Rules of the Road
Joan Bauer
On the road . . .
I drove slowly around a blinking warning sign set up around a construction site; checked my mirrors for approaching cars when I saw a merge arrow; moved to the right lane when the driver behind me flashed his headlights. It seemed to me that the people who made the rules of the road had figured out everything that would help a person drive safely, right down to having a sign that tells you you’re passing through a place where deer cross. Somebody should stick up some signs on the highway of life.
CAUTION: JERKS CROSSING.
Blinking yellow lights when you’re about to do something stupid.
Stop signs in front of people who could hurt you.
Green lights shining when you’re doing the right thing.
It would make the whole experience easier.
Life was too hard sometimes.
Books by
JOAN BAUER
Backwater
Best Foot Forward
Hope Was Here
Rules of the Road
Squashed
Stand Tall
Sticks
Thwonk
JOAN BAUER
Rules of the Road
speak
An Imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
SPEAK
Published by the Penguin Group
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Registered Offices: Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
First published in the United States of America by G. P. Putnam’s Sons,
a division of The Putnam&Grosset Group, 1998
Published by Puffin Books, a division of Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers, 2000
Published by Speak, an imprint of Penguin Putnam Inc., 2003
This edition published by Speak, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2005
Copyright © Joan Bauer, 1998
All rights reserved
THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS EDITION AS FOLLOWS:
Bauer, Joan, date. Rules of the road / Joan Bauer
p. cm.
Summary: Sixteen-year-old Jenna gets a job driving the elderly owner of a chain of successful shoe stores from Chicago to Texas to confront the son who is trying to force her to retire, and along the way Jenna hones her talents as a saleswoman and finds the strength to face her alcoholic father.
[1. Stores, Retail—Fiction. 2. Old age—Fiction. 3. Automobile driving—Fiction.
4. Alcoholism—Fiction. 5. Texas—Fiction.] I. Titles.
PZ7.B32615Ru 1998 [Fic]—dc21 97-32198 CIP AC
Speak ISBN: 978-1-101-65788-1
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
For Jean, with love
With abundant thanks to George Nicholson,
who led the way,
and to Betsy Barker,
who taught me about Texas
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
CHAPTER 1
I leaped onto the sliding ladder in the back room of Gladstone’s Shoe Store of Chicago, gave it a shove, and glided fast toward the end of the floor to ceiling shelves of shoeboxes. My keen retailer’s eye found the chocolate loafers, size 13, I slid the ladder to the Nikes, grabbed two boxes of easy walkers (white and beige) size 41⁄2 narrow, pushed again to women’s saddles, found the waxhides, size 7, rode the ladder to the door one-handed. Children, do not try this at home. I am a shoe professional. I jumped off as Murray Castlebaum, my boss, rushed past me.
“It’s a madhouse out there, kid.” Murray grinned, rifling through shoeboxes.
We love it when it gets busy.
I walked quickly back on the sales floor, made eye contact with each of my customers so they’d know I cared. Every movement counts when you’re selling shoes, especially when the store fills up with customers. You look at people calmly; you let them know you’ll take care of them—you’re not panicked even though people are holding up shoes and barking sizes at you all at once. I just remember what Murray told me: People want to know someone’s for them. I’ve sold lots of shoes this way.
The tired woman with the three screaming boys tried on the waxhide saddles.
“Mommy, I want to go!” cried the youngest boy and the other two chimed in. This could blow my sale because she was outnumbered. I took out my stopwatch that I used for emergencies, handed it to the oldest boy.
“Breath-holding contest,” I directed. “The winner gets cow laces. Best two out of three.”
“Cool.” The boys started holding their breath, mere putty in my hands. The woman looked at me gratefully, freed to shop.
I raced to the older man, slid the loafers on his bony feet, felt the toe. His face went soft. I smiled. These shoes sell themselves. He stood up, did a little dancing movement.
Moved to the woman with the dangling Siamese earrings, the pouncing cat pin. Slipped the Nikes on her fat foot, mentioned the tri-density compression plug midsole that would energize her feet on pavement, told her to give them a good test. Circled back around like a good sheepdog, keeping watch.
“How are those feeling?” I asked Cat Woman, who grinned.
Showed the older man the hand-stitching and richly grained texture on his loafers.
Pointed out the classic, yet fresh appeal of the waxhide saddle.
The woman nodded as her boys argued over who won the contest—she’d take the shoes.
The older man took out his wallet. “I’ll take them, miss.”
A yes from Cat Woman.
The woman with the toddler I’d waited on earlier bought three pairs of baby sandals in white, pink, and dress black.
They can’t say no.
I walked my customers to the counter, thanked each one, tallied up the five percent commission in my head, keeping my eye on the man and the little girl who just walked i
n. Murray pushed back his three strands of hair that he tried to comb over his balding head and did his dead chicken imitation, stretching his neck long, bugging his eyes out. This meant I wait on the man and girl. I headed toward them, stepping lightly.
“So what are you doing in school these days, Becky?” the man asked the little girl.
“Daddy,” she said, “I already told you last week.”
The man checked his watch. A weekend father, probably. Be thankful, Becky. At least yours comes around.
Becky tried on pink ballet slippers, white cowgirl boots, and black patent leathers.
She got them all.
I walked Becky and her dad to the counter.
“Listen,” the father said as he flipped out his Visa card. “I’m going to have to take you back early today, Beck. I’ve got an appointment.”
My dad used to say that to me on the rare occasion that he came around.
I handed her a balloon and told her how great she’s going to look in her new shoes.
Becky stared at the children’s shoe display I arranged. Murray said it was my best one yet. It had stuffed clown dolls and circus decals and a wind-up trapeze toy that moved across a wire. The kids always ran to it whenever they came into the store. Becky walked to the display, her little face caved in, watching as the toy man buzzed across the wire above the Keds.
I wanted to tell her I understood. I walked over to her, put my hand on her shoulder, and settled for one of those looks that passed between strangers. Her father checked his watch again, rushed her out the door.
Mrs. Madeline Gladstone, the supremely aged president of Gladstone’s Shoes (176 outlets in 37 states; corporate offices in Dallas, Texas), stood by the cash register under the large white five-pointed Lone Star of Texas that was the symbol of Gladstone’s Shoe Stores everywhere. She came to our store every day when she was in town. Mrs. Gladstone had houses in Dallas and Chicago, but lately she’d been spending all her time here. She was very short but made up for it like one of those little yippy dogs who barks at anything. She ran her fingers through her coarse white hair, made notes on a pad inside a blue leather folder marked “personal.” Some people just naturally make you nervous. She was retiring this year, handing the business over to her son, Elden. Murray said retiring was probably going to kill her because the shoe business had been her whole life. It didn’t help that Elden was pond scum.
He came to the store three months ago, saying how the shoe business was changing and we were going to get new lower-priced merchandise that was going to fly off the shelves. The merchandise came, but it never made it on the shelves. It looked good on the outside, but Murray Castlebaum’s got X-ray vision. He looked past the brushed leather and the fancy labels to the thinner soles and the wider stitching and the second-rate lining. Then Murray shoved everything in the closet and stood on the ladder in the back room and gave a misty-eyed speech about how you’ve got to live what you sell and he wasn’t about to start living with garbage.
Most people think selling shoes is pretty ho-hum, but if you hang with shoe people long enough you plug into the high drama.
I looked around. The crowd had cleared. Customers come in swarms, like locusts.
“Break, kid.”
Murray motioned me to the back room. I was fifteen and a half when I started at Gladstone’s last year, sophomore year, the year of the Big Slump. I gained seventeen and a half pounds. I went from center forward to second-string guard on the girls basketball team because I just can’t jump. I got a C minus in History, which knocked me off the honor roll because my history teacher didn’t like my essays or my end-of-the-year term paper (“Our Shoes, Ourselves—Footwear Through the Ages”). I became the brunt of Billy Mundy’s mean jokes until I shoved him against the wall when he called me “Ms. Moose” for the zillionth time, told him I’d rip his left kidney out if he said that again. I just limped through sophomore year, all five feet eleven inches of me, wondering why God had invented adolescence.
But there was Gladstone’s.
I succeeded here. I made money here. I didn’t feel big, awkward, and lost. I felt successful. I helped people. They looked to me instead of away. I couldn’t wait to come here after school, couldn’t wait to head out to work early on Saturday mornings. My grandmother always said that everyone needs something in life that they do pretty well. For me, it’s selling shoes.
Still, I nearly collapsed during those first weeks wondering how I was going to remember everything. But you know how it is when you start something new; you mess up for a while and then gradually you find the rhythm. Murray Castlebaum’s a good, patient boss except when his diverticulitis acts up and then you steer clear because the man becomes Frankenstein, or Frankenbaum, as I call him. At the end of each week, Murray asks me, “Okay, kid, what did you learn?” At first I’d just shrug and say something about handling customers better, but Murray didn’t like that because he’d been selling shoes for twenty-three years and figured something big should have rubbed off.
“The number one thing you gotta know to sell shoes,” Murray said, “is that every shoe has a story. You know how it’s made, you know how to sell it.”
So I made it my business to know what was good and bad about each shoe. You can put four pairs of sandals in front of me and I can tell you which one to wear on the beach, which one to wear for a walk, which one to buy for the long haul, and which one to avoid altogether. And when it comes to selling sneakers you better have done your homework or you’ll get blown out of the water. You sell road traction and heel alignment, and don’t let anyone tell you that a cross-trainer is going to give you the strength of a long-distance runner. It’s a bold new shoe world out there and not everyone knows how to compete.
I sat on the folding chair by the helium tank and the boxes of Gladstone’s Shoe Store balloons with the Texas star that were blown up and given to every child who walked through the door. I turned the helium gage on, took a quick gulp of funny gas, and squeaked out, “Cat Woman lives.”
“Watch the gas,” Murray said to me, looking through boxes of loafers.
I let loose a high-pitched helium giggle, opened my purse, and took out what had become my most prized possession.
There it was, nestled between my Chicago Public Library card and my Red Cross CPR certificate—my own, personal driver’s license—six months old today.
Jenna Boller
Eyes: Brown
Hair: Red
Height: 5′11″
Weight: None of your business
An official Illinois driver.
If only the photo wasn’t so awful—my flat nose looked flatter, my round face looked like a globe, my auburn hair hung frizzed and heavy on my shoulders like too much fur. My dark eyes (one of my best features) looked guilty. My sister got the beauty in the family. I got the personality.
I held up my license and chirped out, “My passport to new worlds, Murray. Adventure. Romance. Freedom.”
“The romance dies, kid, the first time you’re wedged between two Mack trucks at rush hour on the Eisenhower Expressway.”
Murray lumbered out as I cradled my license. I was a good driver, everyone said so. Cars never scared me. I had respect for their power, but I worked hard to learn the rules.
My big plan at the end of the summer, after clocking in many full-time hours at Gladstone’s, is to buy a car—a red one—with a sunroof and leather buckets. Then, I’m going to explore all of Illinois, and then Wisconsin, and then—
“Where’s my Jenna girl?”
I froze at the voice coming from the sales floor.
It couldn’t be.
“Jenna girl, this is your father calling you!”
I looked for a place to hide. There was no back door.
“Sir . . .” It was Murray’s voice. “We can’t have you—”
“I’m here, sir,” my father announced, drunk, “to see my daughter.”
I couldn’t move. Murray, bless him, said, “She’s gone for the day
.”
“Now don’t give me that now.” My father swirled the words together. “Just want to see her for a little minute. Haven’t seen her for a long time, very long.”
Two years and seven months, to be exact. But who’s counting?
Not me. Not anymore. I used to count the letters I sent him that he never answered, the presents I mailed on his birthday and Christmas.
I got up from the stool like I was dragging lead weights. I could get another job after they fired me. I was a good worker, everyone said so. I could sell anything to anybody. I stood at the door and watched my father in dirty jeans and an old golf shirt and grubby sneakers scratch his head and fall into a plaid chair as Mrs. Gladstone snapped her long, bony fingers at Murray to do something.
“Jenna girl! You got tall there.” His cloudy eyes tried to focus.
Please, God, let the helium have worn off. I said, “It happens,” but I still sounded like a cartoon mouse.
I walked up to Mrs. Gladstone, could smell her light perfume wafting up from her navy blue pin-striped suit. No customers in the store. That was something. I looked her straight in the eye, tried to aim my voice low.
“I’m sorry about this, Mrs. Gladstone. I’ll take care of it.” Better, but still Disney.
Her gray eyes blasted through me. She stood rigidly erect, every thick, snowy curl in place.
My face sizzled hot. I walked slowly toward my father, not looking at the mirrors on the blue walls on either side of me, not looking at the white sign above the door, WE’RE NOT JUST SELLING SHOES, WE’RE SELLING QUALITY. I looked at the blue carpet with the white stars, took my father’s arm to lead him out of the store, onto the street, somewhere, anywhere but here.
“Did you miss your old man?”
I led him out to Wabash Street, underneath the elevated train tracks. Dad was never a mean drunk, you could put him places, lean him against things and he’d pretty much stay put. That helped when I was smaller and I had to put him places when Mom had had enough.
I arranged him on the station steps, put his hands together to grip the rail. I was really glad that I was one of those people who had delayed reactions to trauma.
