American Pie (32 page)

He stared at her. Then his gaze dropped to the papers scattered across the table. "In less than a week "

"And, Jamie," she said, turning to him, her mind whirling with the excitement of possibilities. Dreams did return. "You could have Kelly's Design and Construction Company sooner than we dared imagine." His stony expression tempered her enthusiasm. "Dearest, please don't be stubborn. Think about this." Drawing a breath, she took his hand between her own. "You haven't mentioned Kelly's Design and Construction Company in so long. Have you abandoned your dream, dearest? That wonderful dream of building housing for people like us?"

"Some dreams are not realistic, Lucie. Or maybe the time is wrong. Other dreams take precedence."

"But it doesn't have to be like that! Please, Jamie, don't look at me that way, Stefan has proven we can succeed with the cream. We didn't go about it right before, but now we know how to do it! We needed Stefan as our drummer."

"Bloomingdale's and Wanamaker's said they would order more if the cream proved a success with their ladies," Stefan said thoughtfully, continuing to regard the slips of paper.

"It will! Mrs. Roper said my cream is as fine as any on the market." Her grip tightened on Jamie's hands. "I know we can be a success! Please join us, Jamie. The future can be ours again."

"Isn't it possible you're grasping at straws, lass? An hour ago you didn't know if you would have a roof over your head. Now, you're buying stone markers and construction companies." He shook his head. "You're setting yourself up in business."

"No, Jamie. This isn't grasping at straws. Look at these papers. Didn't you hear what Stefan said?"

"I heard. I'm not stupid, Lucie."

She gasped. "I didn't mean to imply you were. I only meant to point out an unmistakable opportunity. We've been given a second chance to see what's under our nose! My cream can give all of us everything we ever wanted! I'm sure of it. I feel it."

"So, you've set your mind to this. You're determined to go into business."

She looked at Stefan, knew he was thinking about the marker for Greta's grave. "Yes," she said simply, softly. "Countess Kolska's Superlative Face and Hand Cream can give us everything we've dreamed of. Safety, and a future for us and for our children. Dearest Jamie, say you will join us."

"How would I contribute, Lucie? You make the cream and Stefan sells it. Do you think I could accept a portion of your profits for doing nothing?" Pride stiffened his jaw and hardened his eyes. "No, lass," he said, standing. "The cream is your dream, perhaps your opportunity. I wish you well with it."

But he looked at her as if she had betrayed him. As if a near horizon had supped suddenly into the far distance.

"Jamie" She felt the blood drain from her face. His expression was one she had not seen before.

"You're right," he said quietly, glancing at the paper slips Stefan was sorting into piles. "I think you and Stefan have found your opportunity. I have a feeling you'll be a tremendous success. Someday I will read about you in the newspapers."

"Oh, God," she whispered, falling back into her chair. "Jamie, I beg you don't do this. Don't let foolish pride destroy us. Please."

"Now I'm foolish?" Jamie stood beside the door, his coat and cap in his hand. They stared at each other across the room. "Do you see the changes that will come, lass? If I'm foolish now, what would you think of me if I took money from you?"

"You know I spoke in anger" She spread her hands, her eyes imploring him. "Jamie, don't put this between us. Please. Share our good fortune, be part of it!"

"One day," he said in a thick strange voice, staring at her as if memorizing her features, "if Kelly's Design and Construction Company becomes a reality and if it becomes a success" He drew a breath then opened his eyes, "and if you haven't found a better man than I, I'll find you again. When I can come to you as an equal, as a man."

"You're saying goodbye!" She rose on trembling legs, staring at him. "No. Please, Jamie "

"In the meanwhile, wish me the same success I predict for you." But she couldn't speak, so he quietly let himself out and shut the door behind her.

Lucie's knees collapsed and she fell back on her chair. Tears blinded her, tears as gray and cold as her world had suddenly become.

Stefan wholly immersed himself in selling Countess Kolska's Superlative Face and Hand Cream. In Stefan's mind the cream was inexorably intertwined with memories of Greta. Greta had believed in Lucie's cream; she had believed in the dream. Making the cream a stunning success was something he did for Greta, her victory as much as his. But as weeks blended into months he discovered he enjoyed selling. Selling was a game that offered interesting new challenges every day. At the back of his mind something clicked into place, and Stefan understood he had found his life's work, his opportunity. Without Greta, it was a hollow triumph.

For Lucie the cream's enormous success proved a mixed blessing. On the one hand, she could scarcely believe the money that poured in, a virtual waterfall of funds the sum of which surpassed comprehension. As it quickly became unthinkable to keep such large sums beneath the loose board in the sleeping room, she and Stefan proudly opened a bank account, the first bank account in the Kolska family. Each week when she updated the books, she stared at the growing bank balance with incredulous disbelief.

In a remarkably short period the business had earned what seemed to Lucie like a fortune. Now she and Stefan could move to a small furnished house. They could purchase a horse and trap if they wished. She gazed into the future and could see that the cream's potential was unlimited. The thought made her head spin.

The mixed side of the blessing was the lack of time. Ironically, there was no time to spend the profits that poured into their bank account. Stefan had moved Greta to a private cemetery and erected a marble stone, and Lucie insisted he purchase clothing at a haberdashery suitable for the representative of Countess Kolska's Superlative Face and Hand Cream. Lucie purchased three new work aprons, and they had meat in the supper pot every night. Otherwise, little changed in their lives except they worked longer hours than ever before.

There wasn't time to locate and move to better housing. No time to stroll along Ladies Mile and know she had funds to purchase a new hat if one should catch her eye. There was hardly time to sit a moment and catch a breath.

Repeat orders flooded Stefan's sample bag, along with requests for varied scents. Bloomingdale's requested a rose fragrance; Wanamaker's preferred violet; Lord and Taylor wanted lily of the valley. Stefan refused all orders for geranium scent.

Lucie rose before dawn and made cream until well after darkness had fallen. Following a late supper, she drew labels and pasted them on the pots. Day after day she rushed to keep up with the orders, and slowly fell behind as the orders outpaced her.

And every day as she stirred the tubs occupying every inch of space in the tenement, she thought about Jamie.

Throughout the first weeks her pain over Jamie's loss blended into her pain of losing Greta until she could not distinguish the two. She measured and mixed the ingredients with a blunted expression, her heart aching. There was no pleasure in work, just the constant blind grief of bereavement.

But as autumn faded to winter and snow blew inside the broken pane Stefan had no time to fix, her grief and confusion over Jamie coalesced into anger.

Scowling, she leaned over the stove, stirring the ointment, oil and soda, waiting for a soaplike consistency to form. "Too proud to take money from a woman, is he?" She wrestled the tub to a heat-resistant platform on the floor, then lifted another pot to the stove top to warm the glycerine and boric acid. "Too proud to lend a hand! He loved me well enough when I was poor as a mouse, but he can't love me now that I can afford a new gown if there was someone to wear it for! I ask you," she said to the empty room, waving her stirring paddle, "Does that make sense?"

Jamie Kelly was as crazy as a rabid dog if he believed she didn't need him, she thought. She did. The business had become too much for two people to handle. Moreover, neither she nor Stefan had any training to handle the books. The rows of figures intimidated them both. Tired and apprehensive, Lucie consistently made frustrating errors. It would have been a tremendous relief to be spared the dreaded ledger.

Already they needed a small warehouse to store the supply of ingredients and pots if they were to keep up with the orders and hope to continue expanding. The boxes of supplies jamming the tenement rooms made it almost impossible to live here and trying to work was crowded and inconvenient. They certainly had the wherewithal to lease larger working space but not time to do it Moreover, they needed someone to assume the burden of drawing and pasting the labels, someone to assist Lucie with making the cream, someone to fill the seemingly endless crates of pots, someone to deliver the finished pots to the emporiums.

Tears of frustration and exhaustion wet her eyes as she poured the glycerine mixture into the ointment blend and stirred as it cooled. Next she would add the remaining water and the volatile oils, then she would fill dozens of pots before she began another batch. Trying to accomplish everything alone became more daunting every day.

She missed Jamie with an ache that blinded her. She missed him the way she would have missed an amputated arm or breath in her lungs. Not an hour passed that she didn't wonder what he was doing, and if he ever thought of her, if he regretted the foolish damnable pride that kept them apart.

When she fell onto her mattress at night, too exhausted to fall asleep immediately, she remembered his tender kisses, his passion, his fingertips stroking her cheek. She remembered the dark intensity of his gaze, how he seemed to throw off sparks when excitement fired his imagination, how his lips curved when he smiled.

She recalled when she first met him, when love's elbow struck. She remembered summer sunlight striking fire from his auburn hair, and snow settling on his eyelashes and shoulders. How could he have claimed to love her then walk away?

Stefan found a moment to mend the broken windowpane and to buy them both winter boots and new gloves. In the evenings he helped Lucie fill pots and draw labels, struggling to keep pace with the orders stacking on the spindle file.

"We simply must hire people to help," Lucie said, rubbing her eyes before she opened a fresh pot of paste."Stefan, we can't continue like this. We're both exhausted."

Stefan lifted his head and studied her as if he hadn't seen her in a long while. "You do look tired."

She returned Stefan's searching look and discovered he did not appear as wearied by the frenzied pace as she. He looked almost as fresh as when he had left this morning. In fact, Stefan looked better than he had in years. The weight he lost after Greta's death had not returned and the lean hard look became him. At Lucie's suggestion he had grown a beard and trimmed it into the Van Dyke style, which made him resemble Count Emil Bartok more than ever. With the beard, his new clothing and his quiet bearing, he could be mistaken for a count himself.

"Are you feeling well?" he asked, suddenly anxious.

"I'm just tired." She pushed a hand through her hair and frowned at the kerosene lamp. "We should discuss moving into larger quarters and hiring help. We can't handle this alone."

"Can we afford all that?"

Lucie stared at him and laughed, the first time she had done so in weeks. Leaning forward, she pushed the ledger across the table so he could see.

"Good God!" Stefan blinked at the page. "Surely this must be a mistake! It isn't? Lucie, are you certain?" When she nodded, a thoughtful look chased the astonishment from his gaze. "With more people, the business can expand. In a few years we can think about opening markets in other cities." He gazed into the future.

"Dearest Stefan," she said softly. "You love the cream business, don't you?"

A flush rose from his collar and he smiled at her. "It amazes me, too. But I do. I dream of making Countess Kolska's Superlative Face and Hand Cream a household name all across this great land. Not immediately," he added hastily, laughing at her expression. "But someday."