An Amish Picnic
Page 13
He cocked his head. His lips crinkled into a smile.
She held out her plate and he took it. For a man who claimed to be full, he’d found plenty of room for dessert.
“I don’t get as much home cooking as I’d like.” He scraped the plate and shoved the last bit of flaky crust into his mouth. “One of the many downsides of being a bachelor.”
“No f-f-family?”
“Back in Kentucky.”
He did have a touch of soft drawl in his voice. “M-M-Miss it?”
“Pardon me for sticking my nose where it doesn’t belong, but have you always stuttered?”
“Jah.”
“It must be frustrating.”
“Jah. I p-p-p-pray for Gott to heal me, b-b-b-b-ut He d-d-d-oesn’t.”
“Like Paul and the thorn in his side.”
She hadn’t thought about it that way. The apostle Paul planted churches all over the world. He was brave and went to jail for his faith. She was just a girl who stuttered and worked in a grocery store. “His thorn hurt-t-t-t. Mine d-d-d-doesn’t.”
“Not physically, but it hurts your heart.” Nicholas stretched out his legs and clasped his hands on his flat stomach. “You know what Paul said?”
“That Gott w-w-w-as made st-st-strong in his w-w-w-weakness.”
“Just something to think about.”
That scripture could apply to her personally, the way it did to Paul, which seemed unfathomable. But there it was. “I w-w-w-ill.”
Nicholas laid the plate aside. “You weren’t happy to see me. Do your parents do this to you often?”
“Jah. Nee. I m-m-m-mean—”
“Don’t worry about it. My friends try to fix me up too. I’m old and set in my ways. I’m happy with my dogs and my cats and the quiet.”
“R-R-R-eally?”
“Really.” He stacked the second plate on top of the first one and wiped his lips with the napkin. “Would you like to take a walk with me?”
Why did he want to take a walk if he wasn’t interested in anything more from her? The idea of making conversation on a walk along the dirt road—and all the way back—was daunting. “It’s hot-t-t-t.”
“There’s a breeze.” He stood and ambled past her down the steps. There, he stretched his long arms over his head as if reaching for the sky. “It will make your parents happy even though we know there’s nothing to it, and it’ll give me someone to talk to besides my dogs and cats.” He cocked his head, his smile playful. “I don’t bite. I promise.”
Esther Marie grabbed the railing and pulled herself up. Gott, would it be wrong for me to smack my mudder and daed upside the head for putting me in this position?
They walked in silence for several minutes. Esther Marie studied the mountains in the distance. Their beautiful presence steadied her. Blue jays jabbered in the red maples along the edge of the road. An inquisitive squirrel stopped his search for seeds under a spruce long enough to watch them pass by. The longer the silence stretched, the more anxiety tightened its grip around Esther Marie’s throat. She halted. “You d-d-d-on’t have t-t-t-to d-d-d-do this-s-s-s.”
“Do what? Take a walk with a nice girl on a warm but pleasant July evening?” Nicholas slowed. “You like Jasper, don’t you?”
Heat more searing than that of a raging bonfire ignited in the center of Esther Marie’s chest. She pressed her sweaty hands together and struggled to think. Men and women didn’t discuss such topics, did they? Nicholas was a virtual stranger.
“Again, I didn’t mean to pry.” A light pink crept across his fair skin. “You must think me forward. I saw your expression when your parents talked about him. I recognize that look. I have four schweschders and four bruders. They’re all married now. It might help to talk about it.”
“T-T-T-To you?”
“I suppose not.” He picked up his pace. “I’ve made you uncomfortable. I thought you might need a neutral third party to talk to. You probably have girlfriends and schweschders for that.”
Only Lulu and she was ten. Her three brothers were no help. All of Esther Marie’s friends were married now and busy raising their children. They sometimes stopped talking when she walked into the room. They had to be discussing their poor friend Esther Marie, destined to be alone. “Why didn’t y-y-y-y-you m-m-m-marry when you w-w-w-ere y-y-y-oung?”
“When I was younger, you mean?” Nicholas’s amused expression said he found her assessment of his age funny. “I missed my chance. The girl I liked married someone else. I never found another girl I liked as much.”
“L-L-L-iked?”
“I guess my lukewarm choice of words says something.” He chuckled. “I liked her. Maybe I moved so slow because I wasn’t sure I loved her. If you love this Jasper, you should find a way to encourage him. Being the man is hard. You’re not sure what the woman is thinking, and it’s nerve-racking to try to figure it out. You don’t want to be rejected, so sometimes you do nothing.”
“Why are y-y-y-you t-t-t-telling me this?”
“Because you seem like you could use a nudge in the right direction.” A slinky gray-and-white cat preened under a cottonwood tree. Nicholas held out his fingers and made kissing noises. The cat stopped licking for a moment, meowed, and went back to her bath. “See, she agrees with me. I can tell you from a man’s perspective, knowing what to say and when to say it is the hardest part. Is Jasper an easygoing man?”
“N-Nee.” She shook her head hard. “N-N-N-ot at all.”
“Ah. He’s naerfich too.” Nicholas made a sudden about-face and headed back toward the house.
“What-t-t-t are you d-d-d-oing?”
“You need to make some more of that apple pie and take it to him.”
“We have it-t-t-t at-t-t-t the store.”
“The gesture is in the making of the pie.”
He tipped his straw hat in her direction. “I should get back. I don’t like to drive my buggy in the dark.”
“S-S-S-orry my parents w-w-w-wasted your t-t-t-time.”
“I ate a delicious meal and took a walk with a nice girl.” Nicholas’s gaze traveled over her shoulder. The creak of buggy wheels and thud of horses’ hooves on the road’s packed dirt made Esther Marie turn.
A familiar roan trotted toward them. As it grew closer the driver came into focus as well. Jasper.
The Cotters lived in the opposite direction from the store. The chances of Jasper coming down dead-end Shadowbox Lane were slim and none. Unless he was coming to the Shrock house. Why would he do that?
The buggy rocked in the rutted road. He drew even with Esther Marie and Nicholas.
And kept on going.
Jasper looked her straight in the eye. She waved. He did not wave back.
“Who was that?” Nicholas smoothed his big hand along his mare’s back. “Someone you know?”
“That was J-J-J-asper.”
“In that case, you may not need the apple pie.” Nicholas climbed into the buggy. “A little jealousy may be the spice you need in your recipe.”
Jealousy? Esther Marie opened her mouth, but Nicholas shook his head and snapped the reins. “I wish you the best, Esther Marie. Tell your parents I said danki for the food. Gut nacht.”
She stood next to the road for a long time, watching him drive away, but Nicholas didn’t occupy Esther Marie’s thoughts. Instead the look on Jasper’s face as he drove past her without stopping played over and over in her head.
She had little skill in reading men’s faces, and she might be mistaken, but he seemed disappointed.
Disappointed at what?
Chapter 8
A fool’s errand. Jasper’s hand hovered over the side of the buggy. The handkerchief with its small bounty of sweets swung in the wind. Let it go. No. It would be a waste of perfectly good candy and Kimberly’s nice handiwork. He tossed the parcel onto the seat and drew a long breath. His blood pressure began to recede. He swallowed against the bitter bile in the back of his throat. The humid night air cooled his burning face.
The sight of Esther Marie standing with her man friend in front of her house would be etched on his brain forever. She’d waved as if it were perfectly natural for Jasper to drive past her house after dark on a summer evening. No other farms existed beyond Isaiah’s on Shadowbox Lane. The few seconds it took to pass her seemed like hours. Now he could not return by the same road without passing her house again.
He pulled over to the side of the road and stopped. “I’m such an idiot.”
Dandy tossed his long neck and whinnied.
“What do you know?” Jasper leaned back on the seat and stared at the moonlit sky. “Gott, I know You’re there. What I don’t know is what Your plan for me is.”
If anyone came by and saw him sitting by the side of the road talking to God aloud, they would think him crazy. Maybe he was. “I like her.”
Dandy nickered.
“I’m not talking to you.”
Dandy lowered his head and grazed in the weeds.
The man didn’t look familiar. He didn’t belong to the group of men who grew up in the district and attended school together. They were all married. Except Jasper. Did that mean Esther Marie would move away when she married him?
Who said anything about marriage? Maybe it was early in their courtship. Maybe that explained why he didn’t know about it. Darcie didn’t know about it, and she knew everything that traveled the grapevine through their tiny Gmay.
How long would he have to sit here to be sure they were no longer huddled together in front of Isaiah’s house? Rolling clouds skittered across the sky, blanketing the moon. The night turned darker.
The man had looked like he was leaving. Or maybe he just arrived. Jasper groaned. Dandy’s head rose. “It’s okay. I’m fine.”
Too bad he didn’t have a Budget newspaper to read. Nothing to do but sit here and contemplate his life. An hour passed. A light drizzle began to fall. Normally the farmer in him delighted in the rain. Tonight he raised his face to the sky and shook his head. “Really?”
He sighed and tossed away the piece of grass he’d been trying to turn into a whistle and forced himself to make the trek back in the other direction.
God was merciful. No one stood outside the Shrock house. No lamp shed light inside the windows. All was dark.
He didn’t sleep much that night, which meant dawn came early, and no amount of loitering over breakfast could keep him from finally conceding he would have to go to the store and face her.
At five forty-five, a smile firmly affixed to his face, he jumped from his buggy and strode across the yard to the store. Raindrops spattered his face, but they weren’t enough to cool his skin. Humidity thickened the air. Dark clouds hung in the distance, obscuring the mountains to the east. They always needed rain in the summer. Irrigation caught the summer snowmelt and watered the fields, lawns, and gardens, but it was no substitute.
The lights were on and the door unlocked. Esther Marie bent over a box of decorative candles. She looked up, murmured good morning, and went back to arranging them on the shelf next to the Amish cookbooks from Lancaster County.
Cool as snow-fed stream water.
All the speeches he’d rehearsed on the ride over flew out the window. He cleared his throat, scratched his forehead, and kept on walking. “Guder mariye.”
“We’re r-r-r-r-ready to open as s-s-s-soon as the girls g-g-g-get here.”
She still didn’t look at him, but something in her tone suggested a question.
What was the question? His head began to throb. “Gut. Six a.m. sharp.”
“F-F-F-ine.”
Her rendition of a single syllable word followed him to the office. What did she mean by fine? Nothing was fine, as far as he could tell. He tossed the plastic bag that held his lunch on the desk. It fell open and the knotted handkerchief appeared. Maybe he could still give it to her. He could put it on the deli counter when she wasn’t looking. Like a secret friend.
She already had a friend.
What a silly idea. He sank into Father’s chair and twirled around and around. The chair squeaked under his weight. He thrummed his fingers on the desk. He went through the mail. Advertisements and bills.
The clock on the wall read six a.m. The girls would be at the registers now, ready to serve customers who stopped by on their way to work to grab pastries for their coworkers or older folks who were early birds. It would make sense to walk the store to confirm that everything was in perfect order.
Six a.m. and he was sweating. It had to be the weather. The air pressed on him like a heavy, wet blanket.
He left the jelly beans on his desk and strode through the aisles toward the deli. A stroll by, nothing more.
Esther Marie wasn’t behind the deli counter. In fact, she stood in the middle of the bulk aisle with a man who seemed vaguely familiar. Jasper moved closer. The man had the look of a Native American Indian from the tribes that owned and managed much of the reservation on which St. Ignatius sat, including the store. Dark, straight hair parted in the middle almost touched his T-shirt-covered shoulders. He wasn’t very tall and was built like a barrel. He said something and Esther Marie giggled. She covered her mouth and shook her head.
The man held out a book. She shook her head again and smiled. He pointed to the book and gestured.
Raymond Old Fox. Now Jasper remembered. The man who pursued his cousin Christine for a few weeks after the Caribou wildfire brought her to St. Ignatius from West Kootenai. Mother and Father had been so worried about Christine’s preoccupation with Old Fox, they had forbidden her to see him and made her stop working at the store.
Now here he was again—talking to Esther Marie while a customer stood at the deli counter tapping her fingers and looking around, her expression perplexed.
Jasper moved forward. He slid through the swinging doors and forced a smile. “How can I help you?”
“I need two pounds of garlic bologna, sliced thick, a pound of corned beef, sliced thin, and a couple of pounds of Cajun ham, shredded.”
“I’ll get right on it.” Jasper grabbed rubber gloves from the box next to the scale and struggled to get one on his big hands. They seemed made for tiny fingers. “You said two pounds of bologna?”
Esther Marie turned. Her smile died. “Ach, I’m s-s-s-orry. I just—”
“I see you’re busy entertaining a friend.” Jasper almost said “just like last night,” but managed to corral the words. “I thought I’d jump in and help so this nice lady doesn’t have to wait.”
Esther Marie darted toward the swinging doors. “I’ll g-g-g-get it. You don’t know how to use the s-s-s-slicer. You’ll c-c-c-cut your f-f-f-fingers off.”
“I don’t want to interrupt your visit.”
The words sounded peevish in his ears. She would think he was jealous, and what business of it was his? Usually employees didn’t visit with friends during work hours. That’s why it was his business.
But not why it bothered him.
“This is R-R-Raymond Old F-F-F-Fox. He is a f-f-f-friend.”
“I know who he is.”
“Have we met?” Raymond studied him with eyes so dark they looked like onyx. “I’m bad about faces.”
“Nee, but Christine Mast is my cousin.”
“Ah.” Raymond didn’t look the least bit put off by this revelation. “How is she doing?”
“She’s doing fine . . .” Jasper let the sentence trail off, hoping Raymond would hear the rest of it: with you out of the picture.
“Did she marry Andy?”
“She did.” No thanks to Raymond, who got her head all turne
d around about Native American Indian spiritual practices and ownership of the land.
“Good for her. Tell her I said congratulations, if you think of it.”
His words seemed genuine. “It has been good.” Jasper tried not to sound begrudging. “I will tell her.”
Esther Marie’s gaze bounced from Jasper to Raymond and back. Her frown grew. “I’m s-s-s-s-orry. I didn’t know a c-c-c-ustomer was w-w-w-aiting.”
“I’ve got it.” Jasper pulled a huge chunk of bologna from the cooler.
“I said garlic bologna.” The customer shook her head so hard her ponytail bounced. “That’s German bologna.”
Heat burned Jasper’s face. He quickly made the switch. The correct bologna on the counter, he fought with the plastic wrap that encased it. At this rate they’d be here until midnight. Nevertheless, he could do it. “Maybe you want to go have coffee with Raymond.”
“N-N-N-ee.” Esther Marie’s face turned a dull brick red. “I’m-m-m-m w-w-w-working.”
“Not so much that a person would notice.”
“I’m an archaeology student at Montana U now.” Raymond had a soft, lilting voice, very pleasant to the ear, unlike Jasper’s growl. “I like to browse in the used bookstores. When I find one I think might help Esther Marie with her speech impediment, I pick it up so I can bring it by and see how she’s doing.”
He held up the paperback book: Stuttering: 25 Most Effective Methods and Techniques to Overcome Stuttering.
What an extraordinarily nice thing to do. Shame coursed through Jasper. His feelings for Esther Marie were no excuse for being rude to someone who wanted to help her. “That is good of you.”
“What are friends for?” Raymond glanced at the black sports watch on his wrist. “I need to get back to Arlee. I’m living in Missoula now, but I came home to visit my grandmother for her birthday. I thought I’d take some cookie dough ice cream to her.”
“I’ll g-g-g-get it.” Esther Marie’s tone dared Jasper to argue with her. “T-T-T-ake her s-s-s-ome b-b-b-brow-n-n-n-ies t-t-t-too.”