American Pie
Page 19
Jamie held her close and rested his chin on top of her hair. "The time may come when Stefan must swallow his pride and accept a wee bit of assistance from a friend. Just remember the money's there."
"Thank you," Lucie whispered. Knowing a small cushion existed was a comfort. But not a solution. Tonight she saw no solution. Tonight she saw the rag stuffed in the broken window pane, the stained brown walls, the sagging stove. She inhaled the reek of coal and kerosene and the musty odors behind the walls. Even in winter, she could smell the school sinks in the courtyard.
What she could not see or smell or touch tonight was the future. She, who could usually see sunshine where others saw darkness, saw only shadows. This, as much as the actual situation, frightened her.
"Everything will work out," she murmured against Jamie's chest. Blotting the shadows, she pressed her face against the shoulder of his waistcoat and inhaled the reassuring scents of wool, starch, bay rum and the soapy scent of his hair. Good smells that overwhelmed the others. "It will work out, won't it?"
"Aye, lass."
They stood before the stove, holding each other in a loose embrace that tightened as their thoughts turned to their own immediate future. What small measure of privacy they enjoyed was about to end. They had tonight and possibly tomorrow, then there would be no place where they could be alone.
"It was good of you to insist Greta come here," Jamie murmured against her shining chestnut hair, holding her close against him.
"Of course she must come to us."
They held each other tightly, combating the selfishness of need and feeling the charged urgency of impending loss. This kiss might be the last for weeks, certainly the last that could be uninhibited and private. This touch, so intimate and deeply personal, would not be repeated before Stefan and Greta. Mouths could not cling, nor hands linger. There was only tonight.
Their kisses deepened, made sweeter by a hint of despair, by the knowledge tonight must sustain them through the coming weeks. The restraint they so carefully maintained weakened beneath the stress in hands that flew to stroke and to remember, in lips that clung and murmured fevered endearments. In bodies that strained and ached and ignited in need and passion.
Pleasantly shocked by her boldness, driven by a need she did not dare analyze, Lucie shyly opened Jamie's shirt and slipped her small hand inside, pressing it flat against the hard muscles on his chest. A soft moan parted her lips. Beneath her palm she felt his heartbeat accelerate, felt the soft mossy growth of auburn hair. The touch of his skin was as she had imagined so many times, but firmer and smoother, possessing a warmth that shot through her body and left her trembling.
Covering her hand and holding it in place inside his shirt, Jamie kissed her, and his tongue explored the sweet innocence of her mouth, then gently traced the tender contour of her lips. A gasp issued from Lucie's throat and she withdrew her fingers from his shirt to circle his neck with both hands, pressing closer, closer to his body and feeling the frustration of layers of clothing, of empty spaces crying to be filled.
Holding each other so tightly it was impossible to identify which heartbeat belonged to whom, they sank to their knees on the floor. When Jamie's lips released hers, he whispered her name and ran his hands down her sides to her waist, then over her hips, smoothing down the dark skirts that puddled around them. The fluid movement of his hands, the heat that tingled behind, left her weak and light-headed.
"I can span your waist with my hands," he murmured in a thick voice.
Lucie's head fell back and her eyes closed as the warmth of his hands slid from her waist to her breasts. He hesitated and her breath caught in her throat, her back arched slightly. Then the heat of his palms covered her breasts, and she gasped, suddenly aflame with heat and light and an explosive need that quivered through her body.
He kissed her, deeply, urgently, his hands still cupping her small aching breasts. When his mouth released hers, he looked into her eyes, and she felt his trembling fingers on the buttons of her shirtwaist.
"Lucie?" he said hoarsely.
"I love you," she whispered, trusting him, needing him. She wanted him to hurry, to hurry, wanted his fingertips where her own had been, yearned to know the thrill of his caress on her naked skin. But the strength had Wed from her body. She knelt before him, trembling in anticipation, her arms at her sides, as he fumbled with the seemingly endless row of small buttons marching from her throat to her waist.
When the shirtwaist fell open, he leaned to kiss her mouth, his fingertips resting lightly against the pulse beat throbbing in her throat. Only after he kissed her again did he allow himself to look down at the creamy flesh swelling above the tiny lace edge of her chemise. Now it was he who seemed paralyzed.
Emboldened by his sharp intake of breath, Lucie touched a shaking fingertip to the perspiration on his brow, then smiling a woman's smile, loving him so much it hurt inside, she opened the top buttons of her chemise and raised her eyes in shy hope that she would please him.
"Oh, God," he murmured hoarsely. "You are so lovely. So incredibly lovely!"
Relief and joy softened her expression, raised a moist shine to her eyes. "I was so afraid I'd disappoint you," she whispered.
"Disappoint me?" Shock darkened his eyes almost to black before he caught her and held her so close against him that she could not breathe. "Never! Never, Lucie lass!"
Kisses rained over her hair, her face, her throat, then his lips were on her offered breast, moving in tender exploration, circling, circling until his tongue found her thrusting nipple and a tiny cry of pleasure caught in her throat. Heat raced through her body. Perspiration rose like dew on her naked skin. Every instinct urged her toward the floor that she might feel his possessive weight on her and the bliss of completion.
"Lucie." Passion roughened his voice. But he deliberately forced himself to ease away from her. Shaking hands lifted to frame her face. "My beautiful, Lucie." He kissed her, gently, struggling to restrain the passion that sucked at his breath, roared in his blood.
"I love you."
"I love you, Lucie Kolska. The earth shakes with it." Tenderly he stroked a damp strand of chestnut hair back from her cheek, fighting to establish control. Trust and disappointment mingled in her gaze as desire and duty mingled in his. " 'Tis a cruel wait, lass." His whisper emerged as a groan.
On one level she admired his control and his respect for her, understood he withdrew while it was still possible, which it might not have been a moment later. That he did so against his will was evident in his intense gaze, his trembling lips and fingertips. On another level his withdrawal, as gentle as it was, devastated her and left her feeling bereft, shivering on the brink of a fulfillment she longed for.
Taking her hand, Jamie helped her to her feet, then tactfully, he turned aside as she buttoned her chemise and shirtwaist and lifted her hands to straighten her hair and touch the rosy heat still pulsing in her cheeks.
He removed the rag from the broken window pane and reached outside for a handful of snow, which he rubbed over his face and forehead and throat, watching her as he did so.
"Someday, lass," he said quietly, his voice deep and husky, "I will wake with you beside me. And know you will be waiting when I return at night. I live for the joy of that day, my dearest, for the moment I can truly call you mine. I want nothing more than to spend the rest of my life making you happy."
"You want nothing more?" she asked, smiling. Her arms slid around his waist and she lifted her head with a teasing look, the taste of his kisses still on her swollen mouth. "You don't want a snug little house, perhaps? Or a horse and trap? Or perhaps a building to build?"
Laughing, he dropped a kiss on her forehead. "If those things would make you happy, I could force myself to endure them." He held her close, then tilted her face up. "What do you want, Lucie? What will make you happy?"
"You," she said simply, meaning it. When he protested, telling her that wasn't what he meant, she smiled. "My wants are simple, dearest J
amie. I hope for a home of my own someday, and a kitchen garden and perhaps a tree to shade the afternoon." Pink bloomed in her cheeks. "And healthy laughing children with their father's auburn hair."
She touched his shoulder as she placed a mug of coffee and a loaf of potato bread on the table before him. "Sometimes I grow impatient, too," she said softly, cradling his head against her breast. "Sometimes I want to go to sleep and wake when my goal has been accomplished and your goal has been accomplished and we can be together always."
"I know, lass. I know." A frown drew his brow. "I'm doing all I can to hasten that day."
The elusiveness of the future consumed Jamie with frustration. When he thought about Lucie and his love for her he was overcome by impatience, by a deep-seated desire to leap into tomorrow. He couldn't endure the possibility of waiting for years before they could marry; he wanted and needed her now.
Although he had not received the raise in pay he requested, it was promised for spring, and he could look forward to small but regular increases. On several occasions Jonas Tucker had declared himself well pleased by Jamie's performance and indicated Jamie had a secure future with Tucker Enterprises. But his progress occurred in small increments; it would not be swift.
Leaning back from his worktable, he rubbed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. The sound of hammering rang through the floors above him. He inhaled the scent of wood shavings and wet mortar.
Recently, without telling Lucie, he had priced household furnishings and had checked the cost of family housing. What he discovered appalled him. It wasn't only the cost of necessary items, like a bed and a stove, that shocked him, but the lack of adequate space.
Consequently, choices narrowed to a small hideously overpriced home far outside the city or adding oneself to the lengthy list of those waiting for the few mid-priced homes available within the city or settling for a tenement. Assuming one could afford any of the choices, which presently he could not. An impatient sigh collapsed his chest.
Moreover, there was a second truth he had deliberately delayed facing until recently. He could save to marry Lucie or he could save to finance his dream, a business of his own. Kelly's Design and Construction Company. But he could not do both. Not even with a generous raise in pay.
By continuing a regimen of austere frugality, he believed he could save enough to launch a business within six to eight years. Or he could save enough to marry within the next three years. He didn't have to think twice. Lucie was more important to him than any business. But he wanted Lucie and his own business. He wanted all of the pie, not just a slice. Was that so wrong? Not wrong. Merely impossible.
Bending forward, he dropped his head into his hands and dug his fingers into his scalp. For a moment he visualized the sign he saw so often in his thoughts: Kelly's Design and Construction Company. He pictured the sign made of polished oak, the letters cut in Roman script, a circled JK in the upper right-hand corner. The vision shimmered briefly, then slowly began to fade.
He did not regret his choice. But what had Greta said? The death of a dream is a terrible thing. That was also true.
Lucie concealed her shock as best she could when Stefan carried Greta inside the tenement and gently laid her on the platform mattress. During the flurry of activity that accompanied Greta's arrival, Lucie tried not to stare, tried to swallow a scalding lump that threatened to strangle her.
Swiftly, shockingly, Greta had lost the weight she had gained. Gone were the rosy rounded cheeks, the hourglass curves of bosom and hips. The woman Stefan covered with the blankets from home was drawn and wasted, perilously thin and pale. The fashionable Gibson fullness had also gone. Now Greta wore her thinning hair pulled straight back and coiled on her neck. But the color was more white than golden and the rich luster had vanished. She could not walk without agonizing pain. Her stomach cramps were so severe she could not sit upright or sleep without doubling over. She couldn't eat without vomiting afterward.
Greta was desperately ill. "Oh, Lucie," she whispered after an attack of coughing that left her gasping and too weak to sit up. "I'm so sorry to intrude." A shine of tears moistened her eyes. "The last thing I wanted was to be a burden."
Lucie sat on the platform bed and unpinned Greta's hat and smoothed back the brittle strands of hair. "You're not intruding and you're not a burden. My dearest sister, I've wanted you here for months. Now that you are, we'll have you well in no time."
For a moment Greta's glistening blue eyes met Lucie's and held. In her gaze lay a truth neither of them could bear to admit. Then, panting slightly from the exertion, she opened her reticule and withdrew a worn cloth bag, which she pressed into Lucie's hand. "My savings. I wish it were more."
It was useless to pretend Greta's savings would not be needed. Nodding, Lucie kissed Greta's gaunt cheek and tucked the small bag into her apron pocket.
Then, because she didn't want Greta to see her tears, she rose and turned blindly toward the stove. But not before she saw Stefan's despair as he removed the geranium from the windowsill and placed it on the table where Greta could see it.
For a full minute Lucie stood staring at the pot of vegetable soup, not seeing it, listening to the soft murmur of voices behind her: Stefan's anxious questions, Greta's gentle assurances.
The soup pot blurred and a tear dropped on her hand. One by one their dreams were crumbling. The realization frightened her.
* * *
Chapter Eleven
For the first time in memory, spring arrived without Lucie taking notice. From her chair beside the window she could see only the side of the opposite tenement and a small slice of sky. When she emptied the slop bucket or fetched water from the courtyard pump, her thoughts were too distracted to notice the weeds pressing up along the base of the tenements, or to register the children playing outside, or the laundry tubs several of the women had moved into the courtyard.
Every third day Mr. Klaxon delivered three roped bundles of men's coats and a tin bucket of buttons. He counted the coats Lucie had completed, paid her, then took the finished coats away. By working from dawn until nine at night, Lucie could finish sewing buttons on one bundle of coats a day and earn seventy cents, less the cost of the thread and wax to coat it.
Spring, when Greta called it to her attention, meant little more than better light for longer periods. But it startled Lucie that she had not noticed. Her life had narrowed to an endless parade of cuffs and lapels, to needle pricks and stains on her hands and skirts from the dye used on the coats.
But life was not all drudgery and long hours wielding her needle. To everyone's joy, Greta steadily improved. As the weeks passed, a golden sheen gradually returned to Greta's hair and a suggestion of color reappeared on her lips and cheeks. Her stomach cramps eased and more and more frequently she was able to hold down her food. She remained unable to walk as her legs continued to pain her but she could sit up for longer periods, and the redness began to fade from her eyes.
Smiling, Lucie glanced up from the heavy coat spread across her lap. "It's so good to hear you laugh again." Now that Greta's hoarseness had all but vanished, her clear laugh again reminded Lucie of tiny pealing bells.
"It's the children," Greta said from the platform bed. Supported by pillows, she sat where she could see the window and a scrap of sky. "Do you hear them playing?" she asked, smiling.
The children's occasional visits brightened the day and so did Jamie and Stefan's arrival at twilight. After supper, while Lucie sewed buttons and Greta rested, Stefan and Jamie read from the newspaper or a library book. Sometimes they talked until late, enjoying each other's company, discussing the day's small events, or remembering their childhoods and friends and family now far away. They seldom spoke of the future.
"It's Sunday," Greta said, interrupting Lucie's train of thought. "Dearest Lucie, you finished the laundry before dawn, supper is simmering on the stove can't you set the coats aside and rest? When is the last time you and Jamie spent any time alone together?"
"Lucie? Jamie will arrive in a few minutes. And he will ask you to walk out with him. Please, this time say yes. The two of you need some time alone."
Lucie's gaze darted to the bundle of coats beside the door, her mind calculating the sum it represented.
"You don't know how terrible I feel," Greta said in a low voice, "watching you work so hard and being unable to help."
"Without your encouragement, I would go utterly mad sitting here day after day pushing this needle in and out, in and out."
"If it weren't for me, you would have different work, maybe something you could enjoy."
Setting aside the coat, Lucie went to the platform bed and took Greta's hand. "Listen to me, Greta Laskowski. You must stop thinking you're an imposition. Stefan and I are your family now. If your illness has been a burden, it has been a burden of love." She leaned to kiss Greta's cheek. "We're managing, aren't we?"
"Oh, Lucie. Stefan sold his pocket watch to buy my medicine. Did you know?" Distress filled Greta's lovely eyes.
So that was how Stefan had paid for the bottles standing in a row on the shelf. Lucie drew a breath. "Excellent," she said, smiling. "Now we know what to buy him for his next birthday gift. In the past I've never known what to get him."
Greta stared at her, then laughed her chiming laugh. "I love you so much," she said, embracing Lucie. "Soon I'll be well enough to find work, too."
"Indeed you will be. Even Stefan, who worries enough for all of us, admits you're much, much improved."