Cosmetics was born.”
“It was in its infancy when H.J. came on the scene, right?”
“It was in the initial stages of succeeding,” Vonni corrected. “And it wasn’t only H. J. Camden who came to my grandfather and Phil with their offer. There was someone named Hank, too...”
“My grandfather, H.J.’s only son—Henry James Junior. He was called Hank.”
“Ah.” Vonni had known the name, not the relationship. But she didn’t judge the son to be any better than the father.
Not that there was anything hostile in her tone. Instead, it was neutral, conversational. The same way Dane’s was, probably because what they were talking about was so far removed from them both.
“I knew there were two Camdens who met with my grandfather and Phil,” Vonni said. “They didn’t want to just buy the products for their stores, though, they wanted to buy out Hunter Cosmetics.”
“It’s something H.J. started and something we’ve stuck with—if it’s more cost-efficient for us to produce what we sell, that’s what we like to do.”
Vonni wanted his attention to wander, wanted him to start texting someone while he only half listened to her—things that had happened on bad dates—but Dane was still interested. He was participating. Being open and sharing information with her. Providing a good exchange.
Why couldn’t you be someone different and have come around months ago?
But he was who he was and it wasn’t months ago, so she forced herself to steer away from that dangerous train of thought and focus back on what he was saying.
“But H.J. and my grandfather wanted Abe and Phil to come to work for them,” Dane added. “The plan was to have Abe continue to mastermind the cosmetics line, and hire Phil in sales.”
“Phil wasn’t thrilled with that,” Vonni said, repeating the story she’d been told several times growing up. “He’d gone from selling cars to co-owning Hunter Cosmetics. He didn’t want to go back to just selling again. And my grandfather didn’t want either part of the deal—he didn’t want to hand over his formulas to anyone and he didn’t want to go to work for Camdens. So they said no to the offer.”
“Then H.J. sweetened it. Considerably,” Dane filled in, popping a French fry into his mouth.
“That didn’t matter to my grandfather,” Vonni said. “But the second offer was substantially higher—”
“And at that point Phil liked the idea of all the money he could make selling out,” Dane said before taking a drink of his beer. “I guess your grandfather hadn’t taken out patents on his formulas....”
“No. He was keeping them as trade secrets, locked in a safe that only he and Phil knew the combination to. When the offer to buy the formulas went up, Phil stole the formulas and sold them to H.J. and Hank. Then he disappeared with all the money.”
“Hunter Cosmetics was set up in a way that allowed Phil to make the business deals, right? Even without Abe’s say....” Vonni had the sense that Dane was being more careful about what he said.
“It was my grandfather’s biggest regret. So the sale was binding and my grandfather had lost his formulas. Phil and the money were nowhere to be found. And H.J. and Hank Camden got what they wanted.”
Raising one eyebrow, Vonni gave Dane a challenging look. “But they knew, didn’t they? And rather than do the ethical thing—rather than making sure my grandfather was in on the agreement—they turned a blind eye and bought stolen property.”
Dane flinched with flourish. “Ouch!”
They were talking academically and there continued to be nothing hostile in Vonni’s tone—or in her feelings about something that had happened so long ago. So she smiled and went on, purposely maintaining the challenging look on her face. “The formulas belonged to my grandfather. Phil stole them from him. Your family bought them. Do you see it differently?”
“To be fair, when Phil made the deal, he said Abe had changed his mind.” But Dane wasn’t defensive enough to sound as if he totally believed the party line.
Vonni pooh-poohed him. “Come on, they had to have know that wasn’t true. My grandfather said he’d given them a once and for all no that same day. And Phil had to have shown up in the middle of the night to sell the formulas because my grandfather had locked them in the safe at midnight and when he found it empty first thing the next morning and couldn’t reach Phil, he called H. J. Camden. He could only get Hank, and Hank played innocent but he confirmed that they already had the formulas in hand, along with the paperwork that made them property of Camdens. If you believe it went down like that honestly, then it’s because you want to believe it,” she accused.
“I’ll concede that it wouldn’t happen like that today,” he said with a somewhat shamed smile. “And that H.J. or my grandfather or somebody should have confirmed the sale with Abe rather than just taking Phil at his word—”
“In the middle of the night,” Vonni pointed out again with a facetious laugh.
“But the money was paid out to Hunter Cosmetics, not to Phil personally—”
“A check that no one offered to stop payment on even if there was a chance that Phil hadn’t cashed it the minute the banks were open that day.”
“Phil claimed that he and Abe would both be coming to work for Camdens after all,” Dane said. “And even though Phil and the money were gone, Abe still could have done that.”
Vonni laughed once more and shook her head. “There was no way! My grandfather wasn’t going to go to work for people who had helped rob him, working on exactly what they’d robbed him of. Would you?”
“No,” Dane confirmed.
And since his tone held a certain amount of concession to what Vonni was accusing his family of, she conceded a little, too.
“It wasn’t as if my grandfather didn’t blame Phil for stealing from him—he did. He knew that was who stuck the knife in his back. But he gave the Camdens credit for twisting it because they bought the formulas they had to know weren’t coming to them legitimately. So yes, growing up I did hear the Camden name said like a curse, but it wasn’t as bad as what was said about Phil.”
“Who was never heard from again? Or was he?”
“No, no one in the family ever heard from him or knew what happened to him.”
“And Abe died in 1976?”
“Someone in your family kept track of him?”
“When the new information about H.J. and Hunter Cosmetics came to light recently, GiGi did some research.”
“Yes, that’s when he died. After open-heart surgery.”
“But between 1953 and then, what did he do to make a living?”
“He worked for a company that produced hair products, developing shampoos and conditioners and that kind of thing.”
“So he went on.”
“To raise his family and have a pretty regular sort of life, sometimes wondering out loud just how rich he might have been if things had been different.”
Dane absorbed that shot with a stoic nod of his head. “Well, if you come to work for us we’ll see what we can do to make it up to him through his granddaughter.”
Vonni laughed again, realizing that it had been fun going back and forth with him, and she had to give him credit for working the conversation back to his job offer. “Oh, you’re good.”
He grinned, and everything was worth it to get to see that.
“I’m just saying....” He shrugged and her gaze went to broad, broad shoulders hugged impeccably by his dress shirt.