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Cam watched her leave and turned back to Izzy, not bothering to maintain the cheerful facade she had been mustering.

“They want to do a video where I make the dishes.” Izzy abruptly traded the sugary tone she had been using for a matter-of-fact one. “Look, I’ll be straight with you. I think we both know that I can’t cook for shit. So I need you to help me fake it for the cameras. Just for this one interview, I need you to make me look like I can cook.”

Cam breathed in sharply. The pâte brisée was a goner—and now she might be, too.

“I’ll pay you, obviously,” Izzy said, clearly reading Cam’s wary expression. Izzy Jones had not built a multimillion-dollar lifestyle empire by playing dumb. “Loads. And there’s just a little matter of timing. The shoot and interview are next week. In my apartment in New York.”

Izzy explained what her publicist had said, that she needed to show the world she was looking ahead, not back. (The subtext, of course, was that so should everyone else!) A splashy interview focused on her big upcoming project would signal that the incident in Antigua was just a blip.

Izzy also needed to seem relatable—and what better way to do that than through cooking? The People magazine feature, with Izzy whipping up a few of her signature recipes for the cameras, was the difference between a story that was a news cycle–length flash in the pan or a moment that could derail her career and necessitate a lengthy and expensive comeback plan.

“So, are you in?” Izzy finally asked, although her tone suggested it wasn’t a question. “It would be really sad if the cookbook didn’t work out. Birdie told me it was paying to restore her house.”

Cam bristled at the obvious attempt at manipulation. But she had to admit that it was working. Pulling off this ridiculous scheme would be a long shot, but she briefly considered the alternatives. No cookbook deal. No check. A call to the developers, probably, and then helping Birdie pack everything up. Downsizing. Watching the house get razed, more than likely.

Cam pushed all the nightmare scenarios out of her mind and swallowed hard.

“I guess I have to be,” she replied.

Had she taken on an impossible task? Cam wondered after Izzy left. Could she teach Izzy to cook in a mere week? Probably not. But with luck, Cam might just be able to make it look like she could. After all, Izzy had won an Oscar for acting. Surely, with coaching, Izzy could pull off making a few simple dishes. She had been on enough photo and video shoots during her stint at Cooking Well magazine and its sister TV show to know what the cameras liked: colorful foods, a nice garnish, pretty dishware. As long as the host was confident and charming, even a gaffe or two would be fine. Good, even. The producers said it made the chef look relatable. The key, of course, was that final moment where the host takes a bite of the dish and declares it to be delicious. If Cam could get Izzy Jones to that last on-camera bite without catastrophe, she would be golden.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The next couple of days were filled with preparation for the fete while simultaneously attempting to give Izzy a crash culinary-school education. The first task went fairly smoothly. Paige turned out to be a good worker, and she and Cam had developed a ritual of a celebratory fist bump whenever one of them crossed an item off their black-markered list.

On the video-shoot front, Cam had another plan, developed during the mostly sleepless night she’d spent after agreeing to help Izzy. As much as Cam had always staked her success on her lists—those handwritten, meticulously thought out, orderly plans of action—she knew that this particular endeavor was going to be tricky, and no amount of plotting it out could ensure its success. Her strategy was twofold. She would teach Izzy a few cooking moves that she could hopefully master with a little practice. And then there was the subtle art of faking the rest. Cam needed to keep the recipes as easy as possible with a few elements that she could prepare ahead of time. Izzy would just have to combine the ingredients convincingly, and hopefully add a heavy dose of her famously electric onscreen presence.

It would help if Izzy had even the tiniest bit of ability in the kitchen. And slightly less of an attitude.

Thursday morning, Cam had planned for them to get another lesson in dicing before she and Paige got to work. Izzy arrived at the cafe kitchen promptly at 8:00, rolling her shoulders as she shed her coat. “Ugh, I’m just dying for a massage,” she whined. “Birdie’s mattress isn’t exactly the quality I’m used to. I mean, I slept more comfortably at an ayahuasca retreat last month that was in the middle of the desert. Have you ever done one of those? Totally mind-blowing.”

Cam gritted her teeth and ignored Izzy’s diva routine. Wasn’t this the kind of thing that had gotten her into trouble in the first place? “No, I haven’t,” she said, reaching for another mug. “Coffee?”

Izzy looked at the coffee maker with derision. “Do you have oat milk around here for that? Or better yet, matcha?”

Cam willed herself to stay calm, even though she felt like slamming the thick cafe mug onto the counter and telling Izzy where she could stick her oat milk. Deep breaths. There was no point in getting riled up already. They had a long day ahead of them, and besides, there were sharp knives at arm’s length. “I’ve got some Earl Grey tea,” she offered.

“That would be… fine,” Izzy said, her tone indicating that “fine” was a relative term.

“It’s in that cabinet.” Cam pointed to a shelving unit, but Izzy made no indication of moving toward it, clearly expecting Cam to fetch it for her. Cam forced a smile. “Help yourself,” she said. “And the kettle’s on the stove.”

“Fine,” Izzy said as she comprehended that Cam was not, in fact, going to wait on her. With a sigh, she crossed the room and took a tea bag from the cupboard and plunked it into the mug. She approached the large commercial stove and regarded it with suspicion. It was an industrial model, but its knobs worked the same as any stove. As Cam watched Izzy fiddle with them, she had a disturbing revelation: Izzy Jones actually didn’t know how to turn on a burner.

“Okay,” Cam said, willing her tone to sound chipper. “Let’s start with some basics.”

After she instructed Izzy on the finer points of operating a stove, they moved on to knife skills. Starting, of course, with how to hold the tool. Cutting an onion properly was one of the first things Cam learned in culinary school, and it was one of the most satisfying tasks to master: You cut the orb in half and then peeled it, making cross-hatch cuts to dice them into fine cubes. But getting Izzy comfortable enough to look like she wasn’t terrified of the objects in front of her wasn’t so easy.

“This isn’t working!” Izzy finally cried in frustration, after another botched attempt. “And look at my face. I’m a mess!”

Cam considered doubling down and putting on her best drill sergeant act, forcing Izzy to try again. After all, she was the one in charge here, right? But then she took in Izzy’s eyes, which had gone red and teary from the onion. Her nose, too, was runny and pink. Izzy had a point.

“Change of plan!” Cam called, her mind flipping through recipes that would call for minimal chopping. “Forget the ratatouille. You’re going to make vegan pesto in a food processor,” she said. “It is going to be delicious—red pepper and almonds with an olive oil drizzle.” She hadn’t yet written that recipe. In fact, she hadn’t even thought of the idea until just now. But desperation was the mother of invention, right?

A few hours and a quick trip to the store later, Izzy learned how to make pasta. Salting the boiling water generously, then dropping in the dry pasta and checking for it to be al dente before draining it, holding back a bit of starchy water to toss with the sauce. Under Cam’s watch, Izzy practiced measuring and tossing the pesto ingredients into the food processor that Cam pilfered from Birdie’s house.

“It’s the little things that are going to make you look like a cook,” Cam explained. “Like when you’re done with the sauce, use a clean spoon to test it—”

“To check to see if it needs more salt,” Izzy cut her off. “What?” she asked as Cam shot her a quizzical look. “Yeah, I stayed up last night watching a bunch of Alison Roman videos. I know that’s a thing.”