Page 8 of Best Served Hot

He raised his eyebrows with amusement. Or bemusement. I could never get those two down. “Reviewing? No, I’m not reviewing the festival. Not officially. I would never review a place like this in print.”

A place like this. He was still talking, but I couldn’t hear him over the roar building in my ears. Could barely see his mouth moving through the film of red forming over my vision. A place like this. Bennett Wright was exactly who I’d thought he would be: a spoiled brat who looked down on every restaurant that didn’t charge at least fifty dollars a plate. Sure, he might deign to pick up food at a fun festival and throw a few dollars at the vendors, but feature them in the hallowed, unsullied pages of the New York Scroll? No. Oh no, that wouldn’t do.

A place like this. He was talking about me. About what I did. Putting me down. I barked a not-at-all-humorous laugh, one that stopped him mid-whatever he was saying. Maybe because it sounded like I was about to vomit all over his fancy wool sneakers, which probably cost a full week of my salary.

Suddenly, I wished I could vomit on command, something I’d never wanted before. “That’s right, you’re so much better than me,” I spat. He blinked, eyebrows raising this time with surprise behind those wire rims. “What restaurant did you pick for your first review? I can’t remember the name, since it read exactly the same as every other review I’ve read from the Scroll. Pretentious, expensive, and boring.”

It was like a door closed over his face. “Wow.”

“Yeah, wow,” I said, and it was like pushing someone off a cliff: there was nowhere to go but down, down, down. I was hitting all the trees and rocks on the way, and the injustice of this whole thing was burning in me, a sharp pain like a broken bone, the fact that this guy had gotten the job I’d so badly wanted.

I would have done such a good job. I would not have chosen to go after the same restaurants they’d always done, the same restaurants that resonated mainly with middle-aged office workers in their white collars and expensive suits. “But it’s not so surprising,” I said. “You’re basically the same as their last critic. And the critic before him. A rich white guy. You’re all that’s wrong with food media today. Is your dad all BFF with the Scroll’s CEO or with the food editor, or are they only business buddies?”

Beside Bennett, Rhino let out a long, low whistle. “So, just because someone’s rich and white, they can’t be a food critic? Wow, talk about reverse racism.”

“That’s not what reverse racism means,” I said, my eyes still on Bennett. Like I needed both hands to concentrate, I dropped my bag of leftovers onto the ground beside me. “That’s not even a real term. And I’d say it’s probably more classism and sexism in this case. Though in food, most of the actual cooks aren’t rich and white, but the people featured disproportionately in your pages and in food media are. Why is that? How is that fair?”

Meanwhile, Bennett dropped his gaze, and without those eyes stabbing me, for a moment I felt bad. A little bad, like a hitch in my breath, a missed step at the bottom of a staircase. I took the moment to look around us. I guess I’d assumed that people would be clustering nearby, murmuring excitedly and filming, but no. Everybody was mostly ignoring us.

“For your information,” Rhino said, his voice trumpeting like an actual rhino’s, “Bennett’s mom might have grown up with the paper’s CEO, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t get the job on his own—”

“Stop it, Ryan,” Bennett said, his voice low, but the burning inside me was already crawling up my throat, bursting out in a hot, scornful laugh. I didn’t even have to know whether Rhino was talking about the Times or the Scroll.

“You are everything that’s wrong with food writing and restaurant reviewing today. You could never do what I do.”

Those eyes came back up, and I had to swallow hard at the intensity aimed at me, the scorching anger magnified by the lenses of his glasses. “Is that right? What is it again that you do, exactly?” He held his palm up to his face, mimicking a phone as he talked into it. “Hey guys, check out this really pretty food! What does it taste like? What’s the historical context behind it, and who’s the chef that cooked it? It doesn’t matter! It looks cool!”

The fire spread to my cheeks, then to my eyes. If looks could kill, he’d have two neat holes drilled into that pale forehead by now. “That’s not what I do,” I bit out, but I couldn’t deny that the words hit home. I spent so much time thinking about lighting and placement and which dish looked best on camera, and also how nice it might be to capture each dish in writing, where it didn’t matter how pretty it looked. So much time focusing on how I looked before the camera. “How many subscribers do you have left, anyway? Isn’t print dying? How long until it’s actually dead and you’re out of a job?”

I knew I’d hit home when he winced, like I’d actually hit him. For a moment I felt that bad missed-stair feeling again, and then I remembered what he’d said to me. So no more of that. I lifted my chin challengingly as he replied.

“The food page is one of the only sections that’s expanding. Doing well and drawing people in. That and real estate, surprisingly enough.”

I supposed the scions and CEOs flipping through the paper each morning preferred to browse their third homes or vacation yachts or design schemes off real paper. I’d found my apartment on Craigslist, but I’d had to scroll through scams and sketchy listings of older men looking for younger women to live with for reduced rent in exchange for “chores.”

“There’s only so long those numbers can carry you,” I said wisely, like I had any idea what I was talking about. “I wouldn’t do what you do in a million years.” Bennett’s eyes flashed, and for a moment, panic squirmed in me that he’d seen my résumé lying on someone’s desk, would respond with a clear-cut, If you wouldn’t take my job, why did you apply?

Thankfully, his mom’s friendship with the paper’s CEO didn’t extend that far. “Whatever you say. How much do you make doing this again?”

Ryan the Rhino guffawed behind him, as if that had been some great crack. I pressed my lips together. Why couldn’t Bennett just take his salary and benefits and expense account and go? Preferably somewhere far away. Like the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. He could review seaweed salad and gull meat and clams, all deliciously brined. And maybe also dehydrate himself and die. Julie, you may be going a little too far. But it didn’t feel like it. He wasn’t just attacking me, he was attacking all the dreams I’d ever had.

“It doesn’t matter how much I make doing this,” I bit out. “Some things aren’t about the money, though you and your friends probably don’t understand that.” I waved my arm around wildly in the air, as if that proved something. Or anything aside from that fact that I had at least one working shoulder socket. “I love what I do. I get to eat the best food in the city and tell people about it, and have way more of an effect on my followers than your official byline does.”

He raised one elegant eyebrow behind his wire rims. It really was elegant. I couldn’t help but wonder if he manscaped. “Are you joking?”

“I don’t joke,” I said, which was a lie. “My viewers like me and trust me. I thought Emerson Leigh told you about my account. You didn’t look me up?”

His lip curled. “Just to make sure you didn’t post anything of me. I don’t use social media. At least, not in my personal life.”

Of course he didn’t. My blood heated even more. Sometimes people weren’t into social media, and that was fine. Just like some people were vegans, and that was fine, too, because people should be able to make whatever choices for their personal lives they wanted as long as they didn’t hurt anyone else. But from the way his lip was curling, I knew he wasn’t one of those people. He was one of those people who thought social media rotted your brain and made you stupid. He probably sat down every day with his print newspaper and smiled smugly at it, thinking of all the poor, stupid souls scrolling through Twitter headlines instead.

I curled my lip back at him. “On social media, power comes from the people. Not an institution. Your readers don’t care about you; you’re just the byline in the Scroll. You might get more readers, but mine are way more passionate.”

“Is that so?” He looked as if he’d bitten into a fine torte and discovered it was filled with ground liver instead of chocolate. “All right, then. Prove it.”

I tossed my hair, or tried to toss my hair before I remembered it was all up in an actually messy, not just artfully messy bun, and of course, this was the moment my actually messy, not just artfully messy bun chose to entirely explode. My hair tie pinged off and vanished forever into the trampled grass. Hair everywhere, no survivors.

I have a lot of hair. That’s not specific enough, so let me try it again: I have hair like the mane of an especially aggravated male lion, like the “before” photo of a nineties teen movie makeover, like a storm cloud crackling with electricity. So it wasn’t a surprise when their eyes widened and they took a step back as my hair sprang free. I lifted my chin, feeling a little bit like an avenging goddess. “I prove it in the comments of my followers and the thank-yous from businesses when they report a spike in reservations after my reviews go live.” Was it my imagination, or was my voice deeper, an echo behind it?