American Pie

by Maggie Osborne

  A sudden shyness entered Greta's eyes. "Dearest Lucie. Will you step out with Jamie today? If not for your sake, then for mine?"

  "Oh! I see." Surprise lifted Lucie's eyebrows, then a look of delight. "You are feeling better!" Then a thought occurred and she peered into Greta's face. Greta's health was greatly improved but she was a long way from full recovery.

  "Or are you putting your suggestion in a way you know I can't refuse?"

  "Perhaps a bit of both," Greta admitted."But Jamie needs you, too," she said softly. "And I am feeling better."

  Lucie bit her lip and her gaze again strayed to the bundle of coats beside the door. Such a thin line separated safety from disaster.

  "You haven't worn the shirtwaist with the leg-o-mutton sleeves since last summer and you look so pretty in it," Greta gently prompted. "It would please Jamie so much to have you all to himself for a day."

  Indecision flickered behind Lucie's eyes. The coats beckoned. But it was spring. And it had been so long since she had shared any privacy with Jamie. Suddenly she felt the weariness slip from her shoulders, replaced by a youthful eagerness she had not experienced in weeks. "Yes," she breathed, turning to look at the window. "Yes, if you're certain "

  When she told Jamie of her decision, the joy in his eyes told her she had made the right choice.

  After considering and rejecting several alternatives, Jamie took her to Central Park to show her the spring flowers. Starlings and sparrows wheeled overhead, as numerous as the Sunday strollers who passed one another on the promenades exchanging murmurs of appreciation for the fine warm day. The elms were in full leaf and the spring air smelled of cut grass and emerging blossoms.

  "Oh, Jamie!" Lucie pressed her gloves together and gazed around the park with wide eyes. "I'd forgotten how green it can be! Isn't it lovely?"

  "Lovely," he said, smiling at her happiness and tucking her arm inside his. He suspected today's outing had been Greta's idea, and he silently thanked her for it. They had all begun to worry about Lucie, about the long relentless hours and the purplish circles beneath her eyes. She never complained, but the strain of caring for Greta while trying to work manifested itself in broken thread, burned loaves and in another dozen small ways all of which she apologized for and turned in on herself.

  The helplessness of standing by, watching the struggle without being able to assist had proved a strain for Jamie, as well. He could guess what it must be for Greta and Stefan to know the heaviest weight fell on Lucie and there was nothing anyone could do.

  That was the worst part, the helplessness. Again and again as he moved through the Tucker Building, watching it grow and come to life around him, his thoughts drifted to the Elizabeth Street tenement, knowing Lucie sat in the gloom, her fingers numb and stained with dye, her back aching from bending over the coats, her eyes straining to see.

  At such times his teeth clenched and his muscles tightened in frustration. Sometimes he remained at the site after the others had gone, hammering nails in a fury until the tension began to ebb from his body. He wanted to rescue her; he wanted to bump time ahead to a period of safety and peace. He wanted to change the world and fashion it into a place where lovely young women didn't waste away from mysterious maladies, where hearts didn't silently weep over buckets of buttons. He wanted a quiet world, a safe world, where a man and woman could face the future with confidence and a small degree of comfort. Where the price of a doctor's house call didn't equal several days of a man's labor.

  "Jamie?"

  He blinked. "What? I'm sorry, dearest, I was thinking of the world to come. And it will come, surely it will. People like us will make it happen."

  She smiled at him from beneath the brim of her little straw boater. "My, such lofty thoughts!"

  "And what are you thinking, lass?" he asked, covering her glove on his arm with his hand. "That a lemonade would sit well about now?"

  "Actually, I was wondering if we're allowed to pick the flowers. See the geraniums there? And the forget-me-nots? And tulips! It's late for tulips, isn't it? I'd like to pick them all and take them home." She gave him a wistful smile. "But I'll settle for lemonade."

  "We'll have both." After darting a glance over his shoulder to see that no one watched, he grinned, then stepped into the flower bed.

  "Jamie!" Her hands flew to her mouth, but her eyes sparkled. And when she laughed, the first time he had heard her laugh in weeks, he knew he would have plucked every flower in the park and suffered the consequences gladly.

  "For you, madam," he said grandly, bowing before her and presenting the stolen bouquet.

  Closing her eyes, she pressed her face into the blossoms and inhaled deeply. "Thank you. Oh, thank you."

  For one stunning moment, he felt like weeping. It took so little to make her happy. A bright sky, a bit of greenery. His smile. He wanted to spread the world at her feet.

  Instead, he took her to the dairy for a lemonade and light refreshments. It twisted his heart that she chose the least expensive items. "No," he said to the waiter, "bring the lady the butter cake instead. With ice cream."

  When the waiter left, she leaned forward with a worried expression. "Jamie, can we"

  "I received my raise in pay. It wasn't as much as I'd hoped, but welcome no less."

  She stared at him. "You said nothing!"

  Immediately he understood he had hurt her by not sharing his news on the instant. "It didn't seem appropriate to mention my good fortune when you and Stefan are having such a struggle."

  She lifted her head and forced a smile. "Congratulations on your raise. I'm proud of you and happy for you."

  "For us, lass. Be happy for us."

  "For us," she said, pressing his arm possessively as they left the dairy.

  They went to the romanesque American Museum of Natural History where Lucie exclaimed over the war canoe suspended from the ceiling, and they toured the Peruvian collections and the Alaska and Northwest coast series. They saw the skeleton of Jumbo, Mr. Barnum's giant African elephant, and inspected the collections of stuffed monkeys and insects. Afterward, he suggested supper in a nearby chophouse, but Lucie declined.

  "It's been a wonderful day, but this is the first time I've left Greta "

  "I understand." They spoke little during the return ride on the elevated. Lucie sat beside him holding his hand beneath the concealing folds of her dark skirts, her face turned to the window. Her silence worried him, but she would not be tempted into conversation. As the Bowery Street station came into view, she finally spoke.

  "I wanted today to be perfect, but I almost spoiled it. I'm sorry."

  "It was the raise, wasn't it?" he asked, leaning to look beneath her hat brim. "I was wrong not to tell you."

  She didn't answer immediately, then she raised her head from the flowers she still carried. "I love you, Jamie. I believe you love me. We love each other enough to share our dreams and our disappointments." She spoke quietly, gazing into his eyes. "Don't we love each other enough to share our successes, as well?"

  Her statement startled him. "Even if news of that success may make the road seem rougher for the other?" he asked after a moment. She nodded. "Even if a heartfelt 'congratulations' might strain the goodness of a saint?"

  She smiled and squeezed his hand. "Even then. No matter my situation, dearest Jamie, I will always be glad for your successes. I hope you would feel the same about my successes."

  "Of course!"

  They returned home to discover Greta dressed and sitting at the table. She laughed and clapped her hands when she saw their astonishment, then exclaimed in delight over the flowers.

  "Lucie, about today" Jamie said later. They stood in the black hallway, stealing a moment for a passionate kiss before he departed. "And my raise"

  "Shhh," she said, placing her fingertip across his lips. "It's been a marvelous day and I love you. That's all that matters. Love me, Jamie. Just love me."

  Greta's progress seemed rapid and remarkable, though in truth it occurre
d in small daily increments. The day came when she could brush and dress her own hair. When she could sit up all day. Then she could read the newspaper without her sore eyes streaming tears. Her legs still bothered her, but when Stefan carried her up to the rooftop she told the children stories for hours without becoming exhausted. And one Sunday afternoon in early summer, when Lucie returned from a band concert with Jamie, Greta had peeled the supper potatoes.

  "Soon," she said, gazing at Stefan with shining eyes, "I'll be able to run up and down to the courtyard pump! And go to the market again." Teasing him, she pointed to the geranium he had brought her to replace the one that had died. "The dear man bought white, Lucie. Imagine it, white when he could have had red!" When the men departed to carry their chairs up to the cooler rooftop, Greta touched Lucie's sleeve. "I hate to ask this, but would you and Jamie give Stefan and I a moment of privacy after supper?"

  "Of course." She looked at Greta with raised eyebrows, waiting to learn if Greta would explain her anxiety.

  "I've made a decision I doubt Stefan will accept easily," Greta said, biting her lip. "I sent Mr. Church a letter last week inquiring if I could do piece work here." When Lucie protested, she raised a hand. "Please don't tell me I haven't been a burden, Lucie. Of course I have. I'll feel much better if I can bring in some money. Even if it's just a little at the start."

  Lucie didn't immediately see where they would put Greta's supplies. Unless Stefan cut a door in the platform bed and Greta could keep her supplies beneath the platform. "Are you absolutely certain you feel well enough to attempt this?"

  "I'll be paid by the piece, so I can rest whenever I wish. Whatever I earn would help."

  That was true. The extra coins were desperately needed. There had been weeks when Lucie, her cheeks pale with fear and embarrassment, had been forced to beg the landlord's agent to return later because she didn't have the rent money in hand.

  When Stefan and Greta did not return to the tenement rooms until after midnight, Lucie guessed a row had ensued over Greta's decision. Lying on her mattress in the sleeping room, she heard the shortness in their voices as they said good night to each other. Stefan appeared in the sleeping room so swiftly Lucie understood they had not kissed, an omission that shocked her and indicated the seriousness of the argument.

  But in the end Stefan acquiesced. Greta's doctor waved aside Stefan's questions about arsenic in the dyes, saying he thought it nonsensical to suppose the Hudson Factory would poison its employees. He took umbrage that Stefan dared question his expertise.

  "Haslip could be wrong," Stefan insisted, brooding in a last attempt to have his way. He cast an unhappy glance at the papers and beads and wires covering the kitchen table.

  "Bunkum," Greta responded firmly. "Dr. Haslip's remedies have almost cured me of whatever made me ill."

  Greta did look lovely today, Lucie thought, happier than she had been in weeks knowing she had work again and could contribute to her upkeep. Before Lucie returned to the coats and buttons, she smiled at Greta's eager expression.

  "Stefan will come around," she assured Greta the next day as Greta arranged her supplies across the table and seated herself before them. The next time Lucie looked up from her bucket of buttons, Greta had completed three exquisite paper roses. "They're beautiful!" The color was a deep glowing red that seemed to chase the shadows from the room.

  At the end of the week, Lucie paid the rent on time. She added a nickel to her cache. A hank of mutton waited in the salt box for Sunday supper. At Greta's insistence, she agreed to the extravagance of a net of oranges. Her heart soared. The worst was over.

  "Everything is going to be all right!" she informed Jamie, taking his arm. Her cheeks still ached from laughing at the vaudeville comedian. She suspected she had laughed even when the jokes were mild and she remembered wearing a silly happy smile during the musical numbers. But she felt so good, so happy. It had been weeks since she felt this wonderful.

  Jamie smiled at her and covered her hand with his own. "Do you know your eyes sparkle when you're happy? It's like looking into diamonds. I'm blinded."

  She laughed. "Diamonds aren't brown."

  "The only diamonds I care about are. It's still early, would you like a glass of wine?"

  "Wine? Good heavens! Did you receive another raise?"

  "Not yet," he said, grinning. "But when we start excavating the new building next month, Mr. Tucker has promised a ten-cent-a-day increase."

  "That's wonderful! Oh, Jamie, I'm so proud of you," she said, giving his arm a squeeze.

  They turned into the coffee house on Bowery Street, the one they had once thought of as their own, where they had spent so many wonderful, if guilt-ridden, moments. They had not returned here until tonight.

  "Do you suppose we were sitting at this very table a year ago?" Lucie asked when their wine had been served. If so, she might have been wearing the very same straw hat and striped shirtwaist. Aside from the new, fashionable belt he wore, Jamie would have been dressed the same, too, wearing his summer bowler and lightweight vest. And she would have wanted him then as much as she wanted him now.

  "August? Aye, we might well have been here a year ago." Leaning forward, the gaslight behind him forming a halo around his head, he touched his wineglass to hers. "To a year of happiness past, and to years of happiness ahead," he toasted solemnly. Then he mouthed the words "I love you" and she smiled with happiness.

  The year had passed so swiftly. Now when she said "home" she meant the tenement on Elizabeth Street, something she wouldn't have believed a year ago. She no longer thought of herself as Polish, she was an American. She followed the current presidential campaign with great interest because she believed it was something all Americans should be interested in whether or not they could vote. It pleased her that the incumbent, President McKinley, "her" candidate because of his full-dinner-pail slogan, seemed to be gaining ground over William Jennings Bryan and Eugene Debs. A year ago she hadn't been entirely sure who was President and had never heard of a newspaper poll.

  Stefan had returned to her life bringing her a dearly beloved sister. And, most importantly, she had found Jamie.

  Looking at him now, she tried to decide if he had changed in the last year. He was suntanned and the lines on his forehead were a bit stronger, she noticed. He was more handsome but that did not surprise her. Jamie Kelly was the type of man the years would touch lightly, who would grow more handsome, more distinguished with each coming year. She read a new frustration in his gaze and impatience, but also increased confidence. He knew his direction now and had settled into himself.

  Suddenly it crossed her mind that she had not heard Jamie mention Kelly's Design and Construction Company in a very long time. A frown creased her brow. Then it occurred to her that she had not mentioned her goal in a long time either, and her expression relaxed. Daily events intruded; they had not had much time alone. Now that Greta was feeling well enough to work a little Lucie had ceased sewing buttons on Sundays and there would be time to dream aloud again.

  When Jamie cleared his throat to capture her attention, she looked at him across the table and saw his eyes twinkled with anticipation.

  "Jamie Kelly! There is a special reason for the wine!"

  "I've been waiting all evening to tell you." Leaning, he caught her hand in both of his and smiled.

  One thing that had not changed throughout the last turbulent year was her response to Jamie's touch. When he touched her something hot and shameless ignited inside, and she longed for him as much or more than ever she had. Many a sleepless night had she lain awake on her thin mattress remembering the night he kissed her breast, feeling herself blush in the darkness and wishing it would happen again.

  "Tell me!" His news was good, maybe wonderful. She could see the excitement fairly dancing in his gaze. "I'm about to faint with suspense!"

  "As it seems the Kolskas' fortunes have rebounded and you won't be needing my nest egg, I thought it safe to invest in the Kellys' future "
<
br />   "Jamie Kelly, you're teasing me! If you don't tell me your news this instant, I don't know what I'll do, but something!"

  He laughed, then pressed her fingers and gazed at her mouth. "I bought our bed!"

  "Jamie!" She stared at him, then her face lit. "We have a bed? Of our very own?" Falling back in her chair, she blinked at him in amazement, stunned by the news. "Oh, Jamie." Tears of happiness strangled her voice. "We've begun our household."

  It was unthinkable that she would visit his lodgings even to inspect the bed she would sleep in for the rest of her life, the bed where her children would be born. Such impropriety could not be countenanced.

  Leaning forward, her expression ablaze with excitement, she gripped his hands and asked a dozen questions. "Have you slept in it? Is the mattress filled with goose down? Not chicken feathers, oh, I hope not. Good. What does it look like? Oh, tell me, Jamie! Here" she rummaged in her reticule until she found a pencil "draw me a picture!"

  When he did so, she stared at the drawing in breathless awe. "It's beautiful! Such a large headboard, and the footboard curves around like a cradle. Oh, Jamie, I love it!" A wave of heat burned her cheeks as she imagined them lying in this bed together. It was what she wanted more than anything else. "And cherry wood! It must have cost a prince's ransom."

  "That it did, lass," he said, giving her a rueful smile. "Thirteen dollars."

  "No!"

  "But we'll have it all our lives. It seemed better to purchase well now than sleep poorly the rest of our days for the want of three dollars."

  This, her practical mind understood. She agreed, praising his wisdom. She could hardly take her eyes from the drawing long enough to give him a dazed smile. "We have a bed!"

  Tonight of all nights she longed for a place of their own, where they could kiss and touch in private bliss, sharing dreams of their future together. But there was only the deserted doorway, a partial refuge from the pedestrians enjoying the warm summer night.

  When they stepped into the shadows, she lifted her hand to his cheek, her eyes shining. "Oh, Jamie."