The Rebel (17 page)

Barbie ripped the envelope open, finding to her annoyance that her fingers were trembling. Ridiculous, to let it upset her so.

This one was similar to the last.

You can't live Englisch and Amish at the same time. You're a bad influence and soon the whole community will know.

Was that a threat to tell? But tell what? The note wasn't specific. Surely the unknown writer couldn't know about Terry.

Did it matter what he or she actually knew? The suspicion was enough to cause problems. If the person had sent this poisonous note to Mamm or Daad—

Her heart nearly stopped. Many days Daad walked down to pick up the mail. What if he'd done so today?

If he'd pulled this envelope out of the box, he wouldn't have opened it, not when it was addressed to her. But he'd have noticed it. He'd have thought it odd that there was no return address. He'd have asked about it, probably at the supper table. What would she have said then?

Her stomach twisted into knots, and she grabbed the letter in both hands, prepared to tear it into bits. Then she stopped. Ben had made her promise that if she received any more letters, she'd show them to him. Indeed, he was the only person she could show it to.

Her instinct was to destroy it anyway. Ben need never know. But something held her back. No. That was a foolish denial. Besides, what would she say if he asked whether she'd received any more letters? Lie about it?

What had happened last night had changed things between them, and she didn't know yet whether it was for the better or the worse. But she did know that she couldn't lie to him. She stuffed the letter back into its envelope and slid it into her bag. Benuel had complicated her life in more ways than one.

•   •   •

The
last thing Ben had wanted was to see Barbie again so soon. He'd anticipated having time to get his head on straight after his foolish actions on Sunday night. But here it was late Monday, and her father had asked him to stop by and check out the lights on David's buggy.

If the opportunity came to speak to Barbie alone, what should he do? Should he bring it up? Apologize for his behavior? Make it clear that he didn't mean—

That brought his mind to a full stop. Face it. A man his age couldn't kiss a woman and pretend it meant nothing. Flirtation was for teenagers, just like falling in love was.

And should he even bring it up? It might embarrass her for no good reason. Maybe she'd rather pretend it hadn't happened.

He'd better decide soon, because he'd already reached the Lapp place, and he could see Barbie and David leaning into the buggy in question. His heart refused to cooperate in making a decision, and his thoughts felt as if they'd been stirred up with a spoon. He parked his buggy and walked over to them.

Apparently they hadn't heard his approach, because they
seemed to be busy arguing. “You must have done something to it, because it was perfectly fine the last time I had it out,” David insisted.

“All I did was drive to work and back,” Barbie retorted. “That was in the daytime. I didn't do anything to the lights at all, so don't try to blame it on me. And if I had my own buggy, it would certain-sure be a lot nicer than this one.”

Despite the fighting words, he had the sense that neither one was actually angry. They were just engaging in the brother-and-sister teasing that must go on regularly with the two of them, as close in age as they were.

“Never mind,” David grumbled, leaning under the bench seat so far that he was invisible. “Wait and see what Ben thinks.”

“If I could get in there, I might be able to tell you,” he said.

David jerked and bumped his head on the seat, and Barbie's eyes met Ben's for an unguarded second before she looked away, a faint flush rising on her creamy cheeks.

“Right, sure thing,” David said, scrambling down. He and Barbie looked enough alike to be twins with their fresh, light coloring and lively expressions. “It's all yours. Denke. Glad you were able to get here so fast.”

“If you can't fix it, David might have to disappoint Sally King tonight,” Barbie said.

“Better watch what you say in front of the minister if you don't want a frog in your bed tonight,” David warned, grinning.

“Seems to me I'd already heard a thing or two about you and Sally,” Ben said, setting his toolbox into the buggy and climbing inside. “Everyone's looking to see how much celery her daad is putting in this spring.”

At the mention of the traditional wedding food, David flushed to the roots of his blond hair. “We . . . we're not that far along yet.”

“Maybe you aren't, but that doesn't keep folks from talking,” Barbie said. At a glare from her brother, she seemed to take pity on him. “Not that people wouldn't talk whether there was any reason to or not.”

“They're interested in the young ones,” Ben said. He couldn't remember how old David was, but he knew he was the youngest of the Lapp family. He and Barbie were close in age, coming a fairly long time after their older brothers.

David opened his mouth as if to protest and then closed it again, maybe thinking it wasn't wise to open that subject.

Ben shone the beam of his flashlight along the wire that ran from the battery to the rear safety lights. Some church districts tried to hold out against the lights and even the orange safety triangle, saying they weren't plain, but with all the motor traffic on the roads, they were necessary, besides being required by law.

“You haven't been tinkering with the lights, have you?” he asked, checking connections. “I thought maybe you'd knocked something loose.”

“I don't think so,” David leaned in again. “The wires were tucked back against the side so they were out of the way. I thought—” He stopped abruptly at a sound. It seemed a bird was cheeping from somewhere in David's clothing.

David flushed again, backing up, and Ben had to suppress a smile. Like most of the kids who hadn't been baptized yet, he had a cell phone. And he was obviously embarrassed that it had gone off at this moment.

“Sorry,” he muttered. He turned away, checking the phone, and then answered it. With a quick, pleading look at his sister, he moved well away from them, around the corner of the porch.

Barbie crossed her arms on the edge of the buggy and leaned on them. “He's embarrassed. I'm supposed to distract you from the fact that he's talking on a cell phone, I guess.”

“Do you think you can?” he asked, amused at her directness.

“Probably not. But we've always backed each other. It's automatic by this time.”

He shrugged, trying to concentrate on the job instead of on how close Barbie was. “You two are very near each other in age. That makes a big difference in your relationship.”

“We are good friends.” She hesitated. “Are you thinking that if you were nearer in age to Mary, she'd be more open with you?”

“There's no doubt about that. As it is, she looks at me more like another father than her brother.”

“That's natural, I think. I remember that James—” She stopped abruptly at the mention of her oldest brother, the one who had jumped the fence.

He studied her face, thinking of the sense of loss she'd betrayed the last time they'd spoken of him. “You must have been pretty small when he left.”

Barbie nodded, her bright blue eyes shadowed. “I was eight, but I couldn't possibly forget my big brother. And you're right. He was more like another daad to me. Maybe that's why it hurt so much when he left.” She focused on him. “Do you remember much about him?”

“Not much,” he admitted. “He was one of the grown-ups
to me, too.” Ben wasn't actually much older than Barbie in years, even though he felt about a hundred in experience.

Her fingers twisted together. “I always thought there must have been something wonderful gut out there for him never to have come back. Never to get in touch with us, even.”

“I'm sorry.” That was the hardest thing for a family to bear—the empty seat at the table.

Barbie gave a curt little nod, as if to accept his sympathy and at the same time to close the subject. Well, there was no reason she should talk about her brother to him if she didn't want to, but it seemed as if she wanted to talk to someone about him.

“So you're not going to get after David for having a cell phone,” she said.

“The Ordnung has accepted the use of cell phones by those not yet baptized as well as for limited business use where necessary. Did you think I'd be stricter than the Ordnung?”

Her smile flashed, her dimples appearing and then vanishing. “Well, you are known for taking a fairly rigid interpretation of the rules.”

A loose connection—there it was. He focused on that, but he couldn't quite let go of Barbie's comment.

“I have concerns about cell phones, ja, but people say they want their teenagers to have them for safety's sake. Maybe, if Mary had had one, she could have called for help when she got in trouble.”

That thought bothered him more than he wanted her to know. Neither he nor Daad had even thought about getting a phone for her. Maybe they should have.

He could feel Barbie's gaze studying his face, probing for how he really felt. She made a tiny gesture, as if to reach for him, but drew her hand back quickly.

“I don't think it would have made a difference.” Her voice was soft. “By the time she'd had something to drink . . . well, I'm not sure she'd have called.”

“No.” The word had a bitter taste. “I guess she wouldn't.”

“I'm sorry.” She drew back. “Maybe I should let you get on with the job.”

Now or never. He forced himself to meet her eyes. “Before you go or David comes back, I wanted to say . . . about last night.” This was harder than he'd expected. “I shouldn't have done it. I don't know why I did.”

That wasn't true, was it? He'd kissed her because she attracted him in a way he'd never experienced, even with Donna, and didn't welcome. He didn't want to feel this way, and he didn't know what to do with it.

The silence between them had lasted too long. Barbie wrapped her arms around herself.

“We should forget it.” Her voice was tense, and her eyes suspiciously bright. Before he could find anything to say, she was gone.

Lancaster County, Spring 1960

E
lizabeth
was doing one of the things she enjoyed most—spring cleaning the grossdaadi haus next to her family home with her two sisters. Grossdaadi had been gone for several years, but Grossmammi still loved being a part of everything that went on in the family. She had her own place when she wanted privacy, but all she had to do was open the door and walk through the enclosed porch to be in the house with Mamm and Daadi and whoever else was around.

“It's wonderful simple to spring clean Grossmammi's house,” Anna said, wiping the baseboards energetically. “If my house stayed this clean, I'd have lots and lots of time to do other things.”

“Except for the dirt from the coal furnace.” Lovina was washing around the heating vent, where the white wall was tinged with gray. “And what would you do with all that time anyway?”

“She'd be sewing, I think.” Elizabeth lifted one edge of the
mattress to turn it, and Lovina dropped the rag she was using and came to help her. “Turning out dresses by the dozen.”

“What I can't figure out is whether she likes to make the dresses or to wear them,” Lovina teased.

“No, no, she just likes the material,” Elizabeth said. “Haven't you seen the way she strokes every bolt when we go to the fabric store?”

“That's how I tell if it will be easy to sew. And wear,” Anna added, getting up from her knees. She picked up her bucket and cloth and moved to the next wall to start the baseboard there. “You don't understand. You have to get a feel of the fabric.”

“It's a gut thing you had daughters so you could make some dresses. The boys' clothes aren't as much fun to make,” Lovina said.

Elizabeth felt the familiar twinge in her heart. How she would love to be making clothes for a child of her own right now. But she didn't want her sisters thinking they had to be careful of what they said around her.

“We all know why you put such deep hems in your boys' pants,” she said, keeping her voice light. “You want to keep letting them down as long as you can.”

Lovina chuckled. “My secret is out. Who wants to be sewing another pair of broad-fall pants when I could be quilting?”

Both of Elizabeth's sisters were experts with the needle, and she'd always thought it odd that their passion was so specific. But Lovina just seemed to have an artist's eye for the quilts she made. Her patterns were always traditional, but with a little something different that was her own.

“You're both so talented that you put me to shame.” She
smoothed a clean mattress cover over the mattress of Grossmammi's bed. “I do wish I had a little more space for sewing at Mamm Alice's, though. Whenever I want to cut something out, I have to work around all the other people who want to use the table.”

“It'll be easier when you and Reuben have a place of your own.” Lovina's tone was comforting. “Has he looked at any more places lately?”

“No.”

That came out too sharply, and Lovina glanced at her with that assessing, big-sister look.

“I mean, there haven't been any new places up for sale.” Except far away, where it seemed the farm Reuben wanted would fall right into his hands. “Anyway, he's been busy helping Isaac with the zoning board.”

They were all silent for a moment, as if they mourned something lost. Maybe they did—another good farm lost to development, and another obstacle put in the way of Amish farmers.

“That was a shame, that was,” Lovina said finally. “It seemed like the least they could have done was listen. I heard Isaac did a real fine job explaining.”

“That's what Reuben says.” That was about all Reuben said about it. Sometimes she thought he'd never expected them to succeed.

“Isaac turned wonderful responsible,” Anna said. “I remember thinking a few years ago he'd never settle down, and look at him now, about to become a daadi.”

Elizabeth's fingers froze on the double wedding ring quilt they were pulling up on the bed. She tried to think, but her brain seemed to have gone numb. “What . . . what did you say?”

Lovina and Anna stared at her, and Anna's mouth formed an O of distress. “Elizabeth, I thought you knew.”

“Maybe it was wrong, what we thought,” Lovina said quickly. “We just assumed, from something Becky said before worship on Sunday, that she is expecting. But if you don't know, then we must be mistaken.”

Her brain finally started to work, presenting her with a number of small indications she hadn't even put together, despite living in the same house with Becky. Her late arrivals in the morning, the way she often had just toast at breakfast, even the look in her eyes when she and Isaac were near each other.

Becky, expecting. And she still wasn't.

Somehow she had to put up a good front. “I think you're right,” she managed. “I didn't realize it until you said it, but I think she is expecting.” Her throat was tight. “She and Isaac must be so happy.”

Lovina and Anna exchanged glances. “We shouldn't have spoken,” Lovina said, her voice soft. “It will be you soon. I'm certain-sure of it.”

“Ja.” Elizabeth forced a smile. Becky hadn't told her. Naturally they wouldn't talk about it when the men were around, but women in a family usually shared a secret like this one.

Becky hadn't wanted to upset her, she supposed. But she had to know.

Before she could stop them, tears welled in her eyes. Lovina made a wordless sound of sympathy. She took a step toward her, and Elizabeth shook her head. She had to be by herself for a minute.

“I'll go check on Grossmammi,” she murmured, and fled.

She hadn't thought she'd actually seek out Grossmammi, but found she'd headed straight for her. Grossmammi was one of those people who made you feel better just by being there.

Her grandmother wasn't resting, as they had hoped. She was in the kitchen, heating up two quarts of the beef vegetable soup they'd made and canned for her last fall.

“You must think we are very hungry,” Elizabeth said, forcing a lightness she didn't feel.

“You've been working up an appetite, ain't so?” Grossmammi's faded blue eyes studied her face. “Are your sisters ready for lunch yet?”

“No, I . . . I just wanted to take a little break, and . . .” The words seemed to leave her. She pressed her lips together, shaking her head.

“Tell me.” Grossmammi turned from the stove to put an arm around Elizabeth's waist. “Is it this plan of Reuben's to move on?”

“Ja. No.” She shook her head again. “I try so hard to have faith. To accept what happens as God's will. But now Becky is going to have a boppli. And still I'm barren. Why?”

Grossmammi held her and patted her as if she were a small child. “Ach, we never know the whys in this life, child. Someday we will know.”

Rebellion rose in her. “I would be a gut mammi. And Reuben—he never says anything, but I know he longs for a child as much as I do.”

Grossmammi didn't answer, but Elizabeth felt the love flowing in a healing stream from her touch. When she did speak, her voice was soft. “Do you remember when I gave you my dower chest? You were so young, so happy as you planned
your life with Reuben. And I said to you that the chest would hold a lifetime of memories for you—some gut, some bad.”

Elizabeth nodded. She'd heard, all right, but then she'd been too swept up in her own happiness to listen.

“That's what life is—good and bad, happy and sorrowful, all mixed up together. We don't get to have one without the other, but together they make up a life. And when you near the end of your time, as I do, you know that you would never trade any of them, even the sad ones.” She drew back, cupping Elizabeth's face in her hands. “You don't see it yet, but you will.”

She wouldn't contradict her grandmother, but she didn't see how she could ever accept losing their little Matthias. She sucked in a deep breath, trying to compose herself.

“If Reuben insists on moving, at least I won't have to go through Becky's pregnancy with her,” she muttered.

“Elizabeth.” Grossmammi's tone held a warning. “Don't move on thinking that you can escape life. You can't. But if this move is right, well, then, you must have courage. Think of those who came here. They escaped the persecution in the old country, ja, but they found new challenges here. Still, we're thankful they found the courage to do it.” She smiled and patted Elizabeth's cheek. “Maybe, one day, some of our people will be equally thankful to you and Reuben.”

•   •   •

Barbie
pulled on the top Ashlee handed her, took one look in Ashlee's full-length mirror, and promptly pulled it back off again.

“That looked great,” Ashlee protested. “That coral color is perfect for you.”

“It's not the color.” Barbie slipped the top back onto its
hangar. “It's too snug and too . . . bare.” She thought of the amount of skin exposed by the sweater and felt herself flush at the thought of Terry looking at her in it.

“I wear it.” Ashlee sounded a bit nettled.

“You look great in it.” Barbie hastened to reassure her. “But I just wouldn't be comfortable wearing something like that when I'm used to Amish clothing.”

Ashlee held the top against herself for a moment, looking in the mirror with approval. Then she hung it up and pulled out another—this one in a shade of light aqua that reminded Barbie of the color of a pool deep in the woods.

“Okay, try this.” Ashlee smiled, her good humor restored. “If it works, I'll do your hair.” She glanced at her watch. “We don't have much time if you're going to be ready when Terry gets here.”

Nodding, Barbie slipped the aqua sweater over her head and sucked in her breath with pleasure at the way she looked. The color was perfect, making her cheeks rosier and accentuating her blue eyes. And it was cut modestly enough that she wouldn't be longing to cover herself up all evening.

“Great,” she said. “Isn't it?” She was suddenly doubtful. Would Terry like the way she looked?

Ashlee grinned. “It's perfect. Come into the bathroom. I have the curling iron heated up. We'll make you look like a girl going on a date.”

Barbie unpinned her hair, feeling it ripple down her back, and winced a little as Ashlee approached it with the curling iron.

“Relax,” Ashlee said. “It's not going to hurt.”

“I know. I'm just not used to it.” That was a gigantic understatement. She wasn't used to anything that was going on
tonight. The thought of going out alone with a man—and an Englisch one at that—made her stomach queasy.

To distract herself, she said the first thing that came into her mind. “Did you decide yet about going home for your mother's birthday?”

Ashlee's hand jerked on the curling iron, and it snagged on her hair, pulling.

“Ouch. I thought this wasn't going to hurt.”

“Just don't bug me about my family. I get enough of that from them.”

The snap in her voice had Barbie meeting Ashlee's eyes in the mirror.

“I'm sorry. I didn't mean anything. I just—”

“You just thought I should go home and be nice to my family,” Ashlee interrupted and finished for her. “What is it with you and families?”

Barbie tried to find an answer that would be accurate without further irritating her friend. “The Amish consider the family to be one of the most important parts of our lives. Even when I get irritated by the things they expect, I still don't want to hurt them.”

Ashlee mulled that over for a moment or two, frowning as she concentrated on Barbie's hair. Barbie watched, fascinated, as her straight blond hair began to take on long, loose curls that lay against the soft aqua of the sweater.

“Would they really be all that hurt? From what I hear, lots of Amish young people don't stay Amish. They must be used to it by now.”

“Not lots,” Barbie protested. “I'd guess ninety percent, at least, stay in the faith. And even if there were a lot . . .” She
hesitated, thinking of her mother's words about grieving the one who wasn't there. “My parents already lost my oldest brother when he jumped the fence to the Englisch world. I don't know how they'd stand it if they lost another one.” The familiar weight settled on her heart.

“But your brother's still part of the family, isn't he?”

Barbie felt tears sting her eyes. “He could be, I guess. He wasn't baptized yet when he left.” Ashlee wouldn't understand about the perils of making baptismal vows and then breaking them. “But when he left, he disappeared. It's been years and years, and we haven't heard a thing from him. We don't even know if he's still alive.” Her throat tightened as she thought of James the way she'd seen him last, hugging her fiercely before he'd walked out the door.

Ashlee snapped the curling iron off, frowning. “Haven't your parents tried to find him?”

“How? He hasn't been in touch with anyone, not even the people who'd been his closest friends.”

“There are other ways.” Ashlee drew the brush through Barbie's hair, blending the strands so that it shone in the light, curling softly.

Barbie stared, amazed at the results. “I look like a different person.”

“That's the idea, isn't it? But your brother—if he's living like a normal person now, you could probably find him with a simple Internet search.”

Normal. Did that mean she thought Barbie and her people were abnormal?

“I don't know that that would be a good idea. If he wanted to be found, surely he'd get in touch with us.”

But Ashlee seemed seized with enthusiasm for her idea. She flitted to the sofa and pulled the computer onto her lap.