When the Forest Dreams
Chapter 1 The Morning
Stepping from our apartment, the hallway light momentarily blinds me.
Our apartment’s lamps are fading while everything else shines brightly.
A tentative “Hello” breaks the silence. I freeze, as this can mean only one thing.
Jake. There is one other apartment in our hallway, and while I have rarely ever seen the parents, I have certainly seen their son over the years.
Sure enough, Jake is standing next to the elevator. I tense but can’t control the stab of exhilaration that lances through my stomach. First my dream and now Jake, this is a special day.
I drop my head and watch through hooded eyes, making sure my father can’t see my interest. Jake is holding on to someone and appears to be dragging her while pulling a large suitcase behind him, one of those roller bags. He’s having trouble maneuvering her down the hallway.
“Hello,” he calls out more firmly, “can you help me here? I just need to get her into my apartment. It will take only a minute.”
I glance at my father; his eyes have turned steely, angry at the request. Knowing I should ignore the request, I
look toward Jake, and I can’t bring myself to do that.
I hesitantly walk, reaching for the girl’s arm, looping it over my shoulders.
She’s much taller than my five-foot-two frame, so she drapes over me.
Jake has her other side, and she takes a few unsteady steps.
Her head is lolling down on her chest and her eyes are closed.
Jake drops the handle of the suitcase, and I’m relieved when my father picks it up, walking behind us.
We slowly make our way to his apartment door; the hallway feels alive, and I take a deep breath of air that invigorates instead of stifles.
Jake fumbles for his key and opens it. I’ve never been this close to Jake, and I peek at him, studying his hair.
I’ve always loved his hair. A piece falls across his forehead and I immediately remember reading all the Harlequin Romance books I devoured a few years ago until I lost interest in such nonsense.
The man’s hair was constantly falling over his eye, and the woman was always pushing it back or thinking about pushing it back.
A blush creeps up my neck and settles in my cheeks.
Jake’s is cut close around his ears but still has waves on top that make him look even taller than he is.
The deep auburn color is so lovely, reflecting the bright lights of the hallway. Oh, to reach out and touch it.
Once inside, I force my eyes away from his hair to glance around the apartment.
We stumble down the hallway like a giant spider with legs and arms sticking out here and there.
Jake turns on an overhead light and I’m mesmerized.
The splendor of the hallway is shocking and overwhelming.
It has pillars with plants on them, and I see an ivory statue peeking out from a recessed corner.
There are pictures with lights set on top of each one, so the beautiful landscapes appear to glow from within.
My feet sink into a rug that is rich and plush.
We continue down the hallway, and I marvel at how opposite this apartment is to ours, despite having the exact mirrored layout.
It is as different as a scarlet tanager is to a drab house sparrow.
The difference between having money and not.
I scan the living area quickly for any sign of his parents. Nothing.
We continue past the first bedroom on the right and turn into the room that is my bedroom in our apartment.
The room smells citrusy and woodsy but has none of the fanciness of the hallway.
It is solid and peaceful. The walls are a serene blue-gray, like the color of the early night sky.
The overhead light has a delicate glass covering with an intricate design on it.
It shines down onto a gigantic bed with a dark blue quilt and sumptuous pillows.
The light creates spots on the quilt that look like bright stars against the night sky.
The bed is made up nicely, and I wonder if a maid did that or if Jake made his bed before he went out for the night.
Despite being fairly strong, I struggle to get the necessary leverage to hoist the girl onto the bed because of our height difference. Jake reacts quickly: he swings her into his arms and deposits her on the bed.
He turns to us and says sheepishly, “Thank you, both, I wasn’t sure how I was going to manage.”
We stare at the woman sprawled across the bed on her back. Now I can see her face.
Papa crosses himself and mutters, “Saint Michael, defend us.”
I’ve never seen such a delicate and beautiful thing.
She has a pert nose and an oval-shaped face.
Her lips are a perfect bow, and her hair is cut in a very fashionable bob, even though it is fanned out in a tangle framing her pale face.
I touch my plain blonde hair self-consciously.
Mine is pulled back in a simple ponytail and doesn’t have half the style hers does.
My eyes drift slowly down her body; she is rake thin and must be almost six feet tall.
I exhale and ask softly, “Is she a model? Is she okay?”
Jake steps in front of me, blocking my view, ruefully shaking his head.
“She’ll be okay,” he replies before quickly ushering us out of the room and then out of the apartment.
I’m disoriented for a moment as I stand in the hallway.
I lean against the wall, still back in the blue gray bedroom with the angel.
Papa tugs at my arm, and I slowly focus on his frowning face and stand upright, trying to remember where we were going.
We don’t speak until we are out on Fifth Avenue. I know what is coming.
He sputters, “Emma, how could you? Who knows what that no-good boy is up to? And now we are part of it. What if something happens to that girl?”
I respond meekly, “Papa, he needed our help—”
He slices his hand through the air to silence me, “How many times have I told you? American boys will be the ruin of this great country. And now this could be the ruin of us. This . . . Jake doesn’t know how lucky he is to be born in America.
No! Everything is handed to him. He hasn’t worked a day in his life.
You know that.” He looks sharply at me, and I’m unsure if he wants a response.
“He knows nothing of hard work or the freedom he takes for granted.” His voice drops.
“We don’t know what kind of trouble we could get into.
I don’t like this, I don’t like any of it. ”
My father’s fear is talking. He’s not angry with me—well at least not very angry—he’s fearful of what could happen.
My parents worry about getting caught in some misdeed or illegal activity they didn’t understand, and because of a minor mistake or misunderstanding, they lose their tenuous hold on the American dream.
They know they can try their hardest and do all the right things but still get caught up in something that results in it all going up in smoke, which would be the ultimate affront to my grandfather’s perilous journey from Poland and the death to every other Jablonski that remained.
I can’t imagine how helping the pretty girl into Jake’s apartment will get us into trouble, but I know better than to share my opinion.
No matter what I say, the weight will not lessen or change; it is always there, and I can’t do anything to lift it and dispel my father’s concerns.
He has enough worries that weigh down his broad, stooped shoulders.
So, I simply nod my head in agreement as he continues to fret and mutter to himself until we reach the bakery and enter through the back door.
Once inside the shop, my father’s attention quickly shifts to the making of bread, mixing the flour and sugar, and starting the yeast to rise for the pumpernickel, the one the patrons stand in line for.
He no longer looks quite so stooped as he relaxes against the large stand mixer that whirls and twirls the dough.
His hair sticks up in gray and white tufts.
His broad face would be unremarkable except for his dark eyebrows, which slash so forcefully across his brow that they look like they are trying to smooth the deeply furrowed lines that crease his forehead in the opposite direction.
I set about mixing the fillings for the pastries.
As I stir and stir, my mind flashes back to the morning, remembering the suit Jake was wearing.
It was steel gray and looked soft to the touch.
Next, his hair flashes through my mind. It was short as it has been for the last few years.
Up close, it was lovelier than I imagined. What if I had dared to touch it?
The first time Papa and I bumped into Jake was ten years ago; I was fifteen and figured Jake was around nineteen.
It was 4:00 a.m., and Jake was walking in from what I imagined was a night on the town.
His hair was long and tousled, he was wearing tight-fitting jeans and singing some popular song of the day.
As we passed him in the hallway, he reached out for my father’s hand and tried to spin him in a twirl.
Papa shrank back against the wall to evade him, and Jake then reached his corded arm out for me.
I smelled the alcohol on his breath and froze—unable to move, never mind spin.
Without missing a beat, he did a jaunty bow to us and, with a cheeky grin, said, “Top of the morning to you both.”
I stood rooted to the floor, staring at Jake with his wavy chestnut hair, his aquiline nose, and smooth cheeks, as he made his way past us, toward his apartment door.
His face was open and carefree. His eyes had a humorous glint, as if he and only he knew a secret joke.
As I watched, a wave of longing hit me that I had no explanation for.
He was something so exotic, so different from the large, blonde, flat-faced Polish boys who work at the bakery.
He was narrow at the hips, almost slight, but sinewy with shoulders that looked strong.
My gut tightened with hunger despite the bagel I had eaten.
At fifteen, I knew in my heart of hearts he was wildly dangerous, and my father confirmed that to me in no uncertain terms during our walk to the bakery.
That was the first of many lectures about rich American boys and how they will be the downfall of this great country.
Papa loves America but holds Americans, particularly American boys, in very low regard.
“You must never forget the sacrifices made to give you the life you have,” he admonished me.
Then he quickly launched into his oft-repeated lecture of how his father Ernest came to America when he was eighteen, leaving his family behind to perish in the great war.
Repeating his well-worn phrase—“My father came here with nothing but the shirt on his back”—with force.
Back then, my rebellious self had to bite my tongue, fighting the urge to respond with a flippant, “while technically true, the shirt did have jewels and gold sewn into the lining, so maybe not quite nothing.”
I smile now, remembering that moment and my disobedient thoughts.
I don’t know where this devilish side of me comes from.
Sometimes Papa seems to sense my insolence even when I haven’t said a word, as he will launch into some lesson grounded in our family legacy.
I think it is my eyes that give away my uncharitable thoughts.
Since that first embarrassing run-in with Jake, we’ve bumped into him sporadically over the years.
Each encounter was both mortifying and fascinating and I remember each one vividly.
When I ran into him in the hall at seventeen, Jake had even longer hair that fell almost to his shoulders in a wavy, coppery mane.
That time, when he walked past me, I stared with my mouth agape and had to clench my fist at my side to keep my hand from reaching out to touch his hair in all its wildness.
He said nothing, but I saw a quick quirk of his lip as he passed us, as if he knew exactly what I wanted to do.
I saw him a few more times with his hair long and continued to be mesmerized by it. My father stepped up his condemnation of Jake and all American boys as he seemed to understand that my reaction to Jake was not waning but was getting stronger.
After that, Jake’s hair got progressively shorter, but never short. I fancied he knew his hair only added to his allure, and to tame it would be a shame.
When I turned nineteen, I reined in my infatuation.
Maybe I finally grew up . . . or maybe his shorter hair gave me enough strength to control myself.
Dreams are for the young and the foolish, the real world doesn’t allow such dreams to breathe and take flight.
That is when I began to take my father’s lectures to heart, realizing the silliness of my interest in the rich, handsome boy next door.
Jake was not of my world, and it was stupid to pay him any more attention than I do to the wealthy patrons of the bakery who drop a dollar in the tip jar as they smile at me condescendingly.
I still had my special dream of flying free in the forest, and that would have to be enough.
I pull myself out of my reverie when I smell a sweet acrid smell of burnt sugar. Oh, no! I’ve let the filling burn. I rush to dump it in the garbage, covering it with an empty bag. Staring at the waste, I give myself a stern admonishment: Be the dutiful daughter my parents want and deserve!