A Stranger's Wish (25 page)

“Hold this, Barney,” she ordered, thrusting one corner of the pillowcase into his hand. “Now wave it!” She lifted her hand high and began vigorously fluttering the pillowcase. “I want him to see us. I want to be on TV with him. I want the news people to talk with us so we can tell everyone how wonderful he is. Now wave! And do it like you mean it!”

The little man dutifully raised his arm and began to move it back and forth, back and forth, but not like he meant it. The end result of their partnership was that the lady turned red from the exertion, the man kept dropping his end of the pillowcase as her vigor pulled it out of his hand, and the message was totally unreadable.

I was trying to stifle an impolite laugh—not that she’d have noticed—when I was abruptly pushed from behind. I shot forward, literally lifted off my feet, but I could do nothing to save myself because of the press of the crowd. I let out a long “Ohhhh!” as I collided violently with the chubby whistler/sign waver. We fell to the ground in a great and unladylike tangle of arms and legs.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” I kept repeating as totally unsuitable giggles escaped. I had a vision of what we looked like as we thrashed about, and every time I saw it in my mind, fresh giggles slipped out.

Kind hands reached out and pulled the two of us to our feet. Clarke grabbed me and held me up with a strong arm about my waist.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

I looked at him and giggled. I slapped my hand over my mouth. When I thought I could talk without embarrassing myself further, I said, “I think so.”

I had a hole in my jeans and a skinned knee. My sore hip had taken another shot, but otherwise I was fine. I giggled anew at the sight of
Adam today to save the USA
draped over Barney’s thin shoulders.

“Oh, Bitsy! Oh, Bitsy!” He was genuinely distressed. “Oh, Bitsy, are you all right?”

My unwilling human cushion had a bloody nose and badly scraped hands. As soon as I saw the blood streaming down her front, I sobered abruptly.

“I’m sorry,” I said again, this time with great sincerity. “I was pushed and I lost my bal—”

I stopped and looked frantically around, already knowing what had happened.

“My purse! Clarke! My purse has been stolen!”

“What?”

I groaned. “My purse! My credit cards. My driver’s license. My checkbook. My new phone! This time it’s really gone!”

Clarke looked around as though he expected the thief to be standing next to us waiting to be spotted.

“Did you see a man in a Braves cap?” I asked him.

“A baseball cap?”

“A
Braves
cap,” I repeated. “Did anyone see a man in a Braves cap?” I looked around the circle of people who had collected about us. Of course no one had.

A policewoman arrived about then to check out the disturbance. She escorted Clarke and me and Bitsy and Barney to an area inside the mall that was obviously the control center for the political appearance. Bitsy mumbled through the yellow pillowcase pressed to her nose that she was Mrs. Bitsy Snodgrass and the little man was her husband, Barney Snodgrass.

“We just love Adam Hurlbert,” she said as she pulled the pillowcase away to check if blood was still flowing. It was. She reapplied it.

As a nurse attended to Bitsy Snodgrass, the policewoman talked with me.

“I’m sorry, Miss Matthews,” she said. “Unfortunately, such petty crimes are commonplace at large gatherings like rallies and concerts.”

“It’s the second time it’s happened,” I said forlornly, my mind still on all the things I’d need to replace.

“The second time?”

“Well, not quite the second time. Someone tried to get my purse the other night, but he wasn’t successful.” I felt very tired.

“Are you having trouble with someone specific bothering you?” the policewoman asked with great interest.

I thought of the Braves cap, but I didn’t know that he had anything to do with this evening or with the attempt at the hospital. Besides “Look for a man in a Braves cap” wouldn’t be very helpful. “It must be coincidence,” I said simply.

She nodded and finished filling out the police report.

“We’ll contact you if we recover your property,” she assured me.

Just then Adam and Irene Hurlbert were ushered into the room. Adam was deep in conversation with a tall, bony, anorexic young man while Irene, oozing charm and graciousness, was talking to a woman who was obviously a reporter. I watched, interested in seeing these two up close and in action. Irene was beautiful, no doubt about it, and Adam was every bit as handsome as I’d thought that day in the hospital corridor. And he definitely treated his hair.

Another man walked up to Adam and his companion and talked quietly for a couple of minutes. As he talked, the politician looked at me and Bitsy. I smiled, flashing my new dimple, and Bitsy simpered in spite of the cotton now packing her right nostril.

Shaking his head as if greatly distressed, Adam walked over to us.

“My dear lady!” He took Bitsy’s hand in his, patted it gently, and kept it. “To have been injured at a rally sponsored by my people! Please accept my sincerest apologies and make sure we receive any medical bills that might result from this monstrous occurrence. We must make this terrible thing right and restore your confidence in Lancaster County and Pennsylvania.”

I doubted her confidence in either had been much shaken. If anything, she was one happy cookie that she’d been the second-degree victim of a crime. How else would she have gotten to meet Adam Hurlbert?

I glanced at Clarke to see his response to this gushing performance and watched one of those fascinating dark eyebrows arch in skepticism.

“And you, young lady,” he said, adopting a brisk, businesslike tone with me. He took my hand, pressed it briefly, and then dropped it. “I understand you had the misfortune of being robbed this evening. Please accept my apologies that such a thing happened at one of our rallies. Let my office expedite the replacement of your driver’s license and any other items within our purview.”

“Thank you for your concern and for your help. I appreciate them both,” I said politely. My mom would have been proud.

“It’s the least we can do,” he said, reaching to shake Clarke’s hand too. “And you, sir, take good care of her.” The handshake Adam gave Clarke was firm, quick, and manly. I was willing to bet he and his team discussed how much was acceptable flesh-pressing time for different types of voters. If so, he’d learned the lessons well.

As Adam Hurlbert smiled charmingly at me one more time, I had to admit it: The guy was really, really good. I just hoped I hadn’t looked as delighted as I felt when he’d taken my hand in his and given it that quick, warm squeeze. At least I hadn’t drooled like Bitsy.

A tug on my arm turned my attention from the smooth politician. Standing before me was Nelson, curiosity bristling from every inch of his lumpy little body. I had forgotten all about him.

“What happened, Miss Matthews?” He was all agog as he took in my torn jeans and bleeding knee and Bitsy’s wounds and bloody pillowcase.

“She was robbed, son,” Adam said pontifically. “Isn’t that terrible?”

“Yeah?” Nelson’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. “Wow! I didn’t know people robbed teachers. Wait till the guys at school hear!”

I hoped my lip wasn’t curled in a snarl when I said, “Thanks for the sympathy, Nelson.”

The kid was in his glory. Not only a helicopter ride, but crime and blood and guts as well.

“What happened to the fat lady?” He pointed indelicately at Bitsy.

“I bumped into her.”

Nelson laughed happily. “Hey, Mom!” he screamed across the room. “My art teacher beat up on this fat lady!”

Irene’s flawless eyebrows arched delicately as she looked at me. “Really?”

“Shh, Nelson.” Adam grabbed for the boy’s shoulder and missed as Nelson artfully dodged. “We must let these kind people go. They’ve had a very tiring night.”

Nelson, however, stepped closer, planting himself in front of Clarke.

“Are you Miss Matthews’ boyfriend?” he asked in a typical display of tact.

Clarke nodded. “And may you be so lucky when you grow up.”

Nelson looked at me, clearly seeing me in a whole new light. “Wow!” he said.

My thought exactly.

16

A
great surge of activity was taking place around the farm. Jake was suddenly engrossed in painting the porch and the fence that lined the yard. Elam was on a ladder painting windows. Ruth had taken time from her pretzel factory again, and every time I saw her, she was in the kitchen with her mother, busy about the stove. Mary had stopped going to the farmers’ market and was seeing that all the preserves, apple butter, and chips were stored in the basement. One day I came home from school to find the entire family cleaning and whitewashing the cellar, which had already been scrupulously clean.

The reason for all this activity became obvious the last Sunday in October, two weeks after Elam and Ruth knelt to take the vows of their church. It was a messy, cold, rainy day, the nasty kind of autumn day that made me wonder if Todd hadn’t been right about my freezing this winter. My little ceramic heater was chugging away close to Big Bird’s cage, and heat rose through a grate in the hall by the stairs, but it wasn’t central heating. I needed to remind Jake about that baseboard heating before I froze.

I wrapped myself in several layers of clothes as quickly as I could and hurried downstairs to enjoy the radiant warmth coming from the great wood stove. I planned to sit beside it and warm my outsides while I drank a huge cup of tea to warm my insides.

“Ruth!” I stopped and stared at the girl sitting in the rocker by the window, reading. I had never seen her read before. But the bigger cause for surprise was that I had heard the Zooks leave for church hours ago. I distinctly remembered thinking how uncomfortable a buggy must be on a day like this and how thankful I was for the heater in my yellow car.

“What are you doing here?” I asked. “Don’t you feel well?”

Ruth grinned. “I feel great! In fact, I’ve rarely felt better.”

There was an undercurrent of excitement crackling about the girl. Her gray eyes sparkled, her color was high, and she seemed more like the ever-active Elam than her usual quiet self.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

From the doorway of his apartment, Jake said, “She and Isaiah are being published today. That means the minister is announcing their engagement.”

“Oh, Ruth, I’m so happy for you!” I said with a hug. “Now all I need to do is meet your Isaiah.”

“You will,” Ruth said. “And very soon. He’ll be living here from now until the wedding.”

“Here? Really? And when is the wedding?”

“A week from Thursday.”

“You’re getting married next Thursday? As in—” I counted quickly—“eleven days from now?”

Ruth nodded happily. “It was the first Thursday in November, the first good date we could pick.”

“There’ll be weddings every Tuesday and Thursday in November and into December,” Jake explained. “Sometimes there’ll be more than one a day. Harvesting’s done and it’s time to relax before preparing everything for next year. It’s the one time all year that weddings won’t interfere with farming.”

“But how will you ever get everything ready so fast?” I asked. I felt overwhelmed, and it wasn’t even my wedding.

“Oh, most things are ready now. We—or I should say, Isaiah—has to ask the people we want to help with the wedding meal and the couples we’d like to be in the wedding, but much of the other preparation’s done. Why do you think we’ve been painting and cleaning like crazy? And why do you think Mom and I have been baking and storing so much food?”

“Then you’ve quit your pretzel job for good?”

She nodded. “There’s no need for me to work anymore. Besides, there isn’t time. There’s still a lot to do to get ready. And then afterward we’ll be visiting relatives for a while.”

“Where will you live when you’ve finished visiting?” I asked, thinking that I’d like a more private honeymoon when it was my turn.

“Besides their family farm, Isaiah’s father has a small farm in Honey Brook, not too far from where my sister Sarah and Abner live. We’ll live there.”

“How very nice for you,” I said, meaning every word. “With land being so scarce, you’re lucky to have your own place.”

“I don’t think Isaiah could be happy if he wasn’t farming,” Ruth said. “He loves it. And I’m going to love being his wife.” She smiled at me with the delightful smugness of someone who’s getting exactly what she wants.

I thought about Ruth’s impending marriage as I drove to church. I found it fascinating to think about how settled the girl was, how secure she felt in her thinking, how lacking in curiosity she was about life beyond Isaiah and the Amish community. Even her
rumspringa
had been gentle, and she gladly joined the church, accepting the restrictions as normal and right.

She would marry, have children, and live and die in the same pattern as generations of Amish women before her. She wouldn’t be moved to go back to school at forty-five, as my aunt had been. In fact, should such a thought enter her mind, she would squelch it. Education made you proud and interfered with the development of that much-desired quality, humility.

Did Ruth feel shortchanged by her life? I didn’t think so. In a culture that gave few choices, she appeared satisfied with what I saw as limited horizons.

Even her quiet rebellion had not been so much against Amish legalisms as against biblical standards. When she and Isaiah went off on their jaunts, they were still readily identifiable as Amish.
Kapp
, straight pins, and black stockings; black brimmed hat, broadfall trousers, and suspenders—all were in place. It was not the
Ordnung
that got short shrift in Ruth’s life; it was the Word of God.

Not that Ruth’s life was bad by any means. Just the opposite. She was part of a close, loving, encouraging family and community. Many English people would give all they had to belong like that. Ruth knew Isaiah wouldn’t leave her. She knew she’d always have a home, always have someone to look after her, always know exactly what was expected of her.