Page 59 of The Devil She Knows
“Right. Barry’s Bootcamp.” Whatever that was. “I could come with you.”
“That’s sweet,” Hannah said, standing and shouldering the strap of her bright orange quilted gym bag. “But you’ve got the taping at the restaurant this morning. Remember?”
“The taping. Right.” She nodded like she knew what Hannah was talking about and crossed her fingers that this taping was on her Google Calendar; otherwise, she was screwed.
That calendar was the closest thing Sam had to a series bible of her life right now, and she had a feeling it would be the only thing getting her through these next few days. Weeks, maybe.
Hannah waved on her way out the door. “You don’t have to be up for another hour. Get some sleep.”
Sam smiled and tucked her hands under her head, closing her eyes.
As soon as the front door shut, she threw back the covers and snatched her phone off the nightstand.
Reminder: Thursday, October 30, 9 a.m. GMA interview taping @ Glut
Good Morning America? As if it wasn’t hard enough avoiding sticking her foot in her mouth in her day-to-day life, now she’d get to do it on national television. Joy.
She looked at the time. It wasn’t even six. But if she got there early, before anyone else was there, she could do a little poking around. Check out the back office, her back office now, assuming she ever used it. She wasn’t expecting to find an actual series bible of her life lying around, but she never knew what she might discover that could help her piece together her life as it was. She didn’t have amnesia, not in the strictest sense, so it wasn’t like she expected to experience a flood of memories when she looked at a picture, but who knew? At the very least, she might be able to figure out what it was that Coco had done to her that had left everyone in a tizzy.
Forty-five minutes later found her walking the same path from Houston Street as she had yesterday, only this time, instead of going through the front, Sam made her way around to the back, the alley pitted with puddles from the rain overnight.
This early, no one would be in, not unless they were expecting a delivery, but that happened on Tuesdays, Fridays, and Sundays, with an additional produce drop on Thursdays, but not until closer to midday. Sam called out when she stepped inside just in case and was met with silence.
The office was past the kitchen all the way at the end of the hall, the last door on the left, right across from the singlestall employee restroom and two separate storage closets, one for cleaning supplies and the other where the staff stashed their bags and coats and other various belongings.
In all her years at Glut, Sam had been inside the office once, and that was only to pick up her first paycheck. She couldn’t really remember what the place had looked like then, but she was pretty sure it was different now. The walls were painted charcoal in an eggshell finish, and a large L-shaped glass-top desk sat off to one side of the room, anchoring a black-and-white checkerboard area rug. On the wall hung framed starred reviews from theNew York Timesand clippings from other newspapers and magazines charting the restaurant’s history and success. Photos, too. Pictures of Sam smiling beside world-renowned chefs like Gordon Ramsay and Thomas Keller and Rachael Ray and—was thatSalt Bae?
Seeing really was believing. It wasn’t that she hadn’t believed it before, but there was something about seeing it all with her own two eyes, the undeniable proof of her success, that made it feel real in a way that until this moment, it hadn’t.
Sam unbuttoned her coat on the way over to the desk and tossed it over the back of the chair, which she nudged to the side so she could stand in front of the computer. More photos sat on the desk, pictures of her and Hannah on red carpets and on sandy beaches. She nudged a framed photo of her proudly holding her James Beard award aside and jiggled the computer mouse, waking up the monitor.
Enter password.
Sam tried Hannah’s birth date, and when that didn’t work, she skipped straight to using her fingerprint to log in. Bingo. She was in.
Sam’s Gmail inbox was open on the screen, the last thing she must’ve been looking at when she was here last. There were a few unread messages, but not many.
It was the folder labeledCOURTNEYwith six emails in it that caught her eye.
Did she even know anyone named Courtney?
The most recent email in the folder was dated September twenty-first, and it was outgoing. Sam clicked on it.
From:Samantha Cooper
To:Coco Duquette
Subject:Courtney Duckett
C,
We’ve known each other for what? Six years? And in all that time I had no idea that my esteemed colleague Coco Duquette wasactuallyCourtney Duckett, daughter of Marcia, a middle school math teacher, and Robert Duckett, a mechanic.
Tell me, howdoesa girl from Hiawassee, Georgia, get such an impeccable French accent? Five years, C! Did you not feel like you could trust me? I mean, I had to hire a private investigator to find all of this out. If I’m being honest, I’m a little bummed. I thought we were closer than that.
But that’s not really the point of this email. I wanted to reach out and personally congratulate you.A cookbook deal! How exciting! And what a great name,A Taste of Alsace, a Taste of Home. I’m sure peppered in between all those delicious andtrulyinimitable recipes, you’ll delight readers with stories of your childhood in France, all those summers spent visiting the winery that’s been in your family since the 1500s. I’m sure readers are just going to gobble those up! That is what you’ve built your brand on, isn’t it? Being French?
I know things have been contentious between us of late, but I really don’t want there to be any bad blood between us, C. As a matter of fact, I’d love nothing more than to give your cookbook a shout-out once it releases. Our styles do tend to be quite similar, after all. Though perhaps you should refrain from claiming online that I stole your recipes. Consider it a kindness to yourself. I’d hate to see your sales flop if readers lost faith in your credibility.
