Dining with Joy (14 page)

“Bé-cha-mel.” She fluttered her hands out to her sides like the end of a jazz routine. What's that move called? Jazz hands? “Bé-cha-mel!”

“Cut.” Ryan intercomed, his voice echoing in the silent chambers of the studio.

Then the crew burst out, Joy walked among them, slapping high-fives, reliving her song and snap-step move. Allison approached the stove as Luke stirred the meat. Sharon swooped in from the prep kitchen with a simmering pan of thick, white béchamel.

“Perfect, Luke. You're relaxing. Let the chemistry between you two do its thing, okay?”

“She makes it easy.”

“And we're taking it to the bank. Now have fun.”

“Luke, Joy, we're back in thirty seconds,” Ryan directed. “Pick up with adding the béchamel to the meat and walk the viewers through the recipe. Sharon, is the baked lasagna camera-ready? Make sure the noodles are Vaselined well this time. Nice song, Joy.”

Luke peered at her as she stood for a makeup retouch. She could've left him hanging, watched him timber flat on his face and by this time next week have her show back.

Luke would be at the Frogmore Café asking Andy for more hours. Or calling Red for a loan. As if he didn't owe the man enough already.

As of today, he knew what he had to do. Learn to love the camera. This show was his future, his way back to the world he loved. And he'd be darned if he'd ride there on Joy's coattails.

“Thank you,” he said low, when she returned to the set, bubbling underneath from her routine. “But you won't have to do that for me again. I'm going to get this down, Joy.”

“Don't worry about it, cowboy.” She hip-checked him and reached for a bit of beef. “Who knows, you might be able to do the same for me sometime.”

Awake at midnight, Joy kicked off her covers. Her corner room was always hot around this time in August. No matter how low Mama ran the air.

Kicking free from her sheet, Joy crossed the creaking hardwood to the rolltop desk she'd inherited from her granny, pausing at the window. The moon's glow lit a path from the porch to the black edge of the creek, a pearly runner over Mama's textured lawn.

Since going to Common Ground with Luke, Joy struggled to define her passions. At twenty-nine, she didn't know what she wanted to be or how long she had before it was too late.
Oh, we're sorry, you've hit thirty . . . tick, tock, the game is locked . . . cooking show host the rest of your life
.

She'd be a cooking show host the rest of her life if she believed it was what she was really called to do.

What was the will of the One who sent her? Who created her.
God, show me Your will
.

Tugging open the bottom desk drawer, she peered at the deserted notebooks and journals. There could be worse fates than hosting
Dining with Joy
. She supposed she could just quit the show and be done with the charade, but the infernal question, “Then what?” rattled around her soul. Editing? Writing? How could she get those doors to swing open like the hosting door?

The truth was, she liked hosting. And last season she'd discovered her flair for producing. She liked being behind-the-scenes without the spotlight of the lie blaring down on her. Producing made an honest woman out of her.

Joy slipped one of the journals from the drawer and thumbed through the pages. It was from the year she took over the show.

Joy flipped through another journal. The entries were from the summer she attempted a novel, asking Heath McCord stealth questions at Luther's one night until he finally said, “What's going on, Joy?”

Eric McAllister wanted a wife. Yet between his friends, doting sisters, and a career in law, he didn't know he wanted a wife. Or even needed a wife in his rather full, complete days. That is, until he met Jane Darling, a striking woman with sapphire eyes and hair the color of honey
.

Joy slammed the book shut. Drivel. A sad attempt at a Jane Austen knock-off. She reached for the next book, a journal with a thin leather tie. Joy fanned the pages, stopping near the end, where she'd written a verse and drawn copious circles around it.

“My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me.” John 4:34
“Aunt Joy?” Annie-Rae stood in the doorway, small and pale in the moon's light.

“What are you doing up?” Joy hugged the journal to her chest and crawled back in bed, patting the sheets as an invitation to Annie. “Bad dreams again?”

The girl burrowed under the covers. “Lyric yelled at me when I tried to sleep in her bed.”

“Don't mind her. She's mad at the world right now.” Joy tucked the covers around Annie-Rae's narrow shoulders and curled up next to her. “Hey, Annie, does Siri's brother like Lyric?”

“Parker.
Blech.
Lyric likes him.”

“But does he like her?” Joy stretched her legs under the sheet, tucking her notebook under her pillow.

“Not if he's smart.”

Joy laughed. “So, tell me, what was this dream of yours? Maybe it's not so scary.”

“I can't remember.” Annie-Rae yawned. “Dark stuff.”

“Now that is a scary dream.” Asleep or awake. “Want to sing a song?”

“Like what?” Annie-Rae snuggled her backside into Joy's hip. “I like ‘Jesus Loves Me.'”

“Always a crowd-pleaser. You start.”

Annie's sweet, high voice invoked instant peace.

Jesus loves me, this I know for the Bible tells me so
.

Joy drank in the words, sipped on the melody. Why did she keep forgetting this? Jesus loved her. At the end of it all, wasn't His love enough?

Saturday afternoon, as Luke seared a couple of steaks on the grill, Andy dropped a tub of fish on the prep counter and took up his filet knife.

“How's the show treating you? Customers are always asking after you round here.”

“The show's good, I think. Still learning, feeling dull and stupid.”

“Next to Joy, anyone would feel dull and stupid. The girl sure does shine, don't she?” Wrapped in a back brace, Andy tossed a cleaned catfish into a second tub. Luke had learned to fish along the shores of Brock and Lightning Creek with some of the best fishermen in central Oklahoma. But he'd never seen anyone clean and prep a fish as fast as Andy.

“Like the north star. Coming in here Saturday is my therapy. Reminds me I'm competing at something.”

“The kitchen gets under your skin, don't it? Something always going on. Knowing we feed folks and make them smile with the dishes we cook up.” Andy's baritone chuckle rumbled through his gallon-drum chest. “Well, Luke, ain't seen you in church since you started the show.”

“I've been spending the last few Sundays preparing for Monday. Takes me awhile to get the script down. I work on my recipe, prep it in Miss Jeanne's kitchen. But I'll be back this week.” Luke checked the order ticket for the temperature of the steak. Medium rare. “When I came down here, hired on with you, I promised myself I'd keep God first in my life. Why are good intentions so hard to keep?”

“Our spirits are willing but our flesh is weak, according to Jesus. We need to fight the good fight. Be vigilant. Become warriors. Listen to what the Spirit is saying.” Andy tossed aside the tub, empty, a dozen filets cleaned and ready for his marinade.

“I'll be there Sunday, Andy.” Luke pulled the steaks to let them rest. “I hear what you're telling me.” For his first seven years in the city, Luke rode the long black train of ambition, living for himself, working to get ahead. But now that he had a chance to start over, he wanted to live differently. Change his priorities. “Tell you what, Andy.” Luke grinned over his shoulder at his boss. “I'll be at church on Sunday, but when are you going to give me the secret to your marinade?”

Andy tossed another fish into the tub. “You're going to have to be in church a lot of Sundays before I give you my marinade secrets.”

He soaked the filets in a dark, oily, aromatic sauce. Luke guessed he used teriyaki and Worcestershire, ginger, and garlic, but there was a scent he didn't recognize. Yet.

“Well, now that you've been on the show a few weeks, Luke, have you figured her out yet?”

“Joy? Some.” Beautiful and sexy, with a subtle vulnerability that made a man want to wrap her in his arms. But she was also selfassured, like she could knock that same man down a few pegs if need be. Luke stirred a handful of shiitake mushrooms in a skillet of melted butter and sizzling garlic.

“Mercy Bea said you fell for her in about sixty seconds.”

“Mercy Bea likes to tell stories.” Two more tickets came to the window. Luke turned to Russell, working prep. “Russ, two pot roast casseroles.”

“But you don't know?” Andy rinsed his knife, then picked up another catfish. “About Joy?”

“Know what?” Luke pulled the steaks from the grill.

“Russell, he don't know.” Andy sliced with the knife and added the fish to the tub.

“Know what?” Luke repeated siding the meat with fried green beans, mashed potatoes, and mushrooms.

“You
must
be in love,” Andy said as he worked on another filet.

“Love? Come on, there's no love in this equation. My eyes are wide-open.”

“Brother, look here at me.” Andy motioned to his big brown eyes. “How long you been on the show? Three, four weeks?”

“Four.”

“This show where you cook food?”

“Yeah, we cook food.” What was his point?

“You're in love.” Andy's declaration drifted through the kitchen.

“No other reason. Looks like Mercy Bea's not the only storyteller round here. Russell, can you believe he don't know?”

“Serious?” Russell turned from the convection oven. “Luke, you really don't know?”

“Know what? And can I ask how you two know this secret?”

“Joy did a stint right here in this kitchen.”

“She worked at the Frogmore? As a cook?” Luke set the steak plates under the heat lamps. “Table nine up.”

“She worked here, yes.” Andy tossed two more catfish in with the others. “But not as a cook.” He glared over his shoulder at Luke.

“Okay, then what do I need to know?” Luke tossed the sauté pan into the sink. “She was married? She
is
married? She used to be a man?”

Andy's gorilla-size laugh consumed him. Russell burst through the screen door, snorting, gasping.

“Is that it? She used to be a man?” How did he get in on this joke? He'd kissed her . . . him. Her. Yes, definitely a her.

Mercy Bea appeared at the window. “Luke, sugar, someone's here to see you.”

“Mercy, is there something about Joy I need to know?” He motioned toward the snickering Andy and Russell.

Mercy's expression soured. “Knock if off, you two boll weevils. Joy's our friend. Let Luke find out what he needs to on his own.”

“Why do I feel like I have a big Kick Me sign stuck to my back?” Luke paused at the swinging doors.

“Because you're paranoid. Hush up, Andy and Russell.” Mercy Bea escorted Luke through the doors. “Go on, you got company.”

The café was quiet except for the hushed conversation of a few tanned tourists. Luke scanned the tables for his visitor, holding up when he spotted the visitor in the back booth. Red.

“What brings you here?” Luke slid into the booth across from his lean and wiry father, leathered from decades in the Oklahoma wind and sun.

“Don't you serve a man a cup of coffee in this place?”

“We do.” Luke got Mercy's attention. “Coffee, please. Black and hot.”

“Seems like a nice place.”

“It is. Red, did you drive all the way here?” Red rarely traveled. Never been on a plane. Never driven west of Colorado, south of Texas, east of Arkansas.

“Well, I didn't walk.” Red nodded at Mercy Bea when she set down his coffee with a bowl of creamers and a basket of Bubba's buttery biscuits.

“Who's tending the ranch?”

“Sam and Nick.” Red scooted his coffee forward after one sip. He had something on his mind.

“I guess it's been awhile since we've seen each other?”

“Two years and three months.” Red unsnapped his shirt pocket and pulled a paper across the table with his sun-dried hand. “Got this in the mail though. A few days ago.”

“Red, I—” The check. For a thousand dollars. “I want to pay you back.”

“So you send me a thousand dollars? How about a phone call?

An e-mail. I got online because you told me it was the best way to keep in touch.”

“Yeah, when I ran Ami's.”

“So now what's your excuse?”

Luke eased against the leatherette booth, regarding his dad.

“You drove all the way from Oklahoma to bust my chops about not e-mailing? To challenge a measly check?” He flicked the paper across the table. “Take this. I'll pay more as I can.”

“So suddenly you've come into riches?” Red fiddled with the check like he might tear it in two.

“I'm cohosting a cooking show on TV.
Dining with Joy
. Just got my first paycheck. I'll add to it each time, but I'm saving up to pay off my friend Linus too.”

“You're on television now? Well, which network? I'd like to watch. CBS, ABC, NBC?”

“None of the above.” Luke smiled. He missed Red's simplicity. His
own
simplicity. “The show's on a cable network called TruReality.”

“So it's not going to be on CBS, ABC, or NBC?” In the café's soft gold light, Red looked old and tired, as if he'd wrangled down every one of his seventy-five years. Born twenty years into his parents' marriage, Luke had always considered Red an old man.

“No, we're not going to be on the old favorite networks. Take that thousand I sent you, go into town with Sam, and tell him to help you pick out a high-definition television, then call the cable company. They'll set you up. With the payback money, you'll afford it just fine.
Dining with Joy
will be on Thursday nights this fall. Eight o'clock. Seven central.”