“Lacey.”
“Yeah, Lacey. She’s really seven years old?”
I nodded. “She is.”
“And she’s going to be able to handle the stress of all of this?”
He gestured around him, and I couldn’t help but laugh. I looked around at our oh-so-stressful temporary set—my grandmother’s kitchen—and then back at him.
“I think she can handle it. She and I made cookies in here last night.”
“But with the cameras and the retakes and—”
I placed my hand on his forearm. “Stuart, this girl makes the best Mornay sauce I’ve ever tasted in my life, bar none. I mean, I make a world-class Mornay myself—”
“I know you do.”
“And compared to hers, mine deserves nothing more than a proper burial via garbage disposal. Any girl who can cook like that can handle Jerry operating a boom mic.”
He laughed. “Say no more.”
Stuart walked away and I began my cleanup. I didn’t miss my Brooklyn studio by any stretch of the imagination, but I did look forward to the completion of my new kitchen—in my new house. Well, it wasn’t mine, of course. The network owned it. But I got to live in it for the foreseeable future, rent-free.
When Leo first told me about the deal he had worked out, these awful thoughts ran through my head. For instance, I imagined that “the network is providing you with a house” actually meant I was scheduled to be a contestant on the first chefs-only season of Big Brother. I just wasn’t sure I’d be able to live in a house where Emeril was always waking everyone up in the morning by shouting “Bam!” and Bobby Flay was constantly challenging us all to household chore throw downs.
Thankfully, the reality was a three thousand square foot home on three acres in Brentwood, about ten miles outside of Nashville. And I was going to get to live there all alone. Without a Rachael Ray in sight.
In the meantime, Meemaw’s kitchen had been a nice stand-in. It had taken a whole lot of convincing—not to mention a whole lot of cleaning—to get it to happen. I had told Leo I would be okay filming in New York a little bit longer, but he seemed to think it was imperative that letting Hadley be Hadley begin right away.
Ultimately Leo had offered to send Meemaw to Branson for three weeks so she didn’t have to be displaced. That had done the trick. It really had been like a dream come true, getting to cook in her kitchen. The first time felt to me like a scene from Seabiscuit. Or Secretariat. Or basically any horse movie I’d ever seen. There’s always that moment when they let the horse run for the first time—unbridled or at full speed or across the wide-open countryside—and the horse comes alive. Finally, the horse is allowed to do what it has always been meant to do.
I imagined my grandmother’s kitchen that way. The stacks of papers had been cleared away and the burners had been fired up, and finally that kitchen was allowed to run.
Unfortunately for Jerry and his giant boom mic, however, that kitchen was not meant to be a television set.
Stuart walked back over to me, clipboard in hand. “We’ll film two episodes tomorrow, starting with Lacey and her legendary Mornay, and wrapping up with your sweet tea episode. Then that will be a wrap for the Meemaw’s Kitchen set. Thank goodness. When does Twyla get back from Branson?”
“Thursday. It was going to be tomorrow, but she decided to squeeze in one more Oak Ridge Boys concert.” I smiled as I wrung out my rag over the sink. Leo had really nailed it.
He jotted a few more production details on the paper and then set down the clipboard. “Need a hand?”
“Nah, thanks. I’m basically done. Or done enough for now, anyway.” I’d been staying in the house too, having already given up my apartment. I’d have time to spit polish before everyone got back to the house in the morning. I draped the rag over the faucet. “I can’t wait for you to see the new house, Stu. It’s gonna be a dream.”
He pulled out a barstool and sat across the island from me. “I googled it this morning and was able to pull up some photos, from when it was last on the market. Before the network bought it. It’s unbelievable.”
I squealed. “I know!”
The whole thing was so weird to me. When does that actually happen? How often does someone say, “Hey, here’s a house that’s five times the size of your apartment. Go live in it for free.” It was crazy. I actually felt a little bit guilty about it, in a way. I mean, not guilty enough that I wasn’t going to take them up on the offer, of course, but guilty enough that I was very businesslike about it all when talking to the crew. I didn’t want to rub it in or anything.
I had no problem rubbing it in to Stuart.
“There’s a whole shower room. A room, Stuart. Like, you walk in—”
“Don’t you walk into most showers?”
“Yes, but this is different! There’s enough room to film the show in that thing. All three cameras, Jerry and his boom . . . the whole shebang.”
He laughed. “All three cameras! That’s all I need, Had. I don’t care if we film in the kitchen or the shower, or that three-car garage. I just want to get back to all three cameras!”
I laughed with him and followed him as he began walking toward the door. “You’ve been a good sport through all of this. I know how much you hate filming here, but I really appreciate it.”
“I’m excited about the new place. It will be good to get to stay in Nashville most of the time.”
“Right?” I leaned in and pointed my finger in his face. “All the same, you have to tell me if filming here gets in the way of too much other work stuff for you.”
He was the director and executive producer of my show, of course, and whenever I appeared on other programs, such as America’s Fiercest Chef, I usually worked it out to bring him with me. He loved that—getting more and more credits for his résumé. And filming in New York, he’d also been able to pick up some nice side jobs on other shows when we weren’t filming.
With the move to the Let Hadley Be Hadley era, he’d insisted there was nowhere else he wanted to be. And I really couldn’t imagine doing it without him.
Stuart had been with me since the very beginning of the show. Since before the beginning, actually. Truth be told, it had started out as his show. We were part of the same group of friends all through college at Belmont, and when he needed a final project for his degree in video production, we pulled together a cooking show. It was called Belmont Brunch back then, but there was no doubt it laid all the groundwork for At Home with Hadley.
He smiled before leaning in to kiss me on the cheek. “Didn’t I promise I’d never leave you?”
“No, as a matter of fact, you didn’t. I believe the promise was that you’d never leave me unless you got a better offer.”
“Same thing. Besides, I’ve gotten better offers, and I’m still here.”
“What better offers have you gotten?” I asked in mock horror.
“Well, not recently. I mean, now you’re a hit. There aren’t better offers at the moment. But not all that long ago, an offer to work for some kid filming YouTube videos of him playing Call of Duty might have been intriguing.” I elbowed him in the ribs, and he laughed. “You’ve come a long way, baby. No doubt about it.”