Through the concrete canyons to the midtown lights

While Rose was collecting panties back in the Banquet Hall, things were going pretty smoothly in the kitchen. Which honestly came as a surprise, given who was involved.

“Good job, you two!” Mary enthusiastically encouraged Gina and Dani. “That all smells delicious! Keep up the good work!”

“Why, thank you!” Gina turned back and flashed a toothy smile. “Always nice to receive praise for my efforts!” For once, she was actually trying her best. And it wasn’t even about getting compliments from Mary, either!

…Well, that was part of it. The spike of pleasure she got when Mary told her she was doing a good job thanks to her Damned by Faint Praise transformation was really awesome. But it wasn’t the whole reason!

It just felt nice to be good at something. For Gina, her talents were fairly limited to hustling pool and singing. And various endeavors of questionable legality.

But cooking?

It required hard work and shit. Never in a million years would Gina have thought it possible for her to cook something that required more effort than pouring in hot water and turning on the microwave. But over the past weeks of practice and tutelage under Mary, she had come a long way in a short amount of time.

Even Dani had to admit- the pasta she was smelling from the other woman’s pot seemed really appetizing.

“You’re doing a good job too, Dani!” Mary was sure to pepper compliments for both girls. “That’s… a pot roast, I believe?”

Dani blushed. “Well… it’s kinda my specialty,” she said, scratching her cheek as she watched the oven carefully. Due to the size of the kitchen, everyone could have their own personal oven to work with, which definitely sped up the cooking.

“That’s the dish you made for Nick, right?” Gina called from her spot.

Dani nodded. That had… been an experience.

“I guess that was when I first got into cooking,” Dani admitted. “Because in that challenge, I got help from my future self, and she showed me that I didn’t have to push away all girly activities out of spite. You know?”

For the first time since coming onto the show, Dani had allowed herself to embrace a girly interest. Until then, she’d been staunchly opposed to it given what the showrunners had been trying to turn her into. But the resistance was ultimately pointless- and in the end, she’d found that she really did like cooking after all.

“Plus, you got that cooking transformation,” Gina pointed out with a sly grin. “We had a bit of fun with that one, if you remember.”

Dani turned red as she remembered the description of her transformation.

• I’ll Have What She’s Having: The last challenge has given Dani a compulsion to practice her culinary skills. She’ll feel a sexual thrill whenever she’s preparing food, and seeing other people enjoy her dishes is practically orgasmic. (Girly Girl)

Holly giggled. “Oh, yeah, I almost forgot about that one!” She was helping Mary prepare a very special dessert surprise for Rose. “Are we sure that we should be letting Dani help out after all, Mary? I mean, we’re all going to be eating together. The result of that might be…”

“Hey, I can keep myself under control!” Dani snapped at the lascivious maid. But she couldn’t deny that Holly raised a valid concern. Due to her transformation, cooking itself was an intimate act to her; there really was a legitimate chance that she might have a… powerful reaction to seeing her friends enjoy her cooking.

But it wasn’t anything she couldn’t handle.

“I’m happy to have the help,” Mary said firmly. “And I know Rose will appreciate it, too.”

The guest of honor may not have been allowed to help cook her own banquet, but at least she could know that her friends had prepared plenty of food for her sake!

“Anyway, Gina, what are you making?” Dani’s roast was in the oven, so she was pretty free right now. She popped over to the other stove to get a good look at the delicious-smelling pasta that Gina was preparing for them. “It smells delicious.”

Mary hadn’t bothered to pry. She was just glad that Gina was preparing something that wasn’t fried in a gallon of cooking oil, for once. The punk girl had come a long way as a chef, but at the same time, she’d faced a few problems.

Namely, getting her to make anything healthy.

“Well, Mary nixed my original idea,” Gina said with an exaggerated grumble and roll of her eyes. “So, well…”

“Yeah, I don’t think everyone there would have been appreciative of onion rings dipped in fry batter,” Mary sniffed.

“Oh, come on!” Gina groaned. “Greasy food is where it’s at! What’s an appetizer for you, anyway? Carrot sticks?”

“I prefer corn on the cob, thank you very much!” Mary put her hands on her hips and shot Gina a fiery look. “It’s delicious, and it’s nutritious! And when I really want to be daring, I even put a little butter on it!”

Who said that Mary didn’t know how to take risks? She could live life on the edge, too! Gina didn’t have a monopoly on living wild!

“…Oh, wow, what a bad girl you are,” Gina said, clicking her tongue. “You actually use butter? I’m shocked, Mary, shocked.”

“Well…” Mary bit her lip. She knew the other girl was making fun of her, but anything she could come up with to say in her defense just sounded pathetic. So she stood there seething as Gina tried her best not to laugh.

“…Anyway, I got the idea from one of those cookbooks they have lying around,” Gina said, nodding over at the propped-up hardcover book.

“Oh, you actually found something you want to make?” Dani walked over to the cookbook, surprised. “Nice.”

“Wait, you can read?” Mary asked sarcastically.

Gina turned around and stuck flipped up her middle finger with one hand while stirring the pasta with her other.

Mary was aghast. Her face burned, but she refrained from throwing a tantrum, and decided to refocus on her baking instead. Their surprise was coming along great!

“It’s pasta carbonitrate,” Gina explained. “…Wait, no, carbohydrates? Umm, lemme check…” She turned and squinted at the page while Holly and Mary struggled not to burst out laughing. The two women shared gleeful looks but had to hold themselves back to keep from openly mocking the punk girl with their laughter.

“Pasta carbonara, Gina,” Dani corrected her. “Carbonara.”

Gina rolled her eyes. “Whatever. There are carbohydrates in it, though, right?”

Dani, Mary, and Holly all stared at her.

“Are you… seriously asking that?” Mary asked incredulously.

Gina scowled. “…No!” She said. “Obviously not!”

Mary sighed in relief. “Oh, good.”

Gina pouted and went back to her stirring. Those three! Looking down on her because she wasn’t as educated about food! (Or nutrition, in Dani’s case, as an athlete.)

How was she supposed to know what foods had carbohydrates in them and which didn’t?! She wasn’t some… carbo-genius!

“Just so you guys know,” Gina said, determined to prove herself just as capable as the other girls, “I actually put my own spin on this recipe, see?”

She pointed at the page in the book for Dani to check out. “It says right here, I’m supposed to use, uh… pank… pan-ketta as a garnish-”

“Pancetta,” Mary corrected her.

Gina rolled her eyes. “Whatever! Who cares how you say it? Instead of using that stuff, I’m substituting it with bacon bits.”

Mary thought that sounded like something Gina would do. It actually wasn’t the worst idea in the world, either!

“Aren’t you Italian?” Holly asked incredulously. “How are you getting all these words wrong?”

“Huh? Who says I’m Italian?” Gina frowned.

“Uh… your last name?” Dani asked. “DeAmico?”

Gina blinked. “…That’s Italian?”

Dani stared at her for a while. But she realized that Gina probably was being sincere about not knowing her cultural roots, given what other things she tended not to pick up on, and decided against giving her a hard time for it.

“Yes, it’s an Italian surname, pretty sure,” Dani said sincerely. “I mean, it sure sounds like one.”

“It is,” Holly said firmly.

“Oh, that’s cool, so I’m Italian,” Gina nodded. “Hey, is that why I love pizza so much, then? I never realized!”

“…No, I’m pretty sure that’s just because you have an addiction to fat and grease,” Mary said dryly. Along with her many, many other addictions.

“Nah, you’re wrong,” Gina said, shaking her head. “It’s because of my Italian heritage, for sure. ‘Ey! Yo! It’sa me, Gina! Mama mia!”

No one said a word. Acknowledging the incredibly racist voice Gina was making would just make everything significantly more awkward. Mary and Holly went back to baking in silence while Dani suddenly became very engrossed in the cookbook she was holding.

“…It’s Mario,” Gina clarified long after it mattered. “I was doing Mario.”

Again, she received a silent reception.

“…Well, whatever,” she scoffed, turning back to her pot. “This isn’t even an Italian recipe, anyway! It says it right there, this is French carbonara. Probably because it’s got cheese in it.”

“Regular carbonara also uses cheese,” Mary clarified from her table. “Though I wonder what makes it French.”

Contrary to expectations, Mary was not an expert on every single dish prepared by the human race. She actually had a fairly limited selection of specialties she could prepare off the top of her head, if she was being honest.

The only reason people like Gina looked up to her as some sort of culinary master was because she actually bothered to look up recipes that she didn’t know and put in the work to make sure they tasted just right, rather than winging it.

If Gina kept looking in cookbooks the way she had done today, then there was a chance that someday she could even surpass Mary as a chef.

“So what do you guys think? Should we mix in some black pepper and give it a little kick? Maybe, like, half a cup?”

…Someday in the far, far, far, FAR future, but someday.

“Holly, go grab all the black pepper and lock it in the cupboard,” Mary asked sweetly.

“Right, already on it,” Holly said, scurrying over to the spice rack before Gina could commit culinary war crimes.

“Oh, come on!” Gina rolled her eyes. “I was messing with you guys, I’m not THAT stupid.”

That was a chance Mary simply couldn’t take. “How about you just leave the spices alone for now, Gina? Make something nice and creamy and unseasoned.”

There were plenty of ways to get a delicious carbonara that didn’t involve any “strong” flavors that Gina had an affinity for. And she would rather nurture the abilities Gina was developing, instead of allowing her to completely ruin the whole lunch with her poor instincts.

Gina didn’t even argue, which lent credence to her claim that she had just been messing around. The girls continued their cooking in peace for a bit, when the door to the kitchen popped open and someone stuck their head in.

“So, what are you guys doing in here?”

Dani jumped in surprise. “Oh! Emmy, hey!” She turned and waved at the ponytailed girl who came in to say hello. Emmy was dressed casually in a short-sleeved t-shirt and black pants, and had a timid expression on her face.

Holly opened her mouth to say hello, before remembering that Carly had asked her before to submit all conversation requests for her daughter in writing first. She closed her mouth and went back to preparing the dessert.

“I thought you were studying up in your room?” Dani asked.

Emmy shrugged. “Got bored,” she replied. “And hungry. I wanted to see if mom wanted to get lunch together, but I can’t find her.”

Gina and Mary shared a look. Given that Carly was currently tagging along on Morgana’s date with Nick, they weren’t sure if telling Emmy that was the best-

“She’s with Nick right now,” Dani said. “They’re hanging out. Having a good time together. You know. Fun stuff.”

Emmy blinked. “…Oh,” she said, either not getting the unspoken implication, or not bothered by it. “Well, okay, then.”

She turned to leave, but couldn’t help eyeing the girls’ efforts curiously.

“Would you like to help out?” Mary asked, seizing on the opportunity to get another person interested in cooking.

Emmy jumped. “Oh, uh… n-no, I wouldn’t want to get in your way,” she said fretfully, shaking her head. “I’ve never, uh… done stuff like this before, so…”

“Nonsense!” Mary shook her head. “If Gina can learn how to cook, then anybody can!”

She glanced over at Gina, waiting for the other girl to say something snarky in her defense.

Gina seemed unfazed by the statement, though.

“What?” She raised her eyebrow. “I agree with you. If I can learn how to cook, then yeah. Anybody can. It’s really not that hard.”

The most difficult part was following the rules. Gina wasn’t a big fan of that aspect. But hey, it was all part of the process.

“Well…” Emmy scratched her cheek and glanced at the door for a moment. “I mean, I suppose if I’m not in the way, I could watch…”

Personally, Gina thought that even though cooking was fun, watching someone cook sounded like the most boring thing in the world. She kept her mouth shut, though, knowing that nothing good would come out of making a big deal about that stuff.

“Maybe Dani could help you out, show you how to make an easy dish or two,” she suggested. “She’s not really doing anything right now, anyway.”

“Hey! I-I am!” Dani glanced over at the oven. “I’m watching my roast to make sure that nothing goes wrong!”

Then again, unlike Gina, she didn’t anticipate her food bursting into flames for no reason. “What do you think, Emmy?” She asked, turning to the younger girl. “I can maybe show you how to make something, if you want?”

Personally, she doubted her ability to be a teacher, especially when far better teachers in Mary and Holly were present. But they were both busy, and thus, if anyone was going to teach Emmy how to cook, it would be her.

Emmy gave a bashful smile. “Yeah… I mean, it sounds fun,” she agreed. “And it’s not like I have many favorite foods, you know?” She pointed out with a laugh.

Dani had to laugh at that herself. Even though it was a weird statement to make.

As she went back to the cookbooks to find something easy for the two of them to make together, Gina tugged on her shirt.

“Yeah? What is it?” Dani looked over at her. The punk girl had an unusually serious expression on her face for once.

“You sure this is a good idea?” Gina kept her voice down and shot a furtive look towards Emmy. “I mean, with your transformation… I’m just thinking…”

Dani frowned.

“Gina, trust me, it’s not as bad as you’re making it out to be,” she insisted. Dani knew what her transformation said, but come on.

She wasn’t going to orgasm in front of Carly’s daughter. That just wasn’t going to happen no matter what sort of dish they made.

Gina shrugged. “Well, okay,” she said. “Not my problem.”

While the two girls had been talking, Emmy had gotten curious about what Mary and Holly were working on.

“So what are you guys making?” She asked timidly.

Holly pinched her lips together tight.

“It’s a surprise,” Mary said in an exaggeratedly hushed voice. “We’re throwing a party for Rose this afternoon,” she explained, “a lunch party. And this is a surprise dessert!”

Holly nodded along, still knowing better than to say anything and risk Carly’s wrath.

“Oh, a party?” Emmy’s eyes widened. “For Aunt Rose?”

Holly and Mary shared a look together.

“Aunt Rose?” Holly blurted out, breaking her vow of silence.

“Oh, yeah, I guess we didn’t think about that,” Mary realized. “Since Rose copied Carly’s transformation and became Marley’s sister, I guess that makes her your aunt, too, huh, Emmy?”

“It’s a very weird feeling,” Emmy agreed, shaking her head. “One second everything’s normal, and then suddenly I have all these memories of Rose taking me out to the movies? And dressing me up in all these fancy dresses? And this one time, she snuck me to an audition for a children’s commercial without telling my mom?”

She shook her head. “It’s all, really, really weird. I mean… my actual memories, they’re all… they’re not exactly…”

“It’s an issue with the transformation, I guess,” Mary said, biting her lip. “Instead of starting things over fresh, you’ve got all these implanted memories now thanks to how the transformations interacted. That sounds like an oversight.”

Mary was being polite when she said that. In truth, she doubted it was an oversight. It sounded more like an act of sadism on the part of her duplicate. But she didn’t want to dishearten Emmy.

“It’s all really weird,” Emmy said, shaking her head. “But I mean… a party, that… that could be fun, don’t you think?”

Mary could hear the anxiety in her voice. It was obvious that the girl wanted to be included, but at the same time, she looked hesitant. Doubtful, even.

And it wasn’t like Mary didn’t understand why.

“You should come!” Gina encouraged Emmy. “It’ll be a lot of fun, right, Dani?”

Dani was stuck in a difficult position. She agreed with Gina that Emmy should come, but she was worried what Carly would think.

“…Yeah, definitely!” Dani said. After all, it wasn’t like anything bad was actually going to happen, right? It was a party to celebrate Rose. Things weren’t going to get inappropriate. No matter how many people ate her pot roast!

Emmy beamed, feeling glad to be included. “Thank you guys,” she murmured. “This really means a lot to me!”

“Any time!” Mary cracked a grin.

“Yeah, the more the merrier at a party!” Gina gave Emmy a lopsided smile.

Holly nodded in agreement with them both.

“So with that settled, Emmy, you want to try cooking?” Dani offered. “I have a recipe that should be simple and easy for the both of us, to dip your toe in the water.”

Emmy’s face lit up and she nodded. “Yeah!” She agreed, pumping her fists in excitement.

Dani enjoyed seeing the younger girl smile. She looked so much like her mother when she did that.