Worthy Opponents(3)
She was beautiful without a doubt, with her white-blond hair, but she wasn’t a boy. Tucker could hardly see himself painting a sign that said “Brooke and Daughter.” Eileen and Tucker acted as though a misfortune had befallen them and viewed Spencer’s sex as an embarrassing failure. As a result, most of the time they ignored her and left her to a nanny. They had been willing to accept a son, but not a daughter.
Spencer’s grandfather adjusted to her arrival sooner than her father when he saw how bright she was. She adored her grandparents, who were warm and loving to her. Hannabel rarely left home without a hat with a little chic veil, and Spencer loved trying on her grandmother’s hats. Her lackluster parents always acted as though there had been a mistake, and she was somebody else’s child. She was so different from her parents and much more like her grandparents.
Spencer loved helping out at the store as early as in her teens. She had a proper summer job there in the stockroom at seventeen and was selling on the floor at eighteen. She followed fashion trends closely and absorbed all the information her grandfather shared with her. She remembered everything. His words were sacred to her. She attended Parsons School of Design simultaneously with Eugene Lang College, and majored in fashion administration. After flirting briefly with the idea of becoming a designer, she decided she preferred the opportunities that the store provided her. And at her father’s urging, she got her master’s in business administration at Columbia.
She went to work at the store as soon as she got her graduate degree. She and her grandfather had an extraordinary first year of her working there full-time. He shared the secrets of his success in retail with her. She learned more than she’d ever dreamed she would at the feet of the master, and they had a great time together. Two of his favorite mottos were “Never be afraid of change” and “Don’t get stuck in a rut just because something has always been done a certain way.” He had remarkably forward, modern ideas about marketing and merchandising. He was ninety-one at the time, at the pinnacle of success, still full of energy, and always with a new idea he wanted to try. He listened to the comments made by his staff, and always found a way to blend new ideas with old ones in his own distinctive way.
Spencer’s father was still CFO then, having hated every year he’d worked there, and eager to retire at sixty-six after an undistinguished career in the shadow of his father. But Spencer was still a long way from being ready to take over, and Thornton had no desire to relinquish the reins to anyone yet, not even his beloved granddaughter, who at her age still had much to learn about the business. Thornton was still having too much fun running his store to retire.
Hannabel came through frequently, always with a critical eye on the merchandise, with useful comments to make to her husband. Thornton always listened to her. She was rarely wrong. Styles had changed, but the concepts of successful retailing hadn’t. Spencer learned a great deal from both of them. She loved working for her grandfather.
The idea of moving the store to a better, fancier location uptown had been discussed many times, but Thornton always rejected it. Although the neighborhood had improved in the last fifty years, it still bordered on some seedy areas. The customers who came from uptown in droves didn’t seem to mind, and more than ever, Brooke’s was an unexpected jewel in the midst of a dicey neighborhood, which Thornton felt gave them a certain cachet. He owned the building, and he had no desire to sell it and move. He thought it would just make the store seem ordinary if they moved uptown. It was the one point he was always adamant about, and since his instincts had always been infallible on all subjects, his advisors at the store no longer challenged him about a move. They stayed where they were, on the border of what was now Chelsea, with some tenements still nearby. The location didn’t worry Thornton at all. The store was a moneymaker beyond even what Thornton had dreamed of. It was a goldmine.
No one was prepared when Thornton had a massive stroke and died in his sleep the night before his ninety-second birthday, especially Spencer, and Thornton’s wife, Hannabel, even more so. She was paralyzed by grief. They’d been married for sixty-seven years. Everyone was devastated, even the employees. They closed the store out of respect the next day. Everything about Thornton Brooke and his incredible energy had suggested that he was immortal and would live forever. His sudden death had stunned them all.
Spencer couldn’t imagine her life without him, and it was as though Hannabel’s batteries had suddenly run out of power. She seemed lost and confused for the first time. Spencer helped her through the difficult weeks after, but her grandmother wasn’t the same once Thornton died. The life had gone out of her, as Spencer realized that the love her grandparents shared had fueled both of them, and they were irreversibly joined. It was shocking to watch Hannabel go straight downhill and refuse to rally. She didn’t want to live without Thornton. She didn’t know how.
Tucker was equally distraught for different reasons. His father had died too soon, at ninety-two. Spencer, at twenty-six, was too young to take over, just a year out of business school, without enough experience. Tucker was desperate to get out of the business he had hated all his life, but there was no one else to step into his father’s shoes, and he resented his father for it. He could see himself stuck there for many more years, and he had no desire to die in the saddle as his father had. He wanted out, and there was no way that was going to happen anytime soon. The realization that he was trapped in the job he hated depressed him profoundly.