Danielle Steel - Zoya

The paycheck would be just enough to buy them some clothes and a little food, but they had nowhere to stay, nowhere to go, and with a look of total exhaustion, she went looking for Jimmy to say good-bye to him.

“You leavin’ us?” He looked sad to see her go, but he understood when she told him what had happened.

“I can't do this anymore. If anything had happened …” And it could happen again. It was sinful to leave them alone. She'd have to find something else, but he only nodded. He wasn't surprised, and he thought it was just as well.

“You don't belong here anyway, Mama. You never did.” He smiled. All of her breeding showed just in the way she moved, although she had never said anything to him about her past, but it always made his heart ache to see her doing high kicks with the others. “Get yo'seff something else. A good job with your own kind of folks. This ain't for you.” But she had been there for a year and a half and it had paid the rent. “Don't you got no family or friends you can turn to?” She shook her head, thinking again how lucky she was to still have her children. “You got any place to go back to? Like Russia or something?” She smiled at how little he knew of the devastation they had left behind them.

‘I'll work it out,” she said, not really knowing what she was going to do.

“Where you stayin’ now?”

“With a neighbor.” He would have invited her to stay in Harlem, with him, but he knew that it wasn't right for her. Her kind of folks went to the Cotton Club to dance and raise hell, they didn't move into Harlem with an old piano player from a dance hall.

“Well, let me know how you're doin’ sometime. Y'hear?” She leaned over and kissed his cheek and he beamed as she went to pick up her check, and he shook her hand warmly when she left, relieved at what she had done. It wasn't until late that night that she discovered it in her bag. Five crisp twenty-dollar bills he had slipped into her handbag when she went to get her check. He had won it in a hot card game only that afternoon, and he was just glad to have it to give to her. She knew it could only have been from him. She thought of hurrying back to the theater to give it back, but only she knew how desperately she needed it. Instead, she wrote him a grateful note, and promised to pay it back as soon as she could. But she knew she had to think fast. She had to get a job, and to find them someplace to live.

By the end of the week, their building had cooled sufficiently to allow the residents to go back in. There was precious little that anyone could save, and two apartments had been entirely destroyed, but as Zoya crawled slowly up the rickety stairs, she held her breath and wondered what she would find there. She opened the door gingerly, and tested the floor with a shovel as she moved around. The smell of smoke was still heavy in the air, and the entire living room had been destroyed. The children's toys were all gone, most of their clothes, and her own, but she knew that they would probably always smell of smoke. She packed their dishes in a box, charred black from the smoke, and she discovered with amazement that the suitcase of photographs was still there, untouched, it was something anyway. And holding her breath, she began digging in what had once been a chest, and suddenly there it was … the enamel was cracked, but it was otherwise intact. The imperial egg had survived, she looked at it in silent wonder, and began to cry … it was a relic of a lost life, several lifetimes ago. There was nothing else to save, she packed the remains of the children's things in a single box, her black Chanel dress, two suits, and a pink linen dress, and her only other pair of shoes. It took her only ten minutes to get it all downstairs, and then as she turned to look around for a last time, she saw Sava beneath the couch, lying there … quiet and still, as though she were asleep. Zoya stood silently, looking at her, and then softly, she closed the door, and hurried back down the stairs to take their boxes to the children waiting across the street for her.

CHAPTER

33

After thanking the neighbors profusely for their kindness, Zoya rented a small hotel room with some of the money Jimmy had given her. Less than half of it was left by the time she'd bought the children new clothes, and herself a decent dress that did not smell of smoke. And they had to eat in a restaurant every night. They talked about what they were going to do, as Nicholas looked expectantly at her, but as she read the newspaper one night, scanning it for jobs, she suddenly had an idea. It wasn't something she would have done if she had the choice, but she no longer had. She had to use the little available to her, even if it embarrassed her. The next day she put on her new dress, carefully combed her hair, and wished she had some of her jewelry left, but all she had was her wedding ring, and a certain regal air, as she stood quietly, looking at herself in the mirror.

“Where are you going, Mama?” Nicky asked as he watched her dress.

I'm going out to get a job.” She wasn't embarrassed this time, as both children stared at her.

“Can you do anything?”’ Sasha asked innocently, as Zoya laughed.

“Not much.” But she knew clothes, she had worn the best for the past ten years, and even as a child, she and Marie had studied everything their mothers and other relatives had worn. She knew how to put herself together with style, and perhaps she could teach others to also. There were plenty of women who could afford that sort of thing. She took the bus uptown, after committing Sasha to her brother's care, and with a nervous heart, leaving them alone, she got off close to the address in the ad. It was on Fifty-first Street, just off Fifth Avenue. And when she reached the door, she saw that it was as stylish as she had hoped it would be. A liveried doorman stood by to assist ladies from their cars, and once inside she saw fashionable women and a few men gazing at the shop's expensive wares. There were dresses and hats, handbags and coats, and an incredibly beautiful line of handmade shoes. The salesgirls were well dressed, and many had an aristocratic air. It was what she should have done from the first, she reproached herself, trying to block the fire from her mind, and praying that the children were all right. It was the first time she had left them alone since that night, and she would never again be sure that they were safe if they were out of her sight, but she knew that this was something she had to do. She had no choice now.

“May I help you, madame?” a gray-haired woman in a black dress asked quietly, as Zoya looked around. “Is there something you wished to see?” Her accent was clearly French, and Zoya turned to her with a dignified smile. She was trembling inside but she prayed it didn't show as she answered in her own flawless French, which she had spoken since her childhood.

“May I see the manager, please?”

“Aha … how nice to hear someone speak French.” The older woman smiled. She looked like a very well-dressed schoolmistress in a very elegant school for young ladies. “I am she. Is there something you wish?”

“Yes,” Zoya spoke quietly, so no one else would hear her. “I am Countess Ossupov, and I am looking for a job.” There was a long beat as the two women's eyes met, and then after an interminable wait, the Frenchwoman nodded.

“I see.” She was wondering to herself if the girl was a fraud, but her air of quiet dignity suggested that she was what she claimed, and the Frenchwoman waved discreetly to a closed door just beyond her. “Would you care to come to my office, madame?” The title was unimportant to her, but she knew it might not be to the clients she served, Barbara Hutton, Eleanor Carson, Doris Duke, and their friends. She had an elite clientele, and titles meant a great deal to most of them. Many of them were marrying princes and counts, just so they could have titles too.