Unrivaled (12 page)

“Lucy, love, could you get me a ladle?”

I handed one to her.

As she took it, she peered up at me. Then she put a hand to her waist. “I know that look. You’ve got candy on your mind. I suppose it’s best just to get out of the way and leave the place to you.”

“I don’t want to run you off. I could just work around you.”

“No, no.” She tilted the pan and ladled the juices from the meat into a jar.

“If you don’t need this pot . . . ?” I took it from its hook, then ducked my head as I tugged an apron down over it.

I wanted something . . . something that reminded me of how I felt when I looked into that man’s eyes, back at the ball. Back when he’d made me feel like everything would be all right. But I also wanted something that would satisfy the urge I had to snap the head off Winnie Compton. Something magical and airy . . . and brittle at the same time.

A meringue!

Perfect. I’d have to beat egg whites again, but it would be worth it. I gathered several eggs, some sugar, and a bottle of vanilla extract. Then I pulled out the breadboards and wet them down with a washrag.

“Mrs. Hughes? Do you know where the paper is?”

“The paper . . . ? And
what
are you doing with my cutting boards!”

“I was hoping to make some meringues.” Meringues were one of Mrs. Hughes’ favorites. I pressed a kiss to her cheek. “I promise to set some aside for you.”

“And for Mother?”

“
And
for your mother.”

She smiled. “I suppose that’s fine, then. What was it you were asking for?”

“Paper.”

“The brown paper? It’s in the pantry somewhere . . .”

“Somewhere” turned out to be on the floor beneath one of the shelves. I pulled it out and dusted it off, then cut several lengths and laid them out on top of the boards.

After separating the eggs, I took up a whisk and started whipping them. As my arm churned, my thoughts wandered to the man from the ball. To the dizzying sensation I’d felt as I stared into his eyes.

Good heavens—I hoped I hadn’t stared too long! What must he think of me?

He’d been perfectly respectable in every way, but the feelings he’d raised in me were . . . alarming. Alarming? Maybe not alarming. That wasn’t quite the right word.

I stopped to check the consistency of the egg whites. They slid right off the whisk, so I kept whipping.

Alarming
wasn’t the right word—it’s not as if he were some criminal. My feelings were . . . different. But different wasn’t bad. Strong. Maybe that was the word. I’d had a
strong
reaction to him.

Just like I’d had to sherbet powder. Such a strange, fizzy effervescence that had been . . . delightful. Dizzying. Delectable. Delicious.

I felt myself blush. He was a man, not a piece of candy!

Telling myself to concentrate on my work, I whipped the whites stiff, added most of the sugar, then whipped some more. Once the mixture stopped collapsing on itself, I added the vanilla and the rest of the sugar, whipping it until it rose into glossy peaks.

The oven was still hot from the roast, so I left the door open to cool. Since I had the time, I spooned the meringue into a bag and then piped it onto the boards in fancy shapes.

Kisses.

I felt myself flush again. Taking up a saucer, I used it to fan my face. I wished I’d thought to ask that man his name.

Bending, I slid the boards into the oven and closed the door. Then I took up a towel and dried dishes for Mrs. Hughes.

At least I hadn’t had to meet the new Mr. Clarke—even though he was nice and very handsome according to Winnie, who probably thought everyone was very nice and handsome. Except for me, who was mean and bossy and selfish.

Half an hour later, the meringues were done. And half an hour after that, they had cooled enough to eat. I bit into one with a satisfying crunch. And as the meringue dissolved in my mouth, so did my anger at Winnie. Who cared about Mr. Clarke’s son? The man I wanted to meet was the one from the balcony. The one I’d run into on Olive Street.

There was just something about his eyes.

I took another meringue and then a third, stuffing them into the apron’s pockets. Tiptoeing up the back stairs, I went to see my father.

“God bless you, Sugar Plum!” He popped the meringue into his mouth, chewed and swallowed it in one bite, closing his eyes as he savored it. “I’ve always thought a meringue is a thing like hope, buoyed as they are with plenty of hot air. A bit pretentious at the start, don’t you think?” He settled his hands on his chest. “But let that hope wait, let that resolve harden for a while . . . Leave the oven door closed, and something wonderful happens. You just have to be willing to wait for it.” He smiled. “And speaking of hope, I find myself hoping . . . you don’t happen to have another, do you?”

The only thing I found myself hoping for that week was a chance to see that man again. And the next time I did—
if
I did—I was going to ask him his name.

Even in church, I couldn’t seem to keep my thoughts on the
eternal. They were too filled with balls and dancing. Wondering who the man was, and which family he belonged to. So distracted was I, that I almost glanced in the direction of the Clarkes as we passed their pew. But at the last moment I remembered to turn my head. Father had been adamant about not changing churches after Mr. Clarke had taken the company. It was bad enough that they’d stolen his livelihood; Father vowed they wouldn’t steal our church from us too.

I tried to peer around the edges of my hat during the service to see if the man might serendipitously be there, but the brim was too wide. By the time the minister announced the Prayer of Confession, I was all but nibbling on my nails. Though I dutifully bowed my head and clasped my hands, I’d always wondered about the utility of confessing. If God knew everything, then there oughtn’t be a need to confess to the things we’d done wrong. So I sent up a prayer—a wish, really—about the man instead. Although . . . that was just as ridiculous. But there was no one else to talk to about the ball, and I didn’t know who the man was.

Please, God, could I see him again?

As the prayer ended and the organ played an introduction to the next hymn, I felt guilty and more than a little foolish for using confession time, which I didn’t believe in, in order to beg a favor from a God I wasn’t really sure was listening.

On Monday afternoon I stood back to look at the advertisement that had just been painted on a building along Grand Avenue. Now there was no trace left in the city of anyone’s candy but ours. It hadn’t been all that different from Chicago: Find where the other fellow had put up his advertisements, and cover it over with yours. And since it was a free country, I knew if I wasn’t careful, the other fellow could just as easily put up
his
advertisements over mine.

Nelson drove me back to the factory. I waited with Mr. Mundt for half an hour before my father invited me into his office. He was standing in front of the window, looking out at the factory across the railroad tracks. “When crates of Royal Taffy leave the factory, they go to all four corners of the country.” He turned around, strode to his desk, and crushed his cigar violently into an ashtray. He took another cigar from his drawer and sliced the end off with a cutter. “Standard used to have another owner. Did you know that?”

I didn’t know anything at all about my father’s time in St. Louis.

“He hadn’t a thought in his head about business. He had the recipe, he’s the one who came up with Royal Taffy, but he couldn’t have given it away to a beggar. No sense at all. I don’t even know if he realized what he’d created. But he gave me my first job in this city.” He struck a match and put it to the cigar, then took a long drag on it, exhaling with a big sigh. “Hired me to sell his candy for him and set his books straight.” He took another puff on his cigar. “One thing I always knew how to do: Focus on the bottom line. But he always seemed to spend himself right back into trouble. Always experimenting, always ordering new ingredients for this or that.”

“I’d think experimenting could only make a candy better.” I thought of the Queen of Love and Beauty and her candy.

My father scowled. “Why should things always have to be better? Why can’t people just leave well enough alone and figure out how to sell what they’ve already got?”

“Wouldn’t things sell better if they were, in fact, better?”

He shook his head as if I’d just spouted nonsense. “Royal Taffy sold just fine. Even back then. I was getting paid in commissions, and I couldn’t seem to stop making money. And then, when an opportunity came up, I took it. I loaned money to him in exchange for a share of the ownership. When he needed more money, I got more shares. And that’s how I got the recipe too. Didn’t take long before he was working for me. That’s how it’s done, Charles. You wait, you watch, and when someone presents you with an opportunity, you take it!”

“What did you do with him?”

“I fired him. Part of the agreement.”

I couldn’t keep my mouth from dropping open. “He agreed to that? Being fired from his own company?”

“He deserved it, really. He might have come up with the recipe,
but everything he’d done since had nearly brought the company to ruin. He was a complete incompetent.”

“But if the recipe was his to begin with . . . ? You didn’t . . . I mean . . . you must have at least
bought
the recipe from him.”

He shook his head. “No. But I own everything outright. We made sure of it.”

We? “Who—I mean—”

“You’ll have to learn that sentiment has no place in business, Charles. Just look at what I’ve made of the mess that was left me.” He turned around in his chair and stared out again at the factory.

“But what happened to him?”

“What do you mean?”

“Where is he? Where did he go, what did he do?”

“He did what he’d always done. He wasted his time and money trying to make candies no one wanted to buy and paid no attention at all to money. If he’d been smart, he would have moved on to something else. Something different. That’s what he was supposed to do.” He took a puff on his cigar and stared up at the ceiling. “I start to feel badly about it sometimes, but then I remember: You can give a fellow a chance, but you can’t make him take it. ”

“But—if you took his candy?”

“I didn’t take it. Is that what has you so gape-mouthed? You think I stole it from him?”

It certainly seemed that way.

“I got it fair and square. Had him sign an agreement every time he borrowed money.”

“But he couldn’t have understood . . .”

My father shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. It was all done legally.”

“And this is your rival? The man you want to put out of business? Again?”

“That’s the one. The favor I told you about.”

“Did you ever consider he might not take it well? Seeing as how this will be twice you’ve taken his business away?”

“There’s more to it than I can tell you, but trust me when I say it’s for his own good.”

The whole thing didn’t sit well with me. It didn’t seem right.

“That’s why I’m counting on you. We need to shut him down as soon as possible.”

My new shirt was pinching my neck. I slid a finger down the back and tried to loosen the collar. I didn’t care what old Mr. Dreffs said; rubber collars were definitely better.

“The sooner people forget there was ever a Francis Kendall, the better. For him and for us. Come January, I don’t want anyone to be able to remember that his business ever existed.”

I couldn’t help but feel sorry for the man.

My father pressed a button on his desk. “I want you to sit in on this meeting I’m going to have and then . . . take tomorrow off! In fact . . . why don’t we both take tomorrow off? Go to the air meet out at the airfield? Enjoy ourselves? What do you say?”

Mr. Mundt appeared at the door.

My father nodded at him. “I’ll need you to take notes.”

The secretary came in and sat on a chair in the corner.

“Now, then. The first thing to do is to get City Confectionery candy out of the city’s stores.”

I decided to do a little scouting. That’s what I’d done back in Chicago when business was slow and I needed to drum up customers; I’d called on the competition. I asked Nelson to take me to City Confectionery.

“Been a long time since I had some Fancy Crunch,” Nelson noted.

“What’s that?”

“Fancy Crunch? Well . . . it’s nuts, covered with a fancy coating. Pink, green, yellow. That coating crunches when you bite into it, and then those nuts crunch some more.”

“So they’re good?”

“They’re fine.”

Fine
? Fine never sold anything to anyone. At least not for any length of time.

“Real fine. But they’re fancy.”

I asked Nelson to stop at the end of the block. Pulling my tie from my collar, I shrugged my coat off and then left them both on the back seat. I walked past the building, rolling up my sleeves as I went, and then turned the corner into an alley.

There was a wide door at the back of the building with boxes stacked in front of it. I picked up a box, then put a shoulder to the door and pushed. It swung open, sending out a puff of warm, sugar-scented air as I stepped into a large kitchen. Everything was white: the floors, the walls, the clothes and caps the workers wore. The only color came from the nuts that were being thrown around in large metal pans. The clatter was loud, but it was hardly on the scale of the Standard factory. And in spite of the din, the employees carried on conversations, laughing and talking as they worked.

If my father’s factory was hell, this was clearly some kind of paradise.

“Where should I put this?”

One of the men put down his pan and stepped toward me. “What is it?”

I tried to hold the box away so I could read the label, but I couldn’t catch a glimpse of it. I tried to shrug. “Got me.”

The man took it from me and walked from the room.

I followed him. “So what are you making? Some kind of candy?”

He smiled. “If you want a package of Fancy Crunch, just go on up front and ask.”

“They’ll give me one?”

“Sure. Help yourself. We all do.”

“All of you?” There had been at least a dozen people back there in the kitchen.

He shrugged. “Sure. We take what we want.”

They did? Gillespie never let the workers take any Royal Taffy from the factory, although I’m sure some got smuggled out in coat pockets now and then. “They don’t worry about the money that’s lost?”

“If a man’s gotta eat, might as well eat Fancy Crunch. That’s what Mr. Kendall says.”

I could see why they weren’t doing well. “Nice guy, that Mr. Kendall?”

“He’s the best!”

“Been working here long?”

“Five years now. But that’s nothing. Most everybody else has been here longer than me. Could you hold on to this for a minute?” He held out the box toward me.

I took it while he cleared a place on a shelf in a closet. “There’s a lot more boxes where this one came from.”

“I’ll find somewhere for them to go.” He was looking around the shelves as he said it, and I’m sure he came to the same conclusion I did. He’d have to go find a different closet. Because it looked like he needed a hand, I brought in the rest of the boxes and then helped him pile them in a hallway. By the time I left, I’d found out everything I needed to know about City Confectionery.

After listening in on the meeting and after having visited City Confectionery, I went back to my father’s house feeling more
dirtied and more shamed than I had ever felt back when I’d worked for Manny. Mr. Kendall may not have a head for business, but his employees clearly loved him. There was something ruthless and much too bloodless about plotting to destroy a man’s business. It felt more honest somehow to beat him up in an alley or break his legs. At least then he could see what was coming and have a chance to defend himself.

Augusta was waiting to go somewhere when Nelson dropped me off, so I decided to do some exploring. To think that we’d had to huddle together in a shack up in Chicago while he’d been living it up down here in one of the biggest houses in the city!

The entry hall downstairs was carpeted with all kinds of red rugs laid end to end. The paneled wooden walls and staircase smelled of the polish the maids were always rubbing into it. The dining room walls were paneled in white with a gold design painted around the top edges.

Out to the back of the house was a room I’d never even seen before. It was topped with a dome of stained glass. I guessed the room to be Augusta’s, since it was decorated like a jungle with trees and flowers and a parrot that squawked as I stepped out onto the tiled floor. My father had an office on the main floor that looked like a library, and Augusta had what she called a sitting room. There was also a parlor done up with furniture that made what Dreffs had called my “posterior” hurt to even look at.

Up above, on one side of the second floor, were six bedrooms, mine among them. There was a ballroom on the other side with a shiny patterned wood floor and a row of chandeliers hanging down its center. The house was bigger than the whole block where I’d lived on the South Side. And I still hadn’t finished exploring.

The Queen of Love and Beauty must have lived in a house like
this one her whole life. And I bet she was surrounded by men who’d done the same. She probably hadn’t given me a second thought after she’d disappeared into the crowd that night.

So I shouldn’t think about her either. Shouldn’t
keep
thinking about her. Why couldn’t I stop thinking about her?

Because she’d looked at me.

Usually girls like her looked right through me. And if they bothered to see me at all, they backed away in fear. As if I might pick their purses . . . which I rarely ever did, and never had I taken something from someone who didn’t deserve it. A girl like her had never thrown herself into my arms before as if she trusted me to help her, to take care of her. Not like that girl had.

I shook my head to clear my thoughts, telling myself to stop thinking and start looking. There now—there was a door set into the wall at the back of the second-floor hall that I’d never noticed before. Another closet? I opened it.

Another set of stairs.

But it didn’t have a carved banister like the others, and it hadn’t been polished to a shine. At the top I had to bend forward to keep my head from bumping against the low ceiling of the third floor. It was darker up here, the windows much smaller.