Rules of the Road by Joan Bauer Page A

electronics salespeople who were discussing their products loudly while pouring margaritas from pitchers into huge glasses that were big enough to raise goldfish in. There could have been goldfish in them, actually, but I don’t think the Markoy Electronics salesforce would have noticed. I knew about margaritas because my father went through a Latin American drinking phase and made margaritas at home. He did this while singing “La Bamba.” He’d sing the “la la la la la la la bamba” part extra high and squeeze the lime around the glass and sprinkle on plenty of salt and pour the liquor combination into the blender. Dad was very exact when he made drinks, even when he was bombed. He always reminded me of a pharmacist, measuring just the right amount of cough syrup into the bottle. Of course, unlike a pharmacist, toward the end of the evening, Dad would be measuring his concoctions on the floor.
    Mrs. Gladstone chewed her jalapeños without breaking a sweat. For an old person, she has grit. Three Markoy employeesbegan an enchilada eating contest (not a pretty sight), but she wasn’t paying attention. Her eyes got far away.
    “I grew up along the Guadalope River,” Mrs. Gladstone said quietly, gazing out the window. “I just lived to be in water when I was a girl, couldn’t stand wearing shoes. I’d kick them off every chance I’d get and stick my feet in the water, summer and winter. And now I own one hundred and seventy-six shoe stores.” She laughed. “The good Lord knows how my father would have split his spleen laughing at that. He was always barking at me to put on my shoes. ‘Madeline Jean,’ he’d say, ‘you put on your shoes of peace, girl.’ Daddy was a Baptist minister and turned everything into a sermon. ‘Those aren’t just shoes you’re putting on,’ he’d shout, ‘those are the sandals of
God Almighty.’”
    I looked at her from the corner of my eye. Some people are hard to imagine as children.
    Mrs. Gladstone leaned back in the wooden chair, lost in thought. “Daddy always said that shoes take us along life’s pathways, they get all muddied up, all scratched from wear. We’ve got to clean them up, take care of them. He said God was like a master cobbler, stretching a piece of leather over a wooden last, fastening it down with nails, carefully stitching it together to form something special. That man had three sermons about shoes.”
    “I never thought about shoes that way.”
    “PKs gets their share of sermonizing.”
    “PKs?”
    “Preacher’s kids.”
    I smiled. “He didn’t know about your business?”
    “He died right before Floyd and I opened the first store in Dallas. He would have baptized that whole place if he’d had the chance.”
    “That would have been something, Mrs. Gladstone.”
    The man who won the enchilada eating contest lunged toward the bathroom door marked HOMBRES . The bill came; Mrs. Gladstone got out her wallet. “I still feel like he’s with me in every store Floyd and I opened. When I was a child, I’d wonder why in the world did I have a father so all-fired fixated on shoes?” She opened her hands, grinning. “Sure made me think about selling them a little different.”
    I looked down. I always wondered why I had a father who was a drunk.
    I haven’t figured that one out yet.

    Curling up on the rollaway bed made me think about laying my father out on the living room couch when he was drunk. The couch wasn’t long enough for Dad (he was six four), so I’d bend his knees to get him to fit. Faith never had to do it. Dad always said there was a price to pay for being the oldest. You’re the one who gets practiced on. His dad would beat him to a pulp over something small while his younger brother Billy got the world handed to him on a Wedgewood plate.
    Billy was never as good a salesman as Dad, though.
    My best memories of my dad were when he’d take me out to study salespeople. Dad said you can learn anything bywatching other people do it,