Hopeful

by Shelley Shepard Gray

  “And we all know she’s always had a bit of a crush on you,” Beverly added.

  One sister teasing him was irritating. Two? It was making him annoyed. “Nee. No, she has not.”

  “I’m afraid she has, bruder. For pretty much all our lives, Miriam has had her eye on you. Heaven knows why.” Two years older, Claire loved being right and always had. She also loved to tease him about everything and anything.

  “You know how much she’s done for Kaylene. Plus, she’s helping me get to know Mary Kate. That’s why we’ve been talking so much,” he said.

  “Too bad your visit with Mary Kate went so poorly after church,” Joe snickered. “Either Miriam didn’t describe you well to Mary Kate or Mary Kate wasn’t as interested in you as you hoped.”

  “Mary Kate had to do a lot of schoolwork on Sunday. That’s all.”

  His sisters exchanged looks again.

  Beverly spoke, almost maintaining a straight face. “And you had to go over to Miriam’s house again to get that information, didn’t you?”

  Now he felt himself flushing, too. “What’s wrong with you guys? We’re just friends.” Raising his chin a bit, he said, “Men and women can be friends without there being anything romantic, you know. It’s not like we’re teenagers. We are, after all, in our twenties.”

  Joe coughed. “You’re right. And if it looked like that was all you had in common I wouldn’t think a thing about your new friendship.” He lowered his voice. “But I’ve seen the way you are looking at her today, Junior. You may have started a friendship with Miriam to get to Mary Kate, but there’s something different in your eyes when you look at Miriam now.”

  “Miriam is a nice person,” he pointed out.

  “Yes, she is. Mighty nice.” Joe folded his arms over his chest. “I never said she wasn’t.”

  Tired of being their source of amusement, he continued, “She’s smart, too. And a gut friend. Why, she’s the type of person to bend over backward to help someone in need.”

  “She’s the best,” Beverly agreed.

  “Wunderbaar!” Claire grinned.

  Yes, Junior realized, Miriam Zehr was wunderbaar.

  So much so, that it was kind of too bad that he was sure they were only meant to be friends.

  Beverly must have sensed his dismay. She sighed. “We’re only teasin’ you, Junior. We don’t mean any harm. Don’t be so touchy.”

  Now thoroughly irritated, he glared at his sister.

  He knew he should just keep his mouth shut but he didn’t want to take a chance that this line of teasing would continue. “Miriam has been a good friend to me, even though she knows I never had any interest in her. I mean, it’s not her fault that I like her friend a whole lot more than her. And even though she’s not the prettiest girl in town, I’m sure she’ll find someone suitable someday.”

  But even as he said the words, he flushed. That wasn’t really what he’d told Levi. And it wasn’t exactly what he’d been thinking either.

  He sat up straighter when he noticed his sisters and Joe staring at him with matching horrified expressions.

  Then wished he’d kept his big mouth shut when he saw why they were staring.

  Miriam stood right behind him, holding a blasted basket of rolls—the rolls he’d once told her he liked so much.

  It was painfully obvious that she’d heard every word he’d said.

  Closing his eyes, Junior asked the Lord to give him a quick burst of strength. He hoped the Lord was of a mind to give him his wish quickly, too.

  Because at the moment, he had no idea how he was ever going to make this situation better.

  chapter eighteen

  Standing in the middle of the restaurant, a basket of rolls in her hands, Miriam wished she were absolutely anywhere else in the world.

  And if that wasn’t possible, she wished she could have at least wished the rest of the customers away.

  Because at the moment, it felt as if pretty much everyone in Sugarcreek, Ohio, now knew exactly what Junior Beiler thought of her.

  Her heart was pounding so hard she was sure it was going to pop out of her chest. Her hands were shaking. But from somewhere deep inside herself, she found a secret storage of strength. And used that to make herself look at Junior. And at his sisters. Then, finally, at Joe.

  Junior scrambled to his feet. “Miriam, ignore what I just said, would ya? It, ah, didn’t come out the right way. . . .”

  “And what, do you think, would have been the right way?”

  His cheeks flushed. “I mean, I didn’t realize you were standing there. I mean . . . I mean I’m really sorry.”

  “We were teasing him about something,” Claire said, her voice contrite. “We were teasing him and I’m afraid he spoke without thinking.”

  Miriam supposed that should make her feel better, but it didn’t.

  Now Joe stood up. “Miriam, please ignore all of us and try to forget it. I know I will.”

  Miriam spied Jana looking at their group curiously from over at the hostess table. It was time to smooth things over, and she knew instinctively that she was going to have to be the person to do it.

  She didn’t know why she was so upset and embarrassed anyway. She’d overheard Junior say she wasn’t pretty. And that was true, she supposed. She would be the first person to admit she needed to eat less baked goods and put on her tennis shoes a bit more. But it still hurt.

  “I, um, I came to give you these rolls,” she blurted before handing them to Joe. Then she turned on her heel and strode back to the kitchen, taking care to keep her face an expressionless mask.

  By the time she walked through the wide swinging doors, she’d drawn blood on her lip. She’d been biting her bottom lip as hard as she could in order to hold off the tears.

  She was so irritated with herself.

  Perhaps she should have known better by now. Here she was, a grown woman in her twenties, and she was still acting as dumb as a doorknob where Junior was concerned. After a couple of conversations, she’d assumed they were truly friends now.

  But obviously only she thought of him that way.

  A smarter woman would have learned by now to keep her distance from him.

  The simple truth was that if he hadn’t taken a shine to her by now, he surely wasn’t ever going to. Junior Beiler was never going to like her in the way she’d fantasized about.

  Luckily, the other women in the kitchen were working hard so they didn’t see how distressed she was. Happy to keep to herself, she pulled the canisters of flour and sugar closer and set to make sugar cookies. As she beat in the eggs and vanilla, then finally the flour mixture, her mind focused on her new goal: she needed a change. She needed something to look forward to, something to be excited about. Something new.

  Because it was painfully apparent that her current situation was never going to change. At least, not anytime soon.

  Looking up from the batch of bread she was kneading, Ruth frowned. “Miriam, I think you look a bit pale. Do you think you’re getting sick?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “If you’re not sure, you probably are. You know what? Maybe you should go home and take a break. Everyone needs a break now and then.”

  In the five years that she’d worked at the Inn, Miriam had never once gone home sick. It wasn’t in her nature to shirk her responsibilities. It wasn’t in her nature to run. But maybe she did need a break.

  If she stayed, she was going to have to face Junior again. Maybe have to talk to his sisters and pretend that nothing was wrong at all. If she left, she wouldn’t.

  Suddenly, it was the easiest decision she’d made in weeks. She grabbed her cloak, slipped it over her shoulders, then hastily wrote Jana a note. After placing it neatly in the middle of Jana’s desk, she darted out the back door.

  And instantly felt relief.

  Feeling like Junior’s words were biting her heels, she walked briskly through the maze of parked cars on the lot. Past the pair of buggies hitched near the f
ield, the two horses nickering a bit as she walked by.

  As she picked up her pace, felt the muscles in her thighs burn a bit from the unaccustomed exercise, Miriam made a new vow. At last, she was going to stop mooning over Junior. She was going to stop fancying herself in love with him. Some way or somehow. Yes. She was going to do that, if it was the very last thing she ever did.

  The next day, right after he finished his chores, Junior told Micah that he had an important errand to run. Then, with a new resolve, he walked to Miriam’s. He was dreading the visit, but not as much as he dreaded another hour feeling guilty. All night long he’d tossed and turned. Both the things he’d said at the restaurant and Miriam’s reaction to them reverberated in his head. No matter how many ways he tried to excuse his slip of the tongue, he knew there was no excuse. He owed Miriam an apology.

  As the sun continued its rise over the horizon, signaling the start to another day, he practiced his apology. He hoped she would find it in her heart to forgive him, though he wasn’t sure if he deserved her forgiveness or not. His words had been unkind—and had been said out loud in her place of work.

  Yes, it had been an especially bad moment.

  When he approached the house he spied her immediately.

  She was holding a watering can and looked to be watering a set of hanging baskets filled with bright pink and purple petunias. Every time she stretched on her tiptoes, she wore a look of irritation, like she wished she were two inches taller.

  Or maybe she was simply irritated about his visit.

  As he watched her, Junior couldn’t help but compare it to the expression she’d worn on his first visit. Then, her eyes had glowed with happiness and she’d smiled softly at him.

  Now it was obvious that she’d wished he would turn around and go.

  Had he actually hoped she’d easily forgive him with a smile, and let him go on his way, his conscience alleviated?

  To his shame, yes, he had.

  Before she had the chance to send him on his way, he started his speech. “Miriam, we need to talk.”

  She set her watering can down. “I’m not so sure about that.”

  “Listen, yesterday, my sisters kept teasing me,” he said quickly. “And though I know better, they started getting the best of me. Some of the things I said didn’t come out the way I had meant for them to. I wasn’t thinking.”

  She folded her arms across her chest. “Junior, let’s be honest. It hardly matters what you think about me. I mean, it’s not like we’ve ever been anything to each other.”

  “No, we’ve been friends—”

  She cut him off. “Junior, we’ve never been gut friends. Not really. You and I both know that.”

  “But we could be good friends now.” Thinking about how he felt about her, about how far they’d already come, he added, “I mean, I think we are friends now.”

  She closed her eyes for a brief moment, just as if she was trying to gather her patience. “You know what? You came over, and I appreciate that. But I think it’s time we said good-bye. I’ve got a lot of other things to do besides chat with you.” And with that, she turned on her heel and reached for the door handle.

  Without thinking, he stepped forward and grabbed her hand. Wrapped his palm around hers. “Wait a minute, wouldja?”

  She stared down at their linked hands like he’d just given her a bad case of poison ivy. With one fierce tug, she freed her hand.

  Of course he let her go. But he still wasn’t ready to say good-bye just yet. “Can’t we sit for a moment and talk? Please?”

  For a second, she looked tempted. Her eyes turned languid, almost warm.

  He, in turn, felt that new, almost familiar pull toward her that now seemed to be a part of his life. Hope filled him. Reminding him that everything could work out.

  Then she shook her head. “We’ve already talked. You’ve apologized. I have accepted your apology. You can now go back to your sisters or to your friends or whoever and feel good about yourself.”

  “That’s pretty harsh.”

  Her voice turned strained. “Junior, I’m simply trying to say that you don’t owe me anything. Can’t we leave it at that?”

  “Nee. Miriam, I didn’t mean to make it sound like I didn’t think you were pretty. I certainly didn’t mean it.”

  “Can this not be about you?”

  Ouch. “Listen, all I’m trying to say is that I made a mistake, I feel badly about it, and I want us to get back to how we were.”

  “Junior—”

  “Please? I know I’m an idiot. But I’m not all bad. All I know is that I don’t want there to be any tension between us.”

  Miriam sighed. Watched him squirm under her gaze.

  “Junior, how about this? How about we simply forget that conversation ever happened? I think that would be easiest for both of us.”

  “Do you think that’s possible?”

  “Of course it is possible,” she said. “Actually, I doubt I’ll ever think about it again. Now, I really do have to go. Good-bye, Junior. And good day.”

  As he stood there, trying to discern what she really meant, she opened the door and walked inside her house. All without a backward glance his way.

  The rejection hurt. Feeling like he’d just run a marathon only to trip two feet from the finish line, he slowly walked back home.

  Today was the first time Miriam Zehr hadn’t looked at him with stars in her eyes. It was the first time he hadn’t been able to smile at her and get one in return.

  Instead, she’d treated him as if he wasn’t anyone special to her.

  His footsteps slowed as he realized he’d just lost something really important. But the worst of it was that for most of his life, he hadn’t even realized what he’d had.

  chapter nineteen

  “Good-bye, Scholars,” Mary Kate said as she stood at the door to the schoolhouse watching her students file out the door promptly at three o’clock. “We had a gut day today. Get some sleep and I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow morning.”

  “Bye, Teacher,” little Emma said, followed by another two girls. “See you tomorrow.”

  “Indeed,” she said with a smile. “See you then.”

  When the very last of her students left and she was completely alone, she sagged in the privacy of the doorway.

  At last. Another day was over.

  Some days, it seemed like it took everything she had to make it through to three o’clock with a smile on her face.

  Though she wished it wasn’t so, Mary Kate knew she wasn’t a very good teacher. She didn’t have the knack to organize twenty students at once. She became easily frustrated, too.

  And then there was the added knowledge that she never seemed able to completely relax. Some evenings, she felt so stiff and sore, only the hottest and lengthiest of showers helped ease her stiff muscles.

  But of course, much of her stress had nothing to do with her job. Instead, it had everything to do with Will. No matter how hard she tried to think of other things, he always lingered in the back of her mind. She worried about him discovering her. Worried that he would still be lurking in the periphery of her existence for years to come. Worried that she would never be entirely free of him.

  Just as she got herself worked up again, her favorite verse from the Psalms drifted into her mind.

  The righteous person faces many troubles, but the Lord comes to the rescue each time.

  The words were true and settled her like little else did. Yes, that was what she needed to remember. To pray about. If only she could remind herself that the Lord would always come to her rescue, no matter how difficult the situation, she could finally breathe easier.

  Perhaps she could be herself once again. At last.

  “There’s nothing you can do, Mary Kate,” she reminded herself. “All you can do is grade some papers and plan for tomorrow. And hope that one day soon you will be proud of yourself.”

  She’d just turned away from the doorway when a shadow appeare
d to her right. Anxious, she scanned the area. Gazed out beyond the wide sloping hill, searched the dense woods just beyond.

  But she didn’t see anything. Only felt the vague sense of unease.

  “Hello?” she called out. As her voice echoed through the emptiness, she felt a bit silly. After all, if someone was out there who did not want to be seen, would they truly answer back?

  The seconds seemed to pass like minutes as she waited in vain. The hair on the back of her neck prickled. Her unease was turning into full-fledged fright.

  “You have got to get a hold of yourself, Mary Kate,” she cautioned herself yet again. “You are letting your imagination run away with you.” Almost believing her words, she turned around. Determined to get her work done and then head home.

  A twig snapped.

  She froze as goose bumps appeared on her arms. Was that her imagination? Her fear talking?

  Or had Will found her?

  She was tempted to call out his name, tempted to call out anything. But she feared if she did give voice to her greatest fear it would make it all seem a lot more real.

  Instead, she stood frozen. Half waiting, half watching for the last person on earth she wanted to see step out of the shadows.

  Then she heard the unmistakable sound of footsteps on gravel on the side of the yard. Whoever had been there was walking away.

  It took everything she had to dart inside and run to the bank of windows. Part of her didn’t want to see the evidence. It would be so much easier to call herself a silly fool and pretend that nothing was wrong.

  But she’d done that before and had learned that it came with a heavy price.

  Stepping closer, she peered out the windows. At first she saw nothing, and she breathed easier.

  But then she saw a footprint in the damp ground next to the building. Someone had been there. And he had intentionally not answered her. He’d wanted her to be scared, to feel helpless. To wonder what was going to happen next.

  Which gave her all the information she needed. Will Lott had come to Sugarcreek, and sooner or later, he would make sure he didn’t leave alone.

  I’m so glad you and Ben decided to come over for a spell, Judith,” her mother said as they finished hemming a new dress for Clara, cousin Tim’s wife. “I miss spending time with you.”