Carriage Trade

by Stephen Birmingham

“And who didn’t want me to buy any stock to begin with—you.”

  “That’s my stock as much as it is yours!”

  “No, it isn’t, Leo. I bought it with part of Papa’s inheritance. If it had been your inheritance, from your papa, it would be yours. But I didn’t see any inheritance coming from your father, did I?”

  “My father left me nothing because I’d married you!”

  “Oh. So now that’s my fault too, is it? Funny, but I remember things a little differently. As I recall, your father died leaving nothing but debts.”

  “Give me that letter, Simma—right now!”

  “Here. Take the letter. What are you going to do with it? You can’t sell my stock for me. Only I can do that. And I’m going to do what Miranda wants me to.”

  “You’re listening to that niece of yours? A niece you’ve only met for half an hour? A niece who’s your crooked brother’s daughter?”

  “I liked her. I trust her. Rita says I should trust my feelings.”

  “Simma, how can you do this to your children and your little grandchildren. Simma, think of them. How can you do this to me, who’s provided for you for all these years, paid all your bills?”

  “The rest of what Papa left me helped to do that, didn’t it? As I recall, I turned all the rest of that money over to you.”

  “I’m not going to let you do this to your family, Simma.”

  “Well, it’s what I’m going to do. Rita says—”

  “Rita says! Rita says this, Rita says that! Why do you need all these psychiatrists, Simma? Because you’re crazy, that’s why. You are completely out of your mind. You are stark, raving mad, Simma. You’re a raving lunatic, and I am going to have you placed in a lunatic asylum! I am going to have you declared mentally incompetent and have myself made the legal custodian of your financial affairs, which you are no longer competent to handle!”

  “Well, you’d better get working on that, Leo,” she says. “You’d better get working on that right now. These things take time, and you’ve only got five business days left. Today is Thursday. That gives you until five o’clock next Wednesday to have me declared insane. Hurry, Leo! Get out and get cracking on it! You’ve got to get me declared insane by five o’clock next Wednesday.”

  “Craziness! Insanity! The more you see these psychiatrists, the crazier they make you!”

  “Not really,” she says. “Actually, Rita and I seem to be making progress. With all the stress you’re putting me through right now, I should be getting an asthma attack, or one of my migraine headaches. But look—no asthma, no migraine. What do you make of that?”

  Back in her office at the store, Miranda is going through her telephone message slips and finds a message to call Pauline O’Malley, her father’s former secretary.

  “Well, Pauline,” she says when she reaches her at home, “how are you enjoying your retirement?”

  “Oh, Miss Miranda,” Pauline says, “I hate to trouble you with this, but something very strange has happened.”

  “What’s that?”

  “After I left the store, I applied for my retirement benefits from the pension fund. But this morning I had a letter saying that the pension fund has been temporarily suspended.”

  “Suspended?”

  “‘Suspended until further notice,’ the letter says. But Miss Miranda, we all contributed to that, and the store was supposed to be matching our contributions. How can they just suspend the fund?”

  “Let me see what I can find out, Pauline,” she says. “I’ll call you back.”

  She steps into Tommy Bonham’s office. “Tommy, is there some sort of problem with the pension fund?” she asks him.

  His face looks grim. “You’ve been talking to Pauline, I guess,” he says.

  “Yes. She says—”

  “Early in August the store was having a cash flow problem. We needed cash to pay our suppliers. We’d already asked for, and been given, a fifteen-day extension, and our suppliers were threatening not to ship us any more merchandise until they were paid. The pension fund seemed an obvious place to find cash, so your father had those funds transferred to the store’s general operating account.”

  “But Tommy, is that even legal?”

  “I begged him not to do it, Miranda.”

  “But you’re the chief financial officer. You let him do this?”

  With the tip of his index finger, he wipes a thin band of perspiration that has formed along his upper lip. She notices a small facial tic she never noticed before. The right corner of his mouth is twitching, as though he were about to smile, but he is not smiling. Perhaps because he sees she has noticed this, he covers his lips with his left hand. She sits with her legs together, and his eyes shift away from hers. “Your father was not exactly the kind of man one let do anything,” he says almost crossly. “If he wanted something done, he did it. He said it was just a question of shifting money from one pocket to the other. It was intended to be temporary. Obviously, he didn’t expect anyone to be applying for retirement benefits for a while. And he obviously didn’t expect to die.”

  “Then we’ve got to get that money back into the pension fund as quickly as possible.”

  “I agree,” he says. “But that’s easier said than done at this point. Where are we going to get the money? It’s gone.”

  “Gone,” she repeats numbly. She stares at him. “Are things that bad, Tommy?”

  The corner of his mouth continues to twitch. “Yes, at this point, I’m afraid they are,” he says.

  “But what if Pauline should decide to hire a lawyer? What if—?”

  “Can you get her to hold off, Miranda? She’s always been very fond of you, but she never cared for me. See if you can get her to hold off.”

  “How much time shall I tell her we’ll need?”

  He frowns. “Two months?” he says, putting it as a question. “Tell her we’re revamping our accounting system, and if she’ll just be patient she’ll start getting her full retirement benefits in about two months.”

  “About two months,” she says carefully.

  “Two months, more or less. Ask her to be patient. Just see if you can get her off our backs.”

  “Tommy,” she says quickly, leaning toward him, “I’d like to see the company’s books.”

  “The books? You mean the daily and weekly sales figures?”

  “Those too. But I’d also like to go over the balance sheets, the P and L, bank statements, receivables, inventory—in fact I’d like to see the General Ledger.”

  “I’m afraid those figures wouldn’t mean a thing to you, Miranda.” His mouth is twitching more rapidly now.

  “Why not? I’ve been taking some business courses at N.Y.U.’s Stern School. I know how to read a set of books.”

  “Well, actually those figures aren’t kept here.”

  “Oh? Where are they?”

  “I keep those figures at my house.”

  “Isn’t that a little unusual, Tommy?”

  “It just makes it easier for me,” he says. “I can work on them on weekends without interruptions. I’ve always done it that way. Your father preferred it. He didn’t like to be bothered with accounting problems.”

  “Could I look at them anyway?”

  “They’d make a pretty bulky package for me to lug into the store. But look,” he says easily, “why don’t you come out to my house for dinner tomorrow night? We’ll go over everything.” He smiles at her. “We’ve also got other things to discuss, you know,” he says.

  “And meanwhile—the daily and weekly sales figures?”

  “Oh, those I can give you right now,” he says, and reaches for a manila folder on his desk. He balances the folder carefully between the forefingers of both hands. “Funny, but you were never interested in things like this about the store before. How come this sudden interest?”

  “If you and I are going to run this store as partners, these are some of the things I’m going to need to know.”

  He hands her the
folder. He is smiling at her now, but the corner of his mouth is still twitching, twitching.

  Back in her office again, she opens the manila folder and begins to go through the computerized printout sheets. All the store’s transactions are listed daily, by department, by inventory control number, by description of the article sold or returned, by the customer’s name and address, by the retail price, and by the manner of sale—“C” stands for cash and “CHG” stands for charge. Then, at the end of each selling week, all this information is summarized, department by department, for comparative review.

  Suddenly she comes to the following entry:

  DEPT. 101 JWLRY (BYR. D. SMITH) INV #7642 LADIES SQ CT 3.9 C DIAMOND RING PLAT STTNG SRA. A. LOPEZ-FIGUEROA C/O BANCO DE VENEZUELA SA 17 CALLE GUARICO CARACAS VENEZUELA $37,500 CHG SEND

  It could be a coincidence, of course. Smitty could have been carrying two such rings in her inventory—Miranda would have no way of knowing—though it seems unlikely.

  Then her stomach slowly turns, she experiences a wave of nausea, and her vision blurs. The date of this sale is August 13, the same day that Tommy Bonham gave this ring to her.

  Oh, please, let this not be happening, Miranda thinks.

  From The New York Times, September 20, 1991:

  CONTINENTAL IN BID FOR TARKINGTON’S

  Continental Stores, Inc., the Chicago-based retailing giant, announced today that it has acquired a 12 percent interest in Tarkington’s, the fashionable Fifth Avenue specialty store. Continental’s initial takeover move did not surprise retailing analysts, who have long expected Tarkington’s to be targeted by one or another of the larger chains. The smaller store is said to have been experiencing difficulties since the sudden death of its founding chief executive, Silas R. Tarkington, on August 10.

  Continental has extended a two-tiered purchase offer to Tarkington’s shareholders, according to Albert J. Martindale, Continental’s president and C.E.O. Initially, shareholders are being offered $60 per share for their Tarkington stock, with 80 percent of this offer in cash and the balance in Continental bonds and commercial paper.

  Besides Continental’s own flagship department stores in 12 U.S. cities, Continental owns Milady Fair fashion stores in Texas, Sally’s Bridal Wear in Chicago, and the Ritzy Kids chain of juvenile apparel stores in California, Arizona, Washington and Oregon.

  Mr. Martindale declined to identify from which Tarkington’s stockholder or stockholders he had acquired his initial position. At the famous Fifth Avenue store, where business appeared to be continuing as usual today, with the usual contingent of carriage-trade shoppers, Thomas E. Bonham III, who has assumed the position of acting president since the founder’s death, could not be reached for comment.

  “By acquiring a prestige label like Tarkington’s, Continental will gain prestige,” said one retailing analyst. “Continental always has been a solid journeyman retailing group. But they never had class. That’s what Continental is in the market for now—a touch of class.”

  “Was it you, Aunt Simma?” Miranda asks when she reaches her.

  “Absolutely not,” she says. “I keep my promises. I’m not selling my stock until you tell me to.”

  “Then I know who it was.”

  “Who?”

  “Moses Minskoff,” Miranda says.

  “Aha. You know, Miranda, I’ve actually begun to enjoy this fight. It seems to be curing my allergies!”

  “What about Granny Rose?”

  “I’m working on her,” Simma says. “I keep reminding her of how much Tarkington’s did for her millinery business, while it lasted.”

  “Thank you, Aunt Simma. We need every vote we can get.”

  This is true. Miranda has been scribbling figures and percentages of share votes on the backs of envelopes. Her own twenty percent interest, plus Simma’s twelve, plus Granny Rose’s three, will assure them of a thirty-five percent vote against the takeover. Tommy’s five percent would make forty percent against, but Tommy, in Miranda’s mind at least, has suddenly become a question mark. And even Tommy’s vote will not give her a clear majority.

  And the employee shareholders? Who knows what they will do? For the past few days, coming into the store before the doors were opened for business, she couldn’t help but notice little knots of employees in urgent conversation on the selling floors. The little groups break apart rather too quickly when they see her approaching them, and their good-morning greetings have been a bit too bright. She knows they are discussing the Continental offer, and why shouldn’t they? The tension in the air at Tarkington’s is now so thick you could cut it with a knife.

  What to do? Call another employees’ meeting? But that is really not up to Miranda, as director of advertising, to do. That is up to Tommy. This is one of several matters she intends to take up with Tommy when she has dinner at his house tonight.

  And Tommy certainly seems to be eager for this dinner to take place. He has poked his head into her office just this afternoon to remind her of their date.

  But the person she really needs to work on is her mother. With her mother on her side, she will have a clear, unbeatable majority. She won’t need Tommy.

  But the trouble is … the trouble is she still hasn’t come up with an argument that will convince her mother not to sell.

  Then, all at once, it comes to her—clear as day, brilliant as a vision—how to do it. It was something her mother said about Smitty. Of course. It is all so simple. She is astonished that she hasn’t thought of this before.

  She glances quickly at her watch. Her mother should right now be rising from her afternoon nap. She picks up the phone and dials the farm.

  “Darling,” she hears her mother’s lovely voice purr.

  “I’m coming out to Old Westbury tonight to have dinner with Tommy,” she says. “I was wondering whether I could stay overnight at the farm.”

  “Of course, darling,” her mother says. “That would be lovely.”

  “And perhaps spend the weekend,” Miranda says.

  “That would be even lovelier,” her mother says. “I have to go to a small dinner dance tonight at the Couderts. If you come in after me, Margaret will have your bed turned down. Or if my light’s still on, pop in and say good night.”

  Tommy is standing at her office door. “You won’t forget tonight?” he says.

  “No, no. Looking forward to it.”

  “Want me to drive you out?”

  “Thanks, but I’ll take my own car. I’m going to spend the weekend at Flying Horse.”

  “Then my house at seven-thirty,” he says, and blows her a quick kiss.

  25

  Now it is Saturday morning, and Miranda is lying in her bed at Flying Horse Farm, trying to make some sense of the events of the night before. He asked me to marry him, she thinks. New York’s most eligible bachelor asked me to marry him.

  And all the rest of it.

  She had arrived at his cottage on Heather Lane promptly at seven-thirty, and Tommy met her at the front door wearing a brown velvet smoking jacket and matching velvet slippers. “I’ve got a surprise for you,” he said, as he led her into the living room.

  “My God,” she cried, as she surveyed the scene. “What happened?”

  He grinned sheepishly, displaying his three dimples. “I had Nino straighten up the place in honor of your visit,” he said.

  The furniture in the room had actually been rearranged in a logical way, the big Victorian sofa against the wall, the club chairs facing it, a cocktail table between the sofa and the chairs. Pictures on the wall no longer hung askew, and the curtains at the windows were neatly drawn. “No sneakers on the sofa,” she said. “No moldy apple cores between the cushions. Tommy, this room is actually pretty! Have you tidied up the entire house?”

  “Take a look for yourself,” he said.

  It was true, she saw, as she moved wonderingly from room to room. The dining room table was no longer strewn with newspapers and trade journals. Instead, it was set for two,
with linen place mats, china, silverware, tulip-shaped wineglasses, linen napkins in polished silver rings, and a silver candelabrum sprouting from a centerpiece of bright autumn leaves, the candles lighted. In the kitchen, the sink and countertops were clean and empty, cupboard doors and drawers were closed, and the kitchen was filled with the most delicious smell.

  “Nino has fixed us his famous chicken adobo and pineapple rice,” he said. “It’s a recipe from the Philippines.”

  “This place should be photographed for House Beautiful right away,” she said.

  He held open the bedroom door. His bed was carefully made, and his closet doors and dresser drawers were closed, with no underwear spilling out and no sign of laundry anywhere. “I’m witnessing a miracle,” she said. “Tommy Bonham, perfect housekeeper.”

  “I did it all for you,” he said, “because I knew you disapproved of my living like a grub. I did it in honor of what I hope is going to be our partnership.”

  “Oh-oh,” she said, pointing to the stack of cardboard cartons in the corner of the bedroom. “You’re going to have to find some place for those, Tomcat. Maybe in your garage.”

  “But that’s what you came to see,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Those are the company’s books,” he said.

  “These,” she said, staring in disbelief at the stack of cartons, “are Tarkington’s books?”

  She stepped toward the boxes and lifted the lid of the topmost one. Inside was what appeared to be a jumble of loose papers: receipts, invoices, checkbook stubs and canceled checks and statements from various banks, canceled savings bank passbooks, copies of deposit and withdrawal slips, copies of bills and order blanks, credit card receipts, credit and debit memos, sales slips, adding machine tapes, handwritten lists marked EXPENSES and OPERATING CASH, petty cash vouchers, many sheets of variously colored and sized slips of paper with scribbled figures written on them, and even some loose business cards.

  “It was the system your father was using before I joined the company,” he said, “and I didn’t feel I should change it.”

  “This?” she said, lifting a handful of yellow, pink, green, and blue slips from the carton and then letting them cascade back into the box again. “You call this a system?”