“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.”
“I was just going to have us all save every cent until we had enough for the first shipment,” Aryl said, disheartened.
“Then there’s storage and delivery, I'm sorry, it’s just not going to work.”
“I’ll find something else then.” He looked at Jonathan's soot-covered clothes. “So, why were you shoveling coal all morning?” Aryl asked, starting on his second sandwich.
“The crane accidentally dumped a ton, literally,” he scowled, “of coal all over the ground instead of inside the coal car, and apparently someone told one of the yard leads I called them a,” tilting his head up to remember the words, he quoted bitterly, “ . . . ‘lazy, loudmouthed, fat bastard’. So, I got shit duty.”
“Who said that?” Caleb demanded. Jonathan shrugged.
“Who knows,” he grumbled.
“Jon, who did you piss off around here? Me ‘n Aryl get razzed, but you’re getting downright abused.” Jonathan just shrugged his shoulders again, glancing around the room.
Tony was in the opposite corner of the room talking to a few other men and occasionally glancing at the trio. He eyed Caleb and Aryl, sizing them up and decided maybe he better back off a little.
Harvey Duggins was in the doorway suddenly, rapping on the frame loudly to get everyone’s attention. The chatter died down and everyone looked at Harvey.
“Looks like you boys get a day off tomorrow. Shipments are down, so we’re suspending Saturday work,” Harvey announced.
“For how long?” a worried German asked from the back of the room.
“The next two weeks. We’re hoping it picks up after Thanksgiving. I’ll keep you posted. I also wanted to let you know we are holding a raffle for Thanksgiving turkeys. We got ten of ‘em. You can buy raffle tickets for ten cents at the payroll window.” He turned to leave without waiting for questions.
The whistle blew, and the three went back to their work areas, worrying about what a missing day on their paychecks would mean.
∞∞∞
They met up as usual by the gate to walk home together. It was fully dark at quitting time now. Caleb handed Aryl and Jonathan a red ticket. “A raffle ticket for a turkey. I bought us each one. Whoever wins it has to host Thanksgiving,” he said. Jonathan handed it back.
“My luck hasn’t been that great lately. You better hang on to it.” Aryl put his ticket in his pocket, preoccupied with the news of losing a day’s work each week. With the holidays coming, the first gas and electric bill arriving soon, and their savings dwindling, he
was starting to get extremely worried. Caleb stopped by the mouth of an alley and pointed to a pile of broken pallets around a dumpster.
“Hey, look at that,” he said.
“Look at what? It’s a busted pile of pallets,” Jonathan said and started walking again. The streetlight he stood next to was the only one on this particular block that wasn't broken, and it illuminated the corner of the alley where the pallets were stacked like a spotlight.
“Free fire tonight,” Caleb said, walking toward the heap of ragged wood. He lifted one, leaned it against the wall of the alley and kicked it hard, causing several of the wood planks to fall.
“Good idea, Caleb,” Aryl said and joined him in kicking pallets apart. Jonathan huffed and positioned a pallet against the wall, even though his back was aching from shoveling all day. Later, the three men walked home with a load of pallet boards on their shoulders.
Aryl shook his head. “I can’t believe I didn’t see that.”
“I feel like a tramp,” Jonathan grumbled as he shifted the load, hating the idea of scavenging in an alley for anything.
“Get over it,” Caleb ordered. “It's free firewood.”
“And with the heat bill coming soon, every day we can keep the gas turned down, the better off we’ll be,” Aryl added. Jonathan relented and picked up his pace, wanting to get home to Ava.
∞∞∞
Jonathan walked in to find Charles and Sven sitting on the couch, talking with Ava.
“Hello, sir,” Charles said cheerfully and stood to greet him. Jonathan started to correct him, but Charles had said and done this for over five years whenever Jonathan had walked in the door each evening. Sven stood as well, towering over everyone in the room.
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