development that Gladys and Sandy had
not
anticipated—but she knew that her only option was to agree. “Okay,” she said a little breathlessly. “I'll take the test. What is it?”

Fiona pulled a notebook and pen from her own purse. She tore out a sheet of paper and, shielding it from Gladys's eyes with one hand, scribbled something down with the other. She then folded the note in half and called the waiter over. “My apologies,” she said, “but I'm going to need Chef Soloway to whip me
up something special today, off menu. Please tell him it's for Fiona—he'll understand.”

“Yes, ma'am,” the waiter said.

“When you bring it to the table, please do so in complete silence,” she added. “I do not want the name of this dish or any of its components mentioned.”

“Of course,” the waiter said, nodding, and he whisked the paper back to the kitchen.

Now Fiona slid the notebook and pen across the table to Gladys. She smiled for the first time, though it did not look very friendly. “Your test,” she said quietly, “will be to write a review of our lunch today. I may not know what she looks like, but I know my star reviewer's writing when I read it.”

A wave of nervousness coursed through Gladys's body, but it retreated just as quickly as it had arrived. She knew food. She'd read scores of cookbooks from all over the world and cooked hundreds of meals at home.

She steeled herself. She could ace this test. She
would
ace this test. She would prove her identity—and, at the same time, prove to her doubting editor that kids could appreciate more than just chicken fingers and ketchup.

She looked Fiona right in the eye. “I'm ready,” she said.

A BIT OF A PICKLE

If brightly colored pasta—with vegetable-hued shades of orange and green mixed in with the traditional white—is considered kid food, then black pasta is decidedly adult fare. Dyed with squid ink, the linguine I was served at the
New York Standard's
executive dining room delivered a hint of the sea in every bite. In fact, it almost seemed like it had blown in from the ocean itself, arriving on my plate in a twisted, upside-down tornado that had picked up bits of plump sun-dried tomato and lightly sautéed arugula on its way . . .

G
LADYS WROTE AND WROTE. SHE DESCRIBED
the two large scallops—sea scallops, not
bay—that appeared on her plate beside the linguine tornado, their pearly whiteness contrasting elegantly with the pasta's black color. She described the slice of toasted sourdough bread that accompanied her lunch, rubbed with olive oil and garlic and enlivened with a sprinkle of caraway seeds. She even touched on the hint of fresh cucumber flavor in her glass of ice water.

When she finally ran out of things to describe, she paused, reached under the table for her lobster, and unzipped the claw pocket. She had written the review using Fiona's pen, but she wanted to finish it with her own. Uncapping the pen Ms. Quincy had given her, Gladys signed her full name to the bottom of her review in bright green ink. Then she passed the notebook back across the table to her editor.

Fiona reached into her blazer pocket, pulled out a pair of pink reading glasses, and began to examine Gladys's words.

Gladys sat back, relaxing as much as the hard bones of her chair would allow, and watched her editor's expression change. It went from sour to neutral, then from neutral to almost sweet. Fiona even chuckled once. But when she reached the end of the review and looked up, Gladys was surprised to see that she looked furious all over again.

“What's the matter?” Gladys asked. “Didn't I do a good job?”

“You did an outstanding job,” Fiona muttered, pulling off her glasses, “which is
exactly
the problem.” She dropped her head into her hands and let out a low moan. “Holy basil, I hired a twelve-year-old!”

“Actually, I was eleven when you hired me,” Gladys said. “I turned twelve in June.”

Fiona's head popped up, her expression now even more stricken. Maybe that had been the wrong thing to say.

“Gadfly tried
so
hard to make me look incompetent this past summer,” Fiona continued. “And to think, the evidence was there all along! This is the end of my editing career for sure.”

The bubbly, ginger-ale sensation in Gladys's stomach from hearing the word
outstanding
began to fizzle. Her age was going to cost her editor her job? “No!” she cried without thinking, and diners at several tables around them glanced in her direction.
Fudge.
“I mean”—she lowered her voice—“this can't be the end of your career. Not after you pulled out all the stops at the Kids Rock Awards.”

“How do you know about that?” Fiona asked.

“I was there,” Gladys said. “I came along with my . . . um, friend Hamilton Herbertson. Anyway, I'm the one who sent you that note about how Gilbert Gadfly and Rory Graham were conspiring against you.”

“And how did you find
that
out?” Fiona asked.

Gladys shrugged. “I'm a kid. People don't really pay attention to me most of the time. They don't suspect I might be listening in on their private conversations—or that I might be there to review their restaurant. I just blend into the background.”

Fiona gave her an appraising look then, as though Gladys was an expensive cut of meat she was considering buying. “Let's go to my office,” she said finally.

Five minutes later, they were in Fiona's office on the fourteenth floor, the door shut tight behind them.

“We seem to be in a bit of a pickle,” the editor said, sitting down behind her desk. “On one hand, we have a talented restaurant critic who, because of her age, has a very low chance of being recognized by the establishments she is sent to review.” Fiona tapped a pink pen against her desktop. “But on the other hand, we have a twelve-year-old child who, if her identity
were
to be discovered, would make this newspaper—and me—the laughingstock of the New York culinary scene.

“Now, first things first,” she continued. “That offer I made of permanent employment here is obviously rescinded. Even if I wanted to take you on, it's not legal to hire a twelve-year-old full-time.”

Gladys nodded. She had expected this.

“Well, Natalia Bernstein will thank you for her promotion to head critic, anyway,” Fiona said. “But the
question remains of what to do with you. As I said at our last meeting, my budget for freelancers dries up on January first. And even if I could keep you on in your current role, I'm not sure it would be ethical to do so.”

Gladys cleared her throat—the time had finally come to make her proposal. “I have an idea,” she said.

Fiona raised an eyebrow. “Go on.”

“I love reviewing restaurants for the
Standard,
” Gladys said, “but I'm also busy with school. So I was thinking that maybe I could take on fewer assignments—maybe one every couple of months or so. And . . .”—this was the kicker—“maybe I could be honest about my age in the reviews, and gear them more toward younger readers.”

Fiona stared at her. “Be
honest
? About your
age
?”

“Yes,” Gladys said. “I think kids these days are ready to challenge their palates with more than just chicken fingers. For example, I've been making some unusual sweets for my middle-school bake sales this year—like Indian barfi and Cuban buñuelos—and everyone has loved them. Plus, a lot more people are shopping for international ingredients at my local gourmet grocery, including kids. And I do
not
live in a very adventurous town.” Gladys paused for breath; so far, Fiona's expression was inscrutable. “I mean, I'd still do my best to keep my identity a secret from the
places I was reviewing, but I could come at a restaurant's menu from a kid's perspective and focus my reviews on what kids might like to eat there. If we got kids to read my reviews, it might persuade them to eat more courageously.
And
it might get restaurants to expand their ideas about what kids are willing to try.”

Fiona continued to tap the pen against her desk as she digested Gladys's proposal. “You're passionate about this, aren't you?” she asked finally.

“I'm passionate about good food and good writing,” Gladys said.

“And the people who own this newspaper are passionate about expanding our readership,” Fiona said. “Launching a new feature that aims to hook new readers when they're young . . . the higher-ups just might go for that.”

She gave Gladys her meat-market look again. “Well, Gladys Gatsby, it seems that I owe you an apology. Possibly a whole series of apologies. I've never thought much of children and their culinary capabilities . . . but if there are more kids like you out there, then I've shortchanged quite a chunk of the population with my narrow thinking.”

Gladys smiled. If she could get someone as squeamish about kids as Fiona thinking twice, then maybe her new review series really could make a difference.

Fiona stood. “I'll take this up with the paper's publishers, but assuming they approve, then you've got yourself a new gig, Gladys.”

Gladys leapt to her feet. “Thank you, Ms. Inglethorpe. And I'm sorry again for all the drama.”

The editor waved a hand in the air. “We've been working together long enough now—please call me Fiona.” She smiled then, a much warmer smile than the one she'd given Gladys earlier. “But before you go, we have one last item of business to take care of.”

“What's that?” Gladys asked.

“The question of your compensation,” Fiona said. “Once we bring you on legitimately as a twelve-year-old special correspondent, you'll be able to fill out fresh paperwork for HR—this time, including your birth date. I imagine that you and your parents will need to apply for some sort of special working papers as well, to make sure it's all legal.”

“Sure,” Gladys said.

“But in the meantime,” Fiona continued, “there's the question of your back pay. Is it really true that you've torn up all the checks the
Standard
has sent you?”

“Well, the first one got confiscated by my dad,” Gladys said. “Though he thought it was just a mistake, and that the
Standard
meant to send him a tax payment instead. He works for the IRS, and came here in the spring for some meetings,” she explained. “The
others I did rip up, because, well . . . I didn't think it'd be a good idea for there to be a paper trail since no one here knew how old I really was.”

Fiona nodded. “You were covering your tracks. Perhaps not the most mature way to go about it, but I suppose that, given your age, it's understandable. But we can't have you doing all that work for us for free.” She opened her desk drawer and pulled out a small booklet. “I'm writing you a new check, with the funds coming straight out of my department's discretionary fund. And this time, you'd better deposit it.” She wrote a number on the check in front of her, scribbled her signature, then ripped it from the book and held it out toward Gladys.

“Ms. Inglethorpe—I mean, Fiona—” Gladys stammered. “I can't take this check from you. I've never been in this for the money.”

“Business lesson number one,” Fiona said, a bit of the old snap returning to her voice. “Never turn down payment for your work.” She held the check out across the desk. “Come on now, Gladys—my time is precious, and so is yours, so let's not waste any more of it.”

At a loss for what else to do, Gladys slipped the check into her lobster backpack.

“Well, it's been an . . . enlightening day, Gladys,” Fiona said. “I look forward to learning more from you as this project progresses.”

She held her right hand out, and Gladys—who had to angle her own right arm upward to reach—shook hands with her editor.

“Thank you so much for this opportunity,” she said. “Oh, and Happy Halloween.”