There is a collective groan.
“To offset this, I’d like to increase the commission percentage to salespeople who exceed certain goals. And I’d also like to allow sales staff members to sell merchandise from departments other than their own.”
There is silence, as the members of the sales staff do mental arithmetic to try to figure what such a move will do to their take-home pay.
“You mean,” says one, “that I could take a customer from Small Leather Goods up to the fur department and sell her a mink?”
“Absolutely.”
“That would work fine for you, wouldn’t it?” says a saleswoman from the fur department. “It wouldn’t work so fine for me, the other way around.”
“It would work fine for you, Eunice, if you could sell the client the mink first,” Tommy says, giving her his best smile. “Well, that’s all I have for you this morning. Except to say that I hope you’ll all bear with me during this difficult interim period, while we all may literally find ourselves fighting to save Tarkington’s. Thank you, and God bless you all.” He hops down from his perch on the tabletop.
There is applause. Muted applause, but applause.
“Well, you may not be president of the store yet, Tomcat,” Miranda says to him when they are back in his office, “but you were certainly acting like one. That was a good meeting, and they liked nearly everything you said. Except salaries, of course. You wouldn’t have expected them to like that. Is the situation really that serious? With Continental?”
He nods. “I’m afraid it is. Albert Martindale has already sent out feelers to me about acquiring my stock. Of course I told him it was not for sale. But I sense a big fight coming.”
“And I guess Daddy was a bit of a fuddy-duddy. A bit behind the times. He didn’t prepare the store for this at all, did he?”
“Your father was your father. He did things his own way.” He picks up a slip of paper from his desk, reads it, and hands it to Miranda. “This explains why Smitty wasn’t here today,” he says.
Miranda reads the note headed From the desk of Diana Smith.
Dear Tommy:
Mr. Jacob Kohlberg, who is the attorney for Si Tarkington’s estate, has informed me that I have been named in Si’s will as Special Curator of the Tarkington Collection of Art when it is turned over to the Metropolitan Museum. This is an exciting new career opportunity for me in the field of Fine Art, and one I accept eagerly.
Since such a curatorship will be a full-time job for me, I am herewith submitting my resignation, effective immediately.
Smitty
“So that solves that problem,” he says. “You should be pleased.”
“I just hope she really has that new job,” Miranda says grimly. “The representative from the museum didn’t exactly do handstands when he learned that Smitty came along as a condition of the gift.”
“But it means we have one less salary to pay,” he says with a little laugh. “Every little bit helps, I guess. What would you say if I gave Jewelry to Gertie Elson of Small Leather Goods? She seemed happy with my idea of interdepartmental selling, and the two departments are right next to each other on the floor. Gertie could buy for both.”
“Good idea. Or what about Sarah Rubinstein of Bridal? They sort of go together: brides, wedding rings. And she complained that her figures weren’t as good as Smitty’s.”
He lowers his voice. “Frankly, I think Sarah’s problem is her merchandise. Her figures are weak because her merchandise is lousy. If it were up to me, I’d get rid of Sarah and find someone else with a younger point of view. Sarah’s bridal apparel looks like it was designed for weddings in the nineteen-fifties.”
“I haven’t been in the Bridal Shop recently,” she admits. “I’ll stop by there and have a look.” She sits in a chair opposite his desk. Unlike his house in Old Westbury, his office is meticulously tidy, his desktop clear, the quilted pillows on his sofa plumped invitingly. But perhaps this is his secretary’s doing. “Now tell me,” she says, “who are these stockholders, besides Mother and myself, who we’ll have to deal with if there’s a takeover attempt?”
“You and your mother each own about twenty percent of the voting shares,” he says. “I own roughly five percent. Moses Minskoff owns about twelve percent.”
“Moe Minskoff is a stockholder?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“How in the world did that happen?”
“He advanced your father money over the years. Your father repaid him in Tarkington’s stock. Then there’s your father’s sister, Mrs. Belsky—”
“My father’s sister? I never knew my father had a sister! You mean I’ve got an aunt I never knew about?”
“Yes, she’s your father’s younger sister, Simma Belsky. Mrs. Leopold Belsky. She lives in Florida. She owns another twelve percent.”
“Does my mother know about her?”
He hesitates. “I’m sure she does,” he says.
“More dumb family secrets!”
“Apparently something occurred in your father’s family years ago, and there was a serious falling out between your father, his sister, and his mother. I don’t know what it was all about. Money, probably—these things usually are. But there’s been absolutely no communication since. Did you know that your father’s mother is still living?”
“I have a grandmother too?”
“Yes, you do. She’s a very old lady now. She lives in a nursing home near Palm Beach, and I understand she’s completely senile. On Mother’s Day your father used to send her something now and then—not often—from the store. But they haven’t spoken to each other in years.”
She looks at him wonderingly. “You’re telling me about relatives I never knew I had! Of course I know why nobody ever mentioned those women. They were family skeletons, weren’t they? That’s quite typical of my parents. Those two didn’t match the Tarkington’s image. They weren’t glossy enough. They weren’t Tarkington types. They reminded Daddy of his quote-unquote humble origins, so he swept them under the rug, turned them into non-persons. Right?”
“I really don’t know the whole story, Miranda. Your father never discussed it with me. All I know is their names from the company books as stockholders.”
“My grandmother is a stockholder too?”
“She doesn’t own as much as your father’s sister. She only owns about three percent of the company. She always has.”
“Wait a minute,” she says, as a thought suddenly flashes across her mind. “What does she look like, this grandmother? Is she short and fat with long white hair? Did she used to live on West End Avenue?”
He spreads his hands. “I don’t know. I’ve never met her either.”
“Do you remember, years ago, one evening at the farm—” But she breaks off. “Never mind.”
“Anyway, those are the six major shareholders. The other shares, the remaining twenty-eight percent, are owned in small blocks by individuals. Some are employees. Your father often rewarded longtime employees with gifts of Tarkington’s stock in lieu of raises. He felt it made them feel as though they owned at least a little piece of the company they worked for. And there are other individuals who’ve bought up shares whenever they appeared for trading, over the counter. I can show you the complete list, if you like.”
“What percentage of the twenty-eight percent is owned by our employees, do you know?”
“About half. Actually a little less than half.”
“Will they be loyal to us? Will they help us fight a takeover?”
“Who knows? It will depend on what form Continental’s tender offer takes. Never underestimate the human capacity for greed. I’d hope they’d be loyal. That’s why I made that little spiel to them this morning.”
“But,” she says, quickly counting on her fingers, “if you and Mother and I and even half the employees refused to sell their shares, that would give us a clear majority, wouldn’t it? Nobody could take us over!”
“That’s right,” he s
ays. “But your mother wants to sell.”
She bites her lip. “Yes,” she says. “At least that’s what she’s saying now. But let me work on her. I wasn’t very nice to her at dinner last night, but let me try being nice to her again. Let me see if I can butter her up. I’ll work on her and you work on the employees—take them to lunch, tell them what a great job they’re doing, what a great store we’re going to make this into, and I’ll tackle Mother. How’s that for a division of labor?”
He shakes his head. “I wish I thought it would work,” he says.
“Why not? Why won’t it work? I’ll make it work.”
“Your mother’s a very determined lady,” he says. “And I think you underestimate the depth of her bitterness.”
“Bitterness?”
“Over your father’s relationship with Smitty.”
“But Smitty wasn’t the first, and she wouldn’t have been the last. There were lots of others—others Mother knew about, and others she probably didn’t.”
“I think she knew about them all,” he says. “But Smitty was different. Your father was besotted with Smitty.” He fixes her with his deep blue eyes. “I can’t lie to you, Miranda,” he says. “I’ve got to tell you the truth. This isn’t going to be easy, but you’ve got to know.”
Her dark eyes flash. “What is it?”
“On the day he died, your father was planning to leave your mother and run away with Smitty.”
She takes a quick intake of breath. “How do you know?”
“I found a letter. About a week before he died, your father had gone out to lunch, and I needed some figures he had. As I rummaged through the papers on his desk, I found a typewritten note. And—I’m not proud of this—I read it. It was from Smitty. It named the date and time when they planned to meet at the farm, where they planned to confront your mother, and then go off together to Bermuda. That date was the day he died. Strange coincidence, don’t you think?”
“Tommy, you don’t think—”
“I don’t know what happened that day at the farm,” he says, “but something did. The whole thing was handled so strangely. First, your mother finds him floating in the pool—”
“No, Milliken found him. Then he called Mother.”
“Oh?” he says, raising his eyebrows. “Is that the story now? Well—”
“That’s what Milliken told me last night. And Mother doesn’t deny that that was the way it happened. She says she doesn’t remember.”
“Anyway, nobody called the police or an ambulance. Instead, Si’s old crony Harry Arnstein is called from twenty-five miles away in Manhattan. He pronounces death from natural causes—no tests, no autopsy—and your father is whisked off to the crematorium. All this before anyone else is notified—not me, not even you.”
“Tommy, you don’t think that Mother—”
“Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” he says. “But I honestly don’t know what happened that day, Miranda, and now I suppose no one ever will. But I did think you ought to know about the letter, and the fact that on the day he died your father had other plans.”
His gaze at her is so burning and intense that she looks away from him. “I think,” she says carefully, “that I hate him now.”
“Don’t say that, Miranda. He was your father. Women were attracted to him, and he was susceptible.”
They sit in silence for a moment, and then he says, “In the meantime, have you given any thought to that proposition I made to you yesterday afternoon?”
“Of course I have,” she says. “I’ve been weighing the pros and cons of that kind of an arrangement. There are a few of both, it seems to me, and I haven’t reached any decision yet.”
“I want to give you something,” he says. “I took something out on memorandum myself this morning.” He reaches in his pocket, removes a small blue box, and hands it to her. “Open it,” he says.
She lifts the lid. “What a beautiful diamond!” she says. “But Tommy, you can’t give this to me!”
“Why not? Diamonds are a symbol of faith and trust. I want you to have this as a symbol of the faith and trust I have in you to run this store in full partnership with me.”
“It’s beautiful, but—”
“Three point nine carats. Extra River Gem quality. Fifty-eight facets. Thirty-three above the girdle, twenty-five below.”
She looks at the ring with some misgivings.
“Put it on,” he says. He picks up the ring and slips it on the ring finger of her right hand. “Wear it on your right hand, so nobody will think you’ve become engaged. Wear it as a symbol of the faith I have in you to become as great a merchandising force as your father was. Wear it to remind you how much I believe in you, Miranda, and of how much I believe in our partnership. Wear it while you make up your mind.”
Back in her own small office, Miranda sits down hard in her chair and distractedly sorts through her morning mail, pushing pieces of paper this way and that, to no particular purpose, while the ring glitters on her finger. She should not have let him give it to her, and she starts to remove it and slip it in her purse when she smells the unmistakable scent of Equipage. She looks up and sees Smitty standing at her door.
Smitty’s face is pale. “I came by to collect some of my things,” she says. “My Rolodex, things from my desk. It took some courage to come up here to see you, Miranda, but I felt I had to. I know you’ve never liked me, but I wanted to tell you how sorry I am about your father. I loved your father, Miranda, and I thought I could make him happy. That’s really all I have to say, that I’m sorry, and to say goodbye, and I hope we can say goodbye like ladies.” She extends her hand, and Miranda extends her own.
“Goodbye, Smitty.”
Suddenly Smitty screams, “Where did you get that? That ring is from my department! That’s my merchandise! Give it to me!”
Miranda withdraws her hand. “Since you no longer work here, Smitty,” she says, “I don’t see how you can talk about your department and your merchandise.”
“Give it to me! It’s mine!”
“It should take you about fifteen seconds to get from here to the elevator,” Miranda says. “I’ll give you ten.”
9
On Friday afternoons—at least when he was in town—Miranda’s father would pick her up outside the entrance to the Brearley School in his car and they would drive together out to Old Westbury for the weekend. Oh, those were the best times.
Miranda loved those Friday rendezvous. They seemed to her displays of pure theater. The Rolls-Royce Corniche would stop grandly at the curb on East 83rd Street, and the chauffeur, in his snappy uniform—gray doeskin breeches, patent leather knee-high boots, tight jacket with silver buttons, and shiny cap—would hop smartly from the car, cross from the front, tip his cap smartly to Miranda, and hold the rear door open for her as she stepped into the back seat, with its mink lap robe, and took her seat beside her famous father. Then she would wave a gay goodbye to her schoolmates as they waited for their buses, the car door would close, and they would glide away. Other girls her age might have been embarrassed by such shows of raw privilege, but not Miranda Tarkington. In those days, she enjoyed being something of a show-off.
What I was was a little snot, she thinks now.
On that particular Friday—she is not sure of the year, but she must have been about twelve—the little princess in her Brearley uniform had been helped into her royal coach by her royal coachman and had waved a royal farewell to her less fortunate countrywomen, and the car had headed toward the Triborough Bridge. The day was special. The weather was brilliant. The East River sparkled like diamonds in the sunlight. Often, her mother joined them for this drive to the country for the weekend, but this week she had left for Old Westbury the day before, and today Miranda had her father all to herself. But even more important matters accounted for Miranda’s buoyant mood. Tonight, Tommy Bonham was coming to the farm for dinner, and Miranda was to be seated with the grown-ups. Since her mother and father sat at
opposite ends of the table, this meant Miranda would be seated facing Tommy, where she could feast her eyes on him, and where he could feast his eyes on her. The dress she planned to wear was cut off-the-shoulder.
Meanwhile, a friend at school had introduced her to a paperback romance series called Lovedrenched. All the novels in the Lovedrenched series were about seduction, and Miranda had been wondering whether it would be possible to seduce a man twenty years her senior. Would her mother notice if she padded her bra with Kleenex for a little extra fullness in the bosom? The royal princess’s loins throbbed with quite plebian lust.
Her father was deep in the pages of Women’s Wear Daily, and Miranda was deep in seductive fantasies, when her father had suddenly put down his newspaper and said, “Wait. I’ve forgotten something.” He leaned forward and gave the driver an address on West End Avenue. So the chauffeur turned west and headed across town through Central Park. “Just a quick errand,” her father said. “A small package to drop off.”
When they arrived at the address on West End Avenue, between 112th and 113th Streets, if Miranda remembers correctly, it turned out to be a drab brownstone sandwiched between two massive apartment buildings. Perhaps half a dozen doorbells were arrayed beside the front door. “I’ll only be a minute,” her father said, and got out of the car, his briefcase in his hand, and rang one of the bells.
The woman’s apartment must have been on the ground floor, because Miranda saw her come to the door—a little fat old lady with flowing white hair, wearing glasses and a dirty apron. She seemed pleased to see him, let him in, and he was gone for several minutes. Then he came out again, got back in the car, and the driver headed back toward the Triborough Bridge.
Miranda was mystified. “Who was that?” she asked him at last.
“Who?” He seemed preoccupied.
“The fat lady. The woman whose house you just went into.”
“She’s just one of our clients. You know I sometimes have to make deliveries in person.”
Miranda giggled. “She certainly didn’t look like a Tarkington’s client, Daddy,” she said. “A fat old lady in a dirty apron.”
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