“I didn’t treat Hadley any different because she was a woman,” Max insisted as he closed his eyes to block out Leo’s face in an attempt to focus on a much prettier one. “I’m just good at knowing which buttons to push, I guess. And that’s not justification or an excuse—” He squeezed his eyes tighter. “I’ll apologize to Norman. I’ll do what I need to do to make it right with the network. And you know I already apologized to Hadley.”
Leo sighed. “I must admit, that was good work. I’ll give you that.”
Max opened his eyes, Hadley finally having solidified in his mind. “I should thank you for that. That was a good idea, me driving to Nashville. Thanks, Leo.”
Leo repeated the double take, and then proceeded to stare at Max as if he’d said he was leaving it all behind to travel with the circus. “Okay, what is this?”
“What is what?”
“You! What are you . . .” He looked around the room, maybe hoping the walls could explain it to him. “Are you telling me you’ve actually changed?”
To hear Leo say the word, Max would have sworn that was a bad thing.
“Wasn’t that the point—”
Leo stood up, kicking his office chair behind him. “Who do you think is going to want a nice and friendly Max Cavanagh?” He laughed, and the sound set every nerve in Max’s body on edge.
Max flexed his right hand—making a fist, and then releasing; making a fist, and then releasing. “I don’t understand what your problem is. You wrote me off because I was out of control, and now you’re writing me off because I’m not?”
Leo shook his head, seemingly disappointed in Max because it wasn’t all perfectly clear to him. “This isn’t about me writing you off. This is about you ruining everything. It doesn’t matter what you do now, Max. You’ve lost credibility, no one wants to work with you—”
He slammed his hand against the desk. “I’m on Renowned! Right now. Right now. And it doesn’t matter how I got on there. Even if you had to work miracles. I’m on. It’s happening. And do you know what else? Maybe I’ve lost credibility, but everyone loves Hadley Beckett. And maybe no one wants to work with me, but she is.”
“And she’s hating every minute of it!”
Max’s breath caught in his throat for a moment, but that cleared quickly. “You don’t know anything, Leo. You don’t know a single thing.”
“Oh, that’s adorable, Max. Okay, sure. Yeah . . . you got where you are because I don’t know anything.” He resumed his earlier posture, finger in Max’s face. “Trust me when I tell you she won’t hesitate to step on you or whoever else is in her way. She’s focused on getting to the top, and I’m the guy who’s going to get her there.”
Max took a step back. “You’re wanting to start representing Hadley?”
“I’ve been representing her for about a month.”
No . . . that didn’t make any sense.
“Leo, don’t you think that’s an enormous conflict of interest?” Max wasn’t really sure that it was. Half the top-name chefs in the country were probably represented by Leo. But Hadley? “I mean . . .” He took a deep breath. “How can you possibly do what’s right for both of us, when . . .”
When the best thing that ever happened to her career was the worst thing that ever happened to mine . . .
“I got you on Renowned, didn’t I? I’m doing right by you. At least I’m doing the best I possibly can. But the position you’re in? Well, you have no one but yourself to blame for any of it, Max.” Leo sighed and placed a hand on Max’s shoulder. “Sorry, pal, but you just can’t come back from this one.”
The words rang in his ears, and they stung anew with each and every ring. You can’t.
Those were the words that had gotten him to drop from the baseball team so he had time to take home ec. They’d gotten him to turn down an academic scholarship in order to take his chances on culinary school. And they were the words that had helped him decide to sell everything he owned to pay for one month’s rent at his first restaurant.
“You can’t” was nothing more than a challenge.
Max closed his eyes again, but he didn’t see Hadley. Instead, he saw his dad, standing on the street in front of their house, as Max’s 1998 Ford Escort drove away. He’d never regretted leaving Cincinnati and heading to New York. Not once. But he’d always regretted leaving on a morning when his dad was actually sober. The odds had been against it, but of course he’d had the bad luck for that to be the day. As much of a lying, manipulative waste of space as he was when he was drunk, at least when he was drinking, he wasn’t mean.
It was as if he thought Max’s reaction to him telling him how little he believed in him and all the things he wasn’t capable of, over and over, would fill the temporary void left by sobriety.
“Why haven’t you dropped me, Leo?” Max knew the answer, he just wanted to see if Leo had the decency to confess it.
“Because, in spite of it all, I care about you, Max. You know that. We’ve been through a lot together, and if I were to drop you right now, well . . .” He offered him a half-smile that Max thought was supposed to pass for compassion. “No one else will represent you. No one else will touch you with a ten-foot pole, truth be told. I want to give you some time to rebuild.”
Ah. So it has nothing to do with the massive royalties you get to continue collecting for years of To the Max syndication? Good to know.
“That’s good of you, Leo. Thanks.” He put his hand out and Leo shook it. “Let’s talk again sometime soon.”
“I’ll keep doing my best, pal. If there’s any way at all to salvage this, you know I will.”
20. Sear evenly and rapidly.
HADLEY
“Thanks again to my very special guests, Nicole and Keith, for spending some time at home with me today. And thanks to you, friends. Be sure to check out hadleybeckett.com for bonus recipes, including my sacred family recipe for chicken and dumplings. It’s legit. You won’t want to miss it.”
“And we’re out,” Stuart called out. Walking over to me, he said, “Well, that’s a new one. I didn’t know there were any sacred Beckett family recipes. How far back does it go? It’s not Twyla’s, is it?”
“Of course not!” I laughed at the thought. “I believe my grandmother’s chicken and dumplings recipe would just involve some canned chicken and a box of Bisquick.” Who was I kidding? “Or, more likely, she’d place an order at Cracker Barrel. This one is just mine that I created.”
He gasped in mock horror. “Hadley Beckett! Did you just lie to your audience?”
“I didn’t lie! It is a sacred family recipe. Just . . . for the future. Trust me, if I ever have kids, my chicken and dumplings recipe is what they’re going to be fighting over when I die.”
“Well, we’ll set up a time to get a crew here to film the heirloom of the future and some other online content, but other than that, we’re good to go. That got us up to the hiatus, so you’re free to focus on Renowned for the rest of the run.”