Plain Again

by Sarah Price

  He cursed out loud and punched at the wall.

  In all of his years as a grown-up man, he had never been faithful to a woman. He did not feel the need for it, and neither did they. He hadn’t expected anything different from those few women with whom he had relationships, either. Life was too short to be committed to one person, he had always explained. If nothing else, he had been honest about his infidelity. No one could ever claim that he was less than up front.

  His entire reputation and image as Viper had been built upon that model. It was expected that he would leave clubs with different women each night and surround himself with any number of gorgeous hangers-on. His life was about living it, never about settling down. And the fans seemed to thrive on it, for he did it with style and class. When other celebrities fought the tabloids for reporting on their philandering ways, Viper had embraced them, and, as a result, his adoring public rewarded him with more loyalty than any other star.

  But that had all changed when he met Amanda. He had evolved, and as unlikely as it had seemed at the time, the fans had changed along with him. His devotion to Amanda changed his image, and the public ate it up.

  He remembered all too well that Mike had chastised him, telling him that a married Viper would never make it in the industry. The public would never accept it, Mike had claimed. Alejandro had proved him wrong. Viper was a different man, and the fans liked what they saw.

  It had never crossed Alejandro’s mind that once dedicated to Amanda, he might not be able to give up his ways. How would she react to infidelity? How would the public react? The realization that these two questions were something he needed to face struck him as if someone had punched him in the stomach. The truth was that he had been unfaithful. A night of debauchery and lust had stolen his senses, forced him to his knees, and possibly ruined his life.

  He shut his eyes and wished that he would wake up again, wake up alone and with the taste of a bad nightmare in his mouth instead of stale liquor. He wished that everything he was currently feeling would simply disappear. But he knew that it wouldn’t. He had to face the facts that he had awoken in his bed, the morning stained by the memory of another woman. He couldn’t deny it. It was something he had to face. After all, Amanda was better than that. She deserved better than that.

  How could I have done something like this? His mind fought hard to try to make sense of the situation. He loved Amanda, loved her with his entire soul and being. Yet the truth was that he had awoken with another woman in his apartment. Had nothing changed? He was left wondering if Maria had been right. A tiger’s stripes never go away. They just may fade a little.

  “¡Dios mío!” he muttered and abruptly turned off the water. He would have to confess to Amanda, to let her know that something had happened and he had no memory of it. There was no way that he could live with himself by pretending last night hadn’t happened. She would forgive him. He took a deep breath at that thought. Yes, forgiveness was something that ran deep in the Amish culture and religion.

  With a towel wrapped around his waist, he exited the bathroom and walked past Mike, unabashed as he headed for the closet. His head began to clear, and despite being unhappy with the choices he had made, he knew that there was a path to redemption.

  “The social media has gone insane,” Mike said. He was sitting in a chair by the window, the curtain now open so that bright light streamed through. Little bits of dust seemed to float in the sun rays. “They’re saying Viper is back, and from the looks of it, they like it.”

  “Shut up, Mike,” Alejandro growled. “It’s not about marketing.”

  “Everything is about marketing!” He laughed when he said it, a laugh without any mirth. “Alex, you’re an international star and you’re a man, two strikes against you right there. The public will forgive your infidelity. Heck, they expect it from you!”

  “It’s not their forgiveness that I need!” he snapped as he slipped on a pair of freshly laundered black slacks. “You seem to be rather amused by this.”

  “I am,” Mike admitted.

  “That makes me sick.”

  “Come on, Alex,” he said, standing up and crossing the room. “You’re Viper, for God’s sake. No matter how you look at it, no one can expect you to remain faithful to a little country gal who is insisting on staying in the middle of nowhere, Pennsylvania, while you’re traveling the country. I mean, it’s sex, right? Just sex. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  Alejandro brushed off Mike’s hand. “It means everything. And you can cancel any appointments. I’m going to Pennsylvania.”

  A look of panic crossed Mike’s eyes. “Whoa, now slow down there, Alex. You’re scheduled for Atlanta in a couple days. You can’t just cancel it.”

  “Cancel it.” The words surprised him almost as much as they surprised Mike. But as soon as the words slipped from his lips, Alejandro knew that he meant them. How could he possibly perform when he had to confess to Amanda? Too much was at risk, and he couldn’t possibly afford losing the only thing that mattered to him: his wife.

  Mike frowned. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “Cancel them all.” He slipped his arms into a white shirt and turned toward the mirror as he buttoned it. “I want the first flight out of here for Philadelphia.”

  There was a long moment of silence. Alejandro focused on the buttons, ignoring the piercing glare from his manager. He knew that Mike’s earlier amusement at the matter of his infidelity angered him even more. The media attention was right up Mike’s alley, the type of negative publicity and speculation that increased sales, despite ruining lives. In the end, the bottom line was always the money. At least for Mike.

  “You cancel that concert and you’re finished,” Mike said slowly, his voice low. “I can’t let that happen, Alex.”

  “If I don’t go to her, then I am finished anyway.” He straightened his arm and buttoned the cuff at his wrist. “Don’t you get it?” He stared into the reflection of the mirror, meeting Mike’s eyes. “I need to get to her before she hears about this from someone else.”

  “She’s on a farm in the middle of Amish-land!” Mike snapped, the word “Amish-land” rolling off his tongue as if it were distasteful. “How would she hear? It’s not like they have television or tabloids, for crying out loud!” He lifted his hand to his brow and rubbed at his temples. “Come on, Alex. Just two more days, and then you have a break. Just hang on. Do the Atlanta concert, and then you can go get her. Confess all that you want. But don’t hang us out to dry here. You can’t cancel the concert.”

  Frustrated, Alejandro groaned out loud and spun around, walking toward the window. He shoved the sheer curtain back and pressed his forehead against the cool glass. Atlanta, he said to himself. Just one more concert, and then he would be free to go. He had off for a week . . . Christmas week. He’d fly her down to Miami, and they could make up there, in the comfort and safety of their home.

  “Fine!” he finally said. “But get her on a flight to Miami. I want her there on Tuesday when I arrive. I’m finished performing without her. I don’t care what you have to do, but get her sister situated on the farm and bring her to me, Mike. I won’t do this anymore if she’s not with me.”

  Satisfied, Mike nodded. He reached for his phone and began tapping the keys as he talked. “Great! There’s a flight on Tuesday at eight in the morning. I’ll get her gal working on it. What’s her name again? Dali?” Alejandro nodded, but Mike continued to prattle on. “And I’ve already rescheduled your missed appointments for later this afternoon. Let’s get moving on those, Viper.”

  Mike headed toward the door, pausing to glance back as he slid his phone into his pocket. “Get back in the swing of things and forget about this little . . .” He gestured with his hand. “Little slipup. That’s all it was, right?”

  He was drained of emotion and didn’t fight back. Instead, he acquiesced to Mike’s demands, feeling a touch of relief that, for once, his manager was in charge of the situation and making the decisio
ns.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  She ended the call and stared out the window, the small cell phone still in her hand. For a moment, she held the phone, the warmth of the battery pressed against her palm. When it vibrated, she glanced down and noticed, yet again, another text from Alejandro. Had Dali already gotten in touch with him? Had she already relayed the message?

  Angry, Amanda turned the power off, waiting for the screen to turn gray before completely shutting down. Setting the phone on the windowsill, she turned around and tried to block out the feelings of pain and hurt that flowed through her. She hadn’t wanted to speak to Dali that way, not when Dali was caught playing the intermediary.

  For the past two days, he had been trying to reach her. Amanda had refused his calls and ignored his texts. If she had known how to forward those horrible photos to his phone, she would have. However, from the content of his texts, he knew why she was not responding: the media had already jumped all over the story that Viper had spent the evening in his Los Angeles condominium with another woman. The tabloids were eager to fill in the missing pieces that Amanda had already visualized. Clearly, he suspected that she had heard the gossip. Had he known that someone had leaked the photos via text to her phone, she imagined he would have been horrified.

  And then Dali had called.

  There had been no warm-and-fuzzy greeting. As usual, Dali jumped right to the point. “He wants you to fly to Miami,” Dali had said. “I can have a car picking you up at five thirty in the morning tomorrow.”

  For some reason, Dali’s directness had incensed Amanda. Whether it was her assumption that Amanda would just go along with the famous “schedule” without an argument or whether it was Alejandro’s presumption that she would be so quick to forgive a transgression of such magnitude and come running to him, she had felt angry once again. It was a feeling she wasn’t used to, at least not prior to the past few days. Now, anger had become part of her life, and that was something Amanda didn’t like one bit.

  “Cancel it, Dali,” Amanda had heard herself say into the phone, turning to look out the window, her finger tracing circles in the frosted glass. “I’m not going.”

  On the other end of the phone, there had been a pause, just long enough for Dali to collect her thoughts, Amanda suspected. Standing up for her own rights was not something that anyone expected from Amanda.

  “That’s not what he wanted,” her assistant replied.

  Amanda could hear papers shuffling in the background. She imagined Dali was staring at the Miami schedule, quickly calculating all of the appointments that had been scheduled for Amanda. It gave her a hint of satisfaction to realize that Dali would be inconvenienced canceling them. She wasn’t certain why she was so irritated at Dali, but she was.

  “He was rather clear . . .”

  “Dali!” Amanda had interrupted abruptly. “I’m not his possession!” The harshness of her words surprised even Amanda. She had never before spoken in anger to another person. That was not the Amish way. Trying to take a deep breath and calm down, Amanda tried again. “You’ll just have to explain to him that I simply won’t be flying to Miami tomorrow.”

  Another pause. For a moment, Amanda had thought that their connection had failed. But when she heard Dali clear her throat, she had known that the silence was from the shock at Amanda’s defiance to Alejandro’s request.

  “He won’t like this,” Dali had mumbled.

  “He knows why,” was all that Amanda had replied before politely ending the call.

  Anna looked up as Amanda walked into the kitchen. Jonas was outside with Harvey as they mucked the stalls and dairy. Daed had happily joined them, bundled in a heavy coat with a thick blanket across his legs. Mamm had pushed his wheelchair outside, eager for her own breath of fresh air. It had been only a few minutes after everyone left that Amanda’s cell phone had rung and she had escaped to the privacy of the grossdaadihaus to speak to Dali.

  “Was that Alejandro, then?” Anna asked, a warm smile on her face. Her hands were buried in fresh dough, flour covering the front of her apron. “I reckon he’ll be happy to see you again. It’s been a few weeks, ja?”

  “A week,” Amanda retorted, her voice flat and emotionless. “I flew out to Kansas last weekend, remember?”

  “Ach, ja!” Anna turned her attention back to the dough. “Mamm told me about that. What was it like? Kansas?”

  Sliding onto the bench, Amanda shrugged. She didn’t feel like talking. “Who knows? You fly in at night, get whisked away, and then return before you have a chance to see anything. I hardly even remember the airport, never mind the state.”

  Clicking her tongue against the roof of her mouth, Anna shook her head. “Such a pity,” she said as she kneaded the dough. “To travel such a distance only to turn around and return so fast. It’s a shame he doesn’t get to enjoy those places more.”

  Amanda wanted to tell her sister that she thought Alejandro had enjoyed Los Angeles far too much during this last stay. But she held her tongue. It would do no good to hang her dirty laundry on the clothesline for everyone to see.

  Her heart felt heavy, and she disappeared inside her thoughts. She had to figure out her next step. At some point, she reasoned with herself, she had to confront Alejandro and hear his version of the story. She remembered the Bible verse in Luke about forgiving those who confess their sins. It had seemed so easy to do when she was reading the Bible. Now, however, when she was faced with having to actually do it, she realized how difficult Jesus’s directive truly was. She had never heard of such a thing as adultery among the Amish. She had suspected that it existed, although it was very rare, but it was not something that would be made public or mentioned in the Budget at least. If it did happen, well, it would have to be strictly dealt with by the couple. Probably suppressed and forgiven, if not forgotten, because divorce was virtually unknown and considered unholy by the Amish. It was, simply, not in their way of life. But then again, she pondered, she had not taken her kneeling vows, so was she really, truly Amish?

  Maria, she thought with a sour taste in her mouth and a hollow feeling inside her chest. How could he have allowed that woman into their apartment? How could he have tainted their marriage with such an awfully brazen and unchristian person? How could he have so little respect for the commitment they had made to each other?

  Despite wanting to cry, Amanda had no more tears left. She had cried them all over the course of the previous few evenings in the solitude of the grossdaadihaus. Each morning, when she had awoken, her eyes had been puffy; she had splashed cold water on her face for a few minutes before resorting to a cool cloth to calm the swelling.

  But her family had noticed.

  That first morning, after she had received the images of her husband in another woman’s arms, the tears had still been fresh in her eyes. Indeed, no sooner had she walked into the kitchen than she had noted the quizzical look on her mamm’s face and the worried frown on her sister’s. Yet, in true Amish fashion, no questions were asked. Privacy was respected in all situations. They knew that if Amanda wanted to share what was troubling her, she would do it in her own time.

  A buggy pulled into the driveway. Amanda didn’t have to look to know that it was most likely the bishop. He was the only one who dared visit anymore, especially since the paparazzi had returned after the Jingle Ball concert. The fact that they were so eager for a photograph of her added to her irritation. Was heartache something that lifted up the souls of the fans?

  When the bishop walked into the kitchen, he removed his hat and cleared his throat. Anna greeted him with a smile. He had been to the house before, spending time getting to know Jonas prior to welcoming him into the g’may. In anticipation of the interview, Jonas had arranged for a letter from the bishop of his former g’may in Ohio so that he could present it to the leaders of Anna’s church district. No one had anticipated any problems as Jonas was clearly going to be a valuable addition to the community.

  However, the silence t
hat continued in the kitchen indicated to Amanda that the bishop was not there to visit with Jonas or Anna.

  “A word, Amanda,” the bishop had said uncomfortably.

  Since the incident at the grocery store, Amanda had noticed a new attitude from the bishop toward her. While it wasn’t warm and friendly like it had been before she had married Alejandro, there was a new hint of understanding in the way he addressed her. Distant understanding but an understanding, nevertheless.

  “Something wrong, Bishop?” she asked, wondering what this was about. Most likely the paparazzi’s return to the community in such numbers. “You may speak in front of my schwester.”

  He took a step toward Amanda and reached into his pocket. “This came to my attention just yesterday,” he said, his aged fingers unfolding the piece of newspaper that he withdrew from his coat. Again, he cleared his throat as he handed it to her. She didn’t need to look at it in order to know what it was.

  The photo of Alejandro with Maria in the suggestive pose glared at her from the pages of the tabloid newspaper. She had expected to see it. However, there were two new photos on the page, a picture of Alejandro with several women dressed in Amish clothing standing behind him, their hands on his shoulders. The shock of such a photo left her speechless. Not only had he dishonored their marriage vows, but now he was mocking her religion as well? But the worst one was the larger picture in the middle, showing her, Amanda, bent at the waist and obviously vomiting on the side of the road, on the night that she had found out about his infidelity. There was a caption under it that said: “Will Viper’s naïve and unsuspecting young Amish wife be able to . . . stomach the star’s new antics?”

  She blinked her eyes to force back the tears that were quickly threatening to fall.

  Sensing her discomfort, the bishop glanced toward the window. “I see that the camera people have returned. I imagine this is why, ja?”