Taste Test (7 page)

“Look, I know you aren’t giving up yet. So what’s the plan?”

I sigh, piling my lettuce on one side of my plate.

“I don’t know. I was just thinking it would be nice to get some ammunition, you know? Something to hold over his head, something to make him stop being such a jerk.”

“Yeah, that’d be sweet.” Gigi nods enthusiastically.

I look out the window at the courtyard. Christian and Pierce are surrounded by a flock of giggling girl contestants. I guess they’re doing something right, since the boys seem to be enjoying it.

“You know what?” I say, still looking outside. “I don’t think we’re giving this enough thought.”

“What do you mean?” Angela asks, sipping her soda.

“I mean that the context is wrong but the idea is right.”

“Huh?” Gigi looks confused. I lean in a little and lower my voice.

“What if what Christian needs is to be exposed? To be embarrassed, humiliated, made a complete fool of?”

“Couldn’t hurt.”

“Exactly. He seems like the type to use his fame—or his dad’s, anyway—to get what he wants, be it notoriety or attention or—”

I glance back outside. Now one of the groupies is sitting on his lap.

“—or an easy hookup.”

“So?” Angela asks.

“So, there’s got to be
something
that would knock him off that pedestal he’s put himself on.
Something
that will get him to shut up when he seems most obnoxious and full of himself. A guy like Christian with an ego like that just needs to be forced back down to earth.”

When I walk to hair and makeup a few hours later, the excited energy from my earlier plotting transitions back into raw nerves. Filming doesn’t start until tomorrow, but tonight we have our first group photo shoot. There’s a spread we’re doing for a magazine and some advertisements that are going to show up on city billboards. I have to say, the idea of my face being on the side of a building is pretty cool. Of course, the actuality of my six-foot-tall head with inch-wide pores and softball-sized nostrils is a whole other thing entirely.

It’s sort of surreal walking down the Forbidden Hallway for the first time. The same guards are keeping watch, but I can hear voices calling out over each other and the faint whirr of a blow-dryer. A door to the left of the arena is slightly ajar and I pull it open.

Inside, it’s total mayhem. There are rows and rows of salon-style setups with big mirrors, bright lights, and about a hundred cans of hair spray. Off to one side, multiple racks on wheels are weighed down with hangers of bright fabric and
shiny material. There are makeup artists, hair stylists, and fashion designers—who would have thought a cooking show would need so much backstage beautifying?

A man wearing skinny jeans and a furry jacket is scurrying around the room like a very panicked, very trendy rat. Seeing me, he stops in his tracks and covers his mouth with one hand.

“Oh, I can see it now. Country girl goes glam.”

He hurries toward me, his tan face creasing into an excited smile.

“You’re Nora, right?”

“Um, yeah …”

“I knew it!” He grabs one of my hands and examines it. “Down to the bitten nails! Girl, you’re a project and a half, that’s for sure!”

Embarrassed, I pull my hand away and shove it into the pocket of my jacket.

“Now, now, don’t be shy. We have to notice all the little things that make you
you
… so that we can change them and make you
fabulous
!”

He steers me toward a chair, talking a mile a minute. Somehow, I manage to get that his name is Bryce Houser and he’s “
the
stylist to the culinary stars.”

“You know Buddy Pearson?” Bryce asks, wrapping a plastic cape around my neck. He leans in conspiratorially. “He was a three-hundred-pound loser living with his mama when I met him. Now look at him—dropped the weight, dyed the hair, and he’s hosting that sushi show on the Raw Network.
And
I hear he’s going to be the next
Bachelor
!”

“So.” He steps back, putting a finger to his lips. “Here’s what I’m thinking—you need some kind of signature look. Something that makes you stand out. Without that, there’s no reason for you to be here at all, right?”

“Right,” I echo. Up until this moment, I haven’t given any thought to what I want my image to be or how I want it to change.

“Okay, let’s take a closer look …”

Bryce swivels the chair to face the mirror and drops his head just above my shoulder. We both stare at my face.

“You’re a very pretty girl, Nora. Look at those cheekbones! I know a few clients who would
kill
for that kind of definition. And talk about a heart-shaped face. You’re a regular chip off the Reese Witherspoon block.”

He puts a heavily be-ringed hand on each of my shoulders.

“I’m thinking some cocoa-colored liner to play up those huge blue eyes. And, obviously, we’ll need to spray tan. But nothing too Oompa-Loompa. And those eyebrows—honey, are they some kind of homage to Brooke Shields? They have
got
to go!”

Gently, he loosens my ponytail. My hair tumbles over my shoulders, happy to be free from its elastic hair-cuffs for once. It’s weird seeing it frame my face—it makes me look older. More serious.

“Tell me, Nora, how do you feel about blond?”

I swallow. My hair’s always been dark chestnut. My dad used to tell me how much it looked like my mom’s when she was younger, and I felt like it was some sort of link to her.

Bryce is watching my face and he can see my apprehension.

“Okay, maybe that’s a little extreme. How about some nice highlights then—some honey strands, a kiss of sun here and there?”

He starts pulling sections up and away from my face. I think about how much I want to win this thing. As the saying goes, image is everything. I take a deep breath.

“Sure. Highlights are great. Let’s go for it.”

“Fab!”

Bryce looks thrilled and, seeing his excitement, I start feeling a little thrilled, too.

But my smile falters a bit as a burly woman with spiky hair and multiple facial piercings approaches holding a bowl and brush.
I’m sure she’s great
, I tell myself.
Just because she obviously enjoys pain doesn’t mean she wants to inflict it on me.

As Spike not-so-gently divides and conquers my unruly hair, I watch the chaos swirl around me. I recognize most of the nearby girls from the contestant profiles. I try to match names with faces, to remember what I’d read about them.

There’s a beautiful black girl named Coral with huge dark eyes and cropped hair. She’s quiet despite her surroundings, reading a book whose title I can’t see. I remember that she’s the one who got an early acceptance to Harvard, but deferred it to compete here. Talk about intimidating.

To her left are two blond girls, Abby and Amy, practically carbon-copy cutouts of each other. They’re gossiping back and forth while two makeup artists struggle to apply lipstick and eyeliner to their moving faces. I remember one of them was sitting on Christian’s lap at lunch. A lurch of nausea flies through me.

There’s Kelsey, who speaks five languages; Emily, whose parents died in an earthquake; and Jennifer, who lost her hearing when she was five. It occurs to me that everyone has a story that can be condensed down to a caption, a blurb, and that’s all I know about them. I can’t help but wonder how different each of them is from the short paragraph I’ve read. If they’re judging me by mine, they think I’m the “daughter of a successful barbecue entrepreneur who’s won many notable culinary awards.”

I’ve gotta say, I’m not sure how notable it is to win First Place for Pig Butt Texture in Doody’s Regional Pork-Off.

“Looking good, looking good.” Bryce comes over to the dryer I’m planted under and checks the progress of my highlights.

“We’ll rinse these in just a minute. But first …”

He reaches over and picks up a small pot of honey-colored wax. I’ve been dreading this the most. Joanie helped me wax my eyebrows once before and they were red and swollen for a day and a half. But, in the world of television, I guess it’s better to look like a burn victim than Bert from
Sesame Street
.

When I look in the mirror an hour later, I have to admit that the transformation’s pretty amazing. I turn my head from side to side to examine the effect of the subtle caramel-colored highlights. It really
does
look like I’ve been out in the sun for a few days. The spray tan booth wasn’t exactly the most comfortable ten minutes of my life and I think I’m a little too orange, but Bryce assured me that it’ll look normal on TV.

“Wow.”

I look up to see Joy standing behind me.

“What?” I say defensively, pulling off my cape.

“Nothing.” She shakes her head, but doesn’t move. “I’m … surprised.”

“What, you thought I couldn’t clean up nicely?”

“Oh no, not that.” She bends down a bit and inspects her eyelashes in the mirror before glancing back at me. “I know that Bryce can perform miracles. He’s been working with my family for years. I guess I’m just surprised that you let him change you so much. I mean, hell, the only thing you had going for you was that ‘regional redneck’ thing. Now even your
own
kind won’t root for you.”

I bite down hard on my inner cheek and force myself not to tackle her. Instead, I get up and walk around to the clothing racks, trying to calm my breathing. What the hell did I ever
do
to this girl, anyway? I have to remind myself that if I’m patient, I’ll expose her for the fake that she is. I just need to see if my suspicions about her and Prescott are right.

I notice a gauzy black dress hanging at one end of the rack, paired with lacy patterned leggings and shiny black cowboy boots. A note pinned to it says, “Photo Shoot One—Nora H.” I run a hand over the dress. I’ve never worn anything so lowcut, so clearly meant to show off “the goods”—which I’m really not a huge fan of showing off. I don’t exactly subscribe to the “if you’ve got it, flaunt it” mantra.

“Is this—this is what I’m wearing?” I ask one of the wardrobe assistants speeding past.

She glances at me and the dress.

“You Nora?”

“Yes.”

“Then, yep, it’s yours. Dressing rooms are over there.” She gestures to a bank of curtained cubicles behind us.

It takes me a few minutes to get the leggings on right, save for the inevitable wedgie. The boots are tighter than the ones I brought from home, but something about them is comforting; they are the only thing I’m wearing that feels remotely familiar.

Outside the dressing room, I feel exposed. What Joy said is getting to me, regardless of how much I want to ignore her. This stuff
isn’t
me—it’s just a trendy costume to hide my rough edges. But that’s the point, right? No one needs to see dirt under my bitten nails, now tipped with French manicured acrylics, or my imperfect smile, now whitened with an ultraviolet light. For the first time in my life, I’m camera-ready. I just have to fake the confidence I need to pull it off.

I stand up a little taller, turn the corner, and proceed to run directly into something—or someone.

“Shoot, sorry!” I mutter, rubbing my arm where it met something hard—an elbow, I think. The roadblock turns around to look at me. It’s Christian. He’s wearing a tight black T-shirt and dark jeans. I try not to notice how tight they are, too.

“Sorry,” I repeat, looking down. I attempt to slide past him but he follows me into the hallway.

“You look … different,” he says. I tug up the neckline of my dress.

“Joy already beat you to it,” I snap. “I don’t care if I’m a sellout.”

“I wasn’t going to say you’re a sellout.”

“Right. Then what
were
you going to say?”

He shrugs. “That you look sort of hot.”

I choke on a surprised breath. By the time I stop coughing, Christian’s already walked away, leaving me red faced and speechless for the second time today.

“Contestants!”

Ms. Svincek stands with her hands on her hips, flanked on both sides by two of the other judges. Kenneth Mason is the head chef at 80/20, one of the most successful restaurants in Los Angeles, and Gloria Bouchon is the dean of admissions at the International School of Cuisine in Paris. Standing just behind them is none other than the illustrious Holden Prescott. I scan the crowd to find Joy, hoping to see a chink in her armor. But once I spot her, she’s yawning, looking a little bored.