Chapter Seven
Stacy bent from her waist and placed her hands, palms flat, on the mat. She squatted, then, in one swift move, vaulted her legs back to balance on the tips of her toes, her body weight all in her hands. She settled into the plank pose and tried to rid her mind of the chaos of last evening.
Once back in her room, her phone had started beeping every few minutes with texts from Carrie James relaying concerns, demands, and complaints from Jade Quartermaine. Stacy had thought the veteran producer would be able to handle the judge. Unfortunately, that hadn’t proven true and Stacy had been forced to extinguish several potential fires.
Incensed to discover the ranch was alcohol-free, Jade ordered Carrie to drive back into town to purchase a case of wine and bill it to EBS. Carrie refused and Jade exploded. The girl barely had enough time to text an SOS to Stacy before the diva began criticizing the inadequacy of the rooms she’d been provided. When Stacy arrived, she’d calmly explained the suite had been used by the late Mrs. Dixon and Amos had opened and refurbished it just for Jade.
This appeared to appease the woman for a few moments. The lack of alcohol was brought to the forefront next, and after that Jade then questioned the time schedule for filming, her wardrobe choices, the exclusive use of a makeup artist. Anything and everything, it seemed, that she could find to complain about, she did.
Two hours of listening, explaining, and cajoling later and Stacy’s headache had returned and morphed into a college marching-band drum line.
When she finally made it back to her room, she collapsed on her bed, fully clothed.
Her phone beeped within seconds with messages from the technical crew chiefs about the first day of shooting. She dealt with them all, barely able to keep her eyes open.
Right before falling asleep she remembered Stamp’s desire to change things for the next day, so she texted him.
Staggered didn’t begin to describe how she felt when she saw the emails he’d forwarded.
What was he up to? Was he trying to trip her up again, telling her what to expect the next day, and then—perhaps—planning to change it all without her knowing so she could look foolish in front of the crew? She wouldn’t put it past him.
Before finally getting into bed to actually sleep, she made several notes in her tablet, highlighting events and the times he’d given for them.
Now, Stacy inhaled, then lowered her body to the mat, keeping it in a straight, secure line, and bending her elbows out at her sides, in push-up position. Right before she exhaled and began to move into downward dog, she heard a familiar rustling behind her, something drop to the ground, and then a muffled, “Crap-on-a-stick!”
Slowly, Stacy rose to a flat-footed stance and took a breath.
“I’m sorry. Again.” Melora came through the trees, a rolled-up beach towel hugged to her chest, a plastic water bottle in her hand. Her spiky hair was held back from her face by a wide headband; a too-large black T-shirt that looked like it might fit her father slid off her shoulders. Black capri-length exercise pants hugged her skinny legs, and Stacy knew then what she’d only suspected: The girl had an issue with food. And from the tiny width of her skeletal calves and knobbiness of her knees, a big issue.
“I tried to get here earlier,” Melora said, flicking the towel out and spreading it on a flat batch of grass, “but since I don’t have my phone because I’m still being, like, persecuted for being bored and mouthy by he who rules the world, I had to rely on my mental powers to wake me up on time and they major failed. Then I had to, like, sneak out before his lordship woke up and grilled me like a steak about where I was going.”
She stopped and her bottom lip disappeared as she sucked it into her mouth. “I’m sorry.”
“Stop.” Stacy smiled. “I haven’t been here long myself, really; just getting started.”
Melora’s shoulders relaxed, one arm of the tee slipping down. She yanked it back in place only to have the opposite shoulder fall in response.
“Do you know any poses?” Stacy asked.
“Zippity-zilch.”
“Okay, then. Let’s start with some easy ones.”
“Before we do, can I, like, say something to you?”
“Anything.”
“About yesterday? When Nikko went nuclear?”
Stacy waited.
“I just wanted to say, to tell you... well...” She hung her head, then lifted her gaze back to Stacy and nodded as if fortifying herself. “I, like, lied to you. About him saying it was cool to go. He didn’t. I never got a chance to ask him before we had to leave.”
“I realized that when we got back.”
“I’m so, so, so, sorry he went apeshit. Really. Nikko’s a ‘scream now, ask for deets’ later kinda guy.”
Stacy kept it to herself she’d figured that out too.
“I just wanted to get out of here, you know? Even for a little while. I was hoping he wouldn’t notice I was gone.”
“No chance of that, apparently.”
With a headshake, she said, “Zero. I did tell him that I lied to you.”
“Really? Wow.”
“Yeah, well, don’t be too impressed. I did it because he made me boil, thinking you were to blame. I was getting punished anyway, but I wanted things to be cool between the two of you.”
No chance of that happening. Ever.
“Anyway,” the girl said, “I’m sorry. For like, everything.”
Because Stacy remembered so well what it was like to be a teenager, she smiled. “Not even a thought. Now, come on. Let me show you how this is done.”
For the next several minutes, Stacy took the girl through a simple sun salutation, going slowly, and explaining how and when to breathe through each move.
Melora was a quick and astute student.
“And then,” Stacy instructed, “move out of downward-facing dog into a final savasana. Raise your arms above your head slowly, bringing your palms together, drop your head back, and gaze up at your joined thumbs. Breathe, and bring your touching hands down to center.”
With a side-glance, she monitored Melora’s progress.
“Breathe. Bow. And that’s it. Your first sun salutation. Great job.”
The free and open smile on Melora’s face touched her heart.
“Intense!”
Stacy laughed. After a quick glance at the clock on her phone, she began rolling up her mat, Melora mimicking her movements with the towel. “It should be. Especially if you do it right.”
“Can we do this, like, again? Tomorrow? I promise I’ll find a way to get here on time.”
“Of course. Every day you practice, you get better and more comfortable with the movements, with knowing the progression of what comes next. When you feel up to it, we can do a full meditation at the end. That’s my favorite part.”
Together, they walked through the tree line and out onto the road.
“Why?”
Stacy considered how to explain what she considered such an important part of her life.
“It clears my mind,” she said at last. “There’s so much going on in here”—she tapped her temple with her index finger—“most of the time, and I’m so busy with a million things running at once, that just letting it all go and being quiet and still and calm is an amazing process. It took me a long time before I was able to do it properly.”
“Like, what do you mean, properly? Don’t you just sit, close your eyes, and, like, breathe?”
Stacy grinned. “I used to think it was that easy. Until I had to do it. The person I studied with told me to simply free my mind of all thoughts. To focus on breathing in and out. Five seconds in and I’d be thinking of what I wanted to have for lunch, or did I remember to hand in my math homework? How many calories were in the bag of chips I had last night? Did I look like a total alien in the new eyeliner I bought?”
Melora giggled, the sound echoing along the quiet walkway.
“It took me about three months before I got it, and was just able to…be. No thoughts, no internal chatter, no unending noise. Just…quiet.”
She turned and was surprised to see Melora’s cheerful mien had shifted. Gone was the easy and childlike smile, replaced now by lips pressed tight together in a flat line. Stacy stopped and reached out a hand.
“Melora, what’s wrong? Did I say something to upset you?”
With the towel hugged against her slight frame, Melora shook her head. “No. It’s just…”
“Sweetie, what?”
The teen’s head shot up, tears pooling in the corners of her eyes. “My mom used to call me that.”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”
“No. Please.” She wrapped her hand around Stacy’s arm. “I—I don’t mind. I liked it. It made me think of her before she, you know…died.”
Through countless counseling sessions and years of personal introspection and professional therapy, Stacy had come to learn sometimes the best response in any emotional situation was to stay silent.
She reached her other hand up and placed it over the one on her arm.
“Sorry to make like a fountain.” Melora swiped at her dripping nose with the back of her free hand. “When you said meditating helped you find, like, quiet?”
“Yes?”
“Do you, I mean, would you…do you think I could learn that? Learn to quiet all the”—she swiped her hand in the air—“crap and stuff? Do you think I might be able to learn how to do that?”
“I know you could.”
“Would you—?” She bit down on her bottom lip. “I mean, could you, like…teach me?”
Stacy had it on the tip of her tongue to say no, she was too busy, she didn’t have enough time to instruct Melora in the ways and nuances of deep meditation. Now that the show was ready to begin filming, her free time would be almost nil, and teaching such an involved process to a teenager wasn’t how she wanted to spend her downtime.
One look at Melora’s troubled face, though, and a rush of familiarity in her childlike expression sluiced through Stacy, and she experienced a stab of kinship so intense that she found herself acquiescing before she could pull the words back in.
They parted when the path did the same, one fork leading back to the main house, the other to the cabin.
A quick shower, dressed comfortably, and sans her contact lenses because she knew what a long day it was going to be, and Stacy trotted down to the barn that housed the set kitchen, sending off a text as she did.
A makeshift photographer’s studio was set up in one of the refurbished kitchen rooms, several of the chefs, clad in their newly fitted white jackets with the show’s logo stitched over the left breast pocket, waiting to get their head shots.
Stacy had liked the logo—a steer stomping on a fork—the first time she’d seen it, secretly rooting for the steer.
Clay Burbank was seated on a stool, his background a baker’s rack filled with pots and pans. Armed with her ever-present notebook, she flipped open to the photography schedule, saw what time Riley was listed, and knew there were six chefs left after him to have their studio shots taken before they were all due in the set kitchen for their introductions and first official challenge.
Stacy questioned the few producers who were present and was assured everything was running smoothly. Just as she was leaving the area, Riley MacNeill came through the door.
“Right on time.”
He smiled at her. He really was a good-looking boy with high, arched cheekbones and deep-set eyes that for some reason she thought missed nothing. In a few years, with some age-related weight and muscle, he would be the total package of a sexy chef.
“I packed it in early like you suggested,” he told her.
“Good. You’ve got a busy day in front of you and on a fast-paced show like this it pays to be well rested. Keeps you sharp mentally and physically.”
“Yeah, Clay said the same thing.”
Stacy nodded. “He’s been through a few of these competitions, so he knows.”
Her name was called over the walkie-talkie, and with a quick squeeze to Riley’s shoulder, she told him, “See you later,” while she moved through the set and answered the call.
* * * *
Nikko took a moment to inspect the set kitchen and the camera placements from the production truck he was going to be calling home for the next few weeks.
Nine flat television screens were situated on one side, cued to various areas of the kitchen, which would stream continuous feeds of the chefs throughout the challenge. There wasn’t an inch of the kitchen that couldn’t be viewed from one—or more—of the cameras. Four techs would use body cameras to film up close and during the tasting portions of the challenge with the two judges.
The editing process would, as always, be tedious, culling from each camera the best shot to film the story of the competition.
His attention was diverted when Stacy moved into one of the camera shots to speak with a crew member. The sound wasn’t on, so all he could do was watch.
As he’d noticed the night before, she wore glasses today, her hair pulled back into a tiny ponytail at her neck, making her look no older than his daughter. She had a communication headset secured around her head, the microphone pointed downward as she spoke. Her ever-present notebook was crooked in one arm, a walkie-talkie secured to a waist harness.
The director in him noticed the way she gave her total attention to the man speaking, nodding at intervals, cocking her head as if questioning something. She didn’t interrupt or speak until he was finished, something Nikko found fascinating, since so many people he dealt with day to day had a habit of doing just the opposite.
He still had trouble believing she was close to thirty. Skin unlined and clear, again reminding him of someone his daughter’s age, glowed with health. She was thin, but not in a sickly way, more along the lines of someone who took care of her body. Once again, she was garbed in trousers, not jeans, as was the rest of the production team, himself included, and a long-sleeved blue blouse that shimmered under the studio lights. Silk.
Would her skin be as soft as the material? With a jolt, he realized he wanted to discover for himself just how soft she was under her clothes.
In all, Stacy Peters looked professional, primed, and prepared for production to begin.
The memory of how she’d smelled like vanilla, warm, sweet, and soothing, ran through him when her smiled broadened and her nose wrinkled, laughing with the tech. She reached a hand up, squeezed his shoulder, and nodded.
When she turned to move from the frame, the pensive scrutiny in the tech’s eyes trailing her sent a hot slice of inexplicable irritation through him.
Like a moving slide show, her image walked from television to television, each camera tracking her movement across the kitchen. She walked with purpose, her strides long and determined.
He shouldn’t be remembering the scent she wore, shouldn’t be fantasizing about how soft her skin might be. And he certainly shouldn’t be annoyed another man looked at her with thoughtful lust in his eyes.
He had a show to run. A career to get back on track. A daughter to keep a close and watchful eye on.
Why, then, did this woman, one he didn’t professionally or personally need, want or care about, keep worming her way into his thoughts?
When Stacy finally moved out of the camera’s range, Nikko shook his head.