American Pie

by Maggie Osborne

  His kiss was almost chaste, filled with tenderness as if she were a dream from which he might awaken if he held her too tightly. The passion that simmered between them was there as always, but tonight was a night for tenderness, a night to cherish each other and the future they longed for.

  "Atta boy, bingo," a rude voice called. "Put the boots to 'er."

  Jamie broke from their kiss to scowl as the man laughed and walked away. "I hate this," he said in a low voice. "Sometimes I think we'll never have a place of our own!"

  Lucie gently placed her hand on his jaw and smiled at him with shining eyes. "But, dearest, we're so much nearer than we were last week!"

  "Someday," he said, his dark eyes making love to her.

  Tonight, someday seemed just around the corner. Hugging him close, Lucie covered his dear face with kisses, not caring who might see. The future was theirs again.

  Greta's flower paper shed a filmy gray dust that settled on her clothing as she worked and spread a fine, almost invisible coating across the platform bed.

  "I wish you could see the factory," Greta said as she scrubbed the dust from the table before she put down the cloth for supper. "The dust is everywhere, it's unavoidable. It piles in the corners, under the worktables"

  Lucie looked up from the pot of peas she was shelling. "Did you get some in your eyes? I noticed you've been squinting again and rubbing your eyes." For a time Greta had not worn her spectacles, insisting she no longer needed them. But two weeks ago she had begun wearing them again.

  "Perhaps I did. Does the dust bother you?"

  "Not that I've noticed. You wear yourself out sweeping it up." In truth Lucie hadn't been feeling one hundred percent of late, though she hardly thought the paper dust had anything to do with it.

  But Greta's ankles had swollen again. And the rash had reappeared on her hands. Last night Lucie had opened one of the little pots of cream stored on her shelf in the sleeping room and rubbed it into Greta's hands until the tenement rooms smelled pleasantly of geranium oil.

  "I think the cake is almost done," Lucie said, turning away from worrisome thoughts. "Can you smell it?" Actually it was a recipe of her mother's that combined the sweetness of cake and the sturdy consistency of bread. Lucie had purchased raisins and candied cherries and the cake would be iced, as well.

  "You shouldn't have gone to all this trouble," Greta protested. But her eyes glowed behind her spectacles.

  "Bunkum! You don't have a nineteenth birthday every day. You must have a cake. Besides, we haven't properly celebrated your restored health." Immediately, she knew it was the wrong thing to say. The light dimmed in Greta's eyes and they looked at each other for a long moment before they turned aside and hurriedly busied themselves with preparations for the evening ahead.

  #

  Stefan gave Greta a new winter hat trimmed with velvet ribbon in a shade of blue that matched her eyes. "A new hat," he emphasized proudly and grinned as they teased him about walking into a milliner's shop on Ladies Mile. "They recognize a man of consequence when they see one," he explained grandly, sending them into gales of laughter. "It's all in the attitude."

  From Jamie Greta received two flourishing geraniums and a packet of seeds. "To grow your own when these die," he explained, grinning. "And I thought Stefan and I were stubborn!"

  Lucie's gift was a pair of everyday black stockings and a pair of white for best. "I wish it could have been more," she said, enclosing Greta in a tight embrace.

  They opened the wine Jamie had brought and sang the Polish birthday song, then again in English. And laughed when Greta blushed and fluttered up on her tiptoes to give everyone grateful kisses.

  Finally, with much ado and a shout of fanfare from Stefan and Jamie, Lucie produced the iced cake with a flush of pride. The crust was golden and bursting with swollen raisins. The drizzled icing was smooth and sweet.

  "To the angel among us," Stefan said softly, raising his wine glass to Greta.

  "To my dearest sister!"

  "May your nineteenth year be the best year ever," Jamie said, smiling.

  Tears of happiness glistened in Greta's eyes. Unable to speak, she opened her arms as if to embrace them. Then she mopped her eyes and gave them a radiant smile. "I love you all," she whispered.

  "Lucie, darlin' lass, are you ever going to cut that cake? The fragrance has had my mouth watering from the moment I arrived."

  Laughing, chattering happily, they devoured Greta's birthday cake, leaving not a single crumb.

  Afterward, Greta vomited; she was sick all night. The illness had returned.

  * * *

  Chapter Twelve

  Greta's decline was swift and absolute.

  Lucie, Jamie and Stefan watched in helpless horror as Greta's previous symptoms returned with stunning virulence. For a time she sat against her pillows and continued to make the paper flowers, ignoring bouts of fevers and chills, but the day arrived when work was no longer possible. Her hands shook too badly; her eyes could not withstand the strain. Mr. Church rejected more of the paper flowers than he accepted. Silent tears rolled down Greta's cheeks as she pushed her supplies under the platform bed for the last time.

  She could not eat, experienced difficulty sleeping. Her legs were numb. Each movement required an enormous expenditure of energy and left her gasping. Dr. Haslip proclaimed himself baffled by Greta's steadfast deterioration.

  Lucie and Jamie stood on the tenement rooftop watching a dying sun glowing against the clouds. Someone nearby was burning rubbish and the sour smoke drifted on the evening air. Lucie tightened her shawl around her shoulders and leaned back in Jamie's enclosing arms.

  "The smell of an early winter is in the air," she murmured, trying to read omens in the cloud patterns and trying to quell the hopelessness thinning her whisper. "Maybe the cooler weather will help. She felt better last year when the weather cooled, I'm sure she did. It's been so hot this summer, don't you think?" She was babbling. Cracking her teeth as Mrs. Greene would have said. Pressing her lips together, she stared at the clouds. One of them was shaped like a rose. Surely that was a good sign. It had to be. She fastened her gaze to the rose cloud, clenched her jaw, and willed it to mean Greta's health would improve.

  "Dr. Haslip is with her now," Jamie said quietly, resting his chin on top of her head.

  "I'm so frightened. I love her so much."

  "I know, lass. We all do."

  "And Stefan"

  "Shhh. Let's wait and see what Dr. Haslip has to say."

  They remained on the rooftop another five minutes, then silently descended to the tenement, arriving as Dr. Haslip emerged. In the room behind him, Lucie glimpsed Stefan kneeling beside Greta's bed. She sucked in a hard sharp breath and her heart went cold. For the rest of her life, she would remember Stefan's ruined face, the agony in his eyes.

  "No," she whispered, shaking her head violently. Her throat closed as she spun toward Dr. Haslip and examined his expression, searching for hope. "Oh, God, no. No!" Jamie's strong arm caught her before her knees collapsed.

  "There's nothing more I can do," Dr. Haslip explained in a low voice. He settled an expensive bowler upon his white hair. "Mr ?"

  "Kelly. I'm a friend of the family."

  "Mr. Kelly, I'd suggest you advise Mr. Kolska that further doctor visits are a waste of three dollars. I've left some opiates. All we can do now is make her as comfortable as possible until" He glanced at Lucie who turned sobbing into Jamie's arms. "Until the end," he finished quietly.

  "Will she suffer much?"

  "The opiates will help. In any case, it won't be long."

  "No!" Lucie sobbed. "Not Greta. Not Greta!"

  Dr. Haslip gave her shoulder an awkward pat. "I'm sorry."

  Jamie looked inside the room as the doctor lifted his bag and walked toward the stairwell. His heart wrenched. Lamplight fell across the bed, across Stefan's heaving shoulders. Then, as Greta reached to comfort him, her thin arms closing around him, Jamie quietly closed the door. Their
faces tore at his soul.

  "Jamie" Lucie raised drowning eyes. "I must go to her!"

  "Not now, lass," he said, gently guiding her to the stairs. "Not just now."

  The idea came to Lucie that night on the rooftop. Shaking with rage, she cursed what was happening, cursed her powerlessness to stop it. But there was something she could do. She could give Greta her dream.

  But the wedding had to happen swiftly. Greta and Stefan's wedding would be a paler version of what they had imagined, but Lucie was determined it should happen.

  The first consequence of her decision was the loss of her work. Her voice edged with desperation, she explained to Mr. Klaxon that she urgently needed a week off for personal matters, but personal tragedies meant nothing to Mr. Klaxon. He collected his coats and buttons and slammed the door behind him. The coats and buttonsand the money they representedwere gone.

  Greta struggled up from her pillows and coughed into her handkerchief. "Oh, Lucie" She waited, gathered her strength. "The cost is too high."

  "No," she said firmly, staring at the door. "I'll not give up on this. The only thing you ever dreamed of was marrying Stefan." She bent to stroke a strand of hair away from Greta's burning forehead. "It's the only thing I ever heard you say you wanted. And by heaven you shall have it, my dearest sister."

  If she let herself think about money now, she would shatter into pieces. As it was, the effort to hold herself together grew more difficult every day as she helplessly watched Greta grow weaker, slipping further away from them. She could not give Greta the children she longed for, but she could give her Stefan. If only for a short while.

  Burying her pride she borrowed three dollars from Jamie and added it to the three dollars taken from under the loose board. Through meticulous searching and relentless bargaining at the rag fair, she purchased a vest and coat and tie for Stefan and an ivory gown for Greta.

  A stubborn grass stain stained the back of the gown, as if the original owner had slid across a lawn, and it defied Lucie's skilled efforts to remove. But this was not an insurmountable problem. The gown had to be altered to fit Greta's wasted figure, so Lucie trimmed out the panel containing the grass stain and rebuilt the skirt.

  When she spread the altered gown across the platform bed, Greta touched the material with trembling fingers. "I've never worn silk before. It's so soft!" Awe glowed on her translucent skin. "Describe it to me, Lucie, I can't see well enough tell me if it shimmers. Is the color as lovely as it appears?"

  Lucie swallowed and shut her eyes against scalding tears. "It shimmers, dearest, like a waterfall. The color is almost the same as your hair. Lace trims the bodice and cuffs. You'll be as beautiful" a lump closed her throat, strangling her "as beautiful as the day Stefan met you."

  Greta fell back into the pillows, gasping for breath, the fever burning on her cheeks. "Father Norlic agreed to waive the reading of the banns? And he doesn't mind coming here?" When Lucie confirmed it, Greta struggled against the effect of the opiates to open her eyes. "I don't know how you've managed everything. How can we thank you for all you've done?"

  "Get well! Oh, Greta, get well!"

  Gently Greta stroked her hand. "Don't cry, dearest Lucie," she whispered. When she could speak again, her weak grip tightened around Lucie's fingers. "I know this isn't fair, but you must be strong for all of us. We depend on your strength. And dearest sister "

  "Don't try to sit up. Please, just rest."

  "Help our Stefan." Her lovely eyes begged. "He seems so strong, but he's not. He will need you, Lucie."

  "I know." Lucie wept.

  "When some time has passed" A fit of coughing left her pale and trembling. "Help him find someone to love." When she had rested a moment, she opened her eyes and a single tear slipped down her cheek. "Help him understand it's what I wanted. He's such a good man. He needs someone to love him. And someone to love."

  "Oh, Greta! I can't bear this!"

  "Remember, dearest. Promise me and remember."

  That night Stefan sat beside Greta on the platform bed, holding her hot hand, his face as pale as hers. His dark eyes burned with grief and bewilderment. To depart for work was torment; to sit beside her and feel her slowly leaving him was agony.

  "Everything is arranged, my love," he murmured, stroking her fingers. When she managed a smile, his face constricted in an effort to return the joy in her gaze. "Do you mind terribly that you won't have a ring?"

  "But she will!" Lucie slapped her forehead, then rushed to her shelf in the sleeping room. When she returned she sat on the platform bed and opened her palm to show them the gold wedding ring Greta had given her for the cream. "Your mother's ring, I saved it. I didn't sell it to buy the ingredients for the cream. I sold my hat pins instead. You gave me the ring for my dream, dearest Greta, now I give it to you for yours."

  Tears of happiness flowed down Greta's cheeks as Stefan helped her sit up so she could embrace Lucie.

  As Greta had to rest frequently, it required most of the afternoon to dress her and arrange her hair. Lucie did so with silent tears streaming down her cheeks. The once lush body was thin and wasted, each gesture an exhausting effort. But eventually Greta was ready minutes before Father Norlic arrived. And she was lovely.

  The artful magic of a hot curling iron and three or four false curls created an illusion of golden fullness framing her face. Fever and excitement tinted her cheeks with rose. The ivory silk captured the light from the table lamp and shimmered like champagne across the platform bed. Adoration filled Stefan's wet eyes as he gazed down at her.

  "You look beautiful!" he said gruffly, his throat full.

  "Oh, Stefan, look at you!"

  Lucie had trimmed his hair and mustache. He wore the new coat, vest and tie. Lucie stared at him, her handsome brother, and knew the years would distinguish him and he would wear them with dignity.

  "Are you all right?" Jamie murmured. He and Lucie sipped the wine he had brought, not tasting it, standing at a discreet distance from the platform bed while Father Norlic spoke to Stefan and Greta.

  Tears flooded Lucie's throat, choking her. "She's so terribly ill, but even now she thinks of others. She worries about Stefan. She asked me to" But she couldn't speak.

  Jamie touched her cheek. "You accomplished your goal after all, lass," he said gently.

  Father Norlic nodded to them then, but before they stepped forward Lucie plucked the single blossom from Greta's fading window geranium and gave it to her to hold.

  "Please," Greta whispered, looking up at them. "I can't be married in bed. Stefan? Will you help me to stand?"

  But her legs would not support her. In the end Stefan held her in his arms, cradling her tenderly to his chest as Father Norlic spoke the words that made them man and wife.

  Afterwards, Stefan placed her gently on the platform bed, propped up by pillows, then stretched out beside her, holding her in the circle of his arms while Jamie toasted them with a new bottle of wine.

  "Thank you," Greta whispered. "This is the happiest day of my life!" Eyes bright and dilated by opiates, she rested against Stefan's shoulder and smiled joyfully at the gold ring on her finger. "Oh, my dearest, I've waited so long for this happy day!"

  Father Norlic finished his wine and tasted the wedding loaf, then he wished the newlyweds well. Before he departed, his sad eyes lingered on Stefan and Greta. Quietly, he shut the door behind him.

  Shortly afterward Jamie and Lucie tactfully departed to take supper at a small German restaurant in Bowery Street. The moment they left the tenement their festive expressions dissolved into anguish. In the alleyway between the courtyard and Elizabeth Street, Lucie turned into Jamie's arms and wept until no more tears would flow, until she felt limp and drained.

  "All she wanted was Stefan. And a home and children of her own. She never hurt anyone, never spoke a harsh word. I don't understand! Why is this happening?"

  Jamie held her shaking body tightly, stroking her back. "I don't know, lass," he said quietly. "It isn't
fair."

  "She's only nineteen! She had a whole life in front of her, she" But the words suffocated her.

  Neither had much appetite. Their thoughts strayed to the Elizabeth Street tenement and Stefan and Greta. What would Greta and Stefan say to each other, they who had no future? How would they spend this, which should have been the happiest night of their lives?

  And they stared across the table at each other, desperate in their need to celebrate life, and in their guilt at having such thoughts and in having each other. Each thought longingly of Jamie's nearby lodgings and the new bed, though neither stated these thoughts aloud, or spoke of the hungering need to love and touch and know the thrill of rushing blood and pulsing nerves and life. Life.

  But the urgency was there in their stolen moments within the deserted doorway, in fevered kisses and clinging caresses. In endearments that carried an edge of desperation and immediacy. In their reluctance to part, as if tomorrow were an uncertain mirage. It was nearly midnight before they wrenched apart and Lucie reluctantly entered the tenement to stay with Mrs. Blassing and her family.

  Sometime during the night, Greta slipped away.

  Mrs. Blassing woke Luce to inform her Stefan was acting strangely. He had departed the tenement before light but not before battering holes in the stairwell wall with his fists. Staggering as if drunk, weeping, he kicked in the side of one of the reeking school sinks and very nearly wrenched the handle off the pump. Shortly after dawn he returned, his arms overflowing with flowers, his eyes savage and wild.

  Lucie's shoulders collapsed and she buried her face in her hands, sobbing.

  "It's Greta, isn't it," Mrs. Blassing said with a heavy sigh of understanding. Wrapping her large arms around Lucie, she tried to offer comfort though none could be given. While Lucie dressed, Mrs. Blassing quietly collected several women in the building to do what must be done. They accompanied Lucie to the door.