by Sharon
"… So why would she have any way of knowing? Believe me, I know a little something about them. I grew up in Pennsylvania, quite near a large Amish colony. You can't imagine the isolation of some of these people. Their culture goes in an unbroken line back to the medieval peasantry. Some groups are more liberal than others, but you can bet that girl has never lived in a house with electricity or running water. They don't own radios or televisions, or even musical instruments. They don't use buttons or zippers—too modern. Look on the screen! Can you see how she's looking up at the camera—then she turns and melts off into the trees with the children? That's because they don't believe in being photographed."
"I saw a group of them when we were driving through Greyling this afternoon…" Max unburied himself from his handkerchief to speak, his sniffs punctuating his words like a tom-tom. "Very bizarre. The men had big black hats, and suspenders, and these huge beards like bushes growing out of their chins. Makes you think of Rip Van Winkle."
"It makes me think of Hobbits from Middle Earth." Ben hefted forward his chair with one hand, set it backward beside Wilde, and sat down facing the screen, with his arms folded on the chair rail. "When I look at a gorgeous lady like that, I only want to know one things— does she get laid?"
Scattered laughter. The same question had been hovering in the back of Wilde's mind, but that made it no more acceptable to hear aloud. It seemed crude, and that amazed him. It had been many years since he could remember feeling distaste at a sexual reference—the long, hedonistic years had left him unshockable. Staring up at her face, the word "undefiled" came back to him. She was clean, and he wanted her. Was this what happened to you when you became jaded enough? Did you begin to look around for some unspoiled being to corrupt? No. No. Dear God, don't let me have turned into that.
Joan was answering Ben's speculation with some too-clever remark about the large size of Amish families, and Wilde interrupted in a tone that was light and free of emotion.
"No matter how enthusiastically they proliferate, those children can't all belong to her."
"No, I think she's a teacher," Joan said. "I've been taking County CC and Bridge Road out to the set instead of Highway 12—it's longer, but much prettier—and there's this little building that seems to be a one-room schoolhouse on a hill about a mile to the west. I think that's where they came from. That's why Security didn't run into her. They walked through the woods."
Ten minutes later, while he sat with Ben watching month-old screen tests, batting around ideas about who they could hire quickly to replace Carrie, Dash returned from a fast trip to the bar. Wilde looked up as the actor clapped him once on the shoulder and slid a piece of folded paper into his hand.
Wilde glanced down and saw it was a map.
"County CC," Dash said in a gentle drawl, and ruffled Alan's hair with an affectionate hand.
Alan Wilde watched screen tests until one in the morning. Again and again he saw the same scene, each time with a different woman. The heroine in the film was a logger's daughter called Polly Bates. The test was a short clip. Wilde never needed much to base a decision on. Polly tells a young suitor that she won't marry him and begins to walk away. She turns suddenly and says, "Good-bye, Mr. Burke." She walks on another few feet, then whirls and runs back to kiss him, crying out, "Yes! Oh, yes, Adam, I will!" Deathless prose.
He walked back to his room slowly, holding in his thoughts that image of one girl after another turning, whispering good-bye. He was stopped once in the hallway by Joan, who wanted to make sure he wasn't going to be alone tonight if he didn't want to be. Conscientious Joan. If the producer was edgy, she'd argue with him. If the D.P. caught a cold, she bought him time capsules. If the director was lonely, she'd sleep with him. Girl Scout and therapist, she kept the personnel content, and here Ben had only hired Her because she was a former centerfold and he liked to look at her.
Wilde had just reassured her that he was all right, when he was stopped a second time by a supporting actress, a forthright and lovely California blonde. She wanted to replace Carrie. She was more than willing to sleep with him if that would help. At one time she had probably been an appealing person. Sometime in the future she would probably become one again. But at this stage of her life, aggressive ambition had blotted out all aspects of her character. For that, and because he wasn't going to give her the part, he felt sorry for her, so he kissed her once. It made frighteningly little impact on his senses and he opened the door to his room alone, hating the profession of acting, hating the desperation it could produce.
Susan Peachey's bonnet was on his bed.
For a blank moment, it seemed to him to have appeared there by some miracle. Then he remembered.
As she vanished into the woods, the bonnet had tumbled from her shiny curls. Someone had brought it to him and put it in his hand, and he had stood there looking after her like Cinderella's prince with the glass slipper in his palm. Unknowing, he must have held it through the rest of the afternoon, carried it back to the hotel, brought it to his bedroom. It must have looked so lamblike of me. No wonder Dash gave me the map.
He lifted the light, brimless bonnet. The fabric was pale ivory, delicately woven, with tiny tucks set in. It was almost weightless, and he could see his hand through it. Had she made it herself? He ran his finger slowly along the trailing ribbons that must have touched her neck.
It occurred to him to wonder if it carried her scent. Though he knew he was alone, he felt a little self-conscious as he brought it to his face and breathed in slowly. There was no trace of artifice or perfume, and yet the scent of her was so sweet that it ran through his body like the spill of a sparkling fountain.
All around him, the darkness seemed to recede.
Chapter 3
Ah, the room was warm. So many bodies. The words of the sermon were sweet-flowing, like a lullaby sung ever more softly. The occasional rustling sounds of the worshipers around her fell into a contented hum, the colors before her eyes becoming a blend of glassy patterns. Her eyelids were sinking slowly. Moments passed, pleasantly heavy, yet buoyant, and when images became clear for her again, Susan found she was nesting her head on her mother's shoulder.
Henry Zook, standing in the midst of two big rooms of benches filled with more than two hundred of the devout, was almost finished with his message. His hand rested on the rail of a ladder-back chair; his other clasped the white handkerchief, damp from the perspiration blotted from his brow. A plate of crackers was being passed for the children, and over in the men's benches, some of the boys had begun to swing their heels, brushing them against the hats that lay underneath like a field of flat black flowers. Susan straightened, trying to close her mouth around an unwanted yawn. She caught the eye of her brother Daniel, and his grin, the one you got for nodding off in service. There was a bit of mischief in it.
Last night past midnight a playful breeze full of springtime had tiptoed through her window, wakening her, beckoning. In her nightgown and robe she'd gone out of doors to lay her blanket on the picnic table, and curled up there, watching the planets rise and set until she'd fallen back to sleep. Daniel had found her when he went out to milk. "We'll see if you can stay awake during sermon," he'd said. He knew her.
On her other side, her friend Fanny was trying to appease her infant son, Jesse, letting him suckle a fingertip in the pink bud of his tiny mouth. After giving the finger a bit of a try, he cast it out with a howl that drew a smile even from Henry Zook, who had been fairly wrapped up in what he had to say. Fanny gave a rueful glance at Susan and her mother, and over at her husband, Christ, and carried Jesse off to the kitchen to nurse him.
A water glass began to circulate for the children, and Susan dipped the corner of her handkerchief in it and held it to her eyes, rousing herself to kneel and replenish her spirit in the quiet ecstasy of prayer. She immersed her heart in its soaring updraft until she was light, her soul outflung, bodiless.
After service, most stayed for pie and fellowship, and Susan spent s
ome time in the kitchen cutting pie. She cherished the task, surrounded by the sweet berry fragrances and glossy colors. Point out a pie and she could tell you the woman who'd baked it. It was a remarkable thing, how each pie had its own personality imparted from its creator. There was her sister Anna's neat little fork pricks and the edges just so, everything orderly and quiet. Ruth Whetstone made a lattice on the top of her pie that, Susan realized, resembled the latticework around Ruth's porch where she grew the beautiful irises and herbs she was known for. Susan had a spearmint snip from her at home that was rooting in a glass on the windowsill. Sarah Beachy marked her pies with a carefree swirl that put Susan in mind of a musical note. They were great singers, the Beachys. Jake Beachy's bass sounded as though it came right out of the cellar.
And not much doubt about her mother-in-law's pie. Susan lifted Edna Peachey's pie, looking at it with affection. Custard again. It was the thing to do, to bring a two-crust pie. Everyone brought a two-crust pie except Edna, who did things a little differently. Edna said one crust was enough for any woman to make for each pie and that was all she was going to do, and let anyone who wanted to, tell her otherwise. Well, of course, no one ever did, though from time to time Susan had seen this one or that one glance at those custard pies just as they might look at a cuckoo in a nest. But they ate them all the same.
Susan took her own slice of pie and sat in the corner with Fanny and Edna. Susan was hiding out a little, if the truth be known, even though it hardly seemed as if there could be one person left who hadn't asked her every question there was to ask about her brush with the monster, The kids had carried home a wild story or two, the littlest ones wilder stories yet. Their parents had started coming around to the farm soon after school, wanting to find out what really had happened. Karl Rader had even showed up with a deer rifle and his two grown sons, ready to hunt the thing. She had told her story maybe two hundred times. Some were disapproving; most thought it was funny. Since she'd played a pretty ridiculous part in the whole encounter, she'd gotten plenty of chances to laugh at herself. It seemed to her she'd laughed at herself enough by now to keep her for quite some time.
When Henry, a twinkle in his eyes, stroking his blond beard, stopped by their table she thought, here we go again, but he only said, "I saw I set you off to a wink of sleep this morning."
"No. I'll tell you what happened, Henry. I was so taken up in your testimony that I had to do some deep thinking on it."
"Oh, was that what it was, deep thinking?" He winked at Edna. "Well, I saw three or four deep thinkers out there today, including that husband of yours, Edna." He smiled and moved on, and Susan trailed him until she reached the spot where her grandmother was sitting.
After lunch on a Church Sunday like this one Grandma liked to go up to one of the bedrooms with old Mrs. Yoder and Ben Miller's Eleanor to reminisce about old time's, or so they liked to say, but everyone knew it was to share a friendly piper Walking by the door, Susan could hear the creak of rocking chairs and catch the dry, ticklish scent of tobacco where it crept under the door. Since Grandma's sight had failed, Susan would walk with her grandmother up the stairs to sit after preaching service.
This time she led her grandma into quite a disturbance. One of the Yoder boys, Fanny's seven-year-old, Jonas, who was as wild as they came, had been pulling back the clothesline like a bow to shoot clothespins at the girls, and had smacked his sister Sadie a good one on the arm. Sadie went off to fetch her pop, and Jonas hurled himself inside and up the stairs and hid under one of the beds, and wouldn't budge even after his father arrived and yelled at him to come out. He was a tough one! Fanny tried to chase him out with a broom, so he shot out from the far side and climbed out the window into an old elm. Fanny was going to climb right out there after him—she didn't care, she'd been a tomboy—but Jonas yelled out, "Don't come up, Mom, or I'll jump." And he would have, too. He was a Yoder, and that was the way they were sometimes. Stubborn. So they left him to sit out there in the tree until he got tired of it.
Susan thought about how it was that way in her family. Dad didn't say much, but he had a way of looking at you that let you know he meant it, so all the children minded him good.
Susan spent a bit of time after that playing with Fanny's tiny daughter Lizbeth, whom she loved, and listening to people talk about Jonas, and how he would settle down when he got older, or how he wouldn't settle down when he got older if Fanny didn't take a firmer hand now. There was hardly a soul who didn't think they'd have Jonas straightened out quick if they had hold of him for a week or two. Of course, none of them offered to have him stay with them to try it, even though Fanny made the offer to let him visit with them if they wanted him.
The upshot of it all was that people had their minds off the movie company and the monster, which suited Susan just fine.
She walked home on the dirt road with her family, the sun falling on them like big, warm snowflakes through the leaves. All together like this with her brothers and sisters, and Mother and Pop and Aunt Mary and Grandma, they made four lines stretching across the road, boys together, girls together, because that was the way they always went walking. Near the lily pond and the fishing bridge she and Daniel would break off to go to chore at the small place they farmed together now, and her family would keep on to the big farm. Things didn't change much, except that they walked a bit more slowly since Grandma had turned ninety. And there was one less sister. Oh, but that was hard to think about.
"Were you up last night, Susan?" Grandma's arm, comfortable around her waist, gave a couple of soft, inquiring pats. "I woke up thinking about you late."
It was often that way between them. "I went out to see the sky."
"How is it for you, sleeping these days?"
"Better now."
"Having nice dreams sometimes?"
"A few. It's strange, you know. When I wake up I forget what was in them, but I have this feeling something wonderful is about to happen to me."
"So it will. It may be that something's waiting for you just round the next bend."
Too bad that wasn't a prophesy. Right around the next bend they ran smack into Abraham Beachy, who had to be about the most cantankerous man in the county. He wasn't from the singing Beachys, but from the other branch, who didn't see the point in a tune. Abraham always had something figured out to be angry about—a neighbor who wouldn't keep up a fence; the county, which didn't make the shoulders or the road wide enough to pull a buggy onto; the state, for forcing Plain People to attach orange triangles for slow-moving vehicles to the buggy tails, so's they had to look worldly, like one of the High Amish churches that had slipped off from the old ways or thinking.
Today Susan had the feeling she was the one who was going to get it from Abraham, and she wasn't wrong.
Abraham didn't even bother to get down from his buggy. Instead, his beard bristling, he went right into how Susan shouldn't have been anywhere near where the English were making that movie. He didn't like his boy Elam exposed to it. Didn't Susan know what kind of people these were? Who could tell what could have happened? He ended up with: "I'd like to know what the die-hinker you were doing so far off from the schoolhouse, anyway, wandering around instead of having lessons. I'm gonna talk to the Bishop."
Susan could see her father had that pokery look he got when something rubbed him wrong. He spoke. "You can't keep children cooped up in a schoolhouse all day long. They have to spend some time out doors, stretching their legs."
Abraham made an angry gesture. "Letting them out is one thing; walking over on English land is another. And what does she teach them kids when they're supposed to be learning arithmetic? She's got them so boogered up you don't know what's in their heads. My Elam come home talking about this Poop Bear your daughter makes them read about."
"That's Winnie-the-Pooh, Mr. Beachy." You had to be humble with Abraham and let him have his say or you'd hear about it all day. "I didn't see the harm in it."
"And I don't suppose you see the harm in Spide
rman either. First he talks about this bear, then he goes out and buys himself a comic book and hides it in his room. What for kind of story book is that, about a man who makes like a spider?" Abraham's cheeks were turning ruddy. "It don't seem to me you have much of a proper idea about schoolteachering. I come riding by the schoolhouse last week and I see all the scholars laying outside, on the ground, on their stomachs! And there you are, there's the teacher right among 'em."
She tried not to have the thought, but it occurred to her to wonder if he'd turn purple right now if she smiled. "We were studying ants."
He fixed her for a minute with one of those stares that were supposed to make you feel beaten down. Her father came over beside her and said, "Susan is a fine teacher, Abraham. She does just right with those children."
"I'm going to speak with the Bishop," Abraham repeated impressively, like it was a great decision, and slapped the reins and left off with a nod.
"Let him go bother the Bishop," her mother said once the buggy was out of earshot.
"And make a pest of himself." Aunt Mary smiled fiercely. "Old sourpuss."
Susan got a squeeze from Grandma, who agreed. "Weaned on a pickle!"
Under the circumstances, anyone might think that Seth, who was Abraham's son and who'd been in the buggy and seen the whole thing, would have chosen not to leave his father's buggy by the pond, to wait and walk her and Daniel up the lane to their place. But there he was, tall, fair-haired, leaning on the fence post, with his hat forward shading his eyes, waiting for her after service, the way he'd done since the worst of winter was over.
She wished he wouldn't. She couldn't see him without calling up the face of her lost sister, because for years she had seen them together. It might be why he wanted to be here with them, to cling to some part of Rachel.
It was also hard to have Seth around because Daniel didn't like him, even though they were much the same age, in their mid-twenties. Not that Daniel had ever said anything. He was like her parents and rarely spoke ill of anyone, but it was there. He let her see it in the expression on his face.