Fed up

her presence. “The sign about not using cell phones is pretty clear,” I said. “I’m sorry for what happened.”
    He shrugged his shoulders. “Friend of the chef. That’s how it is. Thanks, though. Excuse me, I have an order to bring out.”
    Nelson was gazing at me with strange intensity; he almost seemed to be in a trance. In what I intended as a startling tone, I said, “I didn’t know that Robin and Marlee were friends. I thought they just knew each other from Chefly Yours.”
    “Oh, yeah. They’ve been good friends for a while. Robin wants to keep that quiet, though, because she doesn’t want it to look like she’s playing favorites on the show.”
    Well, Robin most certainly was playing favorites! And having a chef friend of hers in the competition was bad enough, but keeping the friendship secret was even worse. Granted, Robin couldn’t control the number of viewers who actually called in to vote for each chef, but for all I knew, she could falsify the voting results. What if Marlee ended up winning the show because Robin had tinkered with the numbers?
    I was fuming. It ticked me off to realize that Josh could lose to a chef who served such disgusting food at her restaurant. In the single episode that Marlee had done, the food had looked better than the revolting stuff I’d eaten tonight, but Josh’s cooking was incomparably better than Marlee’s, and his on-camera personality outshone Marlee’s by light-years.
    Nelson’s hand slithered across the table toward mine. I swiftly yanked my hand away while desperately looking around for Robin. Mercifully, she was on her way back to her stool.
    “Sorry about that. That waiter is an asshole.”
    I pushed my food around on my plate and watched in awe as Robin polished hers clean. Nelson ate all of his food, too, but he struck me as someone who’d be unable to discriminate between a dinner at a run-down roadside shack and one at La Tour d’Argent. When the entrées appeared, I repeated the process of pushing my food around and managed to ingest only a tiny portion of the lavender-and-oregano-infused salmon that Marlee had chosen for us. Chosen for us? Inflicted on us, I should say.
    To avoid Nelson’s ogling, I shifted around to face Robin and concentrated on giving her a detailed description of the wedding plans. Robin sounded delighted to have the opportunity to produce Adrianna and Owen’s wedding video and assured me she’d edit the footage down and set it to whatever music the couple wanted.
    “Another delicious meal!” Robin pronounced as the waitress cleared our plates. “After that, I think I’m too full for dessert tonight.”
    “I agree. Stuffed. I’m absolutely stuffed.” The last thing I wanted was cilantro-scented ice cream or whatever other vile dessert Marlee would send out. I was already brainstorming about where to stop on the way home to buy an edible dinner.
    “Would you like to go see the kitchen? I know Marlee wouldn’t mind.” Robin put her napkin down and gestured to the depths of the restaurant. “Nelson, we’ll be back in a minute. Here’s my credit card. Will you get the check?”
    “I’d love to see Alloy’s kitchen,” I said cheerfully. I went on to thank Robin for treating me to dinner. Thank God I hadn’t paid out of my own pocket for that terrible meal.
    A restaurant kitchen was no novelty to me—I already knew the ins and outs of Simmer’s—and I was less than eager to examine the source of dishes that had made me gag, but I could hardly say so to Robin, who was Marlee’s friend and who was footing the bill. Still, a visit to Alloy’s kitchen would give me the chance to see for myself whether there were any signs of all those code violations I’d read about. There presumably wouldn’t be rodents or insects in sight, but I was so used to Josh’s exceptionally sterile kitchen that I should be able to detect iffy conditions in Marlee’s.
    As it turned out, no experience was required to spot unhygienic areas in Alloy’s kitchen. Chicken pieces lay uncovered on a plastic cutting board, their juices running onto the counter and floor. The floors were wet and filthy, and the one drain I could see was covered in gray gunk. In contrast to the minimalist metallic dining area, the entire kitchen had an air of chaos. I did notice a spray sanitizer, but its nozzle hung over containers of chopped vegetables that sat on a long stainless counter. The soap dispenser over the sink was empty, its drip