Rules of the Road

by Joan Bauer

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m your son.”

  She leaned forward and raised an angry hand. “You have gone behind my back, you have gone to my board of directors to try to overthrow me, you have sought to make deals with this company you had no right to negotiate, you have been dishonest, disreputable, and devious. You have not earned the right, my son, to speak with me privately.”

  The color drained from Elden’s face until he perfectly matched the sofa. He clenched his jaw until I thought blood would drip out.

  “Everything I have done, Mother, was for the financial good of this company.”

  “That’s manure!”

  Elden stood up fast. “We see things differently, you and I. You see some grand moral plan that sells shoes like they’re the cure for cancer. They’re shoes, Mother. Just shoes. Maybe you and Dad needed to think of them as something more. And that’s fine. But in the real world, it doesn’t matter if you’re selling shoes, or widgets, or Lear jets. What matters is the bottom line. How much you make. What the company’s worth. How to get the stock up. And you’re kidding yourself if you think business is anything more than that!”

  “I would not be in business if I thought that was all it was about!”

  Elden slammed his hands to his side. “That’s why it’s time for you to retire. That’s why the board will accept your resignation, hands down. It’s over. The stockholders want the takeover, we will make a great deal of money. Our profits this quarter have been terrific. Take your millions and have a ball!”

  “How do you account for those fourth quarter profits?”

  “Smart merchandising, Mother. Just taking the company to the next level.”

  Mrs. Gladstone looked at him hard. “What about quality?”

  He picked at his manicured nail. “Not many people can tell a well-made shoe these days. Decent sells well enough.”

  “I can tell!” Her eyes blasted through him. Elden looked away. “If your father was alive—”

  “He’d thank me! Dad was a salesman. He understood the bottom line. There are no guarantees out there anywhere, and I’ll tell you, that scares me. So when I can turn a fat profit, I’m going to do it to protect my future and—”

  “Get out,” Mrs. Gladstone whispered.

  “Now look, Mother, I know you’re upset, but—”

  “Get out.” She said the next part quietly. “Jenna will see you to the door.”

  I stood super tall and looked down at Elden like he was fertilizer. I wished I was wearing one of those Kung Fu robes and could stand by the couch and do high kicks like a bodyguard.

  He reared up. “I will not be pushed out by some giant—”

  Mrs. Gladstone rammed her old hand hard on the thick wood coffee table. “Be very careful of your words!”

  Elden stormed toward the door, saying he could find his own way out. I followed him, in case he was as stupid as he looked. He opened the door, glared up at me.

  “I don’t like your game,” he hissed, his pasty face getting pink. “And just in case you haven’t heard, no one pushes me around.”

  CHAPTER 17

  Harry Bender, the world’s greatest shoe salesman, bent over the Bass shoe display at the downtown Dallas Gladstone’s, which was, without question, the biggest shoe store I had ever seen. It had three floors—men’s, women’s, and children’s—and a huge white spiral staircase that wrapped around the largest plastic foot in the universe, with toes that started by the Johnston and Murphy display and a leg that reached to the sky past the women’s squared-toe flats. Everything is bigger in Texas.

  Harry was about my size. He was wearing handstitched Tony Lama snakeskin cowboy boots and a very large Stetson hat. His starched white shirt was open at the neck—no tie. He had the kind of face you could picture laying in the sewer someplace after getting beat up.

  “Now this one here,” he held up a leather walker to the man he was waiting on, “this one’s got everything you need. Good traction, hugs the road.”

  “Sounds like a tire,” the man said, amused.

  “Better than a tire. This old shoe’ll take you places a tire only dreamed of.”

  “Eleven D,” the man said, smiling.

  Harry Bender tipped his hat to me and Mrs. Gladstone and hustled into the back and came out moments later with a box.

  “See,” Harry was saying, putting the shoe on the man, lacing it up. “Most folks don’t treat their feet right. They just take shoes for granted. I tell you shoes can turn a life around. Twenty-three years ago I was drunk and out of work and so broke I was wearing bedroom slippers. But a priest took pity on me and got me a pair of soft leather tie-ons. I figured then and there that God was telling me to straighten up and sell shoes or join the priesthood.”

  “I see the shoes won,” the man said, chuckling.

  “Well, the Lord knew I’d given my wife enough guff. The priesthood would of blown her cork clear to Amarillo.”

  The man was laughing, standing up in the Basses. “They feel good,” he said, wiggling his toes.

  “Yeah, those’ll do you a good turn. You want to wear ’em or carry ’em?”

  “I’ll keep them on.”

  “Mr. Rodriguez,” Harry Bender bellowed happily at a mustached man behind the counter, “get this fine gentleman checked out so he can go back to celebrating the good life God gave him.”

  Everyone in the store was grinning. Some people just naturally make you glad to be alive.

  Harry Bender raced up to Mrs. Gladstone and grabbed her two bony hands in his big hairy ones. “Blast, Maddy, it’s good to see you.”

  Mrs. Gladstone looked at him beaming. “You making me rich, Harry?”

  He patted her hands. “Every day, old girl.” Harry Bender grinned at me. He had the most genuine smile I’d ever seen, not a scrap of fakeness in it. “You must be Jenna.” He put his hand out to me. “Welcome to Texas.”

  We ate lunch with Harry Bender and he was putting away as much Texas barbecue as a human being could and still be conscious: brisket, pinto beans, sausage, Texas toast. He was wearing a lapel pin, “Live each day as though it’s your last,” but I didn’t think it was referring to food consumption. The restaurant had long tables covered with paper, and the man carving the brisket shouted “Señor Bender!” when we walked in and sliced us the best pieces of meat, using that knife of his like a sculptor. It was the best barbecue I’d ever tasted, which reminded me of the B minus I got last year on a history paper that should have been an A-minus easy. The topic was, What are the things America will be remembered for? I wrote baseball, jazz, barbecue, and the Constitution. Mr. Hellritter wrote “Limited” across the top of my essay in red pen, which I guess I should have expected, him being a vegetarian. Opal is a vegetarian except when barbecue is around. She says barbecue is a food group unto itself. That’s one of the things I like about her. She doesn’t fight it when the lines blur.

  Harry Bender and Mrs. Gladstone had moved from talking about Elden to talking about the good old days.

  “This man,” Mrs. Gladstone was laughing, “came to our Dallas store twenty-three years ago insisting we hire him even though he had no experience.”

  “You were the biggest thing in town, Maddy. I figured why waste my talent in some joint?”

  “What were you doing before, sir?”

  “I was a ranch hand in Fort Worth; went from place to place pretty much.”

  I could see him wrestling cows to the ground.

  “Yeah, I stormed right in, told Floyd it was his lucky day, God had sent me. He hired me on the spot. Haven’t had a drink since.”

  I smiled. “You make it sound easy.”

  “Staying sober is the hardest thing I do. Sometimes I’m with someone who’s drinking and feeling happy and I start thinking I can handle it now. I can have one. Then I remember what a fat lie that is. I can’t handle a drop.”

  Mr. Bender’s cell phone started ringing. He flipped it open. “You got Harry,” he said into the re
ceiver.

  He listened, covered the phone with his hand. “One of the fellas I sponsor in AA,” he whispered to me and Mrs. Gladstone. “He’s new at being sober. Gets the jitters sometimes.”

  Mrs. Gladstone patted my hand and excused herself to go to the bathroom. Harry Bender rammed his toothpick on the table. “No, no, no,” he said into the phone. “You know if you take a drink you’re not going to be able to stop.”

  He listened some more.

  “I know how hard it is, but you can’t get near that stuff. It’s poison in your life and the Lord couldn’t have made that more clear if he’d hung you by your toes over a manure pile. You listen to me, old boy, and throw it out now . . .I know it . . .I know it . . .all right . . .call back if you need to.”

  Harry closed his phone, stuck it back on his belt.

  “That’s great you sponsor people, Mr. Bender.”

  “That’s what it’s about. Had some fine men help me years ago. Just trying to return the favor.”

  I took a deep breath. “Boy . . .I, um . . .I wish you could talk to my father. He . . .”

  “Hits the sauce?”

  “Yeah,” I said quietly.

  “Your dad at a point where he wants to talk?”

  “No.”

  He sniffed. “You getting help for yourself?”

  I told him about Al-Anon and the way we talked about things in my family.

  “Best thing you can do for your dad is love him and pray for him and don’t let him step on you or let his disease infect you any more than it has.”

  “I try.”

  “So many hurting people,” Harry Bender said, looking out the window. “I’ll tell you what, though, if you set your mind and heart toward a healthy way of living and thinking, you’ll find a way to climb out of the biggest pit life throws your way.”

  He flipped his Stetson back on his head and smiled.

  I didn’t say what I was thinking.

  How I wished he was my father.

  CHAPTER 18

  I sat on the white bed in the all-white guest room in Mrs. Gladstone’s house and really felt like a visitor. It was the kind of room that forced you to make the bed and pick up your dirty clothes even though it was against your nature. I hugged my knees and wondered what it would have been like if Harry Bender had been my father.

  I saw him taking me out in the backyard when I was small and teaching me all about shoes.

  I saw him feeding me little bites of barbecue when I was a baby.

  Mostly I saw him just being there—someone you could count on who shot hoops with you after dinner. Someone who came to your school plays even though you were playing non-speaking tall parts, like trees and giant lizards. Someone who understood that what kids need most from their fathers is for them to be available and loving.

  I curled under the covers and opened the letter my mother had sent me. “Hello out there,” it began.

  I have told Faith she cannot have your room, despite the fact that she offered me money. I suppose we all have our price, but she was going to have to do a whole lot better than twenty-seven dollars. We are shouldering work, life, and Chicago humidity with the usual grace and sophistication. I’m working too hard as usual. People continue to do stupid things to themselves and others, so, sadly, business in the emergency room is booming. I wonder sometimes if I’m seeing such a jaded part of life here day after day that it muddies my view of humanity. Part of me longs for a normal job, but I’ve tried to drop normal from my vocabulary because I have come to the conclusion, rightly or wrongly, that there is no such thing.

  I wonder what you are learning and seeing on the road, Jenna. Knowing you, it will be quite a lot. I hope that part of this trip is bringing you peace and understanding in addition to the much-needed time away.

  On a more complex note, I need to tell you that we’ve had to change our phone number to an unlisted one because your father has been calling late at night and he’s not been in the best form. I know this is hard news to hear when you’re away, but for safety’s sake I wanted you to have our new number—555-7790. It will be installed next week. Faith is handling this, so am I. It’s unfortunate that your dad’s problems continue, but for now an unlisted number seems to be the best way for us to deal with them.

  Don’t worry about us, Jenna. We’re doing fine. If you want to talk, you can call me at home or at the hospital. I think of you a dozen times each day and wish you grace, strength, and wisdom on your journey.

  Love, always,

  Mom

  A sickening anxiety washed over me. I looked at the white phone on the bedside table. I tried to swallow; I couldn’t. I felt a panic take hold.

  I shouldn’t have left.

  I had to call her. I reached for the phone. My hand froze above the receiver.

  I closed my eyes and remembered myself as a little girl.

  The phone rang. Dad was drunk, told me to answer it; say he wasn’t home.

  “I don’t want to, Daddy.”

  “Do it.”

  I walked to it slowly, hoping it would stop ringing before I got there.

  No such luck.

  “Hello?” I said, small and scared.

  “I’m looking for Jim Boller.” It was always an angry voice.

  I gulped. Looked at my father, who was staring at me. “He’s . . .not here.”

  “When will he be back?” the voice demanded.

  “I . . .I don’t know.”

  “Can you take a message?”

  “I can’t write good yet.”

  Click. The angry voice hung up.

  I stood there like someday my lying was going to catch up with me.

  “Good girl,” Dad said. “That wasn’t so bad, right?”

  I ran into the other room to play with my plastic animals that I kept in a box under my bed. Once Grandma got me a miniature phone so my animals could talk on it, but I gave it back to her because the animals didn’t like it.

  I shook the memory from my mind, grabbed the phone near the bed, punched buttons, waited, hoping I wouldn’t sound as nervous as I felt.

  The hospital receptionist switched me to the ER and finally I got Mom.

  “We’re fine, honey,” was the first thing she said.

  I could hear someone groaning in the background, the sound of racing footsteps.

  “You’re busy,” I said, feeling stiff.

  “A car accident.” I knew she couldn’t talk.

  “Do you want me to come home, Mom?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Is Dad . . .all right? I don’t think he means to do these things.”

  “Right now, Jenna, I’m just dealing with the fact that he does them.”

  I could hear a man say, “Carol, we need you.”

  “Be right there,” Mom said. “Can I call you tomorrow, Jenna? Are you all right?”

  “I’m okay. I don’t know where I’ll be tomorrow.”

  “Carol!” said the man insistently.

  “It’s okay, Mom. We’ll talk. I’ll write you a long letter.”

  “I love you, sweetie.”

  “I love you, too.”

  I didn’t get to ask her about Grandma.

  I sat on the bed holding the letter; the weight of it rolled over me. I thought about how Mom had crawled out from such a painful marriage, how she’d pushed herself to look at the things she needed to change.

  “If you set your mind and heart toward a healthy way of living and thinking,” Harry Bender had said, “you’ll find a way to climb out of the biggest pit life throws your way.”

  Then for some reason I saw myself as a little girl again.

  The phone rang.

  Dad told me to answer it; say he wasn’t home.

  This time I dug my red sneakers into the blue braided rug and said no.

  Not this time, Daddy.

  The next day Mrs. Gladstone and I had a fight about her thinking I needed a day off and me saying I didn’t.

  “You need to rest
!” she hollered. “You’ve been on duty day and night.”

  “I’m not too good at resting. It makes me nervous.”

  “Now what in the world are you saying?”

  Alice came out of the other guest room in the midst of it, looked me up and down like I needed fumigating, and held up a small pair of scissors.

  “It’s time, honey,” she said. “You need bangs.”

  “Um . . .no . . .I . . .”

  But retired shoe models get pushy. She plopped me down on a bench in the hall in front of a floor-to-ceiling gold mirror. “Just a few wispy bangs,” she said, lifting my hair off my shoulders and letting it fall. “It’ll frame your face so nicely; give you some softness. Won’t hurt a bit.”

  I said, “I’m not sure about this,” as she parceled out my hair over my forehead.

  Alice stood back. “I’m sure. I was the lead hairstylist at the Queen for a Day Beauty Salon and Nail Emporium for seven years before I went into shoe modeling. My customers begged me to stay, they were hanging onto my arms on my last day, weeping themselves silly. You’d have thought somebody died.”

  I groaned, closed my eyes. I hated the sound of snipping scissors close to my face.

  She snipped a bit, a bit more, stood back.

  More still.

  “I’m taking some off the sides,” she said, not asking. Hairdressers never do. If they touch your hair, they think they own it.

  “Not much,” I pleaded.

  She took some off the sides, some off the back to even it out. By the time she was done, I was close to being a different person.

  “Very nice,” said Mrs. Gladstone.

  But Alice Lovett, retired shoe model wasn’t satisfied. She dragged me out the door in search of green clothing.

  CHAPTER 19

  “Suck it in, honey.”

  I sucked in my stomach and stood in front of a three-way mirror in the women’s changing area of Northrop’s Fashion Central, wearing a green shirt and a green checked skirt and a fat leather belt with a silver buckle that Alice had scooped from a fifty-percent-off basket like a prospector finding a hunk of gold in a stream. I grinned.