by Sarah Price
America, he thought with a sigh, and shut his eyes.
The sun was beginning to sink in the sky. Despite the fact that it was still bright outside, he knew that the day was ending. He had two choices: stay in the peaceful solitude of the house or venture outside. While there was a certain appeal to being alone, something that was unusual at best, he found that he wanted to explore the world that Amanda Beiler had introduced to him. How often would he be able to truly be himself, without flashbulbs and photographers chasing him? Venturing outside held a higher appeal than sitting in the empty kitchen, pontificating on the ills of the world of music. So he stood up and headed toward the side door, then proceeded down a walkway and toward the driveway.
He paused at the end of the ramp and shut his eyes. For a long moment, he breathed deeply, feeling his lungs fully expand. The fresh air calmed him, quickly erasing the past weeks—no, months—of hard work and travel.
Instead of taking the driveway, he wandered over to the barn to see if he could help Elias with the evening milking. The dairy barn was dark and shadowy. The black-and-white Holstein cows were standing in the long aisles, eating hay and waiting for their turns to be milked. When Alejandro finally found Elias, he was carrying an empty bucket back to the cows.
“Need some help?” Alejandro asked.
“Nein,” Elias said, smiling as he waved a hand. “Just about finished.” He set the bucket down by a cow and laid a hand on her rump. “But I’ll be thankful for some help in the morning, then.”
It was a long process for a single man to manage the herd. Every twelve hours, Elias explained, he had to milk the cows. Some farmers liked to milk them every ten hours in order to get extra milk, but Elias shook his head. “That’s not for me. You would have to get up in the middle of the night to milk them some times, and other times get them in the barn in the middle of the day! Can’t plan much with such a crazy schedule.”
When the two men walked into the kitchen, there was a pleasant aroma that filled the air. Alejandro couldn’t remember the last time he had come home to a home-cooked meal. Most of his meals were either brought in or eaten out. He felt the tug of a memory from his childhood back in Cuba with his grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins on Saturday afternoons. They would have fiestas with dancing and outdoor cooking. There was always music and laughter that was served along with the food. Of course, that was before they had immigrated to America.
Elias hung his hat from a peg on the wall and took off his dirty boots, setting them neatly by the side of the screen door. The table was set, and the food was placed upon it. Amanda sat in the wheelchair at the table so that her leg could rest in an elevated position. Her father assumed his position at the head of the table, and Lizzie sat on a chair to his left. He noticed that both of her parents sat in chairs with wheels on them. He quickly learned why. If they needed anything from the refrigerator or counter, they would just roll over to it. He almost burst out laughing the first time he saw Elias do just that.
Alejandro was seated across from Amanda on a hard bench. He noticed that she tried to not look at him. He felt out of place in her parents’ kitchen. He knew that she felt that way about him, too. Every so often, she’d glance at him and smile before quickly looking away. After all, she had become used to seeing him in charge at the hospital with the staff fawning over him. It felt awkward seeing him at their family table, seated on a hard bench, bending his head when it was time for the meal’s silent blessing.
At first, Elias and Lizzie asked Amanda about her stay at the hospital. She told them about the nurses and the flowers and the people who had stopped into her room to visit. “People I never met before,” she added. “They just came in to sit, talk, and make certain I was comfortable.”
“That was right gut of them,” Lizzie said, nodding her head as she reached for the basket of fresh bread. Taking a piece, she set it alongside her plate and passed the basket over to Alejandro.
“And the food,” Amanda praised, her eyes glowing. “Alejandro was kind enough to have some special meals brought in for me.”
“Is that so?” Lizzie asked, her voice songlike as she spoke the words. “It’s only right that we thank you with some of our own home cooking over the next few days, then!”
“Mayhaps some homemade ice cream, too?” Amanda asked hopefully.
Lizzie and Elias laughed. “You and your ice cream,” Elias said. He looked over at Alejandro and quickly explained to let him in on the joke. “Our daughter was born with a sweet tooth. I think she’d do just about anything for ice cream!”
Alejandro watched the exchange between parents and daughter. It was a scene that he had never experienced. Without having known his own father, there had never been a casual family meal with laughter, inside jokes, and storytelling. Once they had arrived in Miami, his mother had worked two jobs when he was younger and he had to fend for himself for many years. Family dinners were nonexistent during those hard times. Alejandro had made his own meals, living off cooked pasta and the generosity of sympathetic neighbors. When he was older, he had discovered the streets: a way to make money while his mother worked. That was when his life had changed.
His thoughts were interrupted when Elias turned his attention away from Amanda. “So, Alejandro,” Elias started. “You said you are a singer, ja? What kind of singing do you do?” Elias asked as he bit into a sweet roll.
“It’s called rap but mixed with a touch of hip-hop,” Alejandro replied, knowing full well that they would not be familiar with that type of singing. “The words are like poetry to music,” he explained.
“Poetry?”
He nodded. “Fast-paced poetry.”
“And you make a living from that?” Elias said, his eyes large and full of disbelief.
Alejandro laughed. “Sí,” he said. “I make a living from that.”
Elias shook his head. He seemed to be deep in thought for a moment as he digested what Alejandro had just said. “Don’t seem right,” he muttered. “You just sing words. Doesn’t make anything, and sure don’t put food on anyone’s plate, ain’t so?”
“Well,” Alejandro replied good-naturedly, pointing to his plate, “it puts food on mine.”
Both parents laughed at the joke, and even Amanda joined in.
“Well, speaking of food,” Lizzie said, turning her gaze to Amanda. “Tomorrow we’ll be canning beef for the winter. Daed will be picking up the meat in the morning, no?” She looked at Elias for confirmation.
“Ja, nine o’clock. After milking.” He nodded. He reached for the pickled cabbage and dished some onto his plate before handing it to his wife. “Mayhaps you want to ride along with me,” he said by way of asking Alejandro to accompany him.
Alejandro took the bowl of boiled potatoes that Amanda passed to him. His hand brushed against her fingers, and he glanced at her, noticing that she quickly looked away. If her father hadn’t been staring at him, he would have smiled at the innocent expression on her face. Luckily, Elias hadn’t seen it. “That sounds like a fine plan, Elias,” Alejandro said quickly. “Although I’m not so sure about canning beef. Never heard of such a thing.”
“Never heard of canned beef?” Elias said, his eyebrows raised and a smile breaking onto his face. “How can that be?” He shook his head. “You Englische live a strange life, with that! No canned beef? Singing for a living? What’s next?”
“Maybe you can help with the canning, too,” Amanda said softly, turning her attention to Alejandro.
Her father waved his hand dismissively but with a twinkle in his eye. “Psssh, don’t bother him with that. That’s women’s work!”
“Elias!”
Sensing tension, and uncertain if it was real or in jest, Alejandro jumped into the conversation. “I’d be glad to help. I sure don’t mind working in a kitchen. I helped my own mother for years when I was living at home.”
“Women’s work,
indeed,” Lizzie muttered as she used her fork to crush her boiled potatoes. She reached for the container holding her homemade butter and spread it on top of her potatoes. “As if you have never helped me in the kitchen.”
“Help you eat the food,” Elias said, winking at Amanda. “But not making it.”
This time, it was Amanda’s turn to tease when she added, “And if you did, no one would eat the food, that’s for sure and certain!”
The sun was still high in the sky after the meal had ended. The family bowed their heads in silent prayer when everyone was finished. Then Lizzie stood up to clear the table. “Amanda,” she said. “You may retire to the porch, if you’ve a mind. Cool breeze might help you sleep tonight.”
“I should help clean up,” Amanda offered.
“Nein, not tonight, daughter.”
Alejandro took that as his cue to help Amanda. He stood up and offered her his arm. “Here,” he said. “Lean on me.” He felt her hand on his warm skin as she stood up. Her touch was soft and gentle, her hand surprisingly cool given the warm temperature in the kitchen. He also hadn’t noticed how petite she was when she stood next to him. Gently, he helped her toward the front porch as she used the crutches that her mother had handed to her.
The early evening sky was slowly changing from a brilliant turquoise to purples and oranges and reds. Amanda sat in the rocking chair, her leg propped on an overturned wooden crate with a pillow underneath her heel. Lizzie had brought that out for her after Alejandro had helped her to the chair.
“This is a good place,” Alejandro said, leaning against the wall of the house. “I like it here.”
“It’s not always like this,” she said, staring at the green field of growing corn. There was a gentle breeze that caused the corn to ripple. It looked like a wave. “When my sister is here, it’s more noisy, I suppose.”
He couldn’t imagine that. Everything was so peaceful and quiet. Even the playful banter between husband and wife was light and cheerful. Certainly Amanda couldn’t comprehend what true noise was. After all, it wasn’t everyone who stood on a stage, hot lights beating down from the ceiling while ten thousand fans screamed at the top of their lungs and the band played as loud as they could. “Concerts are noisy,” he offered. “You can’t imagine the noise! In fact,” he laughed, “everything about my life is noisy . . . the music, the fans, the concerts.”
“But you like it, ja?”
He shrugged. Did he like it? That was the question he had been asking himself these days. “It’s what I do” was the only answer he could think of. “Usually it’s fine,” he added. “But sometimes it is tiring living on the road and never being home. It’s tiring having no privacy and following a tight schedule of meetings and interviews and photo shoots. In my world, I’m always moving. There is no downtime.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t know about that,” she said lightly and with a casual shrug of her shoulders. “I’m just a farm girl. We have plenty of that.”
The way she said those words, just a farm girl, struck him. He stared at her for a moment, wondering what that meant to her. If being a “farm girl” meant living this life that he saw around him, it wasn’t such a bad living at all. Quiet, peaceful, and surrounded by the love of a family. Three things he had never truly experienced.
From the distance, the sound of an approaching horse could be heard. The noise started softly but increased as it neared. Lifting his head so that he could hear it better, Alejandro shut his eyes and listened to the sound. Music. When it was just down the lane from the farmhouse, it began to decrease. At the moment when he could no longer hear it, he opened his eyes, surprised to see Amanda staring at him.
Quiet, peacefulness, family. If he never had those things growing up, he certainly didn’t have them now. Instead, his life was in a constant motion, and while he wasn’t always certain of the direction in which he was going, he always knew where he was headed. His life was everything that hers was not. But it was a good life, a storybook life of rags to riches with no end in sight.
“Sí,” he finally admitted. “I like it.”
“What do you like about it?” Her voice was soft and her eyelids drooped as she looked down at the ground, avoiding his eyes.
What did he like about it? He didn’t know how to answer that. It wasn’t something he often thought about. “Well,” he began, trying to think as he spoke. “I used to like the attention, and I certainly like the money.”
“Money?” she interrupted, her eyes flying to meet his.
“Is that so strange, Princesa?”
With a simple shrug of her shoulders, she looked away. There was a disappointed expression on her face. “Money is just that: money. It’s not family. It’s not happiness. It’s not love.”
“True,” he admitted.
She shook her head. “In fact, isn’t money at the root of many Englische problems?”
“Money is good to have and bad not to have, sí?” he said lightly.
“Mayhaps, but it sure seems to me that you sacrifice an awful lot of life in order to get that money,” she stated.
She was right. He knew it. Yet he felt compelled to explain to her that having money was not all bad. “But it enabled me to bring my mother’s family over from Cuba. It enables me to let my mother live a better life.” He squatted down next to where she sat. “But it’s not all about the money.” He touched her knee gently. “It’s about creating something that touches other people. That’s what I like about it.”
For a long moment, she remained silent. Her eyes watched his hand, which lingered near her leg. She seemed to be digesting what he said, and finally she nodded her head. “I can understand that,” she said, emphasizing the word that. “I love gardening and being creative with how I plan the layout. Other people like flower gardens. My mamm loves to bake pies. Each is creative in her or his own way, I imagine. And that makes us feel good because it touches other people.”
“There you go,” he said.
“And your music touches people, then?”
In his mind, he saw the thousands of screaming fans, crowded around the edge of the stage, the crowd stretching back farther than he could see. He saw the young girls standing outside of his hotels and chasing his limousines. He thought of the thousands of e-mails that he received every day. “Yes,” he said. “I believe it does.”
“Then it’s good that you do that, Alejandro Diaz,” she relented with a smile. “And it’s even better that you like it. I sure would not like the thought of you doing something you hated.”
Her words struck him like a jolt. No one ever seemed to care about what he wanted. Instead, he was always told where to go, what to do, how to behave, even what to wear. He had image consultants, makeup artists, choreographers, voice coaches, managers, and an entire entourage of staff when he was on the road. Yet not one of them ever seemed interested in his thoughts about their decisions. They dictated; he followed. On a few occasions, he might refuse, but it often came at a high price. After all, their sole interest in his success was what they could gain from it themselves.
“You are quiet now,” she said softly.
He glanced around the farm. “You are lucky,” he replied.
“That’s what you were thinking?” she asked.
“No,” he said, moving his head so that he faced her and not the fields. “But that’s what I’m thinking now.”
She smiled at him and, as her eyes sparkled, he reached over for her hand and lifted it to his lips. Gently, he pressed them against her soft skin, never taking his eyes from hers. He watched as the color flooded her cheeks, and he lowered her hand.
“You blush?”
She looked away, but her cheeks were still crimson.
“I embarrassed you?”
She shook her head. “Nee.” Avoiding his eyes, she changed the subject. “It’s been a long day and if you intend to help
Daed tomorrow, you should be retiring soon, ja?”
With a careless lift of his shoulders, he shrugged. “I am not tired. The sun has barely set in the sky.”
“You’ll be tired tomorrow,” she said, a light tone returning to her voice. “You’ll see.”
He stood up and reached down for her hand, the same hand that he had held and kissed just a few seconds before. She hesitated to take it before realizing that he was merely offering his hand to help her stand. Grateful, she accepted his gesture and let him guide her to her feet. It was still very cumbersome with the cast on her leg. She was too aware of how awkward she looked, probably as awkward as she felt.
“In that case, Princesa,” he said gently. “I shall assist you inside so that I may retire to my own quarters. I have e-mails to check on my phone, no?”
“Ach,” she scoffed as she released his hand. “That silly thing?”
He laughed at her. “That silly thing is what keeps my career going, sí?”
She shook her head as she started to move toward the door, the crutches helping to stabilize her. “Such a small device to take up so much of your time,” she remarked. “Seems like communicating in person would be much more effective.”
Reaching out, he held the door open so that she could move inside. “That’s one way of looking at it, but not very realistic in my world,” he tossed back at her playfully.
“Well,” she added, glancing up at him as she slightly crouched to move under his arm. “Like I said, I’m just a farm girl. Wouldn’t know much about that. Good night, Alejandro.” And with that, she disappeared inside, leaving him standing on the porch, a smile on his face at her ability to warm his heart.
Chapter Seven
It was five in the morning when Elias knocked at the bedroom door. The noise was sharp and loud, jolting Alejandro from his sleep. He jumped up and shouted, “¿Quién es?” His eyes were wide-open and trying to adjust to the darkness that engulfed him. He had been sleeping, a deep sleep that he hadn’t reached in the past weeks. Startled from the abrupt awakening, he reached out for the nightstand, looking for something that wasn’t there. Then, feeling his cell phone, he grabbed it and flipped it open to see the time: 5:05 a.m.