The Kitchen Cherub

Jason polished the lenses of his camera carefully, keeping his eye on the door. Any minute now, it would open and she would walk in - the country's most famous celebrity chef, the Kitchen Cherub. His ticket to success.

On the other side of the room Wallace was pacing anxiously, his interview questions gripped in his hand. The tension was so strong it felt like there was a third person in the room. Jason, Wallace, and their combined nerves.

It was a relief when the door finally opened, and she walked in. Smaller than Jason had expected, Clara Groves was impeccably dressed and immaculately groomed. She crossed confidently to Wallace, a hand extended politely.

"You must be Mr. Keynes," she smiled. "I'm so delighted to meet you." Jason's acute photographer's eye scanned her face for any hint of insincerity but found nothing. Clara was good, that was for sure.

He tried not to examine her too obviously as the Kitchen Cherub turned her polished charm towards him. "Glad you made it," he told Clara, or rather Clara's neatly coiffed hair. She really was short.

"Shall we get started?" she asked, addressing Wallace and Wallace alone. "I'm sure you've prepared plenty of questions for me." Her long, graceful legs crossed neatly at the ankles as Clara perched on a padded brocade chair, turning her face slightly so that the sunlight illuminated her perfect skin. Jason positioned his camera and started clicking.

Sinking into a chair opposite, Wallace cleared his throat noisily. Was it Jason's imagination or had the barest flicker of irritation crossed Clara's beautiful features before they settled back into a doll-like smile? Her eyes, he noticed, were far too blue to be natural, and they didn't stray from Wallace's for an instant.

The interview began with a series of predictable questions about Clara's idyllic childhood in California, her education at the French culinary school, the success of the second series of "Heaven on a Plate". Jason began to pack up his tripod; he'd got all the shots he needed of Clara's practised smile, her dainty tilt of the head, her cleverly-positioned hands with the respectable glint of a single gold band.

"I used to love baking with my grandmom when we went to visit," Clara told Wallace. She was leaning slightly forwards, her smile still hovering at the corner of her lips even when she spoke. "We would walk through the door and I would run straight to the store cupboard to fetch the flour. I think that's what started my love of cooking."

The words sounded practised but genuine. Jason could picture the golden-haired moppet running across the cool stone flagstones of her grandmother's kitchen, clutching a bag of flour. It was a charming image and would no doubt capture the hearts of America's women - and the beautiful face staring out from beside the magazine print would just as surely capture the hearts of the men.

As the questions rolled on, Jason settled back onto his chair and reviewed the photos he had taken on the camera's LCD screen. They were good, but there was nothing about them that would ignite passion in any editors. Frustratingly Clara Groves, the Kitchen Cherub, was too perfect. Her exquisitely manufactured appearance should have been a photographer's dream, but it was dull. The camera couldn't capture the barely perceptable lines of tension around her eyes and the slightly too-casual tilt of her chin.

Perfect but dull could apply to the interview too, although she answered Wallace's questions with apparent candidness. When he made the obligatory observation that she was far too slim to be sampling her own recipes every day, Clara laughed a stream of golden ripples with her head thrown slightly back. "I'll admit, I eat everything I cook on the show - but I work out every day and I promise you I don't eat like that every day!"

It had been almost half an hour before Wallace moved onto the questions which signalled the end of the interview. Clara was obviously an old hand at this; she sat up a little straighter in her chair and uncrossed her ankles, still smiling as she brushed her hair out of her face.

But Wallace didn't wrap up the interview as he should have done. Instead he suddenly threw out another question. Jason had allowed his mind to drift and hadn't heard it, but his attention was dragged back abruptly at the tone of Clara's response.

"I'm sorry," Clara said in a voice with uncharacteristic edge, "but I don't think I understand what you're trying to say." The lines of tension deepend a little.

Wallace leaned back in his chair with a nonchalant air. "Whether you want your daughter to follow in your footsteps. Are you teaching her to cook? Our readers love to hear about family traditions."

Clara's face was utterly impassive as she replied. Too impassive, Jason thought. He had spent a lifetime reading expressions, and the fact that Clara was expressionless spoke volumes.

"I'm afraid you're misinformed," she told Wallace in a voice that brooked no argument. "I don't have a daughter."

Jason frowned slightly. It was no secret that Clara was engaged to an Illinois senator, and they had no children. Wallace must have known that. Either he hadn't bothered to prepare or he was playing a dangerous game.

The reporter gave a small laugh. "I don't wish to upset you, Miss Groves, but that isn't true, is it?"

Now there was no mistaking the irritation, not to mention anger, on Clara's face. Her hands tensed into fierce balls as she uncrossed her ankles, looking ready to flee. "I do not have a daughter. If you print one word to suggest that I do, then I will sue you, and your magazine, out of existence. Have I made myself clear?"

It would have made a wonderful photograph, and Jason cursed himself for packing away so prematurely. The Kitchen Cherub didn't look so angelic now, with a dark red flush on her forehead and her shoulders hunched defensively. Her balled fists were pressing down on her knees as if she was trying to contain a terrible rage.

Wallace either hadn't noticed, or didn't care. He casually picked at a piece of lint on his jacket as he delivered his next bombshell. "There is no law against reporting the truth, I'm afraid, Miss Groves, and I have in my possession a copy of the birth certificate of a Cassandra Groves Dalton, daughter of Samuel Joshua Dalton and Clara Rose Groves. She'd be, what, six years old now?"

"Seven," Clara whispered, involuntarily. Her head was bowed and her whole body looked clenched tight. Jason marvelled at the contrast between this tiny knot of emotions and the elegant, languid angel of the television.

Straightening up, the woman looked directly into Wallace's eyes. The icy sparks were so powerful that Jason flinched. Wallace received the full force and physically recoiled, pulling himself back into his chair.

Clara's voice, when she spoke again, was harsher and more fierce than Jason had ever heard it. There was no hint of a simper now, not a single note of charm or sweetness. The elaborate facade that the public had fallen for was crumbling at an alarming speed.

"I don't know how the hell you got your information and I don't know what game you're playing but if you think I'm going to let you start spreading malicious rumours about me and my family then you had better get yourself a lawyer. That is my private business, do you hear me? That is my... private..."

Her voice broke off into a gurgle of sobs. Irrationally Jason felt an urge to go to her, to put his hand on her shoulder and comfort her, but professional acumen and plain common sense kept him in his chair. This would be the coup of the century. Almost without thinking he lifted his camera in his hands, slyly pressing the shutter. He could probably have got out the tripod and taken a panorama - Clara's attention was focussed on Wallace's smug, satisfied smirk with an intensity that would block out a line of tap-dancing penguins.

"Nothing is private," snarled Wallace, with a curl of his lip. "Especially not for the trophy fiancee of a senator. Did you think no one would find out? You were what, twenty-two, twenty-three? Hardly a child. Why didn't you keep it?"

Clara's face crumpled and her make up began to run down her cheeks, smeared by a flood of tears. She was on her feet, screaming incomprehensibly at Wallace's continuous barbed questions. The door to the room flew open and two people rushed in, a woman in a dark suit gently putting her arm around Clara's shoulders while her colleague shouted at the reporter.

Jason felt a glimmer of sympathy, but his hard-hearted career-driven finger continued to click at the camera, capturing the private agony of a very public figure. Never mind those dull publicity shots from earlier; this was the break he had been waiting for. It was going to make waves and his photos would ride the tide all the way to the top.

Through the viewfinder he watched the retreating back of the former Kitchen Cupid, flanked on either side by her furious assistants. Wallace leant against the doorframe, smiling with a viper's grin.

"I hope you got some good shots, Jason my lad," he called over his shoulder, unnecessarily loudly. "There's no way they'll want to sit on this one."

The words echoed down the corridor, mingling with the receding sound of sobs. Jason made a grunt of acknowledgement as he carefully slipped the memory card out of the camera, clipped it into a case and dropped it safely into a ziplock bag. He wasn't taking any chances with Clara's minders, especially not with Wallace seemingly trying to antagonise them into returning.

"How did you know?" he asked Wallace. The reporter smirked.

"I have a cousin who works for the records bureau in San Fran. She came across the birth cert by accident and thought of her good old cousin Wally. Great chance, hey?"

Jason realised that he had never liked his colleague much. His unctuous flattery for the B-list celebrities they featured and his dismissive manner once they left the room had always, to Jason's sudden recollection, grated on him. It wasn't that Wallace had anything against Clara Groves. It was just a great chance.

The rational part of his brain, the part that paid the rent and bought the expensive Italian shoes, shook Jason's sentimentality out of the picture. It was a great chance for both of them, and if smarmy blonde celebrities couldn't keep their family skeletons locked into the closet then he couldn't be blamed for cashing in when they fell out. Clara had built her entire career on her flawless image and there was big money for the magazine who could uncover the secrets. Even better, the senator fiance gave the story political relevance. It was a goldmine.

If he had glanced out of the window, Jason would have seen the blue Sedan doors close as Clara was tucked into the back seat. The tinted windows weren't quite dark enough to obscure her face from view, but her red-rimmed eyes and slumped shoulders were only visible if you were looking for them. And neither Wallace nor Jason were looking.


Word count: 1899 words