Julia's Child (9781101559741) (14 page)

I studied her. “What are you playing at, Marta? Who is it?”

Instead of answering, she chanted, “One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi—”

“
Who is it?
”

She winked at me. “It's Whole Foods. But let's not look too eager.”

I lunged for the phone. “This is Julia Bailey.”

“Good morning, Ms. Bailey. My name is Kai Travers, and my wife enjoyed your appearance on
The Scene
yesterday.”

“Oh! Thank you so much. Please call me Julia.”

“Okay, Julia. I'm the frozen foods buyer for the Northeast region at Whole Foods Markets.”

I didn't speak right away. The man who held the keys to the freezer case next to the pizzas was finally calling for me. I let the moment wash over me, savoring the sweetness. I had been waiting for this call for a long time.

“Ms. Bailey? Julia?”

“Yes!” I came to. “Whole Foods. I've heard of it.”

Kai Travers laughed. “Excellent. Listen, I was planning to sample children's products at the All-Natural Kid Stuff Trade-show next month. Will I see you there?”

My mouth opened and closed like a fish. “We . . .” I gulped. Not the damned trade show again. “No, instead we're . . . marketing the product more
directly
to our buyers,” I floundered. “It's . . . We take a really
personal
approach with our marketing, you see. I find that it helps to maintain the integrity of the product, which I understand is really the Whole Foods way of doing things . . .”

Eavesdropping from her line, Marta gave me the thumbs up from across the room.

“And that goes way beyond our marketing,” I continued. “I've got my own plot of organic farmland in Vermont, and—”

“Hmm. I understand, Julia,” Kai said. “So you're not on the trade show circuit yet. Very well. But can you produce your product in commercial quantities?”

“Of course!” I practically shouted into the phone. “We're delivering to a dozen independent shops in Brooklyn, and our distribution grows larger every day!”

“Hmm.” Kai seemed to be mulling this over.

I held my breath.

“Well, you certainly have a head start with the national TV publicity. And that makes my job easier. So here's what I think I can do. How about this? Send me a gross of muffets. If you can deliver them immediately, we'll try them out in three of our Manhattan stores.”

“Terrific!” I said. I was in! I wanted to leap over the desks with joy.

“This is just going to be a trial, okay? We'll give the muffets a shot, in those three stores, for a month. Until the trade show. Then, after I get a look at everything that's out there, I'll firm up my kiddy lineup for the Northeast region.”

“Oh, okay,” I said, a little less certainly. So I was on probation. Either way, my little company would live or die in the next sixty days.

“Now, let me give you some numbers. Do you have a pen handy? If we decide to take you regionwide in two months, that's fourteen stores, well, sixteen by November. The Northeast region includes Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey. We need one case per SKU for the initial delivery. Then we need you to be ready to deliver a three-case follow-through per location. Who are you using as a distributor?”

I hesitated. “My, um, distributor is local to New York,” I said. My distributor was me in a hatchback Subaru.

“Oh,” Kai said diplomatically. “Why don't you call Bob over at Enorme? Tell him that Kai recommended him.”

That particular distributor had laughed at me when I'd approached them without any orders in hand. “I'll call him, Mr. Travers.”

“Kai.”

“It's a pleasure working with you, Kai. You'll love the muffets. You know, we also have other lines. We make couscous with—”

“Let's just focus on muffets for now, Julia. Can't wait to try them! Oh—and is your website down? I tried to look at it this morning.”

“Yes! It is down.” It had had the same “Under Construction” sign since I bought the domain name a year ago. But he didn't need to know that. “We're down
temporarily
, in order to add some recipes, as I mentioned on the show.”

“I'll look at it tomorrow, then. And feel free to have your people call my assistant, Janice, with any delivery questions. Talk to you soon, then.”

He gave me his phone number. And he was gone.

Marta and I stared at each other for several seconds, from opposite ends of our little room. Then, coming to our senses, we jumped out of our chairs, shrieking like schoolgirls.

“We did it!” Marta yelled, as I whooped with joy.

Our door popped open. Derrick, the Web developer, stuck his head in. “Everything okay in here?”

“Yes!” I said, offering him a high five.

He returned it expertly. “Good. I thought maybe you ladies saw a mouse or something.”

I tried—as I always did—not to stare at his pierced lip. “Things are
fantastic
, Derrick. We just got an order from”—I paused for effect—“Whole Foods.”

“Terrific,” he said politely.

Of all the little businesses housed at Chelsea Sunshine Suites, ours was the only one that made a product you could touch with your hands or buy at a store. Every other start-up was “virtual”—websites, consulting, and viral e-marketing. We were quaint by comparison. I didn't expect Derrick to understand.

“I'd better get back to work on your website, then.” He turned to disappear back to virtual land.

“Hey, Derrick?” I stopped him.

“Yeah?”

“I just promised Whole Foods that the website would be back up tomorrow. Is there any way you could . . . ?”

His mouth fell open in surprise. A ray of light from Marta's desk lamp hit the stud in his lip, and the full spectrum of colors was reflected in the glinting light. “
Tomorrow
tomorrow?” He looked at his watch. “Good thing I came in early.”

“I really appreciate it. Listen, I'll buy you lunch today, in case that helps.”

He winked. “Better get a whole lot of coffee too.” Then he shut the door.

I took out my calculator. “Okay, Marta, let's crunch some numbers. We can bake, say, two gross of muffets in one night at Zia Maria's. So—going forward—if Whole Foods has sixteen stores in the northeastern loop, and each sells out of its initial stock once a week, that means our production would have to increase to . . .” I stabbed at the calculator, my frown lines multiplying along with my numbers.

“What?” Marta prompted.

“We'd have to bake . . . Let's see . . . How many hours per week, and how many nights . . .” It couldn't be true.

“How many?”

“Nine,” I sighed.

“Nine hours?” Marta asked hopefully.

“Nine nights.”

“But last time I checked, there were only seven.”

“I know.” My heart raced. “We can't cook nine nights a week. Or even seven. But . . . I'm getting ahead of myself. That's a phase-two problem—only
if
we survive Kai's probation period.”

“But we
will
, Julia. It's a great product, and it's going to work. We're going to need that inventory.” Marta sat heavily into her chair. “It's time to find a new kitchen. One that lets us cook during daylight hours.”

“Right.” My mind whirled with all that needed to happen. Which problem should I tackle first? It was just like the age-old riddle: the free-range chicken or the cage-free egg?

I took a deep breath. “We need a plan.” I took up a pad and a pen with a flourish. “So, first we get this website up—”

“First we bake the initial order for Kai,” Marta broke in.

“Um, okay. Both of those things are first. Next, I'll have to find our new production facility.
And
we get the distributor lined up.” Good Lord! I wasn't going to see my family for a month. “We'll have to work like Cinderella to do all of this.”

“At least you already have the handsome prince,” Marta observed, tugging on an earring. “We're going to need some help in the kitchen,” she said. “On short notice.”

“Mice into footmen?” I suggested.

“I was thinking of my cousin Theresa. She just lost her babysitting job.”

“Great!” I said, though I hadn't meant to sound so gleeful about someone losing her job. “Why don't you give her a call? There's someone else I need to call,” I said, digging around on my desk for the number.

“Who?” Marta asked.

“ANKST. The trade show. Now that we've hooked up with our fairy godmother, we can restate our revenue figures. I'm going to demand that we go to the damned ball.”

Chapter 12

T
he voice mail message was brief, but it was just the one I'd been waiting for. “Da eagle has landed,” declared a scratchy male voice.

With a grin, I snapped the phone shut. The sound drew the attention of a mother leaning over her stroller to execute a familiar maneuver. With her finger, she wiped away remnants of peanut butter and jam from her little girl's face. Then she pinched the girl's nostrils together quickly, removing a drop of unsightly nasal mucus from the little button nose. The child yelped in protest. She caught me watching her, just as she wiped her gooey fingers on her own pair of very fashionable skinny jeans. She frowned assertively at me, perhaps embarrassed to be caught in the act of on-the-go toddler hygiene.

Without my own preschoolers in tow, she probably assumed I was a tidy, childless woman who wouldn't dream of wiping snot on her own clothing. Hey! I'm on your side. I too have made the motherly decision that it is better to wear goop on your jeans than to let the world see it on your toddler's face. She marched away, pushing the stroller.

In spite of the bright fall afternoon, I yawned. The week had featured more late nights than I cared to count. Answering the message I'd just heard—though important—could wait five minutes until I got home.

Our lobby was blissfully empty, except for the drowsy doorman. As the elevator carried me upward, I charted the rest of my busy day. I could return the call from my kitchen, while I threw dinner together for the family. I would eat a little something and then rush to Brooklyn for a shift in the kitchen. And somewhere in there I'd hug the kids and call Luke. And maybe even my mother.

When I opened the door to my apartment, I heard muffled giggling. It was Wylie's voice, but somehow far away. I closed the door softly and made a quick turn from our tiny entry hall into the kitchen. I poured myself a glass of water and bolted it down.

Wylie's muffled laughter and the low sound of Bonnie's voice filtered into the kitchen. Whatever game they were playing, they were deep in it. I picked up my cell phone to call my new driver, Lugo. Last week I'd asked Mr. Pastucci if he knew anyone with a refrigerated delivery van. He'd put me in touch with Lugo, whose voice mail had just confirmed that the very first Whole Foods delivery had been made. Lugo and his beat-up truck were both antiques. But the truck chilled to thirty degrees. I'd checked it myself.

“Lugo!” I enthused when he answered my call. “You did it!”

“Of course, missy,” he said. Lugo called me “missy” either out of endearment or because he'd forgotten my name. I wasn't sure which. “The deliveries went down without a hitch,” he said.

“Excellent! To all three Whole Foods? Thank you so much.”

“Yep. Nicest loading docks I ever seen. Snazzy outfit you must be running, missy.”

“Thanks, Lugo. You'll be around next week too? We might need to deliver more. I hope.”

“No problem, missy. See you soon.”

I hung up, smiling through my exhaustion. So it was official. Julia's Child was in the door at Whole Foods. On the premises! It was all I could do to keep from running down there right away to see for myself. I'd waited so long for this moment, to see those packages staring back at me from the other side of the freezer-case window.

It would have been nice to make the delivery myself. But there was no way I could maintain the illusion of professionalism if I showed up in my Subaru, weighted down with coolers chilled by those freezer packs moms carry around with bottles of breast milk.

If my business were ever to get off the ground, I would have to learn to let go, to rely on people. I would have to trust them with my proverbial baby. The alternative, I reasoned, was a schedule so manic that I'd never see my real babies.

With that in mind, I attacked a red pepper, chopping it to a quarter-inch dice in about sixty seconds flat. It would soon be sprinkled all over the homemade pizza I planned to make for my family for dinner. Cooking for them was something I felt I had to do, even if I didn't get to see them eat it.

Buoyed by the satisfaction of finally appearing at Whole Foods, I dialed my mother. Waiting for her to pick up, I scraped up the pepper remnants with one hand.

“Darling! What's happening in the Big Apple?”

“It's official. Julia's Child is for sale at Whole Foods.”

“Congratulations, honey! I'll have to make a road trip to Charleston to see it.”

I winced. “Better wait a few months, Mom. I'm only in three Manhattan stores for now. But it's been a long time coming.”

“Fantastic! With the prices at that place—you'll be rich!”

“Maybe some day,” I said lightly. My mother wasn't the best audience for my host of financial concerns. I didn't tell her that our order from Kai had kicked off a massive cash outlay. First, we rushed a giant gift basket of muffets to Kai. The messenger alone cost forty dollars.
Ka-ching!
And that was just the beginning. Our website cost four thousand. An ad in the kids' edition of
Time Out New York
(
“
Now at Whole Foods!”) cost three grand. We put in another freezer at Mr. Pastucci's club. So he raised our rent.
Ka-ching! Ka-ching!
My shoulders tensed with anxiety just thinking about it.