Free Best Foot Forward by Joan Bauer Page B

from his knees. “I’m a right foot.”
    She squeezed his puffy big toe. “Do you feel stupid?”
    â€œYeah, I sure do!”
    â€œDo you know Ronald McDonald?” another kid asked.
    We hadn’t covered these questions in training. “Are you kidding?” Tanner replied. “Ron lives next door to me. We hang out.”
    â€œYou know Mickey Mouse?”
    A crowd was gathering.
    â€œI know him. I’m the Foot, you understand? They all come to me.” Tanner gave a coupon to every person and this mass of humanity headed into the store. I followed them. A sea of customers clutching coupons rifled through the sales shelves, trying on shoes, leaving boxes piled on the floor. The line at the register was curling through the store and Mrs. Gladstone was ringing people up like a machine.
    I’ve been through enough sales at this store—the Spring Fling, the Holiday Magic, the End of the Year Closeout—but I’d never seen numbers like this.
    It was hard to keep an eye on everything, hard to help when people didn’t know what they wanted themselves. Customers were leaning against the wall to try shoes on. There was no place left to sit. Tanner moved among his fans like a rock star and walked a few inside.
    Then a rustle in the back. Tanner shouted, “ Stop it, man!”
    A panicked guy started pushing toward the front door, holding a box.
    Tanner lunged after him, puffy toes swinging. “Hold it!”
    I was by the door. The guy ran close to me, I stuck out my right foot, and he went crashing down.
    â€œI was going to pay for it!”
    â€œYeah? When? ”
    The guy kicked him; Tanner pinned him down and shoved his knee with the protruding toes into the guy’s chest as Murray called the police. But Gladstone customers are tough and dedicated. They kept shopping, clutching their coupons, keeping a wide berth around Tanner and the shoplifter. The police came and walked the guy off.
    â€œOnly in America,” Murray said afterward, shaking his head.
    I looked at Tanner, saw that scar running down his face; his glasses were off, his dark eyes burning. If there was any doubt about whether he was one of us, that doubt was gone now. He was a sole man through and through.
    Â 
    The day after Labor Day, to celebrate the great Best Foot Forward campaign that was hugely successful across the country, and to show the unity and spirit alive in the newly merged Shoe Warehouse Corporation, Ken Woldman laid off 304 people nationwide. “We will continue to combine operations and to pass that cost savings onto our customers,” he said as if he’d just done something to help mankind. Mrs. Gladstone was furious at the news.
    â€œ What is that man thinking?” she shouted, shut herself in her office, and called him.
    Murray was having nightmares that he was going to be the 305th to go. I tried to tell him Mrs. Gladstone would protect him, but Murray said the company was changing too fast.
    â€œI’m a dead man, kid.”
    I couldn’t imagine the store without Murray.
    I couldn’t imagine the store without me, but Gladstone’s was going to have to get used to me being gone, at least part-time. Murray was interviewing for part-time help. He faced a young woman and threw out his make-or-break question:
    â€œOkay, say six customers come into the store at once; they all want to be waited on pronto; they start getting surly. What do you do?”
    She looked at him. “I’d tell them to wait their turn and if they didn’t like it, tough.”
    That’s the wrong answer.
    Murray had asked me that question at my interview, too. I’d said, “I’d tell them help was on the way, and come and find you.” His face went soft when I said it.
    â€œWe’ll call you,” Murray said to the young woman.
    Just then the UPS man lugged in an enormous box and laid it down. “What’s in this thing?”
    Murray