Taste (H.S. / A.U.)

Chapter 75

THE CONTEST WILL BE CHAPTER 74 & 75 TWO PARTS SORRY!!!

ELOISE DUPONT

"Over here!"

*a snap sound echoed*

It felt like I kept getting cues shouted from every angle, but the lights were blinding, too white, too hot. One eye started to twitch involuntarily, and I instinctively reached up to rub it, blinking hard, trying to adjust, also trying to avoiding smudging make up. I turned toward the voice beyond the wash of glare, spotting a vague silhouette past the beams.

"Head higher Eloise!" someone barked again, and I tilted my chin up obediently, squinting into what felt like the sun.

A familiar voice cut through, warm and low, lined with just enough sarcasm to feel like a lifeline. "I did two judges before this," Lorraine said, sliding into the chair next to me, giving a warm smirk as she leaned in toward me, "oh, and delightfully another with Mia. You won't believe some of the answers I've heard today. It'll be so much nicer to be talking to a normal person. I feel like it's been an eternity since I've been around a normal human."

We both laughed, the moment breaking through the haze of stage instructions and production static. It felt like something real in a room that was otherwise screaming fake.

I liked Lorraine.

She hadn't changed much since I saw her last, though I noticed the subtle differences that came with time. Her hair was longer, pulled back in a loose knot that still looked editorial. Her face was slimmer, lightly dusted with highlighter that caught the overhead lighting. A soft coral lip stain gave a brightness to her, her brown eyes shining with flecks of gold under the hot lights.

I wanted to tell her she looked amazing, like the kind of woman who'd just come back from a breezy, perfect summer holiday, but before I could, the lights dimmed abruptly.

Total darkness.

Then back up, blinding us both. 

A loud, omnipresent voice thundered above us through the ceiling-mounted speakers, robotic and bored but trying to sound excited. "Okay, Eloise and Lorraine, we are good to go in thirty seconds. Interview number four on the main floor, starting with chef two, everyone. Entrance in twenty. Nineteen, eighteen, seventeen, sixteen, fifteen. Ready? Placements! Get that intern off the fucking floor. Oh my god. People, can we get the interns.... okay, seven, six, five, go for camera two and -"

A camera zipped across the floor on a mechanical track, slicing between the two of us like a spaceship. Lorraine didn't flinch, unlike myself, which I tried to hide behind a tuck of crossing my legs. She turned her head slightly, finding her light and flashed a smile so perfect it had to have cost thousands of dollars in orthodontics. I was a little intimated by her perfected look on camera already.

She'd done this before. A few times at least based on what she just said.

I was trying to remember where to look, how to hold my shoulders, and whether or not I was sweating through my top.

The red light flicked on before me.

Lorraine didn't wait, already clearing her throat and launched into it like we've been chatting here for the past few minutes about food or whatever and that camera almost just happened to catch us so nonchalant like.

"You guys happened to catch us at the right time, this time joining me is the season's most amazing standout chefs if I do say so myself. Maybe you've seen her make bold choices on the pages of her new book, or even on a tiktok with her newest love interest, she spices up kitchen and heats up tabloids with the paparazzi. You hear her name and cannot help but want to know more. Please welcome the incredibly talented Eloise DuPont, a close and personal friend of my own."