Chapter 16
More from the Guppy Gabber, Thursday:
Ariana: I don’t think Jen ever loved Justin. She wanted him because I liked him, and now that I’m with Dominic, she’s tossed Justin aside like garbage so she can once again take my man from me.
Jen, Noon: I don’t want to talk about Justin and Ariana right now. Today’s the day. I’m going to get Tammy Rae’s recipe for Sweet Reality or die trying. Preferably the first one. Wish me luck.
Ah, “reality” television. Where you flat-out lie about how incredible you’re feeling until someone starts to believe you. Preferably yourself, but if I could get ten thousand people out in TV Land to think I felt good about my chances of success with Tammy Rae, maybe I’d feel better myself.
After the utter failure of every single thing I tried to do all week, the thought of trying to wheedle a secret out of a near stranger who probably thought I stood her up the night before didn’t exactly fill me with excitement.
Even if things with Justin weren’t weird, after missing my chance to bond with Tammy Rae on Tuesday night, she might not appreciate me tracking her down on the rum factory tour. I prayed I’d catch up with her before her, um, exuberance over the rum made conversation difficult. Alternatively, I hoped she’d be so drunk she’d spill the entire recipe and not remember.
On the docks, the tour bus had long since left, so I caught a taxi to take me to the factory. Ed and Rachel stood at the end of a line that snaked its way around the parking lot and into the building. I ran to catch up to them.
“There you are!” Rachel said. “Ed filled me in on your day yesterday. What the hell happened this morning? Why did you come to the room instead of grabbing breakfast with Justin?”
“Ariana happened,” I said glumly.
“Oh yeah?” She pulled out her phone and tapped a few times, then turned the screen to face me. My image filled the small device, but I wasn’t alone. Dominic’s lips firmly pressed against mine. Freaking Ty. After getting me high, the least he could’ve done was not sell the picture.
Unless that was why he got me high. I swallowed a scream of frustration and kicked the ground. Stubbing my toe didn’t make me feel any better. “It’s not what you think.”
“It’s not? Enlighten me.”
Briefly, I explained about the brownies, the unexpected lip attack, and the slap, none of which had naturally been captured on film. “Do you think Justin saw that?”
Ed nodded. “It’s all over the pier, and someone passed it around our bus on the way here. I’m surprised you didn’t see it yourself.”
“Wait. He’s here? I need to find him.” Then I remembered Ariana answering the door in his room. Maybe it was too late already. Before he saw the picture, Justin apparently decided he didn’t care whether I stayed in Jamaica.
Rachel shook her head. “He and Ariana took off a few minutes we arrived. I don’t know where they went, but she didn’t look right. Stumbling around like she was already drunk.”
Of course. Pain slashed through me. I stared at the ground, willing myself not to cry, but the ground in front of me blurred. What a mess. Somehow, I’d ruined everything, and I didn’t understand how.
Rachel wrapped her arms around me, and I buried my face in her shoulder, not caring at all about the cameras or the other people in line. Behind her, Ed cracked jokes at the crowd. “She heard a rumor they’re out of rum. It’s all good.”
Their concern touched my heart, gave me what I needed to pull myself together. Sniffling, I wiped my face on the tissues I’d wisely stuffed into my bag before leaving my cabin.
“Are you okay?” Ed asked.
Rachel said, “You can go back to the ship if you want. We won’t mind.”
“I love you guys for offering, but I have to find Tammy Rae and explain why I didn’t meet her last night. We were supposed to talk about her recipe for Sweet Reality, and I need to find her before she changes her mind.”
A few minutes later, we reached the front of the line and entered the building. I spotted Tammy Rae’s long blond hair disappearing into one of the tasting rooms a few feet away. With quick hugs and thanks to Ed and Rachel, I took off after her.
At first, I smiled and stood near Tammy Rae, not talking so she could listen to the tour. When she spotted me, she pursed her lips and looked away. My heart sank.
Still, I needed to keep trying. When we got to the tasting room at the end, I pulled up a seat.
“I’m so sorry I couldn’t find you last night,” I began.
She waved one hand. “I’m over it. At first, I thought, maybe you didn’t want the recipe after all.”
“No, I absolutely want it! I missed the final catamaran in Jamaica.”
“Really.” She tilted her head at me. “Wow. That’s dumb. Really dumb. So dumb, it’s not quite believable. Weren’t you the brains of your season?”
“Smart people do dumb things all the time,” I said. “But this wasn’t my fault.”
Briefly, I explained what happened. By the time I finished my story, she looked a fraction less hostile. I sipped my rum, hoping she’d do the same and feel more gracious toward me.
Ugh. The liquid burned down my throat. Even “good” rum made me want to puke. But I’d have this conversation while snorting rum if that’s what Tammy Rae wanted. I needed her help, especially after yesterday. By sheer willpower, I avoided hacking up a lung while Tammy closed her eyes and sipped from her mug, apparently near ecstasy.
She emptied half the glass before acknowledging me again. “You’re lucky to catch up to us.”
Not wanting to explain my deal with Leanna, I nodded and sipped from my glass again.
“If you’re going to use my secret ingredient, I want everyone to know it,” she said. “You have to attach my face.”
“You want us to draw your face in icing on each cupcake?” Sarah was a talented baker, and all our baked goods looked pretty, but I didn’t know about her portrait skills.
“It doesn’t have to be on the cupcake.” She rolled her eyes at me. “Create a display with my name and a promo shot from the show. Preferably the episode where I won. Then, I want a royalty on all the profits from those cupcakes. Fifty percent.”
Half? She wanted half what we made on the cupcakes for telling us one measly ingredient? She wasn’t giving up the whole recipe! Besides, what if it turned out to be a “secret” ingredient like the brownies I got in Jamaica were a “special” recipe? Sarah would kill me if I gave up so much of our profits without knowing what we’d be getting in return.
I swallowed, searching for a diplomatic response. “I’ll have to speak with my partner before I can agree to that.”
“Go. Call her.”
“She’s in Miami. It would cost me ten dollars a minute to call her from Grand Cayman. When we get to wi-fi, I’ll send her a message. But maybe we can reach an agreement on our own. What if I give you a thousand dollars right now for the secret ingredient? You tell me what it is, and we’ll work out the percentages on our own.”
Paying off former child stars wasn’t in the bakery’s budget, but I had some money left from The Fishbowl, and I’d be getting a per diem from the show for this week. Thirty bucks a day covered almost a quarter of what I offered her. I could afford to match what Sarah and I originally agreed to pay her. If the cupcakes turned out half as well as we hoped, we’d make a profit soon enough.
She tapped her chin with one long, electric blue fingernail. “You’ll have to sign something promising never to tell anyone what it is.”
“As will you,” I said, pulling a piece of paper out of my back pocket. “We can’t pay you for a secret ingredient if you’re going to turn around and sell the recipe to Betty Crocker.”
This move was pure bluff on my part. According to Justin, the Network actually owned all recipes created on their cooking shows. That’s why we weren’t asking for the entire thing: Tammy Rae needed the producers’ consent to sell her award-winning cupcake recipe. Our goal was to get the secret ingredient, come up with something similar enough to the cupcake currently secured in my cabin’s refrigerator, and market it at as “inspired by Tammy Rae’s Totally ’80s Bake-off winning cupcakes.” We had zero legal right to interfere with the Network’s selling it to third parties, so this contract basically meant nothing. Not that Tammy Rae needed to know that.
“You brought a contract?”
I shrugged. “My boyfriend’s a lawyer. Or he will be, once he gets his bar exam results on Friday.”
Ex-boyfriend, my traitorous brain piped up. I couldn’t believe things might be over, not when we’d been on the brink of getting engaged. We had to work things out, right? Except, after what I saw this morning and Justin’s “we need to talk” text, I didn’t see how making up could be possible. I’d never felt so alone.
“What’s wrong?”
If she’d responded with derision or continued talking about how stupid it was to go into business with a friend, I probably could’ve pulled myself together. But she tilted her head at me, her blue eyes searching mine. Tears prickled my eyelids, and I looked away, blinking furiously. Tammy Rae couldn’t see me cry. She seemed more the type to accuse me of emotional blackmail than to say anything helpful. I’d lose all the ground I’d gained with her, and I could kiss my chances of getting the recipe good-bye. Just like the man I loved. Oh, no.
When I didn’t respond to Tammy Rae’s question, she leaned forward and put one hand on my shoulder, like my mom used to do when I was in high school. “Jen? Is everything all right?”
Her sympathy undid my composure. I let out a wail and buried my head in her shoulder. “I think we broke up!”
She signaled a waiter over my head, and a second later, two drinks appeared as if by magic. “Oh, honey. Tell me everything.”
The entire story spilled out: Ariana’s original quest for Justin, which Tammy Rae had watched on the show; bringing my ex as her “date” purely to drive a wedge between us; getting stranded with Dom in Jamaica; finding Ariana in Justin’s room when I got back, and the worst part: that stupid, horrible, fraction of a second kiss I hadn’t initiated or responded to.
When I finished, Tammy Rae leaned back and shut her eyes, saying nothing. Great. On top of everything else, now she thought I was some whiny lunatic.
“I’m sorry to hear you and Justin are having problems,” Tammy Rae said. “Do you remember what I said to you the other day?”
“I know, I know, I’m an idiot for going into business with my boyfriend’s sister. Especially without a ring on my finger. But we have a contract. And once I give Sarah your recipe, I’m hoping she’ll forgive me. She still needs my help. For one thing, she can’t afford to buy me out yet. But also, she doesn’t know anything about marketing or bringing in customers or branding. She needs me for marketing.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Tammy Rae said.
For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what she was talking about. “You want to throw in an autographed picture for my mom? Or should I buy your CD?”
She reached over and whacked the side of my head with one hand. “Are you drunk? I’m talking about our conversation on Tuesday, while zip-lining.”
I wracked my brain through the haze of rum and sadness. Finally, a lightbulb went on. “Oh! You said we were an inspiration.”
“Right. Jen and Justin were an inspiration. Not Jen and Justin’s twin sister I’ve never met. Not Jen, all alone. You and Justin, together, are what warmed the cockles of my blackened heart. But you’re not some fairy tale romance after all. You’re nothing but a showmance, after all. Worse, you’re such a poorly executed one you couldn’t carry out the farce for another three days.”
My mouth dropped open. “You think we faked our whole relationship to get your stupid secret ingredient?”
“No. I think you faked it to win The Fishbowl. When that didn’t work, you used your popularity to fake it again to try to steal my cupcake recipe. Which wasn’t so stupid when you offered me a thousand dollars not two minutes ago.” She spit the words at me, growing angrier by the second. “But you fucked up by running away to make out with someone else. Then Justin couldn’t keep it in his pants until the end of the week, and now you’re going home with nothing.”
Her words hit home so hard, I flinched. I bit my tongue, because nothing I could possibly say in response could fix this moment. Every time I thought things couldn’t get any worse, they did. All I wanted was to rewind the last two days and start over.
Before I figured out what to do, someone on the other side of the room said my name. A moan followed. I turned to find Rachel doubled over, heaving. As much as I wanted to convince Tammy Rae she was wrong about us, this wasn’t the time.
“Are you okay?” I asked Rachel, hurrying to her side. “Where’s Ed?”
“I wandered away while he was talking to Connor,” she said. “I think I need to go. I’m so sorry. I don’t know where we left the ship. And the world is moving so fast. Can I lie down?”
The poor thing swayed on her feet. A couple of inches in one direction or the other, and the dozen or so bottles she carried from the gift shop would hit the ground. Rachel needed me. And my conversation with Tammy Rae was clearly over, possibly forever. “Yeah, honey. We’ll go lie down. Come on.”
Taking the cardboard containers carrying the rum from her, I wrapped one of Rachel’s arms around my shoulder, and put my right arm around her waist. Luckily, she was only a couple of inches taller than me, and The Fishbowl’s three-legged race challenges taught me how to walk awkwardly with someone else. I handed her one of the boxes to carry in her free hand, lifted the other with a grunt, and the two of us staggered away.
“I’m sorry I ruined your day,” Rachel moaned. “Did you get the recipe?”
“No, I didn’t,” I said. She didn’t need details right then. “But it’s okay. I’ll come up a backup plan. Let’s get you to bed, okay?”
“That’s what she said!” She giggled. “The door’s behind us!”
Of course it was. With some effort, I turned the cheerleader around and headed for the door. Tammy Rae stood a couple of feet from where I originally left her, leaning against the bar.
“I’m sorry Justin and I couldn’t be your perfect ‘fairy tale couple, ’ ” I said to her back. “We’re human people, not celebrities, and we’ve made some mistakes. But our relationship is real. At least it was, before Ariana ruined it.”
Tammy Rae didn’t move or respond. I had no idea if she heard me. But it didn’t matter. Getting Rachel to the ship safely where she could sleep it off mattered. Once we got there, maybe, just maybe, I could sleep away days of frustration and heartache.