Revenge of the Kudzu Debutantes (17 page)

E
ADIE AND
L
AVONNE
were inseparable the first six months after Lavonne moved to the banana republic of Ithaca, and then everything changed. Lavonne got pregnant.

She wasn’t even supposed to be able to get pregnant. She’d been afraid to tell Leonard after her last medical exam that the doctor had told her she would never conceive. She was stunned. “Never?” Never. The young doctor seemed bored. She protested, “Are you sure?” Very sure. “But I’m still young.” Perhaps you should consider adoption. “You’re not God—you don’t know whether I’ll get pregnant.” I’d stake my career on the fact you will not.

Two months later she was pregnant. She thought of the pregnancy as a miracle, not only because of the young doctor’s dire pronouncements, but also because of the infrequency of her and Leonard’s sex life. The fact that a pregnancy would occur, that life would renew itself against such obstacles, had a profound effect upon Lavonne. She stopped drinking alcohol and caffeine. She began to plan and cook only healthy meals. She began an exercise routine.

Eadie was supportive, up to a point. She had made it clear that she and Trevor would never have children, that her life would always revolve around Trevor and her art. Those were her priorities. Eadie knew what it was like to grow up in a house where children are not valued, where they come a dismal last in the long line of parental priorities.

Gradually, Lavonne saw less and less of Eadie Boone. By the time her second child was born, they saw each other at dinner parties or the occasional luncheon or the annual beach vacation. Lavonne’s whole life revolved around her two daughters. They were like twin suns and she a doddering old planet that circled, endlessly entranced, within their radiant orbits. Somewhere off in the farthest reaches of cold deep space, Leonard circled them all like a rogue satellite. He was often gone, but Lavonne didn’t care. She got used to it being just the three of them. She liked the sameness, the carefully measured routine of their days together. They were the friends she no longer needed. The sisters she never had. The career she would never return to. She thought it would always be like this.

Time passed like the flashing of a comet. The girls, her playmates and confidantes, the center of her life, were suddenly grown. They locked their bedroom doors against her. They grew sullen and private. They did not want her sticking her nose in their business. They wanted her to “get a life” of her own. The illusion of a purposeful life that she had built so carefully around herself crumbled.

Now, she was forty-six years old, teetering on the edge of divorce, and driving to an appointment with Mona Shapiro to see if she could figure out what she was going to do with the rest of her life.

L
ITTLE
M
OSES WAS
cleaning the plate-glass window when she arrived.

“Hey, Lavonne,” he said. He was wearing a T-shirt that read
Shofar, So Good.
“My mom’s in the kitchen. Go on back.”

The kitchen was cozy and warm with the fragrance of rising bread. Lavonne stood just inside the swinging door, breathing deeply and watching Mona Shapiro scamper around the small room. Her sleeves were rolled to her elbows, and her face was pink with the heat and the exertion of lifting bread pans into the ovens. She was singing to herself as she worked, a tune Lavonne did not recognize.

“Well, hey, Miz Zibolsky,” she said, her bad eye bouncing over Lavonne and rolling, slowly, to one side.

“Hello, Mona.”

“Excuse my appearance,” she said, patting her hair back up into her hairnet and wiping her floured fingers on her apron.

“It sure smells good in here.”

“Does it? I guess I’m so used to the smell, I never notice it.”

“It makes me hungry just standing here.”

“Here, try some of this.” She lifted a plate holding small squares of cut bread and offered it to Lavonne. Lavonne took one of the squares and popped it into her mouth. It was delicious.

“Pumpkin bread,” Mona said.

“I love the cream cheese icing,” Lavonne said. She stood there holding her briefcase. “Should we meet in here or out front?”

Mona indicated a little table in front of the window. “Let’s sit here,” she said. “That way I can keep my eye on the ovens.”

Lavonne sat at the table and opened up her briefcase. She shook her head when Mona asked if she wanted a whole piece of pumpkin bread. “I’m dieting,” she explained.

“Good for you,” Mona said. She sat down and began to pick pieces of dough off her apron.

“Did you say you owned the space next door, too?” Lavonne asked, taking out a file and a legal pad and setting them on the table.

“Honey, I own the whole building.”

“Why don’t you rent it out?” Lavonne took out a pencil and set it down beside the legal pad.

“It needs to be fixed up before I rent it out. And I need money to fix it up, which I don’t have. Your husband says it’ll take more to fix it up than it’s worth.”

“Is that what he told you?” Lavonne said.

“He told me he’d give me a good price.”

“Can I ask what he offered you?”

Mona told her. Lavonne chewed the eraser end of the pencil. She could see Little Moses through the opened doorway, still cleaning the glass.

“Did you get an appraisal?”

“A
what
?” Mona rolled the pieces of dough into little balls. She stacked them neatly like she was building a wall out of miniature stones.

“Never mind,” Lavonne said, putting her pencil down and leaning forward with her arms resting on the table. “Mona, have you ever thought about taking a partner?”

Mona frowned. “A partner?”

“Yes. Someone who could bring you some operating capital. Someone who could run the business while you do what you enjoy doing, which is running the kitchen.”

“Well, I don’t know about that.” Mona laughed, her weak eye rolling toward the ovens. “Who would I get? Who would want to buy into this dusty old place?”

“Me,” Lavonne said. Dust whorls hung in the sunlight slanting through the window. A refrigerator hummed in the back.

Mona looked at Lavonne like she was listening to a joke and waiting for the punchline. After a minute, she said, “You, Miz Zibolsky? You don’t need to work.”

“I do need to work,” Lavonne said. “You don’t know how badly I need to work.” She let Mona have a few minutes to think about it. “Look, you mentioned the other day that you’re still using a ledger book. Mona, that’s crazy. A computer with the right software would save you hours in accounting time, not to mention it can track your sales, keep track of your inventory, list your depreciation—I’m sure you’re depreciating all this equipment.” She looked around the kitchen. Some of the equipment looked new.

Mona looked doubtful. “Depreciation?” she said.

“Who does your taxes?”

“Cousin Solomon over in Valdosta.”

“Well, I’m sure he knows about depreciating your equipment, but with a computer it would be so much easier to track. I’m an accountant, Mona, that’s what I do. I find loopholes, I find tax incentives, I pore over your numbers to find ways to be more cost-efficient. Marketing is new to me, too, but I’ve been reading a lot about it and I’m certain we can come up with a marketing plan that will double your sales immediately.”

“Double my sales?” Mona said, astounded. “Why would I want to do that?”

Lavonne smiled and looked down at her arms. She opened up the file and took out a sheet of paper. “Do you know what this is?” she asked.

Mona shook her head, no.

“It’s a list of people who’ve called me about you catering one of their parties. There are twelve names on the list, Mona, and that’s just the beginning.”

“Well I’ll be,” Mona said, reaching for the paper.

Lavonne took out another piece of paper and pushed it toward Mona. “You know what this is.”

“Uh-huh,” Mona said. “It’s my bill for your party.” She’d handwritten it on a piece of stationery that looked like it was printed in 1948.
Shapiro’s,
it read across the top.
Good Food, Good Times.

“And this?” Lavonne pointed with her finger.

“The total you owe me,” Mona said, getting the hang of this.

“It’s not enough, Mona,” Lavonne said gently. “You’re not charging enough.”

Mona patted her hair. “It’s what I always charge,” she said. “It’s what Big Marvin always charged.”

“How long’s Big Marvin been dead now?”

Mona understood what she was trying to say. She patted her hair with a trembling hand. “Catering’s hard work,” she said defensively.

“Which is exactly why you should charge more for it,” Lavonne said. “Your food is excellent. It’s worth double this amount.” Lavonne pointed again at the total. “That’s the amount I’m going to submit to Leonard’s law firm. Double what you wrote down right here.”

“Double?” Mona said, her good eye fluttering over Lavonne’s face. “Double?”

“It’s hard to find caterers in this town, Mona. Believe me, I’ve tried. There’s that woman that works out of her home, but you can never get her, and there’s the Pink House Restaurant, but their food is terrible and overpriced. Most people hire someone out of Atlanta. Until now. Now everyone in town knows there’s a top-notch caterer right here in Ithaca and your phone will be ringing off the hook.”

“It already is,” Mona said. “I took five new appointments but I had to tell the others no.”

“See what I mean?” Lavonne sat back in her chair, smiling. “I know it’s a lot to think about, Mona, and I want you to take your time and talk it over with Little Moses. I’m going to leave you a copy of my business proposal.” She took it out and laid it on the table.

“That’s a real pretty color,” Mona said, pointing to the cover.

“The way I see it, we could start out slow, just adding a few catering events until we get ourselves fully staffed and I get the systems up and running. But eventually, we’ll move out of the bakery business and more into the deli business. You know, sandwiches, lunch items, maybe even breakfast items.”

“It used to be a sandwich shop, back when Big Marvin first started up,” Mona said.

“You’ve got a ready market, not only with the locals but also with all these tourists coming down from Atlanta,” Lavonne said, pointing through the opened doorway toward the street. “They need a good place to eat lunch. They’re used to delicatessens in the big city. We wouldn’t even have to open for the evening meal. Just lunch and maybe, eventually, breakfast.”

Mona went to check the oven and then came back and sat down. She had the tender attentive look of a woman listening to distant music.

“But do you know what excites me the most, Mona?” Lavonne tapped her fingers on the table like she was running numbers on an adding machine. “The Internet. The Internet could make us rich.”

“What are we going to do?” Mona said, grinning sheepishly. “Sell sandwiches on the Internet?” She giggled and shook her head.

Lavonne opened up her file and took out a computer-generated logo she had made last night. She’d scanned a photo of her grandmother into the computer and circled the photo with the label:
Grandma Ada’s Kosher Barbecue Sauce.

Mona’s jaw dropped. She frowned. “That doesn’t even look like Grandma Ada,” she said.

“I know. It’s just an example. We can make up any label you want. But think about this, Mona: How many places can you get authentic kosher barbecue sauce?” She didn’t wait for Mona to finish. “I’ll tell you:
none.
I couldn’t find a single Web site on the Internet that sells kosher barbecue sauce. We can set up a Web site and make a fortune!”

“You know,” Mona said, shaking her head, “there aren’t a whole lot of Dixie Jews.”

“That’s not our only market, Mona. Here, look, here’s some data showing the number of Jewish people in the United States broken down by geographical area.”

Mona put on her reading glasses and took the printout from Lavonne. “Well, I’ll be,” she said after a few minutes, hiding her mouth with her fingers.

“But it’s not just Jewish people that we’ll market to, Mona. With all the concern these days over the chemicals and preservatives being pumped into our food supply, kosher products made with all natural ingredients are being bought by a growing percentage of American consumers. Here, look at these figures.”

Mona shook her head and looked at Lavonne, her eyes magnified behind the black-rimmed glasses. “I had no idea there were so many Hebrew folks in this country,” she said.

“We can make up bottles and sell them here in the store. The sauce is delicious, and with the right marketing—maybe smaller bottles packed in some kind of an unusual gift box—we could sell to the tourists all day long.” Lavonne put the documents back in the file and closed it up, pushing it toward Mona. She smiled at Mona and leaned over and patted her arm. “I know it’s a lot to think about,” she said. “But you and Little Moses read the business plan and think about it. I’d love to be your partner, and the amount of operating capital I could bring to the deal is set out in my proposal. I made some guesses about your sales figures and we’ll have to make some adjustments there, but this is a good starting point.” She thumped the folder with her fingers. “You know me, Mona, you know what working with me would be like, but if you decide not to go through with this, I’ll understand. If you do decide to sell to my husband, I’d appreciate you letting me know beforehand, because it’ll change my plans, too. Whatever you do, though, don’t sell to my husband or Redmon until you get a fair market appraisal of this property. I can tell you right now, my husband’s not offering you enough. I mean, hell, Mona, if you wanted to, you could sell this property and retire tomorrow.”

“Oh no,” she said, taking off her hairnet so her curls tumbled about her face. “What would I do if I didn’t work? I’ve worked all my life.” She wiped her hands on her floured apron. “Well” was all she could think to say. “Well.”

“Don’t make a decision yet,” Lavonne said, rising. “Just think about it. I’m willing if you are. I think we can make a go of this, but you have to be certain, too.” She held out her hand to Mrs. Shapiro. “In the year 2010 one out of every two businesses will be owned by women,” she said.