An Unexpected Match Page 10

  “You’re a dead man, Miller.”

  But Mr. Sherman didn’t send Mick after people to kill them. At least not that he’d ever heard. What good were dead people? They couldn’t pay you back. They couldn’t be forced to work for you.

  People who’d been beaten and tortured and who feared it happening again could be made to do most anything. Johnny felt the shackles binding him to Mr. Sherman snapping on his wrists. Frantically he rubbed them away though he knew the threat remained.

  He had to leave the area. California. Mr. Sherman’s reach couldn’t be that long.

  After fifteen minutes he decided Mick was truly gone. The man was too ADHD to be quiet that long no matter his game, too impatient to wait quietly in the dark for a noise. Johnny stood, his legs so cramped that he had to lean against the stall while the blood rushed painfully through them.

  When he knew he could move without bumping awkwardly into something and alerting anyone listening that he was here, even though he was pretty sure there was no one out there to hear, he moved to the front window and peered cautiously out. No car, but he already knew that. He’d heard it drive away.

  He studied the edges of the cornfields bordering the patch where the trailer sat. An army could have hidden in the green stalk forest.

  Not that one was. When you had Mick, you didn’t need an army.

  Without turning on a light Johnny pulled a bag of chips from the cupboard and a warm beer from the closet. He hated warm beer, but he wasn’t risking the fridge light to get a chilled one.

  As he chomped and drank, he tried to think logically. He owed Mr. Sherman money he didn’t have. Mr. Sherman demanded payment one way or the other. He was afraid of Mr. Sherman and Mick. They wouldn’t leave him alone and would have no hesitation about hurting him or those he cared for. He had no fondness of pain or of seeing others in pain. Solution: He had to go into hiding. It was that simple.

  So where could he hide? California or someplace far like that. How much would it cost to go that far? Not that it mattered. He could go as far as his money took him, and then work a while until he had enough to go again.

  He stood. He needed something sweet to counter all the salt of the chips. He grabbed the bag of Wilbur Buds, the smell of the chocolate telling him he needed a cold drink, not the lukewarm one in his hand. With one final furtive look out front, he opened the fridge and pulled out a cold one.

  Trouble with California was he didn’t want to leave Honey Brook. He liked Honey Brook. He knew the area; he felt comfortable here. He might hate his job, but it was regular income. And no one at work ever complained when he was hung over. They just told him he was an idiot.

  And Becky was here.

  Not that she paid him any attention. She wanted a good Amish man, and he sure wasn’t that. Still her pretty face filled a lot of his dreams.

  He studied the bag of chips and the bag of Wilbur Buds and wondered if anyone had ever come up with a chocolate potato chip. Talk about the perfect combination! He’d have to ask Mom to make some. She could cook anything.

  Mom. He narrowed his eyes. Mom and Datt. The farm. No one would look for him there. They all knew how much he hated it. Or said he hated it.

  He studied his idea, looking for problems.

  Mom and Datt would love for him to come home. Of course he’d have to make believe he wanted to join the church, but he could do that. He knew the rules well enough. He could fake them in his sleep. And Datt could use extra hands around the place. He was getting older every day.

  Becky would be so impressed with his choice she’d finally agree to go out with him. Of course he wasn’t sure where they’d go. She wouldn’t go near Corner Bob’s. Of course he couldn’t go there any more either, not if he valued his life.

  He sat back in the chair and thought as he crunched. Home. Could it really work in throwing Sherman and his goons off his track?

  Chapter 15

  Amy picked Rachel up at Max’s house late the Saturday afternoon of Labor Day weekend.

  “I worked six to three today,” she explained from behind the wheel of her little red car. “I have to work all day Sunday and Monday, nine to six. This is my time to party!”

  Rachel’s heart skipped a beat. When Amy phoned and said, “Let’s go do something,” she’d thought of the Star or a stroll at the mall.

  “What do you mean, party?” She was so not a party girl. During her rumspringa her idea of partying was staying out until midnight at a youth gathering.

  “Nothing too wild,” Amy said. “A quick dinner at Wegman’s and a movie.”

  “A movie?”

  Amy jumped in her seat. “Can you believe I’ve never been to one…ever? My father wouldn’t let us. He said movies would corrupt us with the world.”

  Amy’s father wasn’t the only one who thought that way.

  “There’s a great movie all the girls at work are talking about,” she continued. “It’s PG13, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  Rachel wasn’t certain what PG13 meant, but it sounded very suspect, a very slippery slope. She should just admit she’d never been to a movie either, but Amy would want to know why. How could she explain without revealing her secret?

  Amy’s grin was so wide it split her face. “We are going to have so much fun!”

  “I don’t know, Amy.”

  “Oh, come on. Don’t let me down on my first wild night.” Amy looked over with pleading eyes.

  There was that churning stomach again. Whatever she did, it would be wrong. She’d disappoint Amy or she’d break the Ordnung.

  “Come on, Rach. I want to find out what everyone else does on a Saturday night. I want to be a real person.”

  There was no way Rachel wanted to stand before the Gmay and confess going to a movie. She needed to tell Amy no very clearly. Of course she was sinning twice a week with class and more often at Max’s with the internet. When she thought about it that way, what difference would a movie make?

  She squeezed her eyes tightly shut and said, “Okay. Let’s go.”

  “This is going to be such fun!” Amy backed from Max’s drive. Rachel settled down in the passenger seat and told herself she didn’t regret her capitulation. But she understood more clearly than ever the influence of friends and the need to keep the community apart. Sin lurked behind every door, waiting to pounce, and it sometimes came in the guise of BFFs.

  “What was it like, growing up surrounded by Amish people?” Amy asked as she slowed for a buggy, unable to pass because of oncoming traffic. A pair of little girls with their hair slicked back into buns looked at them out the back window of the buggy, probably as curious about the little Smart car as Amy was about them.

  “It was normal.” Rachel turned her head so the people in the buggy couldn’t see her as Amy took advantage of a break in the traffic and passed the slow moving vehicle. “When you grow up a certain way, you think that’s the way it is for everyone.”

  “True.” Amy grinned. “Then you go to school and find out your family’s nuts.”

  “Amy!”

  “Well, they are. Nice except for my father, but nuts. I thought only terrible people had TVs until I went to kindergarten and found out I was the only one who didn’t have a bunch of them. It was shortly after I went to visit my new friend Amber and came home in love with TV that Dad decided my younger sisters and I should be homeschooled to keep us from being tainted by the world.”

  Exactly the reason for Amish schools.

  “Did you like it, the homeschooling?” Rachel had loved going to school, not only for the learning but also for her friends, the girls whispering their secrets and telling the boys to let them alone. Then there was recess with the baseball games and volleyball games. She’d definitely been a tomboy.

  “I guess homeschooling was okay. My mom was a good teacher and made sure we had plenty of extra things to do like helping serve meals at the shelter—where we saw what happened if you let the world in—and knitting caps for cancer patien
ts—where we saw what happened when God had to punish you.” Her brow wrinkled at the thought. “Do you think God makes you sick to punish you?”

  “I know a lot of fine people who have gotten sick and died,” Rachel said. “It’s just part of being human, don’t you think?”

  “It’s what I think, but my father and the people at church said differently. I’m trying to figure out who’s right and who’s wrong.” She got an impish look. “I keep wondering what he’s going to say when he gets sick. He’s got to someday, right?”

  Rachel laughed. “Probably. Most of us do. Remember that boy in the Bible who was sick, and the disciples asked what his parents had done wrong that he was sick? Jesus said no one had sinned. He was sick so God could be glorified. Then he healed the boy.”

  “But what if he doesn’t heal you and you stay sick?”

  “Then I guess you die like everybody else.”

  “And go to heaven where you’re all better and everything’s great! Win/win.”

  They drove in silence, passing an oncoming buggy holding three teenaged Amish girls in pretty pastel dresses with complimentary aprons, their kapps crisp and white against their dark hair. They were giggling together, their eyes bright.

  “Do they mind having to dress alike all the time?”

  “It’s just part of being in the community. It’s just life.”

  “I always hated having to wear dresses that came almost to the ankles. Always!”

  “Amish girls don’t wear dresses that long.”

  “I know, but they’re trapped like I was. I look at the Amish kids, and I identify.”

  Rachel looked at Amy’s jeans and sweater. “You’ve changed.”

  “You bet! The hardest part was not throwing Jesus out with the long skirts because they were so tied together in what I was taught that I struggle to see them separately.”

  “How were you different from the Amish?”

  “We had computers, Dad drove a car, and we used modern conveniences like phones and microwaves. Dad looked like every other businessman going off to work. It was us girls who looked different.” Amy was quiet for a minute. “I resented that. A lot.”

  Rachel looked down at her flowered navy skirt, reversible so she had another blue pattern that allowed her to appear to have two skirts. Practical. Thrifty. Amish—but so not. She sighed. It wasn’t resentment that pushed her against the Ordnung. It was curiosity. It was knowing there was more to know and wanting to learn about that more, whatever it was.

  “I went to a small school with the neighborhood kids,” she finally said. “I always loved school. I still do. I guess that’s why I love to teach.”

  “I fought my parents for years to be able to go back to school.”

  “Did you win?”

  “Nope. And they wouldn’t even think about college. ‘Foolish for a woman,’ my father always said. ‘You’re just going to get married and be busy caring for your husband and home.’ ”

  Amish-think to a degree. But to the Amish this pattern wasn’t to beat women down or keep them in their place. It was to keep the community strong with healthy families where mother and father fulfilled biblical roles. It was to train children in the faith. It was to provide stability where all knew exactly what was expected of them and did it willingly.

  “Hey, look!” Amy pointed.

  Strutting through Mrs. Meyer’s yard were six very large wild turkeys. Rachel had seen them around before.

  “Those are some big boys.” Amy slowed as the turkeys wandered into the road in front of her. There the birds stopped, pecking at seed someone had spilled. She was forced to stop too.

  She blew her horn at the birds. “That’ll scare them.”

  It didn’t. It seemed to make them angry because suddenly they were all around the car, cackling and gobbling. They came to the windows and stared in at Amy and Rachel, heads bobbing indignantly. Given the size of Amy’s car, the birds loomed large and unexpectedly threatening.

  In all the times she’d seen this rafter of turkeys wandering the area, Rachel had never seen them react like this. Usually they looked at you and turned tail, sometimes doing a low level flight for a few yards to get away.

  Maybe it was the seed, maybe not, but something had made the birds very territorial.

  “They’re Amish turkeys,” Amy said, giving another delighted-with-life jump in her seat. “They don’t like automobiles.”

  Rachel had to laugh. “I can’t imagine what’s gotten them riled up.”

  Amy flinched, her grin scared away, as a bird poked his very sturdy beak against the driver’s side window. She fluttered her hands at him. “Go away!” He answered by pecking again.

  A second bird began pecking Rachel’s window.

  “They’ve got us surrounded.” Amy looked slightly panicked. “I can’t go forward or I’ll run over one or two, and I can’t go back because of the one behind me. Given their size, it’d probably disable the car.”

  Movement drew Rachel’s eye. Beyond the turkey looking in the front window and voicing indignation with every bobbing head movement was a horse-drawn cart coming down the road. Abner was holding the reins as he sat in Levi’s lap. Mom and Ruthie squeezed in beside the boys.

  Rachel turned her head as far to the side as she could, fluffing her hair to help hide her face.

  Not like this! Please not like this!

  As she watched from the corner of her eye, Levi took the reins from Abner and handed them to Ruthie. He jumped from the cart and began waving his hat at the birds. “Go! Go!”

  The turkeys turned their agitation to him and began moving toward him. He stood his ground, brandishing his hat like a weapon. Ruthie had to work hard to keep the horse still as the birds gobbled and griped.

  Amy hit the gas as soon as the birds moved out her way, and with a wave of her hand toward Levi, she took off. Rachel wanted to look back to be certain he was all right—the turkeys didn’t look like they wanted to cooperate with him any more than they had with Amy and her—but she was afraid to. Levi might see her and recognize her. Or Mom or Ruthie or even Abner.

  She glanced in the side mirror and saw Levi staring after the car as he waved his arms halfheartedly. Was it because he liked the cute little car or because he recognized her?

  Amy drove out of Honey Brook through Lyndale to Downingtown and the movies. By the time Rachel climbed from the car, her conscience was so divided she could hardly breathe. On one hand Amy danced ahead, pulling her into the unknown as persuasively as the mythical sirens lured sailors to their deaths. On the other were the years of Gmay teaching that an activity like this was verboten.

  Rachel took her place in one of three lines behind Amy, watching the people ahead of them buying tickets. Behind the cashiers was a big electronic board telling the time and theater of all the movies showing. Somehow she hadn’t realized that several movies were showing at once, their starting times staggered. She managed to ask for a ticket for the one Amy had selected.

  In the lobby, everything was so bright and busy. People milled about, yet somehow they all seemed to know where to go. She looked right and left and felt a panic attack waiting to pounce. For not having been to a movie before, Amy seemed at ease in the surroundings, even leading Rachel to the refreshment line where she bought a huge tub of popcorn that cost an astronomical amount of money.

  “Want a Coke?” Amy asked. “My treat.”

  “I’d rather have a water.” She rarely had any sodas but homemade root beer, and even they tasted too sweet to her.

  When they walked into the darkened theater for the movie they were seeing, Rachel carried her water and Amy’s soda while Amy hugged her popcorn as if she was carrying a toddler. Seats rose like the lecture hall at Wexford, and they climbed until Amy found two seats together. They climbed over knees and sank into their seats.

  “Those turkeys almost made us too late to get seats,” Amy whispered. She took a handful of popcorn and held the tub to Rachel. “Want some?”

&n
bsp; Rachel looked down at her full hands.

  “Oops.” Amy set her popcorn in her lap, took her soda, and stuck it in the cup holder attached to her seat. Rachel slid her bottle into the holder beside her, wondering how Amy knew the holders were there in the dark. She took a handful of Amy’s popcorn and settled back to become worldly. In a strange and scary way, it was exciting.

  She stared at the huge flashing images dancing across the screen. She felt mesmerized as they watched something called previews, bits and pieces of movies to be shown at future dates. There were three she thought looked like interesting storylines.

  Then the movie itself started. In no time she was lost in the story, jumping when something unexpected happened, crying at a tender moment, laughing at the visual jokes.

  When it was over, she sat, shell-shocked. So this was a movie. No wonder they didn’t want her going to theaters. Talk about the world taking over! To her own surprise, as they made their way back to the lobby, Rachel leaned into Amy and said, “I loved it! What a wonderful way to tell a story!”

  Chapter 16

  Rachel pinned her kapp into place and ran her hands down her dress to straighten it. She grabbed a sweater though she probably wouldn’t need it. Already the day was warm. With her backpack slung over her shoulder, she went to the small barn behind her house. She pulled her buggy from its place, then went to her horse.

  “Hey, Rusty. It’s the first day of school.”

  He nickered a greeting and she ran a hand over his sleek neck. She worked the bit and bridle into place, then backed him between the traces and buckled him in.

  As she checked to be certain all was as it should be, Rusty shifted. One front hoof came down solidly on the rein that had slipped to the ground as she worked.

  “Oh, Rusty, not today.” She put her shoulder into his and pushed. He became a rock, a huge immovable mountain. She looked at him and caught the devilry in his eye. He knew what he was doing.