Siri Mitchell

by Unrivaled

  “I was just remarking the other day how everywhere I go I see those posters. It really makes a person want to go right out and buy one. Just thinking of it now . . .” She picked up a cookie and began to nibble on it.

  “Which is why I had to do something. Don’t you agree?”

  She considered my question for a moment, head cocked. “I’m not sure, really.”

  “About what?”

  “I’m not sure I agree. Anyone can put up posters, but sneaking into a store and putting your candy in front of theirs—”

  “It wasn’t sneaking. Anyone can go into a store. It’s a free country.”

  She frowned. “It feels like sneaking.”

  “It’s not sneaking. I didn’t sneak.”

  “Who did?”

  “Who did what?”

  Her eyes blinked wide. “The sneaking.”

  “Nobody. Nobody snuck anywhere.”

  “So then are you saying you didn’t reshelf their candy?”

  “I did. I mean, I didn’t. I had someone else do it. But the point is—”

  “Then they’re the common criminal.” She started in on another cookie as if we weren’t talking about anything important.

  “What?”

  “That was the point, wasn’t it? Who the common criminal is?” Winnie smiled as if she’d won some prize. “It’s the person who switched out the candies.”

  “That’s beside the point.”

  “But you’re right—you aren’t a common criminal. Only . . . I can’t figure out who is. If it wasn’t you, then who was it?”

  “No one!”

  “Then no one switched out the candy?” Winnie seemed genuinely puzzled.

  “Just forget about the candy. We were talking about the Clarkes.”

  “That’s right! I’d forgotten. We were talking about the Clarkes and how nice they are.”

  “How mean they are.”

  She put her cookie down on a plate. “ . . . How mean are they?”

  “Very. Very mean.”

  She looked at me quizzically for a moment, then shook her head. “No they aren’t.”

  “Yes. They are!”

  “Maybe . . . in your experience they could be, and in my experience they couldn’t be.” She said it as if she’d decided the matter once and for all.

  “A person can’t be nice and mean.”

  “Of course they can be. You are. You’ve never been nice. At least, not until this year. Not since I’ve known you and that was in first grade. But maybe . . . were you nice before that?”

  I didn’t know how to begin to answer.

  “In first grade you told Minnie her hair was the wrong color to be an angel in the Christmas pageant. And in second grade you told Alice that Miss Shipman didn’t like her. And then in third grade you wrote that note to Ella that said Rose didn’t want to be her friend, do you remember?”

  I remembered. I’d wanted to be the angel in the pageant. I’d wanted Miss Shipman to like me more than she liked Alice, and I’d wanted Ella’s friendship all to myself.

  “And in fourth grade you—”

  “I get your point.”

  “And you’ve always been mean to me too. Do you remember telling me that it might be better if I just pretended to sing during choral society?”

  I’d always wished I could sing the way Winnie did. I’d wished I could laugh the way she did too. I’d even practiced when I was younger. “But . . . then why do you even like me?”

  She cocked her head as she looked at me. “I’m not sure really. Except that since you’ve gotten back from your trip you’ve been less mean than you used to be. And we’re practically the only two girls who aren’t married. And . . .” She shrugged. “That’s probably why.”

  “So . . . you don’t like being my friend?”

  “I like being your friend. I’m just not so sure you ever liked being mine.”

  “I’m sure that’s . . .” It was probably the truth. A great wave of shame and humiliation washed over me. I set down my teacup. “I’m sorry, Winnie.”

  “Don’t be sorry. I figured you could be nice. It wasn’t a matter of your not being able to. I thought maybe you just hadn’t had enough chances to be. And if you were ever downright rude, then I just wouldn’t invite you to my at-homes anymore. And besides, I can be mean too.”

  If she could, she’d never, not once in all the years I’d known her, shown it.

  “It’s just like I was telling Charles.” She picked up her cookie and took a bite. Then she took a sip of tea.

  “What?”

  She blinked her eyes wide again. “What?”

  “What were you telling Charlie?”

  I waited while she finished her cookie and wiped the crumbs off into her teacup. “It was about how we’ve all done bad things. And how you don’t have to be who you used to be. And . . .” She frowned as she looked at me. “You don’t listen at church either, do you?”

  “I don’t try to not listen . . .”

  “You and Charles are just same, then. And really, that’s the point, isn’t it?”

  I was the same as Charlie? The man who’d dared to call me a criminal? “I find that hard to believe.” And in fact, I didn’t. I couldn’t. We weren’t the same at all.

  “That’s what he said!” Winnie shook her head as she poured herself more tea. “Would you like some?”

  “No. Thank you. But . . . how did you mean we were both the same?”

  “You’re both the same at believing you’re not the same and being wrong because you are.”

  “Are what?”

  “The same.”

  “But that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you since I got here. We’re not the same at all!”

  She clucked. “We’re all the same, Lucy.”

  “No—we’re not! You’re—you’re ten times as good as I am, and he’s a least a hundred times worse.”

  “That might be what you believe, but that’s not what God believes. He believes we’re all the same. We’re all as bad as each other.”

  She couldn’t be right, but that didn’t stop me from feeling bad about how I’d treated her. “I’m sorry I did all those things . . . I hadn’t realized.” But I had, hadn’t I? I’d known exactly what it was I’d done. She was right. I was mean and bossy and selfish. “I wish I could do something . . . to make it up to you somehow.”

  Winnie turned the full force of her smile upon me. “Just stop being that way and I’m sure everything will be fine. You don’t have to be the same person you were.”

  I said something to her that I never thought I’d say. “Thank you, Winnie, for being my friend.”

  She beamed. “You’re welcome.”

  It came to me as I left her house that I might never really have had one before.

  “Tell me what it is you’re doing again?” Sam was standing in the doorway of the confectionery office, on Wednesday morning, glancing down the hall. “My father doesn’t really believe in using the telephone.”

  I had my hand on the transmitter, rehearsing once more what I planned to say. “I’m not making him use the telephone. I’m going to place the telephone call myself.”

  “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.”

  I didn’t either. But I had to do something. I couldn’t just stand by and watch as the confectionery went out of business. What would Edna and Morris do if they lost their jobs? And what about Velma and Hazel? Let alone Sam and Mr. Blakely! The confectionery was a family. That’s what my father had always said. So if I had to be sneaky in order to save it, then . . . that’s what I had to do. At least, that’s what I’d been telling myself.

  The line hummed, and then the operator answered the call.

  “Standard Candy Manufacturing, please.”

  The line hummed for a moment more before someone picked up on the other end.

  “The receiving clerk, please.”

  “One moment.” The line went silent before there came a rustling as someone else t
ook the line. “Yes?”

  I crossed my fingers behind my back. “I’m the sugar supplier calling about your order.”

  “Which supplier?”

  “Sugar.” Lying wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be!

  “You’re calling about what?”

  “Your order.”

  “Why?”

  This wasn’t going the way that I’d hoped. My elation had been premature. “I wanted . . . to verify it.”

  “The order? Or the shipment?”

  “The . . . order.”

  “That would be the purchasing clerk, then.” The line went silent before it was picked up again. “Hello? Purchasing clerk.”

  “I’m calling about your sugar order. I wanted to verify it.”

  “Which order?”

  “The most recent one.” I hoped I sounded more confident about all of this than I felt . . . and a lot less guilty.

  “I mailed it out to you just last week.”

  “We haven’t received it yet, and I didn’t want to presume how much sugar you might need. That’s why I wanted to verify it.”

  “Oh! Just one moment.” I heard the sound of the telephone being set down. He came back after a minute and read his order to me.

  “It seems very odd that we haven’t yet received it. To what address did you mail it?”

  “Why, to yours, of course!”

  That wasn’t very helpful. In order to cancel the sugar shipment to Standard, I needed to know who their supplier was! “But to what address in particular? Perhaps it got misdelivered.”

  “I used the address I always do.”

  “Could you just tell me what it is?”

  “Don’t you know?”

  I wondered if he would be able to hear it if I gnashed my teeth. “Of course I do. I just want to make certain that you do.”

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “I’m not saying that you don’t. I’m hoping, in fact, that you do.”

  “I find this very unusual.”

  “And so do I.” I tried to sound officious. “Normally orders don’t go missing. Maybe it got misplaced somewhere between you and us due to the weather. In any case, if you want to get that sugar, I’m going to have to try to find that order.” My goodness! Was it always this way? Did one lie always lead to two or three? I’d left Winnie’s house with such good intentions, and here I was, being mean again. Worse than mean. I was being truly horrid.

  “Just one moment.” I heard a shuffling of papers and then the voice came back. “It was sent to you at Main Street.”

  “To me?”

  “Well . . . to Colonial Sugars.”

  Success! “That certainly sounds like the correct address.”

  “Can I give you the order over the phone, then? That way you’ll be certain to have it.” The voice gave me the details, which I failed to write down.

  “I’ll hand your order in today.” I crossed my fingers extra hard, ignoring the guilt that was insisting I abandon my plan.

  “I hope it won’t be delayed. Mr. Clarke wouldn’t like that.”

  I was quite sure that he wouldn’t.

  After ringing off with Standard and telling myself the end justified the means, I placed a few more calls.

  Sam sighed as he slouched against the wall. “Are you done yet?”

  “Yes, Sam. I’m quite done.” I pulled on my gloves, took up my handbag, and looped it over my wrist.

  “Good!” He stalked into the office and then pulled me out by the arm. “I don’t mind telling you that I don’t think it’s right, what you just did.”

  The truth was, neither did I. But it couldn’t really be helped.

  Saturday evening was a night off from being the Queen of Love and Beauty, but my presence was still required at the club. A benefit for the city library was being hosted there by the ladies’ auxiliary, and I had been enlisted to pour coffee.

  As we entered the dining room, Mr. Arthur waved his hat at us.

  Mother waved her program back at him. “Go ahead and sit by him. Your shift at the coffeepot doesn’t start for a little while. I’ll join you in a bit.”

  I clutched at her hand. “Come with me.” Please! I never quite knew what to say to him.

  “Don’t be foolish. I’m sure you must appreciate the chance to be alone with your fiancé for a few moments.” She practically shooed me in his direction.

  He looked rather glum as I approached. Though he stood to greet me the way he normally did and nodded his head at me just the same as always, there was something not quite normal in the way he refused to meet my eye.

  Perhaps . . . “Are you not feeling well, Mr. Arthur?” I gave him another glance as I sat down.

  “No. I’m not.”

  Poor man. He sounded so miserable as he said it. “Please, don’t feel you have to stay here for my benefit. Wouldn’t you rather go home?”

  “No. Yes.” He closed his eyes for a moment as he pinched the bridge of his nose.

  “If you’re ill . . . ?”

  He opened them. “I’m not ill. Not exactly. It’s just that I want very much to do the right thing.”

  “I’m sure no one would mind if you left. In fact, they probably won’t even notice.” The dining room had been filled to bursting when we’d walked in and there had been others behind us waiting to enter.

  “You don’t think so?” He sounded rather queer.

  I hoped it wasn’t the influenza. “I wouldn’t give it a second thought if I were you. Truly.”

  He leaned over to kiss me on the cheek. “You’re a treasure, Lucy Kendall.” It was one of the most heartfelt statements he’d ever made to me. I smiled at him as he left.

  Being Lucy Arthur might not be so bad after all.

  34

  “There’s something going on down in the factory.” Mr. Mundt whispered the words to me on Monday as he shot worried glances toward my father’s closed office door.

  “What?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He didn’t know? He usually knew everything. “If you don’t know, then . . . how do you know?”

  He held up a finger. “Listen.”

  I turned my ear toward the office door. “I don’t hear anything.”

  “Exactly!”

  He was such a strange man. I began to ask him to explain himself when I realized what he meant. There was nothing to be heard. There was no sound, no noise. Nothing at all. I started for the factory at a run.

  When I reached the factory floor, the only machine working was the mixer. I approached some of the workers who stood in a cluster talking, as absolutely nothing took place around them. “What’s happened? What’s wrong?”

  One of them shrugged. “Don’t know. There’s no sugar for the melting pots.”

  No sugar? I ran to the men who stood staring at the giant kettles. “Why aren’t you working?”

  “There’s no sugar to melt.”

  I grabbed one of the bucket boys. “Why don’t you have any syrup?”

  “Isn’t none.” He was standing there looking at the bottom of his bucket as if hoping some might appear. “Hey, mister.” Another of them tugged at my coattails. “We still going to get paid?”

  “Yes.” It wasn’t their fault they didn’t have any work to do.

  If the problem wasn’t with the mixer, and if they didn’t have any sugar to melt, something must have happened to the supplies. I talked to a receiving clerk and was told that no sugar had been delivered.

  Mr. Gillespie was standing there arguing with one of the other clerks. “What do you mean there aren’t any shipments?”

  The clerk shrugged. “There aren’t any shipments. Nothing’s come in today.”

  I walked over to the bay and peered down the tracks that were normally packed with trains.

  Mr. Gillespie threw his hands up. “Then—you’ll just have to use the reserves while I place some calls.”

  “We have.”

  “You’ve already called our suppliers?”<
br />
  “We’ve already used up the reserves.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me? I should have been told!”

  The man shoved his hands into his pockets. “We figured there was more coming along.”

  We looked down the tracks in unison as if we were doing one of those tango dances, but there were no trains. It was clear that nothing was coming down those tracks today.

  “I guess . . .” Mr. Gillespie turned to look at me.

  What was there to say? “Finish up that last batch of Royal Taffy, then send everyone home.” There was nothing else to be done.

  Back with Mr. Mundt up in the office, I took over the telephone. I called our suppliers, one by one. Their response to my inquiries was the same. They insisted that we had called and canceled all of the week’s deliveries. And they were all planning to charge us extra for their trouble.

  “Can I just ask you when it was that we called to cancel our order?”

  “It was . . . on Wednesday.”

  “Can you tell me whom you spoke to?”

  “It was someone from your . . . it was . . . it had to have been . . . your purchasing clerk?” There was a long pause. “Yes. I think so. It would have been the purchasing clerk.”

  “Just a moment, please.” I waved Mr. Mundt over and covered the transmitter with my hand. “Who is the purchasing clerk?”

  “Mr. Davis. Dennis Davis.”

  I held the transmitter back up to my mouth. “Then it must have been to Mr. Davis that you spoke.”

  “No, sir.”

  “No?”

  “No.”

  Mr. Mundt had been so certain. “Then . . . who was it?”

  “Couldn’t tell you. Only that it was a lady.”

  “A lady? There’s no—” A lady! I highly doubted that. There was only one person it could possibly have been, and she was no lady at all. I knew as sure I was standing there that Lucy Kendall had called all of our suppliers and told them not to ship the week’s orders. No candy was being made thanks to her. And now I had to go explain it all to my father.

  “But why would she do such a thing?” My father asked as if he were fascinated by the possibilities. “I don’t understand.”