Unrivaled (24 page)

My father did nothing by halves. Even Christmas was celebrated with a lot of fuss. There was a big scramble by the staff the week before to get everything decorated, along with a continual mouthwatering mixture of smells drifting out from the kitchen. It all led up to a big dinner on Christmas Day, after church. We probably could have fed the whole orphanage downtown with all the food that was set in front of us.

My father gave Augusta a sparkling necklace and matching earrings. She gave him a cigar cutter decorated with diamonds. And then my father handed me a large envelope.

“Open it, open it!” I could hear echoes of my sisters in my father’s impatience and excitement.

I drew out a sheaf of papers, turning them over so I could read them.

But my father couldn’t wait any longer. “It’s a deed!”

“A deed.” What was a deed?

“So you can build a house.”

“A . . . what?”

“A house! I bought you a lot across the street.”

“A lot . . .” A lot of what?

“I set up a meeting with our architect on Tuesday afternoon. You can start building just as soon as you want.”

“You bought me . . . you want me to build a house? Right here? Next to you?”

“Can’t live with us forever. I doubt you’d even want to.” He sat back in his chair, his smile as large as any I’d ever seen. “So what do you think?”

I didn’t know what I thought. I didn’t know what to say. It was hard to hate a man who wasn’t doing anything hateful. Who wasn’t doing anything at all but trying to make up for the past. Trying to make me happy. I could feel my anger slipping away.

And the problem was, I didn’t know what to do without it.

If my father celebrated with enthusiasm, he also worked with enthusiasm. The day after Christmas, he went right back to the factory. And me along with him; I’d recently been given an office down at the end of the top floor. I started the morning by reviewing the sales figures for the first two weeks of the month, but had hardly finished reading the report when Mr. Mundt summoned me to my father’s office.

My father waved me in. “I’ve had word from our customers that their stock has disappeared. And though I would like to believe it’s due entirely to strong Christmas sales, I’m being told their receipts don’t match their inventory.”

“Their stock has disappeared? You mean . . . their candy?”

“Yes. From the shelves.” He was staring at me as if I understood what he was talking about, but I didn’t.

“Shelves? You mean the ones in the stores?”

“The very ones.”

Candy disappearing from shelves? “That’s impossible.”

“Possible or not, it’s happening. And I want you to put a stop to it.”

If someone was stealing, it wasn’t our fault, was it? Wouldn’t that be the stores’ responsibility? I figured someone was swiping the candy as it was delivered and then claiming they’d never seen it. Happened all the time in Chicago. One of the clerks was probably smuggling it out of the store and then reselling it to someone and pocketing all the money. Could be these St. Louis people weren’t as wise to goings-on as folks up in Chicago.

I started out at Vandervoort’s, asking to see the manager.

He appeared, tall and spiffy, though he kept having to push his glasses back up his nose. I introduced myself and got directly to the point. “I wanted to speak to you about the Royal Taffy disappearing from your shelves.”

Blinking rapidly, he pulled his chin in toward his neck as if he weren’t quite sure what to think of me. “They haven’t been disappearing from the shelves.”

Exactly as I’d thought.

He pushed his glasses back up his nose. “I assume you’ve fixed the problem, then?”

It was my turn to blink. “I only just started investigating. It’s been happening all over the city, but your store is the first I’ve visited.”

“We’ve been waiting for you to come.” He was looking at me as if I should say something.

“Haven’t you done any investigating yourself?” It wasn’t my fault they’d employed a thief.

“I hardly think that’s my place!”

“If Royal Taffy has been disappearing, I’d think you’d want to find out why.”

“I wouldn’t call it disappearing, but I already know why.”

“You do?”

“Don’t you?” Now he was glaring at me.

“I have my suspicions.”

“Suspicions! I hope you have more than suspicions. Just how long am I supposed to wait?”

I didn’t quite understand. “Wait for . . . for what?”

“For you to take the extra taffy off our hands.”

“Extra? But . . . I thought taffy was being stolen from your stock room, and if that’s the case—”

“No one stole any.”

Nothing he was saying made any sense. “But if no one’s stolen any and it’s disappeared from your shelves, then . . . what’s going on?”

“That’s what I want to know!”

I felt my brow crumple as I tried to figure out what he was saying. “I don’t—I can’t—”

“Someone pushed all the Royal Taffy to the back of our shelves and then put packages of Fancy Crunch up in their place.”

“They . . . what?”

“Which made us think that we’d sold out of it. So we placed another order. And then we discovered the taffy at the back of the shelves and now we have twice as much taffy as we can possibly sell.” He said it as if it were all my fault.

“Now, wait just a minute! Are you accusing us of—”

“I’m not accusing you of anything. I’m simply saying that the only person who profits from us buying twice as much taffy as normal is you.”

“But—!”

“I don’t mind telling you that I’m grieved, Mr. Clarke. I’m
a long-standing customer of your father’s, and this is the way I’m treated?”

“We don’t—we haven’t—it wasn’t us!”

The same story played out all across the city.

The week before, someone had spent a lot of time pushing Royal Taffy to the backs of store shelves and placing Fancy Crunch in front of it.

Most of the stock clerks just assumed they’d sold out of taffy and had placed orders for more. And now they were all raising Cain about it.

As soon as I returned to the factory, I went to have a talk with Mr. Gillespie.

“They’re saying what?” His eyes had gone wide, and he was swallowing as if he had something stuck in his throat.

“They’re all saying they double ordered and that it’s our fault.”

“But why?”

I shrugged. “Because who else profits, besides us, if they buy more than they need?”

“Uh . . . ?” He was looking around the factory as if desperately searching for someone else to blame.

“Do we do things like that?”

“No!”

I hadn’t thought so—I had hoped not—but it did me good to hear him say it all the same. “So you
didn’t
send a man out to hide our taffy.”

He threw up his hands. “We don’t do things like that! For goodness’ sake! I’ll tell you what it sounds like: It sounds like Mr. Kendall, the way he used to spread rumors about Mr. Clarke and such. But I promise you: We’ve never done anything like that.”

Maybe
we
hadn’t, but someone else had.

Who would benefit the most from the disappearance of Royal Taffy? I didn’t have to think very hard to come up with an answer.

It was easy to know where to find Lucy. Her activities were published in the newspaper. Queen of Love and Beauty to open this event and Queen of Love and Beauty to preside over this gathering or that banquet. And so when I found out she was going to be at the new zoological club’s meeting the next day, I made sure I was there. And when she glared at me, I smiled right back.

“I didn’t know you had an interest in zoology, Mr. Clarke.”

“I have a keen interest in females, Miss Kendall. And they all seem to adore animals.” I shrugged. “So I figured this was as good a place as any to meet some.”

Her eyes seemed to spit fire.

“You know, a funny thing happened this week. All the Royal Taffy in the city disappeared.”

“Did it?”

“Yes. And when I went to investigate, guess what I discovered?”

That pretty mouth of hers clamped right up. “I wouldn’t know.”

“I think you might.”

“Are you calling me a liar, Mr. Clarke?”

“No. I’m calling you a cheat.”

Her cheeks burned red.

“Maybe not
you
, exactly, but that man you always seem to be with. ‘
Your Sam’
I believe you once called him. I’m trying to decide whether or not to ask the police to make out an arrest warrant.” I wasn’t. Not really. I’d spent enough time already at police stations.

She went pale. “He didn’t! I mean—”

“The good news is that all those stores thought they’d sold out of Royal Taffy, so they all re-ordered. Our sales in St. Louis doubled last week.”

Her eyes narrowed to slits. “You just have to ruin everything, don’t you?”

“
I
ruin everything? I really don’t think that’s fair!”

“Oh? And was it fair to cover up all our advertising in the city? And then to take over all the streetcars too?”

She had me there. But I hadn’t known her back then. “Business is no place for a lady.”

“And apparently it’s no place for a gentleman either.”

Somewhere deep inside, her arrow hit its mark. “You should stop playing with candy and start working on growing up. Alfred Arthur wouldn’t marry you if he knew you were just a common criminal.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“I haven’t decided yet.”

She lifted her chin, though her gaze had dropped to the floor. “I should go.”

“Listen. You’re involving yourself in things you shouldn’t. You don’t know what you’re doing. If you keep on like this, someone’s going to get hurt.”

She lifted her foot and brought her sharp-heeled shoe down on my instep. “I agree. And it’s not going to be me!”

I managed not to react until she passed me and walked out the door. And then I sat down, cradling my foot in my hands.

The day after the zoological club meeting, I helped deliver food to the city’s orphanage on behalf of the butchers’ association. And afterward, I stopped in at Winnie’s. It seemed like the polite thing to do, since she’d come to call on me on Tuesday afternoon. And besides, there was no one else to talk to about Charlie Clarke. Sam was avoiding me, Mother wouldn’t understand, and how could I even mention to Father that I had talked to a Clarke?

There was no one else visiting, but when I took a seat on her sofa, far away from her parakeet, she sat down right next to me, nattering on about the weather and the Christmas holiday and all the other pleasantries that one expects to hear on at-home days.

But I wasn’t feeling very pleasant. “I can’t stand that Charlie Clarke!”

She handed me a cup of tea. “Why not? I always thought him very agreeable . . . although I have to say that he doesn’t seem to listen very well.”

Listen well? He didn’t do anything well! He was always messing everything up. “He’s very
dis
agreeable, Winnie. He’s the height of—of—
disagreeableness
! He even had the nerve to call me a common criminal!”

“Why?” She took the lid off the sugar bowl and held it out to me.

I dumped two spoonfuls into my cup and then chased the sugar around with a teaspoon. “Because . . . because he’s a Clarke, that’s why!”

She blinked. “The Clarkes aren’t common criminals.”

“They ought to be! I arranged for Fancy Crunch to be reshelved in front of Royal Taffy in some of the stores in the city . . .” In most of the stores in the city. “And he accused me of—of—
that
.”

“It sounds like . . . maybe you
are
a common criminal.”

“Are you taking his side in this?”

“I’m not taking anyone’s side.” She passed me a plate of ginger snaps.

I took one and bit down on it. Hard.

“I’m just saying that it seems like he might be right. About this one thing. And maybe not about anything else. Although he could be. Maybe.” She shrugged. “It’s possible. He seems nice.”

“He is
not nice
!”

“He is to me.”

Then she was the only one. “He’s pretending. Trying to make a good impression in order to hide his true self from everyone. Besides, he started it.”

“He reshelved Royal Taffy to hide Fancy Crunch?”

“No. But he got that picture in the newspaper with Baby Jesus holding a Royal Taffy.”

“That was so sweet.” She clasped a hand to her bosom. “That chubby little fist holding on to the—”

I didn’t need to be reminded. “And before that, he covered up all of our advertising posters in the city and—”

“I was just remarking the other day how everywhere I go I see those posters. It really makes a person want to go right out and buy one. Just thinking of it now . . .” She picked up a cookie and began to nibble on it.

“Which is why I had to do
something
. Don’t you agree?”

She considered my question for a moment, head cocked. “I’m not sure, really.”

“About what?”

“I’m not sure I agree. Anyone can put up posters, but sneaking into a store and putting your candy in front of theirs—”

“It wasn’t sneaking. Anyone can go into a store. It’s a free country.”

She frowned. “It feels like sneaking.”

“It’s not sneaking. I didn’t sneak.”

“Who did?”

“Who did what?”

Her eyes blinked wide. “The sneaking.”

“Nobody. Nobody snuck anywhere.”

“So then are you saying you
didn’t
reshelf their candy?”

“I did. I mean,
I
didn’t. I had someone else do it. But the point is—”

“Then they’re the common criminal.” She started in on another cookie as if we weren’t talking about anything important.

“What?”

“That was the point, wasn’t it? Who the common criminal is?” Winnie smiled as if she’d won some prize. “It’s the person who switched out the candies.”

“That’s beside the point.”

“But you’re right—you aren’t a common criminal. Only . . . I can’t figure out who is. If it wasn’t you, then who was it?”

“No one!”

“Then no one switched out the candy?” Winnie seemed genuinely puzzled.

“Just forget about the candy. We were talking about the Clarkes.”

“That’s right! I’d forgotten. We were talking about the Clarkes and how nice they are.”

“How mean they are.”

She put her cookie down on a plate. “ . . . How mean are they?”

“Very. Very mean.”

She looked at me quizzically for a moment, then shook her head. “No they aren’t.”

“Yes. They are!”

“Maybe . . . in your experience they could be, and in my experience they couldn’t be.” She said it as if she’d decided the matter once and for all.

“A person can’t be nice and mean.”

“Of course they can be. You are. You’ve never been nice. At least, not until this year. Not since I’ve known you and that was in first grade. But maybe . . . were you nice before that?”

I didn’t know how to begin to answer.

“In first grade you told Minnie her hair was the wrong color to be an angel in the Christmas pageant. And in second grade you told Alice that Miss Shipman didn’t like her. And then in third grade you wrote that note to Ella that said Rose didn’t want to be her friend, do you remember?”

I remembered. I’d wanted to be the angel in the pageant. I’d wanted Miss Shipman to like me more than she liked Alice, and I’d wanted Ella’s friendship all to myself.

“And in fourth grade you—”

“I get your point.”

“And you’ve always been mean to me too. Do you remember telling me that it might be better if I just pretended to sing during choral society?”

I’d always wished I could sing the way Winnie did. I’d wished I could laugh the way she did too. I’d even practiced when I was younger. “But . . . then why do you even like me?”

She cocked her head as she looked at me. “I’m not sure really. Except that since you’ve gotten back from your trip you’ve been less mean than you used to be. And we’re practically the only two girls who aren’t married. And . . .” She shrugged. “That’s probably why.”

“So . . . you don’t like being my friend?”

“
I
like being your friend. I’m just not so sure you ever liked being mine.”

“I’m sure that’s . . .” It was probably the truth. A great wave of shame and humiliation washed over me. I set down my teacup. “I’m sorry, Winnie.”

“Don’t be sorry. I figured you
could
be nice. It wasn’t a matter of your not being able to. I thought maybe you just hadn’t had enough chances to be. And if you were ever downright rude, then I just wouldn’t invite you to my at-homes anymore. And besides, I can be mean too.”

If she could, she’d never, not once in all the years I’d known her, shown it.

“It’s just like I was telling Charles.” She picked up her cookie and took a bite. Then she took a sip of tea.

“What?”

She blinked her eyes wide again. “What?”

“
What
were you telling Charlie?”

I waited while she finished her cookie and wiped the crumbs off into her teacup. “It was about how we’ve all done bad things. And how you don’t have to be who you used to be. And . . .”
She frowned as she looked at me. “You don’t listen at church either, do you?”

“I don’t try to
not
listen . . .”

“You and Charles are just same, then. And really, that’s the point, isn’t it?”

I
was the same as Charlie? The man who’d dared to call
me
a criminal? “I find that hard to believe.” And in fact, I didn’t. I couldn’t. We weren’t the same at all.

“That’s what he said!” Winnie shook her head as she poured herself more tea. “Would you like some?”

“No. Thank you. But . . . how did you mean we were both the same?”

“You’re both the same at believing you’re not the same and being wrong because you are.”

“Are what?”

“The same.”

“But that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you since I got here. We’re not the same at all!”

She clucked. “We’re all the same, Lucy.”

“No—we’re not! You’re—you’re ten times as good as I am, and he’s a least a hundred times worse.”

“That might be what you believe, but that’s not what God believes. He believes we’re all the same. We’re all as bad as each other.”

She couldn’t be right, but that didn’t stop me from feeling bad about how I’d treated her. “I’m sorry I did all those things . . . I hadn’t realized.” But I had, hadn’t I? I’d known exactly what it was I’d done. She was right. I was mean and bossy and selfish. “I wish I could do something . . . to make it up to you somehow.”

Winnie turned the full force of her smile upon me. “Just stop being that way and I’m sure everything will be fine. You don’t have to be the same person you were.”

I said something to her that I never thought I’d say. “Thank you, Winnie, for being my friend.”

She beamed. “You’re welcome.”

It came to me as I left her house that I might never really have had one before.

“Tell me what it is you’re doing again?” Sam was standing in the doorway of the confectionery office, on Wednesday morning, glancing down the hall. “My father doesn’t really believe in using the telephone.”

I had my hand on the transmitter, rehearsing once more what I planned to say. “I’m not making
him
use the telephone. I’m going to place the telephone call myself.”

“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.”

I didn’t either. But I had to do something. I couldn’t just stand by and watch as the confectionery went out of business. What would Edna and Morris do if they lost their jobs? And what about Velma and Hazel? Let alone Sam and Mr. Blakely! The confectionery was a family. That’s what my father had always said. So if I had to be sneaky in order to save it, then . . . that’s what I had to do. At least, that’s what I’d been telling myself.

The line hummed, and then the operator answered the call.

“Standard Candy Manufacturing, please.”

The line hummed for a moment more before someone picked up on the other end.

“The receiving clerk, please.”

“One moment.” The line went silent before there came a rustling as someone else took the line. “Yes?”

I crossed my fingers behind my back. “I’m the sugar supplier calling about your order.”

“Which supplier?”

“Sugar.” Lying wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be!

“You’re calling about what?”

“Your order.”

“Why?”

This wasn’t going the way that I’d hoped. My elation had been premature. “I wanted . . . to verify it.”

“The order? Or the shipment?”

“The . . . order.”

“That would be the purchasing clerk, then.” The line went silent before it was picked up again. “Hello? Purchasing clerk.”

“I’m calling about your sugar order. I wanted to verify it.”

“Which order?”

“The most recent one.” I hoped I sounded more confident about all of this than I felt . . . and a lot less guilty.

“I mailed it out to you just last week.”

“We haven’t received it yet, and I didn’t want to presume how much sugar you might need. That’s why I wanted to verify it.”

“Oh! Just one moment.” I heard the sound of the telephone being set down. He came back after a minute and read his order to me.

“It seems very odd that we haven’t yet received it. To what address did you mail it?”

“Why, to yours, of course!”

That wasn’t very helpful. In order to cancel the sugar shipment to Standard, I needed to know who their supplier was! “But to what address in particular? Perhaps it got misdelivered.”

“I used the address I always do.”

“Could you just tell me what it is?”

“Don’t you know?”

I wondered if he would be able to hear it if I gnashed my teeth. “Of course I do. I just want to make certain that you do.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“I’m not saying that you don’t. I’m hoping, in fact, that you do.”

“I find this very unusual.”

“And so do I.” I tried to sound officious. “Normally orders don’t go missing. Maybe it got misplaced somewhere between you and us due to the weather. In any case, if you want to get that sugar, I’m going to have to try to find that order.” My goodness! Was it always this way? Did one lie always lead to two or three? I’d left Winnie’s house with such good intentions, and here I was, being mean again. Worse than mean. I was being truly horrid.

“Just one moment.” I heard a shuffling of papers and then the voice came back. “It was sent to you at Main Street.”

“To me?”

“Well . . . to Colonial Sugars.”

Success! “That certainly sounds like the correct address.”

“Can I give you the order over the phone, then? That way you’ll be certain to have it.” The voice gave me the details, which I failed to write down.

“I’ll hand your order in today.” I crossed my fingers extra hard, ignoring the guilt that was insisting I abandon my plan.

“I hope it won’t be delayed. Mr. Clarke wouldn’t like that.”

I was quite sure that he wouldn’t.