Rules of the Road (18 page)

Mrs. Gladstone was angry at Harry’s death. She said there was enough unfairness in the world without losing Harry Bender in the prime of his life.

“What did his dying serve?” she shouted.

Alice shook her head and walked off.

I said, “I don’t know, Mrs. Gladstone. I just know bad things happen more than I’d like because the world has got more than its share of problems.”

“Well, it’s not right!”

“I know it’s not, m’am, I—”

She rammed her cane on the floor. “I don’t need platitudes!”

“I didn’t mean to—”

“
What?
”

“This is a hard time for everyone, Mrs. Gladstone, and—”

“
Enough!
” She stormed from the living room, but it felt like she was still standing there. Anger hangs in places sometimes long after the person is gone. I stomped my foot hard because I had to do something. I hate it when people stop a conversation and I have more to say.

My grandma used to say that some things in life don’t have an explanation. What kept her going was believing there was more good in the world than there was bad.

“Sometimes you have to look real hard for it,” she said. “But
I swear to you, Jenna, it’s there.”

I promised her I’d look.

And I’ve been looking ever since.

When my grandmother had to be put in Shady Oaks, she got Gladys as her roommate.

When Mom started the nightshift, she got time and a half pay.

When Dad came back to town, I was pushed out the door to Texas and got to know Mrs. Gladstone and met Harry Bender and Alice.

You never know where the road’s going to take you. I think sometimes it’s less important that you get to your destination than the sidetrips you take along the way.

I walked down the hall to Mrs. Gladstone’s room and knocked on the door.

“
What?
” she shouted.

“I’m going to make a grilled cheese sandwich, Mrs. Gladstone, and wondered if you wanted one.”

Silence.

“I make the best grilled cheese sandwich in the world,” I added humbly.

The door opened. She was standing there in camel slacks and a cream-colored shirt. “I haven’t had a grilled cheese in years.”

“This is your lucky day,” I said and headed toward the kitchen.

I stood at the long tiled kitchen counter, brushing olive oil on thick oatmeal bread; I spread the other side with honey
mustard, layered on cheddar cheese, tomato slices, and sautéed Canadian bacon, placed a slice of oatmeal bread on top, put the two sandwiches in a cast-iron skillet sizzling with butter. Mrs. Gladstone leaned against the opposite wall, watching me. Never miss a good opportunity to shut up, Harry Bender had said. I kept quiet, flipped the sandwiches when they got perfectly browned on one side as Mrs. Gladstone cleared her old voice. We were standing there, as different as two human beings on this earth could be, and yet we were connected.

I put the sandwiches on two plates, cut them at an angle to show off, put them on the round glass kitchen table by the window that overlooked the rock garden. Our kitchen table at home overlooked the fire escape.

Mrs. Gladstone came to the table slowly. She’d been moving slower since Harry Bender died. We all had. Grieving sucks energy from a person’s core. She took a bite of the sandwich; her face lit up.

“Superb.”

I tried mine. It was, too.

She said, “If Harry were alive, Jenna, what do you think he’d be doing right now?”

I checked my watch. Four-thirteen. Wednesday. “He’d be selling shoes, Mrs. Gladstone, doing his level best to make you rich right up until the store closed.”

She laughed.

“And he wouldn’t be giving up. He’d be talking to people,
thinking about what he was going to say at the stockholders meeting. I think being in AA for as long as he was, he got used to seeing all kinds of problems turn around and that gave him courage.”

Mrs. Gladstone ate the last bite of her sandwich. “I’m about to lose my company, but I certainly am well fed.”

I put my sandwich down. “Mrs. Gladstone, I don’t think you realize how strong you are.”

She looked at me irritated, but I couldn’t stop.

“I know your hip hurts and you’ve got that operation coming up—I mean your strength as a person. I know what it’s like to be tossed aside by an important person, Mrs. Gladstone. It makes you think you’re not worth fighting for, that people can do whatever they like and you don’t fight back or tell them how you’re feeling. You just keep being a good sport, hoping the person will change, while people walk all over you. I let my dad do that. I just took it like I was powerless, like I didn’t have a right to be angry and say no.”

“And do you really think telling him would have changed anything, Jenna?”

“Probably not. I don’t know. But I think speaking the truth would have changed me.” I was standing now, waving my napkin. “Because I’m angry, Mrs. Gladstone! I’ve been afraid of it for so long. Afraid that if I let him know how I felt, he’d hate me, like I was supposed to be perfect and make up for the fact that he had all these problems!”

Mrs. Gladstone was studying her plate like the answer was
in the blue and white flowered pattern. “I’m angry, too,” she said quietly.

“Then go to that meeting tomorrow and kick some butt, ma’am. That’s what we’re in Texas for, isn’t it?”

She stared at the plate. “I don’t know anymore . . .”

“And wave the cane around, Mrs. Gladstone. That cane’s a real killer.”

Whack.

The killer cane came down on the banister.

Mrs. Gladstone announced, “I’d rather eat live snakes than go to this meeting!”

It was three-thirty—Thursday. The stockholders meeting started in one and a half hours. I was standing in Mrs. Gladstone’s kitchen, wearing my green shirt, khaki skirt, and 1
¹
⁄
₂
-inch-heeled pumps. Mrs. Gladstone stuck a bony thumb toward the door, which meant we were leaving now or else.

We walked out the door. Alice was waiting for us on the porch. The heat was mean and heavy. I’d washed the Cadillac myself early this morning, but nobody noticed. Mrs. Gladstone said, “Let’s get this over with.”

Alice put her hand around Mrs. Gladstone’s shoulder, but Mrs. Gladstone shook it off. I helped her in the backseat. She was wearing a red two-piece suit with a striped blouse, and sat there trying to be tough, writing notes in her blue leather folder with angry movements.

Alice said, “Madeline, honey . . .” and got glared at.

I started up the Cadillac. “You sure look ready for anything, Mrs. Gladstone,” I said and headed down the driveway as she grunted. It wasn’t until I took a quick peek at her in the rearview mirror that I saw her smile.

I pulled up to the tall glass headquarters of Gladstone’s Shoes in downtown Dallas. The windows were sparkling like they had no idea the deceit that was going on behind them. The sun was shining like all was well. The parking lot was filling up with Mercedeses and Chevy Suburbans. I dropped Mrs. Gladstone and Alice off at the entrance and said I’d meet them inside.

Mrs. Gladstone moved slowly to the glass double doors, looked back at me and smiled bravely. Then she squared her old shoulders and walked inside with Alice behind her.

I parked in the Executive Only section and if anyone gave me any guff about it, I was going to give it right back. I cracked my knuckles and got out of the car.

The heat hung thick and depressive like a rotten mood. I walked in the building, followed the signs to the stockholders meeting, down the long, polished hall. A large, jovial man was standing at the door to the meeting room, checking off people’s names as they came in. I jingled the car keys in my hand and started toward him.

That’s when Elden Gladstone jumped in front of me.

“Jenna,” he said, “I want to thank you personally for
all
you’ve done for my mother.”

You could have knocked me over. I looked down at him.

Then he swiped the car keys from my hand, put them in his pocket. “But we’re not going to be needing your services now that she is retiring.”

My heart was beating very fast.

“You understand,” Elden said smoothly. “We’ll have someone drive you to the airport.”

This wasn’t happening.

“I’m sorry, sir, I don’t understand. I’m supposed to drive your mother back to Chicago.”

Elden broke into a fake smile. “Let’s put it another way. You’re
fired.
”

I stepped back.

“You will be on the seven
P.M.
flight today back to Chicago. Here’s your ticket.” He slapped it in my hand. “Your severance check will be mailed to you at home along with your luggage. Don’t expect a referral from this company.
Ever.
”

I stood there holding the ticket, frozen.

A tall man with a bushy mustache appeared like a bad dream. Elden said, “Mac will get you a taxi.
No one
pushes me around.” Then he laughed and started walking off.

“I’d like to talk to your mother, Mr. Gladstone. She’s the one who hired me.” I said this with more courage than I felt.

Elden Gladstone turned to me like just looking at me hurt his eyes. “My mother doesn’t have anything to do with this company anymore,” he snapped.

“She wanted me at that meeting, sir.”

He looked at my shoes. “Stockholders only.”

“But . . .”

He nodded to Mac, who took my arm firmly and led me out the door, onto the stifling street. I tried to shake my arm free; I couldn’t do it. My insides were shaking.

A cab pulled up, Mac gave the driver thirty dollars.

“Dallas Airport,” Mac said coarsely to the driver, and opened the door for me. I got inside because I didn’t know what else to do.

Think.

“Any bags?” the driver asked.

“They’ll be sent,” Mac said flatly.

I felt like I was getting kicked out of the country.

Mac stood firm by the cab in case I made a break for it. He crossed his thick arms and glared at me.

I looked away. I couldn’t think.

“Dallas Airport it is,” said the cabbie and started off.

Defeated Teen Departs Dallas.

The cabdriver moved in and out of traffic like a man on a mission. He was wearing a Dallas Cowboys hat, talking about how the Cowboys were the winningest team in football history. Ask me if I care.

“Where you headed, miss?”

I didn’t answer. I wasn’t sure.

“Where’s home?” he tried again.

I sat there frozen.

Mrs. Gladstone had hired me.

Mrs. Gladstone needed me.

“You okay back there?”

“Can you stop?” I asked him.

He pulled to the side of the road.

“I just got fired.”

“Tough break.”

“It shouldn’t have happened.”

The driver turned to look at me. “You make somebody nervous or what?”

I looked up. “I guess I did.”

He nodded. “My brother used to say you can’t make nobody nervous unless they got something to hide.”

That cleared my mind. “Will you turn around, sir?”

“You want to go back?”

“Yes.”

“You sure?”

Was I?

“I’ve got something to finish,” I said.

“Hold on, miss.” The cabbie did a three-point turn, nearly sideswiping a potato chip truck, and headed back to Gladstone’s headquarters. “Those big shots in suits, they think they can push anybody around. I pick ’em up, drive ’em to the airport, they act like I don’t exist.” He pulled into the driveway. “You want the front or the back?”

“I don’t want anybody to see me.”

“You want the back.”

The cabbie drove around the back and stopped at a smaller door. I told him to keep the money.

He smiled at me. “Those guys breathe the same oxygen as anybody else. Remember that.”