Cooks, Crooks and Cruises Read online

  Meredith did not respond with words, but instead picked up the sign-up sheet that was on the left end of the table and moved it to the right. Then she picked up the stack of pamphlets, divided it in three, and placed them into three piles across the table.

  “That’s better, isn’t it?” Her tone brooked no response other than what we gave.

  “Yes, much better,” we said in unison.

  It was no better as far as I could see, but some people just like to change things to put their mark on them. And to be complimented for it.

  “Vince will be here shortly. Now, book signings are very tiring. You are to make sure that he is kept in the shade at all times. Move the umbrella as and when it is needed. Do you understand?”

  “Keep him in the shade. Got it,” said Sam slowly as if she was mentally taking notes.

  “You do have spare pens, I assume?”

  “Spare… pens…?”

  “Of course.” Meredith was glaring at Sam. “While Vince will bring his own pen, don’t you think it’s your role to make sure that there are spares, just in case? You are running this book signing, aren’t you?”

  “It’s my first—”

  “Here.” Meredith slapped down a six-pack of ballpoint pens onto the table. “Make sure you don’t forget anything else.” She ran her eyes over the tables again, but no further criticism escaped her lips. “I shall return with Vince DeLuca shortly. Don’t mess anything up before I return.”

  It was funny hearing her refer to her husband as Vince DeLuca, instead of just my husband, or even just Vince, but true to her word, Meredith soon returned with her husband in tow, somewhat like a farmer leading a donkey. A donkey with a chef’s hat.

  Vince had a substantial amount of makeup on his glistening skin, and was dressed in his trademark white chef’s outfit. He followed behind Meredith, doing as he was told.

  I greeted them both and offered Vince a friendly smile. “Hi, I’m Adrienne, and I’m in charge of all the social media around your events. And this,” I pointed to my best friend, “is Sam, who will be handling the needs of your fans.”

  He smiled, opened his mouth, and just as he was about to respond, Meredith got in ahead of him.

  “I don’t think he needs to concern himself with exactly who each and every lackey is and what their own minor tasks are,” she said. “He’ll be too busy to talk to you much. Try not to disturb him.”

  I caught Vince’s eye, and he gave me a half grimace, as if in apology at his wife’s rudeness. I returned his look with a half shrug. It didn’t bother me that much. The cruise would be over in a week and Meredith would be gone along with it. I just had to get through the next few days.

  “Now, you’re going to be over here, Vince,” said Meredith as she pulled him by the arm toward the end table. We had now stacked up over a hundred copies of his book in two piles which would sit as columns on either side of him. We didn’t expect to sell that many—most of his biggest fans would have his book ready—but it made the table look nice, and it made him look successful.

  “Are you ready, Vince?” asked Sam. I thought I could almost hear a tremor in her voice. She was trying to act normal around one of her heroes, but I could tell she was excited, even if she could hide it from everyone else.

  “I’m always ready to meet my fans,” he said with a cheerful smile.

  “Remember, this signing is limited to one hour only,” said Meredith pointedly tapping at her left wrist which was adorned with a gold watch. “I expect you to make sure the event is over by then. Capiche?” Meredith paused for a moment, and then looked up again as if remembering something. “That’s Italian for do you understand?”

  “Got it,” said Sam through gritted teeth.

  Meredith was an odd one, I thought.

  She was originally from Idaho, but now she liked to pretend she was almost fully Italian. From her clothes, to the way she talked about food, to how she had started dropping Italian buzzwords into her conversations and restaurant reviews. I was tempted to point out to her that capiche was an Americanization, and the way she used it was not actually correct Italian. But I was scared she might actually kill me if I tried it. Perhaps a passive-aggressive blog post could do the trick, though.

  The customers soon began to line up, most of them already clutching their own copies of his bestselling book, Italian Heart, American Appetite.

  While most people were waiting nicely, one person didn’t seem to want to wait. Beverly’s friend Hannah had skirted the outside of the line and was walking through our staff-restricted area. She had a big smile on her face, seemingly aimed at me. Was she going to use me as an excuse to jump the line? I tentatively smiled as she approached. An approach that never really got where it was going.

  Meredith saw Hannah coming toward her husband and stepped in front of her, doing her best impression of a brick wall. “Yes?”

  “I just wanted to ask Vince—”

  Meredith had interrupted her by holding her palm out, stopping just shy of pushing it against Hannah’s face. Hannah, in turn, appeared shocked.

  “Oh no you don’t. If you really want to talk to Vince, you can wait in line like everyone else. And don’t try and spend more than thirty seconds. His time is very valuable.”

  With an air of seasoned practice, Meredith took Hannah by the arm, and with a clever step to the side she twisted her around, pointing Hannah in the direction of the end of the line of people waiting for the book signing. With a few more small steps, she rapidly propelled Hannah away.

  “I guess she doesn’t want to give Beverly’s friend any special treatment,” I said to Sam with an amused shake of my head.

  “Guess not. As long as we don’t get caught up in the middle.”

  “Okay then.” I scanned the scene one final time. “Are we ready?”

  Sam gave a nod, cleared her throat, and clapped her hands together loudly. “Can I have everyone’s attention, please…”

  While Sam began her welcome spiel, I snapped a couple of photos of Vince, and then got in a good position to capture some of the keenest fans as they got their book signed.

  This was it.

  Our first celebrity chef cruise was about to properly begin.

  Chapter 4

  While some celebrities require bodyguards to protect them from overeager fans, Vince de Luca required no such assistance. His wife, Meredith, was all the protection he needed.

  She hovered over him at the book signing table, making sure that no one exceeded her self-imposed thirty-second rule and that no one got too close to her husband.

  When one overeager young lady rested her hand atop Vince’s in a perfectly innocent gesture, Meredith snatched it away with so much force I thought she might take the poor girl’s arm off. The shy young lady simply offered a meek apology and scurried away. I kind of wanted to take a picture of Meredith doing things like that and use them for a feature I would call The Sea Witch. But no, I didn’t want to get fired.

  After I had enough shots of people getting their books signed—I couldn’t really use more than a couple of them, because no one wants to see a stream of basically the same photo over and over again—I looked for some more interesting things to shoot. I climbed up on a chair, and got a shot of the line sneaking around the lagoon pool, and then another nice shot of a mother and daughter, each holding up different editions of the same cookbook, comparing them with the focused eager eyes of real fans.

  One woman caught my attention, and so I focused on her for a bit. She wasn’t exactly standing in line, but she was hovering around, coming up almost to the front of the line, and then disappearing off to the side again. Each time, she was holding up a book to cover most of her face, like a spy in a spoof espionage movie trying to be undetected. What she seemed to be doing was trying to stay out of Meredith’s eagle-eyed line of sight.

  Immediately, I had a sneaking suspicion as to who it was.

  The woman had short black pixie cut, big brown eyes, and she was wearing th
e most spectacular sunglasses I had seen in some time. The most striking thing about the sunglasses was their arms. Rather than the boring, functional style that almost all glasses had, these had arms shaped like spatulas, miniature versions the ones you would find in the kitchen.

  I watched on, and she kept trying to look for an opportunity to slip by Meredith. She kept lowering the glasses to peer at Vince, and then sliding them back up her nose whenever Meredith looked in her general direction.

  It was like watching a game of cat and mouse. Only in this case, the cat didn’t know the mouse was actually there.

  Finally, Spatula Lady got her opportunity when a woman of retirement age dropped the entire contents of her purse all over Vince’s table. I was pretty sure the old lady had done it deliberately just to spend more time with Vince, and Meredith seemed to have drawn the same conclusion.

  Meredith was all over the table, grabbing and snatching up every last stick of gum, pen, dice, marble, and coin as fast as she could, and dumping them straight back into the lady’s bag.

  While she was distracted, Spatula Lady made her move. With barely a glance toward Vince, she made for the sign-up sheets, and within a couple of seconds had her name on the first one.

  I nudged Sam, who was focused on holding the front of the line until it was the next person’s time to make their way forward to Vince’s table.

  “Look over there. Think we’ve found our stalker.”

  Sam immediately saw what was happening and whipped into action.

  “Excuse me, ma’am,” said Sam firmly but in a friendly tone. “I’m afraid we’re only allowing fans to sign up for one event at a time so that everyone at least has a chance at a spot. If there are still spaces available, you’ll be able to write your name down for additional events later on. So shall I keep you signed up for the knife skills class, and we’ll leave the other ones for now?”

  Olivia removed her glasses entirely, letting them dangle by one spatula from her left hand. “No.”

  “No?” Sam tilted her head.

  “No.” Olivia shook her head to show she meant it. “This woman,” she jabbed her finger at the list, “has her name down on all the lists.”

  I watched as Sam began to get flustered. How could she explain that that woman was there to make sure that Olivia wasn’t being too much of a stalker toward Vince?

  “I’m afraid that’s a slightly different situation. Hannah is not exactly a regular—”

  “I don’t care!” Olivia began to reach for one of the lists to begin writing her name down again. “If she’s on them all, I’m going to be on them all.”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am, but you really—”

  Sam didn’t get to finish explaining to Olivia why exactly Hannah was allowed to sign up for multiple events but Olivia was not.

  Meredith had finished shoving the rest of the old lady’s belongings back into her bag and already noticed the kerfuffle. Like a specter, she wafted toward us, her feather-light Italian dress seeming to float about her person.

  “What is the meaning of this?” said Meredith jabbing her finger at Hannah’s name, much to my surprise. I’d expected her to be jabbing her finger at Olivia, not at Beverly’s doctored sign-up list.

  “Hannah is…” said Sam, stumbling. She didn’t want to out her spy on the inside in public. But she didn’t have much choice. “…that’s her over there,” Sam said trying to point out Hannah who was mingling in the crowd.

  “You are supposed to allow a person to sign up to only one event at a time.” Meredith picked up one of the pens and began to scribble out Hannah’s name from the closest list. “Do I have to do everything?”

  Sam tried to take them away from Meredith, but her grip was too tight. Sam looked up at me in a panic, wondering what to do. I really wasn’t sure myself.

  “Meredith? Meredith,” I said, trying to get her attention. She ignored me as she finished completely blacking out Hannah’s name from the list she was holding.

  “One session at a time. If there are spaces left over, more people can sign up. Is it that difficult?”

  “Yeah! That’s not fair!” The voice came from the crowd behind us.

  “People are signing up for multiple events at once? Put me down!” said another.

  “I want Knives and Parmesan!” shouted a particularly angry sounding man.

  “Put me down for all of them!” shouted a lady near the back.

  “No, listen! Only one at a time!” shouted Sam to no avail.

  “That’s not fair! Give me that list!”

  “Knife skills! Knife skills! Knife skills!”

  “Give me!”

  “Over here!”

  The crowd had rushed toward us and now a hundred hungry hands were reaching out to try and get their fingers on the various lists.

  I’d been trying to stand to the side, but even I was getting jostled now.

  It was rapidly becoming like a middle-aged mosh pit. Only Meredith seemed to be avoiding being manhandled. She had a kind of aura about her that made people wary of getting too close.

  “Attention!”

  The deep voice boomed across the crowd, and everyone stood stock still in an instant. Their heads and eyes swiveled to see the source.

  I knew who it was before I saw him. I’d recognize that voice anywhere.

  “Everyone is to stand exactly where they are. Do not touch anything or anyone. Do not shout. Do not scream. Do not grab, jostle, snatch, demand, or in any other way behave as if you are not the adults that you all, supposedly, are.”

  Ethan Lee, the first officer, and also head of security for the ship, was standing on a chair, with everyone staring at him. His white uniform seemed to almost gleam in the sunlight, and I was pretty sure that half of the fans who had crushes on Vince were now reassessing the target of their one-sided affections. He was certainly more my type than the celebrity chef with the dewy skin and a layer of foundation on his face, that was for certain.

  I hurried over to him.

  “What’s going on? Why are they acting like this?” Ethan asked me in a low voice. “We’ve got to do something to stop them from rioting.”

  “I’ve got an idea!” I had spoken the moment the thought popped into my mind. It was probably a stupid one, but it was better than whatever this was turning into.

  I dragged another chair next to Ethan’s, and hopped up on it.

  “Everyone! Please listen to Adrienne James,” said Ethan loudly. “She is our social media manager. She has an important announcement!”

  Ethan turned to me, as did the eyes of the dozens of angry people in the crowd.

  Cornstalks, I hope I don’t regret this, I thought.

  “I am pleased to announce that, although you may not all be able to sign up for all the events you wish to, I am launching a competition that everyone is welcome to enter. I want you to take the very best photo of any item of food or drink that you can from the ship. Post it with the hashtag SwanChefCruise, and the winner of the very best food picture—which will be decided by our team of experts led by Chef DeLuca himself—will win a private dinner with Vince.”

  The crowd gasped, and then let out a loud whoop. It seemed to have done the trick. With everyone’s eyes still on me, I glowed.

  Everyone looked happy.

  Well, everyone except for one person: Meredith.

  Now all I had to do was win her over and get the chef to agree.

  But that would almost certainly be easier said than done.

  So, for the moment, I basked in the adulation of the crowd and shoved the nagging thoughts of just exactly how I was going to pull this off to the back of my mind.

  Chapter 5

  That evening, it was crowded at the Swan of the Sea’s small Italian restaurant, L’Ultima Cena. Unlike the giant International Buffet, this restaurant was more targeted at those looking for a special occasion, an intimate dining venue with only the highest quality food.

  Today, things were a little different though.
The restaurant was closed to regular business and Vince DeLuca was giving his first cooking demonstration of the cruise. L’Ultima Cena was decorated like a rustic rural Italian farmhouse—or at least an American architect’s version of it. The walls were covered in dark-varnished wood and decorated with an array of objects: bottle openers, a couple of wagon wheels, wooden spoons, dried flowers, hanging garlic, and a big display naming all the different kinds of pasta. A gentle hum of excited chatter filled the room, while the wood paneling absorbed and muffled the harsher sounds.

  At the front of the restaurant was an open kitchen, which was usually filled with the four regular chefs and their assistants. But today, it was just Vince DeLuca dominating the scene, while Meredith looked on from the side, her beady eyes keeping vigil over everyone and everything.

  The tables had been re-arranged so that they were all facing toward the kitchen, allowing everyone who’d managed to snag a ticket to get a decent view.

  At this demonstration, Vince was going to be showing the audience how to set up their kitchen before cooking a meal using the mise en place method, and how, with proper preparation, you could cook an omelet in only thirty seconds. Then, Vince was going to demonstrate this, by cooking over thirty omelets in less than twenty minutes.

  Although the cruise had only just started, I already recognized several of the eager guests.

  Olivia the so-called stalker had a seat near the front, as did Beverly’s friend and watcher-of-Olivia, Hannah. Beverly herself was also there keeping a watchful eye on things, and Sam was of course making sure that everyone was sitting in their correct seats.

  “Yo!” Cece squeezed my arm in greeting.

  “Hey! What are you doing here?” I greeted Cece with a surprised smile.

  “The regular restaurant staff have been given the night off, so Beverly asked me to step in and make sure everything remains spick and span.”

  “So you’re like a waitress today?” I asked.

  Cece shook her head. “No, there’s no orders to take or anything. I’m just here to pick up the mess. You know, if a customer decides to throw something on the floor, I’m here to pick it up. And I guess after it’s over I get to help put everything back the way it’s supposed to be.”