For Sure & Certain (9 page)

It all felt overwhelming though, never having had to be a grown up before. And maybe it made her sound lame, or whiny, or immature, but it was hard to become the person you wanted to be overnight when you didn’t even know what that was.

“You need to try harder. You doing this,” her Mom pointed to the scones in neat triangles on the granite countertop, “is not a job. And I told you, if you want to stay here you’ll need to find one this week.”

“Okay.” Looking at her scones she thought maybe she could find a job at a bakery. Or maybe two part-time jobs. Or she could look at Craigslist and babysit or weed whack. Even though she had no experience with kids. Or lawn mowers. Aren’t crazy people on there always looking for people to hire?

Even if she did scrounge together some job, she knew it would just create more problems with her mom. Marigold wouldn’t be off the hook unless she sucked it up and did what her mom wanted: attend Jamestown. It was all a rouse. This job thing was a way to force Marigold into a corner and they all knew it.

Eileen shook her head and stormed away, not hearing the words she really wanted, smacking the front door as she left. Marigold had an inkling her mom knew how impossible getting a job would be, and maybe that was the point of this entire exercise— corner Marigold into college.

Marigold said nothing; she was done apologizing for who she was, and mostly who she wasn’t. Instead she turned the timer on for eighteen minutes and slid her scones into the oven.

However brave-faced Marigold tried to be, she was still a girl, whose parents had chosen to misunderstand her. Tears pooled in her eyes as she realized just how stuck she was.

She didn’t even really want to work at a bagel shop, or the Gap, or the craft store, even if she could get a job at those places. Options were limited, for all the prestige and fortune around her, the diplomas hanging on the walls, the rare book collections, the housekeepers, and rooftop pool, she was left empty because none of it afforded what she really wanted.

A chance to be her own person. And it would be one thing if taking one of those perfectly fine jobs would get her family off her back, but she knew it wouldn’t.

The only route she saw was to accept her parents’ path for her, and all the strings attached to it. She didn’t want to be tethered to a life that didn’t matter to her.

But maybe she didn’t have a choice.

The timer went off and she pulled the scones from the oven, but misjudged her hold on the baking sheet. It fell against the tile floor with a clang, the soft scones falling in crumbles at her feet.

“Fuck!” she yelled, forgetting her
right good
from earlier. Pitifully, she took a large piece from the polished floor and plopped it in her mouth. It was good. Broken but good.

***

Later that day Abel came in the garden through the back door, unexpectedly. He held a bouquet of brown paper wrapped daisies tied with a blue ribbon and offered her them with a smile across his lips.

“Lily let me in,” he explained.

“Your new BFF.”

“I’m not sure about that, but did she tell you about the group then?”

“Yes, she did, she seemed a little miffed at how the groups were chosen, but that’s Lily for you. She will always find a reason to complain.” She smelled the flowers in her hand, knowing no boy had ever once brought her a bouquet and she was going to relish this moment. “Look at you, Abel, a few weeks in the city and already all tied up in the Archer family affairs.” If someone else said this you’d think they were being funny or flippant, but not Marigold. Saying her family’s name made her wistful, because she knew what being a member of her family actually meant.

“You okay?” he asked.

“I guess we’re finishing twenty questions?” she asked, pretending to be in a better mood than she was. “That was question eight.”

Abel rubbed his hand over his chin thoughtfully. “Ja, I’ll play but, Marigold, you look upset.”

“That’s an understatement,” she said, her words catching in her throat. After the scone disaster, she sent the housekeeper home and spent the morning cleaning. Mopping, dusting, washing windows that already sparkled. After the house was clean, she lost herself in the backyard all afternoon, a half-finished afghan splayed across her lap and knitting needles moving furiously, a distraction from the conversation of the morning.

“I don’t know you that well, I mean, it’s been a week, ja?” Abel sat next to her in an Adirondack chair, his long legs stretched before him. “But I’d like to think I can tell you are sad, or at least not your usual self.”

The tears came again, unexpectedly. Marigold had no intention of crying in front of this boy. Yet at the same time she hated that tears were the universal sign of weakness.
Why can’t tears be strength
, she wondered.
Why can’t my tears be an invitation? A way of saying I’m letting you into this private place. That I’m letting you into my heart.
She didn’t wipe them away, and he didn’t either, as if he wasn’t scared of her vulnerability.

“I don’t even know why you’re hanging out with me, Abel, bringing me flowers, being so kind, we’re so different. You’ve said so yourself.” Her words stopped short as Abel reached for her hand, taking it in his, rubbing his thumb against hers, slowly. Intimately. It steadied her and she squeezed tightly, not wanting him to stop.

“I like you, Marigold. Is that reason enough?” Nine.

“I don’t know. If there isn’t an Amish girl waiting for you, which you’ve said there isn’t, I’m sure there is some really lovely scholar in the Business Intensive. I’m not like those girls. Girls like my sister. And those guys? Guys that do programs like you; they aren’t the sorts of guys for me. I’ve tried to date guys from there before. They are all so … so….”

“Pretentious? Obsessed? Wrong?” Abel offered.

Marigold shook her head. “See, why do you do that?” she asked. Ten.

“Do what?”

“Say the absolute right thing.”

Abel considered her words and she looked away, not knowing why she pushed him back, why she looked for reasons for the two of them to not at least try and see if there was something here, when it so clearly hung in the air around them, heavy in the murky summer heat.

“Why were you crying?” Eleven.

“The job thing. And the me not wanting to go to college thing. I don’t know if you know this, but my dad is this big business guru guy. He’s written some books.” Abel shook his head “no” so she continued. “Anyways, my parents really want me to go to college … follow the Archer family footsteps. But like I’ve told you, I’m not up for that, at least not now. So they say I have to get a job … like I’ve told you … but it’s not as easy as that.”

Marigold paused, not knowing how much of her past she wanted to dump on him. Not knowing how much of her past even mattered. She didn’t want to dig up what she’d put behind her, so she left out the part about her videos, her fight with the barista. The cops coming and the handcuffs and the footage that went viral. The guy losing his job, her losing the respect of her family. Her teachers. Herself.

She’d made a choice to not go back to that girl, and she wouldn’t. She didn’t want the guy sitting next to her to change the way he saw her. And maybe that was selfish, but it was her choice.

“You’ve been looking for a job though, you went to the shopping center. Surely the effort is enough, something will turn up eventually.”

Wiping her tears away, Marigold nodded. “Yeah, you’re probably right. Something will turn up. If not, I’ll have to do what they want.” She let out an exhausted sigh. “In the mean time, I’ve got to get out of this house.”

A smile spread across Abel’s face, “I know the perfect
thing
.”

“There is no easy answer for this.”

“No, there is actually.”

Curiosity danced in Marigold’s eyes.

“Come home with me this weekend.”

“The dorm?”

“No, Lancaster. I’m going tomorrow after morning classes and staying until Sunday night. My dad needs help with the crew for the sheep shearing.”

Marigold looked down at herself, her legs bare in lacy white shorts, a sheer blouse over a blush-colored bralette. Her toes were painted turquoise and rings that she’d collected at vintage shops wrapped around every finger. Glittering antiqued diamonds and emeralds and amethysts and all of them were real and all of them pointed to the fact that she was not Amish, not even a little. Not even a bit.

“You can’t take me home. I could be a psychopath. You’ve gone out with me exactly three times and one of those times was an accident.”

“Technically this could count as date four. I brought you flowers.” Abel looked at the flowers undeterred. “And at home it would be months of dating before we’d have that many dates, also, we’d have to be engaged to be alone so much, so often.”

“I don’t know if that’s helping or making me feel weirder.”

“Do I make you feel weird?” Twelve.

“No, I just.” She looked down at her clothes again. “I just started feeling like myself, like I was comfortable in my own skin and I don’t really want to be around people who are going to judge me. That’s what I need to leave home to avoid.”

“I like your clothes.”

“That’s because you’ve been around very fully-clothed women all of your life. This much skin is probably making you high or something.”

“I like your clothes. They look like they floated from the sky and landed on you in a breathless cloud of perfection.”

“Did you practice that?” Thirteen.

“No, I’m practically a genius, Marigold, I’m sure you remember. Words like that just slide off my tongue.” She gently punched arm. His very muscled, rock solid arm, and he took her hand before she could pull away. The moment grew quiet, the laughter of the jokes gone, and all that was left was the two of them, fingers laced. Hearts held.

“It’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.” Marigold looked at Abel straight in the eyes, her words true and soft and slow.

“You don’t hold your cards very close, Marigold,” Abel whispered in her ear, near enough to send a shiver down her back, through her core, right up to her lips.

“I thought you didn’t play poker?”

“That was question fourteen, and I’m betting we’re going to run out of questions.”

Abel pulled her close; his lips against her salty tear-kissed skin, the droplets disappearing as he brushed his fingers against her cheeks. He kissed her mouth softly and strong and she kissed him with a longing that pressed at her chest. His hands held her face and he didn’t let go until they had shared a kiss memories are made of.

Abel

            
 
Thursday night when he came back from Marigold’s, Lacey immediately tried to talk him out of bringing her home. Abel didn’t understand why.

“She’s not Amish, Abel. How do you see this ending? You can’t be together, I mean unless one of you made a very drastic life choice.”

“On the outside we’re different, I get that, but my mom will see how wonderful she is,” Abel explained. “There’s no way they wouldn’t like her.”

“Except for the fact you’re bringing home a girl just two weeks after you left home,” Lacey pressed, sucking on a spiked lollipop.

Lacey must be pretty rich, Abel thought, not for the first time. Just like Marigold, whose father was apparently a best selling author. He ran his fingers through his hair, once again reminded that he was way out of his league. His family was well-off as far as Amish went, but the people at Jamestown were an entirely different sort of
well-off
.

They were rich enough to have a never-ending supply of edibles in their arsenal. Sticks from already-eaten lollipops littered the floor.

Lacey plopped back on his bed then rubbed in Abel’s insecurities. “And she’s gonna think it is serious. It’s way too soon for a move like this.”

“Maybe I am serious, and since when did you become the relationship expert?”

“Well, Jenna’s going out with me tomorrow.” Lacey leaned in for a high-five, which Abel gave shaking his head, and taking a lollipop from the bag on Lacey’s bed. “Bedsides, dude, you’re gonna piss your parents off. They let you come because they think you’re returning home to run the family farm. This is gonna mess with their heads.”

“But maybe I won’t go back home, ever. Maybe this is where I belong.”

“Do you mean that?” Lacey asked, his voice raised in surprised. “Because all that ‘baptism vow’ stuff seemed pretty hardcore when you told me about it.”

“That was what I planned before I came. I know it’s only been a few weeks, but how can I leave after the summer?”

“Your parents are expecting you to take your vows come fall. ”

“I know, but I can’t make promises I don’t know if I can keep.” The heaviness of the statement sat between the two of them. “Besides, all I’m doing is taking a friend with me while I go sheer a thousand sheep. It’s nothing more than that.”

“You’re sure?” Lacey asked, taking on a protective role Abel wasn’t used too.  “Because intentions are everything.”