Unrivaled (8 page)

My aunt and uncle left the day after my second fitting at Vandervoort’s, so I worked the rest of the week on the new candy, soliciting Sam’s help with my efforts.

He came into the kitchen on Friday afternoon, face glum. “A peck of pistachios costs more than a peck of peanuts
and
walnuts put together.”

I felt my hopes plummet to my toes. I had been experimenting with honey-flavored nougat in hopes that I could mix pistachios in with it. “You haven’t told your father what I’m working on, have you?” I didn’t want word getting back to my father, or anyone else, until I had a chance to unveil the candy at the ball.

“No . . . but it’s been hard, trying to use the telephone down at the confectionery without him knowing. But he’s going to find about all those calls I made when the bill comes in.”

“I need to keep it a secret.”

“It will be. For two more weeks. I promise.”

“No one can know, except for you and me.” I had to stand on my toes in order to whisper the words into his ear, magnifying the impression that he’d grown.

“No one but you and I and Mrs. Hughes, you mean?” As he whispered back to me, he gestured with his chin toward the cook, who had been watching our work during the course of the week and making suggestions; she was, even now, party to our conversation, leaning just as close to Sam as I was.

I put a wrist to my forehead to push away the damp tendrils that had escaped from the cap I’d donned for candy making. “Yes, of course.” I didn’t bother to whisper this time, and I really couldn’t think why I had in the first place. The cook knew everything that went on in City Confectionery. She always had. “And Mrs. Hughes.”

She smiled and carried on with the drying of a pan, turning from us to place it into the cupboard.

“Do you think . . .” Honey was such a mild flavor. It wasn’t very remarkable. “Could I interest you in something made with violets? A violet cream, maybe?”

“No!” His eyes were wide with horror.

“But—”

“I mean it: No flowers. I’m begging you.” He pantomimed going down on bended knee.

“But you haven’t—wait!” I’d been hit with an inspiration. “Stir this and just wait here for a minute.” I fled the kitchen for the back stairs.

“And where else would I go, I’d like to know?” His voice floated up the stairs behind me.

I went to my room, being careful to avoid the squeaky floorboards in the hall so as not to wake Papa. Once there, I knelt before my chest and gathered a selection of the candies I’d brought back from Europe. I heaped them onto a handkerchief and drew
the corners together into a knot. And then I retrieved the gift that I’d bought for Sam in Germany. I’d meant to keep it for Christmas, but he’d been so helpful in the kitchen I couldn’t think of any good reason to save it.

Back in the kitchen, I offered up my treasures to him.

He took his gaze from the pot and eyed them. Then he looked over at me. “Are they any good?”

“They’re the best of all that I tried while I was there.”

“What’s this one?” He was pointing at a small cube that had been wrapped in waxed paper.

“A caramel. Want to try it?”

He glanced down at the pot he was stirring and then at me. “I suppose.”

I picked it up, unwrapped it and put it in his mouth.

As he bit down, his face changed.

“It’s a caramel with pine nuts.”

He looked as if he were going to spit it out, but then he drew his jaw back together and chewed. A look of something close to relief swept across his face as he swallowed. “It’s not half bad.”

I handed him a hard candy.

He took it with his free hand, popped it into his mouth, and sucked on it. Raised his brows. “I like this one. It tastes . . . different.”

“I know! There’s a pinch of pepper in it. Chile pepper, they called it.”

He made a face. “In a boiled candy?” He crunched it up and then swallowed.

“Try this one. Open up your hand.” I took a packet from the handkerchief, tore the flap and poured some of the powder from it into his palm.

He looked down at me. “What am I supposed to do with it?”

“Eat it, you ninny!”

He shook it into his mouth, eyes soon widening with surprise. He opened his mouth just enough to speak. “What is it?”

“Sherbet powder. It’s—”

“Fizzy! What do you think of this, Mrs. Hughes?” He turned toward the cook, letting some of it foam from his lips as if he were a rabid dog.

I pulled him back. “Stop teasing, Sam. This is serious business.” I took the spoon from him and set it down.

He slurped the foam back and swallowed it. “I don’t think you should make a—what did you call it?”

“Sherbet. Try that other one.” I nodded toward my handkerchief. “The square one. I don’t want to do a chocolate, it would take too much time, but I want you to try it.”

He took a block of what the English had called a
Scottish tablet
.

“It looks like fudge.”

I nodded.

He put it to his mouth and bit off a corner. “It doesn’t feel right. It’s . . .”

“The sugar’s been crystallized. So it’s crunchy.”

“Who wants crunchy fudge?”

“You don’t like it?”

The glance he gave me was apologetic. “Not much.”

He didn’t like any of them? Not one of my carefully collected treasures? He’d spurned all of the best candies Europe had to offer. “I don’t suppose you’d want to try a jelly drop flavored with geraniums?”

“
No flowers
. I’m serious. If you make me eat flowers again, I’m not helping you anymore.”

I picked up another hard candy. “How about a sour plum?”

“
Sour
plum? Are you trying to poison me? It’s called candy for a reason. It’s supposed to be sweet!”

I sighed as I popped it into my own mouth. My taste buds tingled with an explosion of saliva. It was followed by a pleasing tightening of the inside of my cheeks and a prickling at the sides of my tongue.

“Is this all you brought? I mean, they were fine and all, but I was just hoping . . . I was hoping for something new. Something . . .
grand
.”

I sighed. I was too. I liked the novel tastes and textures of the candies I had brought back, but there was nothing among them that was truly magnificent.

“There’s
nothing
else?”

“Well . . .” There had been, in fact. “There was a box of hazelnut chews . . . but I ate them all.” I’d devoured the entire box that first night back, alone in my bedroom in the dark as I worried over my father’s health.

“Were they any good?”

“Oh! I can’t even tell you! They were like . . . nothing I’ve ever tasted before.”

“Then that’s what you should make. Forget about all these others. Make the one you’d most want to eat.”

“Do you think so?”

He gave me a look at me I recognized from the days when he had decided that boys were superior, in every way, to girls. “You had your choice of all of these and which one did you choose?”

Hazelnut chews. That’s what I would make. As long as hazelnuts weren’t too expensive and I could make the candies using the equipment the confectionery already had, then my dream might just be within reach. “Sam? Do you think you could—”

“Find some hazelnuts?”

I nodded as I moved to embrace him.

“Guess I’ll have to make some more telephone calls.”

“Before you go . . .” I took the present I’d brought back for him from my pocket.

He undid the string and opened up the box. After lifting the paper, he drew out the gift, cupping it in the palm of his hand. It was a whistle in the shape of a cuckoo bird. I’d thought it was the cleverest thing when I’d seen it in a village in the Black Forest. But now that he was holding it, I realized how silly and childish a toy it was. “I saw it . . . and thought of you. I’m sorry, Sam . . .”

“This is perfect. I know just what to do with it.”

“Lucy?” I heard my mother’s footsteps coming down the hall.

Sam took the packet of sherbet from the handkerchief. “You mind if I use some of this?”

I didn’t mind at all. He liked my gift! Perhaps I could trust my instincts after all.

“Lucy—there you are!” Somehow my mother managed to simultaneously frown at Sam and smile at me, while she leaned over to sniff Mrs. Hughes’ apple pie. “Have you forgotten about the Gilbertsons’ tea?”

I had.

“Our agreement involved your participation in society.”

“But I’m not done yet! I need another half an hour.” At least.

“You don’t have another half an hour. What you have is fifteen minutes to clean yourself up and change before we depart.”

“But—”

“I don’t wish to hear any excuses. Candy is not my primary concern. It’s not going to propose marriage to you or ensure we have food to put on our table.”

Sam wiggled his eyebrows at me.

I smothered a laugh with my palm. Maybe he hadn’t changed so much after all.

Mrs. Hughes was untying my apron as Mother spoke. As I pulled it from my head, my cap came off along with it.

“Upstairs.” Mother preceded me into the hall. “Now!” The word rang out like the slap of a ruler at Mary Institute, where I’d gone to school.

I brushed against Mrs. Hughes as I passed. “If you pull the syrup off now, you can probably use it for pancakes.”

She patted my arm.

Mother was waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs. “I’d like you to consider that Samuel Blakely is not a suitable companion for a girl in your position.”

He’d been just fine before I’d left for the Continent.

“And I don’t expect that you were ever late to any of your appointments in Europe.”

We hadn’t been. In fact, most of the time, we were so anxious to see the sights we’d been early. “No.”

“Then please allow those of us who stayed behind the same courtesy.”

The telephone rang on Monday morning, and I heard Augusta answer. A minute later, the butler found me in the parlor, where I’d been working on a better plan for the factory. I’d been at it for over a week now, and I thought I’d almost got it.

He bowed. “You are wanted on the telephone.”

Augusta was in the hall standing beside it. “It’s your father. He’s asked to speak to you.”

I’d never, in fact, used one of the contraptions.

She gestured to what looked like a horn.

I picked it up, not knowing what to do with it.

She sighed and then guided it to my ear.

“Hello?” Funny. There was a buzzing sound, but no one was there. “Hello?”

She tapped my on the shoulder and then gestured to a candlestick-looking piece.

Oh. Maybe . . . I leaned over and spoke toward it. “Hello?”

“Mr. Clarke?” I jumped as the voice came to me, not from
the candlestick, but from the horn that was pressed to my ear. “This is Mr. Mundt. The boss would like to see you at the office. Immediately.”

“Oh. Well—” I was speaking into the horn. Augusta picked up the candlestick and held it in front of my mouth. I leaned toward it, pressing the horn back against my ear. “Fine. Fine, then. Thank you.”

There was a click from the horn, and the annoying buzz stopped. I held it out toward Augusta. She took it from me and set it on the hook that projected from the stand. “If you’re needed at the factory, Nelson can take you.”

Though I’d been told my father had wanted to see me immediately, I waited at the office for nearly an hour before Mr. Mundt waved me toward his door. Apparently, some things never changed.

My father pointed toward a chair with his cigar.

I sat.

“I was hoping you could help me.”

And I’d been hoping he would ask. “I’ve been working on a new plan for—”

“You see, I find myself in a bit of a bind. I owe someone a favor, and it’s time to pay it back. But it involves putting an end to a competitor.”

Putting an end to someone back in Chicago had meant breaking their kneecaps or throwing them off a bridge. I was almost sure it didn’t mean anything quite so drastic down here. At least . . . I hoped it didn’t.

He looked at me over the tip of his cigar. “To start with, I’ve ordered up an advertising campaign. New posters, since the old ones are getting faded. That sort of thing. I don’t want to do
anything messy. Quick and tidy. If I can just take away all their business, that’s best for us and for them. I need you to make sure the posters get put up in prominent places across the city. Atop my rival’s would be a good start.”

All of St. Louis was much bigger than Chicago’s South Side, but I could do it. I’d figure out exactly how later. “I wanted to talk to you about the factory.”

He turned his attentions to a sheaf of papers that was sitting before him. “Factory concerns should be taken up with Gillespie.”

“I did take them up with him. Or mentioned them at least.”

“And?”

“The factory isn’t very well organized. I think you might be able to increase production if your machines were placed closer together. That way the workers wouldn’t have to waste their time—”

“Haven’t had any complaints about production. We sell more candy than anyone.”

Sales. It had always been about the sale for my father. But life was more than money. “You’re wearing out the workers for no good reason. If you’d go down and take a look—”

“Waste of time. Gillespie gets paid to take care of all of that. Sales is where the money’s to be made.”

“But he could make more candy for you to sell if you’d just—”

“You always were a stubborn one. Once you got something stuck in that head of yours, you wouldn’t let it go. Not for anything.” He smiled and winked, then picked up one of the papers sitting in front of him.

“Why did you leave?”

His brows peaked.

I’d startled myself with the question just as much as I must have startled him.

As he pushed the cigar into his mouth, his hand was shaking. He took a long draw on it before exhaling a billowing cloud of smoke. “Water under the bridge.”

“But I want to know. I have a right to know.”

“Does it matter? You turned out fine, didn’t you? And you looked after them all just like I knew you would.”

What kind of a man would leave the responsibility for his family in the hands of a seven-year-old?

“And you probably did a better job of it than I’d been doing.”

“But
why
?”

He ground his cigar into an ashtray. “Why?” He shrugged. “Why should I have stayed?” He tried to smile. “I doubt you even missed me.”

“Miss you? You were never there anyway!”

“Do you think I didn’t want to be? Do you think I liked knowing I couldn’t provide for my own family? No matter how hard I tried? No matter how much I managed to sell? Every time I walked in the door, my failure slapped me in the face. All I did . . . all I tried to do . . . it was never enough.”

“So you just . . . gave up? Is that what you’re saying?”

“What good was I to you anyway?”

“You gave all of us up . . . and then you walked away and fell into this.” It didn’t seem like he’d suffered much. Not the way we had. It sounded like he’d abandoned us and never looked back.

“Can we . . . forget about all of that? It’s not really worth remembering, is it? Besides, you’re here now.”

But being here had required a lot of years of being back there, in Chicago.

“Sometimes you have to leave the past behind and start again,” Father continued.

“But what about us? Because you left, we never had that chance.”

“I won’t say it was the right thing to do. . . .”

“Why didn’t you come back for us?” Why hadn’t we mattered?

“And say what? What would you have wanted me to say?”

“I’m sorry?” That would have worked as a start.

My father’s shoulders dropped. “I am. I’ve always been sorry. But sorry wouldn’t have done you any good back then. So . . . why don’t we concentrate on what I can offer you now?” He stood and held out his hand.

When I didn’t extend mine, he jammed it into his pocket. “I know I don’t deserve a second chance, but I’m hoping you’ll give me one anyway.”

A second chance.

He only wanted me to offer him what he was giving me, but it didn’t seem fair. What had he ever done to deserve it? I owed him nothing. He owed me everything. So it was much easier to ignore his request and think instead about what he’d asked me to do. It didn’t sound too difficult until Mr. Mundt had told me there were a thousand posters waiting to be hung.

One thousand posters.

To be put in prominent places.

Were
there even a thousand places to hang posters in the city?

That afternoon, I rode a streetcar downtown and walked through the city. I battled shoppers on Olive Street. I pushed through vendors on Washington Street, counting all the Royal Taffy posters I could find and looking for new places to hang them. It was hot, thirsty work, so I took a break to listen to some ragtime in a place called Chestnut Valley. It wasn’t much of a valley. Wasn’t much of anything I could see, but as soon as I heard the music, it felt like home.

I walked into the middle of a cutting contest and joined the
crowd in cheering as two pianists played up and down a pair of pianos, each trying to leave the other behind by changing keys and tunes. Eventually one outplayed the other. The loser left his piano and collected a beer from the bar before joining the rest of us in hailing the victor.

As I walked the streets, I didn’t see many posters for other companies’ candies, and those I did see had been pasted up alongside signs for prizefights or election notices. They were mostly in alleys and on the sides of buildings. I planned to cover them all with Standard posters—it wouldn’t take too much work—but I needed to find someplace better to put our advertisements. Someplace that people couldn’t help but see.

Where did people gather?

They went to and came from Union Station by the hundreds, but where else did they go? I asked Nelson that evening. “Where do you go when you get time off?” I was watching him polish the brass headlights of the car I’d learned he called Louise.

“Well . . . Sunday afternoons, what I like to do is go to Forest Park. They got some bears there and that big birdcage you can walk through. The one leftover from the Exposition. There are boats you can rent. Usually someone playing music at that bandstand. Always something going on at Forest Park.”

“What would you say most people here like to do? Where do they go on Saturdays or on Sunday afternoons?”

“It depends. There’s that swimming pool over on Delmar with its dancing pavilion.” He straightened for a moment and put a hand to his back. “Some go over to Chestnut Valley to listen to that ragtime music.” He shrugged. “Folks go all over, I suppose.”

So how could I make sure they saw Standard advertisements everywhere they went?

Augusta was having some club of women over for tea the next day, so I hightailed it out of the way and found myself once
more on a streetcar headed into the city. We passed houses and schools and churches. At each stop we picked up mothers and their children. Soon the streetcar was crammed with them. One of the little boys beside me was sucking on a log of Royal Taffy.

He clutched it tighter when he saw me looking at him.

At a nickel a stick, Royals weren’t cheap. They were a treat to be saved up for. A prize to dream of. Across from me, I saw a child counting her pennies as she eyed the boy and his candy.

If I had to put up posters, it should be in places children could see them.

I knew what it was to be a child, hoping against hope for something good to happen. I knew the victory that came with each carefully collected penny and the triumph that swelled the chest on the walk to the store. But best of all was the satisfaction that came from having a Royal Taffy taste exactly like you’d dreamed it would. A gooey, chewy, creamy piece of heaven. I’d always been able to count on a Royal Taffy in a way I was never able to count on my father. The candy had never disappointed me. Not the way he had.

If hanging up those posters would give some boy like I’d once been something to hope for, something to believe in, then to my way of thinking, it was a job worth doing.