Rules of the Road (8 page)

Curling up on the rollaway bed made me think about laying my father out on the living room couch when he was drunk. The couch wasn’t long enough for Dad (he was six four), so I’d bend his knees to get him to fit. Faith never had to do it. Dad always said there was a price to pay for being the oldest. You’re the one who gets practiced on. His dad would beat him to a pulp over something small while his younger brother Billy got the world handed to him on a Wedgewood plate.

Billy was never as good a salesman as Dad, though.

My best memories of my dad were when he’d take me out to study salespeople. Dad said you can learn anything by
watching other people do it, and if they do it badly, you learn what not to do. The worst salesperson we ever saw sold washers and dryers. He’d sweat and slap the machines and yell that he was giving people a price so low his manager was going to hang him. One customer stormed off grumbling, “I’ll get the rope.” The best salesperson sold Singer sewing machines. She liked people, liked her product, and didn’t need to push anyone into buying anything they didn’t want. Dad said she knew the secret. When we got home I’d practice selling to Dad whatever we saw that day, and except when I was pitching swamp land in Florida, he always bought. Afterwards he’d celebrate what a good little salesperson I was by having a few drinks, but before the booze got hold of him, he was a real father.

Mrs. Gladstone’s snoring was sounding like an approaching Amtrak train rumbling into Union Station. She was tossing, kicking off her sheets.

“No!” she shouted in her sleep, then bolted up with a cry.

I turned on the light. She was shaking.

“Mrs. Gladstone, you were dreaming.”

She nodded and covered her face with her hands.

“Do you want to talk about it? My mom says talking about bad dreams can make them better.”

She shook her old head.

“I know about nightmares,” I assured her.

She looked straight at me. “Yes, I suppose you do.”

I sat down on the side of her bed. “I used to have one where I was taking a shower and instead of water coming out, it was bourbon, which is my dad’s favorite drink, and I kept trying to
turn off the flow, but the bourbon was washing over me and getting in my hair and eyes and mouth. I kept trying to spit it out, but I couldn’t and it tasted awful and I was so afraid I was going to get drunk. It wasn’t going down the drain, either, just filling up the tub, rising higher in the room until it was over my shoulders and I was sure I was going to drown in it. I woke up screaming.”

Mrs. Gladstone nodded a little. “And did I wake up . . .screaming?”

“Kind of. Well, actually, yes.”

She looked down, rubbed her sad eyes, and looked for her glasses. I took them off the nightstand, handed them to her. She put them on fast to cover the tears that were starting.

“My son,” she began, clenching her mouth to keep control, “has been buying up Gladstone stock to gain control of the business because he was afraid I would not go quietly.”

I didn’t know much about stocks. My grandma had given Faith and me both three shares of stock in her boyfriend Earl’s fire alarm company so we could learn the lessons of big business. In thirteen months we watched the stock go from $15 a share to nada and Earl go from CEO to the unemployment line, so the stock market didn’t hold much magic for me.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Gladstone—I don’t understand.”

She grabbed a pad and pencil by the bedside table. “You understand what a share of stock is?”

“It’s like buying a tiny fraction of a company.”

“That’s right. A share of stock is like a deed to a small piece of a company. Now in the case of Gladstone’s Shoes, there are
four million public shares available, out of a possible twelve million. Those who own the most shares, own the most of the company. The problem arises when an individual or group of investors decide they want more say in a company.”

“So they start buying more stock to get control.”

“Precisely.”

“And they can do that?”

“They can.”

“You mean anyone could take over any company they wanted if they had enough money?” I shuddered.

“Theoretically. The system has many checks and balances built in to safeguard certain practices, but companies are taken over regularly.”

“But what if the owners don’t want to give them up?”

“Well, that’s the rub. It doesn’t much matter.”

“But that’s not fair! That’s like stealing!”

“Yes, it is. Elden and Ken Woldman, the president of the Shoe Warehouse, are buying up Gladstone stock to gain control.”

The Shoe Warehouse was a big chain of budget-priced shoe stores. “But the Shoe Warehouse can’t own Gladstone’s! They’d change it!”

“That seems to be their plan,” she said heavily.

I put my hand on Mrs. Gladstone’s bony shoulder. She tensed. I decided not to say that Elden was an all-time stinking shoe louse. I didn’t know what to say, so I just sat next to her like I did with my grandmother, letting her know I was there.

“Quality first, I always told him.” Mrs. Gladstone said this softly, shifting the weight from her bad hip. “From the time he was a little boy, I would say, ‘Elden, there is no substitute for quality in business. When you cut corners, you lose, the customer loses. Offer the best quality and services at the best price and the result will be profits.’” She stabbed her finger in the air, holding back tears. “That is what Gladstone’s has been built on. I keep hoping he’ll see the light.” She shook her old head. “I keep telling myself this isn’t happening.”

She shifted her hip and looked out the window. For a minute she seemed like my grandmother. I understood about being rejected by someone you love—the carelessness of it, the pain. Elden was careless, so was my dad. You want so much to believe they’ll change and love you like you need them to. You’ll lie to yourself about them, make them more than they are.

“Mrs. Gladstone, there’s got to be something you can do.”

“It’s a young person’s game now.”

“You’re giving up?”

She looked down. “I’m moving aside.”

“But what about quality, what about the Gladstone name?”

“Floyd took care of those things, Jenna. I kept the books, oversaw the store expansion . . .”

I put my face close to hers so she had to look at me. “Mrs. Gladstone, I can’t believe you’re not going to do anything.”

Her gray eyes burned with hurt and anger. She lay back down, covered herself with a blanket, and that was that.

We passed on El Pollo Loco for breakfast and hit the Honest Abe Pancake House down the street that had a tin of real maple syrup at every table and paintings depicting Abraham Lincoln’s life of truth on the walls. A waitress was pouring Mrs. Butterworth’s syrup into a real maple syrup tin, which would have made Honest Abe split a gut.

Deception was everywhere.

Mrs. Gladstone had coffee, poached eggs, and dry wheat toast. I had the Presidential platter of pigs in a blanket with a large orange juice to keep up my strength. Mrs. Gladstone looked like warmed-over oatmeal and she wasn’t talking much either, which is always weird when you’ve connected with a person one day and the next day they want to take it all back. My dad used to tell me about his big dreams to go into business for himself, even showed me the business plan he’d written once. But by the next day, he’d given up the whole thing, he didn’t want to talk about it.

Inconsistency is a royal pain, but I’ve learned to live with it.

Mrs. Gladstone and I headed toward the car in silence. Finally she said, “I’ll be having several meetings with the Springfield staff these next two days. Margaret Lundstrom, the manager, is an old friend.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“There is a Shoe Warehouse store a few blocks away. Perhaps you could use your unique talents there.”

“You want me to snoop around?”

“I didn’t say that.”

I smiled, got her in the backseat, pulled the Cadillac onto the street, turned left by a statue of Abraham Lincoln that was covered with pigeons. “You want me to be a shoe spy, Mrs. Gladstone?”

“I want you to tell me everything you see, hear, and feel from the moment you walk into that store. Left here.”

“Got it.” I signaled left. “Anything you’re looking for in particular?”

“I’m looking for your insight, Jenna. Turn here.”

I did; nice and easy, the Cadillac turned perfectly under my steely control. I pulled in front of Gladstone’s Shoes, Springfield, Illinois. The windows were sparkling, the sale signs promised bargains. The Nike display was up front.

“Nice store,” I said, helping Mrs. Gladstone out.

“Margaret knows how to keep a store.”

She handed me a piece of paper that had the Shoe Warehouse’s address. “Come back in three hours, and for heaven’s sake, don’t be obvious.” She leaned heavily on her cane, walked
to the glass-etched G on the door, pushed it open, and limped inside.

It’s tricky not being obvious when you’re a five-foot-eleven-inch female. Whenever I walk in anywhere, people usually strain their necks to look up at me. I’d trade four inches of height for beauty any day, but no one would swap. I threw back my shoulders and stood extra tall like my grandma taught me. Grandma always said there is nothing more commanding than a tall woman who uses her height. Grandma was six feet even and wore three-inch heels to make the point. I walked into the Shoe Warehouse like I owned the place.

I was glad I didn’t.

First off, it was built like a factory with storage bins and steel shelving to make you think you were getting rock-bottom prices. There were sale signs and twenty-percent-off signs and a big bell that went
bong
whenever someone bought over four pairs of shoes at once. There was green astro turf on the floor and big mirrors on the wall. The merchandise was second-rate.

I ran my finger over a large yellow display cube (dusty). A small round man wearing a green “Shoe Warehouse” shirt sat behind the cash register drinking noisily from a can of Dr. Pepper. I walked on past the low-end children’s section thinking my spy thoughts.

No continuity among styles.

Bad displays.

Shoes not fully lined.

I stopped to watch an exhausted woman with five children—all five of them were trying on shoes. The woman tied red sneakers on her little daughter.

“Mommy, they hurt.”

“They’re on sale, baby.” The mother felt the girl’s shoes. The small, round man walked by. “Could you help me?” she asked. “She says they hurt.”

The man sighed like she was asking to borrow money, got on one knee, felt the girl’s shoes. “They just need to break in,” he said.

“But they hurt!”

“New shoes are supposed to hurt,” the man said and walked away.

Lies.

Manipulation.

Child abuse.

I grabbed a foot sizer and walked up to the woman. “I can help you, ma’am.” I knelt down in front of the little girl. “What’s your name?”

“Belinda.”

“Let’s see if we can find you some shoes that don’t hurt, Belinda.”

I measured her feet—made sure she stood straight, positioned her foot flat on the sizer—quick scanned the children’s shoe displays. Not much. “What are you going to do in the shoes?” I asked. “Do you need them for all-around or something specific?”

“I’m going to run and jump,” Belinda said.

“Running and jumping.”

I found two size 4s in a decent sneaker with passable padding. I put them on her, laced them up. She bounded around the store. “These are good!”

I fitted her older son with high tops, which wasn’t easy, got her two teenage daughters out of spiked heels when I showed them that they were both developing hammer toe—a condition that causes the little toe to become curled up and sore from too-tight shoes—got them both into a lower cushioning heel, and found Rodney, age eight, a decent super-human, all-black laser-zooming sneaker at twenty percent off that wouldn’t give him shin splints on the basketball court if he double-laced them tight over the ankle like I showed him.

I taught the mother how to check the shoe’s fit. “You want some room between the big toe and the tip, but not too much. See?”

The mother checked all her children’s shoes herself. She shook my hand. “I’ve never had anyone help me in here. You must be new.”

“I . . .don’t exactly work here.”

She looked at me strangely.

“I just like to help.”

“You sure did that. Thank you.” She took out a twenty-percent-off coupon, gathered her brood, and headed for the cash register. I put the shoes that didn’t fit back in the boxes, put the boxes back on the shelves.

“
You trying to rip me off?
”

It was the mother, shouting at the small round Shoe Warehouse man who was now behind the counter.

“
You saying my coupon’s no good?
”

The man didn’t look up. “Only two pairs of shoes per coupon,” he said flatly, turning the pages of a car magazine.

I walked to the woman’s side, looked at the coupon: “Twenty percent off—the Shoe Warehouse.”

“It doesn’t say anything about a two-pair limit,” I said to the man.

“It was a misprint,” he said, still reading.