“Sister?” Cameron scowled, but her eyes held a hint of pleasure.
“Ya, forever and ever, so let’s make the relationship work for us and not against us, okay?”
“Sisters,” Cameron mumbled again, narrowing her eyes as if trying to decide if Ariana was setting her up for something.
“I’m a useful sister to have—not perfect but not a pain on a regular basis. What more could you want?”
“To be an only child?”
“But you didn’t ever have that, did you?”
“I’m my dad’s only child.” Cameron shrugged. “Truth?”
Ariana had no idea what truth Cameron was talking about, but she nodded. “Please.”
“I’ve only seen my mom ten times in the last ten years, once a year, and none of those visits lasted more than a few hours. It’s not supposed to be that way with moms.” She shrugged. “I was four when I met Brandi, five when my dad married her. I was so excited to have a mom. Skylar was ten, and within a few years she started causing trouble, and I’ve been the good daughter ever since. I needed that, but I never realized how much until you came along. Then I heard that your Amish mom didn’t want to let go of you, not even for a month, and you’re grown. And Brandi was willing to sell her soul for time with you, and I…”
“Wanted to make me feel unwelcome and unwanted.”
“I guess. I don’t think I actually knew that was my intention until now.”
Ariana wouldn’t comment on Cameron saying “Brandi was willing to sell her soul,” not right now. But it bothered her. “Friends?”
“Friends.” Cameron scoffed and flopped back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. “What are we, four?” She propped up on her elbows. “What you don’t know about how normal people talk and act is a lot.”
“By normal, you mean fifteen-year-old schoolgirls?”
“That’s right, until I turn sixteen. Then that will be the new fifteen.”
“What?”
Cameron swung her feet back and forth. “You’ve got a lot to learn so that later we can say ‘you’ve come a long way, babe.’ ”
“Right now I’d settle for going a short way—fifty miles, from here to Quill’s place in Mingo.”
“You’re gonna go in your housecoat? I vote for that over the Amish clothes.”
Ariana tossed the now-tagless dress in her lap.
Cameron held it up. “A little schoolmarmish, but better.”
“A little revealing is what it is.”
“This? No way. You know what your problem is?”
“My newest friend?”
“Hey, mess with me, and I’ll turn off the lights, and you’ll be lost in the dark.”
“Uh, it’s daylight.”
“Minor detail.” Cameron stood and held up the cream-colored knit dress that was the same basic style as the one Ariana had worn yesterday. “Okay, back to what your problem is. You have absolutely no sense of style. Wear a belt with it and some boots.”
“No. Why would I do that?”
“It would be cute. Really cute.”
“Clothing isn’t meant to be cute. It’s meant to cover.”
“Says who?”
“The Bible…I think.”
“I don’t think it does.” Cameron shrugged. “I go to church with my friends sometimes, and I haven’t heard anything about that.”
“You go?”
“Some.”
“Could we go together next Sunday?”
“Sure, why not? Let’s go to the Methodist church on Spring Street. I’ve been there before, and it has a youth group that meets during preaching. And there is this one guy who is the cutest—”
“Cameron.” Ariana snatched the dress. “It’s God’s day and His house.”
“So in Summer Grove there aren’t any cute guys who catch your eye during church?”
“Well…” Ariana had liked Sunday church more since Rudy moved to Summer Grove.
“There must be, because you’re blushing.” Cameron pointed her finger at Ariana’s cheek. “We have to get you to be real, which means dumping the hypocrisy.”
“Hypocrisy?”
“You know there are cute guys at church. You even like it. But when I said it out loud, you corrected me. Come on, Ari. Get real.” She held the shoulders of the dress up to Ariana’s shoulders. “Definitely needs a belt and boots. I have both back at the house.”
“I’m fine without that.”
Cameron tapped the toes of her shoes together. “My feet are bigger than yours, so my boots may not fit you, but I bet Brandi’s will.”
“I’m curious. You wanted a mom, were grateful to get one, but you don’t call Brandi Mom. Why is that?”
“I called her Brandi for a year before she married Dad, and it felt right. The name Mom came with lots of hurt feelings for me, so I stuck with calling her Brandi or sometimes Brands.” Cameron pointed at the dress. “More important, you can’t let your culture dictate your wardrobe. We studied about this in school. Some cultures fear women showing any skin, and they strap this heightened sense of overly sexualized thinking onto women so that anything less than a burka is wrong. Chill. Get a new perspective. I’ll help you.”
What had Ariana gotten herself into? “Maybe another time. I need to get ready to go to Mingo, but my car isn’t here.”
“You know the obvious answer, right?”
“Plug the name of the place where my car is into the GPS app and walk there?”
“N-o-o-o. That won’t get me to the park either. Call Brandi. She can chauffeur both of us, and it would make her day. Trust me.”
“Yeah, you’re right. Call her.”
“Not me. She needs you to call her.”
Cameron seemed to understand Brandi and have a connection with her that went beyond that of a typical fifteen-year-old. If Brandi hurt, Cameron wanted to fix it, and in that revelation, for a moment Ariana saw Brandi with a tiny bit of the respect Cameron had for her. Did Cameron know her superhero stepmom was an adulterer? Maybe she did but didn’t care.
Was Brandi aware that Ariana knew about the affair? She eased the phone out and stared at the screen. Was she ready to look Brandi in the eyes and ignore the awkwardness between them? Or would she disappoint herself once again by being an overwrought stone thrower?
Ariana swallowed hard, praying she could see Brandi through Cameron’s eyes of love.
Abram stared at the low-burning fire in the hearth of the living room as he listened to Skylar explain her ideas of what they needed to change about the café.
For the second week in a row, their home didn’t have the usual Sunday feel. Last Sunday had been a church meeting day, but since Skylar had arrived the night before, none of the Brennemans had gone. Today was a between Sunday, and they—the café team—were talking business while the rest of the family had dispersed around the farm. Everything about life felt so different these days.
Susie doodled on a legal pad, and Abram knew her mind was spinning. She’d already skimmed the catalog, checking the prices of the items Skylar suggested they purchase. Now Susie looked like he felt: concerned. But he also knew that Susie was praying for her new sister.
“Does anyone even show up at seven?” Skylar flipped through the catalog Ariana had used to order supplies.
“Not many people at this point,” Martha said. “But we’re trying to stick to what Ariana said would build a customer base.”
“What if she’s wrong? She’s not here to see how it’s going or how exhausted everyone is.” Skylar tapped a specific page in the catalog. “You need an espresso machine, an espresso grinder, a gourmet brewer, and a commercial blender for making frozen espresso drinks.”
“You do know the café doesn’t have electricity, right?” Susie asked.
Skylar blinked. “Is that even legal in this country—serving food in a place without electricity?”
“It’s unusual, not illegal,” Susie said. “Quill rewired the old building, bringing the electrical wiring
up to code, and it passed inspection. So the setup is legal, at least in this state. But everything in the café uses gas, including the refrigerator. If Ariana, as the actual owner, had an Englisch business partner, the church would allow the Englisch co-owner to bring in electricity.”
“That’s weird.”
“It’s a way to hold on to our culture and yet allow Amish-owned small businesses some flexibility. But that would also give the Englisch co-owner a good share of the profits, so it’s not a solution for us.”
Skylar thumped the catalog. “Is that why the barn has that huge generator?”
“Ya, it powers the milkers and runs the refrigeration for the milk tank,” Martha said.
“Would the café be allowed to use a generator?”
“Ya. But everything you’re talking about doing would cost a lot of money.” Abram moved to the fireplace, grabbed the poker, and crouched down. “Odd, really. You’ve yet to set foot in the café, but you have strong and really expensive ideas of what would work better for it.”
“And very Englisch ideas,” Martha added softly.
“Fine.” Skylar held up both hands. “Forget I mentioned anything. But I’m right.”
Susie tapped the pen against the legal pad. “You seem so sure about what needs to be done. Why?”
“My mom loves coffee shops. As far back as I can remember, finding new coffee shops and going to them every Saturday morning was our thing. Apparently I learned a few things without realizing it.”
The room was silent as Abram poked the logs, causing sparks to fly and flames to leap. Was Skylar asking to change the opening time of the café because she wanted to sleep later?
Skylar closed the catalog and tossed it onto the coffee table, looking disinterested. “Do it your way. Exhaust your creative energy getting up superearly six days a week. Serve weak coffee and only the regular kind. Have no breakfast breads. Doesn’t matter to me.”
“The strength of the coffee is my fault,” Martha said. “Ariana wrote down on an index card how to fix it, and I lost it. Her coffee was good, but I’ve been making it like Mamm and Daed do.”
Abram hadn’t realized that they had been using different instructions for the coffee than what Ariana had given.
“It’s not as if your ideas are bad.” He put the poker back in its stand and added a log to the fire. “Some—maybe all—have merit. But we would have to take on debt to purchase the things you’re talking about.”
“It’s an investment,” Skylar said.
“It’s a gamble.” Abram stood.
“You know”—Skylar picked up the catalog again—“one would think the Amish were used to taking gambles. You take your life into your hands to ride in a carriage on the road—no seat belts, no reinforced steel anything, and moving at the pace of a turtle. But apparently buying a commercial blender and coffee machines is over the top.” She held out the book to him. “It’s no skin off my nose whether this café makes it or not.”
Martha flinched. “Are we struggling that much?” Her eyes were large as she looked from Abram to Susie.
“Nee.” Susie shook her head. “I mean, it’s been a rough start. And you know we’ve yet to have our croissants or scones turn out well enough that customers would buy them a second time.”
Skylar held her two fingers as if she had a cigarette between them and tapped them against her thumb. “So let me get this straight. You and Martha are in over your heads, and Abram has quit his day job to help with the café, but all my suggestions are useless?”
Susie rubbed her forehead. “It’s just your ideas are…”
“Different from what Ariana wanted, right?” Skylar asked.
“I was going to say expensive.” Susie looked at her notes. “Everything you’ve mentioned will take several thousand dollars, and that’s if we go with the less expensive versions.”
“Never buy cheap or used equipment for coffee. Your customers will know it first thing.”
Susie looked to Abram. “I guess we could tap into the reserve cash from the benefit.”
“That’s for making sure the bills can be paid in the coming months,” Martha said.
“Ya, I know. But it’s not enough to keep the bills paid until Ariana gets back,” Susie said. “We have to get more people coming in. Right now we have no repeat customers other than Amish friends who would support us if we were serving mud.”
Martha pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “Do you even know anything about making these different sorts of coffee?”
“Apparently more than you know about baking croissants and scones, which actually brings me to another topic. If you can’t do a good job of making what’s on the menu, change the stupid menu.”
Susie’s lips puckered to one side as she looked to Abram. “I think she’s right,” she said, appearing terrified by the idea. “We don’t have to purchase everything at once, but we need to change how we’re doing things, starting with a commercial generator, coffee grinder, and a change of menu.”
Skylar grinned, not really looking happy but more like the cat who’d swallowed the canary.
Abram caught her eye, and she held his gaze. About twelve hours ago she’d asked if they could still use some help in the café, and now she was brimming with ideas about making the café better. Strange, very strange. But Skylar wasn’t holed up in her bedroom, and she was engaged in a positive conversation. That had to count for something.
“Okay.” Abram motioned from Susie to the catalog. “You take a few days to figure out exactly what you need and fill out the form. When that’s done, I’ll get a cashier’s check from the bank and put the order in the mail.”
“Is there an Amish reason you don’t own a debit card? Because if you had one, you could place the order by phone.”
“No Amish reason. We’re just new to having a little money and running a business.”
“Get a debit card, Abram,” Skylar said. “It’ll make life easier. Trust me.”
But that was the question, wasn’t it? Whether or not Skylar could be trusted.
Ariana’s stomach was queasy as the GPS said, “You’ve reached your destination.” A trailer sat fifty feet off the road, but the entire side yard seemed to be a parking lot, and it was filled with vehicles. Was she really going to do this? Thoughts of how well things had gone with Cameron came to mind. If she and Cameron could clear the air and choose to be friends, surely she and Quill could.
She pulled in and turned off her car.
A woman emerged from one of the vehicles. Was Ariana at the right place? The trailer wasn’t very big. How could five brothers live here?
Ariana stepped out of her car. “Excuse me?”
The woman had opened the trunk and one of the car’s back doors and was doing something, but she didn’t seem surprised by Ariana’s presence. “Yeah?” She lifted a child out of the car and put the adorable blond-haired, blue-eyed boy on her hip. The little one caused Ariana to miss her nieces and nephews, that is, Skylar’s nieces and nephews. Pushing that heartache aside, she tried to stay in the moment.
“Hi. I’m not sure I’m at the right place. Does Quill live here?” Ariana asked.
“He does, but I don’t think he’s here right—”
Ariana thought she heard a door opening, but she couldn’t see around the open trunk of the car.
“Honey,” a man said, “you need a hand?”
“Please. Is Quill here?”
“He’s on a run,” the man said.
Quill was a runner? Did Ariana actually know anything about him?
“Ah.” The woman shrugged. “One never knows how many miles he’ll log.” She appeared disinterested in who Ariana was and why she’d come. Was it an everyday thing for a young woman to come looking for him? Seemed like it.
Quill’s golden retriever came toward Ariana from the direction of the trailer, wriggling with excitement.
“Hey, Lexi.” Ariana rubbed her ears, and Lexi licked the sleeves of
her coat.
“Ah, she knows you.” The woman sounded curious now, and she gestured toward the trailer. “He’s stopped carrying his phone with him on his runs, so I can’t reach him. But you’re welcome to wait.”
A man came around the side of the car, strolling into view. He wasn’t just any man. He was the drunk who’d stumbled into Berta’s home maybe two years ago, thinking it was his own. His eyes met Ariana’s, and he froze.
The pieces fit now. He hadn’t been a confused drunk. He was one of the Schlabach brothers.
The woman studied them, looking from Ariana to the man and back to Ariana. “So you two know each other?”
“Ariana,” the man said as if announcing it to a crowd.
The woman’s eyes widened, and her curiosity seemed to turn into surprise. “Oh.” She motioned. “I’m making lasagna. Please join us for dinner.”
Respond to her. But Ariana couldn’t. All her energy was focused on the man in front of her. If he was a Schlabach, he and Berta had worked together that day to trick her. Ariana had watched out for Berta for five years after Quill disappeared, and she’d learned only two months ago that Berta’s sons had occasionally visited her during those years.
The Schlabach brothers needed to choose a side and be bold about it. Either live Amish or leave the Amish alone.
Ariana’s mouth was dry. “You are…”
“Dan.”
“Berta’s oldest.”
He nodded. “I can explain about the day I was in Mamm’s house.”
Movement near the trailer caught her attention. At the foot of the steps to the trailer were three men, three women, and several children. Quill’s brothers, no doubt. Until this moment they’d felt more like a myth than real people, but there they stood with the women who loved them and the children who relied on them.
How many other deceitful, somewhat embarrassing stories about her did they know that she didn’t? Her ears pulsated to the beat of her heart, and if she was going to control her response, she had to say something. “I…I just…need a minute. Okay?”
“Sure.” His eyes showed respect and understanding.
She hated to turn her back to them, but she had to, taking in deep breaths while looking skyward. Had she played the fool for Berta? After Dan had startled her that day, she’d spent months worrying that the drunk might return when Berta was alone. Ariana had asked her brother-in-law to install better locks, which he did, and she started going by Berta’s more often.
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