Unrivaled (18 page)

My father was pacing in front of his desk when I went in to see him on Tuesday morning. He greeted me with a smile as he took the cigar from his mouth. “Charles! I’ve been inspired. What if we could make Royal Taffy fancier?”

Fancier? It was taffy. There wasn’t anything fancy about it. “Fancy how?”

“Packaging.”

“Then . . . you’d make more money. Maybe.” At least that’s the way I saw it.

“Right!”

“As long as the packaging didn’t cost more and you could raise the price.”

“Can’t raise the price, but we need to be fancier. That’s your new job. Figure out a way to do it without costing us more.”

I felt my brow lift. “That might be asking for the impossible.” Again.

I worked the next day on the problem, keeping Mr. Mundt busy making telephone calls to our packaging suppliers. By the end of the afternoon, we’d figured out how to do it. I told my father about it later that evening.

“So it can be done?”

“It can, but the question is whether you really want to.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“It won’t be easy. We’ll have to change the whole packaging process. Cellophane instead of waxed paper, although I got in our Royal Taffy red on a separate label. Looks like the old one, only it’s white with red lettering. We can twist and tie, with ribbon, instead of using glue for sealing.”

“Not a problem as long as we can change it all back.”

Change it back? “You mean . . . you don’t plan on—”

“It’s only a temporary measure. Few weeks . . . just through Christmas. Then we can go back to the way things were.”

“But it’s going to require the girls learning a new way to do things. The process is going to get slower before it can get any faster. And slower means we won’t make as much money. At least not right away.”

“We don’t have to.”

“But I thought—!”

“Leave the thinking to me. Just tell me how we’re going to do it. And fast. Tomorrow’s Thanksgiving, but I still want the fancier taffy in the stores by early next week. Before the first of the month.”

It nearly killed me and Mr. Gillespie, but we did it. On Monday, boxes of the fancier taffy left the factory on the morning trains. That was two whole days before December first. By then, people across the nation would be able to celebrate Christmas with fancier-looking taffy.

It was a shame there was a symphony that evening. I would have preferred polishing Louise to hearing more screechy fiddles and banging drums. I was coming to hate my swallowtail coat. But it couldn’t be helped.

And neither, apparently, could talking to most of St. Louis’s unmarried daughters. It was funny how many of their mothers pushed them toward me; I wasn’t used to being considered a catch. They’d all run away screaming if they knew the kinds of things I’d done, the sort of business I’d been involved in. But I tried to treat it all as seriously as they did. If only to have someone to talk to, even if it was just Winnie Compton. She’d turned her smile on me when she saw me, and when Augusta went over to talk to her mother, she came to stand beside me.

“You should go talk to Lucy. She looks lonely.”

“I’m the last person she’d want to talk to.” The last person she should be talking to.

She sent me a frank glance. “I think you’re about the first person she’d like to be talking to.”

I laughed. “Then you must not have heard how much she hates me.”

“It doesn’t matter what she says, what matters is what she believes.”

I knew that what Lucy thought and what she believed were the same things, but Winnie wasn’t the worst of the bunch of girls I was supposed to talk to, and I wasn’t ready to go back into the auditorium, so I played along. “Then why doesn’t she say what she believes?”

“Most people don’t, you know. I think you’re one of the most handsome men I’ve ever seen, and one of the nicest, but I would never actually say that because you might take it the wrong way.”

“How could anyone take that the wrong way?”

“You might think I’m sweet on you.”

“And you aren’t?”

“I don’t think it would make much difference whether I was or I wasn’t, do you?”

How was I supposed to answer that?

“I think you like Lucy just as much as she likes you.”

“Lucy?” I did, in fact, like her. But there wasn’t much point in admitting it. “I think she’s one of the meanest girls I’ve ever met.”

She swatted me on the arm. “You’re just saying that. It’s not really what you believe.” She considered Lucy again, tilting her head first this way and then that.

“Then what
do
I believe?”

“I just told you what you believe. But I wish someone would ask me what I believe.”

“What do you believe?”

“I believe it would be a lot less trying and much more pleasant if you both just stopped saying things about each other and started talking to each other.”

“I . . . can’t. As much as I’d like to. I’m not the person she thinks I am.”

Winnie put a hand to my back and pushed me forward. “So you need to go over there and tell her that. Don’t listen to what she says. Remember what’s important is what she believes deep down inside.”

“You don’t understand, Winnie. I’m really not who she thinks I am. I’m much worse. There are some things in my past that I’m not very proud of.”

A frown pinched her pretty eyes at the corners. “It doesn’t matter what she says or what she believes she believes. What matters is what she really believes. So go over there and tell her what you believe.”

“I believe . . . if she knew what I believed . . .”

She raised a brow. “Yes . . . ?”

“If she knew what I believed . . . you know what? It doesn’t matter what I believe, what matters is what is. And there’s no way to get around that.”

She was shaking her head. “But you’re not talking about what
is
. You’re talking about what
was
. Those are two different things. You’re not the same person anymore.”

“How would you know?”

“Haven’t I seen you at church, Charles Clarke?”

“Every Sunday.” Whether I wanted to be there or not.

“Don’t you listen?”

“ . . . No.”

She threw up her hands. “Well, why on earth do you go?”

Winnie was looking at me for an answer, but I didn’t have one. “Because my father expected me to” sounded pitiful, even to me.

“If you did ever happen to listen, then you would hear what I just told you: You don’t have to be who you used to be.”

“You’re talking about sin. And sinners.”

She fixed me with a look that made me think she might just be a Sunday School teacher in disguise. “We’re all sinners, Charles Clarke.”

“Let’s just say for a minute that I agree with you.”

Winnie smiled. “But that’s not really what you believe, is it?”

“Let’s pretend I do. But what if . . . what if I watched someone get murdered?”

“Watching isn’t the same as doing.”

“No. But say I knew what was likely to happen, and I didn’t do anything to stop it.”

“Why not?”

“Why not?”

She nodded. “Why not?”

“Because . . . because I . . . wasn’t brave enough. I was afraid the same thing might happen to me.”

“So the other man died because you were afraid.”

That was about the way of it. “Yes. So I stood there and watched. It’s probably the worst thing I’ve ever done.”

She stood there looking at me, but it wasn’t judgment that shone from her eyes. It was concern. The same concern that used to shine from my mother’s eyes. And I couldn’t stand it from her any more than I could from Winnie. So I tried to distract her. “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?”

“Me? Well . . . I broke a plate once, in the kitchen, as I was trying to get a cookie.”

“That’s it?”

“I wasn’t supposed to have one. And I lied about breaking the plate. And then the stable boy got in trouble for it. And I felt really bad about it all and—”

“Fine. So we have me, who caused another man to die. And we have you, who . . . stole a cookie. Compared to me, you’re an angel.”

“You might say that, but really, you have to go with what God believes. And He believes we both did the wrong thing. We’re all sinners.”

“But that’s just it! How can people say that I just have to . . . what is it people have to do?” I was trying to remember what it was that Honest Andy always said. “Pray? Ask God to forgive me? When that’s all you have to do too? It doesn’t seem fair.”

“Fair to whom? I’d say it’s more than fair to you. Why are you complaining?”

“Because there should be more.”

“More what?”

“More required.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m worse than you are.”

She was shaking her head before I’d even finished talking. “Not to God. To Him we’re both the same.”

“But that’s just it! How can I believe in a God who believes that you’re just as bad as me?”

“Well . . . actually, He probably believes that you’re just as bad as I am.”

“It doesn’t matter! The point is, it’s nonsense.”

I should have kept my opinions to myself. She was looking at me, brows furrowed, eyes clouded with confusion. But then they cleared. “You’re saying it’s nonsense because you feel like you should have to do more than I should in order to feel forgiven.”

That was one way of saying it. “Exactly.”

She was smiling now. “But that’s just it!”

“What’s . . . it?”

“That’s where you’re wrong.”

I waited for her to explain, but she didn’t, she was watching the people in the lobby, lips curled into a smile. I’d just told her religion was foolish and she was smiling? “
What
am I wrong about?”

She glanced up at me, startled. “Why . . . the whole thing!”

I watched the crowd for a while too, but I couldn’t keep myself from wondering what, in particular, I was wrong about. “Could you be more specific? What exactly am I wrong about?”

“The part about you. And the part about God.”

Which was just about all of it . . . which was what she’d said in the first place. For pete’s sake! I was starting to think just like Winnie. “Could you . . . explain?”

“About . . . ?”

“About God.”

“Well, it’s just that you’re looking at it wrong, that’s all.”

“How!”

She blinked as she took a step back.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell. I just . . . want to know how.”

“I’m not sure
how
exactly. I mean, I don’t know who told you the wrong thing to begin with. But the truth is, it’s not about what
you
have to do to at all.”

“Then what is it about?”

She shrugged. “God. It’s about God.”

“How?” If I had to say that word one more time, I was going to wring her pale little neck. And then I really would be a murderer.

She sighed a deep, long sigh. “It’s about God, Charles Clarke, and what He’s done. It’s not about you. It’s never been about you. Because you’re not good enough and you never will be.”

So much for flattery.

“And neither will I ever be. God is the one who says how, and He says the same thing to you as well as to me. So neither of us have to do anything at all but say we’re sorry and ask for His forgiveness.”

Which brought me back to the same thought I’d always had. “That just doesn’t seem right.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter what you believe, does it?”

“Doesn’t it?”

“No. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. It’s not about you and how you believe you have to make things right. It’s about God.”

“That’s it? Just let Him . . . take care of it? That’s all?”

“Mostly.” She frowned. “I wish you’d listen in church once in a while. There’s more. But mostly, that’s it.”

“Just leave it up to Him . . .”

“It can’t be worse than what you’ve been trying. You haven’t been able to make things any better by yourself, have you?”