26
JOEL
Tara leads us along a graveled walkway to the press entrance of the Gilroy barbecue festival, and after gaining our press badges asks, “So who has been to the Gilroy Garlic Festival before?” She raises her own hand to cue us, like a kindergarten teacher.
Each of us has a hand up. As the self-professed garlic capital of the world, Gilroy hosts an annual garlic festival that draws thousands of garlic lovers like myself from all corners of California. My parents made this festival a yearly family trip. I remember smelling garlic from miles away, even with our car windows rolled up, and after a day of eating food infused with garlic, from fries topped with shredded garlic to garlic and pesto pasta to slices of baguette spread with garlic and blue cheese butter, I’d sweat garlic for a week.
Tara continues, “It’s time to change your opinion of Gilroy because it has the potential to become a barbecue hub as well. Your job, Joel and Victoria, is to hype up this festival, as small as it is. As mentioned before: there will be a new cameraman on board, and I believe he’s already inside scoping out potential locations to shoot. After we have a quick lunch, we’ll get started on the segment.”
I nod. Victoria glances at me but looks away quickly. I grit my teeth; this opportunity is a double-edged sword.
I can’t lose this competition.
I can’t give this chance up. And now with the commercial sure to draw in more of an audience and with Victoria seemingly down to beat me in this game, I can’t look like a dumbass on air.
Except how will I be able to do this while Victoria and I have this thing? Logic tells me to go balls to the wall with the competition since I might never see her again. There’s no real loss when the relationship couldn’t last to begin with.
But that’s a lie. I could lose Victoria’s respect and my own self-respect. I could lose the good memories we’ve bottled up. I could lose her. Her in the future.
The possibility of she and I together.
If I win, I hurt her.
If she wins, she’s gone from my life, off on another adventure.
If she wins, I’ll have lost a dream job.
If I win, I get my dream job but lose the girl.
I’m not naïve. I knew it was going to come to this, that we were going to leave each other soon enough, but I expected it to be organic and natural, something that came with time and distance. This competition changes the vibe of our goodbye. Now we’re going to be fighting for ourselves until the cameras stop rolling.
But as we enter the main festival area, under a sign that reads, It’s not just about garlic in Gilroy. It’s barbecue, too, I’m distracted . . . by the lack of people.
Adrian echoes my thoughts, whispering under his breath, “Wow. It’s smaller than Desert Willow.” He takes off his cap and puts it on backward.
There’s enough room on the walkway for the four of us to walk side by side, and we grab samples without having to get in line. In less than ten minutes we are sitting at picnic tables—which we didn’t have to stalk—eating our meal. The festival has so few vendors that I could probably throw a baseball from the first tent to the last and not hit anyone along the way.
“This is minuscule. And the crowd is so . . . blah.” Victoria remarks, using a fork and knife to cut into her chicken breast. The same woman who earlier rolled up her pancake is now so dainty with her food. I don’t get it.
“It doesn’t help it’s a weekday,” I say.
“And that poor band. They’re . . . bad.”
We all nod at the sad noises the band is emitting from the stage, like elephants crying for their mothers, with drumbeats that seem to trickle off into nowhere. The entire vibe is bleak. It screams disappointment, despite the fact that the garlic festival a couple of months ago drew a record crowd. Same location, same outreach, same media, and yet, turnout is subpar.
My expectation is for the barbecue to suck, and from the look on Victoria’s face—she’s wearing a frown that has her forehead folded into creases—it seems like she’s anticipating a similar letdown.
But when I dig into the pulled pork from Popping Pig, the meat melts in my mouth, and shock and satisfaction shoot through me. The vinegar in the sauce is light, and there is an aftertaste of citrus that trails off into a sweetness that leaves me drooling for more. “Damn. This is good.”
I look up at the rest of the crew. Tara’s and Adrian’s faces are turned into their food. Victoria’s staring off into the distance, chewing daintily. She’s probably racking up catchphrases for the segment, so I scoop another piece of pulled pork into my mouth and begin to list descriptors in my head as well:
Taste buds on overload.
Somebody turned on the lights on this pulled pork.
Where have you been all my life?
The light at the end of the Gilroy barbecue tunnel.
Tara wipes her mouth and tosses her napkin into her empty bowl. “I mean, who knew this place would be so dead but still have some pretty good barbecue?”
“I know. Even I liked it,” Victoria adds, and we all laugh. She lays a hand on the table to make a point. “No, I mean it. The chicken wasn’t dry, and the rub they used brought out the natural taste of the smoke, which, I have to say, wasn’t overwhelming. But I don’t know how we can create the illusion that the festival is the place to be when it’s so obvious there’s no one here.”
Tara laces her fingers together. “We can set the camera up in the tent.”
“Did someone say the magic word?” A guy approaches us in a checkered flannel and ripped jeans, hair combed slick on top with shaved sides. He greets us with a smile and thrusts his hand out to Tara. “I’m Lowell. You must be Tara.”
“I am.” Tara squints up. “You’re our new camera guy.”
“That’s me. I’m at your disposal.”
Tara introduces Adrian and Victoria, and when she gets to me, Lowell says, “You’re the one I’m replacing.”
I hate how it sounds, but I nod. “Yep.”
He slaps me a firm handshake. “I’m keen to work with you, hoping you can impart some good tips.”
His eagerness is disarming, youthful. Casually, I ask, “How long have you been doing this?”
“This is actually my first gig as a solo cameraperson.”
I wipe my mouth with my napkin to keep from cursing. My first thought: I can’t be a cohost with Victoria because there’s no way in hell I’m going to let this guy fuck up this gig. My second thought: I’m going to have to trust this guy to film us correctly.
Being a cameraman isn’t solely a technical job. Sure, one must be proficient with the equipment. But the cameraperson must also anticipate the moving parts within a scene.
That stuff is something that’s either instinctual or garnered through practice.
I test him. “How do you think we should shoot this segment? We’ve got a festival that has minimal attendance, and our challenge is to make this place look full.”
He looks beyond us to the crowd, then rubs his chin. “I say we should involve the crowd, tell them that they have a chance to be on television. We can bring the vendors out so they’re all behind one table, arrange the people so they’re behind them, so it looks busy. We can even set the tables up closer to the band so it’s loud and chaotic.” His eyes dart from me to Tara. “How’s that?”
Tara looks up at him in contemplation, and when she cuts me a quick look, I nod. It’s a damn good idea. “All right. Let’s get going.” She claps. “Let’s make it our goal to start filming in an hour. That will leave enough time to send it to the LA crew for final edits before the show tonight.”
We toss our trash in a garbage can and grab the equipment from the Suburban. Tara makes the rounds with the vendors to tell them the plan. I bend down to hoist the camera onto my shoulder when Lowell clears his throat. “Um, not today, you.”
“Oh, right.” I hand him the camera. Habits. I stand next to Victoria, awkwardness blooming between us. Earlier, we talked about us being okay with this, but now that we’re here, it is definitely not. “Maybe we should discuss our strategy—” I start just as she says, “We need to talk about who goes first.”
I tear my eyes from her and scan our surroundings. No one seems to be paying us any mind. I lead her a few feet down, back toward the picnic tables.
Finally sitting across from Victoria, I don’t know where to begin. With her hands on top of the table, I’m tempted to reach out and touch her, to bring us back to twelve hours ago. But business comes first.
She beats me to the punch. “I think I should start the introduction.”
“Okayyy.” I draw out the word. “I suppose you can start. Then I can introduce the vendors.”
“Actually,” she interrupts. “There’s more than one vendor. We can alternate with every vendor.”
A small sigh escapes my lips. What she’s saying seems fair, but her tone’s aggressive—she’s trying to take the alpha position. But I keep my protests at bay. We need to work together, and the amount of time in front of the camera will shake out. “Fine. After vendor introductions, we start the tasting.”
“Right. And after that—”
“Actually, after that, I’d like to talk a little about their equipment or the theory behind their cooking. Believe it or not, it varies from person to person.”
“Will we even have time for that?”
“Yeah, why not?”
“With five vendors—”
“With the two of us doing the tasting, it won’t take long.”
It’s now Vic’s turn to sigh. The tension is thick between us, so I wait for what I know is coming—a complaint. But she doesn’t say a word.
“What is it?” I ask, not able to let it go.
“It’s nothing.” After a beat, she relents. “You’re just hell-bent on taking over.”
“I’m not . . .” But her message settles in the cogs of my brain. I’m eager; this is my time. Yet, I have to respect that this gig was hers alone to begin with. “Sorry.”
“Just remember that we’re a team, Joel.”
“I know.” I’m walking on eggshells with what I want to say. Nothing has ever been so unclear to me, because whenever it’s gotten complicated, I’ve always walked away. I can’t with Vic. I don’t want to. “Thank you, for telling me. I want us to be okay through this.”
She shakes her head. “I thought a lot about our last conversation on the drive here. I mean, what is us anyway? Sex buddies? Friends with benefits?”
I frown. What is this, an alternate universe? Haven’t we covered this already? “Where is this coming from?”
“Are you saying there’s more?” Confusion flashes on her face. At my silence—because I’m shocked to shit at where this conversation has ended up—she laughs half-heartedly. “You said for us to be honest in our feelings, and I’m doing that now. Things are changing whether or not we want them to. We started out being ‘simple.’ ” She puts air-quotes around the word simple. “Then we move to being here for each other while on this trip. I was fine with all that. But now? My only real choice is to give you a run for your money, and we can’t do that when we’re sleeping with each other, can we? We both need our current jobs, right? And don’t you want the next one, too?”
“Yes.”
“Me, too.”
A whistle cuts through the air, and we turn to see Tara waving us down. Lowell has the camera on his shoulder.
“But it doesn’t mean I feel any different from before,” I say.
“Is that the truth?” she asks me. “You don’t feel any competitiveness or real need to push me out of the running?”
I hesitate before answering, because I cannot lie and tell her otherwise. Damn.
“We have all these good intentions and yet . . .” She looks away, toward Tara. She smiles meekly. “We should go. She’s a second from coming this way. Talk later?”
I nod, not having any other choice, and push my unease down into the pit of my belly.
When we arrive at the tents, Tara hands us our individual microphones. Five people in their various company shirts mill and chat behind a large table, where plates of samples of their food contain every type of smoked meat imaginable. Around them are random strangers, giddy and excited. The set is damn perfect.
If only my cohost and I could straighten ourselves out.
Victoria takes my side, to the right of the crowd, and Lowell positions the camera in front of us.
“Ready?” Tara asks.
I nod.
“Victoria?”
I look at my partner. She’s gone pale, eyes out into the crowd. “Oh my God.”
“What’s up?” I squint in the direction she’s looking.
“Shit. He’s here.”
“Who?”
“Luke.”