Best Foot Forward (2 page)

“There's
no
father.” He stood on his toes to get the animals down. “And the mother's sleeping.” He threw a squirrel on the floor and lifted the others out. “This is the grandmother.”

I shook hands with the grandmother squirrel. “How are you, Grandma?”

“She's doing okay, except she has to work too hard.”

I smiled. “Gathering nuts takes a lot out of you.”

He nodded seriously.

Two businessmen walked in and marched to the men's oxfords. You have to have great range to work at Gladstone Shoes—I moved from forest family dynamics to assisting Corporate America.

“Gentlemen, can I help you?”

I didn't need to measure their feet. These guys knew. The older man held up a square-toed oxford. “Eleven medium.”

“Same shoe,” said the younger man, “in ten and a half.”

It's a privilege to wait on decision makers. “Great shoes,” I said and headed to the back, giving Murray Castlebaum, my other boss, a sympathetic look. Murray's customer wasn't sure about anything—she'd pick a shoe up, carry it around, then put it back in the wrong place. Murray kept asking her if he could help.

She shook her head. “I'm just looking.”

In five minutes she'd rearranged half the store. We call it search and destroy in the shoe world.

I headed to the back room, jumped on the sliding ladder and got the shoes, raced back to the businessmen, slipped the oxfords on their feet. They stood in unison. The older man nodded. “Sold.”

Poor Murray. Now his customer wanted help. She held up shoe after shoe. “Do you have this in brown?”

“Just black and camel,” Murray told her. She put the shoes on the floor.

“Do you have this sandal in teal blue?”

“It doesn't come in any kind of blue.”

“Does this come with a closed toe?”

Murray gripped a chair.
“It's a sandal.”

“Well,”
she sighed, “I guess I'll have to go
someplace
else.”

Would you
please
?

Murray rolled his eyes at me.

A teenage girl walked up to the little boy and told him he could play a few more minutes. She leaned down to him and whispered intently before going over to the stiletto heels. Don't, I wanted to tell her. You're young. Don't destroy your feet.

“I'm four and three-eighths,” the little boy announced proudly to me. “I can write my name!”

“Wow,” I said. “You're old.”

Murray muttered that he was fifty-four and a half and getting older by the minute.

The little boy pointed to the tree leaves. Each kid got to write their name on a leaf. I gave him a paper leaf and a crayon.

A teenage guy came in. He had tan skin and short, curly hair and walked toward the athletic shoes. A long scar ran from just below his left eye to his jaw.

The guy kept glancing at me. He had intense, dark eyes. “What kind of shoes are those?” he asked Murray, pointing to a support walker with extra cushioning. He had a low, earthy voice.

“They're for women who are on their feet most of the day and need extra support.”

“You got them in an eight?”

“What color?”

“How many colors you got?”

Murray said he'd check.

The little boy handed me his leaf with WEBSTER T. COBB on it.

“You can put that up anywhere on the tree, Webster.”

Murray came back with an armful of shoe boxes. The teenage girl stepped in front of him and grabbed her stomach. “I feel sick,” she moaned. “Can I please have some water?” She motioned to the boy weakly. “Webster, come here.”

Webster's face clouded over. “She's okay.”

“
Webster . . .
I think I'm going to faint.”

“I'll get you water,” I told the girl. I rushed in the back room and filled a paper cup.

Wait a minute—a red flag went up.

The girl, that nervous guy. Suddenly, everything felt wrong. I heard Murray scream,
“Come back with those!”

I raced back to the floor, looked around, but the teenage guy was gone.

Murray has many gifts, but running is not one of them. He lurched out the door screaming, “Stop! Thief !” The girl marched over to Webster. She tried to take his hand.

“Webster, we're going!”

Murray walked back into the store with the security guard. Murray's eyes turned to slits as he looked at the girl.

“You know that boy who stole those shoes?”

The girl grabbed Webster's hand and yanked him toward her. I knew that shoplifters sometimes work in twos. One creates a disturbance while the other one grabs merchandise and runs out the door.

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

“You're a witness to a crime,” Murray informed her. “You're going to have to wait until the police come.”

Webster started crying, pulling away from the girl.

Just then, Mrs. Gladstone came down from her office above the store. “What in God's name . . . ?”

“We had an incident,” Murray said.

The girl was yanking Webster's hand, telling him to stop crying; Webster broke free and ran toward the tree. He was wheezing, trying to catch his breath. Mrs. Gladstone stared at the girl. “Is that child sick?”

“He has trouble breathing sometimes,” she said. “Webster, come on. Use your inhaler.”

Webster nodded pitifully—he had huge eyes. He stuck an inhaler in his mouth and took a gasping breath.

Mrs. Gladstone was not a large woman, but the strength of her presence made up for it. She walked over to Webster and bent down as much as she could. “My son had trouble breathing sometimes when he was your age. You're doing fine, just let yourself relax. It's going to be okay.”

Her voice was so gentle. Webster closed his eyes and breathed more normally. Mrs. Gladstone's son is now a world-class business sleaze, a supreme shoe scorpion, and, unfortunately, the new head of this company.

She smiled. “I have a storybook that you might like to look at.” She walked to the register and came back with
The Elves and the Shoemaker.
Webster plopped down on the floor, put the squirrels in his lap, and opened the book. He pointed to a word. “Shoe.”

“That's right,” Mrs. Gladstone said. “Shoe.”

Webster scrunched up his face, pointed to more words. “Bed. Old. Night.”

Mrs. Gladstone smiled. “Who taught you to read those words?”

“Tanner.”

“Shut up!” the girl shouted.

Webster looked down.

“Who's Tanner?” Mrs. Gladstone asked him.

“Just a friend!” the girl insisted.

Webster shook his head. His dark, intense eyes seemed familiar.

“Was Tanner here at the store with you?” I asked.

“Yes.” Webster turned the page as the girl groaned. He pointed to a word. “Go.”

Murray faced the girl. “Who was the boy who stole the shoes? We're going to find out sooner or later.”

The girl started crying. “He's our brother.” Her cell phone began to ring.

“If that's Tanner,” Mrs. Gladstone said, “tell him to come back with the shoes.”

The girl answered, crying softly. “. . . Well, you get back here, that's what. 'Cause we're here and they won't let us go. . . .
I can't help it—Webster told 'em.
You'd better bring it all back!”

Tanner stormed through the door holding four shoe boxes, his square jaw clenched tight.

“Is that everything?” Murray demanded.

“Yeah,” he snarled.

I dialed Mrs. Gladstone's extension. She'd gone upstairs to her office with Webster and the girl. “He's here,” I told her.

Mrs. Gladstone, Webster, and the girl came down looking like they'd become pals. Tanner glared at his sister.
“Thanks for nothing, Yaley.”

“What do you want me to do, Tanner, sit here and rot while you're—”

Mrs. Gladstone slammed her hand on the register counter.
“That's enough!”

That shut them up for a minute. Tanner stood there like a caged animal. He stared at me and I stared back, even though he scared me. I walked to the register extra tall and I had height to pull from—I'm five-eleven.

The front door opened and an older woman walked in.

Yaley started crying when she saw her.

Webster said, “Hi, Grandma.”

“Hi, sugar. You okay?”

Webster nodded as Mrs. Gladstone stepped forward. “You must be Mattie. I'm very glad you could come.”

The grandmother looked straight at Mrs. Gladstone. “I want to thank you for calling me.” She took Tanner by the elbow. Tanner muttered something. “Tanner Cobb, speak up directly and look this woman in the eye when you address her.”

His whole body went stiff; he looked at Mrs. Gladstone with those electric eyes. “I'm sorry for what I did.”

Mrs. Gladstone considered that. “Tanner, I have a feeling you've done this before.”

“Once or twice . . . you know . . .”

“I wish I could be everywhere,” Mattie interrupted, “but I can't. Still, these children are under my roof and they're my responsibility. I take that very seriously.”

“It's a hard world out there for young people,” Mrs. Gladstone offered.

“Amen, but these two are making it harder than it needs to be.” She glared at Tanner and Yaley as Webster ran back to play with the tree.

Tanner forced a smile. “I could help out at the store to make up for what I did.”

“I'll think about that, young man.” Mrs. Gladstone had a strange look on her face. “Mattie, I'll call you and we can discuss this. For now, I'm not pressing charges.”

Tanner and Yaley looked relieved.

I tried to get Mrs. Gladstone's eye
—We don't need a thief in the store.

Webster walked up to me and held out two leaves he'd written on. One read TANNER, the other YALEY. He took me by the hand and we walked to the children's tree. He dragged the footstool over, stood on it, fastened the leaves on a higher branch, and stepped down, satisfied.

I hadn't quite envisioned the names of shoplifters on the tree. I said, “Boy, we've got a lot of names up there.”

“We've got forty-three names.”

“We do?”

Webster began to count the names out loud to show me. I bent down. “Who taught you to count like that, Webster?”

He looked across the room and smiled. “Tanner.”

 

It was 6:00 P.M. I drove Mrs. Gladstone's old Cadillac through the Chicago traffic. The heat of the day hadn't lifted yet—typical for August in Chicago.

Deep snoring rose from the backseat; Mrs. Gladstone's head bobbed up and down in fitful sleep. We'd spent six weeks on the road together driving from Chicago down to Texas. We got to know each other pretty well. I know her favorite food (chili with hot peppers); I know her greatest strength (not losing control); I've seen the full panorama of her personality (stern, sterner, and run for your life). She's always taken a tough stand on shoplifters until now.

The goal of the trip was to get to Dallas for Gladstone Shoes' annual stockholders meeting so that Mrs. Gladstone could retire as president of the company and hand the reins of leadership over to her son. All told, she had a thirty-minute retirement before she got appointed Director of Quality Control for the newly merged shoe empire. Gladstone's was bought by the Shoe Warehouse Corporation. Right now, everyone was trying to get used to all the changes.

Mrs. Gladstone rustled in the backseat. I could hear her straighten up, which wasn't easy with her bad hip.

I glanced in the rearview mirror. “Are you okay back there?”

“I'm fine, I'm fine.”

A meteor could fall splat into Lake Michigan, causing rampaging floods, and she'd still say she was fine.

“Do you want me to call the doctor's office tomorrow and schedule your surgery?”

“I do not.” Hip replacement surgery wasn't high on her to-do list, even though earlier this summer she had to be in a wheelchair because of the pain. She was an ace at changing the subject, too.

“Yaley and I had quite a talk,” she offered. “That girl is smart and has too much on her shoulders for a fourteen-year-old.”

I could relate, but I didn't go around ripping people off.

“She told me her father is in prison and her mother is a drug addict.”

Okay, so maybe she outweighed me on the bad parent scale.

“Can you imagine having a parent in jail, Jenna?”

Yes, actually. “It's tough, I'm sure,” I said, and turned left onto North Avenue. “Do you know what her father's in jail for?”

“I didn't ask. She said her brother stole the shoes for their grandmother's birthday.”

I looked at her determined old face in the rearview mirror. “Do you believe her?”

“Yes, for the most part I do.” She looked out the window. “Let me tell you something about me, Jenna. The longer I'm alive, the more I'm interested in how people learn from their mistakes, not in the fact that they make them.”

But we
don't know
if they've learned from their mistakes, do we?

I stopped in front of Mrs. Gladstone's three-story brown-stone and walked her to the steps, where Maria, her house-keeper, took over. They headed slowly up the stairs. I pressed the button that lifted the garage door and backed my red car onto the street. I always parked it here, then drove Mrs. Gladstone to work and back in her car. I steered the Cadillac into the garage.