American Pie (27 page)

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.

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?"

She couldn't remember. First, Greta had been so desperately ill that Lucie did not dare leave her even for a moment Then, she had succumbed to panic as the money steadily dwindled until only a few pennies remained in the small bag beneath the loose board. Finally she had persuaded Mr. Klaxon to allot her the piecework and from that moment it seemed she had scarcely had an instant to breathe. Each idle moment represented a coat that was not being finished, coins that were not being earned.

"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."

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.