Whoopie Pie Secrets

by Rebecca Price

  “Gary, Indiana?”

  “Yeah, says there’s a girl who makes the best Whoopie pies in the state, but she was moving out of...hey, that isn’t you, is it?”

  “Well, I can hardly presume to say, but...”

  “My buddy says these pies have...”

  “Mint” we both say at once. “That’s my grandmother’s innovation, it’s my signature twist.”

  Jessup’s eyes light up. “Well, I’ve been wanting to try one of those pies since...” But Lilly’s angry stare cuts him off, choking and coughing. To finish, he looks back at me with, “I ... I’m not partial to pies myself.”

  “I see.” I turn to Lilly. “Perhaps you’d like to try some?”

  Lilly smiles rudely. “I’m allergic to mint.”

  “Well, we all have to know our limitations,” I say before turning back to Jessup. “If you ever develop a taste, don’t hesitate to stop by.”

  He nods and I do the same, before turning and crossing back toward our booth. I hear Jessup say to Lilly, “Gee, she doesn’t seem that strange.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Sunday morning is finally here, and I walk with Abram about ten paces behind our parents and Rebecca. Second-class citizens once more!

  But it does give us time to chat, and that’s something that Abram seems unusually interested in. He can see that I’m worried.

  “What’s up, Hannah? You’re white as a sheet.”

  I try to smile, but fail miserably. Not that I don’t appreciate it - given the circumstances, I appreciate Abram’s concern more and more. And I get the feeling I’ll be relying on it more and more too.

  So of course I’m going to be honest with him. He’s not only a great sounding board - despite his youth, he’s just about one of the smartest people I’ve ever known.

  “Okay, well, you know I like that guy, Simon...”

  “The way you were staring steak knives at me when I mentioned him over dinner? Yeah, I kind of figured that one out.”

  “Okay, smart guy, wrap your genius box around this one then: I know I’ll see Simon at services, and I want to spend time with him afterward.”

  “But you’re worried about that girl, Lilly?”

  I think about it, quickly getting myself back on track, right as he is. “Well, yes, I mean...no, or...I mean, you have a point, but I’m more worried about having to introduce him to the folks.”

  “Why?”

  “Oh, c’mon, Abram, they’ll want to hook him up with their precious Rebecca.” I look at them, walking in front of us, lowering my voice just a bit more.

  Abram just shrugs. “What makes you think he’ll be the one who’s good enough? Nobody else is.”

  “Maybe you’re still too young to understand.”

  “Don’t say that, Hannah, you know I don’t like that.”

  “It’s not a bad thing, Abram, enjoy it while you can. The thing is: Simon’s very charming and handsome and well-spoken, he takes care of his elderly grandmother, and he owns his own farm. If Rebecca decides she wants him, I’m sunk.”

  Abram squints as he thinks about it. “They’re gonna wind up meeting him eventually, right?”

  “Eventually,” I repeat, “but not now, not until I can...”

  “Make some time?”

  “Get to know Simon better!”

  “Get your hooks into him.”

  “No, I...actually, I guess that’s better than make some time.”

  Abram smiles at me. “More accurate too.”

  “All right, all right, so what am I supposed to do? If I just walk off with Simon, they’ll know and I’ll be...”

  “Distracted.”

  “Abram?”

  “I mean, what if they’re distracted?” I think about it, and I already know where he’s going. And I like it. He adds, “They already think...I mean, they know that I’m helping on the husband hunt, what if I bring them a cool guy to talk to. Even if he isn’t Mr. Right, at least he’ll be...Mr. Right Now, if you know what I mean.”

  I look at him, completely torn. I don’t want to lose Simon to Rebecca, but I don’t want to encourage Abram toward such trickery.

  So I just look straight ahead, letting Abram make whatever presumptions he naturally comes to. I know it’s kind of a cop-out, but I’m only human, after all. Being Amish doesn’t mean I don’t have every human feeling and compulsion. In fact, without the distractions of television, video games, cellphones, and all that other rubbish, we feel those human feelings even more clearly.

  Its s double-edged sword, and when the feelings are precisely the ones people use distractions to avoid, the weight of our commitment becomes especially clear. And it cuts especially deep.

  Amish services are fairly long, with men and women in separate rooms, a lot of a cappella singing and praying and a stern sermon from the pastor, who is one of the town elders who came to visit us with Olaf and the other town elders.

  After services, the community sits down at dozens of long, wooden tables in various rooms and even in the backyard. Lilly and her family serve the traditional foods they’ve prepared as part of their duties as hosts of services for the week. The Dutch corn pies have a lovely beige crust that almost seems to float above the corn filling. The oven fried chicken is crispy and tender, salty on my tongue.

  Afterward, I see Simon with an old woman I instantly surmise to be his grandmother. She looks about three hundred years old, stooped and small next to Simon’s tall, taught physique. I step over to them, in the shade of a protective oak’s rugged branches.

  “Hannah, so glad to see you,” Simon says as I approach. He turns to his mother and says, “Mother, this is Hannah.” He smiles at me. “Hannah, this is my grandmother, Eleanor Troyer.”

  I extend my hand, which she seems too weak to accept. “It’s so nice to meet you, Mrs. Troyer. Your son speaks so highly of you.”

  Grandmother Troyer smiles a bit, a tiny nod acknowledging me.

  Simon says, “Gramm, Hannah is quite famous for her pies back in Indiana.”

  A conspicuous feeling creeps over me, and I look around to notice that several pairs of eyes are glaring at me from various corners of the Zooks’ backyard. Lilly’s eyes are two of them, but they’re not the only ones. The girls she’s standing around talking to are also staring at me. In the other corner, Simon’s friend Jessup and a few of his friends are also looking at me, sharing unheard guesses and speculations.

  What? I want to cry out, what are you all looking at?

  Instead, I turn and look back at Simon and his gramm, ignoring their rumor-mill, gossip-column, small-town talk.

  Simon says to her, “Hannah is Zeek Schroeder’s grandniece, her family’s moved onto his farm.”

  I say, “We’re cleaning it up, don’t worry. I know it became an eyesore, but we’re on it.”

  Grandmother Troyer looks at me, turning her head slightly as if to get a better view of me, to learn something new, to uncover some secret I’m hiding.

  But, what secret? I have to ask myself. That I like her grandson? Is that a secret?

  I say, “Were you and my granduncle close? I know he was something of a...um, a homebody, but, y’know, you were probably about the same age.” Oh no, a voice inside me rings in panic, if Simon’s gramm and my granduncle ever got together, I could be...

  No! No no no!

  Grandmother Troyer shakes her head, slowly but certainly, then forces out, “Met him once.” Her voice is drenched in history, Old World echoes of distant misfortune and bygone struggles, meant to ensure a happiness our own generation seems all too willing to squander. After a prolonged pause, she adds, “Sad man.”

  Yes, I have to admit to myself, smart woman, sad man.

  Simon watches us both, his sense of anticipation keen in his expression. He’s watching us closely, listening attentively. He wants us to get along.

  He likes me.

  He likes me, likes me.

  And I can feel the attention of the others, Jessup and Lilly and a spat
tering of elders and others.

  They hate me.

  They hate me, hate me.

  Grandmother Troyer looks at me, her old, gray eyes drilling into mine as she slowly leans toward me. I respond, instinctively, leaning closer to her. Is she too weak to talk? I wonder, what’s she trying to tell me?

  “Yes, Mrs, Troyer?”

  She raises a bony index finger, pointing at me as all warmth drains from her face. “Don’t... fight...God!”

  What? I think.

  “Gramm?” Simon asks, relieving me of the responsibility.

  Keeping her line of sight locked on mine, she repeats, “Don’t fight God!”

  “Am...am I fighting God?” I ask her, and myself. And God. “How am I fighting God?”

  “Don’t fight God!” she repeats, louder.

  Repeatedly.

  Simon finally puts his hands on her shoulders. “Okay, Gramm, let’s get you settled down somewhere.” He turns to me. “Will you excuse me for a moment?”

  “Of course, Simon,” I say with a nod, “no rush.”

  He shuffles his grandmother to a nearby chair, she mutters, “Don’t fight God!” repeatedly as they drift away from me.

  What does she mean? I ask myself, almost in a panic which I try desperately to conceal. Is she talking about Granduncle Zeek? Or...me? Should I just introduce Simon to Rebecca and let God decide who he falls in love with? Is that what she means? How could she know all this?

  Don’t be silly, I tell myself. You’ve got other things to worry about.

  Really? I respond silently. What’s more important than fighting God?

  First things first, I tell myself. You might wind up fighting the whole community before you’re done. Just take a look.

  I scan the crowd, although I don’t have to. More and more people are glaring at me, murmuring and muttering and speculating.

  Well, there’s not much I can do about them, I have to admit. And they’re not as immediately interesting to me as the cluster of people across the yard I recognize.

  My family: both parents, Rebecca, and, approaching them, Abram and his chosen decoy for the day.

  Simon’s friend Jessup.

  I can’t hear what they’re saying, of course. And I certainly have a tough time imagining Jessup winning Rebecca’s heart, or Daed’s, but once more there isn’t much I can do but put it in God’s hands and hope for the best.

  What are they saying? I can’t help but wonder. Is Daed exasperated, frustrated by this weak offering? Does it even matter? Abram was probably right, I only need a brief distraction.

  The cluster is grouped tightly, and they don’t seem to notice me. If they do, they don’t seem to care.

  Simon returns to me with, “Well, now that you’ve met my family, maybe it’s time I met yours.”

  “Oh, um, of course, but...they’re a bit wrapped up in something right now. How about a little stroll? We can always do the introductions some other time.”

  Simon nods and smiles and presents his open elbow. I slip my arm through and let him lead me away.

  We take a long, languid stroll through the fallow field of Zooks’ twelve-acre farm. The breeze is light, the midday heat still strong, the purple martins singing in the unseen distance around us.

  But none of those things mean much to me now. Still, lacking for anything else, I say, “What a beautiful day.”

  He looks at me, smiling. “With you so close, I hadn’t noticed.”

  Wow, I think to myself, nice. Charming. Is this guy for real?

  I say, “Your grandmother is a real character. In a good way, I mean.”

  He chuckles, nervously. “I’m sorry about that. Sometimes she just...goes off, y’know? She’s old, so I don’t question her.”

  I give him a comforting little lean against his broad shoulder. “You’re a good grandson to her, and a good man.”

  Simon just shakes his head a bit. “I’m not half the man my father was, I don’t think I ever will be.”

  “Well, what’s important is that you’re every bit the man that you are,” I say. “At least your family doesn’t try to prevent you from becoming the person you want to be.”

  “I’m a little more concerned with being the person God wants me to be. But I know what you mean. Do you not feel that your family is supportive of you?”

  “Oh, um, I didn’t mean it that way, necessarily,” I try to say, stammering without knowing why. Why shouldn’t I tell Simon if my parents ignore me and my brother in favor of our older sister? Why not just spill the whole pot of beans right here and now?

  But I don’t, for reasons which I don’t quite understand, and which I don’t think I need to understand.

  Just now.

  Without needing to hear me make any confessions I’m not comfortable with, Simon offers, “Maybe it’s because I’ve lost so much of my own family, but I really think it’s important, that kind of familial support. There really is no substitute.”

  Oh, I agree, I think, absolutely.

  “Oh, I agree,” I say, “absolutely.”

  Simon adds, “Without that, without knowing that your family is there for you, how can you be truly happy?”

  I walk with him, stunned into silence at how incisive he is, how similar his worldview is to my own. It’s as if he’s speaking with my my tongue, thinking with my mind.

  And my heart.

  Simon adds, “Anyway, I’m just grateful for every day I have with my gramm, with my friends.”

  “Your friends,” I repeat, “you mean...Lilly?”

  “No, I...look, I know that Lilly has certain feelings toward me. Like I said, we grew up together. I guess she always had some...expectations about our future.”

  “But...you don’t share those feelings?”

  He turns to me with an odd urgency. His smile melts away. “I do have feelings for Lilly, but not those feelings. Hannah, I’m twenty-two, living alone with my grandmother. People are beginning to think I’m a nutter!”

  We both chuckle, but there’s no mirth in it.

  He adds, “Lilly’s wanted to marry me for years. But something...something inside me...told me not to, told me to wait.”

  “You think maybe...maybe that was God talking?”

  A calm silence passes. “I do think God speaks to us, not just but to me, but...to everyone, if they have ears to hear it, or eyes to see it. ‘Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy Law.’”

  “That’s Psalms, isn’t it?”

  “119 actually, 18.”

  “People who don’t believe call it instinct.”

  “Everybody believes in something, Hannah, they just don’t believe in God. They believe in instinct. Whatever they call it, does it matter?”

  The breeze floats by, pushing us gently forward. So many questions, so many new thoughts. “God matters,” I can only say, the one truth I can make out from my growing confusion. “And love matters.”

  “Yes,” Simon whispers, “you see that, don’t you? That those are the only things that matter. That the rest of it, everybody’s little schemes and dreams and wonders and worries, they’re just...”

  “Fighting with God?”

  Simon pauses, then nods. “I’m sure she didn’t mean that, Hannah.”

  “Oh no, she did mean it,” I say, “that look in her eyes, her finger; she meant it. But I don’t think she was right. I’m not fighting with God.”

  Simon looks at me, a complete stillness wrapping around us, binding us together.

  Together forever.

  Simon’s face nears mine. “Aren’t you?”

  My brain is swimming, scrambling to say something or to say anything or simply to say nothing at all. Remarkably, I fail at all three.

  Spectacularly.

  Our lips meet, the tender flesh pressing gently. His tongue tastes slightly of oven fried chicken, salty and savory.

  Delicious.

  “Um, high,” says a voice behind us that I don’t recognize. As a new girl i
n town, I anticipate a lot of new people, but it is becoming disconcerting.

  Nothing I can do about it though, but turn and wait for Simon to enlighten me.

  “Jessup,” Simon says, his voice cheerful, pleasantly surprised. “Have you met Hannah Schroeder?”

  He smiles and extends his hand, which I shake as daintily as I can. I want to impress the best friend, obviously. I just hope I’m not being that obvious.

  Jessup says, “Not formally, but hi, it’s nice to meet you, I’m Jessup.”

  “The second Musketeer?”

  Jessup looks at me with a slight confusion, then looks at Simon as if for some clarification. Instead of all that, he moves on to other points.

  Unfortunately.

  He says to me, “I did just meet your family, however. Your kid brother, he’s...” he chuckles, nervousness mixed with amusement, “he’s quite a young man, eh?”

  I nod and smile, not needing to say more. “It’s a great pleasure to meet you, Jessup,” I say, “Simon says nothing but good things.”

  Jessup claps his hands in front of him, casual but determinedly moving on to a bigger point.

  Even more unfortunately.

  Jessup leans closer and says, more quietly, “You two seem to be getting on, which is great, by the way. I don’t mean to pry or anything, but, far as I’m concerned, I’m just...” He points at us alternatively, “And you two are, well...anyway, that’s all great. Thing is, there are some...” Jessup takes a quick peek behind him, “differing opinions, if you get my drift.”

  I knew I wasn’t imagining it!

  Simon and I share a knowing glance.

  Jessup adds, “So, maybe, I dunno, it might be time to...retire...for now?”

  Simon’s expression takes on a steely glare, no longer such an easygoing smile. “What if I don’t care what people think?”

  Wait, I wonder, what is it that they’re thinking?

  Jessup says, “You’re right, buddy, absolutely. But, y’know, for the sake of our hosts...”

  “Okay, you’re right, Jessup,” Simon says, “I’m sorry I snapped at you. Maybe we are being a little bit insensitive.”

  “Just carried away,” Jessup says with a smile, “no need to worry.”