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be successfully produced by the general population, you should trust that I am going to take your recipes and make them better, and leave it at that. I do things the way they should be done, and you cook your dishes like a good little boy and STAY OUT OF MY ASS.”
    You could have heard a pin drop in the studio. No one moved, no one breathed, no one made eye contact. Patrick took the world’s longest inhale, and while I braced for venom or violence, I refused to unlock my gaze from his, standing as tall as I could manage, spine straight, full of piss and vinegar. He threw his arms around me, braying with laughter. “Ladies and gentlemen, I am officially just the face. Meet the boss.” He backed up, bowed deeply at my feet, and began applauding. Slowly, cautiously, the rest of the crew began applauding too.
    I sighed, and my ass unclenched. “Well, if I’m the boss, can you shift your sassy self into high gear and get this shoot done? It’s my niece’s first birthday, and if you keep fuckingaround and whining about onions, she’s going to be headed off to college before I get to her party.”
    “You heard the lady. Let’s get this done already so we can go home.” And while it wasn’t the last time I ever caught hell from Patrick, it set the tone for the rest of our relationship.
    I look at the sniffling girl in front of me.
    This is not my first time at this rodeo. If she had been angry at how she had been treated, called him names, told me she hated him for humiliating her and making her feel small, I would have told her to tough it out, get through the whole season and then she’d be able to write her own ticket. It would have shown an instinctive awareness of the insanity we all deal with, and an ability to cope.
    But the ones who dissolve in soggy emotion, they don’t last, and this one had completely gone off the rails into self-loathing-how-could-I-disappoint-one-of-my-idols mode, so I assured her that no one would blame her if she didn’t want to return, and that I would be happy to write her a recommendation for a new job; food television is not for everyone. She drank way too much wine and picked at her salad and by the time we were done I had gently led her to decide for herself that it would be best to tender her notice in the morning.
    By the time I got home, I couldn’t focus on work; I just needed to veg out. I put on one of my Julia Child DVDs for happy background noise, grabbed my laptop for perhaps a little online retail therapy, and let Dumpling plop on the couch beside me.
    I scritch him behind the ears, and he puts his little head on my knee. “You know the difference between batonnet and allumette, don’t you, boy?” He lifts his head, licks my knee once, decisively, as if to say, “Of course I do, silly two-legs,”and then puts his head back down and closes his eyes. When I open the computer, it shows the last page I was looking at.
    EDestiny.
    RJ. Wonder what that stands for? I shouldn’t care, I know. Online dating just doesn’t work for me.
    When EDestiny began doing their freebie events, I would log in, just to amuse myself with all the
terrifically perfect
guys I was missing out on. They apparently really missed my monthly contribution to their bottom line, and stepped up their game volume-wise, sending me the very young, the very old, and the very scary. The recently released and the practically deceased. The stamp collectors, coin collectors, and, for all I knew, body part collectors. They sent me not only my COUSIN Sam, who we all think is gay anyway, but then one of my sister’s chiropractic partners, who is not only also most likely gay, but so deeply closeted that he is currently married.
    It became a game. The more I didn’t pay them, the more often I was offered free weekends and special deals, and peeks at new matches, not one of whom was remotely someone I would want to meet on the street, let alone become romantically involved with. They sent me four guys with more