Rules of the Road

by Joan Bauer

  I tucked my knees up in a way that wouldn’t permanently cripple my back and said, “Sleep tight, Mrs. Gladstone. Tomorrow is another day.” My grandmother used to say that to me and Faith when she tucked us in bed. It always made me hopeful.

  Mrs. Gladstone snorted through her ancient nose. “Thank you, Jenna,” she said softly. “I appreciate that.”

  I waited for her heavy breathing which meant she was asleep, but it didn’t come.

  CHAPTER 10

  When I woke up the next morning, Mrs. Gladstone couldn’t get out of bed.

  “This blasted leg,” she said, struggling against the pain.

  I tried to help her up, but she cried out. It hurt too much.

  “I’m going to get a doctor, ma’am.”

  “No you’re not.” She tried to get up again and flopped back down.

  “Mrs. Gladstone, you need medical help and I’m going to get it for you.”

  I threw on jeans, Reeboks, my yellow Barcelona T-shirt, and ran out the door.

  The elevator took forever to come. When it got to my floor it was packed with bleary-eyed Markoy Electronics people who looked like they’d spent the night hanging upside down in a meat locker. I jammed in anyway, rode to the lobby, found Chuck, the assistant hotel manager, who made a few calls and finally found an orthopedist who would come to the hotel. I went back up to the room to tell Mrs. Gladstone the doctor was coming.

  She wasn’t happy to see me.

  “You defied me,” she said.

  “Yes, ma’am, I did.”

  I looked down. I had practice defying adults. My father was always telling me he was fine when he was drunk, always telling me he didn’t need my help when the plain truth was he needed my help sometimes to just sit down. Some adults don’t always know how to take care of themselves.

  She lay there looking old and miserable.

  “Both Harry and Margaret feel I should attempt to stop the sale to the Shoe Warehouse,” she said quietly.

  “Can you do that?”

  “I don’t know. Harry Bender has begun to call investors and other store managers to get their feedback.”

  Mrs. Gladstone pulled at the lace fringe of her nightgown and shivered in the warm room. She didn’t look like she could stop a paper airplane.

  “I want you to call the doctor and tell him to not come,” she ordered.

  I took a big breath. “Mrs. Gladstone, you can keep being the tough person you are and still have a bad hip and need some help.”

  She looked away.

  “Because if you don’t get some help it’s going to eventually affect your strength, and something tells me if you and Mr. Bender are going to try to save this company, you’re going to need all the strength you can get, and I’m not just talking legs here.”

  She sniffed.

  “I don’t know beans about saving companies, but I know how it works in families, and believe me, you’ve got to pull everybody you trust together in one place and talk real clear and plain and let everyone else do the same because there’s power in truth. See, for too long at my house we just let Dad’s drinking go by without anyone saying anything much about it, calling it a little problem, things like that. You’ve got to call a thing by its full name and that’s what lets the truth out where it can get some fresh air.”

  Mrs. Gladstone studied my face. “You have learned a great deal in your sixteen years.”

  “Not really.”

  There was a knock on the door.

  She folded her arms tight. “I don’t want to see a doctor.”

  I walked to the door. “I know you don’t. But you’ve got to.”

  “And what gives you the right to order me around?”

  I took a deep breath, fished around in my pocket. “I have the car keys, ma’am.” I held them up. “No disrespect intended.”

  Mrs. Gladstone grunted.

  I looked through the peephole at the doctor standing in the hall, opened the door, and let her in.

  Dr. MacMillan wasn’t taking any of Mrs. Gladstone’s guff, which I was glad to see. It gets lonely being the only reasonable person in the room. She told Mrs. Gladstone her hip was in bad shape and got to hear her speech about how that leg was going to make it to Texas. Dr. MacMillan said she needed to get X-rays, which made her split an atom, especially when the two ambulance men came to carry her off to the hospital, and she declared she wasn’t going to be “hoisted from bed by strangers” and rapped one of the attendants on the shoulder with her cane.

  “Jenna will help me,” she declared.

  “Is she always like this?” the attendant asked, rubbing his shoulder.

  “Pretty much.”

  I leaned over the bed so Mrs. Gladstone could put her arms around my neck and I could lift her up. This seemed dumb with two strong men in the room who did these things regularly. Of course, I was taller than both of them.

  Pain flashed across her face, but I got her up. And eventually, after a few false starts, into the ambulance where she would not lie down on the cot. She sat there staring straight ahead, bony arms crossed tightly against her chest, informing the attendant she did not need her blood pressure checked, the problem was her hip.

  I said, “They’re going to take it eventually, Mrs. Gladstone. Here or at the hospital. My mom’s a nurse and you can’t come in with a hang nail and get out without someone checking your blood pressure.”

  I looked at her face, how hard and determined it was. I thought about what she and her husband had to do to build their company from the ground floor up, store by store, all 176 of them, for all those years. Women weren’t in business much back then. I bet she knocked their socks off.

  I took a real chance with my future, leaned close to her ear and said, “Save it, Mrs. Gladstone, for the real fight. You know?”

  She sniffed hard. Then gradually her face relaxed. She nodded slightly.

  “Well, for mercy’s sweet sake,” she barked at the attendant. “Are you going to take my blood pressure or not?”

  CHAPTER 11

  Dr. MacMillan had Mrs. Gladstone stay overnight in the hospital for observation and told her what she already knew. She needed a new hip.

  “Sooner rather than later,” the doctor said.

  “I am scheduled for an operation in September.”

  “I wouldn’t recommend waiting that long,” said the doctor, writing out a prescription and suggesting she not take stairs.

  Then she said it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have a wheelchair in the car just in case, and Mrs. Gladstone said a wheelchair was out of the question. The doctor handed me a pad with scrawled instructions that looked like hieroglyphics on what kind of wheelchair to buy. “Just in case I’m right,” she whispered.

  I packed up our suitcases, checked us out of the hotel, got the car, and asked Mrs. Gladstone if we should take a run over to the medical supply store to look at wheelchairs. This went over like a pop chemistry quiz the day before spring vacation when you had to wonder for a whole week if you’d destroyed your grade point average.

  “You are to keep those infernal things away from me, do you hear?”

  “Just trying to cover all the bases, Mrs. Gladstone. I know it’s the last thing you want. I’m worried about you is all and—”

  “Don’t be.”

  This whole trip was beginning to be a whole lot more than I’d bargained for.

  “Mrs. Gladstone, I’m not a nurse and if anything happened that I couldn’t handle—”

  “If I need a nurse, I’ll hire one. Now I suggest, young woman, that you do what I’ve hired you to do.”

  I gave the Cadillac extra gas to let her know I was mad.

  We were heading to 55 South which would take us to St. Louis, the Gateway to the West. From school, I remembered that the explorers Lewis and Clark started their expedition in St. Louis. From Dad, I knew about the city’s number-one product, Budweiser beer.

  Mrs. Gladstone had me turn on a radio station that played the big band music of Worl
d War II, which, trust me, you either like or you don’t. My grandmother would have liked it, but for a sophisticated teenager it was like Chinese water torture. I focused on something else to avoid screaming—eavesdropped, actually, as Mrs. Gladstone talked to Harry Bender on the phone again, saying that she didn’t see what could be done and wasn’t it too late to win back the company? An old school bus painted baby blue from the Anointed Saints of the Evangelical Free Gospel Church of Jesus Christ, Vernon, Illinois, screeched in front of me. I rammed on the brakes to avoid hitting the back of the bus with the sign that said HEAVEN IS OUR REAL HOME.

  “Mercy,” said Mrs. Gladstone, jolting forward.

  “I’m sorry.”

  I slowed down, keeping two bus lengths between me and heaven, and pulled onto 55 South. I focused on the road; I had to be sharp. This always energized me. I didn’t think too much, just clicked into the driving rhythm as the rows of highway lights curved over the pavement. 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. I let out a lonely sigh and realized how much I missed my mother.

  I missed Chicago, too. And Opal.

  I even missed Faith.

  I missed being with people under seventy years of age.

  I missed selling shoes and listening to real music.

  I missed tacos and refried beans and all-night Chinese take-out places and buses and teenage conversation.

  I missed my grandmother and the fun we used to have. The loss of that was like a giant crater in my heart.

  I wondered how she was getting along; wondered if she remembered enough to miss me.

  What if Grandma slipped too far away while I was gone?

  What if Murray hired someone who could sell shoes even better than me?

  What if Dad bothered Faith?

  What if he never came back?

  I started crying—never appropriate for a professional driver. I looked for the next place to pull off because the pain of my grandmother and my father and my homesickness and my worry were bursting out at the same time.

  Tears rolled down my cheeks. I hoped Mrs. Gladstone was looking out the window because I didn’t think she’d appreciate this behavior. I steered off the exit ramp, not asking permission. Mrs. Gladstone didn’t say anything, she just let me pull into the parking lot of Pru’s Pie Palace, and run inside.

  I stood by the sink in the bathroom and washed my face with cold water to get the red splotches off from all the crying and despair. No paper towels. I stuck my face under the hand blower which made my eyes tear, praying no one would walk in. If Opal was here she would have told me that tears weren’t anything to be ashamed of, that crying in front of people just makes you closer. That’s how Opal and I met. She was crying at the bus stop after school. Her new wallet had been stolen and she didn’t have enough money to get home. I paid her fare and we rode home together. By the time we’d passed North Avenue, I’d told her my dad was an alcoholic, she’d told me her aunt believed in alien abduction, and we’d become best friends right there on the 22 North. Like my grandma always said, you never know the blessings that can come from suffering.

  I dried my eyes on my sleeve and walked out to where Mrs. Gladstone was sipping coffee. There were two pieces of coconut cream pie on the table, my absolute favorite dessert. I sat down reverently in front of all those calories.

  She leaned forward, studying me. “You want to talk about it?”

  I shook my head. I figured she’d make me spill my guts, but she didn’t.

  “Some things go too deep for words,” is all she said.

  And we sat there eating our pie.

  CHAPTER 12

  We made it to St. Louis by nightfall—drove past the Gateway Arch on the Mississippi riverfront with all those city lights gleaming like stars. The arch represented the gateway to the west where the pioneers began their journey to the new land. Mrs. Gladstone said it was 630 feet high. Seeing it made me feel like I’d just done something important. I thought of all those pioneer teenagers pushing westward in the covered wagons—hot, sweaty, wondering what the new land would bring, trying to convince their parents to let them drive.

  I was getting very good at finding hotels. I came to a perfect stop with no lurching in front of the St. Louis Beauregard and really impressed the doorman, who was dressed like the Nutcracker from the ballet, except he wasn’t wearing tights. He helped Mrs. Gladstone out as a teenage boy drove by; his father was screaming instructions at him from the passenger seat: Slow down! Watch the light! Brake! I smiled maturely. Those days were over for me.

  Mrs. Gladstone and I checked in (separate rooms) and headed upstairs. She was limping bad and said she was going to have dinner in her room and that I should do the same.

  Room service.

  Freedom.

  I went to my room—it had a huge TV and a queen-size bed with a painting over it that looked like the artist put ink in his mouth and spat it back on the canvas. I flopped on the bed and felt at least nineteen. It would have been great to have Opal here. She’s the first friend I’ve ever had who I could tell everything to. With the others, I always held back about Dad and our problems, afraid that if people knew how weird things were, they wouldn’t like me. With Opal, the more I tell her, the closer we get.

  I looked at the room service menu: steak, lamb chops, pork medallions, turkey club, chocolate mousse cake. My stomach growled. Opal and I could make fast work of that menu. We once ate two large double cheese pizzas in one night with a six-pack of Mountain Dew and two quarts of toffee almond ice cream.

  Bingeing alone is not as meaningful.

  The phone rang. I waited three rings, picked it up.

  “Young woman!”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I need your help after all.”

  So much for freedom.

  I hung up and headed down the hall to Mrs. Gladstone’s room, knocked on the door. After a long time, she opened it. She looked pale and shaken. I walked in. She pointed to a note on the bed.

  “Apparently Elden will be joining us tomorrow,” she said heavily.

  “You mean here?”

  “He has a business opportunity he must discuss with me immediately.”

  “What kind of opportunity?”

  “The message didn’t say. I need you to get in touch with Harry Bender.”

  “Me?”

  She sighed. “You. I have already taken my pain medication. It’s making me very groggy.” Her old eyes looked cloudy. “Tell him that Elden is coming to St. Louis. Write down everything Harry says and we’ll talk in the morning.” Mrs. Gladstone moved slowly to the bed. “I need to lie down.”

  “Well, shoot, how’s the old girl doing?”

  I was sitting on my queen-size bed with the phone tucked under my chin and a legal pad in my lap having just told Harry Bender that Elden was coming to St. Louis and Mrs. Gladstone asked me to call.

  “Not too great, Mr. Bender.”

  “Blast, that’s a shame. That spurless son of hers isn’t going to make the situation any sweeter.”

  I wrote down “spurless son—not sweeter.”

  “Here’s what you got to do,” said Harry Bender in a booming Texas voice, “’cause Maddy’s got to be in bad shape if she’s not calling herself. You’ve got t
o diffuse the situation because that boy’s coming to town with bad news for sure.”

  I wrote down “diffuse situation—bad news for sure” and said, “Me?”

  “That’s right.”

  “How do I do that?”

  “You tell him Maddy’s hurting too bad to see anyone and you’ll take the message.”

  “But he’s not going to tell me anything.”

  “That’s right. And in this situation, ignorance is golden.” I wrote down “ignorance is golden” and waited.

  “’Cause, you see, old Elden’s trying to slink between two camps. You can’t trust what he’s going to say and Maddy needs to be surrounded by the truth before the lies start breaking in around her.”

  “What if I goof up?”

  “You’re not going to do that,” Harry Bender insisted. “You’re going to reject that thought. You’re going to tell yourself you’ve got more than enough on the ball to pull this off. All you’ve got to do, no matter what old Elden says, is to smile and tell him that you absolutely understand, but his mother can’t see anyone today.”

  “But what if he gets mad at me?”

  Harry Bender laughed. “You just remember, never go punching a man who’s chewing tobacco.”

  “Well . . .”

  “Don’t think it to death. Just approach him nice and friendly. You got any questions, call old Harry. Nighty night.”

  Click.

  I wrote “never punch a man who’s chewing tobacco.”

  I think at the very least this should be a bumper sticker, but I’m not sure what any of this has to do with selling shoes.

  The next morning I told Mrs. Gladstone everything Harry Bender said right down to the never punch a man who’s chewing tobacco part, which made her laugh out loud, even though she was hurting.