Zoya

by Danielle Steel

  “How about just Zoya?” She laughed as she followed him onto the floor.

  “How about Zoya Hirsch? How does that sound?”

  She smiled up at him as they danced, and they both laughed, thinking the same thing again. It was certainly an odd name for the Tsar's cousin.

  CHAPTER

  40

  They managed to keep it a secret from the children until June, when Sasha walked in on them one day, kissing passionately in their kitchen. She stared at them in mute horror, and then stalked off, locked herself in her room, and wouldn't come out until after dinner, when Nicholas threatened to knock the door down if she didn't come out and act like a human being. He was greatly offended by his sister. He liked Simon, and he was beginning to hope that he was serious about his mother. Simon had been nothing but kind to all of them, taking them for drives on Sunday afternoons, and out for dinner whenever possible, and bringing them thoughtful presents. He picked Nicholas up at school in his Cadillac more than once, and he had brought the children a radio, which they all loved dearly.

  “Behave yourself!” Nicholas warned her angrily. “And go apologize to Mama!”

  “I will not! She was kissing him in the kitchen.”

  “So what? She likes him.”

  “But not like that … that's disgusting!”

  “You're disgusting. Now go tell them you're sorry.”

  She skulked off to the living room, and refused to look at Simon. And that night, after he left, Zoya finally told her.

  “I'm very much in love with him, Sasha.” The girl began to cry, as Nicholas listened from the doorway.

  “What about Papa? Didn't you love him?”

  “Of course I did … but, darling, he's gone now. He's been gone for a long time. It might be nice to have someone with us who loves us. Simon loves you and Nicholas very much.”

  “And I like him too,” Nicholas staunchly defended Simon, which touched Zoya. “Are you going to get married?” he asked her gently, and looking from one to the other, she nodded, as Sasha burst into fresh hysterics.

  “I hate you! You're ruining my life!”

  “Why, Sasha?” The child's reaction troubled her deeply. “Don't you like him? He's such a nice man, and he'll be so good to us.” She tried to take her in her arms, but the overwrought child wouldn't let her.

  “I hate you both!” Sasha wailed, not even sure why she was saying it, except perhaps to upset her mother. But Nicholas was instantly furious, leaping toward the sobbing figure on the bed.

  “Apologize or I'll slap you!”

  “Stop it! Both of you! This is no way to start a new life.”

  “When are you getting married?” Sasha stopped crying long enough to ask.

  “We don't know yet. We wanted to give it a little time.”

  “Why don't you do it this summer, and then we can all go away together?” Nicholas offered, and Zoya smiled. It sounded like a good idea to her, and she knew Simon would be pleased, but the prospect obviously didn't appeal to Sasha.

  “I won't go anywhere with you.”

  “Yes, you will, we'll just stuff you in a suitcase and go, and then at least we won't have to listen to you.” She turned her fury on her brother then with an anguished look.

  “I hate you! I'm not going anywhere with them,” she sniffed loudly and glared at her mother, but Nicholas had her pegged as he turned accusing eyes on her.

  “You know what you are? You're jealous! You're jealous of Mama and Simon.”

  “I'm not!”

  “You arel” They went on shouting and Zoya despaired of ever having peace again, but by the next day when she told Simon, Sasha had calmed down, although she was plainly not speaking to her brother.

  “I like Nick's idea best,” he said sympathetically. He knew how difficult Sasha was sometimes for Zoya to handle. He got along with her well enough, but she seemed to make constant demands on her mother, for her attention, her time, new dresses, new clothes, and she was constantly testing her limits. “Why don't we get married in July, and go to Sun Valley with the children?”

  “Wouldn't you mind taking them on our honeymoon?” She was amazed at how kind he was, how willing to accept her children as his own, and it touched her deeply.

  “Of course not. Would you like that?”

  “I'd love it.”

  “Done,” he said, and kissed her, before going to look at a calendar. “How about July twelfth for our wedding?” He beamed at her as she put an arm around his waist. She hadn't been this happy in a long, long time. And it had actually become difficult, waiting to marry him. All she wanted now was to be his, for a lifetime.

  “What will your mother say?”

  He thought about it and then smiled. “We'll have her talk to Sasha. They were made for each other.” Zoya laughed then as he kissed her.

  CHAPTER

  41

  On the twelfth of July, 1936, Simon Ishmael Hirsch and Zoya Alexandra Evgenia Ossupov Andrews were married by a judge in the garden of Axelle's pretty little brownstone on East Forty-ninth Street.

  The bride wore a cream-colored Norell suit, and a tiny hat with a whisper of ivory veil, as she looked up into her husband's eyes and smiled, as he kissed her. His mother had opted not to come, just to let them know that she did not approve of Zoya's not being Jewish. But his father was there, and two of the girls from the shop. There were a handful of their friends, and of course both of Zoya's children. Nicholas was their best man, and Sasha stood beside them looking sullen. Zoya could have had a more elaborate wedding if she'd wanted to, and her more important clients, like Barbara Hutton and Doris Duke, would have loved to come, but although Zoya knew them well, she wasn't close to them. They were part of another life, and she wanted her wedding to be very small and private.

  Axelle's butler poured the champagne, and at four o'clock, Simon drove them home in the Cadillac to Zoya's apartment. They had decided to stay there, until after their honeymoon, when they were going to look for a larger place. But they were going to spend three weeks in Sun Valley first. It had just opened that year, and they took the train to Idaho from Pennsylvania Station. Simon brought games for the children, and even Sasha was excited by the time they reached Chicago. They stayed at the Blackstone overnight, and continued on the next day, and all of them were in high spirits when they reached Ketchum, Simon and Zoya even more so after a night of unbridled passion. The physical relationship they shared was something neither of them had ever known before, and it brought them even closer together.

  It was only three months since they'd met, but she felt as though she'd known Simon for a lifetime. He taught Nicholas how to fish, and they went swimming every day. And they returned brown and healthy and happy at the end of the month, to Zoya's apartment. And it was then that the reality of it really struck Zoya. She sat watching Simon shave on their first day back, and she felt a wave of happiness wash over her as she watched him lather his face, and she suddenly laughed, as she touched the smooth flesh she loved so much and kissed him.

  “Something funny?” He turned to her with a smile and she shook her head.

  “No, it just seems so real suddenly, doesn't it?”

  “It sure does.” He leaned over and kissed her and got soap all over her as she laughed, and he kissed her again, and a moment later, she locked the bedroom door, and they made love again before they both left for work. She had promised Axelle she would stay at the shop until the end of September. And the days seemed to fly by. Three weeks after their return, they found an apartment they loved on Park Avenue and Sixty-eighth Street. It had large, airy rooms, and their bedroom was at the opposite end from the two children's. Nicholas had a big, pleasant room, and Sasha insisted that her room be painted purple.

  “I had a purple room when I was a little girl too … when I was about your age.” She told her then about Alix's lovely mauve boudoir. It brought back tender memories as she described it and Sasha listened in rapt fascination.

  There was a photograph of C
layton in Nicholas's room, and beside it he placed a handsome picture of Simon. The two men of the family went for long walks in the late afternoon when Simon came home from work, and the week after they moved in, he brought them a little cocker spaniel.

  “Look, Mama!” Nicholas said excitedly, “He looks just like Sava!” She was surprised that he still remembered her, and Sasha sulked for a day because it wasn't a Russian wolfhound. They were still all the rage, though not quite as much as they had been in the late twenties. But the dog was very sweet and they named him Jamie. Their life seemed idyllic as they settled into the new apartment. There was even a guest room next to the library, and Simon teased her that it was for their first baby. But Zoya shook her head and laughed.

  “I had my babies a long time ago, Simon. I'm too old for that now.” At thirty-seven, she was long past wanting to have more children. “I'll be a grandmother one of these days,” she laughed, and he shook his head.

  “Will you be wanting a cane too, Granny?” He put an arm around her shoulders as they sat in their bedroom and talked late into the night, the way she had with Clayton years before. But life was very different with Simon. They shared common interests, common friends, they were grown people who had come together in strength and not weakness. She had been barely more than a child when Clayton had saved her from the horrors of her life in Paris in 1919 and brought her to New York. This was all so very different, Zoya thought to herself as she went to work, enjoying her last days at Axelle's, and she looked at her friend mournfully on the last day.

  “What am I going to do now?” She sat sadly at her Louis XV desk and looked over a last cup of tea at Axelle. “What will I do with myself every day?”

  The older woman laughed. “Why don't you go home and have a baby?”

  Zoya shook her head, wishing she could stay, but Simon wanted her to have the freedom she hadn't had in years. She had been working for seven years and there was no need for her to now. She could enjoy her children, her husband, their home, and indulge herself, but Zoya thought it all sounded very dull without the shop to come to every day. “You sound like my husband.”

  “He's right.”

  “I'll be so bored without work.”

  “I doubt that very much, my dear.” But there were tears in Axelle's eyes when Simon picked Zoya up that afternoon, and the two women embraced. Zoya promised to drop by the next day and take her to lunch.

  Simon laughed and warned the woman who had championed their romance from the first. “You're going to have to lock the doors to keep her out of here. I keep telling her there's a whole world out there for her to discover.” But by October she found that she had more free time on her hands than she knew what to do with. She visited Axelle almost every day, went to museums, picked Sasha up at school. She even dropped in on Simon at his office frequently, and listened avidly to his plans for his business. He had decided to add a line of children's coats, and he was anxious for her advice, which she gave him. Her unfailing sense of style helped him make interesting choices that otherwise he wouldn't have thought of.

  “Simon, I miss it all so much,” she confessed in December, as they took a taxi home from the theater. He had taken her to the opening of You Can't Take It With You with Frank Conlan and Josephine Hull at the Booth Theater. It had been an enjoyable evening, but she was restless and bored. She had discovered that she had worked for too many years to give it up and sit home and do nothing. “What if I go back to Axelle's for a little while?”

  He thought about it, and then looked at her as they arrived at the apartment. “Sometimes it's hard to step back in time, sweetheart. Why don't you do something new?” Like what, she asked herself. All she knew was dancing and dresses, and dancing was certainly out of the question. She laughed to herself as they walked into the apartment, and he turned to look at her. She was so beautiful with her creamy skin and brilliant eyes and bright red hair. She still looked like a young girl and the sight of her always filled him with desire. She didn't look old enough to have a fifteen-year-old son, as she sat down in a chair and laughed as she looked up at him, handsome in the dinner jacket he wore. He had had it made in London, much to his mother's disgust. “Your father could have made you one better.”

  “What's funny?”

  “Just a crazy thought … I was remembering when I danced at Fitzhugh's. It was so awful, Simon. … I hated it so much.”

  “Somehow I can't quite see you, shaking your bottom and swinging your pearls,” he laughed at the vision but his heart went out to her too. She had been so brave through all that she'd been through. He was only sorry he hadn't known her then. He would have married her and saved her from all that. She didn't need saving now, she was capable and strong. He was almost tempted to take her into his business with him, but knew his family would have been horrified. She didn't belong on Seventh Avenue. She belonged in a far more elite world, and then suddenly he had a thought. He poured himself a glass of cognac, and opened a bottle of champagne for her as they sat by the fire and talked. “Why don't you open your own shop?”

  “Like Axelle's?” She looked intrigued, but she liked the idea, and then she thought of her friend and shook her head. “That wouldn't be fair to Axelle. I don't want to compete with her.” Axelle had been too good to her to hurt her now, but Simon had other ideas in mind.

  “Then do something different.”

  “Like what?”

  “Do everything, women's wear, men's, maybe even some children's. But only the best, all that stuff you do so well. A whole look … shoes and bags and hats … teach people how to dress, not just the fancy ones like the women who go to Axelle's, but the others too, the ones with money who don't know how to put it all together.” The women she had dressed at Axelle's were surely the best dressed in New York, but most of them also went to Paris for their clothes, like Lady Mendl, and Doris Duke, and Wallis Simpson. “You could start small, and then add to it as you go along. You could even sell my coats!” He laughed, and she looked up at him thoughtfully, sipping her champagne. She liked the idea, and then she glanced up at him with a serious question.

  “Could we afford it?” She knew he did well, but she had no idea how much capital he had. It was something they never discussed. They had more than enough for the life they led, but his parents were still living on Houston Street, and she knew that he supported them, and all his father's brothers. He looked at her gently then, and sat down next to her.

  “Maybe it's time we had a serious talk about all this.”

  She blushed as she shook her head. She didn't really want to know. But if she were to open a store of her own, perhaps she had to. “Simon, I don't want to pry. Your business is your own.”

  “No, my love. It's yours now too, and it does very well. Extremely well.” He told her what he had made the previous year and she stared at him in amazement.

  “Are you serious?”

  “Well,” he apologized, not understanding the look of shock in her eyes, “we could have done better if I'd ordered all the cashmeres I wanted in England. I don't know why I held back, next season I won't,” he explained as she laughed openly at him.

  “Are you crazy? I don't think the Bank of England handled that much money last year. Simon, that's incredible! But I thought … I mean, your parents …” This time he laughed at her. “My mother wouldn't leave Houston Street if you took her out of there at gunpoint. She loves it.” All of Simon's attempts to move them to a more luxurious apartment uptown had been unsucessful. His mother liked her friends, the shops where she did her marketing, and the neighborhood itself. She had moved to the Lower East Side when she had come to New York a generation before, and she was going to die there. “I think my father would get a kick out of moving uptown. But my mother won't let him.” The woman still wore housedresses, and took pride in only having one “good” coat. But she could have bought every coat at Axelle's if she wanted.

  “What are you doing with all that? Investing it?” She thought with a tremor of her
late husband and his ventures on the stock market, but Simon was a great deal shrewder than Clayton. He had an instinctive sense for what worked, and in his case, what worked made a great deal of money.

  “I've invested some of it, mostly in bonds, and I've put a lot of back in the business. I also bought two textile mills last year. I think if we start making our own goods, we'll do better than we do with some of our imports, besides which, I can control the quality better that way. Both of the mills are in Georgia, and labor is dirt cheap. It's going to take a few years, but I think it's going to make a big difference in our profits.” She couldn't even begin to imagine it, the profits he had just mentioned to her were staggering already. He had built the business up from nothing in twenty years. At forty, he had already made a vast fortune. “So, my love, if you want to open your own store, get on with it. You're not going to take food out of anyone's mouth,” he thought about it quietly for a minute as Zoya tried to absorb what she'd heard in the past half hour, “in fact, I think it might be a damn good investment.”

  “Simon,” she set down her glass and looked at him earnestly, “will you help me?”

  “You don't need my help, sweetheart, except maybe to sign the checks.” He leaned over and kissed her. “You know more about this business than anyone I know, you have an innate sense of what's right and what's not. I should have listened to you about the Shocking Pink when we were in Paris.” He laughed good-naturedly, he had eaten all his pink fabric, the orders for it just hadn't come in. New Yorkers weren't ready for it, except the handful who went straight to Schiaparelli and bought it in Paris.

  “Where would I start?” Her mind was racing ahead, suddenly filled with excitement.

  “You might look for a location over the next few months. And we could go to Paris in the spring so you could order some goods for a fall line. If you move now,” he narrowed his eyes, calculating quietly, “you could open by September.”