Page 99 of The Summer Show
“I like it well enough for Thanksgiving, but I prefer it as leftovers. My grandmother makes the best turkey sandwiches with caramelized onions, cream cheese, and cranberry sauce. On a crusty bread roll, of course, because the texture adds to the whole experience.”
“Not the bird, the country.”
Now that I was thinking about roast turkey, I felt an overwhelming pang of homesickness. I wanted to run home and hide, and stuff myself with Grandma’s turkey sandwiches. I could almost smell the turkey roasting.
No—burning.
Wait.
My imagination was healthy, but it wasn’t that robust.
“Is something cooking?” I asked the reporter, who was still prattling on about Turkey, the country.
He recoiled slightly, startled by my subject change. “This is Greece, something is always cooking.”
“Yeah, but do they usually burn their food?”
“If they are my mother-in-law, then yes.”
Nothing was cooking. I realized that as soon as I concentrated on the acrid scent. The smell was bugging me. I kept picking at the edges, trying to get a bead on what was burning.
Why?
I don’t know. Something to do, I guess. A means of distracting myself.
“Excuse me,” I said. “I have to go.”
“But I have more questions about Turkey.”
“Can’t we move on to ham?”
“What?”
Why would there be fire here? The amphitheater was outside of town, in a rocky area where nothing except obstinate tufts of grasses grew before being beheaded by goats. What could possibly burn?
Unless …
With phones, cameras, and flashes following my every move, I jogged back toward the amphitheater’s entrance.
That’s where the fire was.
thirty-six
Even before I stepped inside, I knew the fire wasn’t an accident. The flames, the burning, they were part of the finale.
Were the producers out of their mind?
Yes. Yes, they were. There were no lows to which they wouldn’t stoop to create must-see TV, and no real rules to stop them. Throw in the fact that we had signed contracts and Greece wasn’t an overly litigious country, enabling them to run lawless, and they could do whatever they wanted.
The entire production team was made up of Cartmans.
Laws weren’t causing my heart to hammer on its bone cage, though; it was the morals that were getting to me. Because I remembered watching episodes from other seasons, and the way the show incorporated the remaining contestants’ fears into the final tasks.
And you know what?
Nick wasn’t afraid of fire. But I was. Especially when books were involved. Because that twelve-year-old girl would always have a home inside me.
I had questions. They would have to wait, because I was pretty sure I already knew some of the answers.