Nisha and Ashna rolled their eyes.
“You just want us to tell you again how perfect we think DJ is,” Ashna said.
Trisha’s response was a dreamy grin.
As they cleared the thicket of jacarandas and got to the deliveries parking lot, Nisha’s phone beeped. “It’s China. They’re on their way. We have to be inside before she gets here with your star. Hurry up.”
“Eeek! Is the star with her now? Ask her, ask her!” Trisha grabbed Nisha’s phone “WHO IS IT??? TELL US!” Trisha read off as she typed in all caps. Nisha jumped up and down, baby bump and all.
They stared at the screen, waiting for a response.
Can’t tell you. But . . . S C O R E!!!
Yes, China had put a space between each letter. Given China’s legendary texting laziness, that made the butterflies in Ashna’s belly turn into bats.
“What on earth is that supposed to mean?” How had Ashna thought herself calm? Now she couldn’t even think the word calm without getting light-headed.
Trisha linked arms with Ashna. “Let’s get in there and find out.”
Nisha took her other arm and the three of them marched across the parking lot. They had walked down this path thousands of times, but Ashna had never before been this conscious of each step.
A Food Network van was parked by the ramp. The crew was already in her kitchen, and the door was propped open.
The bats in her belly grew rabid. Her heart had never beat quite this hard.
“It’s going to be a sweet southern grandma,” she muttered. “God, please.”
“What?” both sisters said together without pausing in their march.
“I’ve had my fingers crossed for a sweet southern grandma–type celebrity. It’s my best shot.” She had been chanting it to the universe. Please, please, all I need is a sweet southern grandma. Not to deal in stereotypes, but maybe a southern grandma would know what she was doing enough that Ashna might not need to cook in front of the cameras at all. “I told China that I wanted a sweet southern grandma as my celebrity. So, ‘S C O R E’ has to mean she found me one, right?”
Nisha and Trisha shook their heads at her and disappeared into the kitchen. Ashna followed them, mentally chanting the shlokas Aji had taught her for when she needed to calm down.
There was equipment everywhere, lights and cameras on giant stands. Trisha and Nisha were already introducing themselves to the crew.
Only today’s meeting with her star would be shot in the Curried Dreams kitchen. The actual show was going to be filmed on a set in San Francisco over five weeks. Two episodes a week—a cooking episode shot over two days and an elimination episode, and then a grand finale with the two teams that made it that far. A young man in a hat that said FOOD NETWORK and a very Secret Service–looking earpiece jogged up to Ashna. “I’m Jonah,” he said with an excited smile. “They have your star circling the block. We want to get some anticipation footage of you waiting to see who it is.”
He snapped his fingers and everything lit up like a movie set. Suddenly Ashna’s kitchen felt nothing like her kitchen. She took it in, mouth slightly agape, and tried to contain her nervousness.
“Perfect!” Jonah grinned at her as though she’d somehow given him the exact expression he’d been hoping for. “Can you go in and pretend it’s just another day? How about chopping something. Maybe vegetables?”
“You want her to chop vegetables and pretend it’s just another day?” Trisha said with all the drollness of someone who was not being asked to act normal. Whatever the hell that even meant. “I think she has the acting chops for that.”
“Great!” this Jonah person said with disturbing alacrity, and zero awareness of Trisha’s sarcasm. “That’s what I thought. Let’s find you some vegetables!” He headed off to the pantry.
At this point Ashna’s ears started ringing so loudly that she had to focus hard on what people were saying because she could barely hear them.
“This was a terrible idea. What the hell was I thinking?” she whispered as she walked across her kitchen to where Jonah had found her stash of bitter melons. Please don’t touch those, she was about to say, but he bounced away and managed to find a chopping board and placed it on the prep counter.
Nisha stroked Ashna’s back. “You’re going to do great. This celebrity person is lucky to have you.” She tucked the lock of hair that always came loose from Ashna’s bun behind her ear again.
Jonah opened and shut a few drawers, then pulled out the biggest meat cleaver from Ashna’s knife drawer. That thing could sever a lamb shoulder as though it were butter and he was handling it like it was a toy.
“This should work for your . . .” He threw a baffled look at the vegetable. “Odd-looking cucumbers.”
If Ashna weren’t fighting off rampaging panic, she would have smiled. “They’re bitter melons.” She had no idea where that very-uppity-chef-like tone had come from, because that was not her at all. “You want me to chop vegetables with a meat cleaver? Are you sure you work for the Food Network?” Ashna took the cleaver from him with the care it deserved.
To his credit, Jonah looked sheepish. “I just started last week. I was with National Geographic before that.”
Ashna didn’t know what to do with that information so she walked to the knife drawer and switched the cleaver out for her biggest santoku.
“That one’s impressive too. It’ll work!” Jonah said.
Glad you approve, Ashna wanted to say, but panic and snark weren’t mixing inside her today. “It’s a Misono santoku,” she said instead.
These knives were Baba’s prized possessions.
The smooth wood of the handle filled her hand and brought her back to this moment. She was doing something different this time. Not repeating the same thing and expecting different results. Given how much people loved tossing out that advice, it had to work. The blade caught the gleam of the camera lights.
“Go ahead and get started on the chopping here, and he will walk in through there.” Jonah waved his hands and positioned Ashna where he wanted her. Then he started to arrange things on the countertop so the camera picked them up.
Okay, so the celebrity was a he. That meant no grandma. Ugh.
“She will be fine,” Trisha said, pushing Jonah away from Ashna so he wasn’t crowding her.
Ashna pulled a breath all the way to the center of her, the way India, her yoga instructor and Northern California’s foremost stress management therapist, had taught her. India was China’s big sister and Ashna needed to go see her right now.
Jonah herded Trisha and Nisha to the other side of the room. Then he pressed his finger into his earpiece in a gesture so theatrical that, of all things, that’s what made Ashna smile.
For the first time that day she relaxed. Shifting her focus to the familiar motion of the knife, she started slicing the bitter melon into slivers.
“Okay, and we’re rolling,” Jonah said. “Just remember to be yourself. Don’t worry about the cameras.” Which was not something you ever said when you didn’t want someone to worry about cameras.
He turned to the door, and with no more warning than that it flew open.
Time did a backflip.