by Alice Ward
I examined myself in the mirror. Ugh. As much as I tried to convince myself he was the antithesis of everything I wanted or stood for in this world, I still wanted to look good for him. Why was I so pathetically shallow?
After I texted June and fibbed about being sick, then I typed out another text, grinning as I did. Mr. Zachary Vaughn was in for a surprise.
We walked out onto West 45th Street, and he scanned the area. It was more residential, but the sidewalks were still busy. “So, do we need a cab for this little excursion?” he asked me. “Or I can call my driver.”
“A cab? Do you do those often?”
He shrugged. “Sometimes I like the privacy of grabbing a cab since the company car has a tracker, and I don’t always like people knowing where I am.”
I grinned. “You are daring.”
He pulled me to him, digging his fingers into my ribs for a tickle. “So, cab or walk?”
“Walk. You’re in luck. It’s only a few blocks that way.” I pointed toward the bridge.
His eyes narrowed. “Our destination is in Hell’s Kitchen? Is this a ploy to get me to exercise?”
I shook my head. “It really is only a short walk away. I promise.” I lifted my face to the warm sun. The weather was perfect for a walk. I held out my hand to him. “Shall we.”
He took my hand, gave it a squeeze before letting it go and started walking in the direction I’d pointed. I stared after him.
He was in business mode again.
I couldn’t help feeling a little let down.
That’s okay, I told myself. He was my… what? Lover? At least for now. But he was also Mr. Heigh-di-Ho, which meant he could never be the love of my life. We were just too different for this to last.
Even though… I couldn’t deny part of me hoped it would. That it could last.
Shaking off those thoughts, I rushed to catch up with him, keeping my hands to myself as we walked side by side. It didn’t take long before I stopped in front of two sets of double doors that were part of a nondescript, brick building on West 54th Street. “Here.”
He looked at the letters above the doors. “The Elias Howe School.” He scratched his jaw. “I should’ve known.”
“Better known as Manhattan Public School number fifty-one,” I said proudly. “Come on.”
I rang the doorbell for admittance, and when I gave my name, I was buzzed in. As I opened the door, I gave Zachary a rambling, less articulate version of the history of the school than the one I’d gotten from Mrs. Watts, the principal, when I first toured the school. Elias Howe was an inventor whose greatest claim to fame was the modern sewing machine. The elementary school had over three hundred kids in grades K through five. Of those three hundred kids, over half relied on the school breakfast and lunch program.
He listened to all of this — or maybe he wasn’t listening? — without saying a word.
We reached the front desk, and I was greeted warmly by the administration. Ethel, a tiny African-American lady with bifocals on a chain, grinned like I was her long-lost daughter. “Oh, Juliana! I didn’t know you were coming today!”
I waved. “Hi, Ethel.”
She rose from her desk and started to walk toward me, but then her eyes went over to Zachary, and that smile disappeared.
“This is Zachary Vaughn,” I said. “Zachary, Ethel.”
He shook her hand and gave a charming smile. “A pleasure.”
Ethel looked over her clipboard, her brown knitting. “I don’t have you on volunteer duty. But—”
“Actually. I just brought Mr. Vaughn to take a tour of the lunchroom. I texted Principal Watts, and she said it would be okay.”
“Oh! Well then…” She waved me in the direction of the cafeteria and smiled at Zach. “Enjoy.”
“Oh, he will,” I muttered.
We’d only taken a few steps, past bulletin boards full of colorful artwork, when I sensed him hanging back.
“Hold up.”
When I turned, he was standing there, arms akimbo. “Yes?” My voice dripped innocence.
“This isn’t exactly what I thought you meant by a nice lunch.”
“Well, if it’s good enough for the kids, the future of this planet, then it should be good enough for you. Right?”
He sucked on his teeth, then followed me. “Right. But how do they know you so well? You have kids I don’t know about?”
“Some of the kids in this school are my clients. But a woman I work with, her son, Daniel, goes here.”
We walked into the cafeteria just as it was starting to clear out. Teachers were lining up their children to walk back to the classrooms, and a few of them waved at me. Some of the children did too. We went past rows and rows of kid-sized tables and chairs, all lined up neatly.
“I brought you here,” I said as we stood in the corner, watching some of the children finishing their meals, “because I thought you’d want to see what the school lunch program is doing to these kids. Daniel has type 1 diabetes. He can’t even eat anything on the menu because it causes his numbers to skyrocket.”
He eyed me, concern on his face. “Yeah? That’s terrible.” He shook his head as if he really was sorry about it.
I motioned him forward, toward the kitchen. Before we even reached the lunch line, the smell hit us full force. Meaty, sour, enough to make one’s stomach lurch and eyes water, it hung in the air like a living thing. It wasn’t of any one kind of food. In fact, it didn’t matter what was on the menu that day. It always smelled the same.
Zach clenched his teeth. “What is that smell?”
“Lunch,” I said. Then I pointed toward the kitchen, beyond the three hairnet-clad women dishing out the food.
“That’s awful,” he said. “Who provides the food for this…” He groaned, scrubbing a hand down his face. “Don’t tell me.”
I bit back a grin and pointed past the ladies in the kitchen. There were stacks and stacks of boxes lined on the shelves, all emblazoned with the Vaughn Industries logo, a teal blue VI in big block letters.
He cleared his throat. “Well. It can’t really be all that bad. Our food does go past a rigorous inspection process and—”
“Okay, then why don’t you try it?” I challenged.
Without a beat, he met that challenge. “Bring it.”
I motioned him to follow me to the lunch line. Stepping behind a cute blonde in a ponytail and grabbing him a tray and a little plastic-wrapped container with a napkin and spork, I smiled up at him. “Hope you’re hungry.”
He got in line behind me, a superior look on his face. “Oh, I am.” His voice was low, self-assured. “Starved.”
“Good.” I waved at the lunch ladies as they dished the day’s offerings onto our trays. It was a limp square of pizza along with six pale French fries. A scoopful of watery mixed vegetables. A chocolate milk. And a cup of tiny peach pieces in syrup. Delicious.
He had no reaction as he took the tray. I paid for the meals, and we walked to an empty table. It was funny, seeing Zach strolling confidently among the miniature furniture, balancing the tray in his hands, a giant among the children. He pulled out a chair with his foot, sat down, and stared at the tray as I sat across from him.
A few curious kids gathered around us, wondering what we were doing. Some had brought lunches from home. Two of them had Vaughn packaged snacks in their lunchboxes, I noticed. “What are you doing here?” a little blonde girl, who couldn’t have been more than six, asked me.
“I’m trying to show Mr. Vaughn here what you guys eat for lunch,” I said, tenting my hands in front of me. Now, there were kids of all ages surrounding us. “Tell me. How many of you eat school lunches?”
Several of the hands went up. Zach asked a kid next to him, “And what’s your favorite school lunch?”
“Hot dog,” he answered.
Zach glanced at me. “Oh, yeah? Hot dogs are good.”
“These aren’t,” the boy muttered. “But they usually serve them on Friday so when I get one I
know I don’t have to eat this stuff for the next two days.”
Zach’s smile fell as a few of the kids around him nodded. “Oh, it can’t be that bad. There’s got to be something you like about it?”
One of the kids offered, “Well, the chocolate milk isn’t terrible.”
Zach frowned. That was the one part of the school lunch that Vaughn Industries wasn’t responsible for.
I put in, “So tell me, what’s the worst school lunch?”
The little girl’s cheeks blew up, like she might be sick. The students all looked at each other, and at once, they burst out with, “Chef Surprise!”
Baffled, Zach opened his mouth, but nothing came out. I thought he was reluctant to ask, so I did. “What is that?”
“It’s like… everything. All the food they didn’t sell before. They mash it together. It’s got tuna in it, taco meat, cut up hot dogs, noodles, pieces of bread… nasty.”
My eyes traveled over all the other kids, who were nodding in anguish, and landed on Zach. There was the slightest hint of disgust on his face. Finally, something had chinked his armor. He reached down, took a soggy piece of pizza in his hand, and took a bite.
He chewed once. Twice. Then turned a little green. I had to give him credit, he kept chewing a couple more times before swallowing the large lump of food in a hard gulp. “Shh… oot.” He wiped at his tongue with a paper napkin. “Holy shoot. This is… awful.”
I grinned, triumphant, and went to the vending machine to get him a bottle of water. As I did, a teacher beckoned to the kids, summoning them to their next class.
The little blonde gave him a hug and said, “And you didn’t even have the Chef’s Surprise.”
When I returned, he sucked the water down greedily as I explained, “Vaughn Industries has provided the school lunch program for over thirty years. Back when it started, it might have been amazing. But I don’t believe your company has been keeping up with what’s been going on with it. You look for ways to cut costs, making something smaller, changing out the crust here, adding a cheaper ingredient there. Over thirty years, it’s rendered these lunches inedible. I know you didn’t mean to, but don’t you think it’s time Vaughn Industries reexamined them?”
Not looking into my eyes, he nodded. “Definitely. I had no idea. You’re right.”
I cocked my ear toward him as he swung his legs out from the table and stood. “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear that the first time. What did you say?”
“All right, all right, don’t get cocky. I don’t expect it to happen again,” he said, as we walked out into the deserted hallway. “But you’re right. Kids shouldn’t have to eat this way. Where are we going wrong with our food?”
“Um.” I didn’t know where to begin. The question caught me completely off-guard, and there was so much to tell him. “First of all, the trans fat. Most of your competitors have already eliminated it, so why haven’t you? The enriched white flour is nutritionally void and yet you use it in virtually all your products. And then, the high fructose corn syrup is a cheaper, unhealthier alternative to sugar. Why don’t you—”
“Whoa.” He held out his hands. “Okay. It’s clear we’ve got a lot of work to do. But I’m on board, Juliana.”
I wanted to cry and scream Hallelujah. Facing him, I looked up into his beautiful face, trying to gauge his sincerity.
Instead, he leaned down and gave me the sweetest, lightest kiss on my lips. “Can I buy you a real lunch, killer?”
I smiled. Part of me had been worried this trip would end with us in a cafeteria screaming match. This was so much more civil. “Yes. As long as it has a vegan menu.”
He looked confused. “Uh… you’re a vegetarian?”
“Vegan,” I corrected. “We don’t eat any animal products. No meat, dairy, eggs, cheese.”
He looked utterly shocked. “What’s left?”
I started to open my mouth to explain that there was plenty left, but he held his hand up.
“Fine,” he muttered, giving me a squeeze. I could tell the thought of eating such a thing wasn’t much more appetizing to him than a limp Vaughn pizza. “One leaves and roots lunch, coming up.”
And for the first time in a long time, I felt like maybe, just maybe, something I’d done to improve the nutritional health of the kids in this city might just stick.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Zachary
Ann Baldrick, my marketing director, pointed at her latest monthly PowerPoint presentation as I followed along in the report, or at least, tried to.
My thoughts, lately, were consumed by Juliana.
I’d been too busy, but if I’d had the ability to see Gavin, I knew he’d have definitely declared this a Code Red.
Maybe that was why I’d steered clear of him. I had no inclination to try to get out of it. I didn’t care if I flatlined. I just wanted to be with Juliana.
First, I had to get myself through our monthly status meeting, where all of my directors gave me reports on the status of their divisions.
“As you can see,” Ann explained, “our ads for Coco Crazies are performing significantly well with test audiences. Significantly well. We have an eighty-five percent positive or mostly positive rating, which is higher than any of our previous ads have gauged.”
I nodded. This was positive. Way more positive than what I’d heard last month when our numbers across the board were in the toilet. Eighty-five percent was huge. Usually, our ads hovered in the sixty-percent range. I tried to concentrate on that, instead of the rapturous look on Juliana’s face as I licked the coconut marshmallow frosting from her tits.
“Thank you, Ann,” I said, moving on to R&D.
Kevin Brooks, the director of R&D, reported that they’d successfully taste-tested a few new products that had come out of last month’s retreat: Pizza taco bites, a coconut cookie in the same vein of the Coco Crazies cake, and a new spin on the Walking Taco — microwavable packages that included chips and taco meat, which just needed to be combined and heated.
As he spoke, I grew increasingly uncomfortable. After watching Juliana devour a smoky avocado wrap at Blossom du Jour the other day, and trying something called a Seitan Philly Cheesesteak, I had to admit… eating good felt good.
And, believe it or not, it didn’t actually taste that bad, either.
Even that damn stalk of celery she’d forced down my throat had been edible, especially after she’d slathered on some homemade almond butter and some raisins. I even liked the green smoothie she’d mixed up in my kitchen. It looked like Kermit the Frog’s shit, but once I got past the color, it was sweet and seriously delicious.
“Can I get a nutritional rundown on those products,” I asked.
Kevin stopped mid-sentence, then looked around at the others. Everyone else was equally mystified. I got it. I’d never asked for nutritional content before. “Uh. Yes. Certainly. Right away.”
Next was HR. Apparently, they’d begun the executive development program I’d suggested for kids right out of college, and the candidates were all stellar, future leaders of the world.
Everything seemed like it was turning around.
But it didn’t seem like enough. I twisted restlessly in my chair, wanting something more. Something bigger.
“Moving on to sales. Your report, Bob?”
Bob began to speak, opening up with a positive report. Our numbers, once plummeting, had flattened out. Bob was encouraged that the freefall was over. “It’s not a total turnaround, for sure, but before you can begin to heal, you have to stop the bleeding first. As for new markets, we’ve pretty much saturated every available market.”
“There are other markets we can reach, Bob,” I said to him. “We’ve just got to think creatively and stop pigeonholing ourselves. How about the health food markets?”
Twenty directors stared back at me, openmouthed.
Then Bob pointed out the obvious: “Zach. We’re not exactly known for our health food.”
“That’s the problem. Wh
at if we were?”
Ann let out a laugh. “But we’re not. We’re good tasting, fun food. Not—”
“What if we can be healthy, good tasting, and fun?” I interjected, looking at Kevin. “How do we make that change? What if I challenged you to make products with only the best ingredients?”
Kevin rolled his eyes. “We’ve done this. There were GoodSnacks, and—”
“I know. I know we failed in the past. But that isn’t the reason to scrap it entirely. There are new sweeteners out there, new ingredients available. We need to keep testing. Make it a priority.” I leaned back in my chair, thinking. “And what would it take to overhaul our school lunch program?”
“What?” several voices rang out around the room.
Bob smiled at me as if he knew more than God. “Zach, my boy. Our school lunch program was hailed by mayor Ed Koch when it was developed thirty years ago. It won awards. It—”
“It won awards, but not because of the content. The quality of our food has significantly declined in that space, portions have decreased, and it was all to cut pennies from each lunch to save us money. Now, the food is practically inedible. Go into any public school, and you’ll see that. Inmates in the federal prison system have better.”
Ann nodded and said to Bob, “Actually, he’s right. My daughter has children in the school system and won’t let them touch the food. She says it’s not good.”
“So what can we do?” Now, I was on a warpath. Ready to make things happen.
Kevin scratched his temple. “That’s a high mountain to climb, man. The school lunch program has been out of our hands forever, being managed by our subsidiaries. First, we’ll need to reel everything in and examine it. Study the products, the ingredients… and then we’ll need to bring in the manpower to help see how we can revamp the recipes.”
“Manpower…” I muttered, thinking. “What are we talking about? You mean like, doctors? Dieticians? Nutritionists?”
He nodded.
And just like that, it came to me. Exactly what this company needed to give it a shot in the arm.
