Rules of the Road
Authors: Joan Bauer
On the road . . .
I drove slowly around a blinking warning sign set up around a construction site; checked my mirrors for approaching cars when I saw a merge arrow; moved to the right lane when the driver behind me flashed his headlights. It seemed to me that the people who made the rules of the road had figured out everything that would help a person drive safely, right down to having a sign that tells you you’re passing through a place where deer cross. Somebody should stick up some signs on the highway of life.
CAUTION: JERKS CROSSING.
Blinking yellow lights when you’re about to do something stupid.
Stop signs in front of people who could hurt you.
Green lights shining when you’re doing the right thing.
It would make the whole experience easier.
Life was too hard sometimes.
Books by
JOAN BAUER
Backwater
Best Foot Forward
Hope Was Here
Rules of the Road
Squashed
Stand Tall
Sticks
Thwonk
JOAN BAUER
Rules
of the
Road
speak
An Imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
SPEAK
Published by the Penguin Group
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Registered Offices: Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
First published in the United States of America by G. P. Putnam’s Sons,
a division of The Putnam&Grosset Group, 1998
Published by Puffin Books, a division of Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers, 2000
Published by Speak, an imprint of Penguin Putnam Inc., 2003
This edition published by Speak, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2005
Copyright © Joan Bauer, 1998
All rights reserved
THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS EDITION AS FOLLOWS
:
Bauer, Joan, date. Rules of the road / Joan Bauer
p. cm.
Summary: Sixteen-year-old Jenna gets a job driving the elderly owner of a chain of successful shoe stores from Chicago to Texas to confront the son who is trying to force her to retire, and along the way Jenna hones her talents as a saleswoman and finds the strength to face her alcoholic father.
[1. Stores, Retail—Fiction. 2. Old age—Fiction. 3. Automobile driving—Fiction.
4. Alcoholism—Fiction. 5. Texas—Fiction.] I. Titles.
PZ7.B32615Ru 1998 [Fic]—dc21 97-32198 CIP AC
Speak ISBN: 978-1-101-65788-1
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
For Jean, with love
With abundant thanks to George Nicholson,
who led the way,
and to Betsy Barker,
who taught me about Texas
CHAPTER
1
I leaped onto the sliding ladder in the back room of Gladstone’s Shoe Store of Chicago, gave it a shove, and glided fast toward the end of the floor to ceiling shelves of shoeboxes. My keen retailer’s eye found the chocolate loafers, size 13, I slid the ladder to the Nikes, grabbed two boxes of easy walkers (white and beige) size 4
1
⁄
2
narrow, pushed again to women’s saddles, found the waxhides, size 7, rode the ladder to the door one-handed. Children, do not try this at home. I am a shoe professional. I jumped off as Murray Castlebaum, my boss, rushed past me.
“It’s a madhouse out there, kid.” Murray grinned, rifling through shoeboxes.
We love it when it gets busy.
I walked quickly back on the sales floor, made eye contact with each of my customers so they’d know I cared. Every movement counts when you’re selling shoes, especially when the store fills up with customers. You look at people calmly; you let them know you’ll take care of them—you’re not panicked
even though people are holding up shoes and barking sizes at you all at once. I just remember what Murray told me: People want to know someone’s for them. I’ve sold lots of shoes this way.
The tired woman with the three screaming boys tried on the waxhide saddles.
“Mommy, I want to go!” cried the youngest boy and the other two chimed in. This could blow my sale because she was outnumbered. I took out my stopwatch that I used for emergencies, handed it to the oldest boy.
“Breath-holding contest,” I directed. “The winner gets cow laces. Best two out of three.”
“Cool.” The boys started holding their breath, mere putty in my hands. The woman looked at me gratefully, freed to shop.
I raced to the older man, slid the loafers on his bony feet, felt the toe. His face went soft. I smiled. These shoes sell themselves. He stood up, did a little dancing movement.
Moved to the woman with the dangling Siamese earrings, the pouncing cat pin. Slipped the Nikes on her fat foot, mentioned the tri-density compression plug midsole that would energize her feet on pavement, told her to give them a good test. Circled back around like a good sheepdog, keeping watch.
“How are those feeling?” I asked Cat Woman, who grinned.
Showed the older man the hand-stitching and richly grained texture on his loafers.
Pointed out the classic, yet fresh appeal of the waxhide saddle.
The woman nodded as her boys argued over who won the contest—she’d take the shoes.
The older man took out his wallet. “I’ll take them, miss.”
A yes from Cat Woman.
The woman with the toddler I’d waited on earlier bought three pairs of baby sandals in white, pink, and dress black.
They can’t say no.
I walked my customers to the counter, thanked each one, tallied up the five percent commission in my head, keeping my eye on the man and the little girl who just walked in. Murray pushed back his three strands of hair that he tried to comb over his balding head and did his dead chicken imitation, stretching his neck long, bugging his eyes out. This meant I wait on the man and girl. I headed toward them, stepping lightly.
“So what are you doing in school these days, Becky?” the man asked the little girl.
“Daddy,” she said, “I already told you last week.”
The man checked his watch. A weekend father, probably. Be thankful, Becky. At least yours comes around.
Becky tried on pink ballet slippers, white cowgirl boots, and black patent leathers.
She got them all.
I walked Becky and her dad to the counter.
“Listen,” the father said as he flipped out his Visa card. “I’m going to have to take you back early today, Beck. I’ve got an appointment.”
My dad used to say that to me on the rare occasion that he came around.
I handed her a balloon and told her how great she’s going to look in her new shoes.
Becky stared at the children’s shoe display I arranged. Murray said it was my best one yet. It had stuffed clown dolls and circus decals and a wind-up trapeze toy that moved across a wire. The kids always ran to it whenever they came into the store. Becky walked to the display, her little face caved in, watching as the toy man buzzed across the wire above the Keds.
I wanted to tell her I understood. I walked over to her, put my hand on her shoulder, and settled for one of those looks that passed between strangers. Her father checked his watch again, rushed her out the door.
Mrs. Madeline Gladstone, the supremely aged president of Gladstone’s Shoes (176 outlets in 37 states; corporate offices in Dallas, Texas), stood by the cash register under the large white five-pointed Lone Star of Texas that was the symbol of Gladstone’s Shoe Stores everywhere. She came to our store every day when she was in town. Mrs. Gladstone had houses in Dallas and Chicago, but lately she’d been spending all her time here. She was very short but made up for it like one of those little yippy dogs who barks at anything. She ran her fingers through her coarse white hair, made notes on a pad inside a blue leather folder marked “personal.” Some people just naturally make you nervous. She was retiring this year, handing the business over to her son, Elden. Murray said retiring was
probably going to kill her because the shoe business had been her whole life. It didn’t help that Elden was pond scum.
He came to the store three months ago, saying how the shoe business was changing and we were going to get new lower-priced merchandise that was going to fly off the shelves. The merchandise came, but it never made it on the shelves. It looked good on the outside, but Murray Castlebaum’s got X-ray vision. He looked past the brushed leather and the fancy labels to the thinner soles and the wider stitching and the second-rate lining. Then Murray shoved everything in the closet and stood on the ladder in the back room and gave a misty-eyed speech about how you’ve got to live what you sell and he wasn’t about to start living with garbage.
Most people think selling shoes is pretty ho-hum, but if you hang with shoe people long enough you plug into the high drama.
I looked around. The crowd had cleared. Customers come in swarms, like locusts.
“Break, kid.”
Murray motioned me to the back room. I was fifteen and a half when I started at Gladstone’s last year, sophomore year, the year of the Big Slump. I gained seventeen and a half pounds. I went from center forward to second-string guard on the girls basketball team because I just can’t jump. I got a C minus in History, which knocked me off the honor roll because my history teacher didn’t like my essays or my end-of-the-year term paper (“Our Shoes, Ourselves—Footwear Through the Ages”). I became the brunt of Billy Mundy’s
mean jokes until I shoved him against the wall when he called me “
Ms.
Moose” for the zillionth time, told him I’d rip his left kidney out if he said that again. I just limped through sophomore year, all five feet eleven inches of me, wondering why God had invented adolescence.
But there was Gladstone’s.
I succeeded here. I made money here. I didn’t feel big, awkward, and lost. I felt successful. I helped people. They looked to me instead of away. I couldn’t wait to come here after school, couldn’t wait to head out to work early on Saturday mornings. My grandmother always said that everyone needs something in life that they do pretty well. For me, it’s selling shoes.