Topped Chef(76)

He paused dramatically. “Randy Thompson, I’m afraid you are going to have to stand over here….”

Randy’s face fell.

“In the semifinalists’ circle!”

The audience clapped and cheered and Randy burst into a huge grin and moved closer to Peter.

“Chef Buddy Higgs,” said Peter, waving for silence. “I hate to say this”—he took a deep breath—“but we’d like you join him!”

Now Buddy smiled and waved at the audience as he moved closer to Randy.

“Let’s hear it from the audience for our third contestant,” said Peter. “Chef Henrietta Stentzel, thank you for coming and we wish you all the luck in the world in your cooking future!”

There was a polite smattering of applause as she disappeared back into the pantry, her eyes moist and shoulders slumped. I felt instantly sorry for her, even though it seemed like the right decision.

“Now is the time we hear from you!” Peter said to the audience, his voice hoarse with excitement. “Who do you want in your living rooms for the next TV season? Randy Thompson?”

Quite a few viewers stomped and whistled.

“Or Buddy Higgs?”

The crowd erupted.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Peter shouted over the din, “I bring you our Topped Chef Key West!”

The music amped up, the viewers cheered, and Buddy waded into the audience to shake hands with the men, hug the women, and accept congratulations. A tall, heavyset man in the back row leaped to his feet and rushed forward.

“This is a setup!” he yelled. “You had a ringer chosen all along! You cheatin’, lying bugger—” As he neared Peter,two security guards tackled him and flung him to the ground.

I spun around on my stool, looking for Deena, dumbfounded at how quickly this had happened. In the shadows of the pantry, Henri removed her toque and her coat. She folded it into fastidious quarters and then draped it over her arm. Randy barreled up to Peter and began to argue. On his face I could read the depth of his disappointment. And anger.

“This was fixed from the beginning.” He spat out the words.

“Shall I call security again, once they take care of your friend?” Peter asked.





25


We don’t just know how to play. We’re not electrocuting bunnies in our lab coats. We’re part of something beautiful: cooking.

—Wylie Dufresne



I retreated to the office to regroup for an hour before the Duval Uncorked event started, and to begin making notes for my Topped Chef article. Saturday afternoon—neither Danielle nor Wally should be there—the place would be quiet and dim. And I would not be tempted to chat with Miss Gloria or bake something tasty.

My shoulders felt like concrete blocks and the heavy-metal pounding of a major headache had kicked in. I changed my clothes, then nicked a few of Danielle’s Motrin, swallowed them down with a bottle of spring water from the fridge, and went to curl up on the wicker loveseat in Wally’s office. I closed my eyes and tried to breathe out the cables of tension racking my body, calmed by the scent of Wally’s citrus aftershave wafting from the tropical upholstery.

As I mulled over this morning’s event, my irritation with the Topped Chef contest crested. After Buddy’s abrupt coronation, I’d tried to speak with Deena to register my concerns. The judges hadn’t really had a reasonable opportunity to debate the outcome, in my opinion. Nor had there been an accounting of accumulated scores from the other cooking events.

But Deena was ebullient about the results and resistant to my complaints. After all, the final episode had gone off without any hiccups. No one had died or been poisoned or dropped to the floor with convulsions. And the chef with the most interesting food had come out on top.

But as Randy and his friend had suggested, now I suspected the contest had been rigged from the start. And despite how much I loved and trusted Deena, the producer’s insistence on stirring up rancor between the contestants bothered me. I wasn’t cut out for reality television, that much was clear.

Finally, it occurred to me to wonder again why I had been chosen as a judge. Yes, I was food critic for Key Zest magazine. But I was not well known, not yet. Why not ask one of the well-published food writers who’d worked for years for the Key West Citizen? And why had I been asked to join the panel so late? I realized that all three of the other judges had been tapped weeks before me. Why?

Peter and Deena would know the answer to that. But Deena was the only person who might tell me the truth. I dialed her cell phone.

“Deena, it’s Hayley. I bet you’re glad the week is over.”

“Glad because I’m bushed. Sad because I love the stuff,” said Deena. “Thanks for being a good sport and coming along for the ride.”