by Sarah Price
“How can you get used to that?” her mamm had asked earlier, a look of disgust on her face, as she waited for the driver to pick her up for the twenty-minute drive to the hospital.
Amanda hadn’t known how to explain it to her mother. Living it was the only way to understand it. So, rather than try, Amanda gave a weak smile and simply shrugged her shoulders. “Guess you just do, after a while.”
“Is that what it was really like?” her mamm had asked, a curious look on her face. “Traveling with him?”
For a moment, Amanda had shut her eyes and a whirlwind of memories flashed through her mind: Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Miami. After she had opened her eyes, she simply looked at her mother and smiled. “There were moments like that, I reckon,” she replied. “But, for the most part, there’s a lot of isolation from it. It becomes . . . white noise, I suppose.”
Her mother had frowned, not familiar with that term. “White noise?”
“Background noise. Like the sound of a buggy driving down the hill. After a while, you just stop noticing the sound unless you are listening for it.”
Now, however, there was someone knocking at the door. That was a noise that Amanda noticed, all right. No one came to visit the Beiler farm, not with the nosy photographers stationed outside of the farm, waiting for the million-dollar snapshot of Amanda Diaz, the Amish-born wife of Viper, international sensation and superstar.
Cautiously, she peeked through the glass, surprised to see a man standing there. From the way he was dressed, she could tell he was a local man and most likely a farmer. While he certainly wasn’t Amish, she thought he might be a Mennonite. Cracking the door open, she kept her foot at its bottom and glanced over to make certain the police were still there. One of them was watching for her and waved his hand. Clearly, they had vetted the visitor.
“Yes?” she asked timidly.
“Mrs. Diaz?” the man responded, plucking his hat from his head and holding it in his hands. He was nervous and shuffled on his feet, avoiding direct eye contact.
It felt strange to have someone call her Mrs. Diaz. Among the Amish, such formalities were never used. While on the road with Alejandro, she had been known as Viper’s wife or simply as Amanda. No one ever referenced either of them by using Alejandro’s last name. In fact, most people always called him by his stage name. She often doubted that the greater part of his fans even knew his Christian name.
“Ja?” She remained blocking the door, just as a precaution.
The man glanced over his shoulder toward the barn as he said, “Your husband hired me to help with the farmwork.”
“My husband hired you?”
The man nodded and glanced toward the barn. “With your father being in the hospital, Mr. Diaz asked me to step in with the barn chores so you can tend to your daed.”
Amanda frowned. Daed? That was a word used by the Amish. Yet, clearly, this man was not Amish. “What’s your name?”
“Harvey,” he responded. “Harvey Alderfer.”
Alderfer? The last name was definitely Mennonite. Yet she wondered why Alejandro hadn’t told her about hiring him. That worried her. Still, if the police had let him through, certainly it was safe enough to let him muck the dairy barn while she tried to sort this out with Alejandro. It would be just like him to do something so thoughtful, she realized with a warmth building inside her chest. Only Alejandro would think to hire help for the manual labor around the farm.
“Ja vell,” she said, gesturing toward the large building that housed the cows. “You could get started with the mucking, I reckon, while I contact my husband to find out about what, exactly, he has arranged.”
The man seemed satisfied by her answer and tipped his hat in her direction as he backed away from the door. She watched as the willowy stranger hurried down the porch stairs and wandered over toward the barn, his shoulders slightly hunched over and his hands in his pockets. Despite having lived in the area her entire life, she did not recognize the man, but she sure recognized his disposition: Mennonite.
Amanda made certain to lock the door after she shut it, and then, chewing on her lower lip, she hurried over to the place where she kept her cell phone. It was nearly eleven in the morning. She knew that Alejandro had a performance scheduled for the previous night and had to make an appearance at an after-party, but certainly by now he would be awake, she thought. Hesitantly, she pressed the button to dial his number. She disliked using the phone and, even more so, did not want to disturb him. She never knew whom he might be meeting with or what he was doing. But she certainly needed to find out about this man, this Harvey Alderfer, who had just shown up on her doorstep.
He answered on the third ring, his voice cheerful as he greeted her. “Princesa! You must have been reading my mind!”
“I was?” she said lightly, smiling as she clutched the phone to her ear and turned to look out the window. Her eyes scanned the empty fields, but her heart raced. “And what exactly was on your mind, Alejandro?”
She heard him move, a shuffling sound that was muffled. With a low voice, he replied, “You, mi amor. Always you. And if you knew about what, you’d blush.”
She couldn’t help herself and caught herself laughing. “I think I am blushing, even without knowing.”
“I only have a few minutes, Princesa. I am headed to a lunch reception,” he said, his voice thick with regret. “But I trust you are calling because the hired man showed up, sí?”
“Sí,” she said back, her eyes sparkling just from the sound of his voice.
He laughed as he always did when she tried to speak Spanish to him. “I simply can’t have my wife doing all of that farmwork now, can I?”
“I have done it for many years,” she pointed out, still smiling to herself.
It had been almost a week, and she missed Alejandro more than anything in her life. Yet she knew that sacrifices had to be made. Life was greater than just her. And, at this time, her parents needed her at the farm. To not be there would risk her sister’s upcoming marriage to her beau in Ohio. If Amanda had been selfish and continued traveling with Alejandro, Anna would have felt compelled to return home and help rather than marry her young gentleman friend. Having already lost one prospect, Anna certainly could not risk losing another. At least, that was Amanda’s perception of the situation and the main reason she had stayed behind on the family farm while Alejandro toured on the East Coast.
“Ah,” he breathed, his voice deep and full of emotion. “But now you are my wife,” he said solemnly. “And, despite the distance, I must continue to take care of you, sí?”
“Sí,” she whispered back, feeling an intense sense of loss. She had not realized how much she had grown to depend on Alejandro, on his love and support. Now that he was gone, she knew that she had become far more attached to him than she had even imagined. Loving him was just one part of the equation; counting on him was another. “Sí, you will always take care of me, Alejandro.”
She heard him catch his breath at her words and he swallowed, fighting his own emotion that continued to swell in his chest. “And your father, Amanda. How is he? Has he returned home from the hospital?”
“Next week,” she said softly into the phone. “He’ll be home next week.” That’s what the doctor had told her mamm just the day before. It was news that Mamm had been most excited to share with her dochder when she had returned home from the hospital last evening. Yet Amanda knew that coming home was a long way from being back to normal. She wasn’t certain how things would work themselves out. It all depended on his recovery.
“We must talk, Princesa,” Alejandro said, a sense of foreboding in his voice. “What to do with the farm in order to help your parents.”
A sigh escaped her lips. She didn’t need to hear the words to know exactly what Alejandro meant. Her father certainly could no longer handle the farm, not alone. Without a son to take over, there was no one to inherit it. Not now anyway, with Amanda married to an Englische international superstar and h
er sister, Anna, getting married to a farmer in Ohio. Clearly, her parents’ farm would have to be sold and her parents settled into a smaller home, one that her daed could handle. But that was definitely not something he nor his family were looking forward to, having lived on their farm for the greater part of their lives.
“Ja,” she admitted. “I know. Decisions I don’t want to make today, that’s for sure and certain.”
“Now, Princesa,” he said, a noise in the background distracting him for just a second. She could hear voices and laughter. “I must say good-bye for now. I am needed to greet some people for this luncheon.” She sensed the dread in his voice. She knew how taxing these events were on his energy level. Yet he had taught her how necessary they were for maintaining his image and fan base. “I shall contact you later, sí?”
“Sí,” she said softly, wishing more than anything that she could be beside him. He had affirmed to her more than a dozen times how much her presence had soothed him, giving him the energy and motivation to face the crowds with a smiling face. She could sense that now this energy was forced as he faced endless streams of fans and reporters and sponsors, all of whom had no idea about the true essence of the man they knew as “Viper.”
Outside, at the barn’s entrance, she stood in the shadow of the doorway, her eyes adjusting to the darkness for just a brief moment. The pungent smell of the cows mixed with hay and manure accosted her nose. For some, it could have been a distasteful odor. But for Amanda, it was comforting, a smell that reminded her of her youth on the farm.
Growing up Amish had taught her a great deal about life and faith and family. Even though she loved her husband and wanted nothing more than to be beside him as he traveled the world and entertained his fans, she was secretly glad to be home with her parents, even for just a short while. Oh, she missed Alejandro . . . his teasing, his laughter, his attentiveness. But breathing in the strong scent of the barn made her realize that, indeed, there was no place like home.
As she walked down the hallway toward the dairy aisle, she could hear the scraping of a shovel against the concrete: the hired man was mucking the dairy. She made her way toward the noise, careful to step over loose manure. Her old black sneakers felt comfortable on her feet, but she realized that she was too aware of how clunky and unattractive they were. Pride and vanity, she thought and quickly chastised herself. Yet she was torn. Her new life with Alejandro conflicted so sharply with her old lifestyle on the farm. How had she changed so much in such a short period of time?
“Harvey?” she called out when she approached the tall man in order to avoid startling him. “How are you making out, then?”
Leaning against the shovel, he looked at her. “Just fine,” he replied. “Been working farms for years. Nothing different here.”
His tone was dry, his expression emotionless. The weathered look on his face told the story of years of laboring in the sun, tilling the soil and battling the elements. Amanda had seen that look before, among many of the Amish in her community. It dawned on her how much older the Amish, and in this case the Mennonite, farmers looked, both men and women. Unlike in Alejandro’s world where the youthful appearance of the face meant more than anything else, the Amish focused more on living well off the land rather than looking well in the world.
“You live nearby, ja?”
He nodded his head. “Just north of Ephrata,” he said.
“Well, that’s not too far, I reckon!” she replied. “How did my husband find you, if I may ask?”
“Not certain of that,” Harvey admitted. He paused and glanced around at the barn. “Lots of work to do, Mrs. Diaz,” he said. The use of her last name startled her. Most Amish and Mennonites did not call one another by their surnames. That was definitely an Englische method of addressing others. There was something different about this Harvey. He was a Mennonite farmer, so she wondered why he had called her by her last name.
“It’s just Amanda,” she said. “I’ll make certain to have some coffee for you, then.” With a slight smile, she turned and walked out of the dairy, pulling her black shawl tighter as she exited the barn and braved the cold to return to the house.
Inside, she looked around. Everything felt and looked smaller to her. And darker, too, she realized, giving it some thought. It no longer felt like home, yet everything about it spoke of her upbringing: the sofa in the kitchen where she had crocheted many a blanket, the kitchen counter where her mamm had taught her how to make bread and cheese, the table where they had enjoyed many a dinner and supper with her sister and younger brother. It had been a lively, happy kitchen until her brother had died. Then, the house had been shrouded in a cloak of sorrow and darkness. Until, she realized, Alejandro had arrived.
With a sigh, she fought the longing in her heart. She couldn’t deny how much she missed Alejandro: his soft words, his attentiveness, his teasing, his love. Yet she knew that it was a big relief to both of her parents that she was there, helping to take care of the farm while her mamm took care of her daed. Just the other day, she had received a letter from Anna, a short note expressing her gratitude for Amanda’s returning to the farm while she prepared for her wedding in just another week. She had promised that she would return home with her new husband as soon as they were married.
Married, Amanda thought. She would feel such relief when her sister was finally married to her beau, Jonas Wheeler. If the newly married couple traveled back to Pennsylvania, it would present the perfect opportunity for Amanda to rejoin Alejandro, at least until Anna and Jonas would return to Ohio.
And then what? That was the question that she kept asking herself.
Over and over again, she had made a mental list of options for her parents. Moving them to Pinecraft in Florida, a wonderful community of Amish, where the weather was nice all year long; this was definitely one suggestion she wanted to offer her parents. The other was selling the farm and moving them to a smaller, more contemporary house on the outskirts of the church district. Many older Amish couples did that when they had no children to take over the farm. And young Amish couples were always in need of farms, so there would be no shortage of offers on their property.
Of course, there was always that last option, that spark of hope buried deep within her heart that, perhaps, she might be able to stay on the farm, stay with Alejandro. He had been so happy on the farm during the summer, and he knew how to manage the dairy. It wouldn’t take much for him to be able to handle the farm chores, especially if he could afford hired help. Yet she knew that she couldn’t ask him that. His leaving the Englische world had never been part of their arrangement. It would be most unfair to extend such a request. He had a life, a career—one that he loved—at least while she was by his side. No, she realized, her staying on the farm was not an option, after all.
Amanda took a deep breath and buried her face in her hands, fighting the tears that threatened to spill from her eyes. If only Aaron had not died, she thought, but then realized that, had her brother lived, she never would have gone to Ohio last summer, and subsequently, she never would have met Alejandro. The thin thread of life that had spun itself from that one single event had changed everything, making her realize the interconnected nature of each moment in every individual’s time spent living in this world.
That was the moment when the tears fell.
Chapter Two
Getting ready to go onstage, Princesa.
It’s not the same without you.
I imagine you are sleeping already.
Sueñas con los ángeles, mi amor.
V.
No sooner did he step offstage at the Fillmore Detroit than the security detail surrounded him and led him through the back of the arena and down a dark corridor. People passed him, some hurrying without so much as a second glance, while others were walking about at a more leisurely pace. A few of them paused, with a raised hand, to congratulate Alejandro on yet one more outstanding performance.
Security was impatient for him to continue do
wn the corridor, holding his one elbow as the guards led him through the people. Every second was needed to escort him away from the arena as quickly as possible. Indeed, at the end of the corridor, two black SUVs with tinted windows were parked, escorted by two police cars in front and one behind them.
Alejandro took the bottle of water that one of the staff members handed to him as he slipped into the first car. Moments later, Mike, his business manager, jumped into the seat next to him. Someone shut the door and hit the side of the window twice, indicating that the driver should leave.
The lights of the police escort began to flash, and the vehicles moved up the ramp toward the exit. Alejandro settled into his seat and took a long swig from the chilled bottle. It had been a good show, but he was already thinking ahead to the next location. One show down, he told himself. One day closer to Amanda.
As usual, there already was a crowd of people at the gated security booth at the top of the exit. No matter how quickly he would leave the arenas, there were always fans waiting, holding signs in the air and screaming for him. He never could understand how they knew where the location was for the arena’s secured exit, although he felt certain that the Internet provided a lot of information for the most persistent fans. They were willing to leave the concert early to stake their claim to a spot near the exit in hopes that they would see him. Most of the time, he would roll down his window and wave, rewarding their tireless loyalty. Tonight, however, he didn’t feel like it.
“Sold out again, Alex.”
Alejandro nodded as he lifted the water bottle to his lips. He couldn’t help but notice the pride in his manager’s voice as he shared the good news about the show. “How are the other cities looking?” he asked, but without much concern. He already knew the answer before his business manager responded.