Julia's Child (9781101559741)

by Pinneo, Sarah

  Yes. Yes, it would be better. Because then GPG would have already cut me a check.

  My hangover clouded my ability to reason. So it took longer than it should have for the time line of the alleged farming fiasco to really sink in. I was brushing my hair when it hit me. The greedy developer could not have dumped Miracle-Gro on my land until after harvest time. The boxes were a recent appearance. In fact, Kate and I had been standing on the very spot where they now lay scattered when she’d admired the hummingbird in September.

  That meant that I hadn’t polluted any muffets with industrial fertilizer. It was only next year’s crop that could not be organic.

  As I hastily pulled on my socks, I also realized that there was somebody who could help me prove the purity of last year’s veggies.

  This hopeful notion propelled me down the narrow stairway into my kitchen. I paused only long enough to grab a half-eaten box of stale whole wheat crackers. I was out in the car a few minutes later, wet hair and all, heading for South Hill, where I rarely ventured. But I remembered Kate telling me once where Kevin Dunham lived.

  The place was easy enough to find. The rusty VW van was parked outside a double-wide trailer. The van and the trailer looked like hell, but the farm plot next to it was as tidy as can be, especially for November, when many farming tracts sported the Vermont version of a bad hair day. Kevin Dunham’s plots were mounded into neatly mulched rows, awaiting spring. I remembered that Kate said he was one heck of a farmer.

  I got out of the car and banged on the trailer’s metal door. There was no answer. For a stoop, the trailer had an inverted extra-large plastic milk carton. I checked my watch, discovering that it was only eight in the morning. I banged again. “Open up, Kevin. You have something I need!”

  “Lady, come back at noon,” a voice finally whimpered. “I don’t have anything bagged.”

  “Kevin Dunham, open up. It’s Julia Bailey. You took my FDA application and my soil samples, and I need them back!”

  A minute later, the door opened a crack. A sliver of face, pale as moonlight, peered out at me. Dunham had several days’ growth of beard. “I remember you,” he said. “The place on North Hill. With the goats.”

  It wasn’t poetry, but it was progress. “Of course you do,” I said. “Because I paid you six hundred dollars.”

  The bloodshot eyes opened a little wider. “I don’t have that money right now.”

  “I’m sure you don’t. But I just need my soil samples back. Even if you didn’t test them. Especially if you didn’t test them. I need them back.”

  He frowned. “Just a minute.” He disappeared into the dim recesses of the trailer. I waited, tapping my finger on the flimsy doorjamb. Just when I imagined he’d done a face plant onto the bed and was sleeping again, he reappeared, with papers and test tubes. “I don’t know if all the pages are here,” he hedged. “But the soil—I didn’t test it.”

  “Fine,” I said stiffly, my eyes locking onto the precious test tubes. He pushed open his screen door, and I grabbed for them. “But we’re not quite done here,” I said, holding his door open. “I need you to write something for me. Something like: ‘To who it may concern, I certify that these samples were taken at the farm on North Hill in July, and since I was stoned out of my mind I didn’t test them.’” I stared him down. “And sign it.”

  He winced, either because of my demand or because the daylight pained his bloodshot eyes.

  I held out the back page of my organic-certification application and a pen. After a beat, he took them. “Look, I’m sorry,” he said. He pressed the page against his flimsy door and scribbled for a minute. Then he handed it over to me.

  Grasping the page, I considered him for a minute. On top of every other way of being disheveled, he needed a haircut. He peered at me from behind a shaggy curtain of bangs.

  On the one hand, it would be easy for me to add him to the arrest list that I dreamed of handing over to the police. He took six hundred of my dollars, for nothing. Forget about the drugs.

  On the other hand, that wouldn’t solve any of my problems.

  “Take care of yourself,” I said instead.

  “Yeah,” he said noncommittally.

  “No, I mean it. Because you don’t look like you’re having so much fun here. Kate Barker says you’re talented.” I didn’t know where all this empathy was coming from. I really needed to get off the sagging plastic stoop and back on the road.

  “Thanks,” he said. “I’ll think about it.”

  I backed myself down onto terra firma. But just before his door closed, I had one more thought. “Hey—do you know Randy Biden at all? The developer?”

  The door opened again. “Sure,” Dunham said gruffly. “He plays cards with us sometimes. Usually wins all my money. Why?”

  I felt another flash of anger. Of course he won at cards. That cheater. He won at everything. I brought my rage under control for long enough to ask one more question. “I just wondered if Randy Biden ever mentioned my land.”

  Dunham shrugged. “One time he asked me whether you’re going organic. That’s all. Probably because he knows I . . .” He came to a halt, embarrassed.

  “Deal with that?” I volunteered.

  “Yeah.”

  I sighed. That rat. “Thanks, Kevin.” Thanks for nothing. I stumbled into my car and pointed it toward Massachusetts. With any luck, I could get to Organiquest in the next hour and a half. If I could prove, at the bare minimum, that last year’s crop had been pure, then maybe—just maybe—I could put the whole sorry twenty-four hours behind me.

  Chapter 28

  “What did they say?” Marta shrieked, when I finally walked through the office door. The poor woman must have been pacing our ten-by-ten office since I’d called her, three hours ago, from the car.

  “I think it’s going to be okay,” I said, to her visible relief. “Organiquest is going to test the old samples, in order to certify the farm as organic—but only for last year’s harvest. I had to tell them the whole tale I told you over the phone—the boxes of Miracle-Gro, the builder, the pothead. I must have sounded like a raving lunatic, but I think they believed me.” I tossed my purse down on the desk and flopped into my chair.

  “When will we know? We were supposed to call GPG this morning, with our answer.”

  I nodded slowly. My eyes felt sanded from lack of sleep and from driving for nine out of the last twenty-four hours. But at least I’d had sufficient time during the drive home to consider the situation. “I think we can call GPG anyway and proceed. The old samples will show that our soil was fine last year. I know they will.”

  Marta’s round face broke into a broad grin. “So let’s call them! I want to order my business cards.”

  I hesitated. “Marta?”

  “What?”

  “Does it bother you at all? The idea of selling out?”

  Marta whirled herself all the way around in her swivel chair—the way Jasper might if he visited our office. “No,” she said firmly. She stopped her pirouette with one hand on the desktop. “And I’ll tell you why. I know that corporation won’t want to do everything the same. But that’s half the point, isn’t it? Just think—you get to give up all the parts of the business you hate, like worrying about the money, and get back all those hours to focus on the things you really love. Like inventing new recipes. What’s so bad about that?”

  As always, Marta had a perfectly sane outlook. But all the same, I stared at the phone on my desk, feeling grim. It was hard to put my finger on it, but I didn’t have any of the exuberance I’d expected to feel at the moment when Julia’s Child finally made the big time. I told myself it was just fear. Or exhaustion.

  Marta looked at me expectantly. I dug Smith’s business card out of my purse and slapped it onto the desk. I jammed the phone between my ear and my shoulder and began to dial.

  The call was answered by a perky receptionist. “GPG!”

  “This is Julia Bailey for J. P. Smith.” There was a quaver in my vo
ice, but, across the small room, Marta grinned from ear to ear. Hopefully she had enough excitement for the two of us.

  “There she is!” Smith said heartily. “The queen of muffets.”

  “Indeed,” I answered. “And Marta is also on the line. We are calling to let you know that we look forward to working with you.”

  “Terrific!” he said. “Your lawyer and ours have already hammered out new language for several clauses, so we’re sending over a fresh set of papers. You can sign them and messenger them back over later this afternoon.”

  “Great,” I said, swallowing hard.

  “Listen—our timing couldn’t be better. I need you to call our corporate travel department right away, because on Monday all the food brands for the Americas are having an offsite in Monterey. And I very much want to have you there, Julia.”

  “Monday, in Monterey,” I repeated.

  “Right!” Smith continued. “And while you’ve got travel on the line, I think you should also accompany Ralph DaSilva to D.C. on Friday to meet our lobbyist. He’s doing a lot of work down there to try to hammer out the next version of the FDA’s organic standards.”

  “Your lobbyist? To the FDA?” I hesitated. “That could be an interesting meeting, depending on whether he’s trying to strengthen the organic rules or weaken them.”

  “Exactly,” Smith said. “Good stuff.”

  I felt a ringing in my ears. What was I doing? The corporate wonks were closing in on me, and there was nowhere to hide. And Friday night was supposed to be Jasper’s seasonal concert at school. The kindergartners were preparing to sing about Frosty the Nondenominational Snow Man. My son had been thumpety-thumping all around our apartment for weeks.

  I looked over at Marta. She was scribbling down my travel plans, as if there was going to be a test later. She took no notice of me or of the panic attack I was starting to have.

  “Look, uh, Mr. Smith,” I said, overwhelmed. “There’s just one more thing I wanted to talk over with you before we sign.”

  I was still watching Marta, and now she stopped writing and met my gaze, her eyebrows arching questioningly.

  “And what is that?” Smith asked, unworried.

  “The price,” I said as casually as possible. “Your offer was $285,000. I ran some numbers, and I figured out that it would cost you closer to $400,000 to start up a company like mine from scratch.”

  I didn’t have the slightest idea whether this was true or not. And I hadn’t planned on saying it. Asking for a higher price might be savvy. Or it might be suicidal. I wasn’t sure which. But my mouth had brought it up all the same.

  All the levity was gone from Smith’s voice when he answered. “First of all, the cost to us at these figures is four hundred thousand. Don’t forget—we’re taking on your salary, benefits, and retirement. Plus, we’re extinguishing your debts. So congratulations on a math problem well done, because we’re already paying the higher figure.”

  I gulped for air. I hadn’t expected to outmaneuver the corporate raiders at GPG, but it would have been nice if it took him longer than ten seconds to mow down my argument.

  “Last but not least,” Smith went on, his voice cold, “the two hundred eighty-five is more than a hundred percent of your annual sales revenue, including the regional order from Whole Foods, which you don’t even have yet. In comparison, last month we bought a fair-trade coffee company for barely half its annual sales.”

  Across from me, Marta’s mouth was dangling open. I had managed to turn a celebratory conversation into an awkward one, and now I didn’t even know how to get off the line.

  “I’ll . . .” I hesitated. “I just need to think about it for a couple of hours,” I said quietly.

  “You do that,” Smith said, his tone backing off just a little bit. “We want to make Julia’s Child part of the GPG family. But there are other fish in the sea. Every company we look at takes up our valuable time. So I want to hear from you this afternoon.”

  “Fine,” I said. “I’m going to make some deliveries to our retailers in Brooklyn, and afterward I’ll give you a call.”

  “Okay,” Smith said. “But you should know that at three o’clock I’m meeting with another company that we met at the trade show. It might be wise to call me before then.”

  As I tried to process this threat, he hung up.

  The second our telephone receivers were back in their cradles, Marta began hollering at me. “Hoolia! Have you lost your mind?”

  I put my head in my hands. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “How can you do that? That man just told us he’s taking a meeting today with our competition. We’ve gotta call him back and tell him we’re on board!

  My heart thudded in my chest. When I’d given Marta 10 percent of the company, I’d never guessed that it might pit us against each other. I wanted Marta to get her $28,000 for Carlos’ college fund. I really did. But GPG scared me, and I wasn’t sure I’d given enough thought to what we were getting into. Their jet-setting travel schedule and their lobbyist were terrifying.

  “Marta, I know you deserve to get the money, but . . .”

  “But what? It’s a perfectly good company, with really good health care. Why on earth wouldn’t you say yes?”

  There was no easy answer. I was scared, and I needed some air. So I jammed Smith’s business card into my purse and pulled on my coat. “I’m going to Brooklyn,” I managed to choke out.

  “No.” It was surprisingly forceful. “I’ll do it.” Marta stood up.

  “No, really,” I said, practically running for the door.

  “Julia! Come back here a minute.”

  “Marta, I just need some time.”

  Chapter 29

  Mr. Pastucci’s sunken eyes watched my progress as I filled my little rolling cooler with muffets. “How is Brooklyn treating you?”

  He had asked me that question many times, but today it brought tears to my eyes. Mr. Pastucci didn’t know it yet, but I might not be back. At GPG, my product would be manufactured in New Jersey or Pennsylvania. I wouldn’t be there to taste each batch as it came out of the oven. It wouldn’t be me who tucked each package into a cooler for delivery.

  I forced myself to remember that Julia’s Child’s Brooklyn roots were supposed to be temporary. I’d never meant to store the product in the rear of the Sons of Sicily Social Club forever. I’d meant it as a way station before moving on to bigger and brighter things. But now I found myself terrified to cut loose from it. And I had only a couple hours to figure out why.

  “Yes, Mr. Pastucci. Brooklyn always treats me very well.” I put four ice packs on top of the muffet packages and zipped up my rolling cooler. “Did Lugo tell you? He’s coming by later with the truck. Whole Foods needs another shipment.”

  “That’s my girl,” Mr. Pastucci rasped. “She’s making the big time.”

  The lump in my throat expanded.

  Mr. Pastucci limped over to the back door and opened it a crack. He peered around the edge of the door in both directions, in his characteristic way. Then he opened the door wide.

  I rolled the muffets out the door, then turned around to give him a wave.

  He returned it arthritically and then shut the door.

  Cold breezes buffeted me as I bumped along the alley toward the sidewalk. Winter would soon be here. My first stop was just a block down Court Street, at Luigi’s Convenience Store. My little cooler just barely fit through the door of the place.

  “Bella!” Luigi called out from behind the counter. “How are you today?”

  “Excellent, Luigi. How’s business?”

  “Pretty good, bella. See for yourself.”

  I parked my wares in front of the tiny freezer case and peered inside. There wasn’t a single muffet to be found in there, and the ice creams were encroaching on the shelf where they usually stood. “Can I do the honors?” I asked Luigi, my hand on the freezer-case handle.

  “Be my guest,” the old man said, patting the belly that protruded benea
th his old white apron.

  I restacked the ice creams, on their own turf. I didn’t mind doing the stock boy’s job. It only took a second, and it guaranteed that the muffets would be visible.

  The set of bells dangling from the doorknob jingled as a young mother pushed her Froggaroo stroller into the tiny shop.

  “Bella!” Luigi called out again. “How are you today?”

  I’ll bet he says that to all the girls.

  “Terrific, Luigi,” the mother said. She had a super-cheery tone that made me wonder what she poured on her breakfast cereal. “And you?”

  “Perfecto!” He kissed his fingertips and threw his blessings into the air overhead.

  There was really no place like Brooklyn.

  Between me and my cooler, and the mother and her stroller, nearly the entire square footage of the shop was now occupied. The newcomer shimmied past the enormous wheels of her stroller to reach the frozen foods. But I was standing in her way.

  “Hang on,” I said. I put twenty boxes of muffets into the freezer and then wriggled out of the way. I could tidy up my display after she had finished.

  “Muffets!” the mother said. “We love those. Don’t we, Liza!”

  My heart soared, though the toddler said nothing because she had fallen asleep, the pacifier dangling precariously from the corner of her mouth, like one of Lugo’s cigars.

  “That’s so nice of you to say!” I told her, slimming myself down to an impossible width, like a city rat, to pass by. “I’m Julia of Julia’s Child.”

  “No way,” she shrieked cheerily. “I’m Pam!” We shook hands. “Did you happen to bring Apple and Cheddar today?”

  “I sure did. They’re right on top.” We executed a cooler-stroller tango worthy of Dancing with the Stars, and I pulled a packing slip out of my pocket for Luigi.

  “Say.” I turned to the mother. “I’m thinking about a new flavor for springtime. What would you think of sweet peas, corn, and mozzarella as a combination?”