Less than a minute later, Emmett came through the Green Room door, brushing right past Mare. At the sight of him she began to sidle out of the room.
He saw her out of the corner of his eye. “Mare! Thanks for getting Nonni the releases.”
“I don’t understand how you can still work with him, Em. And drag this gal into it.” Mare was scowling and shaking her head.
Emmet set his packages on the counter. “We owe it to Pilar.”
“Don’t hand me this ‘we’ crap. How sick is it if she’s not here to enjoy the triumph won with her dishes?”
“We don’t know for sure that she won’t turn up before taping.”
Mare held up her hand. “I don’t have time to go into this with you right now.” She looked at me and said, “Good luck. You’re gonna need it.” Then she was gone.
“If everyone thinks I’m incapable of handling this,” I said as huffily as I felt, “why keep me on?”
“We all want to find Pilar. I’m too visible, too suspect, to be of real use. We need you to poke around and uncover the truth.”
In the back of my mind, I wondered if suspect might be the perfect word for Emmett. It had been his idea to step in as first assistant. How’d he put it? “Like back in the old days.” Did he maybe think he wasn’t visible enough?
* * * *
A couple hours later I had my first lesson in the chef’s kitchen: how to scrub my hands until they were raw and cram all my hair up under a hideous cap. The trouble began when they tried to teach me the difference between a utensil and a serving piece. If only the contest could be about the variable microwave warming times of say, frozen entrees versus leftover lo mein…
“I’ve already removed the entrails, glands, the head, and the tail.” Chef Clyde’s face was as red as the carcass on the counter. “I don’t understand why you won’t look at the ’possum. How do you expect to pass yourself off as my assistant if you won’t even look at it?”
Pissed, the chef charged out of the room. Emmett gave me a look of sympathy and then followed.
With my lessons apparently over, I wandered over to some nearby shelves with cookbooks, awards, and framed photographs, including several pictures of Pilar and of Pilar’s culinary school roommate. Denise wore a chef’s hat and was holding up a trophy, posing with Chef Clyde in what looked like a studio kitchen. Why hadn’t she mentioned she did the same job as Pilar? Was being an insider the reason she knew the chef was guilty?
* * * *
The next morning, I went to the studio early, hoping to get comfortable enough with the set that I wouldn’t screw up later during rehearsal. I approached the door to the dark lobby of the studio. The security guard and his desk, however, were lit like the display window of an anchor store at the mall. He kept his head down even as I popped off my last acrylic nail jerking on the door handle. I rapped on the glass with my car keys, and he let me in.
“The morning crew hasn’t come in yet,” he said as he returned to his seat and the electronic game he obviously found so enthralling. “They usually don’t turn on the lights until seven.”
“That’s okay,” I said, “I just wanted to get more familiar with the equipment before…”