Hot Dish (8 page)

Nat made a disgusted sound that turned into a chuckle. “You don’t even like Fawn Creek.”

“So what?” Jenn asked. “It’s an arranged marriage. Think of Fawn Creek and me sort of like Charles and Diana. I’m the queen they never wanted, and believe me, they are definitely not who I saw spending the rest of my life with. But there you are. We’re locked in a mutually beneficial relationship and both of us—” She broke off, frowning. “Can you be a ‘both’ with a town?”

Nat shrugged. Jenn shrugged. She went on. “All of us would be idiots to mess with it. They pretend they like me. I pretend I like them.”

“I’m glad there’s no children involved,” Nat said dryly.

“Hey,” Jenn said lightly, her mood rising with each step. “It works. Especially—again like Chuck and Di—since we don’t have to live
together. Which is something we need to discuss with Certain People who have overstepped their boundaries.”

She’d worked hard for this. She’d worked her ass off—she gave a metaphorical glance to said ass and amended—half her ass off. She was poised at the brink of national stardom and she felt terrific.

Dan Belker’s unexpected preemptive strike was the only blemish in the otherwise bright, sunny place that had become Jenn’s life. Her contract with AMS would assure her of the success she’d been pursuing for twenty years. Their people had come through on every single promise they’d made and the contracts had been signed. Her future looked secure.

All she needed to do was back out on Dan’s doubtless well-intentioned acceptance of Fawn Creek’s grand marshal gig.

“Let’s just remember the sweet voices of those thousand-dollar bills in your mattress when we’re talking to those Certain People, shall we? I’d hate to see your beauty rest disrupted.”

The advice was unnecessary. Jenn wasn’t going to do anything to rock the Good Ship AMS. “Since when am I a diva?”

“It’s not your fault. It’s your fate,” Nat said, unconvinced. “No one can make as much money as you’re going to make and not become a diva. And it’s already begun.”

The idea was unexpectedly appealing. Jenny Hallesby: Diva. Yup. She liked it. She looked down at her miniature agent. “Enlighten me as to when you saw the first signs.”

“Your little Hissy-That-Wasn’t when that chickie got huffy about New Yorkers not having time to do some of the stuff on the show? It was almost a Hissy-That-Was. Probably would have been if old Dwight hadn’t arrived.”

Jenn waved her hand in the air as if dispelling gnats. “Nah. I was just playing with her.”

“You were not.”

That was the problem with mixing friendships and work. Nat knew her too well. The criticism had rubbed. But it wouldn’t have rubbed so raw if it hadn’t already been a sore spot. Even in Minneapolis, the guys from the head office had been pushing a litany of faster, cheaper, and easier.

“Just remember, Jenn, AMS wants everything you demonstrate on the show doable within the average American woman’s time limits, personal capability, and financial means. Emphasis on
simple
.”

They’d reached the office where the boys from AMS waited to debrief her. “Well, hell, we’ll make phones out of empty soup cans and call it a goddamn day then, shall we?”

“Only you can screw this up, Jenn.”

Nat was right. “I’ll be good.”

She plastered her “Madonna of the Milk Cows” smile in place, opened the door, and sailed through, Nat drifting behind like a little black tugboat.

The gang was all there: small and exquisite Ron Patella, seated in a huge wingback chair sipping tea; crusty old Dan Belker; and the vice president of current programming, the scrumptious, ambitious, and young Bob Reynolds. There was something unsettling about Bob, something besides his movie-star good looks. He looked like an overfriendly puppy.

“That was wonderful, Jenn,” Ron said, putting down his cup and applauding lightly. “You did a fabulous job. And wasn’t it terrific of Mr. Davies to show up to support you?”

“Absolutely.” And may he hitherto absent himself from her life and her career, she offered heavenward.

“Everyone in that room left with a crush on you. Brava!”

“Thank you.”

“Here, have a seat. Can I get you something? No? Fine.” Dan came forward to take her arm and lead her to the sofa. Nat headed for the buffet table out by the window. And Bob Reynolds.

Dan waited until she’d been seated and then sat down next to her. “You didn’t know the butter sculpture by Jaax was still around, did you? You were surprised, weren’t you?”

That was the understatement of the year. The idea that the butter head lived and apparently had been living all these years in her parents’ barn was sort of creepy, with a kind of “Telltale Heart” vibe to it. Mom had some ‘splainin’ to do.

“Boy, I’ll say!” she enthused just to keep old Dan company in his delight. And now the segue … “You really did take me by surprise. As did the announcement I would be going to—”

“I knew it!” Dan broke in, chuckling and rubbing his hands together. “I knew you didn’t know. Wait. It gets better. You’ll get a kick out of this, Jenn:
The Guinness Book of World Records
is interested in seeing it. And you,” he hurriedly added. “Together. It seems it might be the oldest surviving intact butter sculpture in existence.

“And
Ripley’s Believe It or Not
might want to do a fluff piece, too.”

Great. Instead of the Queen of Lifestyles, she was going to be known as the Methuselah of Butter Sculptures. As amazing as this was apparently going to be to Dan, she didn’t want to be in the World Record Book as being the oldest anything. And they shouldn’t want her to, either.

But now was no time to deflate that particular balloon. Not in front of Dan’s subordinates.

She should answer. She just had to focus, envision herself as a rock, a serene Nordic rock in a calm body of water. Abruptly the rock turned into a yellow monolith.

“That’s wonderful, Dan” was all she managed instead of the single word that sprang immediately to mind. But that wouldn’t have been
Jenn Lind-like
. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d used that word. Probably the last time she was in Fawn Creek, where nobody paid any attention to her or expected anything from her, anyway.

Except they were paying her attention, the sneaky bastards. Going behind her back to get her to play master of ceremonies at their sesquicentennial. Good try, but no way. Fawn Creek was not going to screw this up for her.

Granted, she had done some stupid things in high school trying to get out of her Miss Fawn Creek obligations but most reasonable people wouldn’t care about a seventeen-year-old kid “acting out.” In fact, the people who’d done her background check hadn’t even bothered with her teenage years aside from looking into the state court records. But if Dwight Davies found out about her little stunt at the high school homecoming dance the fall of her senior year, he was just the man to magnify that minor sin into a felony offense. One worth firing her over.

Now she was on the cusp of real celebrity, national recognition, lasting success, and she was not going to blow it. No mistakes this time. No misunderstood instructions in an application. No would-be friends secretly salivating for her comeuppance. She had this particular crown bought and stamped
sold
.

“—so you can see, the whole thing will work out beautifully.” Bob Reynolds had pattered over to where she sat and was regarding her eagerly. If he had a tail, he’d have been wagging it. She still wasn’t sure she’d pet him, though. She suspected he had big teeth. “Right, Ms. Lind?”

She’d only been half attending. No matter. It was time to put the whammy on their Fawn Creek Fantasy.

“I’m sorry but I can’t ask AMS to rearrange their entire shooting schedule around a selfish whim to see my face on the front of the
Fawn Creek Crier
. I can’t. I wouldn’t feel right about it.”

“Besides,” Nat said, hopping off her window perch and coming to stand next to Handsome Bob, “Jenn told me it’s a weeklong commitment, not just one afternoon sitting in some snowmobile at the head of a parade.”

Good old Nat.

“It’s an ATV, actually,” Bob said.

“Whatever. The point is, it’s a week and my client is not going to waste her precious vacation time on it.”

Oh! Good one
, Jenn thought appreciatively, even though it had been literally years since she’d actually used vacation time for a vacation.

“And I’m sure you could put that week to better use than paying her to sit up there in the middle of nowhere judging curling contests or whatever she’d be doing.” She reached across Bob, plucked a croissant from the buffet table, and smiled up the front of his Brooks Brothers white shirt. He blushed.

Leave it to Nat to get a thing done.

“Of course.” Dan frowned. “But as I said, we intend this to be a combination work-pleasure trip for Jenn. Mostly pleasure for her, mostly work for us.”

Is that what he’d said? Jenn had better start paying closer attention.

“Please.” Bob turned away from Nat, facing the room in general to make his case. Nat pouted. “There’s an unprecedented opportunity here for us to get some footage of you in your hometown to use for the credits. What could be more picturesque than you all bundled up in a fur jacket—
faux
fur—strolling through your quaint little town? It’s part of the Jenn Lind mystique, the charm, the country’s fascination with all things rural. I love this idea. I really do and I want you to love it, too. Especially you, Ms. Lind.”

He looked like he might crawl into her lap and lick her face if she said yes.

This was not going as she’d planned.

“It does sound great,” she said. “But there’s no reason to send a crew all the way up to Fawn Creek for footage of snow. There are some terrific locations in Minneapolis or St. Paul. Say, by Minnehaha Falls or along the river. I assure you, it snows all over Minnesota.”

“But it’s not
hometown
snow,” Ron Patella suddenly piped up from where he still sat enthroned in the wingback.

“I’m not sure I understand the point,” she said carefully. “I don’t believe anyone would think AMS was trying to pull a fast one by showing Minneapolis snow rather than Fawn Creek snow.”

“Yes, but, well”—Bob’s smooth cheeks were pinking up again—“Mr. Davies is a real stickler about veracity.”

They had to be kidding. She looked at each of the three men. They weren’t kidding.

“You’re kidding,” Nat said around a mouthful of croissant.

“Mr. Davies is a … a little bit of a fanatic on the topic of honesty,” gray-haired Dan stepped up to bat.

Mr. Davies was a lot fanatic about a lot of things, Jenn thought.

“Right now,” Dan said, “this network is his pet project, and you’re a big part of that. He’s convinced—
we’re
convinced—that the public is starved for wholesome role models. Like you.”

“Now I know you were married pretty young and it didn’t last too long—” Dan said apologetically.

“I was twenty-three,” Jenn jumped in confidently. “The marriage lasted eighteen months.”

There was no way her short-lived marriage could be construed as anything but an unfortunate mistake. On both sides. When … Tim—geez, she was always forgetting his name!—and she had realized that she was not going to be a perfect hostess for his burgeoning consulting career and she’d gotten a look at his fantastically high-risk, and criminally irresponsible, portfolio, they’d both backed gingerly toward the door. Neither of them held a grudge. Tim had actually kissed her as they’d left the mediator’s office. With maybe a little more relief than was flattering, but still …

“The divorce was amicable,” she continued. “In case you or Mr. Davies is worried, let me assure you no one is going to show up one day with a bunch of nude negatives from my days as an aspiring actress.”

“Of course not,” Ron said, crossing one perfectly creased slack leg over the other. “We do a background check, you know. But bear in mind that Mr. Davies hates being lied to. You recall a few years back when it turned out one of the hostesses for some kids’ decorating show had been an occasional stripper while she was at college?”

Nat nodded. “She was fired, poor kid.”

“Mr. Davies thought she got off too easy.”

Everyone fell into a moment of silence—time Jenn spent wondering just what beyond firing Dwight Davies had contemplated.

“So”—Dan Belker clapped his hands together, signaling the end of their impromptu mourning—”it’s settled. Jenn will head to her hometown at the end of the month, and we’ll send a crew up for a couple days to shoot some footage.”

“Great! You couldn’t stage the potential photo opportunities this thing’ll generate,” Bob said, rubbing his hands together. “All those adoring faces surrounding her, folks cheering her, wishing her well, proud to call her one of their own … It’ll be a Norman Rockwell print come to life—only with better-looking people.” He looked at Jenn. “
Are
the people in your town good-looking?”

Jenn was caught off guard by the unexpected turn of the conversation, mostly the fantasy about Fawn Creekians adoring her, and didn’t have time to frame a politic reply. “No.”

Bob laughed. “Of course, they are! All Minnesotans are good-looking. Tall, blond Nordic types with fresh faces and strong bodies.”

He caught Dan’s surprised stare. “It was in the demographics profile.”

“Not these people,” Jenn burst out.
Jesus!
If they expected people to be milling around her with homemade signs and banners … Her stomach started making knots. “I’m sorry. That sounds so awful. Of course, I love them all dearly, but in order to be fair to … to AMS, I have to tell you, a few years ago the American Medical Association used the whole town for their obesity focus group.” Which was true.

Bob stopped laughing and regarded her blankly. “Oh?”

“Don’t worry,” Dan said confidently. “Even if we only get footage of a bunch of uglies, we always have pine trees and kids skating and church steeples to fall back on.”

“And snow,” Bob agreed. “Don’t forget the white stuff. If this all works out like I think it’s goin’ to, we might wanta do a Christmas special up there. In fact, instead of just footage for the credits, we should seriously consider doing a spot right there during the festival or whatever it is.”