An older woman wearing a hairnet and apron held out a paper cup containing a piece of bread with something weird atop. “It’s Pizza Pronto’s newest offering—nacho pizza bites. And here’s a coupon, too.”

“Oh.” Chase didn’t want to take it.

The woman shoved it her way again. “Go ahead. Try a sample.”

Chase hadn’t had anything to eat and was kind of hungry, but should people mix pizza with nachos? Seemed like a bad idea, but she took the little cup anyway. “Uh, thanks.”

The woman raised her eyebrows, waiting on Chase to taste the concoction.

Chase popped the sample into her mouth and after one chew wished she hadn’t. But she nodded and said, “Mm-hmm, very interesting.”

“Take a coupon,” the woman said, shoving that at her as well. “You can find them in the frozen foods aisle.”

Chase wanted to spit the horrid appetizer back into the cup, but she didn’t want to hurt the lady’s feelings. The woman really seemed sincere about her product.

Instead Chase swallowed the bite and sharply turned the cart, clipping a potato chip display. A few bags fell onto the floor, causing a man perusing cans of tomatoes to frown at her. Then he squinted his eyes. Like he knew her.

Oh. Crap. She figured with the ratty clothes, no makeup, and unstyled hair, people wouldn’t recognize her as a used-to-be-famous actress.

“Hey, aren’t you . . . that blonde girl in all those campus movies. Drew . . . someone? No, maybe it’s Reese something? I know I’ve seen you in something.”

“Um, nope. Sorry. But you know, people tell me that all the time,” she said, stooping to grab the bags and jam them back into the cardboard display.

“Well, you’re a dead ringer for one of those actresses.”

“Yeah, so they say,” she said, scooting by him, hoping that she didn’t have to get canned tomatoes. She looked at the list. Damn it. She did.

Chase stopped a few feet from him and stared at the offerings on the shelf. How many kinds of canned tomatoes were there? Stewed, diced, petite diced, whole. And then some cans had herbs and seasonings with the tomatoes. She grabbed the diced ones and hoped like hell it was right. On to spices.

Thirty minutes later after a really hard time finding yeast and evaporated milk (which was not in the refrigerated milk section), she rolled her loaded-down cart to the checkout line. She had only five minutes to spare, but considering that she’d had to figure out what a rump roast was, she thought she’d done pretty good. Take that, adulting.

Then she looked over and saw her face on the cover of the National Tattler.

Spencer Rome Orders Chase London to Therapy. “Get sober or get out!”

What the hell?