Best Foot Forward

by Joan Bauer

  Dick McAllister, the store manager, met us at the back door, looking grim. “He’s got a PowerPoint presentation,” he said. “But worse than that . . .” Dick held up a green shirt with the Shoe Warehouse emblem. “I’m not wearing this, Madeline.”

  I’m not, either.

  Elden was shouting out instructions for how the screen was to be displayed for his presentation. He had his back to us, but it’s said that snakes can sense prey, even in the tall weeds. He turned around and froze when he saw us.

  “Well, Elden,” Mrs. Gladstone said, walking toward him. “Haven’t you been a busy bee?” Her cane clicked on the floor. Elden tried to find his voice.

  “Mother.” He tried to smile.

  “I’m here for your presentation,” she said, and sat down.

  I sat down next to her. “Hello, sir.”

  “Oh,” he said, “you.”

  The one and only. And even smarter since I last saw you.

  More shoe people came in the door. Elden had invited most of the Gladstone’s managers throughout the western suburbs. He busied himself with the people who came in. Dick McAllister put up folding chairs nervously; everyone got coffee. Helen Ruggles sat next to Mrs. Gladstone. “You’re looking tougher than ever, Madeline.”

  That got a smile.

  “Well,” Dick McAllister said, “I know we’re all anxious to hear from you, Elden.”

  Elden slithered forward and said, “We are embarking on a bold new journey that I believe will put Gladstone’s in the forefront of shoe companies worldwide.”

  He clicked to his first slide, which read, Change Is Good.

  Elden then went on to explain how the Shoe Warehouse design for effective retailing would be our design as well. He showed the new plans for our stores—each store would look exactly alike. “No more worrying about how to design the displays,” he chirped. “That will be done for you.” The managers slumped glumly in their seats.

  So much for creativity.

  “We are in the age of instant information,” Elden continued. “And Ken Woldman understands that people get bored with the same old thing. That’s why we’ll have daily sales, even hourly specials—an exciting, ever-changing sales environment.”

  He clicked to the next slide: Change Is Exciting.

  “We will be installing closed-circuit TVs in twenty of our flagship stores and experimenting with how to get as much information to our customers as we can.”

  Elden smirked. “Ken has asked that I be the spokesman. We’re going to broadcast our bargains to our customers day and night!” His voice got a little lower, like a DJ. “Along with some special shoe and fashion tips!”

  He showed a store design with the huge TV monitor on the wall.

  Despair settled over the group.

  I felt like I was being sucked into the center of one of those extreme-makeover shows.

  Click. Together We Will Change the World.

  If we don’t all die from humiliation first.

  That’s when Mrs. Gladstone stood up. “Elden, when do you expect Gladstone’s will be entirely eliminated?”

  Shock hung in the room.

  He sputtered. “Mother, no one is saying that.”

  “When will the G be taken off the door? When will the signs be taken down? When will our brands become obsolete? You’re already making them into cheap knockoffs. Gladstone’s used to stand for quality.” She rammed her cane on the floor. “Surely you’ve discussed this.”

  “Mother, I hardly think—”

  “I expect you’ve been thinking about this for quite some time, Elden.” She marched forward, glaring at him.

  “Well . . .” He put his clicker down. “I would estimate that the full changeover to the Shoe Warehouse philosophy should happen within, perhaps, the next year or so.”

  “And what will happen to our best-selling brands? The Rollings Walkers, for example?”

  He laughed nervously. “If they continue to sell well, we’ll keep making them, of course.”

  “I see.” She walked to the wall and threw up the light switch. “Ladies and gentlemen, as the Director of Quality Control, I want to say publicly that I disagree with this approach. First, as a member of the board of directors, I object to my not being informed of this sudden turn in our company’s direction. That is against the bylaws of our company and, therefore, I will challenge it. Ken Woldman has assured me there is room in this organization for both high-quality shoes and budget brands. I mean to hold him to his word. And as the mother of our general manager, I have one thing to say to him.” I closed my eyes and heard her shout, “This will happen over my dead body!”

  “My God, Mother!”

  She pointed at the Together We Will Change the World screen. “I assure you, God Almighty had nothing to do with that !”

  Applause began quietly at first, then more loudly.

  Elden sputtered that anyone who did not go along with this new direction was welcome to turn in their resignation.

  The shoe managers looked nervous and stopped clapping.

  “We’ll see about that!” Mrs. Gladstone nodded to me and marched out the door.

  I marched after her.

  The mutiny had begun.

  At least I think it had.

  Chapter 15

  Mrs. Gladstone and I were seated in rickety chairs in Gus’s Shoe Repair. Gus held up a year-old pair of Rollings Walkers and the pair I’d brought in last week. The whole shop smelled like shoe polish.

  “So,” he said, “anyone who tells you they haven’t changed this shoe is a liar.”

  Mrs. Gladstone said, “I need facts, Gus.”

  “I got those.” He turned my pair over, flexed them. “The shoes Jenna brought in have got thermal plastic rubber bottoms. TPRs are used only in inexpensive casuals these days. See the crack there?”

  We looked.

  “I didn’t have to work hard to get that to crack.” He held up the real Rollings Walkers that Mrs. Gladstone had brought in for comparison. “These here, they’re older, but they got one hundred percent rubber soles. Rubber’s our friend when it comes to durability.”

  He yanked out the inside of my new shoe. “This isn’t leather. It’s man-made. It’s not going to breathe like your leather, which is what you’ve got on the older pair. On the outside, they don’t look different. On the inside . . .” He shook his head. “It’s like sirloin and Spam.” He handed me back my shoes.

  Mrs. Gladstone threw back her head and took a big breath.

  “Madeline, it’s changing everywhere. It’s not just Gladstone’s. I’m seeing a lot of garbage.”

  “I can’t accept garbage, Gus.”

  “That’s why you’re the one to fight it.” He patted her hand; got some shoe polish on it, but that’s a mark of distinction in our world.

  Back at work, Mrs. Gladstone told me to write up everything Gus had said and put it in a file. I wrote up everything I could remember Elden saying, too.

  It was the end of the day. She sat in her chair looking out the window. An elevated train rumbled by. She didn’t move when I came in.

  “Do you want me to drive you home, ma’am?”

  “Not just yet.”

  I’d gone the miles with this woman—seen her shot down and seen her get back up. I walked to her window and opened it. A big Chicago wind knocked her geranium plant off the sill. It crashed on the floor, but the planter didn’t break.

  I picked it up. “Now, that’s quality.”

  “It is indeed,” she said sadly.

  “There are things that get knocked down by the wind, Mrs. Gladstone, and they don’t break. They’re too strong. Like you.”

  She tried smiling bravely, but her heart wasn’t in it.

  “Mrs. Gladstone, you’re still Director of Quality Control. You’re still on the board of directors. You’ve still got a voice in this company, don’t you?”

  “I’m not so sure.”

  “Well, I am. You’ve got a job to do. You’ve got to show
the things that are wrong so that this company can be made better. Isn’t there room for the quality brands in this new company? Isn’t that why Ken Woldman wanted you in this position? Lots of people will pay the money for high-end shoes!” Dirt was getting on my clothes from the geranium, but I didn’t care. “Mrs. Gladstone, other than all this mess with your son, what was the hardest thing you’ve had to face with the company?”

  Her old head lifted; her chin got stiff.

  “It was when Floyd died suddenly and I had to take the reins.”

  “That must have been a killer, ma’am. . . . I didn’t mean it like that.”

  She sat there lost in thought. “I didn’t know what I was doing.”

  “But you figured it out.”

  “I was the back office person, he was the one always up front.”

  “But you found a way.”

  “People didn’t think I was up to it.”

  “But you were.”

  “And the memories of him in every corner . . . Lord, I didn’t think I could keep going. I didn’t think I could sit in his chair.”

  “But you did.”

  Her eyes narrowed, but she was smiling. “You’re a very persistent young woman.”

  She had that right. “No disrespect, ma’am, but a wuss would get trampled in this place.”

  We closed the store at 7:00 P.M.

  Murray stood before the bell, holding the mallet. “When you hear this sound, remember the world’s gone mad.”

  Booonnnggg.

  The booonnnggg was still reverberating as we walked out the door.

  The pressure of schoolwork and my work schedule was building.

  Would I drive Faith to school in the mornings?

  Only if we’re out the door by 7:00 A.M.—no excuses.

  She said fine, then the excuses came.

  “I can’t find anything to wear.”

  “I couldn’t get to sleep last night.”

  “You were in the bathroom so long this morning.”

  “Faith, I’m getting up at 5:30 to give you space to get ready!”

  “You are so bossy, Jenna!”

  Faith sat silently in the car as I hit four detours this morning. I was coming up on the Michigan Avenue bridge that arched over the Chicago River. It was close to my favorite part of the city. I thought about bridges and how they’re built to connect two places and how we needed to be bridge builders in this world because there are so many places where people can’t connect.

  I sat in my car, boxed in by rush hour. Sat there, God’s agent, without an angel or a burning spear in sight. I didn’t even have good company.

  I stared at the river and opened my hands. “Part,” I said jokingly. “Something part and give me a break.”

  Faith looked at me like I was nuts.

  Just then the screaming policeman who was directing traffic and making everything worse walked away in disgust. Miraculously the traffic cleared.

  I glanced upward, made a left turn across the bridge, and we headed to school.

  Mrs. Gladstone faced the video conferencing monitor from her office in Chicago and said to the management team assembled in Dallas, “I have a question, gentlemen.”

  “Go ahead, Madeline,” Ken Woldman replied.

  “Who authorized changing the design of the Rollings Walkers?”

  The men around the table looked surprised. Elden’s snake tail rattled.

  Ken Woldman turned to Elden, who said he wasn’t aware of any change.

  “We’re getting double-digit returns on that brand.” She didn’t mention what Gus had said.

  “That’s not good.” Ken Woldman looked at Elden, who wrote something on a pad.

  “We’ll look into it, Mother.”

  “When can I expect the report?”

  “A few weeks.” Elden tapped his pen impatiently. “These things take time.”

  “Make it faster,” Ken Woldman ordered.

  Elden nodded stiffly.

  “And about this in-store TV business,” Mrs. Gladstone continued. “I’d like our Chicago store to be part of the test group.”

  They looked surprised again, but not as surprised as me.

  Was she kidding? Our store wasn’t on the list.

  Ken Woldman said that could be arranged.

  Then she took her reading glasses off and looked straight at the camera.

  “I will tell you all that we have two choices in this company merger. One is to refuse to look at the success of both of our companies and decide that only one way is best. The other is to understand that two different business cultures can only form a strong partnership when there is respect and appreciation for differences. If we can embrace the best that we both offer, gentlemen, I’d say we have hope for survival. I would advise we either live up to our new advertising slogan, Putting Our Best Foot Forward, or find another one.”

  Then she demanded a “cooling-off period” where no Gladstone employee would be let go until “every available avenue for unity had been explored.”

  There was no other business.

  The screen went blank.

  She closed her eyes. “All right, I got through that without screaming.”

  “Mrs. Gladstone, why do you want to have that TV thing put in here?”

  “I don’t want to have it anywhere, Jenna. But if other stores have to take the heat, we’ll bloody well take it here, too. I believe in suffering with the troops.”

  Not me. I’ve tried that at home.

  I was standing on the sales floor wondering where the big screen would go and how it would destroy the store and life as we know it. I didn’t have time to wonder long. A mother with a little girl came in. The girl immediately headed toward the children’s tree. She looked longingly at the names on the leaves.

  Four more customers came in. Normally, I try to connect with the kids; not today. I raced from person to person.

  That’s when the front door opened again and in walked Tanner Cobb. He was dressed nicely, too, in a shirt and a tie and much less baggy pants.

  He smiled at me. “I came to work.”

  “Well, good . . . I guess,” I said back.

  He headed toward the children’s tree. The little girl was still studying those leaves. He bent down to her height.

  “You want to write your name on the leaf?”

  “I can’t write yet,” she told him.

  Tanner got a leaf and a crayon. “I’ll write it for you.”

  “It’s Anna Elizabeth Mastrianni.”

  Tanner smiled. “You want me to show you how to write your first name?”

  “Okay.” She knelt down to watch. The mother was smiling from across the store.

  “It starts with a cool letter. The first letter of the alphabet.”

  “A,” she said proudly.

  “You got it.” Tanner showed her how to draw an A. She drew it, kind of, but took the whole leaf to do it. He looked at me. “I hope you got a lot of leaves.”

  “I do.”

  I sold the mother three pairs of summer clearance sandals and Anna learned how to write her name. Gladstone’s is a full-service shoe store.

  I sold a man five pairs of sneakers. I thought about ringing the bell, but Murray would have killed me.

  Three more customers came through the door. I’m good when it’s busy, but I couldn’t handle them all.

  I grabbed Tanner’s arm and gave him everything I knew about beginning sales in one desperate breath. “Be yourself. Tell them you’re new, don’t pretend you know anything you don’t. Help people as much as you can and I’ll do the rest.”

  He nodded.

  One more tip: “If you mess up, I’ll kill you.”

  Being a big sister is excellent training for management.

  He headed toward the prettiest woman in the place. “Can I help you, miss?” He gave her a blinding smile. Mr. Electric. She handed him a blue evening shoe she wanted to try on, and he actually said, “The blue on those beads will look great with your ey
es.”

  That woman melted in a little pool right at his feet.

  Mrs. Crenshaw, one of my regulars, was wailing about how her son-in-law wasn’t taking care of his family like he should and how she was running after her little granddaughter, trying to help out.

  “You’re doing what my grandma did for me,” I told her. “We couldn’t have gotten along without her.” I sold her a budget-conscious high-top walker that would give her extra cushioning—perfect for catching granddaughters.

  I rang her up. “I wish these shoes would make your son-in-law a better person.”

  “Jenna, if you ever find shoes like that—”

  “I’d buy them all up, ma’am. Believe me.”

  Tanner was running back and forth bringing shoes as I called out the sizes and the styles.

  He was seeing up close and personal how some customers act, too. A gruff guy tossed him a Burger King bag. “Throw this out!” the guy ordered.

  Tanner stood tall. “Do I look like a janitor?”

  Oh, please, mister, don’t say yes. I rushed over, grabbed the bag. Now an older woman was waving at Tanner. “May I speak to your manager, please?”

  “She’s my manager.”

  “Not exactly.”

  Tanner said, “I get my very own ’cause I’m a special case.”

  I lurched forward. “We’re working here to help youth, of which I am a member, find their, I mean our, rightful place in the business community.”

  Tanner smiled. “It’s keeping me out of jail.”

  “He’s such a kidder!” I shrieked, but the woman smiled.

  “I had a job when I was your age—I sure gave my boss a hard time,” she said.

  “Yeah?” Tanner laughed. “What’d you do?”

  I just let them converse. I waited on five people in ten minutes and sold ten pairs of shoes. I thought of ringing the bell to make the point that I was the only one working.

  Finally a break.

  Tanner wanted to know what good leather felt like—I showed him.

  “See how soft it is?”

  He felt the shoe inside and out. “Must have been a real chore handling things without me,” he said.