Fed Up - By Jessica Conant-Park & Susan Conant Page 0,42
possible that the digitalis had been added either to what was originally on Francie’s plate or to one of the bowls or pans used to replenish her plate before the dinner-table scene was reshot.
It’s typical of me that the thought of food, even food loaded with a fatal toxin, made me hungry. I was in the kitchen getting myself a snack when the phone rang. “Hello?” I managed between bites of garlic-stuffed olives. I really needed to go food shopping.
“Hi, Chloe. This is Robin. From the TV show.”
“Robin. Hi. How are you?” I couldn’t imagine why Robin was calling me.
“Fine. Fully recovered. Well, I’m fine considering the hellish week it’s been. The station is having a fit about what happened. They’re trying to spin it in a way that doesn’t get our show off the air forever. It’s a nightmare, actually. But the reason I’m calling is that I wanted to find out more about this wedding ceremony you’re performing for your friend. Angelica, is it?”
“Adrianna. Adrianna and Owen.”
“I thought I might be able to do a piece on getting a license to perform a wedding ceremony. It’s such a fun idea that a friend of the couple can officiate. After Monday’s disaster, I’m trying to find other pieces to do for the station in case they yank the chef series. This wedding business sounds like a great human interest story. I was thinking that we could film the wedding, if your friends don’t mind. But maybe they already have a videographer.”
On their budget, Ade and Owen most certainly did not have a videographer. My parents had mentioned the possibility, but there was no way that my friends would accept more than my parents were already paying for. Adrianna and Owen did, of course, want a video of their wedding, but all they intended to do was to shove a recording device into a guest’s hands and hope for the best. “Robin, that would be wonderful,” I said. “I’m really excited about doing this wedding. Ade and I have been friends for ages, and I just adore her. And Owen is a good friend of mine, too. I know they’d love to have you film their wedding. I don’t even have to ask.”
“Listen, I have to run, but how about we meet for dinner tomorrow? Have the bride and groom come with you, and I can talk to you more then about how you got licensed. I’ll bring Nelson, and we can talk about filming the wedding.”
Although I wasn’t dying to spend an evening with that creepy Nelson, I was eager to find out more about him. What’s more, sometime during the dinner, it would be easy to slip in a subtle reference to gardening and to find out whether Robin or Nelson had a garden.
“Okay,” I agreed. “I’ll have to run the idea by Adrianna and Owen first and make sure it’s okay with them, but I’m sure they’ll love it. Where do you want to have dinner?”
“Why don’t we meet at Marlee’s restaurant? Alloy, it’s called.”
“It’s in the South End, isn’t it?” So were dozens of other trendy restaurants.
“Yes. Tomorrow at seven? The food is fantastic. Very contemporary. You’ll love it.”
The choice of Alloy didn’t surprise me, since Marlee was one of the chefs in rotation on Chefly Yours. I assumed that her food must be good. She was, after all, competing against Josh and Digger, both of whom I knew to be talented. “That sounds great. I’ll see you there.”
I scrounged around in the kitchen for something else to eat and came up with nothing good for dinner. Too bad I wasn’t meeting Robin tonight.
I called Adrianna and explained Robin’s idea for filming the wedding. “It wouldn’t cost you a thing, and you’d have the entire day on tape. Isn’t this cool?”
“That sounds really nice. Please tell Robin we accept her offer. But I’m not eating at Alloy, I can tell you that. I have a client who ate there once, and she said it was the worst.”
The real reason for Adrianna’s refusal suddenly occurred to me. “My treat,” I said casually. Not that I had all that much money! But Ade and Owen had practically none.
“No, it’s not that, Chloe. Really, she said that it was pretentious and snobby, superexpensive, and the food was nasty.”
“Oh,” I said, disappointed. If I was going to shell out money for a pricey dinner, I expected the food to be delectable. I hoped that Ade’s client had lousy taste buds.