Story so far: When conversation lags between the old saleswoman and her niece during a road trip to Killington, Vermont, the old sales woman decides to stop in Rutland to show her niece where she lived with her first husband Roy. While parked in front of her old flat, she begins to tell her niece about living there and selling there in 1978.
“Why did you get married if you were still so young?" Sara asked. "Why didn’t you just live together?" I could see Sara felt she had to interrupt me at that point at asking what to her were probably very obvious questions. I could also see she was staring at the flat, noticing the lack of step, stoop, or sidewalk.
“People got married earlier back then. We were both bright and ambitious, had good senses of humor and so it seemed the right thing to do.”
Sara gave me a solid glance and waited for more.
“We teamed up, I guess, like when a bunch of strangers are in danger and a couple of them see each other as survivors and team up? The world was getting real tough for people starting out without a degree or much family backing.”
The people living in my old flat were coming home from work. I knew they’d notice a fancy SUV with a ski rack parked out front, so I put the car in gear and pulled off the side of the road, and headed toward Center Street where all the shops used to be.
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After we moved to Rutland, we found the apartment in the gut. The landlord wanted 2 weeks rent for security and had to be paid every 2 weeks, in advance. We were both able to find jobs in sales, on straight commission. I found a job selling gift boxes, custom-designed bags, and wrapping paper to independent retail stores: Mom and Pop apparel and jewelry stores and gift shops. There were hundreds of independent gift shops in Vermont in 1978; they all gave away gift boxes with any purchase. Sometimes you could get the owners to buy fancy printed custom bags if you convinced them the bags were walking billboards and the expense should come out of their newspaper ad budget. But the real money was in gift boxes because the stores needed so many sizes and the minimums were high.
Roy found a job selling restaurant supplies to all the independent restaurant owners and innkeepers that went in and out of business in Vermont, in a predictable rhythm in the 60’s and ’70s. He liked to settle in for mornings or afternoons at the library and do “research” with local municipal and state business directories, looking for insight into his potential customers. He’d read Restaurant News front to back every week, along with every other local or national business publication the library had. He even researched the history of restaurant “tabletop” through the ages. Did you know the choice of plates and stemware is the one decision never left up to the restaurant manager? The owner is always involved. Therefore, a tabletop call is an important call.
Because it was so hard to make a living on straight commission; we worked out an unspoken agreement to give each other a break on some things. For example, we lied to each other about how hard, and how long, and how consistently we worked. When one of us stalled in the morning, shuffling papers or making lists (it was harder to stall in ‘78 with no computers, email, or blackberries), instead of heading out into the cold, we never had the heart to call each other on it.
We developed a routine. Roy’s routine was to work long and consistently, but I suspected, especially when he began doing so much library research that winter, not very hard.
My routine was to work hard and consistently, day after day, but not for very long at one time. That morning was typical for me. I had an early morning appointment right in Rutland and planned to work hard the rest of the morning making cold calls. I remember thinking I must LASER my energy for today’s calls. Lasers were the big new thing then. I had to narrow my focus and energy to a point, to pursue the task at hand. Then, I’d sneak home around 2 o’clock and slip into the bathtub to watch TV. Since our apartment was basically a square with 3 smaller squares hanging off it, I could lie in the tub, drink pink zinfandel, read, and watch the TV in the living room all at the same time.
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“That’s different,” Sara said.
“Yeah, I guess it was. But I knew it meant where we lived was pretty funky. And I was sort of embarrassed about it in front of myself. You know?”
“Go on; tell me about your appointment at the Yankee Peddler.”
To be continued in Chapter 3
