Unrivaled (3 page)

“But have you ever helped anyone? Besides me? Anyone that was worth helping?”

There weren’t a lot of choices on the South Side. I doubted I would ever be offered anything more respectable than the job my father was proposing. Even if it was factory work. “If I’m going to be working, at least I can do it honestly. Is that what you’re after?”

She just watched me, eyes fastened on my face.

I shrugged, trying to not to care too much that they wanted to be rid of me. “Might as well give it a try. How bad could it be?”

She smiled, then put a hand to her mouth as tears sprung from her eyes. “Thank you.”

I woke to the soft, gentle hand of my mother stroking my hair. I moved my arm from my eyes and turned so that I could see her. “Is he going to be all right?”

She stopped stroking for a moment. “I don’t know. No one really knows.”

“Why did it happen?”

She took her hand from my head and pressed it to her throat.

I sat up. “Mother?”

She sighed and shook her head. “It was the candy foolishness. He has so much talent. He could have used it to accomplish so much. He could have made . . . ointments. Or face creams. Or even pastries. Why couldn’t he have gone into the bakery business?”

In spite of my mother’s fondest wishes to the contrary, my father couldn’t have done anything other than make candy. He wasn’t suited for anything else. Royal Taffy, his ultimate triumph, had been his whole life . . . until the company and the right
to produce the candy had been taken from him. Though he’d started a new confectionery and created new candies, he’d never quite been able to match the success of Royal Taffy.

Mother reached out a hand and stopped my fingers from picking at the stitches on my matelassé cover.

“Standard started a new advertising promotion for Royal Taffy. You know how he flies into those rages.”

I knew.

“The doctor says his heart just can’t handle it anymore. He wants your father to make some changes.”

“What changes?”

She didn’t reply.

“Mother?”

She looked over at me. “We’ve been advised to sell the business.”

“But—he can’t!” How could my father sell the company? And what would he do without it?

She grasped my hand. “The most important thing for his recovery is that he stay calm. He can’t do that if he’s in the confectionery kitchen experimenting with candies, or if he’s trying to figure out how to out-advertise Royal Taffy.”

“But—”

“There’s nothing to worry about. I’ve been speaking with a lawyer.”

“A lawyer!” City Confectionery wasn’t a company; it was our life. And even if our Fancy Crunch couldn’t outsell Royal Taffy, there was always hope that one day Papa could create a candy that would. I didn’t understand how he could just let it all go. As I looked at Mama, a suspicion crept over me. She no longer seemed so old and tired. She looked devious and conniving. “You haven’t told him, have you!”

She looked at me with such great disappointment that I almost blushed. “There’s really no need. If he knew—”

“If he knew, he would never let you! It’s not your company, it’s his.”

As she stood, her lips compressed into a thin, straight line. “It might as well be mine. It was my own father’s money that started the company, and it’s this house I grew up in that’s borne the brunt of all your father’s schemes.” I watched her look sadly about the room and realized that half of my bedroom suite was gone. The pitcher and basin that used to sit on my washstand were now perched on my dresser. And the large French beveled mirror that had once hung above them was nowhere to be seen. My eyes began to register other changes as I peered through the afternoon light that had filtered in through the lace curtains. “My rug!” And my silk upholstered chair.

Her shoulders dipped. “I sold it.”

“But—!”

“And it’s not just this house, Lucy. It’s my—my
own
dreams that have been sacrificed to those candies, along with his. If I’d known just how far he would go in his pigheadedness . . .”

“Some people call his pigheadedness passion.”

“Not those with any business sense.”

I couldn’t blame her. Not really. She wasn’t a Kendall; she was a Clary. She didn’t understand candy like my father and I did. At least that’s what Papa had always whispered to me through the sugar-scented steam that lifted from our copper pots. She’d come from a family of bankers and merchants. So when Papa had fought with his accounts clerk over raising the price of Royal Taffy and when he’d insisted on treating his workers like family, my mother had told him he was being a fool. She’d urged him to leave the candy business altogether and go into another profession; I suspected she’d been hoping he would join her father at the bank.

Mother had always wanted Papa to be something other than what he was, Papa had always wanted more than what he’d had,
and I’d always wanted to be something I never could. I didn’t want to be a daughter. I wanted to be a partner in the business.

I wanted to make candy in the confectionery alongside my father. But my mother insisted that the kitchen was no place for a lady, and my father forbid me even to enter the confectionery’s doors once I’d graduated from high school.
“Child’s play is well and good for children, but candy making is a serious business,”
he’d become quite fond of saying.

None of us had gotten what we’d wanted. The Kendall family, it seemed, was doomed to failure. “Is there a buyer?”

“I have one in mind. And I hope to conclude the sale well before Christmas.”

I looked toward the window. I’d longed for my room as we’d traveled about Europe like gypsies. I’d missed the familiar squeak of my bedsprings and the passion flowers that twined across my papered walls. The comforting smells of lemon soap . . . and even the slight odor of camphor, left over from my grandfather’s time when he had used the room just down the hall. But now that I was here, I could hardly bear it. “Do we have to sell?”

“Since your father got sick, the company’s been losing money. I thought we could manage until he got well, but . . . I don’t know what else to do now. Your father isn’t able to do much of anything anymore.”

The image of the Royal Taffy advertisement unfurled, like a medieval battle standard, in my mind. Mother was right: If Father had been able, he wouldn’t have let those posters sit unanswered. He would have pasted one of his own up beside them. “I could manage things.”

“Lucy, no!” She seemed as shocked as Papa had been when I told him I had planned on joining him in the confectionery kitchen following graduation.

“I can.” As I said it, my heart thrilled to the challenge. It
was the chance I’d been looking for! I could prove to Papa that he was wrong. That, given the opportunity, a girl could be a help to a business rather than a hindrance. “I brought back so many candies from Europe. If you give me a few weeks, I’m sure I can come up with something divine! Something no one has ever tasted before.”

“Your father would never—”

“What he doesn’t know won’t worry him. And what if I succeed?” I
would
succeed. All I needed was a chance.

“No.”

“Please!”

“No. I won’t discuss this further. And in any case, I came up here to tell you something.” She took an envelope from my dresser top and presented it to me with a flourish. “You’ve been named the Queen of the Veiled Prophet Ball!”

How could she think of balls at a time like this?

“It wouldn’t do for a member of the court to take part in commerce. It’s your debutante year, Lucy.” She grimaced. “It’s actually a year behind your debutante year. The rest of your friends have come out already, and most of them have married. Perhaps this has been fated all along, your coming out into society at a time when your father and I need you. A good marriage would help us all.”

Marriage? I hadn’t realized I had recoiled from her until she sought my hand and said, “I’m only trying to think of your future.”

“And I’m trying to think of all of our futures. If you would just let me—”

“The business needs to be sold.” She spoke the words slowly as if I hadn’t understood them the first time.

“I can’t believe you’d just give it up without—without even trying to save it! That’s not what Father would want.”

“Your father has done exactly as he wants for years now, and all it’s given him is a heart attack. Isn’t it about time we tried something else? Found some other way to manage?”

I pushed from my bed and stalked to the door. “I’m going to tell him. I’m going to tell him exactly what it is you’re trying to do.”

Something flashed in her eyes. Fear? Guilt? “Don’t.”

“If you give me a chance to save the company, if you give me time to create a new candy, then I won’t.”

She gave me a long, steady look, then seemed to deflate before my eyes. “Fine. I’ll give you one month. But promise me one thing: You
must
take part in the Veiled Prophet Ball. And you have to put your heart into it, Lucy. It’s an opportunity you can’t afford to miss.”

I thought it over for a moment before nodding. If I could come up with a new candy, then the ball would be the perfect place to introduce it. Standard Candy Manufacturing would never be able to top that. “I wouldn’t think of missing it.”

The next morning I was permitted to see my father.

He was awake when my mother ushered me through the door, though the curtains were still drawn against the day.

“Lucy. My Sugar Plum.” His skin was ashen, his eyes were sunken. Even his voice seemed somehow diminished. I had been alarmed when I had been told of his heart problems. Now I was truly frightened.

“Papa.” I had come home, hoping to mend the rift I’d made between us. Hoping to prove to him my worth. Now I was afraid even to touch him, for fear of causing more harm.

He reached an arm out toward me. “You’ve come home. At last.”

I’d never seen him in his nightshirt before. It made him seem . . . different. Weakened. Less. “I have.” I stood at his bedside, hands clasped in front of me.

“Sit down. Stay awhile. Did you bring me any candy?”

Mother helped him to a sitting position, plumped his pillows, and then eased him back onto them. “No candy. Doctor’s orders.”

“Have you ever considered that just one little piece might give me the strength I need to recover? You can’t make a Fancy without the crunch.” He tried to smile at me.

Mother pulled a handkerchief from her cuff and dabbed at the sweat that had broken out upon his forehead. “It’s not worth getting upset about.”

“There’s got to be something worth getting upset about. Something more than the lukewarm soup and dry bread you keep forcing me eat.”

Mother smoothed his hair back from his forehead and left the room. But not before giving me a stern glance of warning.

“She refuses to let me eat butter either. Or cream.” He winced for a moment, and then his features relaxed. “Tell me about your travels.”

“They were nice.”

He raised a brow. “Nice? You went halfway around the world, and the only thing you have to say is that it was nice?”

I felt my lips curl into a smile. I hadn’t realized until then that I’d been holding my breath. “It was so . . . amazing. So different. And there were so many things to do and to see.”

I told him about the ballrooms of Vienna and the cathedrals of France. I described how it felt to stand on the Jungfrau and see the world spread out at my feet. I told him about eating mussels and eels and snails.

“And they were all so delicious! But they were nothing compared to all the sweets. It seemed there were at least a dozen
confectionaries in every village. I can’t count the number of candies I tasted. In Florence, there was even a—”

A raspy snore lifted from the bed.

“Papa?” I could see now that he had fallen asleep, chin resting on his chest.

I rearranged the blanket, pushed his head back onto the pillows, and left him to his dreams. Then I went down the hall to my room and unpacked all my candy treasures, plucking one of my favorites, a Salzburg
Mozartkugel
, from the pile. I peeled away the foil wrapper and bit into it, admiring the multitude of layers hidden beneath the dark chocolate coating. How had they managed to make it so perfectly round? My tongue separated and identified the flavors: pistachio, marzipan, and chocolate. My mouth exulted in the contrasting textures. Creamy and crunchy, chewy with just the right amount of graininess. I sighed as the last of it melted away and wondered if there would ever be anyone to share candy with again.

I reached into the trunk and brought out the gifts I’d collected. The lace tablecloth for Mother. A Bavarian pipe for Papa. And an assortment of embroidered pillow tops and lace doilies for my girlfriends. Really, I ought to transfer them to my hope chest and store them properly, wrapping them in paper instead of my underclothes.

I asked a maid to bring up some old newspapers, and then I wandered downstairs, looking for Mother. I found her in the sitting room she used as an office, talking to my aunt. They looked up as I entered. “I’d like to go see Annie Farrell. I bought something for her on the trip.”

Aunt Margaret excused herself. “I’ll go see what your uncle is doing.”

“Annie Farrell . . . ?” Mother’s brow creased. “Oh! Annie Wagner. She married while you were gone.”

“She . . . what? But whom? Whom did she marry?”

“Roy Wagner.”

“Who is Roy Wagner? I don’t think I—”

“He’s a third cousin. On her mother’s side, from Kansas City. They moved there last spring.”

I gave a quick gasp. “Away? From here?”

“Well, of course! His business wasn’t here. It was out there.”

Annie was gone? I’d never gotten the chance to say good-bye. “Is there . . . anyone else? Who got married?”