Ben didn’t know about that. Like as not, friends who walked into houses without knocking would stop getting invited over.
“How nice to see you both,” Esther said, even though Ben couldn’t see any reason why that might be true. All Cathy did was complain about her health, and all Linda did was laugh at people and make boys feel uncomfortable when she smiled at them.
Linda’s eyes danced with a light all their own. He couldn’t decide if it was because she was happy to see him or she just found him amusing. But she was like that with everybody. She smiled and laughed more than her fair share. “I hope you don’t mind that we came over, Esther,” she said. She set a canvas bag on the table. “I went to Ben’s house, and they told me he was here.”
Cathy sighed. “It was a wild goose chase, but I promised Linda I’d get her here, no matter the inconvenience. I’m not one to refuse when someone has a health emergency.”
Esther paused with the spoon halfway to Winnie’s lips. “A health emergency? Is someone sick?”
Cathy pointed to Ben. “Linda’s been concerned.”
Linda was concerned about him? Why? He cleared his throat. He didn’t need to get worked up. Linda was concerned for his soul, like Mamm and Dat and everyone in the gmayna. She certainly wasn’t concerned for him as a person or for him in particular.
Linda pulled some small glass bottles from her bag. “Ben has been having headaches and nausea since he quit smoking. I feel bad for him, so Mamm gave me some essential oils to try.”
“How nice of you,” Esther said.
Ben eyed her skeptically. “They won’t work.”
Linda, of course, wasn’t offended. “They’ll work. My aendi Luann got pregnant using essential oils. My cousin Vernon was cured of asthma.”
Ben crossed his arms and shook his head. “Don’t believe it.”
Linda laughed. “Ach, if I didn’t have to drag you kicking and screaming, this would be much easier, but I don’t mind dragging.” She pulled a package of chocolate chips from her bag. “If the essential oils don’t work, we can always try chocolate.”
Ben tried to snatch the package from her hand, but she held it out of reach and pressed her palm against his chest to keep him from lunging forward. A warm sensation radiated from the spot where she touched him, as if her hand was a heater and he was a piece of ice. Then his heart started acting funny, like a skittish horse trying to escape its pen only to run full speed into a wall. If she noticed how wildly his pulse was racing, she didn’t say anything. Since when did chocolate make him that tense?
Linda set the chocolate chips on the table. “Chocolate later. If you like, we can make cookies. Right now I’m going to brew you some tea and see if we can’t help that cough.”
“I drink a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar every morning,” Cathy said. “It’s sour, and it makes my bladder hurt, but it’s supposed to be good for you.”
Linda gave Ben a sideways grin. Cathy had no problem talking about her bladder anytime she wanted to. Her bladder, her arthritis, her varicose veins, and her hysterectomy. What was it they said about friends who could tell you anything, no matter how private? They stopped getting invited over.
“First,” Linda said, pulling a small glass tube from her bag. She took the cap off and came at Ben as if she was going to paint his face. He backed away. “Ben, stop it. I’m going to give you some aromatherapy.”
“I don’t know what that is, but it sounds dangerous and completely unnecessary.”
“It’s not dangerous,” Linda said, slapping his hands away and backing him into the wall. Her aggravated smile gave way to laughter, and Ben couldn’t help but laugh with her. With her this time. They must have looked ridiculous, Ben trying to avoid getting killed by her essential oils and Linda trying to force him to be still. “Ben,” she scolded between giggles, “stop moving.” She expelled all the air from her lungs in a deep, deafening sigh and handed him the tube. “Smell it. It won’t hurt you.”
“You might be trying to poison me.”
“I am not trying to poison you, though sometimes I’m sorely tempted.” She folded her arms and shook her head. “You and your Englisch friends,” she muttered.
So she was mad that he’d left her on the golf course that day. He studied her face. Maybe mad was too strong a word. She seemed more aggravated, as if he hadn’t hurt her feelings as much as he’d done something stupid she had already forgiven him for, as if there wasn’t anything he could do that would make her hate him. As if she was a friend who would stick by him, no matter what he did to offend her.
There it was again, the warm sensation right in the center of his chest, the heart palpitations, the clenching of his gut. What was going on?
“Well, try it,” Linda said.
What was it she had asked him to do? He couldn’t for the life of him remember. It was just too easy to jump into those blue eyes and go swimming. He cleared his throat, gathered his wits, and reminded himself how judgmental Linda was. It didn’t matter the color of her eyes. He raised the tube to his nose and took a short whiff. “It smells like oranges.”
She nodded as if he’d just paid her a compliment. “Jah. It’s orange and cedarwood oil. If you apply it behind your ears and on your throat, that will help the headaches.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“Try,” she said, the annoyance building in her voice. She took the tube from him. “Ach, vell. You don’t have to believe they’ll work for them to work. Let me do it.”
With Cathy and Esther looking on, he couldn’t very well run away without looking stupid. But putting some smelly oils behind his ears would also look pretty stupid. Which would make him look less stupid? Which would keep Linda from laughing at him? “Okay. You can do it, but just this once.”
Her smile could have lit up every house in Byler. “I’m giving you this whole bottle. You can go home and put it on in secret as many times as you need. No one has to know.” She sidled closer, put a hand on his shoulder, and nudged his chin to the left. Her skin was warm and soft against his face. He sucked in a breath. “Don’t worry. It’s not going to hurt,” she said. “It has a little roller ball, so you can roll the oils right onto your skin.”
Linda’s hand crept farther up his shoulder as she took the bottle, tipped it on its side, and slid the roller up and down behind his ear. Her warm breath tickled his cheek and played at the short hairs on his neck. At the intimacy of this simple movement, his stomach tightened and his pulse raced out of control. Ben gritted his teeth and focused on Cathy, with her yellow pantsuit and bladder problems. It was a helpful distraction.
Linda scooted around to his other side and applied the oil behind his other ear. The second ear wasn’t as bad as the first because Ben’s attention was firmly focused on Yellow Cathy and those chocolate chips sitting on the table. He liked chocolate chip cookies. He liked chocolate. The beads on Cathy’s necklace looked like pieces of candy. Where had Cathy purchased that pantsuit?
Linda moved so she was face-to-face with Ben, which prevented him from staring at Cathy. “How does that feel?”
He wanted to resist, but it felt gute, oh so gute. “Um . . . ach . . . I don’t know. It smells gute, I guess.”
Without even checking to see if it was okay, she curled her fingers around the back of his neck and rolled the bottle back and forth across his throat. He swallowed hard and resisted the urge to clamp his eyes shut. Was she purposefully trying to make him lose all sense of reason?
Finally, mercifully, regrettably, she pulled away and smiled at him. “Now, just give that a few minutes. Lord willing, it will help. I’m going to make you some tea. It will clear out your lungs.”
Esther gazed at Ben with a funny, twitchy smile on her face. “How do you feel?”
He didn’t know how he felt, and that was the honest truth. “It’s not going to help.”
Linda rolled her eyes. “Whatever you say, Mr. Know-It-All.”
He did feel like sitting down. He sat betwe
en Cathy and Esther where he had a full view of Linda at the stove warming the teakettle. “What kind of tea are you making?”
“Peppermint and lemon with honey. I’ll make it nice and strong.”
Esther stared at him as if she was trying to read his mind. He needed to divert her attention from him and whatever she was looking for in his face. “It wonders me if Cathy could use some tea for her asthma.”
He didn’t need to say more. Cathy launched into a speech about her asthma and the drugs she was currently taking for it and how the doctors just wanted your money. Unfortunately, Esther didn’t stop her scrutiny. Her wide gaze never left his face, and her lips never stopped twitching. Had she been able to hear his heart pounding? Had she noticed his labored breathing? He should have asked Esther about Winnie or her apricot tree. It was too easy to sit in silence and think deep thoughts when Cathy talked about her problems.
As soon as the water boiled, Linda poured it into a cup with a few drops of peppermint oil, a few of lemon, and a spoonful of honey. She stirred her concoction and set it on the table for Ben. He lifted the cup to his lips, and the peppermint made his eyes water before he even tasted it. He took a sip, being careful not to burn his tongue, and the hot liquid traveled down his throat. He immediately started coughing, as if his body had rejected the tea and everything Linda had given him.
“That’s gute,” Linda said. “The tea will loosen that cough and help clear the cigarette smoke from your lungs.”
Ben cracked a smile. “You think you’re so smart.”
Linda took it as a compliment. “Denki. I am.”
It wasn’t the Amish way to appreciate a compliment. Ben found her confidence refreshing.
After Ben finished his tea, he didn’t feel quite so antsy, but he wasn’t ready to say it was because of the essential oils. It might have been because Cathy had so many health problems, his didn’t seem so bad. Cathy made him feel better just by wearing that pantsuit. Yellow was a cheery, healing color.
Esther wiped up Winnie and the highchair and left to put Winnie down for a nap. Winnie insisted on giving Ben a goodbye kiss. Ben kissed her cheek and caressed the top of her head. He’d never get over how soft her hair was.
Linda washed the few dishes while Cathy gave Ben a rundown of her mole surgery and showed him her scar. Linda finished wiping the counter. “Do you want to make cookies?”
For some reason, making cookies with Linda sounded more fun than listening to Wally’s boom box or tipping over outhouses or even hearing about Cathy’s moles. “Jah, okay.”
“I’ll help,” Cathy said. “Even though I can’t eat them because of the gluten and sugar.”
Ben’s enthusiasm crashed like a bee against a picture window.
Linda’s smile faltered. “Okay. The three of us.” She set a mixing bowl on the table. “Ben, you have the muscles, so you can stir.” Her eyes sparkled. “But I warn you, it’s a hard job.”
He pretended to take offense. “Do you think that’s all I’m good for is the heavy lifting?”
“Nae. I don’t doubt but you’re good for a far sight more.” The way she said it made his heart skitter around in his chest. Oy, anyhow, what was in that tea she’d given him?
“Too bad you Amish don’t use electricity,” Cathy said. “This would be easier with my KitchenAid.”
Linda pulled four sticks of butter from her bag, unwrapped them, and plopped them into the bowl. Then she measured the sugar, two cups of white sugar and two of brown.
Ben chuckled. “These are going to be wonderful gute cookies.”
Her fingers brushed against his when she handed him a tool he’d never seen before. “You need to blend the butter and sugar together. This is a pastry cutter. Do you know how to use it?”
He examined it for a couple of seconds. It had a handle with six hard steel prongs attached to it on either side of the handle. “I think I can figure it out.” He pressed the prongs into the butter, which separated into sections. “Like this?”
She looked up, and it was a little disconcerting how close her face was to his. “I knew you were smart.”
Did she have any idea how those five words affected his breathing? Or how the smell of her hair made his heart race?
“He’s smart enough,” Cathy said, “even if he doesn’t always act like it.” Cathy peered into the bowl. “You really should cut down on your sugar, Linda. This much sugar will give you diabetes before you’re thirty. And all that butter will clog your arteries.”
Linda finished measuring out the sugar. “People crave sugar when they go off cigarettes. These cookies are for Ben.”
“She’s trying to kill me slowly,” Ben said. He grinned at Linda so she knew he was teasing, but he didn’t have to do that. She thought everything was a joke. But it was nice of her to think of him. Linda was usually more the practical type than the thoughtful type.
Ben mixed the butter and sugar together, and Linda handed him a giant spoon. “Start stirring,” she said. “And don’t stop until I tell you.”
“How long will that take?”
She laughed. “Hours and hours.”
“Hmm,” he said, pretending to think about it. “Can I take time out to go to the bathroom?”
A giggle burst from Linda’s lips. “We’ll see how hard you work. Slackers don’t get bathroom breaks.”
Cathy cracked an egg into Ben’s bowl. “I have to take bathroom breaks or I’ll get a bladder infection.”
Neither Ben nor Linda could stifle their amusement. Ben had to step away from the table as his laughter turned into a fit of coughing. Linda pounded on his back as if to keep him from choking, but it was mostly to cover her own laughter. Cathy probably wouldn’t appreciate their mirth at her expense.
Four eggs went into the bowl, and Ben mixed them with the sugar and butter. “I hope you notice what a wonderful-gute job I’m doing.”
Linda watched him stir. “You might get that bathroom break after all, but don’t get too confident. We haven’t got to the hard part yet.”
“Now I’m scared,” he said.
“You should be.”
Esther came into the kitchen. “Thank Derr Herr, she’s finally asleep.” She propped her hands on her hips. “Are you finding everything you need, Linda?”
“Jah. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Of course not.”
Cathy sprinkled a teaspoon of baking soda into the bowl. “I’m glad my arthritis isn’t as bad today so I can help with the cookies. I’m good at making treats. My gluten-free cake is to die for.”
Esther shifted her gaze from Ben to Linda to Cathy. Her lips started doing that twitching thing again. “Cathy, it wonders me if you could help me with my quilt in the front room.”
“I saw it on the frames,” Cathy said. “I’m not fond of your color combination, but it’s your quilt so I guess you can choose. Did you use the cut-away method?”
“Yes I did. Will you take a few stitches?”
Cathy glanced at Ben’s bowl. “I’d love to quilt, Esther, but these two will ruin the cookies without my help.”
“We’ll be fine,” Linda said.
Esther put her arm around Cathy’s shoulder. “You’re a very good cook, Cathy, but you’re an even better quilter. Come, and I’ll show you how I did the appliqué.”
Cathy hesitated, obviously torn between being desperately needed in two places. “Okay, Esther. I’ll help you. I suppose I can monitor for burning cookies from the front room.”
“I suppose you can,” Esther said. She led Cathy out of the kitchen and into the living room.
Linda’s face was just barely wide enough for her smile. “We’re on our own. Are you up for the challenge?”
Ben laughed. So far his biggest challenge had been trying not to sniff at Linda’s hair. “I’m ready.”
Linda measured out four cups of flour and poured them into Ben’s bowl. Her eyes flashed with delight. “Now for the hard part.” She poured in five cups of oatmeal, one by one, m
aking the dough very hard to stir. She opened the bag of chocolate chips. “Open wide,” she said. She moved one step away from him and threw a chocolate chip at his open mouth. She missed and caught him in the forehead. The chocolate chip bounced to the floor.
“You’re a terrible shot,” he said. “Let me.” He grabbed a handful of chocolate chips out of the bag, popped three in his mouth, and tossed one in Linda’s direction. It sailed past her head and plinked against the fridge.
“Now who’s the terrible shot?” She retrieved another chocolate chip and launched it at his open mouth.
It hit him hard on the cheek. “Ouch. Stop that.” She wound up as if to throw another one, and he grabbed both her hands and pressed them against his chest, laughing so hard his gut ached. “Stop, stop. You’re going to take out my eye.”
Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how he wanted to look at it, Linda’s hair was mere inches away from his nose, and he couldn’t resist the urge to smell her. And then there was the feel of her hands, like smooth silk, tucked into his, as if they belonged there, and the brilliant color of her eyes, which he wanted to gaze into all day long without even taking time out for meals. It was a very unfamiliar sensation.
Instead of struggling to break free, her whole body stilled, as if she could read his mind and was trying to decide if she approved or not. “I think,” she said slowly. “I think it’s more about who’s catching than who’s throwing.”
“Huh?” was all he could say. He had been concentrating so hard on her lips, he hadn’t been paying attention to what she’d said.
She cleared her throat and nudged herself away from him. He didn’t want her to move, but for sure and certain it made it easier to understand what she was saying. “The person . . .” She took a deep breath. “The person catching the chocolate chip has to try to catch it.”
“Okay?” Ben said, elongating the syllables so it took him like ten minutes to say the word.
Linda’s smile was more normal now. “Throw one at me. But toss it in the air so there’s a nice arc. Then I can get under it and catch it.”
Ben should have thought of that. He and Levi used to play this game with M&Ms when they were little. M&Ms, or pebbles if they didn’t have anything else. “I swallowed a rock once when I was a kid.”
The Amish Quiltmaker's Unruly In-Law Page 10