Best Foot Forward

by Joan Bauer

  Milo Bentchik rides again.

  But why?

  The end of the day. Murray came upstairs looking happier than I’d seen him in ages.

  “In this crazy world, kid, never forget the wisdom of loyal customers.”

  He held out sheets of paper; on them were scribbled names, phone numbers, and pointed comments:

  Who authorized that stupid TV?

  What is happening to the store we love?

  Stop this madness!

  “We should have a decent collection by the end of the week,” Murray said. “Madeline wants to get customer comment cards printed up pronto.”

  “Put some red sneakers on them.” I told him Yaley’s story about the little boy.

  “You know, kid, that gets me right here.” He pointed to his heart, not his stomach.

  Sunday finally came.

  I met Charlie at the doughnut shop. I got the tour, too.

  “What I love about it here is these doughnuts make people happy,” Charlie told me. “People think every doughnut is alike.” He broke a doughnut in half, showed me the inside. “But to be a Duran’s, it’s got to have substance and texture. And it’s got to be big!” He opened his hands. “How can that be junk food?”

  He showed me how to roll out the dough. He had strong arms. “Timing’s everything with doughnuts—you let them cook a few minutes too long, they get too heavy.”

  “Have you always worked here?”

  “I rebelled against the family business for a while.”

  “You don’t look like a rebel.”

  He smiled. “I wasn’t a real good one. When my great-grandpa died, I got serious about the place. We called him The Doughmeister. I’ve got a picture of him up here for inspiration.” I peered at the black-and-white shot of a tall, skinny old guy who looked a little like Charlie.

  There was a sign on the wall:

  SAY IT WITH DOUGHNUTS

  Charlie put two raspberry creams into a bag and we walked to the theater on Dearborn Street that showed old movies.

  The craggy old detective was examining a footprint the murderer left in the garden. “They always leave something,” he said to the younger one.

  Charlie opened the bag in the darkened theater and handed me half a doughnut.

  “You see that insole step?” The old detective pointed to an indention in the footprint.

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, that’s made by a right foot slightly turned in at the ankle, which is exactly what Rodney Querlon has when he walks.”

  Insightful music played.

  “So what do we do?” asked the young detective. “Rodney Querlon has disappeared.”

  The old craggy detective stood up slowly and called in the boys from forensics to sweep the place for clues. “Our man Rodney thinks he got away with murder, and when a man thinks that, you can bet he’s going to make another mistake.”

  We settled in as the mystery unfolded. Gradually the old detective solved the crime and dealt with the mystery of his own life.

  “Here we are,” he said to his girlfriend at the end, “alone in a city teeming with lonely people. I open my doors to the rich and the poor, the lost and the unlucky. It’s not the kind of work I expected to do, Myrna. But this is the work I’ve chosen.”

  Myrna took a long drag on her cigarette without coughing. “Or maybe it chose you, Johnny.” She looked meaningfully out the window. “Maybe it chose you.”

  We walked out of the theater, holding hands.

  With the exception of dancing once with a guy in Texas and a few unmemorable blind dates, I haven’t held many guys’ hands.

  I’ve held a lot of male feet, though.

  Not every teenager can say that.

  “Well . . . ?” Opal asked when I called her.

  “He understands retail,” I said dreamily.

  Chapter 20

  By the middle of the week, the customer comment cards came from the printer, complete with a little pair of high-top red sneakers in the corner.

  GLADSTONE SHOES

  Tell us what you think

  Did they ever!

  Who thought this was a good idea?

  The sound is so loud, I can’t think!

  What an insulting way to treat customers!

  Yaley was beaming about the cards. Mrs. Gladstone had asked her to design them.

  “I’ve never been paid as an artist before.” Yaley held the check Mrs. Gladstone gave her like she couldn’t believe it.

  By the end of the week we had forty-four customer comment cards on Gladstone’s new look. Comments ranged from “chaotic” to “moronic” with warnings about slipping quality on several brands.

  I made copies of them and Mrs. Gladstone mailed them off to Ken Woldman and Elden. She was whistling when she did it. She was getting requests for those cards from other stores who’d had enough.

  Her hip was getting worse. Her doctor was getting impatient. “She needs surgery,” he told me when I canceled appointment after appointment.

  Schoolwork was mounting. I had too much to do.

  I was trying to find time to see Charlie.

  “You know the problem with human beings?” my grandma used to say to me. “We think we can wear too many hats at once. It’s not possible.” She’d pile on two or three to make the point. “It’s an outright fashion disaster.”

  We’d laugh and I’d try my best to remember there’s just so much a person can do at one time without going crazy.

  But I was skating close to crazy.

  Even journalism seemed like too much to handle. Mr. Haloran was treating us like real reporters.

  Check your sources, he kept saying.

  Check your facts.

  Assume nothing.

  My desk at work was piled high with to-do projects. Merger woes mounted. A sole-less person would have walked away, but I couldn’t.

  The shoe world was the world I’d chosen, or maybe it had chosen me.

  I looked at the June report from our Bangor plant. Looked at the list of suppliers I’d called. There was one I’d missed—Transcon Shipping. I dialed, got Lou at the shipping desk.

  “Someone else was just asking about this order,” he said. “Right now we’re picking up three ocean export containers for West Virginia Shoe through to Long Beach twice a month.”

  Finally—a connection! I was about to ask him what address he had for West Virginia Shoe, but then . . .

  “Lou, did you say ocean?”

  “Our ships,” Lou assured me, “are the best in the business.”

  “Did you say ships?”

  He chuckled. “That’s what we use to cross the ocean.”

  What’s he talking about? We’re an American shoe company that makes shoes in this country.

  I sat up straight. “Which ocean might that be, Lou?”

  “Well, we take the Pacific and then turn left into the China Sea to Thailand.”

  “Thailand?” I almost dropped the phone. “You mean the country?”

  “That’s the one.”

  I tried to clear my mind. “Lou, you’re telling me that the West Virginia Shoe Company is in Thailand?”

  “It’s a crazy world. Your people who pay the tab have us take the merchandise from Thailand to Long Beach, California. You following me?”

  “Lou, you’re absolutely certain about Thailand?”

  “That’s our business. We ship from Asia to America every day.”

  This couldn’t be right. Gladstone Shoes are made in America.

  My mind was struggling to take this in. “Lou, what happens in Long Beach?”

  “You’ll have to call Cross Country Trucking. They pick up after your load clears through customs. I don’t know where they take it.”

  I looked in the little mirror on the far wall and saw the QUALITY FIRST sign reflected backward, which is what mirrors do.

  This would have been a cool clue in a detective story, but it didn’t mean beans in a shoe mystery.

  I raced dow
nstairs to talk to Murray, who was trying to explain to a customer that he’d called American Express twice and both times they told him her card had expired.

  I picked up shoe after shoe from the displays. All the labels promised the same thing:

  GLADSTONE SHOES

  Made exclusively in the USA

  Not Thailand.

  The woman gave Murray her Visa card. That was refused, too.

  Diners Club, MasterCard.

  Nope.

  “We still take cash,” Murray offered.

  I raced into Mrs. Gladstone’s office, but she was out to lunch.

  I had to talk to somebody.

  Tanner was standing at my desk.

  Could I trust him?

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  I showed him the computer screen. Told him what I’d found.

  “You keeping all this safe someplace?”

  “I’ve got a file.”

  “It’s locked?”

  “No.”

  “Lock it.”

  I felt a chill go through me.

  I told him that the missing piece was what happened to the shoes once they got off the boat in Long Beach. I hadn’t called Cross Country Trucking yet.

  He handed me the phone. “Call them, but don’t ask straight out.”

  “Will you stay here while I call?”

  “Yeah.” He stood there like a sentry.

  I called Cross Country Trucking and got a guy named Sal on close to the worst day of his life. He had a tractor trailer stuck under an overpass in Nashville. He told me they had another pickup scheduled tomorrow if the weather held in the Pacific.

  I asked, “What’s your usual route, Sal?”

  “We pick up at Long Beach by customs and drive it straight through to the Bangor warehouse.”

  And no one caught on until now.

  GLADSTONE SHOES

  Made exclusively in the USA

  I felt nauseous.

  Tanner sat down when I told him. “You understand you got information a lot of people don’t want you to have.”

  I didn’t like the way he said that. “I . . . understand that.”

  “You understand that people do all kind of things to not get caught.”

  I gulped. “Well, yeah . . .”

  “Keep your head down.”

  I slumped in my chair. “What do you mean exactly?”

  “Anybody outside of us asks, you know nothing.”

  “Mrs. Gladstone. I think, that is, I know . . . at least I think I know . . .”

  “Out with it, Jenna.”

  I blurted, “Gladstone shoes are being made in Thailand and then shipped to Bangor.” I told her what Lou had said.

  She looked sadly at the picture of Elden as a laughing child. He’d been a cute little boy. She reached for that photograph. Everything within me told me to shut up, but the truth was stuck in my throat and if I didn’t say it, I’d probably choke.

  “That’s not him anymore, Mrs. Gladstone.”

  I thought she was going to start yelling.

  “It’s not him. You’ve got to have another picture in your mind of him because if you don’t, your son is going to keep hurting you.”

  She put the picture down fast and stared out the window.

  I wasn’t sure if I should say this next part. “Mrs. Gladstone, sometimes the worst thing you can do for someone you love is look the other way when you know they’re doing something really wrong.” I told her about my dad driving drunk and how I had to stop him.

  She looked at me almost tenderly.

  “That’s the hard part of finding out the truth, ma’am.”

  “And how is your relationship with your father now, if I may ask.”

  I let out a big breath. “We haven’t got one right now.”

  “I’m sorry, dear. You deserve better.”

  “So do you.”

  She looked at Elden’s little boy face. “He was such a thoughtful child. I don’t understand what happened.” She turned back to me. “Get me Leona Kyler on the phone in San Diego.”

  Leona Kyler is one of Mrs. Gladstone’s top store managers. Her store is always in the top five in sales year after year.

  I got her on the line.

  Mrs. Gladstone reached for the phone. “Leona, just how tough are you feeling today?”

  Chapter 21

  Leona Kyler was feeling really tough. She marched down to Long Beach, shoved her Gladstone’s security pass around, and demanded to look inside the shipping crates after they got through customs for inspection. She said the whole shipment contained Rollings Walkers with minuscule easy pull-off labels that read MADE IN THAILAND. Those labels got them through customs, she said, but it was obvious they were yanked off by the time they got to Maine.

  Mrs. Gladstone picked up the crab shell on my desk. “Shells are interesting creations, Jenna. They can protect, they can cover.” She held it up to the fluorescent light. “Or they can hide. Have you ever heard of a shell corporation?”

  “No.”

  “Too often they are companies that only exist on paper that are used to hide illegal financial activity.”

  The puzzle pieces were coming together.

  Plant 427 was in Thailand.

  West Virginia Shoe was the cover-up company.

  Trade Winds International was nothing but a no-information website.

  Mrs. Gladstone whirled into action. “I’m going to need to talk to an attorney, Jenna, one who isn’t connected with the company. It appears I’m swimming with at least one shark. They won’t be too happy about being discovered.”

  I figured if I needed a lawyer, she would have mentioned it. The only lawyer I’d ever met did mom’s divorce. As for sharks, I’d met enough of them to know that they were always hungry.

  The next day, Mrs. Gladstone struggled to speak. “The press has done the investigative work for us with regard to this overseas operation in Thailand. Apparently the conditions in the factory are deplorable.” She raised her ancient chin high. “We are running, it seems, a full-scale sweatshop.”

  I took a deep breath. I knew sweatshops were places that hired poor people and made them work too long hours for hardly any money. She held a paper in her hand, put on her glasses, and began to read. “Gladstone Shoes has been found to have engaged in systematic and serious violations of workers’ rights in Thailand, including, but not limited to”—she winced—“child labor. The children at the factory were found to be of eleven to fourteen years of age. They are forced to work twelve- to fourteen-hour shifts. They are exposed to gross health and safety infractions. They are fined if they do not meet their production quotas for the day, and the quotas are set unfairly high.”

  I was having trouble breathing.

  “It was found that workers of all ages at this factory were subjected to verbal abuse and harassment, workers are restricted from using toilet facilities regularly, and those who have complained have been fired or penalized.” She shook her head. “God help us.” She stopped and collected herself. “There are no pay slips so that people actually know how much they’re making, no emergency processes in place, the cafeterias are dirty, the food is unsafe, employees do not have protective equipment when working on the machines, there are heavy chemical fumes and poor ventilation . . .” She threw the paper down. “All in the name of the almighty dollar! Let’s save money at the cost of our responsibility to our workers!”

  I didn’t know what to say. I tried to picture what it was like there and couldn’t.

  “I thank God this has been discovered. I’m going to do everything I know to make it right for those people!”

  Her phone buzzed. “Yes,” she said impatiently. “Tell him to wait, Murray. . . . Yes, I know he says it’s terribly important.” She turned back to me. “An article about this is coming out in tomorrow’s Dallas Herald. After that, it will be picked up on all the news wires.” She pushed her chair away from the desk. “There is no excuse and I will not make one. I shou
ld have known what was happening in my own company. I just thank God my husband and father aren’t here to witness this.”

  I didn’t say what I was thinking—how Elden probably masterminded this whole thing.

  “It’s going to be a feeding frenzy for a while with the media, Jenna.”

  I thought about that one trip Mom, Faith, and I took to SeaWorld, where we watched the sharks being fed. They’d just swoop in and gobble up the food—bumping into each other, swishing through the water, those big jaws chomping away at lunch.

  “Tell me what you want me to do, Mrs. Gladstone.”

  She raised a bony finger and pointed it at me. “I want you to learn from this. I want you to write it on your heart. I want you to see and understand that businesses who do this should and must answer to the consequences.”

  I stood on the sales floor of Gladstone’s and looked at the children’s tree. All I could think about were eleven-year-old kids working in some Thailand sweatshop making shoes all day, every day of their young lives.

  Tanner was heading out. I stopped him.

  “There’s going to be trouble tomorrow, Tanner. Something big.”

  He turned around. “I figured it was coming.”

  “You want to go get a pizza?”

  “Yeah.”

  He headed out the door and started walking down the street.

  “I meant together.”

  “How bad’s this thing that’s coming?”

  I explained about the article in the paper, the accusations, how Gladstone’s wasn’t about that, but we had to deal with what had been done.

  Tanner ate some pizza. “People think they can shove poor people around and they won’t get caught. They think kids’ll get too scared or be too stupid to turn anyone in. You know what’s stronger than fear?”