AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Ryan and I couldn’t stop fighting,” Diana said quietly. “To be honest with you, the fighting has been going on behind the scenes for a very long time. Last year, I finally took a hard look at myself and what I really wanted. No, it wasn’t a television career. But I figured if I did the television thing on my own terms, maybe I would find a path away from him. Maybe I would finally be free.”
“That makes sense,” Rachelle said.
Diana laughed nervously. “I don’t know if it does. But making this show was the only thing that got me out of making the show I was supposed to be filming with Ryan.”
“He’s filming something now, too?”
“Supposedly,” Diana said. “I haven’t spoken to him at all since I left.” She paused. “That’s the longest we’ve ever gone without speaking since I was twenty-three years old.”
Because of this, Diana felt hollowed out and empty. But this wasn’t something she would share with Rachelle. It was impossible to translate how much she missed the man who’d also made her life miserable. It didn’t make sense.
“Wow,” Rachelle breathed.
Diana rubbed her neck and glanced around, grateful that nobody seemed to be paying attention. “I knew I shouldn’t have married him.”
“Why do you say that?”
Diana raised her shoulders. “I’ve been thinking about it so much lately. Going over every detail of our story. He used me for his own fame. And I got famous, too, along the way. But it never felt like it was on my own terms.”
Rachelle contemplated this for a moment.
Before she could answer, Diana asked, “What about your career, Rachelle? What about your future?”
Rachelle sputtered. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, you’re not going to get anywhere here,” Diana said. “At The Clam Factory.”
“I don’t know about that,” Rachelle said. “We make exquisite food here. I’m proud of it.”
“But you should be working across the world,” Diana said. “You should be broadening your palate. You should be moving up the ranks of some of the most prestigious kitchens in the world.”
Rachelle’s eyes shifted nervously. She sipped her wine. “Maybe I’m too nervous to do that.”
Diana was surprised at Rachelle’s honesty.
“Right now, I live with my sister,” Rachelle breathed. “She’s my very best friend. My confidant. Our mother lives ten minutes away, and we gather all the time to watch films, eat snacks, and laugh. And sometimes, of course, I lie awake at night and think about where my career should be or where it should go. But other times, I’m grateful for my life here. For the love I have here.”
Diana’s heart cracked at the edges. Her mind’s eye filled with images of her long-lost best friends from home, her family, and the people she’d left behind for the allure of culinary school in New York City. What love had she given up on? Would it have changed her? Would it have made her less rigid and sad?
“But maybe you’re right,” Rachelle said, hanging her head. “I never know what’s right.”
Diana raised her shoulders. “Maybe you do. Maybe you’re wise beyond your years.”
“I don’t think I’m wise in the slightest,” Rachelle said. “I’m just trying to figure everything out.”
“Welcome to the club,” Diana said, raising her glass.
Chapter Nineteen
Rachelle and Diana developed a beautiful friendship throughout the entire week and into the next. They joked with one another, came up with new recipe ideas, spoke about one another eloquently on camera, and reminded each other that, soon, filming for “this dumb show” would be over, and they could move on to better things.
Now that Eddie was out of commission, the camera crew developed a new story for the show involving a female server and Paul and Benny. In this fake story, Benny and Paul fell in love with her, and she played with both of their emotions. Paul and Benny were happy to ham it up for the camera, going so far as to pretend to have a fistfight in back by the dumpsters. Diana and Rachelle watched, eating crackers and applauding when they were through.
“You guys were really meant for television,” Diana said.
Once, Paul accidentally punched Benny harder than he’d planned to, and Benny laughed with surprise. They would cut that from the episode.
One week after the hyaluronic acid incident, Darcy removed the acid from Eddie’s face and returned him back to normal. She faked a million apologies, telling him that this had never happened to her before. Because she hadn’t charged him in the first place, he didn’t have much ground to stand on. He did, however, give her a one-star rating on the internet. She had so many five-star ratings that his was immediately buried. Nobody cared about little old Eddie.
