Rules of the Road

by Joan Bauer

  I pulled up to the tall glass headquarters of Gladstone’s Shoes in downtown Dallas. The windows were sparkling like they had no idea the deceit that was going on behind them. The sun was shining like all was well. The parking lot was filling up with Mercedeses and Chevy Suburbans. I dropped Mrs. Gladstone and Alice off at the entrance and said I’d meet them inside.

  Mrs. Gladstone moved slowly to the glass double doors, looked back at me and smiled bravely. Then she squared her old shoulders and walked inside with Alice behind her.

  I parked in the Executive Only section and if anyone gave me any guff about it, I was going to give it right back. I cracked my knuckles and got out of the car.

  The heat hung thick and depressive like a rotten mood. I walked in the building, followed the signs to the stockholders meeting, down the long, polished hall. A large, jovial man was standing at the door to the meeting room, checking off people’s names as they came in. I jingled the car keys in my hand and started toward him.

  That’s when Elden Gladstone jumped in front of me.

  “Jenna,” he said, “I want to thank you personally for all you’ve done for my mother.”

  You could have knocked me over. I looked down at him.

  Then he swiped the car keys from my hand, put them in his pocket. “But we’re not going to be needing your services now that she is retiring.”

  My heart was beating very fast.

  “You understand,” Elden said smoothly. “We’ll have someone drive you to the airport.”

  This wasn’t happening.

  “I’m sorry, sir, I don’t understand. I’m supposed to drive your mother back to Chicago.”

  Elden broke into a fake smile. “Let’s put it another way. You’re fired.”

  I stepped back.

  “You will be on the seven P.M. flight today back to Chicago. Here’s your ticket.” He slapped it in my hand. “Your severance check will be mailed to you at home along with your luggage. Don’t expect a referral from this company. Ever.”

  I stood there holding the ticket, frozen.

  A tall man with a bushy mustache appeared like a bad dream. Elden said, “Mac will get you a taxi. No one pushes me around.” Then he laughed and started walking off.

  “I’d like to talk to your mother, Mr. Gladstone. She’s the one who hired me.” I said this with more courage than I felt.

  Elden Gladstone turned to me like just looking at me hurt his eyes. “My mother doesn’t have anything to do with this company anymore,” he snapped.

  “She wanted me at that meeting, sir.”

  He looked at my shoes. “Stockholders only.”

  “But . . .”

  He nodded to Mac, who took my arm firmly and led me out the door, onto the stifling street. I tried to shake my arm free; I couldn’t do it. My insides were shaking.

  A cab pulled up, Mac gave the driver thirty dollars.

  “Dallas Airport,” Mac said coarsely to the driver, and opened the door for me. I got inside because I didn’t know what else to do.

  Think.

  “Any bags?” the driver asked.

  “They’ll be sent,” Mac said flatly.

  I felt like I was getting kicked out of the country.

  Mac stood firm by the cab in case I made a break for it. He crossed his thick arms and glared at me.

  I looked away. I couldn’t think.

  “Dallas Airport it is,” said the cabbie and started off.

  CHAPTER 25

  Defeated Teen Departs Dallas.

  The cabdriver moved in and out of traffic like a man on a mission. He was wearing a Dallas Cowboys hat, talking about how the Cowboys were the winningest team in football history. Ask me if I care.

  “Where you headed, miss?”

  I didn’t answer. I wasn’t sure.

  “Where’s home?” he tried again.

  I sat there frozen.

  Mrs. Gladstone had hired me.

  Mrs. Gladstone needed me.

  “You okay back there?”

  “Can you stop?” I asked him.

  He pulled to the side of the road.

  “I just got fired.”

  “Tough break.”

  “It shouldn’t have happened.”

  The driver turned to look at me. “You make somebody nervous or what?”

  I looked up. “I guess I did.”

  He nodded. “My brother used to say you can’t make nobody nervous unless they got something to hide.”

  That cleared my mind. “Will you turn around, sir?”

  “You want to go back?”

  “Yes.”

  “You sure?”

  Was I?

  “I’ve got something to finish,” I said.

  “Hold on, miss.” The cabbie did a three-point turn, nearly sideswiping a potato chip truck, and headed back to Gladstone’s headquarters. “Those big shots in suits, they think they can push anybody around. I pick ’em up, drive ’em to the airport, they act like I don’t exist.” He pulled into the driveway. “You want the front or the back?”

  “I don’t want anybody to see me.”

  “You want the back.”

  The cabbie drove around the back and stopped at a smaller door. I told him to keep the money.

  He smiled at me. “Those guys breathe the same oxygen as anybody else. Remember that.”

  It seemed like a good idea at the time. The problem was the back door was locked.

  It was 5:15. The meeting had already started.

  How could I get in?

  The Texas sun cast a long shadow of my figure. Grandma always said there was nothing more commanding than a tall woman who used her height. Height was about all I had left. I walked tall to the front of the building, through the front door, past a medium-sized bored security guard.

  “ID please,” he said.

  I had one of those. Whipped it out, looked down at him like if he tried something funny, he’d be sorry.

  “I’m late for a meeting,” I said brusquely.

  “Okay, okay.” He waved me forward.

  Perception is everything.

  Took the escalator up past waterfalls, flowering cactus trees, shiny mirrored walls that showed my tallness off at every imaginable angle. Took a Texas-sized breath. Don’t panic now. Saw the sign pointing to the meeting room. Walked to it quickly.

  Locked.

  I could hear the din of voices inside. I ran to the side door—locked, too. I raced down the hallway of Gladstone’s corporate headquarters, my 11⁄2 inch heels clicking on the floor tile, and ran smack into a gray-haired man with a briefcase, almost knocking him down.

  “I’m sorry, sir.”

  He pointed to the closed door. “That one locked, too?” He had a deep Texas voice.

  I nodded.

  “Well,” he said, “there’s always knocking.” The man strode to the big wooden double doors and gave them a strong rat-a-tat.

  Instantly another man in a gray suit opened the door.

  “Looks like we’re late,” the man I almost knocked down said.

  “Come on in.”

  The gatekeeper motioned us inside. Elden was sitting on a platform, listening to a woman with a bun read minutes from the last meeting. He froze solid when he saw me.

  “I hate these things,” the man I almost knocked down whispered to me.

  “This is my first one. I’m pretty excited about voting my shares.”

  “Good to take an interest in your investments.”

  Elden was shooting daggers at me from the stage. He caught Mac’s eye who looked shocked and started walking toward me. I thought about asking the man I almost knocked down if he wouldn’t mind being a human shield just for this meeting. He was big enough—six three at least. Just stand in front of me, sir . . .

  Mac stood at the end of my aisle and motioned me toward him.

  I shook my head.

  The woman reading the minutes of the last meeting was droning on and on about how many people were present and how many
employees Gladstone’s had nationally.

  Mac made an emphatic gesture that said I was to obey now.

  I looked away.

  “I think that fella is trying to get your attention,” the man I almost knocked down said.

  “Actually, sir, he’s trying to kick me out. I got fired today. I’m Mrs. Gladstone’s assistant.”

  He took off his glasses and looked at me.

  “They tried to send me back to Chicago without my luggage,” I whispered. “But I’m going to vote my fifty shares in this meeting even though I’m scared to do it.”

  Mac started pushing past seated people to get to me. He stood angrily by the man I almost knocked down and whispered, “Stockholders only.”

  “She is a stockholder,” said the man.

  “Fifty shares worth,” I whispered to Mac whose face got red. “Mrs. Gladstone gave them to me and I’m going to vote them. And I’m not too happy about that dip in profits on Monday.”

  The man I almost knocked down stifled a laugh.

  Mac tried to push past him, but he held out his big arm to hold Mac back. “I think that’s enough,” the man said quietly to Mac, and I absolutely agreed.

  “I let the cab driver keep your money,” I added. “And I’d rather pack my own suitcases, too. You know how it is.”

  Mac backed off and stood razor straight by the locked door. Elden was steaming on the podium like a bad radiator. He glared at Mac. Mac shrugged at him. Ken Woldman was sitting next to Elden, just grinning away. You could almost hear the calculator going off in his head tallying how much money he was going to make with this new deal.

  I looked toward the podium because Mrs. Gladstone had just been introduced. She walked toward the microphone with absolute elegance. I sat extra tall so she’d see me. She looked at the microphone like it was crawling with bugs.

  “Not everyone gets to be present at their own funeral,” she said, looking out at the crowd, looking into the faces of the people, not running or hiding, just being brave.

  Alice was up front. The shoe people leaned forward, the other ones leaned back.

  “My son tells me that the days of Gladstone’s Shoes are over as we knew them,” she said crisply. “He tells me that price cutting and warehousing are the new world order of this new retail world. I must tell you truthfully, I don’t know how to do business in this new environment. I only know how to sell one good pair of shoes at a time.

  “My father, many of you know, was a Baptist minister. You can’t live in a house with a preacher and not have some of it rub off.”

  People were smiling.

  “I’d like to tell you a story I heard him tell over the years about a man who owned a big construction company and wanted to build the best house that money could buy. He put his son in charge of the building, since his son was his partner in business and he trusted him. Every week the man asked the son, ‘Are you building it well, son? Are you using the best materials, the best builders?’ And every week the son answered, ‘Yes, Father. I haven’t skimped anywhere.’ But the truth was the son had cut corners in materials and workmanship and was pocketing the money. And when the house was finally built, the father asked him one last time, ‘Did you build it well, son, with the finest of everything?’ Again the son said he had. And then the father, busting with joy, said, ‘Then I give it to you, son. It’s your home to live in. I wanted to give you the best I knew how to give.’”

  Quiet hung in the room.

  “And so,” Mrs. Gladstone concluded, “I am retiring today; officially, unequivocally, after fifty years of building and growing and aching and celebrating with this company. I leave you with the words of my late husband, I commend them to my son and to every person involved in this company and beyond: If the time ever comes when you can no longer look the customer in the eye, then it is time to get out of the business. I am taking his advice. I am getting out now.”

  There was an audible gasp as Mrs. Gladstone turned slowly like a great queen and sat down.

  I jumped up. “Mrs. Gladstone, no!”

  People didn’t know what to do. A few clapped. Most just sat there, their mouths hanging open like dead fish. Elden lunged toward the podium and said something mangy about his mother’s great contributions to the shoe industry and her charisma as a leader, but who he really was spoke so loudly, his fake words were drowned out in a cloud of bull. Then Ken Woldman tried to convince Mrs. Gladstone that her company would be safe under his care, he guaranteed it. Then other people got up and started talking and saying how everyone wanted the stock to go up and Gladstone’s would be made stronger by this merger and the company was going full steam ahead.

  If Harry Bender was alive, he would have done something.

  “You got something to say, kid,” Murray Castlebaum would have said if he’d been here, “you should say it.”

  So I started walking.

  I didn’t know why.

  Didn’t know what I was going to say.

  Squeezed past the man I almost knocked down, past other stockholders’ knees and feet, past Mac the bouncer, who was cracking his knuckles like tough guys do right before they’re going to beat someone up. He grabbed my arm tight, but I ground my 11⁄2 inch heel into his foot and he let go fast. I started toward the aisle, walking tall, looking Elden straight in his angry face because when you’ve already been fired, what else are they going to do to you?

  Elden whispered something to his mother who said loudly, “Oh, but she is a stockholder, Elden. Fifty shares. I gave them to her.” Mrs. Gladstone saw me walking up the aisle and her face lit up like Chicago’s Michigan Avenue at Christmas. I walked up the stairs of the platform, grabbed Mrs. Gladstone’s welcoming hand, pushed past Elden, stood in front of Ken Woldman, said, “How do you do, sir, I had a paper route, too.” I walked to the podium like I had one free throw left before the whistle.

  I really hate public speaking.

  I looked at the microphone and aimed.

  “I got fired today,” I said as the crowd gasped. “I’m Mrs. Gladstone’s driver and assistant and Mr. Gladstone tried to put me on a plane back to Chicago because I didn’t like the way he’s been treating his mother. I don’t like the way he’s been treating this company, either.”

  Elden started toward me, “I think that’s enough!”

  The man I almost knocked down bolted from his chair and shouted, “Let her speak!”

  Yield, rat boy!

  Elden sat down, blistering.

  I took a huge breath, gripped the podium. “See, I know what selling shoes ought to be because I had the privilege to know Harry Bender. I also work with Murray Castlebaum in Chicago and I’ve been hanging with Mrs. Gladstone all summer. I’ve gotten dunked in what good business should be like so much so that I can smell something wrong a mile off.”

  Mac was steaming.

  I could hear Elden behind me making rodent noises.

  “I’ve been on the road with Mrs. Gladstone this summer. We’ve visited Gladstone stores from Peoria to Shreveport. And I can tell you those economy brands aren’t doing this company one bit of good. People come into a Gladstone’s expecting quality, just like people on a paper route expect the carrier to deliver the paper they ordered. You don’t start tossing a Chicago Weekly on the porch if your customer wants a Chicago Tribune. You won’t have any chance of keeping that business.” I turned to face Ken Woldman. “Will you, Mr. Woldman?”

  “No,” he said quietly, “you won’t.”

  Keep talking, Boller.

  I looked back at the crowd. “I understand we need profits to keep business going. I understand we need marketing to make sure companies do well. But I don’t understand why you have to sacrifice quality and good feeling with that. The people Harry Bender sold shoes to came back to him again and again, they brought their children to him, and their grandchildren to him not because Gladstone’s is the only shoe store in Texas but because they trusted him to do the right thing by them.

  “I’m the young
est person in this room by far, but I can tell you that the teenagers I know take their money seriously. We work hard for it just like all of you. We’re looking for products to buy that we can trust. We’re looking for respect when we walk into a store. I think one of the best ways to show respect to anyone is to give them the best you’ve got to give. I can’t believe that what Gladstone’s has offered to customers all these years is now old fashioned.” I turned to Ken Woldman and saw that he was smiling at me. So I took a chance and tried to land one sweet on the porch. “So I’m taking my fifty shares of stock and I’m voting that Mrs. Gladstone stay with this company somehow. I know that’s not on the ballot, but that’s what I’m going to write on mine. Because I know that if she stays connected, this company will have a chance to keep the good things that everyone expects from Gladstone’s Shoes that people like Mrs. Gladstone and Murray Castlebaum and Harry Bender always kept safe.”

  I looked out at everyone who was looking back at me and swallowed so hard I almost choked.

  “I’m done,” I said.

  The man I almost knocked down was waving his hat in the back. “I’m voting with you!” And several other people shouted that they were, too.

  Then more said they would and I turned around to look at Mrs. Gladstone who was grinning. Elden was darting back and forth like a rat who’d just been caged.

  TEEN 1

  VERMIN 0

  I strutted off the stage.

  The man I almost knocked down said that Harry Bender had been to his house the night he died, having sold him, a large, independent stockholder, on the value of Gladstone’s all over again. I smiled big because if anybody could keep selling after he died, it was Harry. Soon over half the people in the room were applauding.

  But the majority has it.

  We filled in our ballots, sent them forward, and waited. Ken Woldman shook my hand, paper person to paper person, then he went over to talk to Mrs. Gladstone. They huddled together for the longest time while Elden groaned. I heard Alice say, “I did her hair, you know.”

  Then the secretary with the tight gray bun, who looked like she hated the world, walked to the podium, holding a piece of paper.

  “The sale has been approved by the holders of seventy-three percent of the voting shares,” she announced.