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While working with his wife to get his grand-brood of eight (seven grandchildren plus one little cousin adopted as children) ready for dinner, Captain R.E. Ludlow received a phone call from Major J.P.P. Dubois, lawyer and company secretary for the Ludlow Bubbly.
“We are about to be having a good time with your family's gumbo with the Trents and Stepforths next door,” the captain said cheerfully.
“I know – I actually helped get that batch together because there were a tremendous number of orders today,” the major said. “I actually called because my brother Rene has been looking at how much from Dubois Spice Cabinet we have been pulling out for Dubois on the Road, and then just for our Dubois and Friends joint venture on the soda Fat Tuesday. We found out something interesting. Inside Lofton County and in southern Virginia, Mulberry Rose dominates because the local palette is shaped so much by Fruitland's abundant mulberries. This also seems to be true in Hawaii where Capt. Miyamoto has us set up. But outside Virginia in the continental United States and in Quebec in Canada, Fat Tuesday has taken over. It's not obvious in the reports unless you look at all of them and really think about region – Virginia drinks a lot of Mulberry Rose and the Calm Mile, and both do well everywhere – but Rene's spice inventory work does not lie.”
Capt. Ludlow took out his laptop and opened it, and looked –.
“Well, I'll be,” he said. “Like George my grandson loves to say, 'who woulda thunk it?'”
“Which brings us to the other little piece of news that's not out yet – the Ludlow Bubbly hasn't just passed the Ludlow Winery in revenue. It is now in the top 50 fastest-growing new companies in Lofton County.”
Capt. Ludlow considered this.
“I'll talk with Sgt. Trent over dinner – in the meantime, if it's not out, don't let it get out – no publicity, please, at least, not yet.”
“It's not out – I just did the math,” Maj. Dubois said. “The rest of Lofton County probably will not pick it up until the end of the quarter – not until September 30 or into October.”
“OK – can you do a conference call tonight at 10:00 after Sgt. Trent and I get everyone in bed?”
“Yes,” Maj. Dubois said.
So, long after the little ones were asleep, the adults of the Ludlow, Trent, Dubois, Gonzalez, and Miyamoto families sat down to discuss the Ludlow Bubbly. All of them owned a piece of it, and all of them knew that Robert Edward “Hell to Pay” Ludlow Sr. was a changed man from what he had been raised to be and even what he was three years before.
“Ain't no unregenerate old Virginian about to give us shares in something in his own name unless Christ knows Him and has been doing heavy work,” Mrs. Gladys Jubilee Trent had said to her son about it. “Just three generations before him, Jubilees were shooting Ludlows who forgot slavery wasn't over – and his father Edwin just looked at the way the wind was blowing and got on the right side because it was expedient, until he got saved for real. So, yes, Capt. Ludlow has gotten the do-right power of the Holy Spirit in him – y'all can go on and make good money with him."
Sgt. Trent had told Sgt. Gonzalez, and the the Duboises had heard it from the Stepforths, and the Miyamotos figured it out, not knowing the decades of Virginian history involved. So, none of them were as surprised as Capt. Ludlow thought they would be when he at last shared his thoughts about the news to come and the result to the potential valuation for the sale.
“I know that if we wait, we can definitely sell for more … but at heart, I'm an army captain, and we are selling to our fellow local veterans who are making this company work every day. If I'm leaving a position to the reinforcements, and we're all on the same mission, I want them to be as well set up as possible. So, if we sell earlier, they will get that news bump and start well, and be able to pay Mr. Stepforth out much sooner.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Sgt. Trent said.
“I'm with it,” Sgt. Gonzalez said.
“Definitely the right thing to do,” Capt. Miyamoto said.
“I'll draw up a draft and have it ready for us Monday,” Maj. Dubois said.
“Excellent,” Capt. Ludlow said. “You all have a good night, and I'll talk with all of you Monday – and remember: we don't want this getting out yet, so, no publicity, please.”
Afterward, Capt. Ludlow looked at his wife in shock.
“Thalia … they weren't even surprised. Nobody even pushed back. What?”
Mrs. Ludlow smiled.
“It's so obviously the right thing to do,” she said, “and they were so relieved that you came knowing that.”
“A Ludlow has a reputation to live down, indeed,” he said with a deep sigh, “but I'm going to make sure our grandchildren plus Glendella don't have these problems. Did you know Astor spent his first few days at the asylum cursing me for giving lesser beings shares in a Ludlow company and daring to get them in front of us purebloods – and kept trying to have me picked up for insanity – or lynched? That's why he was so mad. It's not just that I'm out in front of him. It's that I shared out the equity so my partners are out in front of him, too.”
“Imagine what would have happened if you had some single women up in there and got them out in front,” Mrs. Ludlow said.
“Oh, well Thalia, if Astor gets out and starts trouble, that will be how we deal with that!” he said. “But in all seriousness, these are my grandmother's recipes, so, if a woman had come along who had skill sets we needed, I would have brought her in. I was raised as a racist, but not a sexist: Grandee Lee would not have that!”
“Oh, no, your Lee grandmother probably ate sexists for a snack,” Mrs. Ludlow said.
“She by her mere presence converted my Slocum-Bolling grandfather into as near a goddess worshiper as a Christian can get – this is also why my uncles from the first marriage hated her and her daughter, my mother, so much. They could not mistreat my mother or any girl of any background or color – Hilda Lee Slocum-Bolling was not having it, and her husband had to get his boys in line and forget what their dearly departed mother let them get away with! That's also one of the reasons, when they were old enough to get out on their own, they really became flagrant bigots -- all that pent-up rage had to go somewhere, and taking on the Lees-of-the-Mountain was never an option.”
“Your family dynamics are so interesting, Robert,” Mrs. Ludlow said.
“Aren't they?” Capt. Ludlow said. “Imagine marrying Edwina into your family as matriarch – we barely have her contained here, and she's just eight years old – which is the other reason I have to let the Ludlow Bubbly finish its work and be sold sooner rather than later. I have to secure these children their inheritance while having the time to put in with them, and I cannot run a multi-million dollar affair right now.”
“Nope,” Mrs. Ludlow said. “The present sale price is more than enough for a foundation for them, and a bit for us to add to our retirement, too – and you know big money is looking for you but you won't let Col. F.V. Wozniak tell folks where you are.”
“I need to get this sale done first – all I did was sing at Maj. Thibeadoux's funeral and folks have lost their minds!” Capt. Ludlow said. “I will go collect all that money later if the Lord grant I can still sing a few months from now, but in the meantime, no publicity, please!”