When I arrived at the convention center, Alanna was already there. Although she was just barely five feet tall, she was excellent at barking orders and managing the temp baking staff, and she already had everything under control. She’d grown up in a bakery in Mexico City that her parents owned, so she wasn’t intimidated by large orders, and at just twenty years old, she was extremely efficient and practical, and had an excellent palate. She had been on the kitchen staff during a party I’d planned for the opening of a Zen Spa in Chelsea, when I was still working as an event planner. I’d spotted her immediately. She was fast, efficient, and no-nonsense. I knew I would hire her someday, and here she was.
“How’s it going?” I said.
“I’ve got everything unpacked,” she said. “We just have to set it all up.”
I’d bought tall, narrow glass pasta jars and filled them with muffin ingredients, to decorate the display: almonds, cranberries, chocolate chips, oats, pecans, lemons. I had red aprons designed with my Have Faith logo, which we would all wear. I hung them on a hook along the back of the booth. I had my order book, my calculator, my cash box, and the table we would use to write orders. We hung the sign and set out the brochures and order forms. After covering the booth, I went home to figure out what to wear.
That night, I lay in bed, obsessing. I had no idea what to expect from the Fancy Food Show, but whatever it would be, I decided I was definitely ready. I was poised for success. Now sleep, Faith. At least just close your eyes. You want to look your best when your ship finally comes in.
chapter eighteen
On Sunday morning, I couldn’t believe the convention hall was the same space that we’d labored in the day before.
The place was packed with major national food companies taking up the equivalent of ten booths, whose products are in every supermarket, to the tiniest of start-ups, like me. Although the show didn’t open until ten a.m., the hall was already full of people at seven a.m. Exhibitors milled around checking out one another’s displays. There was an air of high tension in the building—everybody desperate or hopeful or a little of both. It was also a room full of dreams, brilliant ideas, aspirations. Row after row of The Little Product That Could wedged in between the food industry giants. Would it be a good year? How many orders would we all write?
Victoria, my often-late-night partner in crime and good friend, was already helping Alanna put the last touches on the booth. She gave me a big smile and a hug.
Victoria was a hairdresser, not a baker, but she was always helping me out. She worked on models, but celebrities sometimes called her to come to their homes to do their hair before a big event. I met her when a former boyfriend brought me backstage at a show during Fashion Week because he had to interview Gisele Bündchen. While he was talking to Gisele, I was standing back against a wall, waiting, feeling out of place and slightly intimidated by the frenetic activity all around me, when this girl with black hair in a high ponytail and Betty Page bangs yelled at me. “Hey, you, girl against the wall, could you hand me that case?” She had a model’s hair piled into one hand and couldn’t quite reach the metal box full of bobby pins and scissors and hairspray. “You know … as long as you’re not doing anything.”
I’d been so grateful to have something to do that I volunteered to be her unofficial gofer for the next hour. She was funny and cynical and a fast talker like me, so when my date was ready to go, we exchanged numbers and had kept in touch ever since. Victoria was also a foodie, so whenever I wanted to try a new restaurant or test a recipe, she was my girl. I knew she’d love the Fancy Food Show.
We had a good booth space—Stefan had pulled strings, and we were just down one row from the entrance, near the new product showcase. Alanna set the muffins out on silver trays. They looked adorable—cute little buttons of oats and chocolate chips, pecans, cranberries and almonds, in bright red muffin wrappers. I obsessively straightened the stack of brochures, the table skirts, the signage. Then I stepped back. The booth looked good. Inviting. Delicious. I picked up a brochure. There I was, right on the front, in my red apron, smiling, holding a tray of muffins, my hair wavy and perfectly arranged around my shoulders (Victoria had done it), and in an arc over my head were the words “Have Faith: A Bakery You Can Believe In,” with a white dove forming the H, and then in smaller letters below, “Always vegan, always whole grain, wheat-, egg-, and dairy-free!”
At ten, the buyers filed into the hall. The first few people walked past us, and I began to panic, but then a young woman in Birkenstocks stopped. “Vegan?” she said. Victoria and I both nodded eagerly. “Nobody died to make these muffins,” I assured her. And before I knew what had hit me, people were asking questions, sampling muffins, grabbing brochures—and I was writing orders. I had a line.
I put Alanna on order-writing duty, and I took a tray of muffins and stood in front of the booth, calling out to the crowd:
“Saving the world, one muffin at a time!”
“Excuse me, sir—would you like to try a muffin?”
“Muffins! They’re not just for breakfast anymore!”
“Miss, did you know that nothing goes better with your afternoon martini than a Have Faith Muffin?” That last one didn’t even make sense, but I was on a roll, and I found it hilarious.
People turned, smiled, came toward me, laughed, sampled a muffin, mmm-ed and ooh-ed and asked for more. We were a hit! “We’ve got this, boss,” Alanna said.
I began to worry we’d run out of samples. Could we bake another fifteen hundred for tomorrow? I didn’t have time to think about it. I kept answering questions, sending people to Alanna’s table to fill out orders, and smiling, smiling, smiling. “Saving the world!” I called out some more. “Nothing goes better with a martini than a muffin!” I was riding high.
After an initial hour-and-a-half flurry of activity, we had a brief lull and a chance to regroup. Alanna looked hopelessly at the savaged trays of muffins, then tried to arrange them and fill in the gaps with fresh product. “Is this really working?” I asked her. “Are we really doing something big here?”
“I just hope we can fill all those orders,” she said, grinning.
“I’m going to go forage,” said Victoria.
“Keep the apron on—you can be our walking advertisement,” I said.
I looked at the stack of orders. A local vegan café put in one order for fifty muffins to be delivered weekly for six weeks. Two delis wanted onetime deliveries of twenty-five muffins. There were a handful of other orders from health food stores, and several individuals who wanted to sign up for regular deliveries to their homes. A vegan café in New Jersey wanted a hundred for a party, and a vegan catalog wanted to set up an as-needed account, if we could guarantee we could ship frozen. I said we could. Another store asked if we could do vegan birthday cakes. I said sure. I was agreeing to everything, and just hoping I wouldn’t promise something I couldn’t deliver. I could always figure it out after the show.
We’d also had eight or nine people who said they would come back to order, five people who complimented me on the name of the company, even though they didn’t order anything, and one guy who said I was prettier in person than I was on the brochure. Flattering, of course, but he obviously wasn’t going to order anything.
“That was pretty amazing for less than two hours. Is the rest of the day going to keep going like this?” I asked Alanna.
She shrugged. “Search me. But I hope so!”
Just then, Stefan came up to the booth. “How’s it going, girls?” he asked.
“We’ve already got orders!” I said, waving the stack of order forms at him. “A lot of them. We’re a success!”
“I knew you would be, kid,” he said.
A few more people began to gather around the muffin trays. “Have Faith and help yourselves,” I encouraged them. “We’re saving the world, one muffin at a time!”
Just then I noticed a group of people standing across the aisle, watching me. I smiled and waved them over. “Com
e on over. Try a muffin. Is it happy hour yet? Muffin happy hour? We should be serving these with tequila shots.” I was getting giddier and sillier by the minute.
The three men and two women came across the aisle and one of the men reached out and shook my hand. “We’ve been watching you for a while,” he said. “Are you Faith?”
“I am,” I said, handing them a brochure. “Proprietor of Have Faith Muffins. Always vegan, always whole grain, always wheat-, egg-, and dairy-free!”
“Is this your business partner?” the man said, gesturing to Stefan.
“Oh no, this is just an investor I used to sleep with,” I said breezily. Everyone laughed, including Stefan.
“So you’re the sole owner?”
“She’s the sole owner all right,” Stefan offered, smiling. “No room for anybody else at the top of this organization!”
They all looked at each other. “Tell us about your business,” said one of the women.
I wondered if they were investors. “It’s called Have Faith Bakery,” I said, hopefully. “The product is absolutely fantastic. I’ve got major interest. In the first hour of the show alone, we wrote over fifty large orders.” A slight exaggeration, but close enough. “My only limit has been in having the backing to really take it to the next level. Frankly, I’ve got the drive, and I think the health-conscious community as well as the vegan community will go wild for my products. They’re that good.” I straightened my shoulders and tried to look confident. Whatever they were interested in, it looked like they had a lot of money behind it.
I turned to the muffin trays and was relieved to see that Alanna was finished restocking them, so I invited them all to sample the muffins. They all nibbled and smiled and nodded.
“I’m vegan,” said one of the women, “and I can’t believe these are dairy- and egg-free. They taste delicious.”
“Vegan baking is the next frontier,” I told her. “I truly believe that. And these mini muffins are only fifty calories each. I think every deli in the city should be carrying them. And every organic café and vegan market and anybody else offering health-conscious food. I want to democratize health, bringing it to the people. It shouldn’t be so elitist. You shouldn’t have to be rich to be healthy … and God knows I’ve tried to be both!”
“Excellent. Just excellent. Faith, my name is Darren Donlon, and these are my colleagues, Max Weidenbach, Priscilla Higgs, and Marissa Poland. We produce a television show and we think you might be right for a role.”
I stared at them, momentarily speechless. I’d imagined they owned a health food store, or maybe a restaurant chain. “Wow. OK. Well, I… gave up acting, actually,” I said. “As you can see.” I motioned to my booth.
“No no, it’s not a show that requires acting. It’s a reality show.”
I had no idea what he was talking about, but I smiled. I wasn’t sure what to say. Finally I looked at Stefan, and then back at the group. “What’s a reality show?”
They all laughed. The woman Darren had introduced as Priscilla said, “Faith, we are with Tidal Media Group, and we represent a show that’s going to be on television next season. It’s a kind of contest, and we’re looking for people to compete for a hundred-thousand-dollar prize and the opportunity to launch their own business.”
“Wow,” I said, still not imagining what any of this could have to do with me. But I definitely liked the sound of $100,000. That could really take me to the next level. And I always loved a contest. “That sounds great. What kind of a contest?”
“A group of contestants will be pitted against each other to complete certain tasks having to do with cooking, baking, decorating, gardening, and fund-raising. For each task, there’s a winner, and then a loser who gets eliminated from the competition.”
“What do you mean ‘eliminated’?” I said.
“You must not watch much television,” said Priscilla.
“Actually, I don’t even have a television right now,” I admitted.
“That’s good! That’s very good,” said Marissa, a warm, friendly-looking woman in her mid-thirties. “We want somebody fresh. Somebody who doesn’t have preconceived notions.”
“Oh, I have plenty of preconceived notions; they just don’t have anything to do with television.”
Everyone laughed.
“Do you mean a show on … national television? Or is this a local thing?”
“No no, this is national. Well, cable. We’ve signed with Ovation TV,” said Max.
That I’d heard of. Ovation TV was known for its wildly popular and addictive celebrity-driven shows. I felt a flutter of excitement in my stomach, but I tried to stay calm.
“Faith, would you be interested in coming in for an audition? We’d like to take the next step to consider you for a contestant on the show.”
“Really?” My knees felt a little weak. The word audition sent up red flags, but this sounded a lot different from any of the auditions I’d ever done back in L.A. It also sounded too good to be true. “Sure, I could come in,” I said. “I’d like to hear more about it. But I should warn you, if this is a contest, I don’t pull my punches.”
“Are you sure you’ve never heard of reality TV? Because frankly you seem like you’re made for it,” Darren chuckled.
Just then, Victoria walked up to the booth, her mouth full of cheese. She looked at me, and the producers, and raised her eyebrows. Marissa said to me, “We think you’re just the right kind of character for the show. We want you to be exactly who you are.”
“I’m very good at being exactly who I am, just not so good at being anybody else,” I said. “And if this show is about cooking, well, let me just tell you that I can cook better, faster, and with a healthier result than anybody I know. You get everything you ask for and more with me.”
“It’s true,” said Victoria, swallowing and leaning in. “She’s larger than life. Perfect for TV.” She winked at me.
“There’s one other thing you need to know about the show,” Darren added. “The contest will be run by a celebrity, a domestic icon in fact, who will be a personal mentor and judge for the contestants, so much of your time on the show will be about dealing with her or doing what she tells you. Each week, she will present the contestants with a challenge, which they will try to complete. Afterward, she will name a winner, who will get some kind of prize, and each week she will also name a loser, who will be eliminated from the show, until only one remains. At the end, she will crown the next Domestic Goddess, essentially naming a successor.”
Suddenly, the flutter in my stomach turned into a slam dance. The name Domestic Goddess was more than familiar to me. Could there really be a connection between this random group of producers at a trade show where I was peddling my muffins and the beloved cookbooks that I’d kept with me all of my adult life? My eyes widened. I stared at the producers. I tried not to let my jaw go slack.
Darren smiled. “Perhaps you’ve heard of Sybil Hunter?”
chapter nineteen
Roxanne Howard, executive producer for the show and the woman who almost single-handedly invented reality TV (I’d Googled “reality television” the second I’d come home after the Fancy Food Show), crossed her arms and nodded. Darren, Max, Priscilla, Marissa, and three representatives from Ovation TV were all grinning from ear to ear. Max was still chuckling. “I think we found our girl,” Darren whispered.
I had nailed it. This time, I had no doubt, as I sat there in the red Missoni sheath dress I’d picked up on eBay, swinging a Dolce & Gabbana leopard-skin sling-back shoe from my pedicured toe. The other potential contestants looked like they didn’t know what had just hit them. I’d been clever and more than a little snarky. When they asked me what I thought of one contestant, I said, “If you’re going to carry a knockoff Chanel bag, it should be a better one than that.” I rolled my eyes when the so-called chef said she would win because she was exactly like Sybil Hunter, and, when asked who in the room I thought I’d be friends with, looked around and said, “I
don’t have time for friends. I’m too busy creating a muffin empire.”
No audition I’d ever attempted in Los Angeles had ever gone anything like the Domestic Goddess simulation. There were no scripts, there was no memorization, there was no anxiety about trying to channel somebody else’s personality. This was all me, and I hadn’t been nervous at all. I’d been confident, articulate, and, frankly, funny at all the right moments.
I was a renewed Faith—a Faith who knew exactly what she wanted: to be herself, to be strong, to be entertaining, and brash, and bold. A Faith who knew that if Sybil Hunter was doing a show, she was not only destined to be on it but destined to win it. It wasn’t a matter of wanting. This was a done deal. You can’t argue with destiny.
“Will you all excuse us for a minute?” said Priscilla. “If you don’t mind…” She gestured to the door.
“Of course,” I said, standing up. I walked out of that room with a little swagger, followed by the other contestants. We sat in the outer waiting room, in chairs along the back wall. The woman with the knockoff Chanel sat fuming and casting me evil looks. The Sybil Hunter wannabe said, “We’re already cast, you know. We’re just here to help them find the final cast member. This is about whether you’re good enough, not us.” I shrugged and smiled. I’d been good enough, and I knew it. It took them only five minutes to call me back in.
Roxanne Howard shook my hand and offered me a seat. I’d heard how arrogant and pompous she was, so I looked with amusement at her cheesy striped pant suit. “Faith, we liked what you did in here. We think you’re just the person to shake up our cast. You’re a ballbuster, like Sybil herself, but you’re also an original. We’d like to offer you a spot on the show.”
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