But then Austin was back in her sight line, his handsome face annoyingly smug. “Sasha, I’ve had a lot of concussions in my day playing football, and you really shouldn’t mess around. We definitely want Charlie at her best, don’t we? She should be checked out at the hospital—she took a pretty big bump to her head.”
Sasha nodded, then turned to the medic. “Sam, what do you think?” Sam! That was his name. Charlie felt momentarily energized by also remembering that Sam’s daughter’s name was Bernadette, and that she had named their dog Pancake after her favorite food.
“Sasha, I’m fine.” Charlie sat up, too quickly, and immediately wilted back against Sam as he braced her shoulders from behind.
“Doesn’t look like it,” Austin said. “Look, I can do the rest of the shots on my own. Then Charlie can go and get the care she needs.” Charlie did her best to glower at her co-host, who feigned a worried expression she didn’t buy for a second.
“Probably not a bad idea,” Sam said, peering around to look into her eyes. “What day is it, Charlie?”
“Monday.”
“What’s the name of the show?” Sam asked.
“Sweet and Salty’s Twelve Days to Christmas Countdown,” Charlie said. “I’m okay. Really. Can I get up?”
“Let me help,” Austin said, reaching out a hand just as Charlie grabbed onto Sam’s arms and hoisted herself up. Priya swatted gently at Charlie’s full skirt, trying to rid it of the pixie dust.
“Come on,” Priya said. “Let’s fix your hair and makeup.”
“I really don’t think this is a good—” Austin began, but Sasha cut him off.
“Okay, everyone, let’s get back to work.” Sasha turned to Charlie, and said more quietly, “You don’t look great.”
“Thanks a lot,” Charlie muttered.
“Listen. Here’s the deal,” Sasha said. “You can finish these last few shots, and then you’re going to the ER. Nonnegotiable. And if you need tomorrow off, well, not ideal but we’ll work the shots around it. Got it?”
“Got it,” Charlie said, still trying to quell the nausea; her head felt like it was under water. She had to hold it together until the B-roll was shot or risk Austin getting precisely what he wanted—the set, and Sasha’s full attention, to himself.
Priya fixed Charlie up, adding extra blush to her cheeks to hide how pale she was, and Sam checked on her a few more times. （Headache? Nausea? Dizziness? No, she replied, feeling guilty for lying.） Everything was going smoothly and Charlie was proud of her ability to keep her symptoms hidden despite how awful she felt, until the shot when she and Austin had to demonstrate how to caramelize the pineapple.
When Charlie was cooking, she relied on a lot of things: a childhood spent baking with her pastry-chef father at the family’s bakery, her formal schooling, her years of experience, and her senses—particularly her sense of taste and smell. Charlie had an uncanny ability to detect flavor notes others could not. It had served her well in her career so far, and she knew she was far superior to Austin in this regard.
But then came the pineapple B-roll scene.
She had it all under control, or so she thought, until her assistant, Sydney, said, “Um, Charlie? I think your pineapple is burning?” Sure enough, while Charlie had been preparing another part of the dessert her pineapples had started to char.
How had she not noticed?
Dumbstruck, Charlie looked back up at Sydney, who was waving a hand in front of her nose as she turned off the stove’s heating element. Sydney looked as shocked as Charlie felt. Plumes of smoke rose out of the cast-iron pan, the pineapples blackened around the rims. But Charlie couldn’t smell the burning.
She leaned over the pan, inhaled deeply. Nothing.
Austin was watching her, a curious look on his face. Charlie had never made an error like this on set. It was something a bumbling, beginner home chef would do, and she was mortified—and worried. Because it was then she remembered the peppermint extract that had soaked into her now discarded skirt. The smell of which she realized she hadn’t noticed once she came to.
Sydney looked at her for a beat. Then Sydney said, loudly because she knew Sasha was listening, “It was my fault. I must have put the temperature too high. You said medium-high, right?”
“Uh, no,” Charlie replied, grateful beyond belief for Sydney at that moment. “I said medium-low.”
“Oh, darn. I’m really sorry,” Sydney said.