Seasons of Her Life

by Fern Michaels

  Inside the sweet-smelling kitchen Ruby found herself gaping at an array of papers spread out on the kitchen table. These papers belonged to the young man. Business papers, probably contracts. He was serious. Well, by God, so was she. She smiled and held out her hand. “I’m Ruby Blue, half of Mrs. Sugar. I’m sure Dixie introduced herself. I hope it’s not too much trouble to ask you to explain your offer again.”

  Kevin Sandler pushed his glasses closer to his eyes. “I represent the food concession for the Monmouth College cafeteria. My sister is matriculating there and she dates a boy from Rutgers. It seems her boyfriend bought a bag of your cookies and shared them with her. She said they were excellent, and now that Mrs. Sinclaire has given me one of each to try, I’d say I agree. We’ll pay seventy-five cents a dozen. We’ll pick up ourselves. The bags, while nice, aren’t really necessary. Since we’ll be buying by the gross, you can pack them in baker’s boxes, which we’ll return, so you’ll need two sets. We also supply the food for Rutgers, Princeton, Rensselaer, NJIT, and quite a few of the community colleges. It’s just a matter of time before we’re under contract for all the community colleges.”

  “Ninety cents,” Ruby said briskly.

  “Seventy-seven,” Kevin said just as briskly.

  “Eighty-five.”

  “Eighty. Don’t counter, it’s as high as I’m authorized to go.”

  “Agreed,” Ruby said coolly. “However, we can’t make delivery until the first of April.”

  “That’s fine. It will take that long to get the paper work under way. This is our agreement. Show it to your attorney. I’ll be in touch. You don’t have any extra cookies I can take along with me, do you?” he asked, snapping the briefcase closed.

  Dixie handed him two bags. He thanked her politely and left as quietly as he’d arrived.

  “He said we need business cards,” Dixie whispered, “and he gave me the name of a printer. Ruby, what are we going to do?”

  “I don’t know. I really don’t know. I hate to admit this, but I think Andrew’s right. I am stupid. How could I have forgotten something as important as a license?”

  “Then I’m just as stupid, because I didn’t think of it, either.” Dixie groaned.

  “What are we going to do with all this dough we made last night?”

  Ruby looked at the huge stainless steel bowls full of cookie dough. It had taken them hours to mix. “We’re not throwing it out, that’s for sure. One of us has to stay here and bake and the other one has to go down and get a license they won’t let us use. Do you have any extra money? All I have is eight dollars.”

  “Ruby, you know I don’t have any money.”

  “You keep saying that. Look, I’ve been robbing from Peter to pay Paul. You’re going to have to do the same thing. Look at me, Dixie. There’s no place else I can get money. I am tapped out. I can’t come up with a dollar extra. It’s your turn. I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is. Otherwise, we have to pack it in and call it quits.”

  “What . . . what do you want me to do?”

  “You told me you and Hugo have a joint savings account. That means whatever is in that account is half yours. If you want to, you can draw out money; all you have to do is sign a withdrawal slip. I’d hoped it wasn’t going to come to this, but I can’t carry all the burden. As it is, I owe Andrew for the ovens. I owe Paul and Grace. I’ve juggled my own bills to pay our bills. The money I get from my closing next week is already spent. We have to get a lawyer, too. I’ve covered your part-time salary these past weeks so Hugo won’t find out what we’re up to.”

  “What about the quilt? If we have no money and can’t make any until we get the town’s okay, where am I going to come up with a quilt? He’ll kill me if he finds out,” Dixie blubbered.

  “The quilt is taken care of. I wrote to Nola’s mother and asked her if she’d make one for you. She said she would and promised it for Mother’s Day. She agreed to wait for the money.”

  “Okay, I’ll do it!” Dixie said in a shaky voice after a long moment of struggling with her fears. “How much?”

  Ruby swayed dizzily. “At least a hundred dollars. We’ll find a way to put it back before the bank computes the quarterly interest. If Hugo gets nasty and finds out, tell him the price of materials for quilts has gone up.”

  Dixie wiped her tears. Ruby blew her nose.

  “We survived this hurdle,” Ruby said. “I’ll stop by and see that lawyer, the one who’s on the corner of Main Street. You get the money and meet me at the town hall in half an hour. While I get the license and fill out the papers, you come back here and take some of the dough home and bake there. I’ll finish up here with the rest of the dough. Is that okay with you?

  “Hugo Sinclaire, if you so much as touch a hair on her head, I will personally kill you,” Ruby hissed in her quiet, empty kitchen.

  Ruby dropped her head into her hands. She cried, her shoulders shaking uncontrollably. What right did she have to tell Dixie to steal from her husband? What if something happened to her friend? She shouldn’t be expected to carry the whole load—workwise and financially. Partners meant a fifty-fifty split in every sense of the word. Business was business. Time was money. “What about friendship and endangering one’s life?” She wailed. It was Dixie’s decision in the end. Dixie didn’t have to do it. Sure she did, her conscience pricked. You goaded her. “It’s fair,” Ruby shouted. Financially, it’s fair; morally, it isn’t. You know it, Ruby Blue. You know it!

  Ruby reached for the phone. She dialed Dixie’s number. Her heart pounded as she listened to the ringing phone. Finally, Dixie’s breathless voice came over the wire. “Don’t do it, Dixie. Don’t go to the bank. I’ll think of something else. Come back here for the cookie dough. I’m sorry, Dixie. I had no right to put you in a position like that.” The relief in her friend’s voice was obvious. My God, what kind of person was she turning into? Fall back and regroup.

  The something else came to Ruby after she had paced out of the kitchen, into the hall, through the dining room, into the living room, and back to the dining room.

  The first used-furniture dealer she called said he would stop by with his truck at four o’clock. “I won’t take a penny less than five hundred dollars. If you aren’t interested, don’t take up my time. This is solid cherrywood and has two hutches and eight chairs, plus two table extensions in perfect condition. It seats twelve comfortably. Bring the money.”

  It took a long time for Ruby to soothe the sobbing Dixie when she found out what Ruby had done. “You don’t need me, Ruby. I’m more of a problem than I’m worth. When we needed my help the most, I didn’t come through. I’m so sorry.”

  “You were willing to do it and that’s all that matters. We’re friends, I thought you knew that. Later, when we get some cash flow, you can put some back in the business if you feel that strongly.”

  “But, Ruby, you love that dining room set. I’m so sorry.”

  “One should never get attached to material objects. Besides, now we’ll have a nine-by-twelve room to fill with cookies. Wall to wall.” She laughed then because she didn’t want to cry.

  The rest of the day passed in a blur for Ruby. She had a license to operate Mrs. Sugar’s Cookies, but it was temporary, pending council approval. She’d paid a fifty-dollar retainer to the law firm of Spitzer and Spitzer to handle their case at the council meeting, and she had five hundred dollars in her purse from the sale of her dining room set. But the best thing that happened was her realization that friendship was more important than material things, or even the business, when it came down to the bottom line. She felt now as though her friendship with Dixie was carved in granite.

  The days until the council meeting were hectic. Ruby tramped the streets with a petition for permission to operate Mrs. Sugar out of her garage. It took her ten days to cover the five-block radius the town required. She had no objectors. While Ruby trudged the streets, Dixie oversaw the sketchy work that was going on in the garage to bring it up to town code. A w
hite tile floor was installed. A fire wall and fire door took two full days of work. Two coats of fresh white paint were added to the new plasterboarded walls. Even the secondhand refrigerator gleamed with a fresh coat of enamel. The effect was so sanitary-looking, it blinded the eye.

  Ruby called for an inspection the day after the work was finished.

  To Ruby’s delight, the health inspector slapped an approved sticker on the wall. “This doesn’t mean the town is going to let you run this business. All this sticker means is it’s up to code. You have to pass the zoning code before you can turn those ovens on again.” He looked at the crisp dimity curtains on the garage window and door. He snorted. “It figures; women think curtains will fix up anything.”

  Ruby gnashed her teeth together. “Good-bye, Inspector.

  “Two more days, Dix, that’s all, and we’ll be back in business. Mr. Spitzer said he didn’t think there would be a problem. His cousin is on the town council.”

  Joel Spitzer was wrong; there was a problem. The town council voted to allow Mrs. Sugar to operate for ten months at number 7 Ribbonmaker Lane. Their thinking, Spitzer told Ruby the night of the meeting, was that the business would mushroom and bring too much traffic to the street: delivery trucks, drivers making cookie deliveries, and customers who walked in off the street.

  “Look at it as a vote of confidence, Mrs. Blue,” Spitzer said. “The men on the council are businessmen, and if they feel your business is going to grow, it probably will. Ten months is plenty of time for you to find a suitable location downtown. You’re going to need a parking area and a loading dock. You’re probably going to need a bigger refrigeration system, more ovens, and shelves. In other words, more room. I consider this a win for you, Mrs. Blue. I hope you do, too. And, my wife, who considers herself one of the better cookie bakers in our family, said your cookies are the best she’s ever eaten. Congratulations!”

  Ruby walked on air as she relayed the news to a jittery Dixie. “He’s right, Dix, it’s a win for us and ... a real plus that those men think we’re going to make it. We can look for a new location on weekends. Now we have to start mixing dough for Monmouth College. We have four days till our first delivery. You did find us a driver for our other customers?”

  “Two. One who is on call. He’s a retired public service man. It’s a good way for him to supplement his income. His wife took the job for him, but he agreed. The crossing guard downtown gave me his number, and they’re both nice men. They won’t let us down.”

  The following morning the ovens were turned on five minutes after the gas company hooked up the gas—for the second time. The women virtually worked around the clock, taking catnaps every four hours or so until their first order for Monmouth College was completely filled.

  Kevin Sandler balked at Ruby’s demand for cash when she wouldn’t hand over her cookies to his driver. “A check will do nicely, Mr. Sandler. Because I’m a woman, I can’t get credit for my supplies, so that means I have to deal on a cash basis. I’m sorry, but that’s the way it has to be.”

  “This is a major problem, Mrs. Blue. I wish you had told me this before we signed our contract.”

  “Why is that, Mr. Sandler? Were you planning on stiffing me? I pay cash, you pay cash. From here on in, it shouldn’t be a problem. The cookie business is not like most businesses. You eat the cookie, it’s gone. If you haven’t paid by then, it’s only human nature not to want to pay.”

  “Okay. I’ll write it in my report, and I’ll be out there sometime this afternoon with a check.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Sandler. These cookies don’t leave here till I have a check in my hand. Your driver is waiting. What should I tell him?”

  “Tell him,” Sandler said through tight lips, “a special messenger is on the way with a check. He should be there in thirty minutes.”

  Ruby smiled. Dixie smiled. The driver munched on cookies.

  Mrs. Sugar and her cookies thrived. Three part-time housewives were hired to bake in four-hour shifts. At the end of three months, Ruby and Dixie hired a night crew to bake until the early hours of the morning. Three more drivers were added to the payroll, and still there wasn’t enough help or enough ovens to fill the demand for the sweet confections.

  In the fifth month they purchased two more commercial ovens and hired more housewives. They now had a list of women waiting to be hired for the night shift. Retirees knocked on the door constantly, asking for jobs as part-time drivers.

  By the end of the sixth month Mrs. Sugar was forced to move from the cramped garage into new downtown quarters. Ruby and Dixie no longer actively baked, but they did mix the dough; they didn’t want to give away Ruby’s grandmother’s old country recipes. Their time was suddenly filled with paperwork, visits to Joel Spitzer’s offices, scheduling, handling phone calls, and seeing to the distribution of their cookies. Thanks to Kevin Sandler, they now held the exclusive contract for every college and university in the state of New Jersey, although they’d had to reduce their unit price by fifteen cents.

  By the time Mrs. Sugar’s first anniversary rolled around, the company was operating in the black. They put their first five-dollar bill of real profit in a frame and hung it in Ruby’s kitchen over the stove, as a symbol of both their success and the strength of their partnership. All bills were paid and a prestigious accounting firm was hired to handle finances. Joel Spitzer relinquished their account to the even more prestigious firm of Friedman, Farren, and Armenakis, saying he could no longer do them justice, but keep sending the cookies, please.

  Both women gasped when the twinkly-eyed Friedman said they should give some thought to expanding and possibly offering franchises at some point. He handed them a list of colleges and universities in the Manhattan area. Ruby was at a loss for words. Dixie smiled happily. “A retainer will be required,” Friedman said. “I’d like you to meet my associate, Alan Kaufman. He’ll be handling the franchising if you agree.”

  Ruby studied the urbane Kaufman and made an instant decision. “Okay, but not yet. I want to lock in a certain supermarket chain’s account first. I have this friend . . .”

  On the first day of May, two weeks after filing her personal income tax return, Dixie, with Ruby’s help, filed an amended return, and rented a post office box and a safe deposit box. The keys were kept in a locked drawer in their new offices.

  The second major event on the first day of May was the contract the two women signed with a trucking company to move their cookie dough to a Mrs. Sugar at an as yet undisclosed location.

  The third was the arrival of heavy-duty mixing machines, which would free Ruby and Dixie from their long night’s labor. In a little less than two hours the machines did what it took Ruby and Dixie eight hours to do.

  On the eve of their second anniversary Mrs. Sugar moved to a converted warehouse in Asbury Park, which they rented with an option to buy. Mrs. Sugar now employed close to a hundred people, most of them housewives, and ran three full-time shifts. The twelve-thousand-square-foot building had wall-to-wall ovens, islands of refrigerators, and six double sinks. Paper products were stored in an adjacent building, which they had also rented with an option to buy. The refrigerated trucks were now moving Mrs. Sugar’s cookie dough to New York and Pennsylvania.

  “We’re going out on the town,” Ruby said when the two women returned to her house in Rumson. “We’re driving into New York, and Mrs. Sugar is picking up the tab. We’ll wear those fancy outfits we bought in Bloomingdale’s last month when we were in New York. I called the Four Seasons and made a reservation this morning.”

  Dixie’s eyes sparkled. “A real New York restaurant! I’ve never been to one.”

  “Neither have I. You use the downstairs shower and I’ll use the one upstairs. Your clothes are all in the front closet.”

  “I feel like I have two identities. I’d love to go,” she said dejectedly, “but I have to make Hugo’s dinner. Some other time.”

  “Oh, no, that isn’t going to work. You want me to come up wi
th an excuse or a way out for you. This time, Dix, you’re on your own. But I’m telling you this, I’m going, with or without you. We’ve done nothing but work round the clock for two full years. We are never going to have another second anniversary. I’m celebrating! This is my night!” Ruby called airily over her shoulder as she made her way up the steps.

  Ruby waited at the top of the steps. She let her breath out in a loud swoosh when Dixie called, “Okay, okay, I’m going, but I have to go home and leave a note for Hugo. I’ll be back in ten minutes, or as long as it takes me to come up with a plausible explanation.”

  “A suitable explanation would be to tell him to drop dead,” Ruby muttered under her breath. “Barring death, tell him to take a hike and never darken your life again.” She stopped short. She was interfering in Dixie’s life again, even if in a different way. She was about to reach for the phone to call Dixie and cancel the evening, when the phone rang. “How’s this sound?” Dixie chortled. “Hugo, I’m going out to dinner with Ruby. I’m probably going to be very late, since we’re going to New York. If I get back after twelve, I’ll sleep over at her place. I’m sorry, but if I don’t get back, you’ll have to make your own dinner and breakfast.”

  “It’s the truth!” Ruby squalled in delight.

  “Exactly. I’m tired of telling lies. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  “I was just about to call you and cancel. I don’t want to make trouble for you, Dixie.”

  “Fat chance. You aren’t celebrating our second anniversary without me. We’re a team.”

  They were a team with plenty to celebrate, Ruby thought happily as she stepped into the shower. Right now she had more money than she knew what to do with. Seeing an investment counselor was on the top of her priority list. Everyone was happy, even Andrew. Young Andy was ready to go out on his own with a friend and open his own business. She’d promised, with Dixie’s approval, to have him design a new building that would be the Mrs. Sugar corporate headquarters.