“I’m ready to cooperate with the government,” he said, never believing he would utter those words, but it was time. “I’m ready to recommend that anyone who sells processed food in this country be required to list the ingredients on the label. If Magruder had been doing that all along, maybe those people in Philadelphia wouldn’t have died.”
“And how can I help with that?” she asked.
He breathed a little easier as she gestured him toward the table. When she tried to take the seat next to him, her mother yanked her back and took it instead. Annabelle and her father sat on the bench opposite him, and he began outlining the plan.
On their way to meet with Caroline, Gray warned that his sister was “still pretty bitter” about what happened to Luke, but Annabelle was too busy gaping at the White House looming before her to be worried about a protective sibling. They followed a brick path to the side entrance reserved for people who had official business in the residence. These columns were so huge! They didn’t look this big from a distance, but up close she had to crane her neck to see all the way up.
Gray jerked her elbow. “Careful. You were about to walk into the planter.”
She’d worn her nicest dress but still felt overwhelmed as they entered a foyer blanketed with a scarlet carpet and decked in gilt chandeliers. A life-sized portrait of Abraham Lincoln hung on the wall straight ahead of her, and she started choking up. She was walking in a house whereAbraham Lincolnonce lived. He’d surely stood in this exact room. Lincoln came from humble roots too. He carried the world on his shoulders for four years during the Civil War. He wouldn’t have been anxious about having to work with Caroline Delacroix, and the thought made her stand a little taller.
“Ready?” Gray asked.
“Ready.”
They were to meet with Gray’s sister in a conference room on the second floor. After walking the length of a gilded hallway, the butler finally delivered them to the correct meeting room and showed them inside.
Gray stepped forward to greet his sister with a kiss on her cheek, so it was a moment before Annabelle got the full effect of Caroline’s ensemble. Her royal blue jacket had a nipped-in waist, a high-stand collar, brass buttons, and gold epaulettes at her shoulders. All she needed was a colonial-style musket,and she’d be ready to fall into line behind General Washington at Yorktown.
“Annabelle,” Caroline said in a frosty tone.
Annabelle nodded in reply. “I’m happy to be here and help however I can.”
“Then let’s get started,” Gray said. “Our goal is to force the Magruders to list every ingredient on their labels. We’ll use the government contracts to start the process.”
He held out a chair and helped Annabelle sit at a table with a glossy finish and inlaid wood. It looked too fancy to touch. Neither Caroline nor Gray had such qualms as they spread out paperwork, including an issue ofGood Housekeeping.
“I’ve already sent a copy of this article to the officer in charge of finalizing the military contract,” Gray said. “Our job at the public meeting is to dangle the threat of bad publicity if the army buys adulterated food to feed the troops.”
Caroline shook her head. “Philip Ransom told me the army struck applesauce from the contract just yesterday.”
Annabelle smiled. “So that means theGood Housekeepingarticle is already working, right?”
“Hardly,” Caroline said. “It embarrassed them into taking applesauce from the contract, but they’ve still got maple syrup and condensed milk made with artificial thickeners in the deal. The army is interested in the bottom line, so they’ll buy it unless journalists raise enough of a stink that the army pressures the Magruders into printing an accurate ingredient list on every product they sell.”
“Oh.” Annabelle felt like a country bumpkin for getting so excited, but Caroline continued strategizing.
“If the army buys the Magruders’ cheap food, the navy will follow. The navy has always been the poor stepchild in Washington and will follow the army’s lead. Unless we scuttle this entire contract, the Magruders will grow fat on this military deal.”
Until Annabelle came to Washington, she’d never seen anarmy officer. Even here in Washington, most people worked in an office, a school, or a shop. For every man in uniform, this country had a thousand who wore civilian clothes. Why were they only concentrating on the military?
“I don’t think you’re aiming high enough,” she said, drawing an arched brow from Caroline. “I’m sure the military contract is important, but it’s small potatoes when compared to the millions of ordinary people in this country. If something looks and tastes like maple syrup but is less expensive than the real thing, plenty of people will gladly buy it. My mother certainly would.”
“What do you recommend?” Gray asked.
Annabelle paused and called up her mother’s image. Maude Larkin was so thrifty that after frying bacon, she rinsed the pan with a cup of water and saved it to make gravy. She tossed egg shells to the hogs so the residue inside the shells wouldn’t go to waste. Frankly, Maude wouldn’t care if coffee was cut with chicory or if applesauce was fake. If it was cheaper, Maude Larkin would buy it, and so would most of the hardworking families she knew.
Thrifty people weren’t ignorant or uncaring. Nobody knew the value of a dollar better than people who had to sweat for every penny, so what would make Maude Larkin and the millions of people like her turn their back on artificial maple syrup if it tasted good?
The answer came to her quickly.
“Nobody likes a cheater,” she said. “If the Magruders want to sell corn syrup that’s been flavored to taste like maple syrup, let them say so. My mother will still buy it. But if she thought they werecheating?Tricking ordinary people out of their hard-earned money? She’ll go to war to stop them in their tracks.”
Caroline crossed her arms in frustration. “You’ve already tried to reach those people through magazines and newspapers. It barely made a dent.” She held up the issue ofGoodHousekeeping. “This magazine has a quarter of a million subscribers, which sounds impressive until you realize there are seventy-six million people in the United States. How can we possibly reach them all?”
Annabelle mulled over the problem. It wasn’t in her nature to give up. Her parents had both read theGood Housekeepingarticle and been proud of her contribution to the magazine, but were not appalled by what the Magruders did. Food was food, and her mother cared more about the coins in her purse than the ingredients printed on the label.
Unless someone made her care.
