“What are you doing there, buddy?” she said aloud, keeping her foot on the brake as pedestrians crossed in front of her car.
An older Volvo pulled up to the curb beside Pablo, and he waited with a smile as the driver’s door flew open and Shanna emerged. Serious Pablo smiled, remaining in place as Shanna came to him. He took her in his arms and dipped her dramatically as if they had rehearsed the dance move a hundred times.
Then they kissed—a big Hollywood kiss—right on the busy street corner.
“Really?” Juanita’s eyes opened wide as laughter bubbled up inside her. “Well!” she said aloud. “I see you’re not planning to marry me either!”
The next night at the studio, Juanita asked Pablo how long he had been seeing Shanna.
He blinked, his eyes wary. “What do you mean?”
“I saw her picking you up last night, but I had a feeling before that. Come on, Pablo. Can’t you help me end this ruse that my father is clinging to? You and I are both involved with other people.”
“Please, don’t tell your father. Shanna is a single mother. She’s not Hispanic. Your father … he will never approve and I don’t want to upset him.”
“I understand. I’m in the same boat, and I’m sick of living a lie. Let’s just talk to my parents, together, and we’ll clear this up.”
“I can’t do that now. We’re planning a tour in a few months, and that would put him in a terrible mood. I can’t take that chance right now.”
She groaned. “First of all, you are the tour. My mother retired years ago, and my father isn’t interested in performing at that level. Have some confidence.”
He shook his head. “I have too much to lose.”
“And everything to gain, like your freedom?” Suddenly, the truth was clarifying for her. “Look, I can’t keep doing this. Nothing personal, but this studio bores me to tears.”
“So why don’t you put your foot down?” One of his brows lifted as he folded his arms. “Tell your father you’re seeing someone else. That would let us both off the hook.”
“I just might.”
“But you won’t give me up.” He gave her a pleading look. “Please?”
“Your secret is safe with me.” She would not tattle on Pablo, though she thought that a courageous man, a man like Chris, would speak up for the woman he loved.
***
That night, Juanita left the studio and never looked back. To avoid making her parents suspicious, she left the house at the same time every evening. Instead of going to the studio, she went to a movie or coffee shop with Chris. The freedom to see Chris at night was delicious, but she knew it wouldn’t last.
For two weeks, her dilemma was the main topic of discussion among her friends at the market.
“I think you should tell your parents,” Lizzy said. “Honesty is always best.”
“Agreed,” Chris said.
“Aren’t you worried about getting caught?” asked her friend Chloe, who sold handcrafted jewelry.
“Yes, because my father has a temper. On the other hand, I’m twenty-four years old. It’s not like I’m committing a crime.”
“Just violating Greco family law,” Chris teased.
“And family rules are important,” Lizzy pointed out.
Juanita knew they were right. It was time to tell her parents the truth.
***
Hoping that a neutral environment might help to buffer her father’s anger, Juanita asked her parents to meet her at Papito’s one August morning.
“This is the day?” Lizzy asked from the other side of the counter as she set out a colorful quilt to sell.
“This is it. They should be here soon.” Nita snapped off the pair of rubber gloves she’d been using to serve a customer and pressed a hand to her chest. “I’m so nervous. Knowing my father, anything could happen.”
“Well, you can hope for the best,” Lizzy said. “It’s good to prepare for the worst. And take what comes with a smile.”
Juanita took a deep breath. “Thanks. I’ll try to remember that.”
“Nita? Over here!” Carmen called, snapping her fingers. “I need you to grate some cheese before Mommy and Poppy blow their tops.”
Lizzy smiled as she refolded a quilt. “I’ll be watching you.”
Juanita hurried over to help her sister. A few minutes later, she spotted her parents coming around the jewelry kiosk. Her father’s posture was perfect as usual, his face stern as he marched a few steps ahead of Mommy, who browsed the merchandise as she passed.
“He’s wearing his fish scales,” she told her sister. That was their code for Poppy’s annoyance.
Carmen snorted. “I don’t know how you still put up with them. The rest of us, we got married young to get away from Poppy’s temper.”
“That’s my escape plan, too,” Juanita admitted. “Only I am not going to marry the man Poppy has picked for me.”
“Good luck with that, chica,” Carmen said as she flashed a big smile at their parents and rushed out of the food stand to kiss them both.
This is it, Juanita thought as she followed her sister out. She saw Chris across the way at the deli, waiting for her signal. To her right, Joe and Lizzy were watching expectantly from the cheese stand.
“Thank you for coming.”
“Juanita?” The big purse that hung over Mommy’s shoulder seemed likely to swallow her up. “Why do you pull your hair back that way, chiquita? You know that’s not a good look for you.”
“It’s the health code, Mommy.” Juanita glanced over at Carmen, who rolled her eyes and waved her off.
“Go take your break.” Carmen lowered her voice to add: “You’ve picked your poison.”
“So what is it you want to show me?” Poppy demanded.
“I invited you and Mommy here because there’s someone I want you to meet.” She turned and nodded at Chris, who had already left the deli stand to wait near a post.
Nerves fluttered in her chest as Juanita turned back to her parents. “There’s been a change of plans—I mean, what the family had planned for me—and I wanted to share my good news with you.” The good news part had been Lizzy’s idea; she had thought it would be helpful to keep things positive.
“And I guess that’s my cue.” Chris paused between her parents, offering a hand to Poppy. “At least, I think it is. I’m the good news. Chris Schwab, Mr. Greco. Mrs. Greco.”
“Please, call me Sofia,” Mommy said, smiling up at Chris.
Although Poppy shook Chris’s hand, his face was puckered with disapproval, as if he’d sucked on a lemon. “What’s going on here?”
All hope sank down to Juanita’s toes.
“I work across the way at the Swiss deli,” Chris said, his voice level, his blue eyes serious. “Nita and I have become friends, and I wanted to meet the parents of your lovely daughter.”
Oh, Chris was laying it on thick. Mommy liked that sort of thing, but Poppy looked like he was ready to snap.
“So you’ve met us.” Poppy nodded brusquely, then turned to Juanita. “I’m still waiting for you to tell me why you called us here. You know I am trying to prepare Pablo for a tour, and my time is precious.”
“Poppy, please listen to me. I asked you to come here so that you could meet Chris. He’s my boyfriend.”
Mommy’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Boyfriend?”
“What?” The vein in Poppy’s forehead protruded—always a bad sign. “You’re cheating on Pablo?”
“No! There’s nothing between Pablo and me. We’ve always been friends … like brother and sister. Nothing more, Poppy. But Chris and I have been friends for a while. Chris is a very special person to me.”
“Bah!” Anton Greco swatted at the air as if a pesky fly lingered between them. “I put a roof over your head and food on the table, and this is how you repay me? A stab in the back.”
“It’s not about you.” Juanita’s voice was quiet but firm. She had to stand her ground. “This is about me making my own choices.
”
Anton Greco’s eyes glittered like polished coal. “Well, if that’s the way you want it, you can find another place to live. I won’t have such disrespect under my roof.”
“Poppy, please—”
“I didn’t come here to listen to this. Sofia, let’s go.”
As her father marched off, Nita turned pleading eyes toward her mother. “Mommy, please. I want to respect your wishes, but I am absolutely not going to marry Pablo. Can’t you understand that and tell Poppy … tell him that I’m my own person? That I will marry the man I choose.”
But Sofia simply frowned and turned away to join Anton.
Crushed, Juanita pressed a fist to her lips. Where had she gone wrong? She was just trying to be honest with her parents … trying to be true to her heart.
Chris patted her shoulder as they watched her parents traipse out of the market. “That went well, right? I figure, at this rate, they might accept me as your boyfriend by the time we’re ninety.”
“I’m sorry.” Rejection hurt, but her father’s petulant snub really smarted.
“Don’t be sorry. You were polite. Your father, not so much.” He kissed her forehead. “You don’t think he’s serious about kicking you out of the house, do you?”
She frowned. “My father is not a kidder. He might soften with time, but I can tell you this: I am not going home tonight.”
“Where will you stay?”
She shrugged. “I have three sisters.”
“You can come to my place,” Carmen called from behind the counter. “There’s an extra bed in my Tina’s room. It’s yours, sweetie.”
“Gracias, Carmen.” Nita turned to Chris. “You see? That’s one of the good things about a big family. I have plenty of places to go.”
“Yes, but now you’d better get back here to help me,” Carmen said as a flock of customers approached.
Juanita rose on tiptoes to give Chris a kiss. “We tried, and I don’t regret it.”
“You’re not giving up on me?” He smiled. “That’s a relief.”
She was the one who should have been relieved. After the way her father behaved, many young men would have gone running. Once again her sister barked from behind the counter and Nita and Chris both headed back to work.
With a heavy heart, Juanita pulled her apron over her head. Glancing up, she saw Chris watching her from across the way. She kissed her fingertips and blew it in his direction.
With his usual comic manner, he jumped to catch the kiss in the air, then plunked his palm against his chest.
Such a goofy guy with such a big heart. Her parents had to be blind not to see that. How could they be so blind to goodness and love?
Chapter 8
It did not go well with Juanita’s parents. Lizzy couldn’t hear much from her place at the cheese shop, but from the looks on the older folks’ faces as they marched off, she could tell that they were not pleased.
Lizzy longed for a word with Juanita, but now the marketplace was busy—bustling with customers—and there was an important errand to run.
“We’re almost out of waxed paper,” Joe reminded her. “We’re not going to make it till the end of the day. You want me to run and get it?”
“I’ll go,” Lizzy offered, glancing over to the quilt table where Leah King, their helper for the day, was talking quilts with a potential customer. Lizzy took a twenty from the till. “I’ll be right back.”
All business, she walked briskly through the building, heading to the grocery store, two blocks from Reading Terminal Market. As she pushed her way through the door and into the sunshine, the glare of angry voices hit her. A man and woman sat on a bench near the door, arguing. She was about to steer clear of them when she recognized Anton and Sofia Greco, Nita’s parents.
“Why do you always yell at them?” Sofia asked her husband. “You’re like an attack dog. You bark and bite right away without a thought about who you’re attacking. Nita is our daughter, our youngest. Listening to you talk, you sound like a tyrant. A big, bad wolf!”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I wouldn’t have to be so hard on her if the girl listened. Such disrespect and disobedience. She wasn’t like that when she was young.”
“She’s a good girl. All of our girls were. You’re just disappointed that they didn’t take up the dance.”
He grumbled, waving her off.
“The world has changed all around us, Anton. You have to get used to it, or the young people will leave you behind.”
Lizzy was tempted to turn away and go on her errand. But something kept her feet in place, like glue. She stood behind the wall, out of sight, as Sofia begged her husband to “make nice” with their daughter. “She’s a good girl. She’s my baby, and what you’re doing is wrong.”
Sofia kept calling Juanita her baby, which made Lizzy grin. A baby at twenty-four? But Anton did not argue with that. He was angry because his daughter wouldn’t follow his orders. No, he was not happy with his daughter.
The argument escalated until Sofia rose from the bench and waved her husband off. “If you insist, you can sit there and be a stubborn old man. I’m going to talk to my baby.” And she walked off, heading back into the market.
Good for you, Lizzy thought. She knew Nita would be happy to make peace with her mother. But Juanita’s father was not giving in.
Anton Greco set his jaw and hunkered down on the bench, his eyes dark coals, glistening with anger.
What was it Lizzy’s mother always said?
Be kind to unkind people. They probably need kindness the most.
Lizzy approached the bench where Anton Greco sat stewing.
He squinted up at her. “You’re the Amish girl. Juanita’s friend.”
“That’s right. My name is Lizzy.”
“Lizzy?” He leaned back on the bench and lifted his chin defiantly. “I have a question for you.”
She nodded.
“I want to ask you, if you only drive in horse-drawn buggies, how do you get all the way into Philly from Lancaster County?”
She smiled; she had not been expecting a simple question about living Plain. “We pay to ride in a van.” She explained that, although the Amish were not allowed to own or drive automobiles, they could ride in them.
“Is that so?” His bushy eyebrows rose. “Sounds to me like you’re bending the rules. But what’s the point of outlawing cars, anyway? Do you really think God cares?”
Lizzy shrugged. “Some say that a car carries a person too far from home. Too far from family.”
“Ah, and family is important, I’ll give you that.” He nodded. “Sit and I’ll tell you why families fall apart here in America.”
She sat beside him and listened as he told her how things were in the Puerto Rican village where he grew up.
In turn, she told him how the Amish community of Halfway was similar to a small village. “Sometimes I miss my home, working here nearly every day. But it’s good to spend every day with my husband, Joe. And I’ve made a friend in Juanita.”
“Is that a good thing? A girl who lies to her parents?”
“I heard what your wife said, and it’s true. Juanita is a good girl. She is trying to please you and follow her heart at the same time. That’s not always easy.”
His low grumble reminded her of the reaction she might have gotten from her own father. “Follow her heart. You sound just like her. Young people see life as a storybook with a happy ending. But life is not so, and Juanita is better off learning that now.”
Lizzy looked away, not wanting to see the sorrow that had returned to his dark eyes. The anger. She did not know what caused the storm that blustered within Anton Greco, but she sensed that it had very little to do with his daughter Juanita.
“Juanita has much to learn,” she said, trying to stay on the subject. “We all do. But there comes a point when a parent needs to let go so that a child can learn to walk on her own.”
Again, he grumbled, and she wondered why he was missing the sweet things
. Here was a man who puckered his mouth from the tartness of an apple, missing the sweet juice that ran down his chin.
“I watched my older sister Kate with her children when they were toddlers,” she said. “When Kate held on to their hands, the little ones just wanted her to pick them up. It was when she let go, when she let them take a step and fall and get back up—that was when they learned to walk on their own.”
He was silent for a moment. “I remember when Nita learned to walk. She’s our youngest, you know. My wife, she still calls her the baby.”
“But she’s not a baby anymore,” Lizzy said.
He nodded. “Not anymore.” He rose from the bench and glanced toward the door. “I’m going to talk to my daughter.”
“Good.” Lizzy got up, checking the money pinned into her apron. If she didn’t go soon, Joe would wonder what was keeping her. Her step was a little lighter as she crossed the street. Hope could make a person very light on her feet.
***
That day, it seemed that the winds between Juanita and her father shifted ever so slightly in the right direction. When Lizzy returned to the market, Juanita’s parents were already gone. But they had made peace with their daughter, much to her surprise.
“What did you say to my father?” Juanita kept asking Lizzy over the next few days. “He looks at me differently now. He doesn’t frown when I come in the room.”
“We just talked about my sister Kate’s children and how they learned to walk.” Lizzy wasn’t sure what she had said to change Anton Greco’s mind. “And maybe it wasn’t anything I said,” she told Juanita. “Sometimes Gott works in mysterious ways.”
Chapter 9
September
One September afternoon, Lizzy and Joe were about to board the van outside the market when they received shocking news from their van driver, George Dornbecker.
“I got a call from your mother, Lizzy. Seems your sister-in-law Becky came down with appendicitis,” George told them.
“Oh, dear Gott. Is Becky all right?”
“The doctors say she’ll get through this, but she’ll be in the hospital for a few days at least.”
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