“How long do we take to return them?” Bob asked with interest, suddenly pondering the cruelty of the process. People poured their hearts out in books, sent them to publishers, praying they’d get published, and then they got them back with a form letter that basically told them to forget it or to try somewhere else.
“We take a couple of months,” Pat said with a shrug. “I think I’ve had the one in the blouse for about a month. It struck me when it came in. I think she’s young. She wrote the whole thing by hand.”
“I hope she made a copy before she sent it to us, or put it on a disk,” Bob said, feeling sympathetic again, and then pulled it out of the stack. He could see then that it was neatly wrapped in a piece of fine gray linen held together with straight pins. He nearly stuck himself on one of them, pulled it loose, and saw the stack of notebooks inside. He didn’t know why, but he had been drawn to that package and was fascinated by it now. He saw that the fabric was beautifully stitched by hand, and when he held it up after he unpinned it, he saw that it was an apron of some kind, about the right size for a child. “How weird,” he muttered, as he flipped open one of the notebooks and saw the lacy European handwriting inside. He could see that she had sent them the original, and he wondered again if she had copied it before she sent it off. What if they had lost it or thrown it out? He almost shuddered on her behalf. There was no cover note, he noticed, only the address of a dairy farm in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and as he saw that, his eyes widened, and he looked at Pat. “Wait a minute, she’s not from Iowa. She’s from Pennsylvania, in the heart of Amish country.” He held up the apron again and suddenly realized what it was. It was the apron of a young Amish girl. “Shit, Pat, I’ll bet this girl is Amish. Hell, we might have something here. She probably can’t write for beans, but it might be worth a look. An exposé by an Amish girl on a farm in Pennsylvania could be interesting, even if she can’t write.”
“Don’t count on it being anything,” Pat muttered, still hunting for whatever he had lost in the rubble on his desk. “If she could, she wouldn’t be sending us notebooks in the mail wrapped in her underwear.”
“If she’s real Amish, she doesn’t have access to a computer, or even a phone. Or a copier. For all we know, this may be the only copy she has of her manuscript.”
“That could be a blessing,” Pat said unkindly, as Bob grabbed the stack of notebooks and the apron in one hand.
“I have no lunch date today. This could be fun. I’m going to read a few pages before you send it back.”
“Have a ball,” Pat said, and pulled a file out of a drawer, after he gave up trying to find the business card he had lost.
“I’ll put it back in your stack if it’s no good,” Bob said. He walked into his office, dumped the pile of notebooks on his desk, and found himself with the pale gray apron in his hands. And for no reason he could understand, he held it, thinking of the woman who had worn it, wondering if she was young or old, and what she looked like. Suddenly the idea that she was Amish fascinated him, and he wanted to know who had written the book, and why. He set the apron down carefully on his desk and opened the first notebook. The handwriting was delicate and old-fashioned but strong, as though she were young. The only clue he had to her identity was her name. She had written “Lillibet Petersen” boldly under the title at the top of the first page.
Slowly, he began reading, falling into the pattern of her words. She had a strong cadence to the way she wrote, a powerful voice that he rapidly became accustomed to, and a way with words that he liked. She reminded him a little of Jane Austen, but in a fresher, stronger, newer way. Lillibet definitely had her own voice. And as he read through the handwritten pages, she captivated him with her characters as well. The main character of the book was a young woman who had left her family’s farm and traveled far into the world, looking for new adventures, and her descriptions of people, places, and situations were mesmerizing. He moved on to the second notebook without stopping and was startled when he saw that it was after five o’clock. He hadn’t put her notebooks down. And he smiled as he sat for a moment, staring into space. He had a strange feeling that she was sitting in the room with him, and as he glanced at the apron still on his desk, he had a sense that a powerful force was with him, and fate had taken a hand.
He closed the notebook where he’d stopped reading, signed some papers on his desk, and left his office at six o’clock, with the notebooks in a shopping bag, and at the last minute, he put the apron in with them. And he couldn’t wait to get home to start reading again.
He picked up a salad at the deli where he often bought dinner, and twenty minutes later he was at home in his apartment, sitting on the couch and reading Lillibet’s notebooks again. And suddenly he stopped, as though he had to send a message to her. The pull was so strong, he felt like he could almost reach out and touch her. Instead he ran the delicate apron through his hands.
“Lillibet, I don’t know who you are, but I’m reading your story. I hear you,” he said softly. He put the apron down and began reading again. He sat there until midnight, going through notebook after notebook. He was normally a fast reader, but he found himself wanting to savor the story as he devoured it. He didn’t know how much of it was fact or fiction, but it was so compelling, he continued reading through the night, and finished just after four A.M. He hadn’t done that in ages. She had swept him up in everything she’d written, and he had fallen in love with her characters, been fascinated by how she developed the story, and needed to know what was going to happen right until the end. He was wide awake when he finished the last pages. She had spun around expertly in a giant literary pirouette and landed on her feet in a remarkable tour de force at the end. He sat holding the last notebook in his hands, contemplating everything he had just read and bowled over by it. The farm girl from Pennsylvania, or woman, whoever she was, had knocked him squarely on his ass, and that didn’t happen often.
“Holy shit, Lillibet Petersen! Who are you? You write like an angel, you think like a genius, and you are driving me insane!” He started laughing then. It was one of the best books he’d read in years, and he couldn’t believe it was from their slush pile, sent to him longhand in notebooks, wrapped up in her apron. And he still wasn’t sure if she was an Amish girl. She had never mentioned the Amish in the book, so maybe she wasn’t. Undoubtedly not everyone in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, was Amish. Maybe she was just an ordinary farm girl, but in fact there was nothing ordinary about her. Whoever she was, she was a remarkable writer. And he felt as though fate had put a jewel in his hands. He had walked past Pat Riley’s desk a thousand times on the way to his office, and the slush pile had never caught his eye. That day Lillibet’s manuscript wrapped in her apron had mesmerized him. It could only be destiny at work.
He couldn’t sleep that night, thinking about her notebooks, and on Saturday he read some of them again. He went for a walk then, stopped at his office, and everywhere he went, her story followed him. She was driving him crazy. He had already decided to call the dairy farm on Monday, to talk to her. But he still had to get through Sunday before he could. It was the longest weekend of his life. He felt as though she were waiting for him to respond, and he was keeping her on hold. He made the call from home on Monday morning and sat staring at her apron while he did.
He called the dairy and asked for Lillibet Petersen and was told that there was no one there by that name. He was suddenly panicked that she had used a nom de plume, but the return address on her manuscript had to be good. Maybe someone at the dairy knew who she was.
“Is there a general manager or an owner on the premises?” Bob asked, with a nervous sensation in his stomach. He felt like he had the glass slipper in his hand and would have to look all through Lancaster County to find the woman it fit.
“That would be Joe Lattimer,” the voice answered. She put Bob on hold, and three minutes later Joe was on the line.
“Joe Lattimer,” he said crisply. And Bob felt tongue-tied as he tried to explain. H
e had no idea why this woman affected him that way, but he felt as though he was being swept away by a tidal wave.
“Hello. My name is Robert Bellagio. I’m a book publisher in New York. We received a manuscript a month or two ago, from a woman named Lillibet Petersen, if that’s really her name. She used your dairy as her return address, but your operator doesn’t know who she is. Do you?” Joe Lattimer was smiling as he listened. He had forgotten all about it until then. Bob had refreshed his memory immediately.
“Yes, I do know who she is,” Joe Lattimer answered his question, as Bob let out a long slow breath. “I mailed that package for her myself. Quite a while ago, as I recall. You’re right, a month or two, I think. She didn’t tell me what it was. I think maybe there were some notebooks wrapped in an apron. So she’s written a book.” Joe sounded impressed. He hadn’t seen her since a few days after he’d mailed the package for her. Her brother Willy had started delivering the milk to them again. And there was no reason for Lillibet to come back. She was busy at home.
“She certainly has written a book,” Bob confirmed. “A humdinger of a book. Do you have a phone number for her? I’m sorry to bother you with all this. I just didn’t know where to reach her. She didn’t include a letter, just your return address.”
“I don’t mind your calling at all. She doesn’t have a phone number. Her father doesn’t have a phone.”
There was a long pause at Bob’s end then, as he wondered if his first guess was right. “Is she Amish?” he asked Joe cautiously, wondering if it sounded strange.
“Yes, she is. They are Old Order Amish, and her father is one of the elders of the church. And my guess would be he has no idea she wrote a book. I’m sure that’s not in keeping with their beliefs. Did she write an exposé about the Amish?” Joe asked, curious himself now about her book, especially after what Bob had said.
“No, she didn’t. There’s no mention of the Amish anywhere in it. Your address just caught my eye. That’s the heart of Amish country, isn’t it?”
“Indeed it is. I’ve done business with her father for thirty years. Or my family has. We buy his milk and make their cheese. Her father is about as serious Amish as you get. Good man.”
Bob wasn’t sure where to go from there. “I’d like to come down and talk to her. Do you suppose that would be possible?”
“I wouldn’t want to try it. The Amish are very polite people, but they don’t welcome English in their midst. They keep to themselves and expect us to do the same.” Joe had had that experience with his first crush forty years before. It was what Bob had heard about them too, but he felt stonewalled here and had no idea how to reach Lillibet.
“English?” He had picked up on the word.
“Outsiders. Anyone who’s not Amish. We’re all ‘English’ to them. They’ve been living the same way since the seventeenth century. And for them, not much has changed. Many of them still speak German, or a form of it, just as their ancestors did when they came to this country. Even their clothes haven’t changed, as I’m sure you know. I doubt that her father would let you see her if you just showed up at their farm. They’re very protective of their women. I’ve only seen her a couple of times. She delivered the milk when her brothers were sick, when she had me send you the book. It must have seemed providential to her.”
“And to me,” Bob said, sounding pensive. “I wonder how she got my address.”
“I have no idea. She gave it to me on a scrap of paper.”
“How old is she?”
Joe thought about it for a minute, remembering her face that day. “Early twenties. She takes care of her father and brothers. Her mother died in a school shooting we had here. A crazed gunman got into the school and shot her mother and five little girls. A terrible tragedy. It happened seven years ago.”
“I remember reading about it,” Bob said in a hushed tone. It gave insight into the manuscript he had read, and the person behind it. But he wondered how she had known all the places she had described, and written about them so well, if she had never left her father’s farm, and he was one of the elders of the church, which must have meant he was very strict. And then Bob had an idea. “If I send you an e-mail, do you suppose you could print it out and get it to her? I’m assuming they don’t have a computer.”
Joe laughed at the idea. “Not likely. No electricity, no phone, no electronics, some Amish don’t even have indoor plumbing. If there were no computers in the 1600s when they got here, they don’t have one now. But yes, I could print up an e-mail for her. Her brothers come in every day. They’re just young kids, so hopefully they won’t forget to give it to her. The boys are around eleven or twelve. We can try. If they don’t give it to their father first.” Bob hadn’t thought of that. He had a brilliant manuscript written by a girl who was completely inaccessible, and living in the seventeenth century. It was like contacting someone in a time machine. But it only made him want to reach her more. He was dying to go to Pennsylvania himself to see her. And he intended to. But he wanted to get in touch with her first. He didn’t want to get her in trouble, or have her father forbid her to see him, which sounded entirely possible, particularly if she was young.
“I’ll give it a try,” Bob said about the e-mail. “And thank you so much for your help.” It occurred to him that the owner of the dairy was being particularly cooperative as a go-between. He had no way of knowing that it was Joe’s way of honoring his own distant past, and something about Lillibet had touched him in a tender place in his heart. And Joe felt for what she had gone through losing her mother. Maybe she needed a friend.
“Happy to oblige.” He didn’t want to anger Henryk Petersen either. But he had agreed to help Lillibet get her manuscript to New York, and now he wanted to help her get a response, particularly if the New York publisher liked the book. That would be exciting for her. “I’ll put your e-mail in an envelope and give it to the boys when they come in.”
“Thank you so much,” Bob said, and hung up, thinking about everything he had heard from Joe Lattimer, who she was, how old, who her father was, how they lived, and even how her mother had been killed, which sounded tragic to him, and had obviously heavily impacted Lillibet’s life. And with everything he learned about her, he wanted to know more. He had an unquenchable thirst for knowledge about her.
He sent a short e-mail from his home computer to the e-mail address Joe had given him. There was so much he wanted to say to her, but he didn’t want to frighten her away, so he was extremely cautious and to the point.
“Miss Petersen, I have had the great pleasure of reading your very remarkable book. At your convenience, I would like to come to Lancaster to discuss it with you, and make an offer to publish it. Please let me know how, where, and when it would be easiest for you to meet. Congratulations on an extraordinary book! Respectfully, Robert Bellagio.” And he added the phone numbers and e-mail where she could reach him. Given what Lattimer had said, Bob was sure she would be obliged to use the owner of the dairy farm to respond to him.
He sent the e-mail to Joe, and all he could do after that was wait to hear from her. It came through on Joe’s office computer, and he printed it and put it in an envelope for her, to give to her brothers later. And he told the two dairy hands to let him know when the boys came by that day. He didn’t have long to wait. They showed up just before noon, and Joe went outside and handed one of the twins the envelope, after inquiring about their father. The boys were identical, so he was never quite sure which one he was talking to. He had written Lillibet’s name on the envelope and told her brother to be sure to give it to her, and he promised he would. And then they hopped in the buggy and drove home. Sometimes they came with Willy, but they hadn’t that day, and they were perfectly capable of delivering the milk without him and had done so several times. Joe forgot about it after that, having accomplished his mission. But Bob Bellagio didn’t. He went to the office and obsessed about her all day. He walked over to talk to Pat Riley about it. If possible, Pat’s desk was a
bigger mess than before and seemed to have gotten worse over the weekend.
“I read that manuscript that came wrapped in the apron,” Bob commented. “The book is an incredible piece of work, written by a young Amish girl. I’m going to make her an offer. If I can get to her,” Bob said, looking nervous.
“What does that mean? Is she in hiding?”
“Might as well be. Do you know anything about the Amish?”
“Not much,” Pat admitted. “They dress funny, are conscientious objectors, I think, and live in Pennsylvania.”
“They live in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Whatever didn’t exist then, they don’t have now, including phones, cars, computers, televisions, and any electrical equipment. They’re a very tight religious sect, run by the elders of the church, and unless I get her father’s permission or she runs away, which is unlikely, I won’t be able to get near her.”
“Jesus, it sounds like jail.” Pat looked impressed.
“Maybe. Supposedly they like it, and they’re said to be very nice people. I just don’t know how they feel about women publishing books. Something tells me they won’t like it.”
“It’s like the Dark Ages,” Pat commented. “How old is she? Twelve?”
“She’s in her early twenties. They’re not supposed to have contact with people outside their community. Not just the women, the men too. So this should be interesting. I sent her an e-mail this morning, to be hand-delivered by her brothers.” And he told Pat about his conversation with Joe Lattimer.
“It sounds very cloak and dagger,” Pat said with a grin, “and you’re right, very seventeenth century. Maybe you could fight a duel for her, with her father, over the book. Or her boyfriend, if she has one.”
“We’ll see how it goes,” Bob said cryptically. He didn’t want to admit to his junior editor that he was fascinated by her and had thought about her all weekend. It sounded too crazy. It was wild enough that they had gotten a handwritten manuscript from an Amish girl that he wanted to publish. But the book was terrific, and he was sure it would be a smash hit, if they could get it, which remained to be seen. He certainly hoped so. And in the meantime, her apron lay on his desk at the office. He had brought it back with him. It was beginning to feel like a security blanket. He kept taking it with him, so he had a part of her or something familiar to her, like a talisman, near at hand.
Until the End of Time: A Novel Page 18