Deep Dish (19 page)

V
al Foster managed to make it through the communal dinner that night by sheer willpower—fueled by two strong gin and tonics and three surreptitious smoke breaks.

She hadn’t seen her star since he’d left the lodge sometime after lunch. She’d gotten back from the beach—as if you could call it a real beach; there were no daiquiri bars on this godforsaken island, no lounge chairs, and certainly no cabana boys—and found that Tate was AWOL. She’d tried repeatedly to raise him on the two-way radio, with no luck.

At dinner, Barry Adelman had quizzed her closely about Tate’s whereabouts.

“Oh,” she said, trying to sound unconcerned, “he’s getting himself in the zone for the Food Fight. He always does this the night before we tape. He goes off into the wilderness and gets his chakra in harmony with the universe.”

“Chakra?” Barry looked to Zeke for translation.

“I’m Presbyterian,” Zeke said apologetically. “We don’t have chakras.”

“Just a technical question,” Scott said, leaning forward to catch Barry’s attention. “If Moody’s not back by morning, we win the Food Fight by default—right?”

“He’ll be back,” Val said. “We came to play. And win.”

“Glad to hear it,” Barry said. “Our judges are flying into Savannah tonight, and they’ll be over on the first ferry in the morning.” He turned to Zeke for confirmation. “Right?”

“As far as we know,” Zeke agreed. “The last e-mail I had from
Deidre said that we should pick them up at the ferry dock tomorrow at eight.”

“Deidre?” Scott pounced on the name. “Do you mean Deidre Delaney?”

“Oops,” Barry said, rising to his feet. “You didn’t hear that from me.” He turned and gave Gina an abbreviated bow. “You folks have a nice evening. I’m expecting a call from Wendy, and then I’ve got a conference call with the coast.”

“Uh, Barry…” Zeke said, shaking his head sorrowfully.

“What? Still no phone reception?” Barry’s face darkened. “That’s absurd.”

“Here, Barry,” Scott said, thrusting his BlackBerry at Adelman. “Try mine. It’s the beta version. My electronics guy in Taiwan says you can get reception on Mars. But I did have to go out to the end of the ferry dock earlier today to get a call through.”

“You got through?” Barry said, snatching up the phone. “Great! I’ll bring it back when I’m done.”

“No problem,” Scott said, throwing a triumphant glance Val’s way.

“Shall I drive you down there on the golf cart?” Zeke asked, pushing his chair away from the table.

“No, no,” Adelman said quickly. “I feel like taking a spin by myself, before it gets dark.”

A
s the dishes were being cleared by two high-school-age girls, Sis came into the dining room with a tray holding a silver pitcher and half a dozen tall ice-filled glasses.

“It’s a tradition at the lodge to have Arnold Palmers out on the porch after dinner,” she announced. “Or, if you’d like something stronger, we can manage that too.”

“Have you got any Natty Lite?” Lisa asked.

Sis nodded.

“Make it two,” Zeke added, following Lisa out the front door.

“An Arnold Palmer sounds great,” Gina said, getting up from the table and stretching.

“What’s an Arnold Palmer?” Val asked.

“Iced tea and lemonade,” Sis told her.

“Great,” Val said. “I’ll have an Arnold Palmer and gin.”

On the porch, Val staked out a rocker on one side of the front door, and Scott and Gina took rockers at the opposite end. Lisa and Zeke had already claimed the wicker swing, and Gina could hear her sister’s laugh from where she sat.

Dusk was settling over the island. The last remnants of a peach-hued sunset filtered through the canopy of oaks and pines, and already Gina could see the tiny sparks of fireflies in the shrubbery at the edge of the porch. In the distance, she heard the soft hooting of an owl.

“I wonder what Moody’s up to,” Scott said, rocking animatedly.

“Who cares?” Gina said. “Right now, I just want to look at the sky and relax. I’ll worry about him tomorrow.”

“I’ll worry about him right now,” Scott said. “He’s up to something, I guarantee.”

“Scott?” Gina asked. “Who’s Deidre Delaney?”

His rocker abruptly stopped creaking. “You really never heard of her?” her producer asked incredulously.

“Nope. Should I have?”

“She’s the Deidre of Deidre’s on South Beach,” Scott said. “She’s just the hottest celebrity chef in Miami. Hell, the country, just about.”

“Oh,” Gina said, feeling slightly out of touch. “If she’s from Miami, what’s she know about southern food? Isn’t that what we’re supposed to be doing here?”

“She’s a top-gun foodie,” Scott said. “A tastemaker. Her presence as a judge ups the ante that much more. It means Barry’s really going all out for this Food Fight.”

Now she felt queasy. “Miami? What if she doesn’t like my kind of food? I mean, here on Eutaw, I won’t have access to papayas or mahimahi or cilantro or anything trendy like that.”

Scott reached over and laid his hand on top of hers. “Neither will Moody,” he said, trying to sound reassuring. “Unless…”

Gina stared pointedly at his hand. “I don’t like Tate Moody. But I don’t think he’s the type to cheat.”

“And I am, is that what you’re saying?” he asked, his voice low and full of heat. “What’s it gonna take to convince you how sorry I am, Gina? You want me to crawl on my belly? Write an apology in my own blood?”

“Forget it,” she said. “Let’s change the subject. Keep things on a professional level, all right?”

“All right,” he said. “Let’s talk about your plan for tomorrow, then. I’m assuming you have one?”

“I do,” she said simply. “And I think it’s a really good one. You remember those cute little ladies who served us lunch? Iris and Inez? Well, I gave Iris a ride home in the golf cart today. Can you believe it? They’re seventy-two! And they’ve lived on Eutaw their whole lives.”

“Fascinating,” Scott said, yawning.

“I think Iris was jealous of all the attention Tate Moody was giving Inez,” Gina said, giggling. “Iris knows everything about Eutaw. After she showed me her adorable little cottage—she still cooks with a woodstove, do you believe that?—she took me on a tour of the island. And she showed me her favorite spot for shrimping. With any luck, if the tide’s right tomorrow, I can wade out and cast for shrimp. And then we rode over to the ferry dock. Those pilings around the ferry dock should be loaded with blue crabs. The ladies on Eutaw are famous for their deviled crabs. Iris says her mama used to make grocery money selling deviled crabs to tourists who came over on the ferry.”

“Shrimp, deviled crab,” Scott repeated. “Sounds good, but I wonder, isn’t that what the judges will find predictable?”

“Not the way I’ll fix it,” Gina promised. “Besides, I’m not done. Iris showed me her favorite blackberry patch. It’s right around the corner from her cottage, and the berries are the fattest, prettiest things you’ve ever seen. They’ll be perfect for a cobbler. That’s something the judges won’t be expecting.”

“Maybe not,” Scott said.

“Hey, Geen?” Lisa stood at the edge of the porch steps. “Is it okay if we take your golf cart out for a ride around the island? I haven’t really gotten to see it yet, and Zeke says the beach is awesome at night. Did you know there are wild ponies?”

“I saw some of the ponies today,” Gina said. “You’d have seen them too, if you weren’t passed out on the bed.”

Lisa stuck her tongue out at her sister. “Cut me some slack, okay?”

“All right,” Gina said, relenting. “But don’t stay out late again. We’ve got an early call in the morning.”

“We?”

“You’re my assistant, remember?”

As Lisa and Zeke were zipping away from the lodge, another golf cart rolled slowly past and up to the porch.

Tate Moody sat in the cart, motionless, for a moment.

“Tate!” Val called, hurrying over to him. “Where in the name of God have you been? I’ve been trying to raise you on the radio.”

“Battery’s dead,” he said wearily, slowly easing out of the cart.

“Jesus!” she said, getting a good look at him.

He smiled ruefully. “Not so pretty, huh?”

Tate Moody looked like he’d done battle and lost. He had a cut over his right eye and a huge bruise on his left cheekbone. His face and arms were scratched and bleeding, and his jeans and shirt were torn and bloodstained.

He took a step toward the porch, staggering slightly.

Gina saw her rival’s condition and was shocked. “Are you all right?” she asked, hurrying over.

“Fine,” Tate said, giving her a wide, if somewhat weary grin. “Just superficial wounds. I accidentally did a little off-roading in the golf cart. Got stuck in some mud and had a hell of a time getting out.”

“Here,” Val said, taking his arm and putting it around her shoulder. “Lean on me. Let’s get you into the house and get you doctored up. You look like crap.”

“Like I got shot at and missed, and shit at and hit,” he agreed, complying with her commands. “You think there’s any supper left? I’m starved.”

“We’ll find something,” Val promised.

Scott and Gina watched as Tate limped slowly into the lodge.

“I don’t care what you think,” Scott said. “He’s up to something.
He’s all beat to hell, but did you see the look on his face? If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was drunk.”

“Not drunk,” Gina said slowly. “Happy. Like a pig in slop.”

A
ll right,” Val said as soon as they were inside and out of earshot of the competition. “Cut the crap. I know you, Tate Moody. What have you been up to all day and all night?”

“Oh, nothing,” he said innocently. “I just locked up the contest, that’s all. We can stick a fork in Little Miss Sunshine. She’s done.”

T
he air in her room was as hot and sticky as a tar-paper roof. Gina couldn’t breathe, let alone sleep. She kicked the sheets off her clammy skin and stood in front of the little fan, letting it billow the folds of her cotton nightgown. She glanced over at the clock on the nightstand. It was only midnight, but she had to be in the makeup room at seven in the morning. How was she ever going to get some sleep in this toaster oven of a bedroom?

Lisa’s bed, of course, was empty. Should she worry about her sister, out this late on an island in the middle of nowhere with a man she hardly knew? Hah! Zeke was the one she should worry about. Lisa Foxton could hold her own, anywhere, anytime.

She heard hushed voices drifting in from the window. Shamelessly, she stepped over and peeked out.

Moonlight spilled over the grassy area in front of the inn. Lisa and Zeke stood there, her head resting on his shoulder. Gina smiled despite herself. It was so sweet, the way he wrapped his arms around her waist, nuzzled her neck.

She felt sad. Sad for herself, that all the sweetness had gone so quickly from her own romance, replaced by bitterness and resentment.

She should quit spying, should go to bed and get some sleep. If her personal life was in ruins, at least she could now concentrate, exclusively, on getting what she wanted professionally.

And she would do that, she promised herself, but right now, the only breeze entering the room was coming from this window. A moment later, when she peeked out again, the lovers had disappeared.

She saw a slight movement at the edge of the small clearing that served as the lawn, and held her breath as a doe stepped daintily into the pool of light near the porch. Slowly, two small fawns joined their mother. They nibbled at the grass, and the moonlight shone on their dappled brown and white backs.

A moment later, the doe raised her head, startled by something. And as quickly as she’d come, she was gone, bounding into the darkness, the fawns springing away right behind her.

As Gina watched, a man emerged from the darkness of the porch. He was holding a huge flashlight in one hand and a baseball bat in the other. A white dog with brown freckles and a distinctive feathered tail dutifully followed in his wake. The bill of his cap shaded the man’s face, but Gina knew the dog and its owner.

Tate Moody. He glanced around, then limped painfully to the golf cart he’d parked earlier in the evening.

The dog stood motionless on the same spot where the deer had stood earlier, his muzzle quivering, his tail up, in a perfect point.

“Moonpie,” Tate called. “Come! Come on, boy!”

The dog turned, looked at his master, then longingly into the darkness where the deer had vanished. But he padded over to the cart and jumped up into the passenger seat. Within seconds the two were zipping off, down the path, into that same darkness.

She heard footsteps outside the hallway. Lisa. She scampered back to bed, forcing herself to play possum as her baby sister crept inside and began hurriedly undressing.

G
ina was sitting in the makeshift makeup room—in reality, a small downstairs bedroom in the lodge—sipping coffee when D’John stuck the lens of his minicam around the door frame.

“Behold!” he said, zooming in on her, “the lovely Regina Foxton—ready, willing, and
oh my God, what are those suitcases under your eyes?
”

Gina managed a wan smile. “It was so hot last night, I couldn’t sleep. I finally got up and went downstairs and slept on the sofa in the parlor around two.”

“That’s where you went?” Lisa said. “Damn. I thought you were sneaking off to see a man.”

“Not quite,” Gina said, her voice dripping sarcasm.

Now D’John turned the camera on Lisa. “And speaking of sneaking—what time did you and your man-candy get back last night?”

“Midnight,” Gina said, before Lisa could answer.

“I thought you were asleep,” Lisa said accusingly. “Spy-girl!”

“I just happened to be standing near the window, trying to catch a breeze, when you and Zack drove up to the lodge. It was more an act of ventilation than espionage.”

“That is
so
not cool,” Lisa said. “You’re acting just like Mom. And, oh, by the way, she called. She wants to talk to you.”

“No way,” Gina said. “I happen to know there’s no cell-phone reception on Eutaw.”

“Think again,” Lisa countered. “It comes and goes. Anyway, she text-messaged me.”

“Who the heck taught her to text-message?” Gina demanded. “Why would you do that?”

“Girls, girls,” D’John said, “play nice, now.”

The door to the makeup room opened then, and Tate Moody sauntered in.

“Hey, Reggie,” he said, hopping into the chair next to Gina’s. “What’s shakin’?”

“Don’t call me that,” she said.

Tate looked at Lisa and gave her a conspiratorial wink. “Is she always this cranky in the morning?”

“No sleep,” Lisa said. “And she’s only had one cup of coffee. But as long as you don’t poke her with a stick or make any sudden moves for
her
coffee, you should be safe.”

D’John trained the minicam on Tate. “Good Lord,” he exclaimed. “What have you done to yourself?”

Tate put his hand to his face, which, although freshly scrubbed, was still crisscrossed with cuts and scratches. “You mean this? My golf cart got stuck in the mud when I was out tooling around the island yesterday. Then Moonpie ran off, and I had to go after him, right into a blackberry bramble.”

He gave Gina a wide smile. “Blackberries—excellent, right? They’ll be great in the dessert I’m fixing to make for the first round of the Food Fight today.”

Gina forced herself to smile, although she could feel her molars grinding into sand. “That’s a pretty nasty bruise, too. Did a tree fall on you while you were in that blackberry bramble?”

“Aw,” Tate said. “You’re worried about me. That’s so sweet.” He turned again to Lisa. “I think I’m growing on her.”

“Like a fungus,” Gina muttered. “D’John, will you please put that silly camera down long enough to slap some makeup on me? I’m sure Tate’s gonna need a lot more work than me today, to cover all his war wounds.”

“She wants me, bad,” Tate announced. “You guys can tell, right?”

Lisa and D’John sniggered in unison, but D’John put the camera down, picked up his makeup brushes, and set to work on Gina’s face.

“You’ve got to start getting more sleep,” he fussed. “There’s only so much concealer can do, you know.”

“Well, save some for Tate here,” Gina told him. “Doesn’t look like he got much sleep last night either.” She turned to Tate and gave him a chilly smile. “We missed you at breakfast this morning.”

He didn’t bother to look up from his magazine article. “Moonpie and I got restless last night. It was pretty hot in our room. So we went for a midnight spin on the cart. Went down to the dock, and it was so nice and cool, I just curled up and went to sleep right there. Inez gave me biscuits and gravy before I came in here. I’m fixin’ to marry her, unless you come to your senses about me pretty quick.”

The door opened again, and Deborah Chen poked her head in.

“Toodles, everyone!” she trilled, walking inside. “Gina, you look fabulous.” She put her hand under Gina’s chin and turned her this way and that. “Even your hair has grown in. The color isn’t nearly as alarming.”

“Uh, thanks,” Gina said dutifully. “I didn’t know you were coming over, Deborah. When did you get in?”

“Just now,” Deborah said. “I hitched a ride over on the ferry with the judges. And wait till you find out who they are! I’m not supposed to say,” she said, giving Tate and Gina an exaggerated wink, “but suffice it to say, they are all three amazing. TCC has really gone above and beyond to make this a first-class competition.”

“Great,” the contestants said, accidentally in unison.

“Well, I’ve got to run along,” Deborah said, after giving Tate a curious glance. “Press releases to write, phone calls to be made.” She toodled herself right out the door.

I
t was nearly nine by the time Barry Adelman entered the dining room of the lodge with Zeke and the three strangers. The crew was all set up. The lights were lit, boom mikes aimed, cameras rolling.

About time, Gina thought. She’d been standing around, hair and makeup done, dressed and ready to go, for nearly an hour. Her
nerves were shot. It was time. She was ready to stop talking and get cooking.

It was obvious that the hour she’d spent waiting had been spent readying Barry for his date with the cameras.

His already tanned face was coated with thick pancake, his eyelashes were so heavily mascaraed that they resembled Cher’s, and wait…yes, his hair color had definitely been touched up since the night before. He was dressed in black.

“Everybody,” Barry said, clapping his hands to get the crew’s attention, which he already had, “I want you to meet our distinguished panel of judges.”

That did get her attention. And Tate’s.

“This,” Barry said, gesturing toward the woman on his right, “is Deidre Delaney. Deidre, as anybody who hasn’t been living in a cave for the past three years knows, is the owner-chef at Deidre’s on South Beach. She’s a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, has been named ‘Chef on the Rise’ by
Bon Appetit
magazine, and her restaurant just became Miami’s first five-diamond restaurant.”

Deidre Delaney was as tall and willowy as a fashion model, with striking white-blond hair that fell nearly to her waist, a deep, golden tan, and an unfortunate beaklike nose that might have been the reason she’d become a success in a kitchen, rather than on a runway.

The group applauded politely, and Deidre smiled and nodded modestly.

“Now,” Barry said, gesturing toward the man standing next to her, “meet Beau Stapleton. Beau is the brains behind the hottest restaurants in Atlanta, including Bleu Plate, Sizzle, and Drizzle.”

Beau Stapleton! Gina’s heart sank. She’d never met the rock star of Atlanta’s haute cuisine world in person, but she knew his restaurants all too well. She had, in fact, given Sizzle a lousy review back in the days when she’d been a food writer at the
Constitution
. Looking at him now, preening before the cameras, she remembered all too well the adjectives she’d used to describe the menu at Sizzle:
pretentious, silly,
and, oh God, worst of all,
icky
. She’d called his warm Stilton and apple crème brulee “an oozy, icky, barely edible pot of glop.”

Stapleton had responded by having a beautifully gift-wrapped dead rat messengered over to her office.

Beau Stapleton had a long, greasy gray ponytail hanging down his back, which was only accented by his rapidly retreating hairline. His face was pale and puffy, and a potbelly jutted out over his checked chef’s trousers. It occurred to Gina that he looked exactly like his crème brulee had tasted.

Get over it, she told herself, forcing a warm smile.

Barry had his hand on the shoulder of a petite, round-faced black woman with close-cropped silver hair.

“And of course,” he added, “we’re thrilled to round out our distinguished panel of judges by introducing Antoinette Bailey, of the award-winning Toni’s Country Kitchen in Mountain Brook and Point Clear, Alabama.”

Toni Bailey wore a long cotton print skirt that swirled around her ankles, a simple white peasant blouse, multiple beaded necklaces and bracelets, and huge silver hoop earrings. Her unlined coffee-colored face glowed with goodwill.

“The
New York Times
has called Toni’s Country Kitchen the true mothership of authentic southern cooking,” Barry went on.

“At least they didn’t call it the grandmother!” Toni quipped, drawing a laugh from everybody on set and momentarily cutting the obvious tension.

“And when we come back,” Barry announced to the camera, “we’ll have our Food Fight contestants in their fifty-thousand-dollar dream kitchen, and I’ll announce the first of their three challenges.”

“And cut,” announced a production assistant standing in the background.

“That’s good, everybody,” Barry said, beaming. “Beautiful. One take. That’s what we like.”

“All right,” the production assistant said. “You’ve got fifteen minutes, and then we want everybody over on the kitchen set.”

“About time,” Tate whispered in her ear. “Reggie, are you ready for a good, old-fashioned butt-kickin’?”

She whirled around. He was standing right behind her. D’John
had managed to cover the worst of the scratches and bruises with concealer, but his face had an unnatural orangish glow to it.

She started to comment on it, but thought better. “I’m watching you, Tate Moody,” she said, her eyes narrowed. “I know you’re up to something.”

“Just cookin’,” he assured her. “And may the best man win.”