A Plain & Fancy Christmas

by Cynthia Keller

  The next morning began as usual, Ellie helping with the milking before breakfast. She was sad to be leaving, but everyone else was caught up with their usual duties, and made no reference to her departure. She understood that; they attended to their priorities as a matter of necessity in their way of life.

  After breakfast, the family members made it a point to say good-bye to her before their daily chores took them away for the day. Laura and Lonnie even drove over in their buggy just to wish her well. Ellie could see that Isaac was warming up but was still a bit hesitant about how to treat her. He gave her a handshake and a kind smile, telling her to be careful driving and come back to see them very soon. Leah was clearly sorry to see her go. She gave Ellie a hug, telling her that she would always be grateful for this gift.

  “I will wait to see you again,” she said. “You must come back. You must. Yes?” She searched Ellie’s eyes for a reply.

  She nodded. The connection between the two of them was unspoken but powerful. “As soon as I can.”

  Leah walked her out to the car and waved as Ellie went down the driveway. In the rearview mirror, Ellie saw her fold her arms and go back inside, no doubt to start preparations for the midday meal. Schedules, the day proceeding like clockwork, Ellie thought. That notion somehow seemed right to her. Being pulled in a million directions at work sometimes left her feeling suffocated, unable to think. She was always having to choose what to deal with first, running from problem to problem. Here on the farm, with more restraint, oddly, came more of a sense of freedom. Everything had its time and place, within the cycle of the day, the week, the season.

  Hours later, when she saw the New York City skyline ahead, she felt disoriented, as if she were traveling between two worlds. Disappointment flooded her when she unlocked the door to her apartment. It was so small and quiet. Just a place to sleep, without any joy to it. She wondered what the Kings were doing now.

  The light on her message machine blinked on and off. Her parents, Nick, and A.J. had all checked in, wanting to hear about her trip. Before she got into it with her parents, she decided to talk to her sister to find out what had transpired in her absence.

  A.J. answered her phone right away, obviously having checked her caller ID. “Hey! How was it?”

  Ellie smiled, happy to have an excuse to talk about the Kings. “Amazing. The way they lived, A.J.—in a different era, with completely different ways of looking at the world. It was hard work, but so peaceful.”

  “How’d you get along with them?”

  “Leah, my mother, was incredible. She—”

  “Your mother?” A.J. interrupted. “You planning to call her that when you see Mom?”

  Ellie stopped. “Um … no, I guess not, huh?”

  A.J. sighed. “Oh, what do I know? It kind of caught me off guard. But she is your mother.”

  “Well, what about Rachel? Did Mom describe her as her daughter?”

  “Oh, that was nothing compared to being able to introduce their granddaughter.”

  “Katie. Of course. That must have been huge for them.”

  “They had a family dinner, but we couldn’t go down for it. Nick said Katie was the hit of the evening. Apparently, she’s a very polite and self-possessed child. Not your basic obnoxious preteen at all. Everybody loved her.”

  “How did Rachel do?”

  “From what Nick told me, she was great. Mom and Dad pulled out the stops to show them the city, ran them all around. The four of them got along like a house afire.”

  “Really?” Ellie tried to sound enthusiastic, feeling left out and knowing she was being ridiculous.

  “They adored Rachel. You know, another daughter, as far as they’re concerned. Mom couldn’t stop raving about her to me on the phone. Even Dad told me what a fine individual she was, or some Dad-like phrase. Nick liked them both a lot, too. He said the little girl was really smart.”

  “Oh.” Ellie wondered if any of the Kings would rave about her. Then it occurred to her that raving about anybody was not something she could imagine them doing. It wasn’t their way. They didn’t boast and they didn’t rave. She felt her shoulders relax.

  “I better check in with Mom now.”

  “Definitely,” A.J. agreed. “She’ll be dying to hear the details. So you’re okay?”

  “I am. It was like nothing I’ve ever experienced on pretty much every level.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “Let’s talk later.”

  “ ’Kay. Bye.”

  After she hung up, Ellie went into her kitchen and poured herself a glass of red wine. She took a sip only to find she had no interest in drinking it. As she poured it down the sink, she thought about work on Monday. She could only assume that what she was feeling now—dread at facing her own life, longing for what she had just left behind—would fade, the way a suntan and the sense of relaxation that followed a vacation inevitably did. She needed to get back to reality, and the sooner the better.

  The next day, she took care of a few errands and talked to her parents, but she spent most of it in her apartment, thinking about the Kings.

  It wasn’t until the evening that she checked her texts and emails. She noted how many of the so-called emergencies had sorted themselves out without anyone’s help. People changed their minds, issues faded in importance and were replaced by new concerns. There’s a lesson, she thought; half the time I’m running around frantically to fix something that would fix itself. The terror that she would fail or overlook some critical point was, in fact, a waste of time. Apparently, much of what terrified her vaporized on its own if she just let it be. The idea depressed her even more.

  On Monday morning, she was at her desk by seven-thirty, determined to shake off her dark mood. Coffee in hand, she got right down to reading the online releases and new emails about what she had missed and what was coming up.

  “Hey, good to have you back.” Chris, one of the account executives, stuck his head into her office. “How was the vacation?”

  She looked up from her computer. Chris and she had little interaction at work, and she knew his inquiry was just a formality. “Great, thanks.”

  “Look at you, all natural and stuff. I like it!” He grinned and walked on.

  What did he mean? She got up and went to the mirror on the wall near her office door, part of an arrangement of photos and paintings. Having it there gave her a chance to check her hair and makeup as she was walking out the door without stopping anywhere or even appearing to be doing so. Her reflection surprised her. Usually, she wore a bright lipstick and lip gloss; today she had put on only the gloss. Her eye makeup always consisted of three carefully blended eye shadows, liner, and lots of mascara; this morning, she had brushed on two shadows and a touch of mascara. Without being conscious of it, she realized, she had gotten used to going without makeup, so this amount had seemed like a lot. She noticed that she had even forgotten to put on earrings. She did, in fact, look very different.

  It was a busy day, everyone wanting her attention so they could complain to her about some situation or other. Her attention drifted. Nothing seemed particularly compelling. She snapped back to attention when she was called into Robert Clark’s office for an emergency meeting late in the afternoon, along with Iris Herbert, a senior person with whom she typically shared projects. They hurried in to find Robert seated at his desk looking displeased.

  He greeted them with a terse “Sit down,” then waited while they quickly found chairs. “Just got off the phone with Jeffrey Kirk. Kip Dawn was arrested walking out of a jewelry store on Madison with a three-thousand-dollar watch in his pocket. He claims he indicated to his assistant that she should pay for it. They have video cameras, though, and they say there’s no sign of that, nor did anybody in the store see anything that could be construed as even a signal. The assistant says she didn’t know she was supposed to pay, and didn’t see any signal. She’s not going to take the hit for him. P.S., the cops didn’t like his behavior, so they tested him, and he
was legally drunk. P.S. again,” here he looked directly at Ellie, “remember he had that DUI a little while back.”

  “Seems our boy has a couple of, shall we say, issues,” remarked Iris. “Does he have any prior problems with shoplifting?”

  “Find that out, Iris, and see what this qualifies as—it’s got to be a felony or maybe worse, whatever that is, but get the details and what he might be facing in court. Jeffrey can give you the numbers for Kip’s lawyers. We have to know what we’re dealing with, first of all.”

  Hands in his pockets, he came around to stand in front of his desk. “Okay, now what are we going to do? We need to get out a statement pronto. Nobody knows yet, but that’s probably going to last for another five seconds.”

  As she always did in a client crisis, Ellie immediately started sorting out pros and cons, mentally flipping through what she knew and how that might work in the client’s favor. She recalled the days she spent about two years ago cleaning up the hot young actor’s DUI mess, when he was arrested driving home drunk from Vermont. That had blown over quickly. He had gotten a lot of good press since then, partially because he was so good-looking and considered talented, and partially because he had started dating an older, very successful actress. The public liked him for all that, which translated into points on his side. But a drunken thief—nothing likeable there. His last film had come out nearly a year before and was a romantic comedy. No help from that corner. He hadn’t enjoyed comedy, and his next one was going to be completely different. She searched her memory trying to recall the subject.

  “Wait.” She sat up straighter. “He’s scheduled to start shooting Just One More in October. He’s playing a cop. Cops arrest bad guys. Couldn’t he have been doing research for his role? Wanted to know what it’s like to steal something, but still planned to have his assistant pay for it so he could experience walking out the door with it.”

  Grinning, Robert pointed a finger at her. “And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how it’s done. Write it up, Ellie. Be sure to get with his lawyers first so we’re all coming from the same place on this. Thanks for your help. You both can go.”

  The two left his office. Ellie headed directly to the ladies’ room, thinking she might be sick. She bent over a sink to splash cold water on her face. She couldn’t believe it. Almost without thinking, barely making an effort, she had spun a story to excuse the despicable behavior of a client simply because he was a client. He might go to trial, he might even get convicted—although she doubted he would ever serve a day in jail—but she was helping him get away with it, if not in court then with the public. And this was the second time she would be helping him avoid the consequences of his actions.

  It wasn’t until this instant that she understood. She hated her job.

  If she had never found out the truth about her background, she wondered if she would ever have come to this moment. Ashamed, confused, afraid, she covered her face and cried.

  Chapter 20

  Despite his silence on the subject, Rachel could tell her father was still glad she was back and apparently unchanged by her trip to New York. At supper, she saw him repeatedly raise his eyes to look at her, a new anxiety showing beneath his calm exterior. He was more strict than usual with Katie, correcting her nearly perfect table manners and uncharacteristically criticizing the pace at which she served the food and cleared the plates. It was obvious he was trying, in his way, to counteract any bad outside influences she may have encountered on her trip. Rachel knew it wasn’t her place to say anything about it, though. One didn’t criticize one’s parents or elders.

  Leah, on the other hand, seemed neither affected by anything that had transpired nor interested in searching out any possible changes in Rachel or Katie. She was her usual brisk self, busy with canning and preserving the many items from the garden coming in as the month of August wound down. As she was working with Katie by her side doing the canning, she may well have questioned the girl about her trip or discussed Ellie with her, but, if so, Rachel heard nothing about it from her daughter. Rachel wished that she could be more like her mother, steadfast in the face of any change. She also wished she could shout at her, demanding to know how she could go on as if nothing had happened. Although Rachel knew she had always given her mother a more difficult time than the other children had, it wasn’t until now that she started wondering if her mother’s feelings for her had always been different from her feelings for the others. Was it possible, she wondered, that her mother had felt a little less for her? Did she sense, on some level only a mother could reach, that something was wrong, was not as it should be? It was a chilling idea.

  Sitting on the porch that evening as the sun left the sky, Rachel listened to the children singing choruses, letting the pure sounds wash over her. She had gone too far, she told herself. All this thinking about what everything meant, how everyone felt—far from being helpful, it was destructive. This is why they should have stayed at home and not ventured out into the craziness of New York City. A mistake made in a hospital shouldn’t be allowed to destroy a lifetime of thirty years and a child whose mind was still impressionable.

  No more, she decided. She didn’t want to see the uncertainty in her father’s face. It made her doubly unhappy, since she was the cause of it. Nor was it fair to put her sisters and brothers through this. She had met her birth parents, and that was enough. It was time to put an end to it.

  She tried. Day after day, she awoke determined to do her chores as well as she knew how, to be a good daughter, and to be a good mother. Her goal was not to speak of what she wanted to accomplish, but to do what needed doing. A life of action, of doing the right thing, was more important than any words. She said little, and she worked hard.

  No matter how she tried, though, she couldn’t contain the wanderings of her mind. When she glanced at her hands, she recalled the similarity of her skin tone to Nina Lawrence’s. When she drank tea, she remembered the delicate cups and dream-like surroundings of her afternoon at the Plaza Hotel. She recalled the gathering of relatives at Gil and Nina’s apartment and how welcoming everyone was. Even her quilt stitching reminded her of the pillow she had presented to the Lawrences on her first visit there, which had, in fact, been given a prominent home on one of their living room chairs. Only a few days after returning home, she received a long letter from Nina and Gil, letting her know how much they enjoyed the visit, asking the two of them to come again soon. They spoke of the depth of their affection for her and Katie, and marveled that such a strange situation could produce this miraculous addition to their family. A couple of days after that, Katie received a package from them containing a box of chocolates and a tiny, intricately carved wooden rowboat to remind her of their time in Central Park. Katie, in turn, wrote them a note of thanks in which she expressed her affection, and Rachel added a few lines to send her thanks and good wishes. The Lawrences, it seemed, were never far from their consciousness. Katie repeatedly asked when they might go back, until her mother’s silence on the subject told her to drop the question for good.

  Two weeks had passed since her visit when she received a letter from Ellie. Taking it to her bedroom so she could be alone, Rachel noticed her fingers trembling as she opened the envelope. It was a short note. Ellie wanted to talk in private, and they could do it anywhere Rachel liked, in Pennsylvania, halfway between them, or anywhere else, as long as it was just the two of them. Rachel sat on her bed, unmoving. She didn’t know what the meeting would be about, but she understood that it would be the end of her efforts to put this behind her.

  Chapter 21

  The restaurant had posts for Amish buggies and numerous parking spots for cars. Rachel made sure she tied Driver securely before turning toward the entrance. Steeling herself, she walked over to the door, beneath the shade of the awning, past the Waitress Wanted sign, and into the air-conditioning of Carson’s. It was a small restaurant, rarely frequented by the Amish, and she hoped it was far enough away from home that she wouldn’t see anyo
ne she knew.

  She saw Ellie waiting at a table by a curtained window, a glass jar with fresh flowers in front of her. Rachel’s immediate thought was that she looked nervous.

  Nervous or not, she managed a smile as Rachel approached. “Thank you for coming. It means so much to me.”

  “I’m not sure why,” Rachel said, “but I guess it will become clear soon.”

  Ellie held out her menu. “Do you want to order something? I’m getting coffee.”

  The waitress came over to the table, a cheerful girl around twenty or so, with spiky, black hair and bright red lipstick. Rachel asked for iced tea and a corn muffin. Then the two women faced each other again. It seemed to Rachel that Ellie wanted to speak, but something was holding her back.

  “How are Nina and Gil? And everyone else?” Rachel inquired.

  Ellie looked startled, as if she had forgotten that Rachel knew the members of her family. “Oh, they’re fine.” She seemed to warm to the subject. “They talk about you and Katie all the time. In fact, they’re driving me and themselves crazy wondering when you’ll come back.”

  Rachel picked up her spoon, examining it to avoid the other woman’s eyes. “We don’t have any such plans right now.”