For Sure & Certain (5 page)

Standing on the sidewalk, he looked both directions before deciding on left. He remembered a café on his map from Tara and knew they must sell coffee. Walking briskly, the humid heat of the city summer already warming his neck, he rolled up the sleeves of his button down shirt. It was still early, just after eight and the streets were quiet, still not awake for the day.

He came upon the café’s corner quickly and paused, seeing a girl bent down at the entrance to the restaurant, trying to gather papers fluttering from her hands. She stretched her arm to catch them before they flew off.

Abel reached for one that landed on the pavement and handed it to her, “You okay?” he asked.

“I’m fine, truly. Thank you though,” she said, her voice revealing tenderness he didn’t expect. Her eyes widened and she took him in. “I know you.” She smiled, and then looked down at her shoes, as if regretting her words. She wore a pink cotton shirt as a dress, and ruffled socks to her thighs, brown laced boots nearly as high.

Abel looked up, blushing. Not at her clothes, his cheeks reddened because he didn’t remember her. “I don’t think--” he began. “No, I mean I don’t
know
you, I just saw you. At the bookstore. Ugh. Now I sound weird. I’m not a stalker. I just.” She stopped, shook her head, and laughed. A laugh clear as crystal, he could see through it.

She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, her papers now buried in the crook of her arm. Her body so delicate it looked as if she could break, as if she was made of the bone China forbidden in his community.

“The bookstore, ja?”

“Umm, yeah. The other day? I don’t know why I told you that. That was weird of me. I’m sorry.” Her sentences were choppy and short; her cadence didn’t match her appearance. She looked fine, fragile. She looked lost.

Abel didn’t know his way around this city, these streets all jumbled together, and although he knew he had gone to a bookstore a few days before, he knew with certainty he couldn’t retrace his steps. The steps that got him here were a long way from home.

Maybe he was lost, too.

Marigold

She took in his suspenders and straw hat on the humid summer morning. His gray eyes and shaven face were a pleasant surprise. Most hipsters around campus wore a beard, or at least an ironic mustache. She liked seeing his jaw, he looked strong. A different kind of strong than most of the college students she met.

"My name's Abel,” he said, sticking out his hand politely. She shook it, his hand calloused and rough.

"Abel. Like, Cain and Abel?”

He nodded.

“Are your parents Bible thumpers or something?"

He smiled, one of those wide smiles that aren’t self-conscious or self-aware. A smile offered freely and easily accepted.

“Sort of,” he said, not seeming to take offense to her intrusive question. “They're Amish."

Marigold tilted her head to the side and he matched her movements, as she realized the broad fell pants and black boots were not about being urban-chic.

"And you?" she asked.

"I'm a guy." He didn’t offer more of an explanation, and Marigold understood that. The pause. The purpose of holding back. She was here at this café, trying to muster up the courage to apply for a job, after all.

"What's your name?" Abel said breaking the un-awkward silence, as if he could sense it heading in that direction.

"Marigold," she answered.

"Were your parents hippies or something?"

That made her laugh. She knew asking about his parents’ spiritual beliefs had been rude, and she liked that he didn’t let her off the hook.

"Sort of. My parents are writers,” she explained.

"I see. And you?"

That's when Marigold looked up at him plainly, deciding if she should say anything more than the obvious, that she was a girl.

“I’m looking for a job.”

He pointed to the door, the one they had blocked for much too long.

“This place?”

“Yeah, I ‘d thought about it, but I don’t think it’s for me.” She didn’t want to work at this café, one glance at the familiar owner and she knew it was a bad idea. They’d had a run in before. Actually, she had with every shop owner on this street. Here, however, she’d been dressed like Lady Gaga wielding a fake blood splattered coat, pretending she’d just witnessed a murder. Maybe not her finest moment. Mostly because she’d video taped the whole wretched scene. And posted it online.

“Not thrilled about the prospect?”

“Would you be?” she asked, peering in the café window, then quickly looking away when she received an evil eye from the cashier.

“Not really.”

“Do you want to get coffee?” she asked, anxious to leave the sidewalk.

“I thought you were getting a job?”

“I don’t know what I’m doing.” She stuffed the resumes in the messenger bag hanging on her shoulder.

“Me either.”

His honesty caught her off guard, in a good sort of way. In an “I’m not trying to be anything other than me” sort of way.

“Great, but let’s go somewhere … else.”

Silently she led him around the corner to a diner she’d never been to before mostly because it looked like the only patrons were over seventy.  Abel held the door open for her, and she started to roll her eyes but stopped because for some reason she knew Abel wasn't holding the door to be anything more than kind. Feminism wasn't in his vocabulary in the way she had come to understand it. Kindness was first nature to him. He would hold open the door for a young boy or old man or stray cat.

A waitress with tired eyes sat them at a corner table where they both ordered black coffee.

“Did you want anything else,” Abel asked. Marigold shook her head no, but before the waitress walked away, Abel stopped her.

“Could I also get a stack of pancakes, a side of bacon, scrambled eggs, and, if you have any, a bowl of applesauce. Oh, and a glass of milk.”

The waitress smirked at his requests,  “Not sure about the applesauce. Peaches okay?”

“Danka.”

Marigold realized he was Amish, like, for-reals Amish. She watched as he placed his hat on the empty chair beside him, pushing dark hair from his face.

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing.”

“It’s okay. Everyone stares. I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“I’m not uncomfortable.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure. Uncomfortable only comes if the police show up.”

He cocked his head in an effort to understand, but Marigold didn’t want to go into details of her past. Instead she brushed it off and added, “I’m used to people looking at me is all I meant.  I spent my freshmen year pretending I was in a Swedish hip-hop group, my sophomore year waffling between a French painter and pseudo dreadlocked Rasta. My junior year I was … all over the place.” She shook her head and looked at her coffee, biting her lip wondering if she should say any more. Deciding against it, she raised her eyes instead, taking in the warmth radiating off him.

“And senior year?” he asked.

“Oh. Then I was just me. Just Marigold. I stopped trying so hard.”

“You look nice as ‘Just Marigold.’”

She didn’t answer; she sipped her cup of coffee and continued to peer curiously at him over the lip of the mug. She didn’t know why she said those things to him, the part about her trying so hard. It’s not like anyone took her seriously as “Just Marigold.” Now, when she wore her “Just Marigold” clothes, they assumed it was some get-up, a nod to vagrant hippies or her way of romanticizing gypsies: see-through lace dresses and flowers in her hair and ruffles on her socks. A way to get attention with a different sort of spotlight.

Marigold never acknowledged their comments, her sister’s eye rolling or her mother’s huffs, their questions about where her video camera was. She ignored them. But now, in this empty diner, she had no reason to defend her choices. She could be herself without pretense, Abel certainly was.

“So, you were saying,” Marigold started again. “Everyone stares?”

“Ja. I moved here last week, oh, danka,” he said to the waitress as she delivered a steaming plate of pancakes. Looking back to Marigold he kept talking. “I just moved to the city, actually. I’ve never been out of Lancaster County this long, and even though I think everyone else dresses and speaks and walks different, I’m the outsider. I’m the one people stare at.”

“Do you have to dress in those clothes?”

“Oh, I suppose not. I’m on Rumspringa, it’s the running around time for youth in our community. I can wear jeans or talk to girls like you or smoke a cigarette. Then when I return home, and take my vows, I’m supposed to return to the Old Ways.”

“I’ve seen Amish Mafia.”

“I don’t know how that’s relevant.” He suppressed a smile.

“Me either.” Marigold laughed, appreciating his quick retort.

He poured syrup on his stack, ate bacon, added pepper to his eggs. He seemed extraordinarily happy with the food before him and Marigold watched him eat the home-style meal with gusto.

“But you don’t want to change your clothes, even though you aren’t at home?” she asked.

“No. I didn’t come here to experience life as an
Englisher
.”

“Why did you come here then? You’re on your Rumspringa and just decided to hang out in D.C? Did friends come with you, like, to see the White House or something?”

He smiled, that slow, soft smile again, inviting her in, making her want to stay even though her coffee was gone.

“I’m here for school, I’m doing a Business Intensive at Jamestown for ten weeks.”

“Really? My sister is doing the Intensive too. Do you know a girl named Lily?”

“No, but it’s hard to remember anyone, everyone blurs.”

“My sister was obsessed with getting in. It’s crazy competitive.”

“Ja, well I don’t know all that, but the classes are really interesting. I’m in the Business Program.”

Marigold groans, and shakes her head. “You want to be the next
Industry Superhero
?”

“What?”

“Nothing. But that’s my sister’s program too.” She nods at the waitress, who comes over and pours them both more coffee. “The summer program’s for incoming high school seniors, is that you then?”

“No, I mean, technically I don’t know. I’m eighteen, but I stopped school in eighth grade, everyone at home does. I’ve been teaching myself ever since. They based my acceptance off some test scores.”

“So you’re like an Amish genius?”

“No. I’m a guy who happens to really enjoy learning.”

“Sure.”

“You’re very easy to talk to, Marigold, I haven’t had a conversation this long all week.”

“That’s what all the boys say,” she said, joking, but he didn’t laugh. He looked at her and she shook her head, not knowing why she sat her with this stranger, but also knowing she didn’t want to get up. “Honestly, Abel, you are too. Here I am supposed to be getting a job and you show up and now I’m being totally irresponsible.”

“Are you usually quite responsible?”

“Usually I’m a disappointment.”

“That makes two of us.”

Seeing a shadow of sadness in is eyes, Marigold had an idea. “Can I show you D.C. today? Since you’re on Rumspringa, or whatever, you should probably have a proper running around.”

“You want to run around with me?”

“Yes.”

So they did.

chapter three

Abel

Walking out of the café, Abel put his hands in his pockets, surprised at how relaxed he felt in Marigold’s presence. Her hair hung to her waist, in a way that no Amish girl ever would. Women at home keep their hair wrapped in a bun under a small kapp, but she doesn’t appear sacrilegious in her choice.

She looks like an angel, and his mind flashes to the night he arrived, walking past the graveyard, when he saw a girl throwing coins in a fountain. That girl was Marigold.

“So, is this weird? I mean, we don’t know one another.” Marigold looked at him as they walked.

“Should it be weird?”

“I don’t know.”

“I don’t feel weird.”

“Are you always so honest? Is that an Amish thing, saying how you feel?”

At this Abel laughed, for he knew it was as far from Amish as anything. “No, I’m forever getting a hard time for speaking my mind freely. For asking questions when I oughtn’t. For being my own person.”

“That’s why you wanted to come to college? To try out being your own person?”

“I just like learning, that’s why I came.”

“Okay, I know exactly where we’re going then.”

Marigold hailed a cab and fifteen minutes later they were at the Smithsonian Institution.

“You haven’t been here, have you?”

“No, but my roommate said we should come.”

“Will he be mad you came without him?”

Her thoughtfulness touched him, but he shook his head. “No, Lacey will be just fine. He’s probably too high to even remember mentioning it.” Lacey got stoned every night, and when high seemed to ramble about art and politics and religion— everything taboo for an Amish guy.

“Well, you could come a hundred times and still never see everything.”

They walked to a map and Marigold told him to pick a place. When he chose an exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery she smiled. “
American Cool
?”

“I should learn a bit about that shouldn’t I? I mean, really,” he began reading the exhibits description with an embellished accent, trying to hide his obvious Pennsylvania Dutch, “
What do we mean when we say someone is cool? Cool carries a social charge of rebellious self-expression, charisma, edge, and mystery.
”              

“Touché.” Marigold laughed and Abel’s shoulders straightened a bit when she did, wondering why he was so easy-going here, with her. A girl who was off-limits if he was going to go back home. A girl who couldn’t be more than a fun time, because he was expected to be with a girl like Esther.

A girl, who wore a kapp, quilted, and bowed her head reverently. Not a girl like Marigold, whose laughter filled a room. Abel wondered if that’s what the bishop meant when he said was too easily swayed by the lure of the outside world.

But Abel didn’t feel swayed, he just felt happy, and he let his shoulders relax. The afternoon passed quickly, at each photograph they would attempt to match the portrait’s posed coolness, laughing the entire time. Marigold transformed easily, as if her body and face were moldable, easily altered to a serious stance, and the next an exaggerated smirk.

Abel was less successful, and Marigold took his arm to reposition it to match, or order him to jut out his foot just so. When she pulled out her phone to snap a photo, Abel shook his head.

“Why not? You look seriously
cool.
”

“Amish don’t take pictures, it’s a whole ‘no graven images’ thing.”

“Oh, sorry.” She put the phone back in her bag.

“Don’t be.”

“Does it bother you, being different?”

“Nope.”

“You’ve just always been comfortable in your own skin?” she asked.

“I suppose it’s not something I think of that much. When I look in the mirror it’s not as if I think, hmm, there’s an Amish guy. I mean, do you look in the mirror and think hmm there’s an English girl?”

“I don’t. I stopped thinking about things like that when I just decided to be me.”

“So you get it.”

“I get it.”

Abel looked at her and believed the words of this wispy girl, because she didn’t pause at mirrors when she walked through the museum or self-consciously tug at her clothes. She spent the entire afternoon smiling and laughing,  not texting people or tiptoeing around their differences.

She was present; she wasn’t like the other girls. The ones in his accounting course who constantly typed on tiny screens, not noticing that a guy right next to them was attempting to make eye contact, or the Amish girls like Esther who constantly wanted to force a relationship that wasn’t there.

Just Marigold.

Later that afternoon in the taxi home, Abel asked for her phone number.

“Be warned, I don’t usually call girls. And by usually I mean never.”

“You’ve never called a girl?”

“Not once.”

“So I’ll be your first?”

It was a sexual innuendo and they both knew it, but instead of the air getting charged with nervous energy, they both just laughed.

“Yes, Marigold, you will be the very first girl, if you’ll let me.”

“You don’t have to, you know. Call me. This could be like a one time random day, where a girl meets a guy at a coffee shop and they walk around a museum. Like a romantic comedy, without the romance, I mean not necessarily. What I mean is, don’t feel obligated to be my friend or whatever.”

“I don’t really do things out of obligation. I do what I want, for sure and certain.”

When the driver dropped him off on campus, Marigold told him she lived just two blocks over, next to the Catholic Church on the corner.

“I’ll see you,” he said, through the open car door.

“You will.”

Marigold

              The house was quiet when she returned from the museum. Meeting Abel had been weird, and the entire day had been like this vortex. Like the two of them were sucked in a vacuum where no one else existed. Life wasn’t always that unexpected and breezy, it had been the sort of reprieve she needed.

Marigold went to her room to change into more comfortable clothes, bloomers exchanged for her dress and soft slippers in place of her boots. Pulling her phone out of her messenger bag she plugged it into the charger, realizing it had died at some point when she was out with Abel. Her cheeks blushed remembering him, his smile, gentle words, and convictions.

She wanted to call him even though they had just said good-bye. She knew this was irrational, they hardly knew one another, and besides, she wasn’t the sort of girl for him. He was smart in ways she wasn’t, but also, and more importantly, he was Amish. Marigold accidentally wore see-through dresses and cursed when she forgot her wallet and she was far from religious. She’d never gone to Sunday school.

              Her phone buzzed to life and she saw there were a dozen missed texts from her mom and brother. She intentionally avoided checking her phone and email and no longer belonged to any social networks. She joked that Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter and YouTube were all trigger words. She said it like a joke, but it wasn’t. They really did make her anxious, embarrassed.

Her family knew this about her, how useless it was to even try to get in touch with her this way, so she was confused at their communication as she scrolled through the texts that has come over the course of the afternoon, suddenly scared something serious had happened.

Mom: Please call.

Mom: Where are you? Don’t freak out. He didn’t mean it like that.

Mom: Seriously worrying us. Please call, are you alone?

Cedar: He’s a dick. I’ll stop by tonight. It’s okay.

And then one from just a few minutes earlier,

Mom: I’m getting take-out with Lily. Please come home ASAP. Dinner together tonight. Mandatory.

She set her phone down, confused. Part of her wanted to text Cedar to find out what the hell they were talking about, but a bigger part didn’t want to. She would find out soon enough, and whatever it was, it wasn’t good. She could wait for bad news. 

Marigold decided to bake something while she waited for them. The kitchen had become her sanctuary this past year, as she taught herself the basics from cookbooks, and quickly gained confidence, taking on more challenging lessons like how to make perfect caramel sauce and pipe frosting and bake artisan loves of bread. Walking into the kitchen, she ran her hand over the granite countertop anxiously, thinking about the texts. She turned the oven on to three hundred fifty degrees and began pulling out ingredients, knowing if the house smelled of chocolate brownies, any bad news would be easier to bear.

She broke eggs in sugar and creamed them before adding the flour and rich cocoa. Beating the mixture by hand was the only way Marigold could create the right consistency for this decadent treat. The batter filled a greased pan and she slid it into the oven, setting the timer.

Marigold poured herself iced tea and opened the back patio door to wait, but let out a yelp of surprise at seeing her dad sitting out there, alone. He didn’t hear her; he just sat staring at his phone.

“Dad?” she asked, thinking he was supposed to be at a book signing tonight. “What are you doing here?”

“All hail, the golden child arrives.”

“Sorry, what? I didn’t know anyone was out here. I thought you had a signing.”

“It was postponed.”

“What?”

“Postponed.” His word was loud, and cold and surprise her.

“Why?”

“Bureaucracy.” His word slurred, and only then did she notice a bottle of Jameson on the patio table, the glass in his hand.

“What’s going on?” She wanted to ask what the texts were about, but she was scared to press him when he was like this.

“You didn’t see?” He laughed. “Figures, you’re never where you are supposed to be, are you, Goldie? Think nothing affects you. Think your mother is the Devil for caring.”

“I didn’t say Mom was the Devil.”

“Didn’t you though?” He snarls his lip, shaking his head at his oldest daughter. “By doing everything in your power to make her life miserable?”

The timer went off, beeping through the heavy, drunken words. Words she knew he used in an effort to hurt, to deflect. Words she wouldn’t take to heart.

“I need to get the brownies.”

Marigold flipped off the timer and pulled the brownies from the oven. Setting them on the counter, her breath caught on her father’s words.
What in the world was he talking about?
Turning around she screamed, surprised to see her brother standing there, a bowl of Fro-Yo in his hand. Two yelps in one night felt like a lot. It seemed as if more would come.

“Didn’t mean to scare you,” Cedar said, handing the fruit laden bowl towards her.

“What’s this for?” she was suspicious of him. He was her closest ally in this house, but they both knew that was a stretch. He wasn’t exactly a supportive force in her life, just another pair of judgmental eyes.

“Did you get my text?”

“Yeah,” Marigold said softly, knowing whatever it was, it was coming out now. She wanted to stall. “Dad’s here. Outside, drunk. Incoherent and condemning as usual.”

“So you heard?”

“Heard what, exactly? Mom texted and so did you, but I don’t know what’s going on.”

“Don’t you read the news?” Cedar shook his head at her, like she was a freak, an alien. Not his sister.

“Not really. Not today at least.”

“Well, you need to.” Cedar pulled out his phone and handed it to her. It was an op-ed piece on the Huffington Post. “There are dozens like that, popping up everywhere.”

‘In Archer’s latest release, Man of Steel, he offers the American people basic tools to generate productivity and business during economic downfall.

However, productivity seems to be at a standstill in Archer’s immediate family. In a Huff Post interview this morning [link] Archer made fiery statements in regard to his eighteen-year-old daughter, former YouTube sensation, which have caught fire.

“Her inability to make decisions about her future has nothing to do with me. She’s lazy, plain and simple. Just another face in a sea of teenagers who think they’ll always be rescued. She spent a year making public displays of idiocy on the Internet and now wants to be rescued. I wasn’t rescued … I pulled up my bootstraps and made my way; my grandmother was the only family I had. My daughter has everything but wants none of it.”

Marigold pressed the phone to her chest, not wanting to read anymore. She didn’t want to be rescued, not by her father, not by anyone. This was just another way to push her away, point out to the world how she was a failure. A lost cause. Alone.

“It’s not so bad, I mean, it’s Dad, he’s always an ass-hat,” Cedar reassured her as Mom and Lily walked in the front door, bags of food in their arms.