“My mother stopped by to talk to your mother,” he explained with a wry grin. “They’re discussing the details of the wedding.”
Hannah’s gaze fell back to the pages of the novel. “My mother wants to hire a wedding coordinator,” she told him. “I heard her discussing the matter over the phone.”
“She must have been talking to my mother, because I heard her say something about it as well.”
Hannah smiled and looked away. She noticed with regret that they didn’t seem to have a whole lot to say to each other.
“I thought we should set a time to shop for the engagement ring,” Carl suggested, almost as if he were grateful for something to discuss.
“That would be nice.”
“How about after the first of the year?” he proposed.
“Great.” The further into the future, the better.
A disjointed silence followed, as though there were nothing left to say.
“Carl.” Her father’s face lit up with delight as he walked into the living room. “Ruth didn’t mention that you were coming.”
Carl stood, and the two men exchanged hearty handshakes. David Morganstern slapped Hannah’s fiancé across the back. “By heaven, it’s good to see you. You’ve been making yourself scarce around here these last few days.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“Ruth said you’d come down with a twenty-four-hour bug the other night.”
“I’m fine now.”
Hannah watched as the transformation took place in the man who was to be her husband. It seemed his face brightened as soon as her father walked into the room.
Soon the two entered into a lively debate over some political matter that didn’t interest Hannah. While they chatted, Hannah went into the kitchen, brewed tea, and served that along with freshly baked sugar cookies.
Helen Rabinsky and Hannah’s mother were engrossed in their own conversation and seemed unaware of her. As she expected, the women were debating the pros and cons of hiring a wedding coordinator.
After a time, Hannah escaped to her bedroom and closed the door. She doubted anyone would miss her.
Sitting on top of her bed, her knees bent, Hannah closed her eyes and remembered her time with Joshua at the skating rink. It wasn’t right that she should be thinking of another man. Not with Carl on the other side of the door.
Joshua’s business card remained inside her coat pocket, but she didn’t need to retrieve it to find the number. In the last two days, she’d stared at that card so often, she’d committed the phone number to memory.
When she feared she might be missed, Hannah returned to the living room. Carl glanced her way and smiled affectionately.
“Carl,” she said, “would you like to go for a walk, or something?”
“A walk?” he repeated with a decided lack of enthusiasm. “It’s below freezing.”
“How about if we went ice skating?” she suggested next.
“Tonight?”
“I don’t know what’s gotten into that daughter of mine,” her father commented, and chuckled. “Two nights ago she walks over to Rockefeller Center and goes ice skating.”
“I don’t skate,” Carl said with a touch of sadness.
“I could teach you,” she offered expectantly. “It isn’t difficult, and we could have a lot of fun.”
Carl looked from Hannah to her father and then back again. “Would you mind if we stayed here?”
“Remember your young man’s just getting over the flu, Hannah,” her father reminded her gently. “Carl will take you ice skating another time.”
She tried to hide her disappointment and must have succeeded. An hour later, Helen Rabinsky announced it was time to leave. Carl stood, and for no reason Hannah could fathom the two of them were left alone. It didn’t take her long to realize her family was giving her and Carl a private moment together.
“Thanks for stopping by, Carl,” she said.
“It was good to see you again, Hannah.” He leaned forward and pressed his mouth to hers. It was a gentle kiss, but passionless. It was unfair to compare the kisses she’d shared with Joshua to the quick exchanges between her and Carl. But Hannah couldn’t help it.
Joshua’s kisses made her feel as though she’d been hit by a freight train. The emotional impact left her reeling long afterward. She knew that her kisses affected him in the same magical, exciting way. Joshua made her feel like a sensual, alluring woman.
“I’ll be calling you soon,” Carl promised.
Hannah nodded, afraid to speak for fear of what she’d say. Intuitively she realized she couldn’t marry Carl. He didn’t love her any more than she loved him. He was as miserable about this arrangement as she was, but they were both caught in the trap. One of them had to break it.
As soon as Hannah and her parents were alone, her mother turned and clapped her hands gleefully. “Helen agrees that we should hire a wedding coordinator. I couldn’t be more pleased. She suggested we talk to Wanda Thorndike.” She hugged Hannah briefly. “I’ll make an appointment with Wanda first thing in the morning.”
Hannah wanted to object, to explain that she felt they were rushing matters, but she wasn’t given the opportunity.
“I overheard Carl suggest that he and Hannah pick out engagement rings right after the first of the year.”
“David,” her mother said, sighing, “you can’t imagine everything we need to consider for a large wedding.”
“We haven’t picked a date yet,” Hannah reminded her family, dread weighing down her words.
“My dear, you’re as naive as Helen and I were about all this. The wedding coordinator will be the one to choose that. She’ll know what’s available and when. Personally I’d prefer a June wedding. You should be a traditional June bride, but that’s barely six months away, and I don’t know if we could manage it in that time. One thing I’m going to have to insist we do right away, and that’s shop for your dress.”
“Mom—”
“Helen was telling me it sometimes takes as long as six months to have a dress made and delivered.”
“But—”
“I know, darling, we’re throwing a lot at you. Just be patient.” Humming happily to herself, Ruth Morganstern returned to the kitchen and the wedding brochures she’d pored over only moments earlier.
Hannah’s father chuckled. “I don’t know when I’ve last seen your mother so pleased. This wedding has given her a renewed lease on life.”
Hannah couldn’t find it in her heart to disappoint them. Not then. Later, she promised herself. She’d sit down with them both and explain that she didn’t love Carl.
By noon the following day the deli was filled with the usual lunch crowd. Her father hand-sliced pastrami into thick wedges while Hannah and her mother assembled the sandwiches.
Runners delivered orders as fast as they could be packed.
The routine was one in which Hannah had worked most of her life. She never questioned that she would help in the deli; it was assumed.
Around two, the heavy lunch crowd had begun to thin out. Her mother returned to the kitchen to make up a fresh batch of potato salad. Her father was preoccupied with ordering supplies when Hannah looked up to discover Joshua standing on the other side of the counter.
“Joshua,” she whispered in a low rush of air. Just seeing him again had knocked the breath out of her. She couldn’t disguise her delight. Her heart went into second gear as she glanced over her shoulder to be sure no one was paying them any mind. “What are you doing here?” she asked in a whisper.
“I came for lunch.”
Of course. She reached for a pencil, prepared to take his order.
He read the printed menu that hung on the wall behind her. “I’ll have a pastrami on rye and a cup of coffee.”
She wrote down his order with trembling hands.
“Are you going to make it for me yourself?”
She nodded, avoiding eye contact. She wouldn’t be able to hide how pleased she was to see
him again if she looked up.
“You didn’t phone,” he whispered just loudly enough for her to hear.
“Potato is the soup of the day,” she said.
“Hannah, look at me.”
“I can’t.”
“Why can’t you?”
She closed her eyes and braced herself “You shouldn’t have come here.”
“You don’t want my business?”
He was making this difficult.
“You’ve thought about contacting me, haven’t you?”
Again she didn’t answer. “Would you care for a bowl of soup with your sandwich?”
He didn’t respond for a number of seconds, and then, “The only thing I want is you, Hannah.”
“If you’ll take a number, I’ll have your lunch delivered.”
“Will you bring it?” he asked.
Her nod was nearly imperceptible. She saw the tension leave him and couldn’t keep from glancing up and offering him a quick smile. It took only a moment or more to finish compiling his sandwich. She carried that and a cup of coffee to his table and was pleased to note he sat as far away from the counter as possible.
“Thank you, Hannah,” he said when she placed the plate on the table. “Would you care to join me?”
“I can’t.” Her hands folded over the back of the chair across from him. She glanced over her shoulder, fearing her father would notice the two of them together.
“Is that your father?” Joshua asked, looking around her.
“Yes. Mom’s in the kitchen.”
“He doesn’t look like the kind of man who would force his daughter into a loveless marriage.”
“Joshua, please.”
He picked up the sandwich, and once again, Hannah looked back to make sure no one was watching her. “I sometimes walk by the pond in Central Park,” she whispered.
Joshua went still. “When?”
“I was thinking of taking a stroll there this afternoon.”
“In an hour?”
“Yes.”
Joshua’s handsome face broke into a wide grin. “I’ve always favored walking as an excellent form of exercise.”
Eleven
“Are you sure you’re up to this?” Trey asked Jenny for the third time since they’d boarded the ferry headed for Ellis Island.
“I wouldn’t have suggested sight-seeing if I wasn’t feeling better,” Jenny insisted. They stood and watched as the New York skyline began to fade into the distance. “I want you to visit Ellis Island,” she continued. “It’s an emotional experience, at least it was for me the first time I made the trip. I found my great-grandfather’s name there.”
“Your great-grandfather? How?”
“I looked his name up on the computer. It showed me the year he arrived from Germany and his age at the time. I felt as though I’d stumbled upon an open treasure chest, only this one contained a part of my heritage.”
“This was your mother’s grandfather?”
Jenny answered him with a quick nod. “Can you imagine packing everything you own in this world in a single suitcase?” she asked, awed by the raw courage and grit her great-grandfather had shown when he was little more than a teenager. “He came to America with nothing but his dreams and the desire for a new life.”
“Is that so unusual?” Trey asked.
“Of course it is,” she answered, feeling slightly offended that Trey didn’t recognize the fortitude and faith her great-grandfather had demonstrated. “He didn’t have an easy life here, you know. First off he didn’t speak the language, and although he was well educated he was forced into taking a menial job. For years he and my great-grandmother struggled to make a decent life for themselves and their family. I can’t tell you how much I admire them for that.”
“What you did, leaving Montana for a chance on Broadway, wasn’t all that different.”
“Me?” Jenny didn’t see the correlation. Of course there was the obvious one, but her great-grandfather had come to America friendless and without the loving support of his family.
“As I recall, when you left Custer you went with a solitary suitcase. You came to the Big Apple without a job, with little money, and with only your dreams to feed you.”
“True,” she admitted reluctantly, not wanting Trey to continue comparing her with her great-grandfather. Not when she fell so far short.
Trey placed his hand on her shoulder. “It hasn’t been easy for you, has it?” he asked gently.
He didn’t know the half of it. Jenny turned her face into the wind and let the breeze off the Hudson River buffet against her. The thickness in her throat tightened to painful proportions, and she knew she dared not try to talk. Trey had tried to paint her as some kind of heroine, seeking her way in a new world. In retrospect, Jenny wasn’t sure she’d done the right thing to leave Montana. She wasn’t sure she was cut out for life in the city. In three years she’d never managed to feel at home in New York.
Jenny didn’t see herself as any modern-day champion.
“Jenny?”
Trey’s face had knit into a worried frown.
“I’m doing great,” she told him quickly, perhaps too quickly, because she felt his close scrutiny. Smiling, just then, would have been impossible.
Trey moved closer to her by the railing. The wind hit against him. His arm came loosely around her shoulder, and, needing him, she pressed her head against his solid strength.
“There’s something you should know,” she said after dragging a deep breath through her lungs. She closed her eyes, unwilling to continue the pretense any longer. “I’m not what you think.”
“Jenny—”
“No, please, let me finish.” This was so much more difficult than she’d thought it would be. Trey had come all this way from Montana thinking she was a Broadway star. Either she told him herself or he’d learn it on his own.
A dozen times since his arrival she’d been tempted to blurt out the truth. It had held her prisoner, tortured her, and she couldn’t stand the pressure any longer.
“I’m not starring in an Off Broadway production of South Pacific. I’m a waitress, a singing waitress. I lied, and I want you to know how very sorry I am.” Her voice pitched and heaved with emotion as she hurried to get all the words out at once for fear she’d break down and weep.
The pressure of his arm around her increased slightly. “I realized that right away.”
He knew and hadn’t said anything.
“The first place I headed when I arrived in New York was the theater. I wanted to see you perform.”
Jenny’s throat constricted. “I’m so ashamed to have lied, but I had to tell my family something. It’s been so long, and . . . you’ve got to believe I gave it my best shot, and now, well, now it seems I’m buried neck deep in the lie. Mom and Dad are so proud of me, and they’ve told everyone, and—”
“Come home, Jenny.”
“No.” Her response was automatic and sharp.
The brightness in Trey’s eyes dimmed, and she turned away, unable to meet his gaze. It sounded as if he were eager to hear she’d failed. Glad of it. Well, she wasn’t through yet. She was close, so close she could taste it. If John Peterman didn’t want her for this play, then there were other parts, other producers. She wouldn’t give up. She refused to turn her back when she was this close. Not even Trey could convince her to do that.
“I may not be the star I led everyone to believe,” she told him stiffly, “but I’m an actress, and a damn talented one. I realize I’ve probably disappointed you, and I’m sorry for that, but I’m not willing to throw in the towel yet.”
Trey didn’t answer her, and the air between them was strained and tight.
“I shouldn’t have asked it of you,” he said as the boat neared Ellis Island.
It was as close to an apology as she was likely to get from Trey. She stepped away from him, letting the breeze whip against her face while she mulled over his words.
Trey stepped back, and she not
iced the attention he generated with his tall, lean good looks. He was obviously out of place with his scuffed snakeskin boots and weather-beaten Stetson, yet he’d dressed in the height of fashion. Jenny knew more than one male model who would have given anything for that rawboned, natural look.
“Jenny,” Trey said, coming to stand next to her, “I don’t really think what you did was so terrible. Sure you stretched the truth a bit, but under the circumstances that’s understandable.”
“But hardly commendable.”
Trey didn’t agree or disagree. “What you did was burden yourself. It seems to me these New York theater people must have holes in their heads not to realize how talented you are.”
This was what Jenny loved about home the most. When it came to talent, the good folks in Custer believed none had more than Jenny Lancaster.
“Those responsible for the theater in New York meet lots of talented men and women with big dreams and a lot of ambition. That was a difficult lesson for me to learn, and I suspect that in some ways I haven’t completely accepted it. I’m good, Trey, and I know it, but there are any number of equally talented people just waiting for their big break, the same way as me.”
The ferry docked and the passengers disembarked onto the island. Most everyone headed directly for the Ellis Island Immigration Museum.
“There’s something I want you to see first,” Jenny said, leading Trey toward the flagpole. A brass railing-like border ran the circumference of the island. Embossed in the polished metal were hundreds of names, a small representation of the thousands of immigrants who’d made their way to America between 1892 and 1924. The first time Jenny had visited, she’d walked around the entire island until she’d found what she was looking for.
“My great-grandfather’s name is listed here,” she told him excitedly. Her fingertips ran over the raised letters. Anton Hellmich. A sense of pride moved her to know that this man’s blood ran through her veins. “You can’t imagine how excited I was when I discovered this. I called my mother that very night.” She doubted that Trey understood what a rare thing it was for her to phone home. With her finances so tight, Jenny usually wrote letters and made up excuses why it was difficult for her to phone. Talking to her mother, hearing her father’s gruff, loving voice, increased her longing for home and her family all the more.