Hadley Beckett's Next Dish, page 3
Of course I should have known that Stuart would always have my back. I spotted him about twelve feet away, apparently polishing a camera—something I’d never seen him, or anyone, do before. I smiled as I realized his eyes were fixed intently on Leo.
“Well then, what can I help you with, Leo?” I asked.
“Actually, I’m hoping we can help each other.”
His hand moved slowly toward the inside pocket of his blazer, and my life flashed before my eyes. Well, not my life, actually. I’m not sure whose life it was, exactly, but it was definitely the life of someone from some movie in which Matt Damon was about to appear out of nowhere and tackle Leo, just in the nick of time.
The threat level in my mind receded as Stuart just kept on wiping down the camera, and Leo handed me a business card.
“Hadley, I’ve been watching you for a long time,” he said. Admittedly the business card I was now able to look down at made that sentence a whole lot less creepy. “I think it’s time to take your career to the next level, and I believe I’m the guy to get it there.”
Leo Landry. Landry & Associates Talent Management.
“That’s very flattering, Leo. Really. But I already have a manager.”
He nodded and chuckled. “I know. Your grandmother, right?”
I had the best business manager in Nashville. She’d managed Chet Atkins and Waylon Jennings, Patsy Cline and Kris Kristofferson. Dolly Parton had once dedicated an entire album to her. Sure, those were all musical acts, and she hadn’t worked with any of them—or anyone at all—for at least twenty years or so, but there was no denying that she was justifiably a legend. The fact that she was working with me, a moderately successful chef with an undeniably niche audience? I was blessed. Blessed enough that sometimes I knew I just needed to hold my tongue and let it slide when my manager didn’t treat me with the professional respect I might hope to receive from others in the business.
Besides, she only took 5 percent commission and still did my laundry for me when my schedule got too hectic.
But whenever anyone in the business seemed to look down on the fact that my grandmother was my manager, I always felt a strange combination of embarrassment and indignation. Most of the time, no one had any idea. Sure, I’d occasionally have to explain how my manager’s experience in the country music business in any way qualified her to be a player in the world of food, but that was always easy to defend. Apparently Dolly Parton and the career Meemaw had helped carve out for her was a universal language when it came to earning people’s respect.
I hated that I could never seem to escape any conversation in which the grandmother factor was known without being made to feel like a little girl attempting to play in the big leagues.
“Yes, my grandmother,” I said with a sneer. Well, I don’t know if I actually sneered. I’m not sure my Southern manners would allow for a sneer. But I sure wasn’t smiling, that’s for doggone sure. “Does that amuse you?”
The smile dropped from his lips. It must have been the sneer.
“Oh no. No, not at all. Sorry. I think it’s completely charming.”
Charming? Ugh. Was I going to have to sing “Hard Candy Christmas” to get this guy to stop being so patronizing?
I was pretty sure that wouldn’t actually work. Ever. In any situation.
“If you think it’s so charming, what makes you think I would want to make a change and be represented by you instead?”
“Because there’s something very strategic, very precise, that needs to be happening in your career right now. And I do mean right now. Are you aware that At Home with Hadley is the number-one noncompetitive show on the Culinary Channel?”
I nodded. I was aware, no matter how difficult it was to believe, and no matter how giddy I felt inside to hear the words spoken aloud. And no matter how much I knew the current level of success was only a result of Chef Cavanagh’s on-air tirade and subsequent suspension.
“It’s because To the Max is on hiatus—”
“I’m going to stop you right there and give you a little free advice, before I’m even representing you. There is no justification needed. You shouldn’t be minimizing the importance of that to anyone—or to yourself. At Home with Hadley is the number-one show. Period. So, let me ask you, Hadley . . . why are you in Brooklyn?”
“This is where the studio—”
“Oh, I know. But you shouldn’t be in a studio. The show is called At Home with Hadley. Wouldn’t it make sense for the audience to get to be at home with you?”
I snorted at the idea. No matter how many times I’d thought about that myself, I knew it just wasn’t feasible. “Well, sure, that would be great, but my apartment isn’t big enough.”
He leaned in and whispered, “Then they need to be buying you a place that’s big enough.”
My breath caught in my throat. No. There was no way he was being serious. I was grateful for so many of the perks I received—top-of-the-line cookware, free flights to New York and a nice hotel room while I was filming, and even grade A prime steaks that had been showing up in a giant crate at my door every month for three months, ever since America’s Fiercest Chef had aired despite my protests. I made good money, I was treated like a star, and having the show had done more for business at my restaurants than I could have done on my own in a hundred years. The thought of anything more was ludicrous.
“You think they’d buy me a bigger apartment?” I asked breathlessly.
Leo took a deep breath and smiled. “Look, Hadley, your grandmother has done a great job with your career. With getting you here. Truly. I’m not looking down on that at all. Besides, I did my research. She’s had quite the career of her own. But the fact of the matter is that I could only get a country music superstar so far, and then I would need a music industry manager like your grandmother to step in if we really wanted to go all the way. I only represent the food industry, Hadley. Chefs, restaurateurs, critics. This is what I do. This is what I know. And what I know is that if the network’s number-one personality-focused show is called At Home with Hadley, we darn well better be spending some time at home with Hadley. You know what I mean?”
Of course I knew what he meant. He was poking at the biggest sleeping bear in my heart. It wasn’t just that the show was called one thing, and yet the reality was something very different. That was definitely something that nagged at me, but it went further than that.
Once, in the early days of the show, a producer had thought it would be a great idea to introduce viewers to my horse, Marigold. Despite the fact that Marigold lived with and was trained by a kind old man named Kent in upstate New York. Also, Marigold wasn’t my horse. Also, I don’t ride horses. I’d put my foot down on that—at least in part because Marigold looked like she would just as soon trample me as trot with me. Mostly I just didn’t see what being an equestrian had to do with my skills with meringue. It was bad enough that I had to act like I was preparing to welcome friends and family into my Brooklyn studio dining room—which was, admittedly, gorgeous—for the Thanksgiving episode. It wasn’t my home and, truth be told, I didn’t have enough friends and family to justify preparing that eighteen-pound turkey, even if I had actually been preparing to play hostess.
But every time I mentioned those sorts of things to Meemaw, she said things like “beggars can’t be choosers” or “don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.” Well, I had looked my gift horse in the mouth. Her name was Marigold, and she was terrifying.
I sighed. “What you’re saying rings true. Trust me. I’ve had the same thought.”
Some of the stage lights shut off and I looked toward the booth and waved at the technicians whom I’d kept there long enough by lingering. I began walking toward the door and indicated that Leo should come along. I patted Stuart on the shoulder to indicate all was well as I passed him and the shiniest camera this side of the Mississippi.
I stopped a few feet from the exit and turned back to face Leo. “But I can’t complain. Really. I mean, like you said, the show is number one, so it’s obviously working. Viewers are liking it; the network seems happy—”
“Of course the network is happy. They’re tickled pink, Hadley. They’re getting you for a steal.”
I shook my head and smiled. “It’s not really about the money for me.”
He was silent for a moment as he observed me, making me truly uncomfortable in his presence for the first time—even more uncomfortable than when I briefly believed he was there to carry out a hit on my life. People staring at you in silence is just the worst. Not only are they probably judging you—or at the very least taking in every detail so they can pass judgment later—but they’re doing it silently. They don’t even help distract from the fact that they’re judging you.
“I believe that,” he finally stated assertively. As if his believing it meant that was the final word on the matter. “I can’t tell you how many people have said that to me through the years, that they aren’t in it for the money, but with you I actually believe it. And that’s why you’ve got to let me manage you.”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t see how that is the natural conclusion there.”
“People take advantage of you, I would imagine. Don’t they?” He didn’t wait for my answer. “They’ve got you pigeonholed into the perfect version of what they think you should be. And because you’re so humble and real, you just feel grateful to be here. To be invited to the party. And because you’re so humble, and because you aren’t doing it for the money, they can keep you right where they want you. But what they don’t realize—and what you certainly don’t realize—is that if they’d just let you be you, if they let you be as real on camera as you are in life, you wouldn’t just be the top noncompetitive show on the Culinary Channel. You’d be the top show. Period. You’d launch other shows. You’d become a brand, and the other networks—not to mention retailers—would be fighting for you. All because we let Hadley be Hadley.”
Let Hadley be Hadley.
There was instantly some Aaron Sorkin–related déjà vu happening in my head. I mean, Josh and CJ or whoever else on The West Wing hadn’t used my name, of course, but I was pretty sure “Let Bartlet be Bartlet” was a thing they’d said about Martin Sheen as the president. And it wasn’t just those few specific words. It was the whole speech. Leo’s entire demeanor. By pulling him from the stage a couple minutes prior, I’d even provided him with a well-timed walk-and-talk.
“I appreciate it, Leo. And I’m flattered. Really, I am. And everything you just said, about having the opportunity to be a little more real . . . well, I can’t deny that sounds lovely. But you’ve got to know there’s no way I’m going to kick my own grandmother to the curb as part of a shrewd business deal.”
If I ever became that person, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.
He nodded and smiled. “Now that’s letting Hadley be Hadley.” He thrust his hand in front of me to shake mine once again. “You do understand I’m going to keep trying . . .”
“And I will be flattered every time,” I replied with a self-conscious laugh before ushering him out the door.
2. Thaw for one week.
HADLEY
“Meemaw? Are you home?”
“I’m up here, darlin’,” she called out from a far and distant place I couldn’t immediately comprehend.
She spent most of her time in her study, reading the celebrity tabloids she loved, with the twenty-four-hour prayer line channel on the television in the background. She seemed to see no conflict between the two. She just happened to be every bit as entertained by the despair and brokenness in the lives of famous people as she was by con artists offering to pray on someone’s behalf in exchange for a modest donation and a promise of ongoing financial support.
But she wasn’t in her study. I set my handbag down in the foyer and locked the front door behind me. I stepped over stacks of records and magazines and picked up a couple of carryout food containers as I passed. I walked into the kitchen, which was the biggest travesty of all the travesties in her home. It was enormous. Gorgeous. A marvel of marble and stainless steel and perfectly situated islands (yes . . . plural). It looked like something straight out of Better Homes and Gardens. At least, it would, if the marble countertops weren’t hidden under stacks of papers and the islands didn’t serve as my grandmother’s makeshift office. And if all those shiny new stainless-steel appliances weren’t being wasted in the home of a woman who hadn’t cooked in thirty years.
A lot of chefs—especially the Southern ones—probably got their start in the family kitchen, testing out recipes passed down from generation to generation with more reverence applied to them than actual physical heirlooms. I hadn’t experienced any of that. At least not with her. My dad liked to cook, but he had been no master. We’d had fun together in the kitchen, and he had passed on some impressive skills with the barbecue grill, but that had pretty much been the extent of it. Well, apart from the hours and hours he and I spent watching cooking shows together.
My own mastery had actually come about because my grandmother preferred takeout. My mother was only occasionally around—and couldn’t hard-boil an egg when she was—and my dad was often working or, during the bookends of my life with him, incapacitated—either by bad choices or, later, the illness caused by those earlier bad choices. I’d learned out of desperation, and in the process, I’d discovered the great love of my life.
“Where are you?” I called out, once I had peeked into all of the rooms and come up empty.
“In the attic.”
The attic? She’d been living in the house in Belle Meade for five years, and my apartment was only ten miles away. I was at her house a lot. And yet I’d had no idea she had an attic.
I followed her voice, and it didn’t take me long to realize why I hadn’t been aware. It wasn’t really so much an attic as a glorified crawl space in which the previous owner had seen fit to lay carpeting. It stretched almost the length of the house and had to be accessed by a set of hidden stairs that you pulled down from the ceiling with a hook through a cord—as seen in many of the coolest movies and TV shows of my childhood. And the access was from a spare bedroom, which was only used for storage.
I crawled up there to join her and laughed at the sight. She was sitting on the floor, leaning against a tiny window—don’t ask me why I’d never questioned the location of that window from the outside—with her legs crossed in front of her. Bent over almost at the waist, I went and sat beside her.
“I didn’t know this was here,” I said, still laughing. “Do you come up here often?”
She shrugged. “Sometimes. It’s quiet.”
“You live alone, Meemaw.”
“I know, but this is a different type of quiet. Here, I’m choosing it.”
I pulled my knees up against my chest and spoke softly. “You okay?”
She laughed and brushed off my concern. “Of course I’m okay. Did you just get back into town?”
“A couple hours ago.”
“Good week of taping?”
I nodded. “I think so. I don’t know. Sometimes I bore myself, you know? I don’t understand why anyone would want to listen to me prattle on about food, or anything else.”
“It’s funny what entertains people, isn’t it?”
She didn’t intend to insult me, I knew. It just wasn’t in her nature to think about how her words might make someone feel before she said them. I think she thought she’d earned the right to not have to bother with stuff like that.
“The network sent me an enormous bouquet of flowers. They were waiting for me when I got home. That was nice, I thought.”
“What kind of flowers?”
“I don’t know. A mixture. There are some roses, for sure. Lilies, I think. Then there are some that look like tulips, but I’ve never seen tulips that color.” Flowers were always nice, but as little time as I spent at home, I couldn’t help but think I would have appreciated the gesture even more if they’d sent me some fresh herbs. Some rosemary or sage around the apartment would be lovely. “Oh, and they sent chocolates too.” Now that was useful.
My grandmother began laughing. Cackling, more like. It was an unsettling sound that transported me a little too quickly to thoughts of Margaret Hamilton threatening Judy Garland, and her little dog too.
“What?” I asked, more than a little worried that her cackling was caused by the thought of me trying to fit into my bridesmaid’s dress for my cousin Mandy’s wedding in two weeks, after I’d eaten a box of truffles.
“This is perfect!” She squealed in a way that didn’t at all help put my Wicked Witch trepidation to rest. “Was there a note?”
A note? What were we even talking about here? “You mean with the flowers and chocolates?”
“Yes.”
I looked at her in confusion. “Yes. I told you. It was from the network.”
“But did it say anything else?” she asked impatiently.
I guess I hadn’t paid too much attention to anything else. Once I knew the chocolates were from a trusted source and therefore could be ingested without fear of poison, it hadn’t really occurred to me that anything else mattered.
“Um . . . let’s see.” I closed my eyes and tried to picture the card in my mind. “It was pretty basic stuff, I think. Something like, ‘With affection from your grateful and devoted Culinary Channel family.’ Or something of that sort.”
She stood from her spot against the window and began pacing across the space—something she could get away with, with her tiny five-foot-nothin’ stature. I’d have been decapitated. “Grateful . . . grateful . . . yeah, okay,” she muttered. “Grateful in the long term? In the short term? Both, most likely. And devoted, did you say?”
She’d transformed from Margaret Hamilton to Nicolas Cage, trying to interpret the card—a less fragile, rose-scented stand-in for a treasure map on the back of the Declaration of Independence. My grandmother’s version of the Wicked Witch of the West somehow came across as less unhinged than her version of Nicolas Cage.
