Love in Unlikely Places

by Linda Byler

From a distance, she could hear the ocean emptying itself on the sand, then taking it all back in an undercurrent, ambitiously rear-ranging shells and bars of sand. The ocean was like a busy housewife, going about its duties every day, working to ensure that life went on for its creatures as smoothly as God intended.

  She turned to the right and saw an immense house, also on poles, which she had learned were called piles. Driven into the sand by powerful equipment, into the sturdy foundation of earth or rock, they held the entire house away from storm surges. The house was being unclothed, the old siding half torn away. If they were planning on the renovation being complete by September, someone had better get started.

  She heard the low hum of a diesel engine, watched as a white double cab pickup truck pulled up to the structure. It was a schrina truck, one of the construction vehicles common in Amish settlements. Driven by an English person, they were how contractors got to and from work. As farming became more difficult, with low milk prices and the inability to compete on account of horse-drawn, old-fashioned, steel-wheeled equipment, the younger men took to construction work. It was an acquired skill, but the traditional Amish work ethic was in high demand.

  She thought how this schrina truck was not filled with Amish men, the way many of them were at home.

  She flattened herself against the side of the house, not wanting to appear curious like the proverbial nosy neighbor. Bid she was, she thought with a low chuckle.

  The driver wore loose shorts, a T-shirt and a cap. He was an older man, his beard graying along the sides. A second man emerged, younger, wearing a straw wide-brimmed hat . . .

  What?

  It surely couldn’t be. Not an Amish man. Not here by the ocean!

  Both back doors of the cab were flung open, disgorging three young men that stretched and yawned, held coffee cups, those essential insulated travel mugs that were like a growth from a construction worker’s hands.

  Emma’s heart was pounding now. She sidled back, away from their scrutiny. She did not want to be seen. She was embarrassed to be spying on them, but her curiosity was intense.

  Two of the workers were barely old enough to be on the job, legally, she bet. Skinny, with their hair cut short, they were dressed in the broadfall pants of the Amish, but were wearing T-shirts. They were soon chasing one another through the sand, rolling and tumbling like half-grown puppies, the older Amish man turning to watch, laughing.

  And then . . .

  He came around from the other side of the truck, opened the door of the truck cap, began to retrieve tools of some kind. All she remembered later was that he was tall, sturdy, with blond hair, disheveled, long. No beard, although he was easily old enough.

  An older single man. An Amish single man.

  Oh great, she thought. And went inside, opening the sliding glass door too quickly, her uneasiness sending it back against the frame with a dull thud.

  “You’re up!”

  Roger stood at the counter, the strange black bulk of some electric device gurgling coffee into a single mug. The smell was so wonderful, Emma had to restrain herself from grabbing it.

  “Good morning, Emma.”

  “Good morning.”

  “I hope you slept well.”

  “Of course. The bed is very comfortable.”

  A lie, in a white sort of way, but still . . . She had slept well once she finally dozed off.

  “Coffee?”

  “Please. It smells wonderful.”

  She watched as he took the little cup (without opening it, she noted), lifted the black lid, inserted the cup, punched a button after setting the mug in place, and turned to smile at her.

  “K-Cups. The greatest.”

  Emma smiled back. “I’ve noticed them at grocery stores. I wondered what they were.”

  “Seriously?”

  Emma smiled. “I’m Amish.” Shrugged her shoulders.

  “You don’t actually have electricity in your house?”

  “No. Although we have battery-powered lamps. Actually, battery-powered almost everything if we want. Some things change from time to time.”

  Roger smiled.

  Emma’s eyes kept wandering to the east windows.

  “Your construction crew arrived.”

  “Oh. Already?”

  “Looks like it.”

  Roger went to the master bedroom to talk to Kathy, then pushed his feet into the brown sandals by the door and let himself out, saying, “Help yourself to a bagel there on the counter.”

  Emma thought Kathy might make an appearance after her husband’s visit, but everything remained quiet. Unsure whether to open the refrigerator door to look for creamer, she sipped the black coffee, her eyes going to the east window.

  Roger and the older man stood on the back deck, deep in conversation.

  An orange and yellow lift with wide tires set far apart was crawling over the sand, the arm extended to allow one of the youthful workers to climb in.

  The whole apparatus was driven by . . . him.

  As the lift advanced, she had a fairly good view of his profile. She turned away.

  She felt the cloud of desolation, of discouragement settle around her, the sight of that tanned face with the short wide nose, the perfect mouth like forbidden territory, but one that beckoned with all the allure of an unexplored landscape.

  What if it happened again?

  She found herself weak-kneed, having to sit down. She knew what she had experienced at the window, knew the perils it held. Only once she had been in love, an attraction that turned her world upside down with its cruelty.

  Never again, she vowed.

  She sipped her coffee, got up, and went to the window. She was unable to stop herself from one more look, one more curious glance to cement the fact that he was heart-stoppingly attractive.

  He was standing beside the lift, looking directly at the window where she stood, a quizzical expression on his face. Their eyes met, and Emma turned away, vanished behind the white curtain, hoping he had not seen enough to recognize her as an Amish girl.

  When Kathy made a sleepy appearance at the door of her bedroom, Emma was trying hard to regain her usual calm. She actually stood toward the middle of the living room so Kathy wouldn’t guess at her curiosity at the window.

  Another K-Cup was inserted, another steaming cup produced, and together they stood looking out the sliding glass door to the now waving grasses and the glistening light on the restless water.

  “Lovely, isn’t it?” Kathy remarked.

  “It’s quite unreal. I have never been here, of course, but I find it hard to comprehend. The vast area of water is hard to imagine.”

  Kathy smiled contentedly, sipped her coffee, and said that was the reason they were putting everything into the renovation next door. She and Roger would grow old by the ocean, together.

  CHAPTER 5

  BREAKFAST WITH THE CHILDREN WAS A LESSON IN PATIENCE. BRENT ATE A bowl of cereal, drank his juice, and went to the living room to watch cartoons, while Emma tried every tactic, everything she had ever learned as a teacher, to get Annalise to eat or drink.

  Kathy was over at the house, having left clear instructions about the children’s breakfast, their vitamins and juice.

  But Annalise wanted none of it. Not that cereal. Or this one. No oatmeal. She hated bagels. She wanted potato chips and candy canes.

  Candy canes? In May?

  Emma decided to be firm. She poured milk on a bowl of Rice Krispies and placed it in front of her, along with a cup of juice and the gummy vitamin, then sat beside her and stayed there.

  It made no difference what Emma tried, Annalise would not eat. Emma told her to listen for the snap, crackle, and pop, she tried telling her a story about a child who never ate, she tried asking her sweetly and then asking her firmly to take a bite. Annalise simply sat in in the booster seat, kicking her feet and refusing to eat.

  Emma felt a moment’s panic. These people had been so sure she was a good choice, and here she was,
helpless in the face of one strong-willed little two-year-old.

  “Anna, look. If you don’t want the Rice Krispies, can we go on the porch and give them to the seagulls?”

  “No.” She shook her head vehemently.

  “Then you’ll have to hurry up and eat them.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  Which meant she wouldn’t do it.

  Emma glanced at the window, afraid Kathy would return to find her incompetence in full display, her daughter without breakfast.

  No bagel, no toast, no cereal.

  Which left eggs. She remembered her mother’s treat when they were sick. An egg in a nest. It was worth a try.

  “Why don’t we try making an egg in a nest?” Emma asked. “You can sit here on the countertop and watch while I make it.”

  Without asking, she helped the child from the booster seat, settled her a good distance away from the stove, and proceeded to show her the first step, which was to cut a hole in the middle of a slice of whole wheat bread.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, sliding closer.

  She showed her how the remaining toast was buttered on both sides, placed on a pan, and an egg broken carefully into the hollowed out center, the heat turned low until everything was cooked to a golden brown. A sprinkle of salt, and it was set before her with a child’s knife and fork.

  Annalise said the egg was for Charlie Brown, but she’d eat the toast, which is what she did, cutting miniature bites with the dull knife and spearing it with her fork.

  She was eating, which left Emma sighing with relief, and tackling the bowl of soupy Rice Krispies herself.

  “You’re eating the seagull’s breakfast,” Annalise said, but laughed amiably.

  “They can have the rest of my bagel,” Emma answered.

  Annalise nodded, smiled, steadily eating her way through most of the egg in a nest. She brought Charlie Brown to her plate and bent her head low to ask in a confidential tone whether he was hungry this morning.

  “He will eat this, but he needs more salt.”

  Emma obeyed, sprinkling a bit of salt on the egg, and was gratified to see it disappear in very small but consistent bites.

  Brent returned to the kitchen to ask what he could smell.

  “An egg in a nest,” Annalise informed him airily.

  “What is that?” he asked.

  So Emma was making one for Brent when the parents reappeared, both tanned, slight, dressed in shorts and T-shirts, their hair disheveled, but somehow exuding an air of being well dressed, comfortable in their own skin. It was a sense of knowing they had accomplished much in their young lives and were about to tackle another worthy project.

  “Mm!” Kathy said, sniffing the air.

  “Someone is cooking breakfast,” Roger said, rubbing his stomach.

  This is how Emma was introduced to her role as a cook, along with keeping the beach house spotless. There was a grocery list to keep up, the laundry, and the child care, so Emma’s forenoon was taken up by instructions, then the job of carrying them out.

  She hadn’t bargained for the cooking. Nothing had ever been said on the subject, and she’d imagined their taste in food would be too gourmet, too classy for her, but this was not the case. She had found many food items from Aldi or Costco or the Great Value brand from Wal-Mart as she unpacked the boxes and bags of grocery items.

  Well, everyone had their own way of budgeting money, no matter how much or how little they had available, and it was certainly none of her business.

  So there would be meals to plan with a limited amount of resources. She longed for her mother’s cookbooks, the stained recipe box containing the dog-eared recipes that had been used over and over. She thought wistfully of the basement shelves filled with an array of colorful jars, the freezer filled with beef, chicken, and pork, most of it butchered on the farm in winter.

  Grimly, she read labels. Strange grains, pastas, sauces.

  What was hummus? Quinoa? Couscous? She was expected to cook this stuff? Seriously?

  Well, they’d eaten the eggs and toast, called it grilled instead of toasted, pronounced it delicious, so she was off to a good start.

  She tidied the living room, where both children remained, watching their shows, then cleaned the kitchen before the clock showed the arrival of lunchtime, or the hour before when she would have to think of something to serve. What would tempt the picky Annalise, as well as both parents?

  Almost, she wished she had not taken the opportunity to be a nanny. They had not mentioned the cooking part until she was safely placed in the center of this white kitchen and all its confusing gadgets. She felt as if each one was glaring at her with a worldly malevolence, daring her to try to figure it all out.

  As if on cue, there was an outraged howl from the vicinity of the living room.

  “No! I don’t want to watch the Minions!” Annalise was shouting at her brother.

  Emma decided it was best to stay out of it, which was the very moment Kathy came pounding up the steps to the back deck, her face flushed with animation, ready to spill her morning’s plans the minute she opened the back door.

  “I don’t know how we lucked into this construction crew,” she trilled.

  “They are wonderful. They say by next weekend the siding and windows should be replaced and they’ll be ready to gut the interior.”

  She placed her hands in the position of prayer.

  “I hope and pray Daniel can get along with the architect we hired.”

  Since Emma knew nothing about this kind of thing, she kept her thoughts to herself while smiling and nodding. When Kathy emerged from the bathroom, she waved a hand and told her not to worry about lunch for her and Roger, they were involved next door, and if she wanted, she could pack a lunch and spend the afternoon on the beach with the children.

  “Brent?” she called.

  “What?”

  His small form appeared at the door, a question in his eyes.

  “Do you want to go spend the afternoon on the beach with Emma?”

  A leap of pure exuberance was followed by a shriek and a dash to his sister who eyed him with disinterest, a thumb in her mouth and an elephant dangling over one arm.

  “Pack a few bottles of water, a few juice boxes. They won’t eat sandwiches but they’ll eat a few slices of the deli ham. Cheese popcorn and these.”

  She set a box of granola bars on the counter.

  “That will hold them over till dinner.”

  Dinner? Oh, that was the evening meal. Supper.

  “Swimsuits . . . you unpacked them. Sunscreen. Apply it before you go out and every two hours. I know . . .” She waved a hand. “They say you don’t have to, but I won’t take chances. I don’t want my children exposed to the harmful rays. You know, the old hole in the ozone.”

  Emma thought of days in the produce fields with the heat of the sun beating down, never thinking of sunscreen or harmful rays. Perhaps the sun was different by the ocean, or perhaps there was more of the body exposed to the rays that were potentially harmful.

  “So, plenty of sunscreen, and you know the rest. They are not allowed in the water at all unless they hold your hand, and then I want you to stay at the water’s edge. Don’t let them feed the gulls. Watch for jellyfish or horseshoe crabs washing ashore. And most important. Do not let them out of your sight.”

  Neon letters flashed through her bewilderment. She definitely would not let them out of her sight. But what was this about jellyfish and horseshoe crabs? She had read about both, of course. Had seen pictures. But did they really wash up on the beach?

  Her list of frightening experiences was becoming quite lengthy, indeed. Dinner to plan without recipe books or the usual amount of home-canned or frozen food. Weird creatures afloat in that restless water. Sunburn on little bodies. The man next door.

  Kathy left with two granola bars and two diet sodas.

  Emma had no trouble getting both children into their swimsuits, then donned her own olive green o
ne piece suit. She thought of wearing the white cover up for the walk to the water’s edge, but decided against it, with the construction crew next door.

  Perhaps she should. It would serve as a disguise, and he would have no idea she was anyone he would want to become interested in. That was a good thought, she decided, and hung her pale blue dress on a hook, pushed her feet into an old pair of flip-flops and went downstairs.

  Brent and Annalise took no notice of her change in appearance, merely looked at her without comment and walked or danced, either one appropriate on your way to the beach, evidently.

  A large straw hat completed the disguise, so the walk to the water’s edge was without discomfort. Swimming had always been a part of the family’s life, the farm pond cleaned and disinfected with chemicals each year, the children diving, tubing, and paddle boating their way around it. They had picnics, late-night campfires, races, volleyball, family gatherings down at the pond, so swimming was certainly nothing new.

  Many conservative Amish would not swim at all, and certainly not with brothers or fathers, or men in general, but there were others who were more liberal and thought nothing of it. Emma’s family was among those who enjoyed many forms of recreation, including the water in the pond, or spending an occasional long weekend at a cabin on the lake in New York.

  The sun was like a hot blanket thrown across her shoulders and down her arms. She might have to think twice about sunscreen. The children scampered ahead like young puppies, stopped to hang from the wooden railing, flop back on their feet, and race ahead.

  Emma cringed, thinking of splinters.

  Here on the grass, the scent of salty mud, black muck, and brine was even thicker. She loved the smell of it, the salt and wet earth repulsive in a good way. Fishy. Sea smells.

  She smiled, breathed deeply. Whatever she would have to face would surely be leveled evenly by the sheer pleasure of being in this wonderful place.

  The sand was surprisingly hot. A dozen steps and Emma experienced real pain on the soles of her feet. She stopped, reached into her canvas tote, and quickly put the flip-flops back on her feet.

  Driftwood and clumps of the yellowish grass gave way to a wide expanse of beach, dotted with an array of bright umbrellas like artificial flowers. Small groups of beachgoers gathered around them, while children raced and shrieked at the water’s edge, with doting grandparents that hovered like anxious gulls. Some of the more daring adults swam out so far they bobbed like corks in calmer waters, having dived through the stronger waves closer to shore.