Page 86 of Cuts like a Knife
Holy crap, Danny and Maylee are a couple. The whole story comes out before we’re half-way across the island.
I can’t believe it.
It can’t be this easy. It can’t. And yet … the pair of them are completely open about it — as unbothered as any regular couple on vacation. They’re not cagey or careful or suspicious of me and what I might do with the information I’m getting out of them at all. Not at all.
Neither of them seems to have had so much as a single afternoon of media training. Or maybe they just trust me, specifically? It’s so weird. Maylee Wise was a child star. How can she be this open? And Danny … chefs are notoriously nasty. They all aspire to be like Gordon Ramsay, shouting at everyone all the time, being superior f—s at every opportunity. But this guy Danny Hughes is … happy? Smiley. Friendly. Funny.
They’re both genuinely friendly.
It’s both bizarre and completely exhilarating. This day … this day is going to change my life. I can’t believe it. I am going to secure a story — no, a series of stories — that is going to make me look like the entertainment reporter of the century. And the opportunity just fell into my lap. I can hardly believe it.
As we ride along and Maylee and Danny chatter away, I try to focus. It might be tough to keep track of everything when I’m not able to take proper notes. I wonder if I should activate the recorder on my phone? Would I be allowed to do that? Without indicating it to them? I don’t actually know. Maybe. They know I’m a journalist already. But do I have to tell them if I’m recording them?271
I decided I’ll just need to listen closely, get what I need the old-fashioned way.
And luckily, Maylee and Danny can’t seem to shut up272. It turns out they’ve been together for more than two whole years. And better still (for me) they contrived to be on Hot Slice because they both had plans that would benefit from a profile boost. Maylee’s book, for one thing.
“And my restaurant,” explains Danny, who’s made fast friends with Drew and is making small talk with both of us easily and animatedly as the car whizzes along the Queen’s Highway. “Sorry for the early start, by the way. It’s just that a bunch of the dates will be heading out from the same place we are — Government Dock in Georgetown — and we wanted to be long gone before anyone from the show arrived.” My mind is testing out headlines. I can’t help myself.
Hot Slice’s most boring cast members spill huge secret
“Why a government dock? What does that mean?” I ask.
Maylee chuckles. “It’s just what it’s called. It’s a regular dock in the marina. You’ll see.”
“I don’t get it. Why didn’t the show pair you together then? As a team? If you’re already a couple, I mean?” Asks Drew273.
“For one thing, they don’t know we’re a couple. We are supposed to be single. Or at least, to appear single. It’s all part of the contract,” explains Danny with a roll of his eyes. “The show likes to control the pairings. They thought I was — and I quote — a better visual match with that ridiculous YouTube woman.”
“I noticed you losing your patience with her last night,” I say.
“That’s putting it mildly,” Danny admits, easily. “I’m losing my patience with this whole stupid thing. I’ve done reality TV before, eh? At home. Cooking stuff. But it’s nothing like what you people have going on down in the States. Your media — sorry, no offense— is so crazy vicious. And these producers! They’re like vultures. I’ve never experienced anything like it. This is off the record right? Gotta be careful with folks like you, I know.”
I fly right past that one.
“It’s not like this in Canada?” I ask.
Danny shakes his head back and forth so vehemently, his longish hair waves around his face. I’m struck again by how normal and down-to-earth he seems, with his regular-guy haircut and his sleeves of tattoos. He’s wearing battered sandals and khaki shorts with fraying edges, and his teeshirt — obviously very old — has some sort of indecipherable logo on it. It looks like three letters in script — a red e, a white l, and a blue b274.
No part of him says celebrity.
At least, not on the surface. That must be his schtick. If I hadn’t known he was on the show, I would never have picked him out of a crowd, but so what? He is what he is.
It’s a costume. It’s gotta be.
Seemingly sweet Canadian chef conceals secret bitchy side, slams YouTuber Savannah Jack
“Nah, man. There are rich people in Toronto and Montreal and Vancouver in particular. I’m not saying there aren’t. But it’s just … culturally, we have nothing like this. At all. And it’s … I know you people think we’re all dying to be American. Greatest country in the world? That whole line. But trust me, no one I know wants to be American. We don’t even want to be accidentally mistaken for Americans.” Danny laughs.
“Forgive him, being anti-American is his latest thing,” pipes up Maylee with a roll of her eyes.
“You’ve gotta admit, you’re all nuts, eh? At home, we joke that being Canadian feels like living in an apartment over a meth lab these days.”
Drew laughs.
“This show is especially intense. already been reprimanded for being too friendly with Danny, actually,” Maylee admits. “A PA took me aside last night to tell me to stop monopolizing him.”
“As if the only reason I’m not hooking up with Jack on camera already is that she’s distracting me. Not because they keep sending that woman into dangerous kitchen situations drunk and expecting me to keep her from killing herself. How’s that coffee, by the way?”
