A Season of Change

by Lynette Sowell

“Thanks,” Natalie said. Rachel doled out a plate for each of them. Time to change the subject. She had no idea how she and Jacob could meet in the middle, or what the possibility meant for either of them. Did he even want to?

  Then, there were the children. Her and Jacob’s choices would affect them as well. She didn’t want to cause any more disturbance to their innocent lives than they’d already endured.

  Imogene stepped onto the raised patio. “No mail, not for either one of us.”

  “Maybe another day.” Natalie heart sank just a little as she tapped the pizza box. “But the pizza’s here.”

  Rachel asked the blessing before she picking up her slice of pizza. “I’m hungry. Quilting has definitely worked up my appetite”

  Natalie watched the steam rise from her pizza. “I have something for you both. Next weekend at the circus school we have our annual exhibition. I have free tickets for everyone who would like to come.”

  “Oh, the circus!” Imogene took a bite of pizza. “Ow, hot. I love the watching the circus.”

  “Well, this is our spring fundraiser. Tickets are free, and donations are accepted. But I wanted you to know about it. You can see my students do their routines. And me, too.” Natalie opened her purse. “Here’s enough tickets for you, Jacob, and the children.”

  “Thank you, thank you,” Rachel said.

  “And Miss Imogene, here is a bundle of free tickets for you,” Natalie said. “Give them to whomever you think will enjoy them. Make sure Henry Hostetler gets a few, also. I like him.”

  “He’s quite the character, as Isaiah used to say.” Rachel nibbled at her pizza. “He’s been a blessing to our family, for sure.”

  “Yes, he has.” Natalie closed her purse. “I hope you can all come. I don’t know if there’s anything going on in the village that day.”

  “We might be having a haystack supper the same evening,” Imogene said. “But if the performance is at 2:00, we’ll be back in plenty of time. And people will be hungry again.”

  “Good.” A thrill went through Natalie, at the idea of “her” Pinecraft people getting to peek into her world, especially Jacob and the children.

  20

  Jacob had never been to a circus and found his excitement matching Rebecca’s and Zeke’s. Their seats were reserved, a few rows up from the center ring. A perfect view of the sights they would soon see.

  “Will they have elephants, Daed?” Zeke asked. He sucked in his first taste of cotton candy.

  “No, no elephants. This is at the school where Miss Natalie teaches, so all we’ll see performing are children, some probably just a little older than you.” He opened the program, scanning the events included in the “Semiannual Pathway to the Stars Circus School Exhibition.”

  The last part of the show included “teacher demonstrations.” He’d get to see Natalie perform, at last. Not juggling, but doing the aerial silks. He’d never asked about her teaching, or about aerial silks. He’d tried to imagine what they were, but then noticed some long filmy cloth strips stretching from the floor all the way to the ceiling at least fifty feet above them, or so he guessed.

  A number of Pinecraft villagers occupied the bleachers, as Natalie had distributed free tickets far and wide throughout the neighborhood, with Imogene’s help. Henry sat in the row behind him, having served as chauffer and toting half a dozen residents to the event.

  From the first acrobatic trio to the high-wire act performed by the older teenagers—dressed in spangled costumes he’d never allow one of his children to wear—Jacob’s attention drifted from his children’s faces to the performance floor.

  Zeke gasped as a boy, perhaps twelve or thirteen years old, crossed a high wire at one end of the ring. A net was strung below him, of course. Jacob glanced at his son, whose brown eyes were round in his face.

  At last, the lights fell low again and the spotlight focused on Grace Montgomery, dressed in the tuxedo and top hat of a ringmaster—or ring mistress, as she called herself.

  “Our final performances today are demonstrations from our faculty who work with the children, teaching them what you’ve seen this afternoon. Most of our staff are former circus performers themselves. One of our acrobatics instructors is a former Olympic gymnast.” Grace paused to allow a ripple of applause echo inside the arena.

  “First up is Natalie Bennett, an aerial silks artist. Her parents were the world renowned Flying Bennetts who thrilled audiences everywhere with their feats above the ring for over two decades with Circus du Monde. Natalie traveled her own path, away from the trapeze where she enjoyed an aerial silks career for nearly a decade herself, beginning at the ripe young age of 16. And now, watch as Natalie performs ‘Delights in the Air’ over sixty feet above the ground, without a net. Accompanying music is Ravel’s Bolero.”

  No net. Mammi gripped his hand. She must have noticed it, too.

  “No net?” she whispered.

  The sound of a horn solo wove a tune as the spotlight illuminated Natalie, posed at the bottom of a pair of sheer silks stretched to the ceiling high above. She reached one arm high above her, striking a pose on one leg, then shifted her weight to the other, acknowledging the crowd.

  Jacob had watched Natalie’s students perform using the silks earlier, but that didn’t quite prepare him for the sight of her in full costume. From here, he could see her make-up, eyes that looked dusky as a model’s, her full lips red and lined.

  Her dark hair, braided, had a spangled pink fabric woven through its length. The braid bounced against her bare back and the spangled pink matched her costume. The higher she climbed, the more instruments joined in as the tune intensified.

  Spangled pink ribbons of fabric covered Natalie from hip to ankle, but little else. Her top had long sheer sleeves, but evidently someone had forgotten to attach the bottom half of her shirt. Somehow it stuck to her ribcage without sliding up.

  Natalie wrapped one foot and ankle with one silk, then did the same with the other and began slinking her way up the silks. Then she stopped about twenty feet above the ground, performing a split between the two lengths of silk, her back arched, her hands clutching silks above her head.

  “Here, brought these so some of the oldsters can see the shows better.” Henry tapped him on the shoulder with something hard. Binoculars.

  Jacob nodded. In slow motion, he took them from Henry, held them up to his eyes.

  Looking at Natalie Bennett through his own eyes had turned his mouth into sandpaper. Looking at her magnified through binoculars made his breath catch.

  The fluttery pink fabric accentuated her curves, offering a flash of muscular leg. Her back arched, her head upside down, belly exposed to the ceiling. Oh, Natalie Bennett was definitely a woman. Not that he hadn’t noticed before. But here, with her wearing sheer frothy fabric, sparkles, and her flash of smile at the audience . . .

  “Here.” Jacob jerked the binoculars from his face and reached back to Henry. He imagined all that pink in his arms, and all it concealed.

  Gotte forgive me.

  Yet another reminder of being married and all that he’d lost. Hannah, his wife, mother of his children, chaste and sweet. But they’d enjoyed their marriage bed, something he would admit to no one, nor would she. As a man, he missed that part of married life, the complete giving of himself physically to his wife, and she to him. Gotte had created a masterpiece when He formed woman. Like the one now who soared dozens of feet from the ground above him and the crowd.

  A man’s thoughts could take on a hundred lives and he dared not imagine one with Natalie, with her curves and legs and sweet smile.

  One thing he knew for sure now: his time in Sarasota was done. Rebecca was ready to make the trip home. Even if it took three days. He’d already planned to hire a van. This was it. He’d stepped over a line with Natalie, even in his mind, an impossible line they could never cross.

  Natalie did more aerial flips, including her final move with a crescendo of drums and wailing trumpets of the music. She tu
mbled down the length of the silks as her legs were unwrapped, stopping before she hit the floor at the bottom. Gasps went up from the crowd.

  The music stopped, and she freed her feet from the silks, standing and waving on solid ground at the audience. Many rose to their feet, some whistled and called, applauding. Jacob clapped, trying to get the sight of her out of his mind.

  “Daed, she can fly,” Rebecca said on his other side. “I want to learn to fly, too.”

  Oh, no, she wouldn’t. Jacob held his tongue while Grace thanked Natalie and the demonstrations continued.

  After the show ended, Jacob tried to flee to Henry’s van, but the crowd blocked him. The cape dresses and suspenders made way for pink froth.

  “Miss Natalie, you sparkle.” Rebecca hopped on one foot and threw herself into Natalie’s arms.

  “Only in the ring.” Natalie stood, releasing Rebecca from her embrace. Something glittered at her navel, a fake diamond bauble. Stuck-on? Jacob tried not to stare at it, or at the curve of her hip. But she caught him looking and clamped her arms around her waist. Her face flushed and she looked down.

  “You scared me,” Zeke said at Jacob’s side. “I was scared you would fall.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.” Natalie stepped closer. “I would never want to scare you. I’ve done this many, many times and only fell once.”

  “I can see your legs,” Zeke said.

  “I just wanted to say thanks for coming, before you all left.” Natalie kept her arms around her waist. Now Jacob tried not to stare at the pink and sparkle covering her chest. Her neck now bloomed red as her cheeks.

  “Thank you for inviting us,” said Mammi at last. “I know the kinner enjoyed watching the students perform.”

  “I, uh, I should get back to the dressing room and get this gunk off my face, and change.” Natalie raised her hand and gestured at her made-up eyes. “My pores are screaming for relief.”

  After a few more greetings and an exclamation from Imogene over Natalie’s costume, or lack thereof, Natalie padded off on bare feet toward an exit. But her presence stayed with Jacob, like the spicy floral scent of her perfume.

  Natalie’s skin felt free of the performance makeup and she studied her natural features in the mirror. Much better. She wore a bit of makeup on occasion, but nothing like what she used to wear for circus performances. Circus makeup always had to be dramatic, vivid, so people in the back row could see her features.

  On days like today, it reminded her of what felt like another life.

  The parents had all picked up their children from a small party held after the show. The group had taken in just over several thousand dollars in donations, which would help finance one child’s tuition for the scholarship program.

  “Every year I say, this is going to be it,” Grace said in the doorway of the locker room. She tossed her top hat onto the vanity counter and sank onto a nearby chair.

  “Ha. It’s in your blood too much to stop, even if you have to experience it through others.” Natalie glanced sideways.

  “You were magnificent, breathtaking.” Grace beamed.

  “I’m going to pay for it in the morning, if not tonight.” She rotated her ankles. Maybe the stiffness wouldn’t set in tonight.

  “Make sure you ice, elevate. Take Monday off if you need to.”

  “Tomorrow’s Sunday, a day of rest anyhow. I’ll be fine.” At the moment, however, her ankles were low on her priority list.

  Grace left the locker room when the office phone began to ring. “I’d better see who that is.”

  Natalie released a pent-up breath and looked in the mirror again, this time unweaving the pink sparkled ribbon from her hair. She’d felt an awareness with Jacob this afternoon and it was all the stupid costume’s fault. Really, it was more modest than many costumes she’d seen. More modest than bathing suits at Siesta Key Beach.

  When the spotlight was on, she didn’t individualize the crowd, or think of who might be in it. There was just the silk, and the music.

  But when she’d approached the group of Plain people, she realized she was still an outsider. An outsider under Jacob’s careful scrutiny. No, he didn’t leer at her, or ogle. But she’d seen a dusky look in his blue eyes she hadn’t noticed before, the look of a man appreciating the physical qualities of a woman

  She felt like she owed him and his family an apology.

  This performance had shown her the differences between her and the Millers, and the other Plain people, were too much to overcome. Worse, she didn’t blame her mother’s family for not writing, or calling.

  Her heart ached a little, though. Part of her, the longer she’d been around the people of the village, believed she might have a place with them, somewhere, somehow.

  With Jacob, and the children.

  “No, it’s not your place,” she said aloud to the figure in the mirror as she brushed her hair.

  Lord, I’ve been fooling myself. Or have I? If there’s a compromise, a good compromise, I don’t see it.

  “And she was practically naked,” Vesta Fry, a new acquaintance of Betsy’s, said as they sat outside Big Olaf’s and ate their ice cream cones on Monday after work.

  She’d heard about the circus, but had been too busy with her schedule to attend. Natalie Bennett’s performance, along with the others, were all thoroughly discussed and marveled over. The woman was fearless, wrapping her body in fabric and flipping and turning in the air.

  “Naked? I’m sure she had a costume on of some kind, don’t all circus performers?” Betsy licked her cone, vanilla bean, her favorite.

  “You could see her midriff, her bare legs, her, ah, bosoms covered in pink sparkles, practically everything.”

  “But Vesta, she’s not Plain. Some of us know her.”

  “Huh. Well, I can’t say as her grandparents would want to meet her, Christian though she says she is. Someone should warn them, whoever they are.”

  Betsy sat up straighter. “What do you mean, whoever they are? Do you know Samuel and Anna Yoder?”

  “No, I’m not saying that. I have no idea who they are, or where they are.”

  “Okay then. Did—did you see the Millers there?” Of course, Betsy had to ask. She supposed she could have cleared her schedule to be there, but work was busy, she was banking her money, and she would have preferred a more traditional way to spend time with Jacob. Such as a picnic in Pinecraft Park. As if that would happen.

  “Yes, even Rachel. I heard Jacob could barely keep himself from staring at Natalie, the way she was dressed.”

  Betsy sucked in a breath. The conversation had turned uglier by the minute, starting with Vesta using the word naked. True, Jacob had this, this thing about Natalie. The circus probably went a long way toward showing him just how unsuitable someone like Natalie Bennett was to a Plain family.

  Despite her smug thoughts, realizing her position might have improved as a result of the circus, Betsy wouldn’t delve further into gossip.

  “Really, Vesta. Natalie hasn’t been shunned by anyone. We should leave her alone, because, well, she’s really a nice woman and she’s been good to the Millers.” No need holding her to a standard she never claimed to own.

  A faint hope began to grow inside Betsy.

  21

  Jacob smelled a spicy perfume as he entered the house. His mammi and Natalie were busy rolling up the quilt she’d worked so hard on. Fitting, that they should have closure now.

  Natalie bloomed a shade of red when she looked at him. “Hello.”

  “Hello.”

  Rachel’s eyebrows shot up, but all she said was, “I must go check on the bread.” She disappeared into the kitchen.

  “I’m sorry, Jacob.”

  “For what?”

  “My appearance at the circus. I didn’t intend to make anyone uncomfortable. I didn’t even think about my costume.”

  “Don’t worry about it. You’re—you’re . . .” A knot lodged in his throat, a fresh recollection striking his mind of Natalie dangling
like forbidden fruit in the air.

  “I’m not Plain. I know. But, I—”

  “You are a beautiful woman, something I noticed from the start.” He realized that somehow, the distance had closed between them. He allowed himself to reach out and touch the dark long silken strands hanging past her shoulders.

  “Jacob, you and the children, you both mean a great deal to me.” She caught his hand between her own, and he could feel the scar on her palm from the fishing trip. The simple gesture made it harder for him to breathe.

  “You’ve come to mean a lot to us, too.” He clasped her hands, strong between his larger ones.

  A pounding sounded at the front door.

  The moment broken, he released Natalie’s hands. It was probably the driver he’d hired, confirming they were leaving and how much baggage they would be bringing to Ohio.

  “If you want to talk to me later, I’ll—I’ll be at Siesta Key Beach tonight, before sunset.” She cast a glance at her quilt.

  Betsy would always remember this afternoon, how Jacob found her in the park. She was on a bench, watching the creek drift by, already missing the last of her friends who’d returned to points north. It was a balmy afternoon, with a light breeze teasing at the ends of the Spanish moss in the treetops above her.

  Jacob stopped at the bench, but didn’t sit down. “I came to say goodbye, Betsy.”

  She knew the words were coming—the moment had arrived. “So, you’re going, then?”

  “Wednesday morning. I hired a driver who has a van large enough for Rebecca to be comfortable.” Jacob looked past her shoulder at the people enjoying a spring walk at the park. “The doctor said she’s well enough to travel.”

  It was happening fast, too fast. Aloud, she said, “This place is a ghost town now. But I’ll stop by to see your mammi and say hello when I can.”

  “So, you’re planning to stay?” Jacob asked.

  “Unless I have a reason to go back to Ohio?” One last time, she’d put her heart out there. She knew what had happened at the circus. Natalie, dressed like a woman of the night and made up worse, had pranced and exposed herself to everyone. It was one thing to watch a circus performance with people you didn’t know dressed that way, but someone you did know? Someone who was searching for a Plain family? It didn’t make sense to Betsy.