Page 123 of Now That It's You
I gave him a helpful, alphabetized list of alternatives I would cheerfully shove up his butt.
“So, we all feel good about how the season wrapped?”
Big brother Dean snaps my focus off the notepad I’m clutching. That’s my cue to jump in. To sit just a tiny bit taller in my chair.
“I think we’re in good shape.” I tap my pink pen twice on my equally pink notepad. “People magazine calls it Hollywood’s strongest season finale.” Never mind that our show films literally a thousand miles from Hollywood. “The article hits newsstands tomorrow.”
My siblings nod like I’ve said something smart, and maybe I have. Only Mari looks worried as she tickles her infant son’s cheek. Count on our shrink sister to spot the elephant in the room.
“What’s public sentiment around…the incident?”
Ah, the incident.
“It’s like I’ve said from the start,” I begin, glad I’m on top of this. “Everyone loves a grumpy chef.” Admittedly, Chef Dal Yang calling a restaurant guest a twatwaffle might’ve gone a step beyond grumpy. “It helped that the guy really was being a twatwaffle.”
“Waffles.” Cooper looks up from his fidget spinner. “Anyone else want one of those stroopwaffles from the bakery?” He’s already out of his chair and headed for the counter. “I’ll grab six.”
“About the finale.” Dean drags us back to the business of running our little self-contained community. “That could’ve gone sideways fast. We’re lucky it was a jackass journalist and not another resident.”
“We certainly are.” Lucky isn’t the word I’d use. Skill sounds closer, but I’m not one to brag.
It’s true, though. My public relations magic made the jackass journalist back off before things got ugly. It wasn’t just that, though.
“You saw the footage.” I look at Lauren and Gabe, who filmed the damn footage. “I’m not saying the guy deserved to have a saltshaker upended on his head, but he was out of line.”
Lauren gives a curt nod. “I would have used the hot sauce.”
Of course she would. “Anyway, it’s over,” I continue. “Our ratings are good, viewers are happy, and Dal Yang’s got approval ratings up the wazoo.”
Thank God Cooper’s still at the bakery counter. He’d make some smartass comment about me wanting Dal up my wazoo, whatever that means.
Brothers suck sometimes.
My oldest consults his notes. “All right,” Dean says. “So on with the next season’s show arcs.”
The chatter shifts to filming schedules and new community members joining the show. I take copious notes, but who am I kidding?
My brain’s still stuck on Dal. About what set him off that day we filmed the finale at his restaurant, Serenade. Some pipsqueak reporter from a shady online news outlet showed up saying he’d spill the beans on how Dal’s brother wound up in a wheelchair.
“Do it,” Dal snarled, with cameras rolling. “Hell, I’ll make it easy for you—I caused the fucking accident.” He struck his chest with a fist and faced the camera. “You heard me. I’m the reason my parents got killed. I’m why Ji-Hoon lives in a fucking wheelchair. I was horsing around in the backseat like the twelve-year-old dipshit I was. You got that?” His dark eyes flashed on the screen. “That’s reality. No excuses. No sugarcoating. It’s the truth. And I’ve never fucking run from it.”
It was brave. It was honest. It was heartbreaking.
And it was damn good television, even with the bad words bleeped.
“Sound okay, Lana?”
I blink myself back to Dean’s question. “Chowder contest.” I consult my notes, which apparently I kept taking even as my brain wandered. “Ji-Hoon entered his brother’s coconut curry chowder in the Best of Oregon contest, but he wants it to be a surprise if Dal wins.”
Mari looks fretful. “I don’t like keeping secrets.”
Says the woman who kept a whopper from the guy she was banging. It’s all good, since the secrets spilled out like they tend to do, and she married Griff and had the cutest baby boy on earth. I lean over to tickle Sawyer’s plump cheek as Gabe speaks up.
“I think a secret about chowder is fine.” He takes a stroopwaffle from Cooper, who’s passing them out like blue ribbons. “We’ll break it to Dal on camera if he wins, and if he doesn’t?” Gabe shrugs. “No harm, no foul.”
“Moving on.” Dean clears his throat. “More ideas for getting Fresh Start at Juniper Ridge into the public eye?”
I’m full of ideas, thank you very much. Like the good little sister I am, I raise my hand.
