1929 (18 page)

“Jonathan! What happened?” Ava asked as she
grabbed a blanket from the bed and wrapped it around him. She
pulled a chair over close to the fire, added a few pieces of wood,
and sat him down, rubbing each hand between hers alternately to
warm them.

Several minutes passed before he could talk,
teeth chattering too violently to form words. He rocked back and
forth with his eyes closed, willing the cold away. Finally, he
began to feel his hands and could speak without his teeth slamming
together.

“Someone stole my coat and gloves,” he said,
frowning.

“What? No!” she cried.

“Do I look like I’m joking?” he asked, still
rippling with small tremors.

“Why on earth would someone do that?” she
grumbled and rose to put on water for tea. “This will be ready in a
minute, and dinner’s almost ready, too,” she called.

“I'll eat when I get back.”

“Where on earth are you going?” she asked.
“You’re still half-frozen!”

“I have to go buy a work coat and gloves
before the store closes.” He went in the bedroom, shook off the
blanket, and put on his dress coat. He rummaged under the bed for
the jar where they kept their savings. He looked at it, sighed,
dumped it out on the bed and counted through it. “Damn,” he cursed
aloud, rubbing his face with one hand. Ava stood in the doorway,
watching him.

“What’s wrong, Jonathan?” she asked with a
weary voice.

“I didn’t realize it would be so expensive to
be poor.”

∞∞∞

Caleb counted through the change in his
pocket and decided to buy fresh ingredients for dinner rather than
more expensive ready-made deli food. He would have to have a talk
with Arianna tonight about her spending and lack of effort at
domestication. He dreaded it. It didn’t take much to set her off,
and most days he came home to her crying anyway, but it had to be
done. They were dangerously low on money, there was nearly none
left of what little they brought with them, and they couldn’t
afford to waste another cent. He bought a small roast of the least
expensive cut, two potatoes, two carrots, and a loaf of French
bread. He also bought a tablet of yeast and ten pounds of flour. It
would save them money if Arianna would make bread.

He pushed the door open to their apartment
and was glad to see that at least a fire was going. Arianna sat on
the sofa, staring at it.

“Honey, I’m home.” He set the groceries on
the table and went to sit by her. “God, it feels good to sit down,”
he moaned. “How was your day, love?” he asked, pulling her over to
him and kissing her cheek. She shrugged and grabbed onto his hand.
“Are you still having a hard time?” he asked quietly.

“We’re still here, aren’t we?” she
whispered.

“Yes.” He pulled her chin up to look at him.
“But you know I’m working on some ideas right now. You can’t get
lost in this, Ahna. I need you strong to help me pack when it’s
time to leave.” He kissed her on the end of her nose.

“I'll try again tomorrow, all right? To be
strong.”

“Okay.” He got up off the couch, trying to
shake her gently off his arm. Lately, when he was home, she
attached herself to him and didn’t want to let go. It made it hard
for him to work on his fix-it list with her needing to be right
next to him. He usually just let her hang onto him in the small
apartment as he worked and talked to her. He did that tonight,
pulling her off the couch and walking her to the kitchen. He handed
her a small knife and a large potato.

“I hate potatoes,” she grumbled.

He took the potato out of her hand and
replaced it with a carrot. He took the loaf of bread and cut
several slices, biting through the stack. “Sorry, but I’m starving.
Someone stole Jon’s lunch today, so I shared mine with him,” he
said with a full mouth.

“Stole his lunch?”

“Well, stole it long enough to throw it
across the room and stomp on it. He’s having a real hard time at
work. Some guys are messing with him.” He cut the meat in cubes
quickly and dumped them in the frying pan. Arianna finished peeling
the carrots, he chopped those, then cubed the potatoes and added
those to the mix. He sprinkled in spices. Arianna watched him
intently.

“Where did you learn how to do that?” she
asked, impressed.

“I remember my mom making this when I was a
kid. Only instead of getting the vegetables from a corner store,
she would send me out to the garden, and I’d dig ‘em up fresh. Do
we have any grease?” he asked. Arianna handed him a small plate
with a lump of white lard on it. “That’ll do. I also bought some
yeast. I thought it’d be better if we made bread every day instead
of buying it.”

“And by we, you mean me, right?” she asked
suspiciously.

“Well, I can’t exactly make it from work,
now, can I, silly?” he said, kissing her forehead. She sighed
heavily.

“You know I don’t know how, Caleb.”

“Can’t you learn? What about Ava and Claire,
maybe they can teach you? It’s not that hard. My mom did it every
day.” She shrugged her shoulders, clearly uninterested. He stirred
the meat and vegetables and took another large bite of bread. She
stayed very close to him but didn’t say anything more until dinner
was ready.

Caleb set a heaping plate of beef and
vegetables in front of her and sat down across the table. He wolfed
down half his plate of food before he began the dreaded task of
talking to her about finances.

“You know, honey, I have some ideas that are
starting to take shape, and I’ve been doing the math, and we really
need to save every penny that we can if I’m going to get anything
off the ground. That means that we’re going to have to do some
things a little differently around here.”

“Like what?” she asked, unable to imagine
where they could further cut any corners.

“Well, we need to cook at home more. A lot
more . . . like every night. You would not believe how much it
costs to get dinner at the deli every night. And we need to make
bread, like I mentioned, and we really have to do our own laundry.
It costs too much to have someone do it for us. That’s something we
can do for ourselves for free.”

“And again, you mean me, right?” she asked
cynically. Caleb shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

“Yes. I do. I can’t do everything. You’re
here all day and,” he took a deep breath and steeled himself, “it’s
kind of your job, Ahna.” He fought the instinct to duck under the
table after he spoke, expecting a plate of meat and vegetables to
come flying at him from across the table.

“I don’t know how to do all this stuff,
Caleb.” She waved her hand at the apartment, glaring at him.

“I know. But you need to learn, honey. Just
start trying, please. We’ll get Claire and Ava to help you, too.
The most important thing is that we start to save money.”

“I guess this means no more shopping,
too.”

He nodded. “There’s a lot already here that
we could have done without,” he mentioned carefully and glanced
over at the matching end tables, lamps with linen shades, two gold
framed pictures and velvet couch cover in the living room. All
bought second hand, but needless expenses just the same. “I thought
you said you weren’t going to spend any money on this place?”

“I wasn’t. But it’s so depressing. I needed
to cheer it up a little,” she said helplessly.

“Okay, but I think it’s about as cheered up
as it’s gonna get. Let’s put decorating on hold, all right?”

She nodded, clearly unhappy and pushed the
food that she wasn’t hungry for around on her plate. He cleared the
plate from in front of her and returned to pull her to her
feet.

“I also have another idea for saving money,”
he said, pulling her close and kissing her slowly from her ear to
her collarbone and back up again, sending a shiver through her and
making her a little weak in the knees.

“How does this save money?” she asked,
smiling for the first time that day.

“Well, baths, for example. We both take one
every day, and I think we should save hot water.” He raised his
eyebrows insinuatingly and started backing her up toward the
bathroom.

“Well, maybe we should bathe every other
day?” she teased.

“Not exactly what I had in mind.”

The bathroom quickly filled with balmy steam,
and it was soon warm enough for Arianna to undress. She stepped
around the liner to a waiting Caleb, who stopped lathering suddenly
to look her up and down, grinning. “Saving hot water is definitely
my top priority.” She looked down quickly and his mouth fell
open.

“Did you just blush?” he asked in amazement.
She didn’t say anything, just turned away, pretending to look for
the washcloth. He turned her face up and examined the reddened
patches on her cheeks. “I’ll be damned. You did. I’ve never seen
you blush in all the years I’ve known you. Usually you are the
cause of red faces.” He laughed lightly.

“It’s hot in here,” she said, pulling her
face away and hoping he’d leave it alone. There had been many
changes in her in the last few weeks, and this one was the one she
liked the least. Lately, she was unable to hide her emotions or
play the perfect poker face. He left it alone and put his head back
to wash his hair. Arianna leaned against the wall and traced the
outline of his chest and stomach with her eyes, aware of the
physical changes in him that had taken place in the last couple of
weeks. He had never fully lost the solid build of a hardworking
farmer that had been bred into his small frame, but several years
of comfortable living and relative inactivity faded the cut of each
muscle and filled out a few inches at the belt. Those inches were
gone now, and a tight waist wrapped around to individual muscles
lining the plane of his abdomen, which had become more prominent
now. The lowest of the abdominal muscles, starting just below the
hip, were the hardest cut, raised and pointing like an arrow to
what made Arianna flush with heat again. Her eyes followed the flow
of water and errant tufts of lather washing over him, and a tight
knot started to form in her lower stomach. She had always been torn
between loving and hating someone who had this much effect on her.
Unexpectedly, she reached out and pinched his nipple.

“Ow!” he yelled. He lowered his head at her,
pushing back soggy hair and shook a finger at her. “You’re gonna
get it now,” he snickered.

“No, no. Caleb, don’t!” He grabbed her
anyway, tickling and pinching while she half-halfheartedly screamed
and yelped, trying to squirm away. He didn’t stop until she was
breathless and then pulled her up from her sinking position and
pinned her against the wall.

“Now, do that again,” he said, slowing his
breathing. She reached up toward his chest and he grabbed her
arm.

“Not that!” He laughed. “The blushing thing.”
She leveled her eyes at him.

“No.”

“Please?”

“No, Caleb. It’s not like I can turn it on
and off at will,” she said, looking down, trying to keep the spray
of water bouncing off his shoulder out of her eyes. He slid his
arms around her slick waist and pressed himself into her leg. Her
eyes widened slightly, and she looked up at him with another flash
of involuntary heat throughout her face. He grinned victoriously,
holding her around the waist firmly with one arm and yanking her
knee up alongside his hip with the other. It was all business now.
She leaned her head back, closed her eyes and let Caleb take her
far away from the dismal tenement.

November 8th 1929

Aryl stood outside the lunchroom, waiting for
Jonathan. He was anxious to find out if he had run the numbers to
see if his idea was viable. Glancing to his right, Jonathan stood
out in a small crowd of men, who were walking toward the brick
building.

“What in hell have you been doing?” Aryl
asked.

Covered in coal dust, he looked more
disgruntled than ever.

“Shoveling coal all morning,” he said with
disgust while trying in vain to brush the dust that clung to his
shirt and pants. It smeared in long, black trails where his hands
wiped, and he quickly gave up. He washed his hands the best he
could in the lunchroom but still got sooty fingerprints on the
sandwich Caleb handed him. He had taken Jonathan’s lunch that
morning on the way to work and hid it inside his cubby, so it would
be safe. There was normally an unspoken respect for personal
belongings among these men; a camaraderie of sorts that usually
prevented theft and vandalism. But the fact that, instead of eating
it, someone had smashed Jonathan’s lunch told Caleb someone had a
personal problem with Jonathan. Caleb had continued to ask around
about who it was, but had yet to find out.

“So?” Aryl asked impatiently. “What did the
numbers say?” Jonathan looked around and led the trio to a corner
of the small lunchroom that was starting to fill quickly.

“I’m really sorry, Aryl. I can’t see how
it’ll work,” he said between bites.

“I didn’t ask if you could see it, I asked
what the numbers said.” Aryl knew Jonathan could barely see the
step he was about to take, much less how a small business would
rescue them from the ghetto.

“The numbers said that it would take at least
forty tons of flour, bi-weekly, bought at the lowest price
possible, and if we undercut competition to steal clients, we’d
only profit around thirty dollars a month.”

“What if we didn’t severely undercut
competition? What if we sold at just under the going price?” Caleb
asked. He, too, had pinned some hope on this.

“There wouldn’t be enough incentive for
businesses and restaurants to buy from us. Besides, the bigger
dealers could undercut us a hell of a lot easier. We aren’t in a
position to be competitive enough, and we’d be stuck with forty
tons of flour. Which, by the way, I have no idea how we’d buy in
the first place.”