hungrily more than once, in a way that would have inspired a less decent man to treat her as a woman and not a child, but he never said anything about it to Zoya. He simply went on treating her like a little girl, which egged her on more. But she was only twelve years old after all, and incredibly pretty. She had her maternal grandmother's icy Germanic beauty, and her mother's Russian fire. Together, it was a fearsome combination. “Is she upset?” he asked, as Zoya shook her head in dismay.
“If only she were.” She had seemed totally without contrition.
“What are you going to do now?”
“Look for another school, I guess. It's a little late in the year for that.” It was already mid-April. “I could have her tutored until the fall, but I'm not sure that would be good for her.”
But Simon liked the idea. “Maybe you should, for now. It would take the pressure off her.” As long as the tutor was a woman. But the only one Zoya found was a nervous young man, who assured her that he could handle Sasha without any problem. He lasted exactly a month and then fled in terror, without explaining to Zoya that she had greeted him the previous day in a nightgown that was obviously her mother's, and after that had told him that she wanted him to kiss her.
“You're a brat,” Nicholas still accused her night and day. At nearly sixteen, he was a great deal more perceptive about her than her own mother. And she fought with Nicholas like a cat, scratching his face when she grew angry. Even Simon was concerned about the child, but just when he'd almost given up hope, she would become submissive and surprisingly charming.
The construction at the store was going unbelievably well, and by July it looked as though they would be open in September. They celebrated their anniversary at a rented house on Long Island that year, two days after Amelia Earhart disappeared over the Pacific. Nicholas was fascinated by her, and he told Simon secretly that one day he wanted to learn how to fly. Charles Lindbergh was his childhood hero. He had been equally fascinated by the Hindenburg, the dirigible that had exploded over New Jersey in early May. Fortunately, when he had tried to convince Zoya and Simon to travel to Europe on it, Zoya had been leery of it, and they had wanted to travel by ship anyway, in memory of their crossing the year before on the Queen Mary.
“Well, Mrs. Hirsch, what do you think of it?” Simon stood in the shoe department of the women's floor in her new store in early September. “Is it everything you wanted it to be?”
Tears filled her eyes as she looked around her in silent wonder. Elsie de Wolfe had created an atmosphere of beauty and elegance in pale gray silk with pink marble floors. There were soft lights, and vast arrangements of silk flowers on beautiful Louis XV tables. “It looks like a palace!”
“Nothing less than you deserve, my love.” He kissed her and that night they celebrated with champagne. The shop was to open the following week with a glittering party attended by the cream of New York.
Zoya had bought her own dress for the opening at Axelle's. “This will be good for business! I might just have to say in my next ad that Countess Zoya shops here!” The two women had become fast friends, and they both knew now that nothing would change that.
Zoya and Simon had labored long and hard over the name for her store, and finally with a gleam in his eye Simon had chuckled. “I've got it!”
“So do I,” Zoya smiled proudly, “Hirsch and Co.”
“No,” he groaned at the sound of the unromantic name. “I don't know why I didn't think of it before. ‘Countess Zoya’!” It seemed too showy to her, but finally he had convinced her. It was what people wanted, to touch the mystery of the aristocracy, to have a title even if it meant buying one, or in this case, buying the clothes that a countess had selected for them. The items in the columns were endless about “Countess Zoya,” and for the first time in years, Zoya went to the parties she was invited to. She was introduced as Countess Zoya, and her husband, Mr. Hirsch, but everywhere the socialites and the debs flocked around her. And she always looked exquisite in the simple