American Pie

by Maggie Osborne

  "On silk gowns?" Greta teased.

  "And satin, too! We'll dine out once a week and attend the theater. We'll look back on these days of waiting and doing without and we'll laugh."

  "My dear Stefan, I don't care about silks or satins or dining out. If I can have you and Lucie and a beautiful sunset—and my geraniumsI'll be content." Concealing the action beneath the folds of her dark skirt, she reached for Stefan's hand and they sat in silence, enjoying the cooler air and the nearness of each other, watching the glow from the factories tint the night sky like a second sunset.

  Smiling, Lucie sat quietly, watching her brother and her new sister, observing the small touches, the loving exchange of glances and murmured words. She sensed their joy in each other and thanked heaven for the miracle that had allowed them to find each other in this city teeming with strangers.

  Although she dreaded returning to the heat inside the rooms below, she understood Stefan and Greta wished to be alone. After rising to her feet, she bent to kiss Greta's cheek. "You hardly ate a thing," she murmured near Greta's ear. "Are you certain you're feeling well?"

  "The supper was wonderful, it's only that my appetite seems to rise and fall." A hint of apology rose in her large blue eyes. "Dearest Lucie, I can't bear the thought of offending you. I would have eaten every bite if"

  "No, no, don't apologize. I was merely concerned for your health." She winked at Stefan. "Our Stefan will be pleased by the leftovers in his lunch pail tomorrow." And she could hardly wait for the opportunity to see Jamie Kelly again even though she knew Stefan would explode in anger if he knew.

  Greta started to rise, offering to help with the dishes. "I won't hear of it," Lucie insisted, pressing her back into her chair. "I enjoy straightening the kitchen, really I do." When both Stefan and Greta laughed, she smiled. "You'll come again next Sunday, won't you?"

  "Thank you." Understanding and gratitude lay in Greta's smile for the small degree of privacy Lucie offered them, such privacy as could be found on the crowded rooftop.

  Once below Lucie stripped off her cotton skirt and high-necked shirtwaist and hung them on the pegs between her work clothes and the ensemble she saved for best. With a sigh she unhooked her corset and folded it on the shelf, then tied a light wrapper around her waist.

  Even half-naked she found the heat intolerable. Wetting the sash of the wrapper in the basin of wash water, she ran the wet strip over her neck and breasts. Everyone suffered. Yesterday the city had dispatched trucks to spray the tenement streets with carbolic acid, hoping to settle the dust and the spread of disease.

  After washing the supper dishes and tidying the stove, she placed the leftover chicken in the salt box, extinguished the light and sat beside the window Stefan had forced open for her, hoping for an elusive breath of cool air. Already the leaves of Greta's geranium had begun to droop in the heat. How Stefan and Jamie Kelly and others at the excavation site endured heavy labor beneath the scorching sun mystified her. But they did. According to Stefan only one man at the site had fallen from heat prostration. To Stefan's regret and her relief, the man had not been Jamie Kelly.

  She saw him every day when she delivered Stefan's lunch pail but she didn't dare speak to him, of course, knowing her brother despised him. By now Stefan had learned the true cause behind the fight last week; Henry Gustoffer had attempted to make peace between the two men by relating the entire story as soon as Stefan regained consciousness.

  Lucie believed she detected a hint of admiration beneath Stefan's grudging admission that Jamie Kelly had displayed ingenuity and courage in accepting Gustoffer's challenge. But he had not relaxed his hatred toward the Irishman. Stefan's pride had suffered for being bested before his companions.

  Lucie waved listlessly at a fly, then tucked a heavy strand of damp hair off her neck. It would be so nice to have someone of her own to sit with in the hot summer darkness. Unfortunately she had settled her heart on a man whom destiny did not seem inclined to grant her.

  Lucie's heartbeat accelerated as she approached the construction site to deliver Stefan's lunch pail. As it did every day, her mouth went dry when she sensed Jamie Kelly's intent gaze, and she experienced an agonizing conflict of loyalty. Stefan would rightly consider it betrayal if she uttered a single word to Jamie Kelly. But, oh, how she longed to.

  Waiting for Stefan, holding the lunch pail tightly in her gloved hand, she guiltily anticipated the moment when she could safely look into the pit. Each day she wondered if Jamie would still be there. Each day her heart soared to discover him leaning on his shovel, watching her, and Lucie felt a secret pride grow that Jamie was proving himself and making his way.

  When she was certain Stefan would not see, she darted a swift glance toward Jamie's wheelbarrow. As if he had been waiting, too, he stood looking up at her, his dark eyes moving intently over her trim figure, pausing mischievously at a glimpse of ankle revealed by the hot breeze.

  Lucie's breath caught in her throat. Sweat oiled his naked upper body, and the mat of auburn hair tangling across his chest glistened. When he saw her, tension swelled the muscles on his shoulders and upper arms and his sunburned hands tightened on the handle of his shovel. He gazed at her as eagerly as a drowning man might gaze at sky and air.

  Lucie wet her lips and swallowed, aware her pulse beat thundered in her ear, smothering the traffic noises behind her. Before Stefan pulled himself out of the pit and came toward her, she met Jamie's eyes and silently assured him that she understood about the fight, that she forgave him. Then Stefan was bending to the lunch pail, and she didn't dare glance at Jamie Kelly again.

  But she felt him watching her, sensed when he moved away from the wheelbarrow to sit against the dirt wall of the pit where he could see her as he ate his noonday meal. If proof was needed that she responded to his half-naked body and the intensity of his stare, she saw it in the tremble of fingers as she removed Stefan's lunch items from the pail.

  Afterward, as she returned to the tenement, stopping to call wherever she spotted a Help Wanted sign in a shop window, thoughts of Jamie Kelly whirled through her mind. She saw again the sunlight glowing in his hair, the line of his strong jaw, the way his tensing shoulders tapered to a lean waist. Blushing, she recalled the glistening sweat that drew her attention to his naked chest. And she thought about the strange heated flutter in her stomach when she met his gaze. She would have given anything to speak to him even for a few minutes.

  She absently tucked a heat-damp tendril beneath the brim of her straw boater. Practical Lucie, she thought with a rueful smile. Was it possible she had been wrong all these years and actually she was a romantic at heartthinking immodest thoughts and pining for a man she could not have? Stefan would never agree to Jamie Kelly, not in a hundred years.

  Sighing, she tried to banish Jamie from her thoughts and concentrated on crossing the jammed street, holding her hem away from horse droppings, tobacco splats and the ever present summer dust. But Jamie Kelly would not be banished so easily. Already her practical mind counted the hours until noon tomorrow. And the romantic leaning that had gone unsuspected until now wished for a fresh blossom to pin to her breast. Something pretty and bright to make her desirable in one man's eyes.

  "I didn't think you'd still be here, boyo," Gustoffer said with a grin as he counted a dollar into Jamie's blistered palm. "The Broadway book's been losing a bundle betting each day is your last."

  "And I've been making a bundle," Jamie said with a tired smile, "betting that it's not."

  "Shrewd one, aren't you?" Gustoffer laughed. He winked. "Last four days I been betting on you myself, hoping to recoup my losses." He started to clap Jamie on the shoulder, saw the sun-scorched redness and changed his mind. After waiting for Jamie to hang up his shovel, Gustoffer followed him outside and locked the shed for the night. The rest of the men had gone. "Finding it a bit unfriendly, son?"

  "A bit," Jamie said, easing his shirt over his sunburned skin. He slicked back sweat-damp hair and settled his cap at a jaunt
y angle.

  "Give it time." They stood beside the pit for a moment, studying the deepening excavation, then walked toward lower Broadway, idly examining the lavish displays behind the windows they passed. "It ain't none of my business"

  "But?" Jamie asked, smiling.

  "But there's trouble coming. Every horse on the site knows you're lollygagging after Kolska's sister. Except Kolska. And that ain't gonna last, boyo. If Kolska don't see soon what's right under his whiskers, some buck is going to tell him. You get my meaning?"

  Jamie thrust his hands into his pockets and kicked a stone along the pavement. "I mean to court her."

  Gustoffer made a sound of disgust. "Only a bastard mick could be so gol-damned stupid! You was lucky once, you ain't gonna be again. Next time Kolska is going to kill your arse."

  He suspected Gustoffer was right. "As long as you're in an advice-giving frame of mind, how do I persuade Kolska to allow me to call?"

  "Son, you got to be the most stubborn set of coattails this mother's son ever seen." Gustoffer spit a stream of brown juice toward a passing carriage, then stopped to stare at Jamie. "Believe me, this ain't the girl for you."

  Jamie's chin firmed. "Yes, she is. I knew it the minute I saw her."

  "Well, you ain't gonna get her. Not while Stefan Kolska is alive. You ain't never going to be on borrowing terms with Stefan and that's regrettable, but that's a pure fact."

  "There was a time, Mr. Gustoffer, when no one thought I could get to America. And here I am. A time when it didn't look as if I could find work. But I did." He reached in his pocket. "I've got two dollars that says Kolska will eventually allow me to see his sister. I won't give up until it happens."

  "Two dollars?" Gustoffer's eyebrows soared. "How much have you been betting on yourself with the books?"

  "Are you willing to wager two dollars?"

  "Hell no, son. It don't take no wall to fall on Henry T. Gustoffer. I lost enough money betting against you, I ain't gonna lose no more." He grinned, waved, then turned into a side street.

  Jamie continued along Broadway for another block, then cut toward his new lodging house. It wasn't fancy, he hadn't won that much money. For three dollars a week he received breakfast and a cold supper, and shared a room with only one other man who worked the night shift at the Chatham Street El station. That's where Jamie slept; he lived for the moments he saw Lucie.

  The next day when he realized he was listening for the noon whistle and waiting for his first glimpse of her, he remembered what Gustoffer had said about everyone on the site being aware of the long silent looks he exchanged with Lucie Kolska. He warned himself to be more discreet, but when he saw her pert straw hat appear over the rim of the pit, his mouth dried and his spirits soared. Just the sight of her was balm to his aching back and blistered hands. She refreshed him in a way nothing else could.

  At some point before she departed each day, she managed to send him a secret smile and today was no different. He stared up at her and read volumes into that single wonderful smile. He believed she was telling him that he was never further from her thoughts than she was from his. Yesterday her smile had spoken of pride in his staying power and he had returned to his shovel with renewed vigor. The day before her smile had turned tender with sympathy for his raw sun-burn. Always her smile gave him hope for the future. He could not see that lovely sweet smile and doubt that someday they would be together.

  Today after Lucie departed and Gustoffer shouted them back to the shovels, he crossed the pit and forced a place for himself beside Stefan Kolska. Matching the heavier man scoop for shovel scoop, he worked in silence for several minutes, rehearsing his approach. It was pointless to request permission to call on Lucie until they settled the bad blood between them.

  Stopping work, Jamie straightened and looked at Kolska. "Gustoffer made the choice, Kolska. I didn't."

  Stefan dug his shovel into the dirt with savage force, refusing to acknowledge he was being addressed.

  "It was luck and desperation, that's all. In any other circumstance, you would have won." He was flattered that Kolska did not seem to believe him, but he knew it was the truth. "It's over. There's no reason you and I can't be friends."

  Finally Kolska straightened and glared at him. His dark eyes glittered with loathing. Beads of sweat clung to his heavy mustache and eyebrows. "Ordinarily I'm not a fighting man, Kelly, but anytime you want a rematch, you just say the word. I'm ready."

  Jamie stared at him, seeing Lucie in Stefan's thin nose and beautiful dark eyes. "I have no quarrel with you. No wish to fight again."

  The muscles in Kolska's jaw knotted. His knuckles turned white on the shovel's handle. "Get out of my sight, Kelly, before I take you on right now and cost both of us our jobs."

  Someone nearby laughed and Jamie swore he heard Lucie's name mentioned. He didn't have much time to put things right. As it seemed he would end in another fist fight no matter what, he decided to force the issue. And he had to do it soon.

  * * *

  Chapter Three

  By the end of June, the New York Morning Journal announced the heat wave had diminished but it didn't seem so to Lucie.

  Fatigued by the heat, her feet sore from walking, she returned from a day of seeking work and paused in the courtyard to wet her hands and face at the rusty pump.

  "Any luck today?" Maria Brovnic asked as she bent over the pump to fill a cooking pot, but only a dribble emerged.

  Unpinning her hat, Lucie waved it before her flushed face. She looked toward the tenement door, thinking how hot it would be inside. "I'm sure something will turn up tomorrow," she said. Because Maria did not speak English, they spoke in a mixture of Polish and Russian. "Is your husband feeling better?"

  Shortly before Lucie's arrival Woicheck Brovnic had suffered a serious accident. The oyster wagon he drove collided with a heavy chandler's van and overturned. The iron wheels of the chandler's van had crushed Woicheck Brovnic's hands. Now he was unable to find work, and worse, he had given up trying.

  Maria balanced the cook pot on her hip and pushed back the kerchief covering her dark hair. "I don't know what to do," she said in a low voice, frowning at the row of reeking latrines everyone called "school sinks." After drawing a breath, she shouted at her two oldest children to play farther away from the stench. "If it wasn't for them, I'd go home." Bitterness hardened her voice. "There's nothing for us here."

  "Oh, Mrs. Brovnic!" Lucie turned to her in distress. "You've suffered a terrible misfortune, but surely you remember what it was like at home?"

  "I remember we took care of each other," Maria said, closing her eyes. "I remember shade at the edge of the plots."

  Lucie took her hand and peered into her eyes. "Do you remember what it was like to bend over all day in the fields? Do you remember when the rains didn't come and the harvest burned in the sun? Do you remember the cossacks?" She shuddered.

  "Miss Kolska, I know you're trying to offer encouragement, but there is none. Soon the money will run out. Then what difference does it make if my children starve here or at home?"

  "Here there is a chance for something better! At home nothing changes except each year life gets harder."

  Maria gazed at the twilight sky. "We were saving to bring Woicheck's brother and his wife to America." She drew a breath. "We could use the money ourselves. We could go home."

  "But you have work, Mrs. Brovnic. And money to carry you through this difficult time. For the sake of your children, I beg you not to give up. In time Mr. Brovnic will"

  "Time has healed his hands, but time cannot heal the sickness in his soul. Only home can do that."

  Lucie stared at her. The country they had fled was dismal, oppressive, and life there was desperately hard. But it was home. Before she could shake it off, a wave of intense homesickness overwhelmed her and she understood Maria Brovnic.

  Maria occupied Lucie's mind while she prepared supper. The Brovnics would leave as others had left. A steady flux and flow of families moved in an
d out of the tenements. Some moved north to better addresses and occasionally, if good fortune prevailed, to a home outside the city. Others moved from one room on Elizabeth Street to two rooms on Ludlow or Baxter or Mulberry streets, hoping the change would improve their luck. Others, defeated, took whatever money they managed to save and fled home to conditions as dismal as they found in America but where misfortune was shared by family and familiar faces.

  When Stefan came in the door, Lucie shook her head quickly before he hung his hat and coat on the nail. "Not today, but surely I'll find work tomorrow." She sounded more cheerful and optimistic than she felt.

  He patted her arm and gave her his day's pay to place beneath the loose board in the sleeping room. "Water-bread again?" he asked when she placed their bowls on the table and sat across from him.

  "I thought you liked water-bread."

  "I do, but not so often." When he saw her stricken expression, he apologized. "I'm sorry, Lucie. I know you're saving money, but can't we afford a bit of meat on occasion?"

  "If we cut a few corners, I can put aside a little for you and Greta." By shopping carefully and by serving water-bread twice a week she had stopped the steady drainage of their coins and had managed to add a few pennies.

  He drew a breath. "Dear Lucie, it is not your responsibility to provide my marriage money."

  But that was her goal. She was determined to repay the debt she owed him. It was a matter of personal honor.

  Raising a hand, he halted her protest. "Greta is able to save a little, and as soon as you find work, so will I." He smiled at her. "If you don't spend all your earnings on ribbons and silks, we'll be rich."

  She laughed as he wanted her to, but nothing he said could change her mind.

  "I have a surprise for you. Sunday there is a free band concert in Battery Park. If you and Greta promise to stop talking to each other long enough to pay some attention to me, I could be persuaded to take you to the concert," he said with twinkling eyes, watching as Lucie clapped her hands. "And if you could be persuaded to relinquish a dime for flavored ice."