An Unexpected Match

by Gayle Roper

  If it weren’t for the few blessed minutes after class when he’d been able to laugh with Amy and soak up Rachel’s beauty, the day would have been a total loss—no offense meant, Dr. Dyson.

  He leaned his head back and heard Charlie collapse at his feet. When he realized he was falling asleep, he pushed himself to his feet.

  “Come on, Charlie. Time for bed.”

  As he lay gazing at the ceiling, he became aware of Charlie staring at him from his spot beside the bed. Ah, why not? The dog was the only one in his family who was normal. Might as well reward him for that fact.

  He patted the mattress, and Charlie jumped up, turned in circles, and with a heartfelt groan, settled, taking up most of the lower half of the bed.

  With a smile, Rob let himself drift off, Rachel’s face his last thought.

  Chapter 8

  Johnny Miller walked into Corner Bob’s and slid onto a stool at the bar. Just because Merle and Bennett had called it a night didn’t mean he had to. No sir. He checked his watch. It wasn’t even midnight yet. Last call wasn’t for a couple of hours.

  “Hey, Harry.” He nodded at the morose man slumped on his regular stool at the bar. “Have a good day?”

  Harry gave his usual grunt and kept his concentration focused on his beer.

  Whatever made Harry so miserable, the man wasn’t sharing. Johnny shook his head and raised a finger. “Beer, please.”

  From his place behind the bar the Bob of Corner Bob’s looked at Johnny with sympathy but no beer.

  Johnny felt his stomach cramp. That look meant only one thing. He’d seen it before and laughed at the poor guy it was directed at.

  “Beer,” he said again, but this time it was more a plea.

  Bob shook his head. “I don’t recommend it until you talk to Mr. Sherman.”

  All the swear words Johnny’d learned in his years since leaving the farm raced through his mind but he didn’t say any aloud. He didn’t want his fear to show. “Why would I want to talk with Mr. Sherman?”

  “I have no idea.” Bob pulled a glass from the soapy water of his little sink behind the bar and began drying it with a Joseph’s coat striped towel that had seen better days. “But he’s looking for you.”

  “What if I don’t want to see him?”

  Bob laughed. “Like that matters.”

  Johnny hoped he wouldn’t hyperventilate. “Come on, Bob. A beer.”

  “After your talk. I don’t want you puking in my establishment like the last guy Mr. Sherman talked to.”

  Johnny closed his eyes as if he could close out Corner Bob’s and everything—everyone—in it. “Is he at his table?” It was barely a whisper.

  Bob nodded toward the back of the dark room. “Sitting like an itsy bitsy spider waiting to pounce, only he’s blubby tubby, not itsy bitsy. And here comes Mick to escort you back.”

  Johnny spun slowly to see Mick Morrison, big, powerful, and as handsome as a GQ model, coming toward him. Maybe it was the combination of too many muscles and too hot a temper, but Mick was scary nuts. He made Mr. Sherman—who scared any sane man—look like your favorite uncle.

  “Hello, Johnny.” Mick clamped a heavy hand on Johnny’s shoulder and squeezed. Johnny paled at the pain. “Mr. Sherman wants to say hello.”

  “Soon as I get my beer.” Though if Bob caved and gave him one, his hand would probably be shaking too much to hold it.

  Mick gripped the muscle beside Johnny’s neck and squeezed harder. He smiled as Johnny flinched at the pain. Slowly he released the pressure so Johnny could stand and follow.

  Tail between his legs, Johnny did just that.

  Jules Sherman, a jowly chubby man in his fifties, sat at a table in the room’s darkest corner, his back to the wall as if he expected bad guys with tommy guns to come in and strafe the place. Not that the wall would help if that happened.

  As Johnny trailed Mick past the side room with its pool tables and players, he tried to walk confidently, but his fear made him stumble. He had to force himself to look Mr. Sherman in the eye. He made believe Thomas, Mr. Sherman’s other bodyguard/goon, didn’t exist. Thomas with his curly hair and crooked nose never seemed to do anything but stand at parade rest behind Mr. Sherman anyway.

  “Well, Johnny.” Mr. Sherman smiled, the oh-so-polite business professional meeting with a favored client. “How are you this evening?”

  Johnny swallowed bile. Why had he ever let himself get involved with this man? Bennett and Merle had warned him.

  “Don’t do it, Johnny,” Bennett had said.

  “You’d be stupid.” Merle was always blunt. “The man’s slime.”

  “Don’t worry,” he told them with confidence. “It’s a sure thing. I’ll pay him back the next day.”

  He should have listened to his friends, not some guy who didn’t know what he was talking about.

  When he lost his money, Bennett shook his head. “Too good to be true is always too good to be true, Johnny.”

  “We warned you.” Merle slapped him on the back. “Gotta tell you, I got no money to help you out with.” Merle had then turned to Bob that night a week ago. “Give Johnny a beer. He needs it.”

  He needed one now. “Hello, Mr. Sherman. I’m fine, thanks.”

  “Johnny, I think we need to talk.” He didn’t offer Johnny the chair that faced him. That was for those who came to ask for something or for those who came to repay his favors, not for those who owed him. Not for Johnny.

  “Five thousand, Johnny.” Again the friendly smile. “I lent you five thousand in good faith. You had a sure thing, you said. Double your money, you said. You promised.”

  Johnny smelled his own flop sweat. “I’ll get it. I will.” Though how and when were questions Johnny couldn’t answer.

  “Just so you know, the figure is $6000 starting tomorrow. Next week it’ll be $7000. A thousand a week for every week you don’t keep your agreement with me.” He brought his hand down sharply on the table with a crack that made everyone in the bar except Mick and Thomas jump. Johnny turned faint. “Got it?”

  Johnny nodded, throat too dry to speak.

  “Got it?” Mr. Sherman repeated.

  “Got it,” Johnny managed after he swiped his tongue around the inside of his mouth to make some saliva. He turned away.

  “Oh, Johnny.” Mr. Sherman called as in afterthought. “After next week, it’s no more Mr. Nice Guy. After next week, I get serious. Right, Mick?”

  Mick’s crazy nuts smile made Johnny wonder which countries had no extradition agreements with the U.S. It was a useless question even if he knew the answer. He didn’t have the money to go there any more than he had the money to pay back Mr. Sherman.

  He managed to make it to his bar stool without his legs giving out or his bladder emptying. Bob shook his head sadly as he shoved a beer into Johnny’s hands.

  By the time he was on his third, Johnny felt somewhat in control. A group of about ten people had wandered in and the bar was now full of conversation and laughter. Harry still sat on his stool, lost in his private despair. In the corner opposite Mr. Sherman a darts tournament was winding down.

  Johnny glanced over his shoulder at Mr. Sherman. He continued busy with others, some sitting in the chair, some standing as Johnny had.

  “Where’d he come from?” Johnny asked Bob under cover of the noise. “How’d he get the power?”

  Bob shook his head. “Don’t know.” He raised a finger in the wait-a-minute sign and moved down the bar to fill another order. Johnny sipped and waited.

  When he returned, Bob rubbed at a water ring on the bar with the towel he dried his glasses with. “He just showed up one night about five years ago and let me know that table was his.”

  “Just like that?”

  Bob didn’t even bother to take offense at the implied call of cowardice. He just rolled his shoulders and gave a slight shudder. “There was more.”

  Johnny nodded wisely. “With guys like him there’s always more.”

  “Alwa
ys more,” Harry muttered, making both Johnny and Bob jump in surprise. “Always more.” He slid off his stool and was gone.

  Johnny watched him stumble out the door. “I never heard him speak before.”

  “Mr. Sherman’s got his claws in him somehow. Poor guy.”

  Last month Johnny would have thought Harry an idiot to have anything to do with Mr. Sherman. Now he was one of the idiots, just like Harry and Bob. He studied Bob. “What’s he got on you?”

  Bob rubbed harder at the long dried water mark. “If I interfered with anything he did or if I went to the cops, he said, that cute little daughter of mine would be in trouble.”

  “He threatened Trixie?” Johnny couldn’t believe it. “Aren’t kids off limits?”

  “Not with him. He showed me pictures of her taken on the school playground, at the store with the wife, even playing on the swings in our backyard. It got the desired result.”

  Johnny looked over his shoulder at Mr. Sherman again. What kind of a man went after a kid? His eyes met Mick’s, and the crazy man smiled like the crocodile eyeing his helpless victim.

  Bob pulled a dry towel from a cabinet. “I haven’t said a word to anyone about anything, and I never will.”

  Johnny nodded slowly. He didn’t have cute daughters to worry about, but he had sisters.

  Chapter 9

  As Rachel walked slowly up the farm lane to Mom and Datt’s house Sunday afternoon, Pepper wandered over to join her.

  “Hey, girl, how are you?” Rachel scratched the dog’s head.

  Pepper made no answer except to lean against her for a moment before she wandered off.

  The produce stand by the road was shuttered for today, the No Sunday Sales sign prominently displayed. Tomorrow Datt would have the last of the freshly pulled corn. The end of sweet corn was the sign that the beginning of her new year at the one-room school down the road was almost here.

  But it wasn’t her students or her lesson plans that filled her mind. It was the class in which she was a student, and the people there.

  Dr. Dyson spoke with such precision as she discussed writing. Sometimes all Rachel wanted to do was write, but she had so many things she wanted to say, so many stories she wanted to tell that she was overwhelmed. Professors had to publish, didn’t they? It would be fascinating to see what Dr. Dyson wrote. She’d go on Amazon and look the professor up.

  She never went to Max’s on Sunday to use the computer. Sunday was the Lord’s Day. It was bad enough that she was disobeying on other days. She refused to do so on the Sabbath. It was to be kept holy.

  Tomorrow night she had class, so it would be Tuesday evening before she could look up Dr. Dyson online. She would buy at least one book the woman wrote. She knew she wouldn’t be able to resist. The one good thing that had come from the settlement Mr. Nathan had gotten her was the freedom to buy as many books as she wanted. Her mailbox was always filled with brown boxes from Amazon.com or cbd.com.

  She scratched her right palm. It itched every time she thought of Amazon and a Kindle. The idea of having scores of books in her hand at one time fascinated her. If only it didn’t need to be plugged in.

  Think about something else, she ordered herself.

  Amy popped into her mind and Rachel smiled. That woman had never met a question she didn’t ask or an answer she didn’t find interesting. But in spite of all her enthusiasm for everyone, she talked very little about herself and when she did, there was an edge to her comments.

  “I’m never going back.”

  Her memories must be very bad, but Rachel wasn’t sure what that meant.

  Did she want to find out?

  She suspected that if she pushed, Amy would tell all. She couldn’t resist. But did Rachel want to get involved in Amy’s life like that? After all, she had her own secrets to keep. And Amy was Englisch, another complication in Rachel’s already complicated life. And it wasn’t like she could fix the problems Amy was dealing with.

  When she’d pictured herself going to college, Rachel always pictured sitting in class learning new things. The people in the class with her were vague shadow people except for their contributions to stimulating classroom discussions. Having peach pie with them had never crossed her mind. Being driven about in a Smart car by a young woman who finally showed Rob her driver’s license to convince him of her age was more than Rachel’s exceedingly fertile imagination could have conceived. Getting to know that woman, really know her, was a world fraught with both exciting possibilities and unspeakable dangers.

  And there was Rob. She smiled as she approached the farmhouse. Anyone watching would think she was glad to be coming home. And she was. Of course she was. She pushed Rob away.

  She studied the white clapboard house with the black trim. She’d had a wonderful childhood here, loved by Mom and Datt. Her parents were not just Amish by culture but by belief. Their family and their faith were the centers of their lives. Here she’d been taught to work hard and to love well.

  Still she was glad she didn’t live here now. Her marriage might have been short and certainly Aaron had died too young, but she’d liked the freedom being married had given her. She and Aaron had set their own schedule, one dictated by his work with the roofing company, not by the rhythms of farming. Unless there was a bad storm and roofs were damaged, he worked regular hours, and she liked knowing when dinner should be ready.

  Over the one summer they were married, they grew their own garden, and Rachel, who did not enjoy homemaking, much to Mom’s distress, put up the vegetables and fruit. She had actually enjoyed the task with Mom and Sally working with her. But the truth was she hadn’t canned a single fruit or vegetable since. Nor did she miss the chore.

  Aaron had enjoyed the garden and its care, but he was adamant that he didn’t want to be a farmer. “Too hard. Dawn to dusk. I like having free time to relax. I like having time to spend with you.”

  Perhaps it was the fact that they were both untraditional Amish that drew them to each other. She with her dislike of homemaking was much more out of step than Aaron with his disinterest in farming. Many of their male friends didn’t farm either. Lack of land in the area was one reason. The dependability of working regular hours for a known salary was another.

  When Aaron was killed, Datt wanted her to move back to the family home.

  “It will be too lonely to live by yourself,” he said.

  And it was lonely. But in another contrary quirk, she found she enjoyed solitude. Living alone suited her. And Mom and Datt were only around the bend in the road. Jonah and his family lived a half mile in the other direction. Both Jonah and Miriam and her parents had her for dinner at least once a week. She was often invited to the homes of her students too.

  When she was first approached by the school board about teaching at the local school, Rachel was surprised and overjoyed. They had had a seventeen-year-old teacher the previous year, a very nice girl who didn’t like teaching and wasn’t interested in finding ways to make the children learn. Rachel was older, twenty-two, almost twenty-three when she was asked. She was so thankful for something to do with the long hours of the day that she cried herself to sleep that first night.

  She might not be able to make a dinner that made people’s mouths water like Mom and Sally, even Ruthie, but she could teach.

  As she walked past Mom’s garden with its border of pink petunias to keep the rabbits out, she saw Mom sitting on the front porch reading another of the Amish novels she loved to criticize.

  When she saw Rachel, Mom smiled and stuck her bookmark, a lovely strip of needlework Aunt Sarah had made for her last birthday, between her pages. “How nice you came to visit,” she greeted Rachel. “I was hoping you would.”

  Rachel took the rocker beside her mother. “I’m surprised you don’t have company.”

  “We were at Sarah and David’s for the noon meal. Datt wanted to come home to read the paper. There is so little time with harvest on us.”

  “The corn has been good.”
r />   Mom stood. “Very. Would you like some lemonade?”

  “I’d love some if you’ll share it with me.” Rachel followed her mother into the house. Datt sat in his favorite chair reading Die Botschaft. Rachel always loved the gossipy news in the paper, even when she was reading about people she’d never met and would never meet. The masthead read, A Weekly Newspaper Serving Old Order Amish Communities Everywhere. She’d thought all newspapers were as folksy and personal until she’d started reading the New York Times and the Philadelphia Inquirer online.

  Datt looked up. “Did you know Anna Esh was making cheese and ice cream to sell from her house?”

  “I think I heard,” Mom said as she opened the propane refrigerator. “Say hello to Rachel.”

  “Hello, Rachel. Why didn’t I know? And Old Abe Mast had a stroke.”

  “I didn’t know that.” Mom paused with the lemonade pitcher in her hand. “Does it say how he is?”

  “He’s staying with his daughter and her husband and writes what he needs on a piece of paper.”

  “Is this Old Abe who always had an opinion?” Rachel asked. “Or Old Abe who had the farm on Cambridge Road?”

  Datt shook his head. “Opinion Abe. God’s will can sometimes be very hard.”

  Rachel watched her mother pour three glasses. She made her lemonade these days with a powdered mix but always made sure real lemon slices floated for authenticity.

  Rachel carried a glass to her father and took a sip from her own. “Where are Levi and David?” The house was quiet without her younger brothers rushing around.

  “The Weavers are having the youth for volleyball and a sing,” Datt answered. “Are there any cookies to go with the lemonade, Ida?”

  Mom got down an earthen crock and lifted its lid. She arranged molasses cookies on a plate Rachel brought her. “Give these to your father and help yourself.”

  Datt took a bite. “Good, wife, but I miss Sally’s molasses cookies. She has the touch.”