My bad.
Rhonda took a seat and cleared her throat—still eyeing me like the troublemaker. “I was sad to see your competitor using your product labels to promote his products. I know it’s smart marketing, but in such a small town, it felt like a low blow. I’m sure it was a desperate attempt to recover from the business he lost on Black Friday after Dr. Jennings blamed him for her illness that turned out to be something else. It’s all very unfortunate.” She took way too much pride in telling me that.
Of course, I had no idea what she was talking about.
“Oh …” She read my mind. “You didn’t know?”
“Know what?” I played it extra cool.
“That Kael posted your products’ ingredients next to the ingredients in his products on his shelves along with a list of things that have been shown or suspected to cause heart disease, hypertension, obesity, and cancer. It was a little jarring to see how much fat, salt, and preservatives, that I can’t even pronounce, are in your products.” She chuckled. “I’m sure that’s what gives them such a sinful taste but seeing it like that made me think twice about consuming them. Especially since my doctor just put me on cholesterol medication.”
Business is business …
Biting my lips together, I nodded slowly.
Well played.Chapter Nineteen“But-uh … so anyway … yeah.” My husband used space holders in conversations. He talked in fragments, ending his incomplete thoughts with “you know …” I didn’t know—nobody knew. Everyone else nodded politely as if they did know because Craig was a nice guy. Nice guys didn’t need to speak in full sentences.* * *Monday morning, I knocked on the door to What Did You Expect? thirty minutes before it was supposed to open for the day. Kael grinned as he approached the entrance.
“Nice surprise,” he said after unlocking the door. “But…” he glanced over his shoulder “…one of my employees just arrived. We could probably do it quickly in the bathroom if you’re not too loud.”
“You’ve put me out of business. Happy?”
A deep line formed between his eyebrows. “What?” He retreated a step and opened the door wider to let me inside. “Can you get things set up in the kitchen for tonight’s class?” he asked his employee. “I need a minute with Mrs. Smith.”
The woman nodded and closed the door to the kitchen behind her. She could see us but hearing us would have been a little more difficult, especially since he had jolly holiday music playing fairly loudly through the speakers.
I perused up one aisle and down another while he shadowed me. The labels Rhonda mentioned were no longer on the shelves, but I’d since heard from several other sources that they were there all day the Saturday after Black Friday.
It didn’t matter.
“How did I put you out of business?”
“By coming to Epperly.” I shrugged, keeping my distance and my back to him while pretending to be interested in all the unique items on his displays.
“Does Epperly not support a free market? You have more than one bank and grocery store.”
Two.
We had two banks and two grocery stores. A third bank or a third grocery store would not have survived. Well, the new one might have, but one of the other ones would have had to close its doors. Banks and grocery stores were essential businesses. Specialty food stores were not. One was enough, and outside of the holiday season, one specialty food store was too much.
“I didn’t say you did anything wrong. It’s a free market. You had every right to start up a business here. But it doesn’t change the facts.”
“Which are?”
I stopped at the end of an aisle and turned toward him, crossing my arms over my chest. “I’m closing the doors to Smith’s for good at the end of the year.”
“Because of me?”
I nodded.
“Elsie …”
“Don’t apologize. Don’t give me the business is business speech. I don’t want to hear it. I’m not even mad.”
I was a little mad. At whom? I wasn’t sure.
Myself?
Craig?
Kael?
Customers?
I felt numb. Maybe it was the anniversary of Craig’s death approaching. In so many ways, I felt just as lost and trapped as I did a year earlier. Another tiny rock in my shoe that I couldn’t ignore any longer. It made me angry, irritated, and a little reckless.
“I don’t know what to say.”
I shook my head. “There’s nothing to say. You should be proud. Victorious. You’ll do well. Everyone loves you and your store the way they loved my husband and his family’s store for so many years. And if you stick around long enough, some young asshole with a fresh idea will move into town and force you to close your doors. Think of it as the circle of life in the business world.”
“Young asshole. Is that what I am to you?”