I nodded and turned around so my back was against his chest. His body felt warm and solid. I waited for the next train, and this time I wasn’t afraid.
When it came, I was ready for it. The rumble, the clanging, the dark, the wind. I was ready when the other city sounds disappeared and all I could hear was the clanging. This time I looked up and saw the dark underside of the train blocking out pieces of the sky. Everything was the same – the wind swirling my hair, the vibrations racing through me, Josh’s hands tightening around my arms. And the sudden quiet before the city sounds came back into my ears. It was the same, yet it was different. The feelings weren’t as sharp. It wasn’t quite as scary, quite as loud, quite as thrilling. I swallowed back a drop of disappointment, and wondered why nothing was ever as good as the first time.
It took me a moment to realize that Josh was talking. I turned to him.
“So, riding the el. This is a big day for an Amish girl.”
I laughed. “All I’d have to do now would be to fly on a plane, and there’d be a race to get me shunned.” I followed as he led me through a set of heavy doors.
“Great, now I’ll have that on my conscience. ‘What did you do on your summer vacation?’ ‘Oh, I got an Amish girl shunned.’”
We laughed while Josh fed dollar bills into a big machine built into the wall. When a ticket came out, he handed it to me and repeated the process. As our laughter trailed off, I felt a warning trickle through me. I followed Josh through the turnstile, trying not to think about what we had just said. The night before I left home I had shuddered at Annie’s story about her cousin being shunned. But today it had been a joke that made Josh and me laugh together. As I followed him up a long set of metal stairs leading to a narrow platform, I told myself it was okay to make jokes.
Looking down, I could see the spot on the sidewalk where we had stood a few minutes ago under the roaring el train. An assortment of people waited for the train. Prim-looking businesspeople, students with bulging backpacks, and a mother with a small child in a stroller. My attention went to a man sitting on a nearby bench, strumming a battered guitar. Even though it was a warm day, he looked like he was wearing every piece of clothing he owned: a wool hat, jeans with holes at the knees, a faded denim jacket. In an open guitar case on the ground beside his feet were a spray of coins and a few crumpled dollar bills.
“I know,” Josh said, as though in answer to a statement. “He’s homeless. It’s a big problem.”
“Homeless?” It seemed like an impossible word. “Like he doesn’t have a home?”
“Right,” said Josh, lowering his voice. “Richest country in the world. Then you see people like that. It really makes you think.”
“So, if he doesn’t have a home,” I said, “where does he go at the end of the day? Where does he keep his things?” The man continued to strum an unrecognizable tune, seeming not to notice that we were staring at him.
“He probably doesn’t have many things. He just panhandles during the day, and goes to a shelter at night to sleep. Come on,” he said, pulling me to another part of the platform. “I hear a train coming.”
I continued to look over my shoulder as I let Josh lead me. “So, we’re just going to walk away?”
“It’s not just him, Eliza. There are thousands of them. I told you, it’s a big problem.”
Just then I felt a vibration under my feet and heard the rumbling sound of an approaching train. I pulled my eyes away from the man and watched as the el train pulled to a screeching stop. The doors slid open, and I waited as people stepped out. For some, this was where they wanted to be. For others, this was the place they wanted to leave. And for the man playing the guitar, this would be the place he would stay. Collecting stray coins and faded bills.
The crowd waiting on the platform shifted slightly as people exiting the train pushed their way through—a brief mingling of those coming and those leaving. Josh reached for my hand and wrapped his own around it. “Now here’s where you have to be careful to stay with me,” he said.
The floor inside the el train was made of metal, and the seats were a faded tan color. The train lurched and started to move. Trying to keep my balance, I followed Josh to an empty seat, grateful to have something sturdy beneath me. I looked out the window, but the train had already moved past the station, past the man in his bundles of clothes, with his open guitar case. I felt Josh’s eyes on me.
“Don’t let it bum you out,” he said. “There are agencies that take care of them. They all know where to go for help.”
I nodded, but it still didn’t feel right. At home we all helped each other. We didn’t need agencies to do it for us. When my father hurt his back, the whole district flooded through our doors. Women brought steaming casseroles and carried out baskets of laundry to return clean and folded. Men came in the evening after their own work was done to help with my father’s carpentry orders. Daniel was one of those men, I recalled. He finished the bookshelf that my father had started before he got hurt. I remembered how my father, his body still tilted oddly, had run his hand across the wood and nodded his approval of Daniel’s work. Daniel had blushed with shy pride.
I realized that Josh was watching me, his expression thoughtful. “Wait a minute,” he said. “What do the homeless people do where you’re from?”
“There aren’t any,” I said matter-of-factly. “Everyone in the district has a home.”
“But aren’t there any problems? What happens if someone’s house burns down? Or if they lose their business?”
“The district comes together for them and gets them what they need. If a family loses their home, they stay with another family until the house is rebuilt. If they need money, the elders get up a donation until they’re back on their feet.” As I was saying this, I realized with a shock that other people might not live that way.
Josh shook his head. “So where you live, it’s like a utopia, a perfect world.”
“Hardly,” I said. “We have our share of troubles.”
“But you work them out together,” he said. “I live in a place where everyone’s an individual unit. You live in a society.”
I thought of what Valerie had told me, of how Josh had started to distance himself from his friends. Maybe he really was looking for something new, and I was something new.
“I don’t know,” I said with a grin. “How long do you think you can go without your cell phone?”
Josh smiled. “Oh, snap!” he said, and I laughed with him even though I didn’t know what he meant.
Out the window, scenery sped by. Sometimes the buildings were so close that I could peek inside a window and get a glimpse of someone’s life. The next voice I heard was a man’s booming instruction: “Next stop Armitage.”
When the train stopped, the people who had been waiting at the doors stepped off, and a new flood of people stepped on, their eyes scanning the aisles for empty seats.
“Come on,” said Josh. “We’ll get off at the next stop.”
Once again, I followed him, reaching for the silver poles along the way to keep my balance. After the doors slid open we stepped off the train and made our way across the platform. I looked over my shoulder and saw another cluster of people stepping on before the train charged forward again on the tracks.
I thought about how all day and night the trains kept going back and forth. Dropping off some people, picking up others. It was unsettling, a job that was never completed. “Are you hungry?” Josh asked. I nodded. I was hungry and tired and a little bit sad. But I couldn’t tell him that. He wouldn’t understand that I felt sad about a man who didn’t have a place to keep his guitar, and about a conversation where the worst thing that ever happened in my district was a funny joke, and about how you could get from one place to another and totally miss what was in between.
At a place called Demon Dogs, where the smell of grease hung in the air and the el train rumbled overhead, we stood in line for hot dogs and fries served in a cardboard tray dotted with oil. Then we ed
ged our way to a narrow room and perched on red stools that looked out on the sidewalk.
“How do you like it so far?” Josh asked.
I thought for a minute. “I don’t really know. There are too many parts to it to just give one answer.”
“Okay, what parts don’t you like?”
“I don’t like seeing people who have to beg for money. I don’t like being pushed along in a crowd.”
“All right,” Josh said. “Let’s start over. What do you like?”
I smiled. “This.”
Josh’s features turned upward, the look of someone who had just been handed a prize.
“Sweet,” he said, in that drawling way he sometimes had. “I like this too.”
I dipped a fry in ketchup, and a restful feeling settled around me. I wasn’t sure when I had stopped being nervous during my times alone with Josh. He was beginning to feel comfortable, like a new pair of slippers.
“What?” Josh was looking at me, studying me.
“I think I like the city.”
“So do I,” he said. “I’m more urban than my other friends. The city’s a foreign place for them, but I can’t wait to live here one day.”
“What would you do?”
“I’d go to a lot of Cubs games,” he said. “And I’d get into the music scene. I’d go to comedy clubs and the theater. I’d play on a softball league. Some of the bars have trivia contests. I rock at trivia.” He grinned. “I just want to be a part of it all.”
Me too, I thought. I felt a little envious of Josh. He could look ahead to his future and choose it. He wants to live in the city one day, so he will.
“So, what are you doing a week from Friday?” Josh asked. “Do you have to babysit?”
“I’ll check with Rachel. Can we go to a movie?”
“Actually, I was wondering if you want to hear some music. This band I like is playing at an under twenty-one club.”
I was excited to hear music that didn’t burst from a machine. Already the time until a week from Friday was stretching ahead of me endlessly, with too many days to get through. I had that edgy feeling under my skin, the feeling of anticipation.
“Well?” Josh asked.
I didn’t realize that I hadn’t answered him yet. “Yes,” I said.
“All right,” Josh said, looking pleased.
I wondered what I would wear to a club, and I was certain that none of the clothes I had brought with me would be right. I would have to find a way to get more. That thought stunned me for a moment. It was so English.
A few days after Josh and I went to the city, the doorbell rang as I was setting the dinner dishes in the dishwasher. I heard footsteps and the low rumble of formal voices; then Janie was by my side pulling on my arm. “Hurry, Eliza, there’s a boy to see you. And it’s not Josh.”
Rachel stood at the doorway, talking to the visitor and watching me approach. Sam was there too, and he stepped aside as I came near, so that I found myself face-to-face with Daniel.
He stood in the hallway, looking so old-fashioned in his suspenders and black buttonless coat, holding his hat in both hands. His smile was big and wide, and a rush of heat flooded through me at the sight of him. He looked like home.
I was vaguely aware of Sam and Rachel stepping away from the door. Rachel said, “You can visit with your friend in the living room.” Shooing the children away, she and Sam left me alone with Daniel.
He spoke first. “Can you at least say hello to an old friend?”
“I’m sorry. I’m just so surprised.” I stepped forward and reached up my arms, feeling his body envelop mine in a hug.
“How did you get here?” I asked, stepping back.
“My cousin Gary was coming out this way to see a friend, so I took a ride with him. I would have let you know, but it was so last minute that you wouldn’t have gotten the letter in time.” He looked down at the brim of his hat. “Was it wrong for me to come?”
I tried to shake my head, but it felt like I was shaking my whole body. “Of course not.” I reached forward to take his hat, and realized there was no hook to hang it on. I tried not to look foolish holding his hat in my hands. He, too, was looking around. I watched his eyes scan Sam and Rachel’s home with a combination of awe and suspicion. I wondered if I had looked the same way when I’d first come here five weeks ago. It was hard to remember that this place had seemed unusual.
I wanted to tell Daniel about these amazing weeks I had spent, and to hear news from home that hadn’t yet reached me through the post office.
“How long can you visit?” I asked.
“About two hours. Gary’s coming back to get me around nine o’clock.”
I handed him his hat. “Wait here,” I said. “There’s a place we can walk to for coffee. I just have to tell Rachel I’m going out.”
Within minutes, I was walking beside Daniel, his hand cupped lightly around my elbow. I glanced up to see him smiling at me. “So how does that English clothing feel?” I looked down at my green blouse, jeans, and sneakers.
“Actually, it took some getting used to. Blue jeans are pretty stiff, it turns out. But it’s fun deciding what to wear each day, trying on new things and seeing how I look.” I paused for a moment, and then asked, “So, how do I look?”
“Just like an English girl,” said Daniel.
“I look like an English girl?”
“No, it’s just like an English girl to ask a boy how she looks.” He waited a moment before adding, “You look nice.”
He glanced around as we walked. “The houses all look the same.”
I shook my head. “Well, they’re not,” I said. Then I remembered that I had felt the same way the first time I had seen this street. But eventually each house started to look different. There was the house with the red door, where the neighborhood children always gathered in the evenings, and the house with the colorful flowers that the silver-haired woman tended so lovingly.
“That’s what they say about us, you know,” I said. “The tourists in town. And the English people who don’t know any Amish. They say we look alike because of our clothes. But if they looked more closely, if they knew us, they’d see that we’re all different. Just like these houses.”
Daniel turned to look at me. His expression was both impressed and amused. “Are you trying to show me that this fancy world is making you wise?”
“It was just an observation.” Then I smiled. “Anyway, I was always wise.”
Daniel nodded his agreement. “That’s why I’ve been staying around.”
I stopped, and Daniel’s hand slipped from my arm. “Are you staying around?” I asked. We stood there for a moment on the sidewalk.
“Well, I’m not keeping company with anyone else.” He put his hand back on my elbow, and we started walking again.
“You’re allowed to keep company,” I said. “Remember, we’re not courting.”
“I know. And when I find someone like you, she can be my girl.” His words settled inside me like a spicy meal. If Daniel were with someone else, it would be easier for me to continue to be with Josh, to see where this new relationship might take me.
I hurried to change the subject. “It’s nice being so close to town. When I have time off I walk here to go on errands, or to read at the coffee shop. That’s where we’re going,” I said, pointing to the Bean Scene. I knew that Josh was working, so there was no chance that I would run into him while I was there with Daniel. I felt a little twinge at this thought. I wasn’t courting either of these boys, so I wasn’t betraying them. But I knew there was something untruthful in not wanting them to know about each other.
The shop was quiet. Two men played chess at a table in the corner, and a woman with fuzzy yellow hair was bent over a notebook at the end of the counter, a stubby pencil making frantic scribbling sounds. Beside her, a student was typing on a laptop. Each one looked up as Daniel and I walked in. Their stares lingered on Daniel, but he seemed not to notice. He looked the place over as I p
ointed to the menu board and the day’s choices.
I walked up to the counter, and felt Daniel hesitate before following me. “Jasmine tea,” I told the clerk, a girl with spiky hair and silver rings on all her fingers, even her thumbs. Daniel was beside me now, holding his hat in one hand and groping for his wallet with the other. “I’ll have the same,” he said. He flinched a bit at the price before he set his hat on the counter and pulled a bill from his wallet.
I was anxious to get to a table. I had never seen Daniel so fumbly before, and I wanted to be near the old Daniel again. At home his presence filled up a space. His smile was smooth as cream, his movements easy as a glider. I touched his arm and nodded toward a table, by the wall. He sat down and sighed. I pulled an extra chair up to the table, and he set his hat there, grinning gratefully. He looked as out of place as a surgeon in a cornfield.
“So,” he said, “tell me about this fancy world.”
I didn’t know where to begin. “Well, there’s so much to do here. And so many choices.”
“What kind of choices?”
“Like when you’re done working, you can go to a movie, or hear music, or shop. People find so many different things to do with their time.”
“Well,” said Daniel, “they seem to have a lot of time to fill.”
I nodded. I’d thought of this often. “Every chore is easier here, so work gets done more quickly.” Daniel listened intently, his eyes meeting mine in a way that tugged at me.
“And what do you like to do?”
“Oh, I love the movies,” I said. “The sound seems like it’s coming right from the people’s lips, even though they’re not real people, just moving pictures of people.” I pushed aside the thoughts of Josh sitting beside me in the movies. “And they’re all different. Some are funny. Some are scary. Sometimes they make you cry.”
I took a long drink from my tea and then told him about TV and the shows called sitcoms and the reality shows that aren’t very realistic. I told him about the appliances in Rachel’s kitchen and the video games the children play with. I started to tell him about the music I listen to, but that was too connected to Josh, so instead I asked him to tell me about home.
A World Away Page 13