Page 45 of Not You Again
While I’m struggling with how much memory my dough has—I can’t get it flat enough and wish I could use an iron on it like I do with stubborn fabric—a metal pan clatters to the floor on Jamie and Leslie’s side of the kitchen.
All eyes turn to them. A dough blob stretches off the edge of the counter, and one of the pendulum lights above the island swings back and forth. Leslie buries his face in his hands while Jamie shrugs sheepishly. “I thought I’d try throwing it?”
I want to laugh, but Leslie frowns, his hands balled into fists.
“You hurt?” Patrick asks him.
He slowly shakes his head and looks at Jamie, furious. “No, I just—for once, can you take something seriously?”
Jamie’s smile melts into a grimace. “Would it kill you to have some fun for once?”
“You ruined your pizza and made a mess of this kitchen that isn’t even yours.”
“The kitchen will clean, and it’s pizza, not life and death. Relax.”
Leslie closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. “I think I will relax. At home.” He forces a smile for the rest of us and offers, “Enjoy.”
After a cameraman follows him out the door, I check on Jamie. He gives me a small smile. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”
I squat down with him to help scrape the pizza dough off the floor. “I’m sorry. He shouldn’t talk to you like that.”
Jamie sniffs, making a point to hide his face so the camera can’t see him cry. “I’m trying so hard to get to know him, and nothing I do is right.”
This experience is an uphill climb for all of us, apparently. “Is he always like this?”
“No.” He shakes his head and plops a handful of dough onto the metal pan that fell. “When we’re alone, no cameras around, he’s so … gentle. And kind.”
I nod. “It’s stressful to get married to someone you’ve never met and then be on camera all the time.”
Jamie laughs. “Yeah. Yeah, it is.”
“Do you want to help with my pizza since I’m solo anyway?”
He smiles. “That’d be fun.”
I smile in return. As wild as the experience of this show is, I’m glad I’m at the very least not doing it alone.
By the time our pizza hits the oven, it’s a misshapen lump of dough with some sauce on it, but I’m proud of the work. I remove my apron and excuse myself to go to the bathroom. My hands are covered in flour and dough bits, and the rest of me is sticky with sweat from hovering over hot pots and ovens. Cassidy flicks off my mic before I duck into the ladies’ room in the clubhouse.
After splashing my face with cool water and sniffing my shirt to make sure I don’t smell like yeast, I stare at my reflection. The woman looking back is tired, dark smudges under her eyes.
I open the bathroom door and lean on the frame. Cassidy waits patiently in the hall. “How do you do it?” I ask her.
She tilts her head. “Do what?”
“Work full-time and keep a house clean and eat and”—I gesture at the clubhouse kitchen, where Steve and the army of producers and equipment wait for us to return—“keep a relationship going?”
Cassidy shrugs, watching Steve frame a shot of the pizza in the oven. “Our place is a mess and we’ve been living off gas station food. While we’re filming, something has to give. There just aren’t enough hours in the day.”
“What about each other?”
She smiles. “We’re lucky. We get to work together.”
I look at my shoes. There’s a splotch of marinara on my right toe. “I don’t think I’m cut out for this.”
“You did great with the pizza.” She waves it off.
“No, I mean”—I shift on my feet—“the relationship part.”