“Listen,” I said. “Rachel gave me the talk.”
“Oh no, the talk,” said Josh. Then he paused. “What’s the talk?”
“It’s not funny. I guess my parents spoke with Rachel before I came here and said that I’m not allowed to be alone with boys.”
Josh’s voice was still teasing. “Well, you’re not alone with boys,” he said. “Just one boy.”
“This is serious,” I said. “Rachel can send me back home.”
There was a pause on the other end of the phone, and I could picture Josh suddenly sitting up, the mocking expression slipping from his face. “What should we do?” he asked, his voice more solemn. “Maybe we shouldn’t see so much of each other.”
I knew that Josh was right, but I couldn’t bear to think about it. “We just have to be sure that Rachel doesn’t think we’re too serious.”
“Okay,” said Josh. “Whatever it takes. I’m not letting you go back without a fight.”
I smiled. I liked the way that sounded. “All right,” I said, and hung up.
I hurried to get ready, feeling a new kind of nervousness. We would have to start being more careful. In the bathroom, I brushed my teeth and washed my face. I opened the top drawer and took out the makeup that Valerie had helped me pick out at the mall. The skinny mascara brush looked like it was covered in black paint, but I liked the way my lashes looked darker and shinier after I used it. I brushed a bit of eye shadow on my lids and some blush on my cheeks. I combed my hair and pulled it back into a ponytail. Satisfied, I started downstairs. The sound of a conversation stopped me. I could hear Rachel’s voice, sterner than usual.
“I mean it, Joshua. I have to be able to trust you.”
“It’s cool, Rachel,” he said. “You don’t have anything to worry about. Eliza and I are friends. Didn’t you say yourself that you wanted me to take care of her this summer? Well, that’s what I’m doing.”
“Joshua, if anything happens with this girl…”
“Nothing’s going to happen. We’re going to movies and concerts. We’re not drinking. We’re not doing anything that you didn’t do at this age.”
“Well, that’s the problem,” said Rachel. “Eliza’s from a different culture and we have to respect that. And she’s going home at the end of the summer. Don’t make it hard—for either of you—when it’s time for her to leave.”
I started down the stairs, making enough noise to let Rachel and Josh know I was there. They looked up at me, Rachel’s face firm, Josh’s uncertain.
“Do you have the concert shirt for me?” I asked. My voice sounded artificially bright.
Josh tossed me a green T-shirt with the words fort minor emblazoned across the chest in bold black print. “Thanks, I’ll be right back,” I called. I went back to my room, trying not to think about the conversation I’d overheard. I pulled off my top and slipped on the concert shirt. It hung past my hips, and it had Josh’s earthy smell. I didn’t ever want to take it off.
I headed down the stairs and called out to Rachel, “I’ll be home before midnight,” then hurried out the door.
“So,” I said when I was in the car, the seat belt fastened at my waist. “You agreed to ‘take care of me’ this summer?” My voice held mock irritation. Really, I was pleased.
“Yeah,” Josh said with a grin. “I didn’t know what I was getting myself into when I signed on for that.”
We laughed and then fell silent. “So you heard us,” he said.
“Jah. I mean yeah.”
“Rachel said something that I haven’t been letting myself think about,” he said. “You’re leaving after the summer. You’re going back there.” He said “there” as though it were the name of the place. There.
I waited a moment before speaking. “That was the arrangement,” I said. “I’m supposed to go back home in September. That’s about six weeks away.” I felt a pang, realizing that my time here was half over.
“Is this negotiable?” Josh asked. “Can you get more time?”
“I don’t know. It was so hard for me to convince them to even let me come for this long.”
I looked at Josh. He was staring at the road ahead, but I could tell that he was listening intently. “And if they had any idea about—you know, us—my mother would be on the next train here, hauling me back home.”
Josh nodded and continued to stare ahead. “Then they can’t ever know.”
“Right,” I agreed. “And Rachel can’t know either.”
Josh turned to look at me. Our eyes met. His face was full and open, without a hint of teasing. “I won’t do anything to get you in trouble,” he said. “I promise.”
The prickly excitement of the past two weeks was giving way to another feeling. A taut complicity. We were in this perilous place together. The feelings of danger were as exhilarating as the feelings of attraction.
We pulled into a parking lot and got out of the car. From the outside the building looked like an ordinary storefront. But as we got closer, noise seemed to be pulsing from it. At the door, a burly-looking man stopped us. “Ten dollar cover charge,” he said. “Are you carrying any bottles or cans?”
Josh shook his head and handed him a twenty-dollar bill. The man stamped our hands with a red mark. I stepped in the door and was immediately enveloped in noise and vibration and the press of bodies. People, mostly our age but a few who looked to be in their twenties, were stacked throughout the small space. The room was dark and warm, and the throb of music was so loud that when Josh turned to tell me something, I could see his lips moving but couldn’t hear a sound. I held tightly to his hand as we wove our way through the crowd to a spot near the wall. Josh bought us each a Coke, and I savored the cold sweetness.
On the stage, the band was playing a song I recognized from Josh’s iPod. Live, the song had a wildness to it. Now that I was adjusting to the darkness, I could see that people were perched on a scattering of stools, chairs, and mismatched couches. But many were standing, holding their hands high over their heads to clap in an exaggerated way to the rhythm. Josh put his arm around my shoulders, and I felt his warmth and the muscular lines of his body. His lips were close to my ear, tickling me with heat. “Later we’ll move closer to the stage so we can dance.”
I sucked in my breath at the word. Amish teens whispered about dancing, and it was often a secret part of rumspringa parties, when no adults were around. But I had never danced before, and I was afraid of looking foolish. I’d worked so hard to fit in here, but if I tried to dance it would be obvious that I wasn’t really a part of this place.
Someone got up from a seat next to us, and I climbed onto the stool, with Josh standing beside me. I leaned against him and felt his breath against my hair. We listened to one song after another, each ending with the usual round of cheers and requests. Then the atmosphere changed. The next song started with a noticeable shift in tempo and volume. It was a song I knew, a plaintive tune about a man and woman who feel they don’t know each other anymore. Josh nudged me. “This is it.” He took my hand and started leading me to the small dance floor in front of the stage. After a few steps I pulled back.
He stepped beside me. “I thought we were going to dance.” I waited, unsure of the words to explain. “Oh,” he said, disappointment clouding his words. “Is this something you aren’t supposed to do?”
“Well, yes, but that’s not the problem,” I said. “It’s just that…” I paused, embarrassed. “I don’t know how.”
“It’s okay,” he said. “All you have to do is follow me.”
I hesitated and glanced at the dance floor. The other couples gathered there didn’t appear to be dancing as I had imagined dancing to be. Instead they each looked like they were in an embrace, swaying slowly to the music.
Josh’s voice was gentle now. “Come on. I think you’ll like it.”
Taking a breath, I let Josh lead me to the crowded floor. The other couples adjusted in subtle ways to make room for us.
Josh’s words
were a whisper. “Put your hands here.” He guided my hands up to his shoulders. “And mine go here.” I felt his hands, firm and warm, on each side of my waist.
“That’s it,” he said. “Now you just let your body follow mine and move with the music.” But I found that we were already doing that. Even as he spoke, his body was swaying from side to side, and my body was following his, as if connected.
The music swam around us, and Josh’s hands moved from my waist to the small of my back, his body encircling mine until the space between us began to dissolve. Then, somehow, the music was inside us, directing our movements. My hands had been on his shoulders, where he had placed them, but as our bodies drifted closer, my arms wrapped around his upper back, and my head rested on his shoulder. It happened so naturally, just another step in the dance. Our bodies pressed together, and I could feel the muscles in his upper arms and his thighs. My skin buzzed with the nearness. It was like melting, surrendering. The room faded away, and it was only the two of us now. I was certain that no one had ever felt this way before.
Then the music ended, replaced by a humming stillness. The other couples returned, or maybe they hadn’t gone away at all, but I could barely make out their forms. I was still inside of Josh’s embrace, the one they called a dance, and I could no more step away than I could fly to the sun. And then he said the words that I didn’t realize I had been waiting for. They were a rush of heat against my ear.
“Don’t go back there, Eliza.”
My lips parted, and when I spoke, it was to give him what seemed like the only possible answer: “I won’t.”
We stayed there as the music shifted to a louder, more insistent rhythm. The other couples released each other, dancing beside their partners rather than connected to them. But our bodies were as close as when the slow song had played.
I looked up at Josh with a mixture of shyness and defiance. Part of me wanted to take back those words. And part of me wanted to climb on top of a table and proclaim them to this roomful of strangers. “I won’t,” I had said. Out of context it had no meaning. But in the moment it meant everything I feared and longed for.
Josh’s fingertip traced the shape of my cheek. Then he slid his finger down to my chin and raised my face so we were looking at each other fully. Our lips pressed together, our tongues gentle, then probing. His hands slid into the back pockets of my jeans and pulled our hips together. There was a warmth between my legs that made me feel weak and quivery. The song ended. Another song started. Still we stood there in our own private dance. I wasn’t sure how many songs started and ended before Josh whispered, “Let’s go.” I didn’t know if he meant back to where we had been sitting or back to Rachel’s house. But it didn’t matter. I just wanted to go with him.
It turned out he wanted to be in the car. He opened the back door with a sweep, and we climbed in, the quiet settling around us. “What are we doing?” I whispered. Josh didn’t answer. He lay across the backseat and pulled me down on top of him. It was so inviting, stretching out across his body, my head on his chest. He reached under my shirt, and I felt his fingertips on my skin and over my bra. I needed to stop and think, but it felt so fine.
I had to consider what we’d said to each other, what it meant. I had to figure out what my boundaries were in this new closeness. But I didn’t want to think. I wanted to stay here forever. I felt myself drifting, giving in. Then I was suddenly alert.
“What time is it?” I whispered.
Josh’s body tensed for a second. He slid his hand out from under my shirt. “Way to spoil a moment.”
“I know. But I have to be back by midnight.”
Josh looked at his watch. “We have a few minutes,” he said. “Do you want to talk?”
“No,” I said. “Let’s not talk anymore tonight.”
“Okay,” he said. “Can we do other things?”
I shook my head against his chest. “Not tonight.”
We stayed in the backseat, every part of me touching a part of him. At home, if Josh and I were courting, we’d be allowed to “bundle.” We’d have permission to close the door to my room and stretch out on my bed, fully clothed, wrapped in each other’s arms. I wondered if English teenagers had a custom like that.
I felt Josh shift his weight to check his watch again. “We’d better go,” he said, and we began the task of unwinding ourselves from each other. In the front seat, I busied myself with the seat belt, feeling suddenly awkward. We had jumped to a new place, and like the ride on the el, I didn’t know how we’d gotten there. There were things to discuss, but now I just wanted to be back at Rachel’s house, where life was ordinary, where I could think about those words I had said and figure out what they meant.
When I woke up the next morning, I felt thick with sleep. I drifted back, remembering that it was Saturday and I didn’t have responsibilities with the children until later in the afternoon. Somewhere in the distance I could hear Janie arguing with Rachel, her voice shrill and insistent about some injustice that had been done to her. Beeps sailed up from the video game Ben was playing. Sleep tugged at me, pulling me down. There were things I was supposed to do. It had been days since I’d sent a letter home, and I’d promised Janie a trip to the library. I was going to call Aunt Beth to talk to her. About what? Then I remembered. I had promised Josh something last night, and I was worried about it. Aunt Beth would help me.
The phone rang, slicing through my last remnants of sleep. I looked at the clock. The red numbers glared at me: eleven thirty. I bolted up in bed, my heart hammering. I had never slept so late before.
I hurriedly stepped into the jeans I had left on the chair the night before. Pulling on a T-shirt, I padded to the bathroom to wash up. There were dark smudges under my eyes from the mascara, and I scrubbed them with a soapy washcloth, closing my eyes against the sting. My hair was a mass of tangles, and my face was pale and puffy-looking. The dark romance of the night before felt different with this disheveled reflection facing me.
I yanked my hair into an untidy ponytail and went downstairs. Rachel looked up from the newspaper spread on the kitchen table when I entered the room.
“Did you like the club?”
“Yes,” I said, shaking cereal into a bowl. “The music was wonderful. And loud!” I brought the cereal and a mug of juice over to the table, and sat across from Rachel.
She moved the newspaper aside and leaned forward. “Eliza, I’m sorry about last night. I don’t want you to think I don’t trust you.”
“I understand why you’re worried,” I said. “Josh and I talked about it, and we don’t want anything to happen that would get in the way of our friendship.” Rachel looked relieved.
After my late breakfast I was happy to have the list of tasks Rachel gave me. These last couple of weeks with Josh had been fun, but it was a dangerous fun. It brought me to places that I wasn’t ready for.
Later in the afternoon, while Ben was out with Sam at a ball game, I gathered the scant gardening tools and took Janie to the yard. I felt better now than I had in the morning. My head was clear, and I was being useful.
While I helped Janie fill the watering can, I thought about Josh and the jumble that our relationship was becoming. Our friendship had been a comfortable place, but maybe it was inviting because it held the possibility of romance. And now the romantic feelings were pulling at me, tempting me. Then there was the warning from Rachel that a serious relationship could send me home.
So maybe friendship with Josh was the answer. But I wondered if it was possible to go back in time. Once I’d felt the allure of a courtship, would I be able to settle for friendship? I didn’t know the answers, but I knew that Josh and I needed to talk. When he called, I’d tell him how I was feeling and see if he had the same concerns.
I practiced in my head what I would say. But as it turned out, I didn’t have to say anything because Josh didn’t call.
On Sunday afternoon I helped Beth make dinner and listened to her story about the first time s
he used a cash machine. “I put in the card John gave me, and I just thought that money would come spewing out. There was a man behind me who said, ‘It wants your PIN number.’ Then I got all distracted thinking about how a machine could ‘want’ something. Pretty soon a line formed behind me, and a manager was walking toward me to see what the trouble was. And I just started pushing these random buttons to try to get my card back so I could go home. Oh, I just felt ridiculous.”
I thought about the way Beth laughed at her own predicaments, and I tried to think if there was anyone else in the family like that. Aunt Miriam was positively dour most of the time. And my mother enjoyed a good story, but always seemed too busy to tell them. “No one in the family tells stories the way you do,” I said. “No one in the family is funny.”
“Your mom was,” said Beth. “Before she went away, that is. In school she’d imitate the teacher or pretend to fall asleep during boring lessons. I’d bury my face in my apron to hide my laughter.”
Here was yet another story about my mother that I couldn’t reconcile. “Why do you think she stopped being funny?” I asked.
“I’ve wondered about that myself,” said Beth. “Things started changing when she came home. First there was her baptism, then the celery got planted and she and your dad were ‘published.’ I think life just got more serious for your mom.”
I smiled as I thought about Amish wedding feasts and how rumors would fly around the district when celery appeared in the garden of a family with a marriageable daughter. Then, during Sunday services, the deacon would announce or “publish” the intent of the couple to marry, making it official. It was nice to talk about these customs. I wondered if Beth felt the same way.
“I was happy that Amos picked Becky,” Beth was saying. “He was always nice to us girls, and he had a kindly way about him. Before she went away, he used to come by most nights and shine the lantern in her window to call her out for courting. When she came back home, the first thing she did was send me to Amos to let him know she’d be waiting for the lantern.” Beth sighed. “And I remember one day I saw your mom smiling at your dad while he was holding Margaret in his arms. I thought she looked positively grateful to have him.”
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