The Lovely Chocolate Mob (3 page)

“I’m sorry to hear that. Your parents sounded like good people; I’d like to have met them,” she said.

“Thanks. Yes, they were good people. They were good parents.”

Miss Planter took time writing her answers down, then asked, “Do you have any special memories about growing up? Anything that stands out of the ordinary?”

I didn’t have to think about this. “Yes, what I remember and cherish best are the vacations we took. Actually, we didn’t take a regular vacation or holiday; the meaning of a vacation is to get away, but on ours, we had a purpose, which was to visit our relatives, our grandparents and uncles and aunts and cousins. Twice a year we’d pack up the car and drive north to visit our grandparents, and in actuality, this was also a trip into the past.”

“What do you mean?” said Miss Planter, writing quickly now.

“Our grandparents were all born in the late 1800s, and they had a way and manner about them that was different from the modern 1960-type of person I was used to. They had been born before the turn of the 20
^th
century, and were married before World War I. They were too old for World War II, and my Dad and uncles all joined the military during that time. Realize that they lived in the country away from the big cities; they had grown up without electricity, no indoor plumbing, no radio, television, phones, appliances, and no Social Security. I got to see and visit with people who were used to ‘making do’ with what they had, and never seemed to be in a rush.”

“That is like stepping into another world,” said Miss Planter. She was getting involved in my story; now I knew she was really listening. She shook her head. “Excuse me for interrupting, please continue.”

“You didn’t interrupt me, Miss Planter,” I said. “Jump in anytime you feel like; I like feedback.”

“That seems to be quite a special memory,” remarked Miss Planter, returning to her professional mode.

“The grandparents were quite old when I knew them; they all passed away when I was a teenager. Even now, thirty-plus years later, I still miss them. I feel I know them better now than I did when I was a kid, because I got Mom and Dad to tell me stories about them.”

“At least you got to know your grandparents,” said Miss Planter, giving me a glimpse into her life. That almost seemed to be a wistful remark.

After a few moments, Miss Planter said, “Well, you seem to have had a good relationship with your folks and relatives. No major issues here, hopefully. Why don’t we move to the people in your immediate neighborhood. I assume you had friends, didn’t you? Why don’t you tell me about them?”

This question was like turning on a spigot of water. “Yes, I had friends growing up. They were almost like extra brothers and sisters. In fact, during the early sixties, we lived in a neighborhood where there were at least 40 children in the immediate vicinity. If we ever got bored, all we had to do was to step outside into the front yard, and there was always something going on with the children. It was a great neighborhood. And this was before the pill took hold, so there were lots of kids around to play with. Family was still the main means of raising and taking care of children. They weren’t all perfect; we weren’t all perfect, but they still existed.”

Miss Planter’s eyes flashed here. “Tell me about your neighborhood. I’d like to hear some stories concerning the children you grew up with.”

“Miss Planter, you’ve just struck oil; I can tell you stories that I’ve carried with me for years.”

“Good, I’d like to hear some of them.”

Miss Planter looked at the clock on the wall, and said, “You’ll have to save that for next time, Mr. Owen. I’ve got another patient to see in five minutes.”

“Live, from Lovely Hill, it’s Darla Bell with a KDBC news special, and with us today is Hal Ostrander, chairman of the board of directors of the Lovely Chocolate Company.”

This one sentence opened a special local television KDBC News Show, which most of the people of Lovely watched, at least half of them being affected by the financial well-being of the city’s largest and most influential business. And half of those viewers tuned in to watch the ever-perky Darla Bell, local newslady who would obviously leave Lovely one day at the summons of one of the national news networks, or, if she chose, could work for any media company in the southern hemisphere, since she was fluent in Spanish.

“Mr. Ostrander, how close were you to Cornelius Lovely?” she asked, hoping to unearth a little emotional drama for ratings’ sake.

“I can’t say I was close to Mr. Lovely, per se, but of all the members of the board and Lovely staff and employees, I think I could safely say I knew him best.”

“What kind of man was Mr. Lovely?” Darla asked, since the first answer fizzled on the emotional level.

“Mr. Lovely was a very principled, very disciplined man, who loved the surrounding community almost as much as he loved making chocolate for all the world to enjoy. Chocolate was his life, his reason for getting up in the morning, the cause of his very being, his raison d’etre.”

Miss Bell, sensing a product plug for the Lovely Company, changed the subject quickly. She asked, “Now that Mr. Cornelius has passed away, do you know who will carry the mantle of the Lovely Chocolate Company? And will there be any dramatic changes, and modernization, any mergers in the near future?”

Mr. Ostrander, a bit disappointed he couldn’t continue to inform the viewers about the health benefits of chocolate as he had planned, went back into his chairman role and said, “Let me assure the general public that there will be no immediate changes to the Lovely Chocolate Company. We are and always have been a family-run, family-oriented business, a business that cares about the children, the community, and of course, our country.” This sounded a bit odd to Miss Bell, who knew that there were other countries, albeit civilized, western countries, who enjoyed the product of the Lovely Chocolates. Mr. Ostrander continued, “As chairman of the Board, I will probably be in charge of the company until a suitable leader, or, should I say, a fitting and competent successor is chosen to lead the company for the foreseeable future.” Darla Bell smiled and nodded at the whole answer, and looking to the camera, said, “It’s common knowledge that Mr. Lovely was a widower with no children who are interested in the role; do you think his granddaughter, Susan Lovely, celebrity model, might consider taking up the challenge?”

This question completely caught Mr. Ostrander off-guard; he knew that Susan Lovely was probably the beneficiary of Cornelius Lovely’s will, and that she would also inherit the bulk of his estate, which would probably include the majority stock holdings of the chocolate company. He hated the idea of a young to middle-aged irresponsible, untried, and uneducated in business, someone, who had never shown an inkling of interest in the company’s business, being over this chocolate empire. She would also become his new boss, and he didn’t want to have to prove his worth to an upstart, after having served his whole adult life one man, Cornelius Lovely.

He cleared his throat, then said, “Well, of course, I can’t really say anything about this since the will, of course, hasn’t been read, or probated just yet. I’m sure we will know the answer to this sometime in the near future; I’ll have to get back to you on that.”

Darla Bell wasn’t through with the subject, though, and threw another curve when she said, “We have Susan Lovely with us in our studio…” and at that, Hal Ostrander looked shocked that an outsider, perhaps soon to be an insider, would meddle in the affairs of the business.

The picture on the city’s television screens immediately showed Susan Lovely, well dressed in a tight outfit, seated in the KDBC studio in downtown Lovely, along with another newsperson, the charming and dapper Gregory Jouglard. Greg was the man-about-town reporter, a newer reporter from just across the border, who was thought to appeal to viewers from Louisiana. He smiled to the camera, and said “Good morning. With us today is Susan Lovely, model and granddaughter of Cornelius Lovely, our founding father and benefactor to the city of Lovely. Miss Lovely, first let me express my condolences for the passing of your grandfather, Cornelius.”

The camera showed Susan Lovely, who was checking a mirror, but quickly put it away, saying, “Thank you, Greg. Yes, it was hard on the whole family losing my beloved grandfather.”

Greg Jouglard then asked, “Can you tell us how close you were to Mr. Lovely? Can you tell us about him, his life, his beliefs, his work ethics… the whole man?”

Susan Lovely looked as though she were caught offguard by the question, but tried to answer it the best she could: “Like I said, it was hard on the whole family losing my beloved grandfather. He loved us all so very, very much. I don’t believe anything has hurt me as deeply as losing my Pee-Paw.”

Mr. Jouglard looked at her, and Susan continued, “That’s what I used to call him when I was little.”

“I see,” said Mr. Jouglard. “Well, do you have any stories to tell about Mr. Lovely? Did you ever spend any time with him growing up?”

“Yes, I used to spend summers with he and Mee-Maw here in Lovely, when I would come to live with them at their home on the company grounds. My parents only wished the very best for me, and so instead of summer camp they’d pack me up and send me to live with my grandparents, and that’s how I became his favorite grandchild!”

Mr. Jouglard was smiling along with her, but it was a bit forced; he was smiling for the show’s sake. “Rumor has it, Miss Lovely…”

“Yes?” she replied.

“Rumor has it that as a family member, you will be the next-in-line to the Lovely command, so to speak. Is there any truth to that?”

“Well, I guess we’ll find out when the will is read, won’t we?” And with that, she gave a little giggle at her own cleverness.

“If indeed you are the will’s benefactor, or… benefactress, would you be interested in becoming the CEO of the Lovely Chocolate Company?”

“If selected, I would serve,” said Susan Lovely, with a straight and solemn face.

Mr. Jouglard figured he’d better end the interview before it got any worse, so he turned to the camera and said, “Well, I guess that wraps up what we needed to know here; back to you, Darla.” This was not one of his better interviews, and he knew it.

The television screens then showed Miss Bell with the board of directors, all middle-aged to older white men, with one black and one Asian man, and one middle-aged female dressed in purple, in their meeting room, eating chocolate candies while standing around Miss Bell, who also had one. They were smiling and mugging to the camera, and all the wrapper labels were properly shown, in the right direction and fingers placed so the product could be read and recognized by the viewers.

“Thank you, Greg. And to the town of Lovely, it looks as though all systems are go here at the Lovely Chocolate Factory, and the transition from one leader to the next should be smooooth sailing, with no problems whatsoever to the community. And with that, this is Darla Bell, and the board of directors, saying ‘Good-bye, Lovely!’”

The cameraman pulled the lens back a little so all the board members could be seen, and they were waving to Lovely with one hand, holding chocolate bars with the other, saying, “Good-bye” in unison as the camera faded to black.

“Boy, that must be humiliating,” I said to myself, having watched the local news special. I turned off the TV and went to bed, feeling disgusted for viewing it, but like everybody else in Lovely, wanted to know the state of the company.

The next week I was back in Miss Planter’s office, telling her a few stories about childhood days growing up on the southside of Lovely.

“You could say we were Americana,” I said. “Little girls wore dresses; little boys wore baseball caps and blue jeans, t-shirts, even overalls. Girls had long hair, and boys wore theirs short; there were no tattoos or body piercings then. We hosted lots of neighborhood kids in our backyard, since Mom and Dad took out all the stickers in the yard and put in some swings.”

Miss Planter gave me a look of curiosity; I needed to explain.

“A sticker was a burr in the grass; my parents had both gone out back with yard tools and gloves and pulled up all the weeds so we wouldn’t have any problems going barefoot, something common that kids did then.”

“How did you get along with your playmates, Mr. Owen?” Miss Planter asked.

“I think I got along with them rather well. I did have a run-in with one of them when I was younger, but it was just a childhood fight, nothing to be upset about.”

“Who won the fight?” asked Miss Planter.

“I did.”

“Then you didn’t have to be upset about it.”

“You’re probably right,” I said. “The winner doesn’t have to be upset about that. The loser was the one who had to adjust.”

“Do you have any stories about your neighborhood playmates that did upset you?” she asked.

I stopped for a moment to recall one story that I kept buried.

“Yes,” I admitted, after the pause became awkward. “I have one. I’m still ashamed about it.”

“Would you care to share it?” she pried.

“I suppose I could. It was a long time ago, and it was another backyard episode. I was playing in our sandbox when Billy Blevins came from next door to play. He was about 18 months younger than me, and so he was always a bit of a tag-along friend. Anyhow, we were playing in the sand box, when he decided that he was going to climb up one end of the swing set, crawl across the top of it and down the other side, like the bigger kids did. I told him I didn’t think that was a good idea, since our parents told us not to do that. He knew, but said he was going to do it anyway.”

“Did you tell him ‘no’?” Miss Planter asked.

“No, I decided to let him go ahead, since I had warned him. I had my back to the swingset, and was working on a project in the sand box. I could hear him climbing up the swing frame, and getting to the top. Then he started across on the support beam, and that’s when he ran into trouble. I don’t know whether he slipped and couldn’t make it, and decided to come down the chains on the swings instead of the poles… well, that’s probably what he did. I didn’t know; I didn’t turn to see. He called for help, but I wouldn’t have been able to do anything to help him; I was just a little kid, too. His mother heard him crying for help. She called to me from their backyard next door to help him, but I just ignored her. She ran around the fences through the front yards to get to our backyard to help Billy down from the swingset. She then carried him back to their house. I sat the whole time in the sandbox, working on my little sand project.”