American Pie (24 page)

"Can you really believe my idea to sell the cream indicates a lack of belief in you?" she asked, her gaze begging him to see how absurd such a thing was. With all her heart she believed in Jamie's abilities; given time, he would provide everything they dreamed of, she didn't harbor a single doubt.

"It would seem so," he replied in a tight voice.

"Oh, Jamie." She stared at him. "You must know that isn't true! How could you think such a thing?" But he did. She saw it in the stiff set of his shoulders, heard it in his clipped words. Swallowing further comment, she bit her lip and tried to sort through the confusion muddling her thoughts.

"If you tell me not to proceed, I won't," she said eventually. Her disappointment was intense and tinted by anger.

However, nothing was worth jeopardizing their love for each other.

For several uneasy moments he did not respond. "I'll never forbid you anything, Lucie. That isn't the direction I want our lives to take." A troubled smile acknowledged her murmur of gratitude. "It is my hope we can discuss our differences and in the event of a deadlock, arrive at a compromise to suit us both."

"You've rejected the compromise I suggested," she quietly pointed out. "You refuse to share in the venture."

A flush of discomfort rose from his collar. "Then you intend to proceed?"

"Perhaps you don't believe in my cream, but I do." That wasn't what she had intended to say but having said it, her chin lifted. At some level she understood her stubbornness was a defense against the confusion and upset swirling in her mind.

"So there we are." Frowning, he looked toward the snowy window and Greta's geranium drooping on the sill. "I'll say this. I admire your spirit and determination." Rising to his feet, Jamie reached for his coat and cap. "If you believe you can provide for our future better than I, Lucie, then I wish you well."

"Oh, Jamie," she whispered, shocked. "That isn't it at all. Please don't believe that."

For a moment they gazed at each other. "I have saved sixteen dollars. Would you accept it toward your goal?"

"No." Moisture gathered in her eyes. "You don't understand at all, do you? Please, Jamie"

"Good night, lass." The door closed behind him with a sharp sound, like that of a breaking heart. Lucie lowered her face to her hands.

Midway to his lodgings, Jamie halted beneath a street lamp and rubbed his eyes with an irritated gesture. For a moment he stood motionless, listening to the hiss inside the gas globes above. Instinct urged him to return to Lucie's tenement and apologize for behaving like an ass. But why should he apologize for speaking his mind? He had spoken the truth as he knew it to be. His jaw hardened and pride directed his steps forward, away from Elizabeth Street.

Blowing snow swirled around his shoulders and he tugged his cap over his ears and sank his chin into his scarf. Things had come to a pretty pass when a man's future bride felt she had to provide for their future. His teeth ground together. Maybe she was right. He was a hell of long way from being able to offer her a home.

The issue was not simple. He had not deceived her when he praised her spirit and determination. Both were qualities he admired in Lucie Kolska. But he had not anticipated how such qualities might manifest themselves. He hadn't imagined her spirit would ever shame him or make him feel inadequate.

Hands thrust into his pockets, his head bent against the wind and snow, he turned into Canal Street. If Lucie failed in her endeavor with the cream, he would feel relieved. That was mean spirited, a quality he loathed and did not associate with himself. But, shamed by the admission, he knew that was how he would feel. And if she succeeded, he would feel like half a man, a failure in her eyes and in his own, unworthy of her.

"Damn it!"

He kicked at a frozen horse dropping. He loved her and he honestly wanted to support her endeavor. But he couldn't. Damn it, he couldn't.

The plan came together more swiftly than Lucie had imagined it would. By Saturday evening Greta had painstakingly drawn twenty labels, which she affixed to the rouge pots Lucie had purchased the previous night. Before Saturday supper the pots were filled with cream and sealed.

Greta studied the row of small pots with pride, her beautiful blue eyes shining behind her spectacles. "They're quite nice, aren't they?"

"Thanks to your exquisite labels!" To please Greta, Lucie had scented this batch of cream with geranium oil, and Greta had drawn a border of twining geranium blossoms. Greta's eyes were reddened and tearing from bending over the labels, though she insisted it had been a pleasure. Lucie slipped her arm around Greta's waist. "Now you sit down and rest."

When Stefan returned, bringing a growler of Marva ale and a gust of chill air, his gaze fastened immediately on Greta, noting her exhaustion and lack of color. Before she could see his anxiety, he hung his cap and coat on the nails. "Is Jamie coming for dinner?"

Lucie turned to measure more lumps of coal into the stove. "I don't think so," she said.

"Give him time," Greta advised softly.

There was nothing else she could do. But if he was stubborn, so was she. The plan had progressed too far to abandon now. Besides which, there was Greta. Greta believed in her, and Greta's unquestioning faith kept her going when thoughts of Jamie's disapproval planted seeds of doubt.

On Sunday morning Lucie rose before dawn to complete her household chores before the noon whistle sounded. Looking about the tenement at the freshly laundered clothing hanging on nails and chair backs drying, she tried to think if she had forgotten anything. The cooking and baking was finished, she had emptied and cleaned the slop bucket, scrubbed the table and floors, filled the lamps, fetched a bucket of fresh water from the partially frozen courtyard pump; she would iron tonight. Stefan and Greta had agreed to do the weekly marketing.

There was nothing to delay her further. But as she placed the twenty small pots inside her bulging reticule, her heart filled with trepidation. Why was she doing this? Why on earth was she doggedly continuing along a course that opened an abyss between herself and her beloved Jamie?

No clear answer jumped to mind as she pinned on her hat and tied her scarf beneath her chin. There was her goal, of course. And a genuine and intractable belief in her recipe. And there was Greta, who had drawn the labels at such cost to her poor eyes. But there was something more, something she responded to but could not adequately define.

It had something to do with America. With tales of golden streets and silver platters, of opportunity awaiting every man. And woman. Whatever drove her also owed something to the recognition that never again in her life would she have the freedom or the chance to act on her own, to pursue a dream solely of her own creation. This was her moment, and it was likely to be the only such moment she would ever have. That above all, compelled her to try. If she did not at least try, she would never forgive herself.

And surely, she would succeed. One could not want something this badly, or be this committed, and fail. Determination and the quality of her cream would see her through.

At the door she gripped the handle of her heavy reticule, squared her slim shoulders, and sailed forth to carve out her small share of the pie.

"Are you this this countess person, honey?" The man behind the tall oak counter turned a pot of cream in his hand, then peered over the countertop with an oily smile.

His familiarity shocked her. Lucie had been into Sheldon's Drug Emporium to purchase remedies for Greta and the white-coated man behind the counter had never before taken liberties with her.

"II suppose I am," she said stiffly. "I make the cream from my own recipe."

"You? A countess?" His gaze swept the tips of her muddied boots and hem before swerving upward to her mended coat and the felt hat she had purchased at the rag fair. She knew herself to be dressed neatly and respectably, but his sly gaze made her feel shabby and second-rate.

"My recipe won first prize at the harvest fair back home."

"Did it now?" He dropped the pot over the edge of the counter and she jerked forward to catch it before it shattered on the plank floor. "Then maybe you should peddle it back home. No thank you, honey. My ladies use soap and water like any decent woman should. No fancy dancy creams for my patrons."

Silently she turned and walked out the door, aware of several customers observing her with lifted eyebrows. On the street outside she paused to inhale deeply, then tilted her face toward the sky. Today had been clear but cold, the weak sun turning the streets into slush that would freeze overnight. Already she felt the chill of approaching evening.

She had not placed a single pot of cream. Not one. For a long moment she considered the weight of the reticule wrenching her arm, thought about her aching feet and the cold slush seeping through the hole in her boot. She thought about the smirks and smiles, the refusals, polite and not so polite. And she knew she wasn't going to sell any of the cream. She also knew she had to see it through to the end. There were still a few minutes before the shops closed.

For most of her life she had associated courage with heroic deeds, with large acts of valor or sacrifice. But she saw now that an act of courage could be as small as drawing labels when one's eyes ached and streamed, as small as stepping through a doorway into a dry goods store.

She closed her eyes, squeezing her lashes against her cheek, then she drew a breath and pushed through the door before her, hearing the bell jangle above her head. Dreading each step she approached the proprietor of the store, an older balding gentleman who wore an old-fashioned frock coat and a heavily starched standing collar.

"May I help you find something, miss?"

She fumbled to open her reticule. "You wouldn't want to sell my face and hand cream, would you?" How many times had she asked the same fruitless question? Suddenly she felt endlessly weary. "It's very good."

Surprise widened his eyes. Then he drew back from her. "What is the world coming to when young women take to the streets as drummers?" His stare hardened. "Shame on you, miss!"

Lucie moved backward a step. "If I could just leave a pot or two with you on consignment."

"You should be at home, tending to your house and family! Who is responsible for you? Who sanctioned this offense?"

"II live with my brother, sir."

"Your brother should be horsewhipped for permitting you to behave like a man and a drummer at that! Do neither of you have the least sense of decency?"

It was the last straw. Lucie turned on her heel and fled, her skirts billowing behind her, tears glistening in her eyes, knowing she had failed so utterly devastating her.

Darkness had fallen by the time she reached the Elizabeth Street tenement. In the blackness she stumbled over the bodies of those homeless souls who crept into the icy stairwell to sleep huddled on the steps. Their curses followed her as she pulled herself upstairs, murmuring apologies.

She had never been so happy to see the inside of the dark smoky rooms. Closing the door she fell against it and strangled on a sob of defeat. Facing Greta, who believed in her foolish dream, would be the most painful moment in recent years. She couldn't bear to think about it.

"Lucie? Are you all right, lass?"

"Jamie!" Running across the room she threw herself into his arms and buried her face against his shoulder. Relief choked her voice and brought tears to her eyes. She held tightly to his solid strength, reassuring herself that he was really here. "Oh, Jamie, you were right. It was terrible, awful! You can't imagine what people said to me, they"

"There, there," he murmured, unpinning her hat and tossing it toward the table. He stroked her hair and kissed her temples. "Dearest, you're half frozen. Sit down and I'll pour you some hot beer. Good Lord, your reticule weighs a cartful. Stefan, take this, will you?"

She allowed them to cosset her because she needed cosseting as seldom before. And she was so glad that Jamie had swallowed his pride and reappeared that it diminished the humiliation of her defeat. But she had glimpsed the relief on his face as he hefted the weight of her reticule and understood what it meant. To her shame a wave of unwanted resentment clouded her joy at seeing him again.

Then, as his arm slipped around her waist and she rested her head on his broad shoulder, her resentment eased. She was intensely disappointed that her venture had failed but—and this was difficult to admit and acceptperhaps it was for the best. She couldn't quite bring herself to believe this entirely, but she did recognize success might well have created as many problems as it solved.

"I'm so glad to see you," she murmured against Jamie's shoulder, clasping his hand. It meant the world to her that he had returned before he knew if her efforts to sell the cream had been successful. Surely that fact was more important than his fleeting expression of relief.

"I love you, lass," he said gruffly.

"I love you, too. I don't want us ever to fight again," she whispered against his collar.

Now that her feet and hands had thawed and the lump in her throat diminished, it was time to face Greta and confess her failure, admit that all their labor had gone for naught. Lifting her head, dreading the moment, she gazed about the room.

"Stefan, where is Greta?" She had been so distraught over her defeat, so overjoyed by Jamie's return, that she had failed to notice Greta's absence until now. But it didn't make sense. Greta was her partner and her ally. Her heart stopped in her chest and her brows clamped together. Greta would have moved the earth to be here tonight to learn the results of then-efforts and dreams. She would have been here to cheer a success or soften a defeat. "Stefan?"

"She's having a bad day, Lucie. It's everything. Her eyes, vomiting, the cough. Her legs pain her too much to walk." Stefan pressed his lips together as he reached for his coat and cap. "She asked me to apologize that she isn't here to congratulate you." He squeezed Lucie's shoulder in a gesture of sympathy. "I'm under strict instructions to report back at once."