I say, “Well, we raised a lot of money for the community and everything, maybe that’s enough. We’ll be having children soon, and I’ll want to devote all my time to being the mother to them that God wants me to be.”
Simon and Gramm share a smile that I know says, Hannah, she never lets us down!
And that’s just what I hope never to do.
So Simon cups his hand over mine. “Whatever you want is what I want for you, Hannah. Bake or don’t, sew or weave or take up bricklaying. So long as you’re happy.”
Gramm nods, giving me that ageless wink that only she can share. It’s like a miniature hug, a love poem thousands of pages long flashing through our hearts in a single beautiful beat.
A warm pulse rushes through me, the feeling of divine blessing as it falls from God’s own hand to bathe me in that celestial embrace.
And this might be the last we ever speak of my Whoopie pies, but for what happens next.
* * *
I go to the Lancaster Central Market the next day to announce to my customers that I will no longer be making any pies of any sort for sale. I imagine there may be some disappointment, but I also am sure that life will at least get back to normal for them all, as close to life as it was before we arrived, and that will probably be for the best.
And when I get there I’m just a little gratified to see a healthy line of potentially disappointed customers. I’m not glad to disappoint them, of course, but it makes me feel good to know my pies are so popular, even if my own popularity seems oddly on the decline.
Stepping down from my pie throne will probably anger them even more, I have to admit to myself. What do I have to do to please these people? I baked them the pies that they liked, then they got mad at me for not competing. Now they’re mad that I’m too popular. Once I stop, they’ll probably jeer me as a quitter and try to run me out of town on a rail.
Well, I have to do what I have to do for myself now, and my family, and they’ll have to take care of themselves.
I take my place behind the booth, everybody already muttering about seeing me arrive empty-handed.
“Hasn’t she got any pies?” one person asks.
“What’s going on?” another wants to know.
But the guy at the front of the line, obviously an Englischer in his blazer and tinted sunglasses, says, “Hannah Troyer?”
Uh oh, I have to wonder, what now? FBI? Homeland Security?
“Yes?” I say, waiting for him to lower to boom.
He offers his hand and I shake it. “Cameron Carlson, from Marshall / Armstrong Productions. Friends call me Cam.”
“Will you be selling any pies today?” a woman behind Cam Carlson asks me, inspiring him to turn with an impatient glare.
Then he turns back to me. “Look, we saw you on TMZ...” (that’s it, TMZ!) “...and we’d like to talk to you about appearing with the great French chef Jacques Charriere, on his program, Tastes of America.”
Oh Lord, I say to myself, of course! Overturn a rock, all the creepy crawlers come wriggling out.
“Well,” I say instead, “that’s very flattering, of course, but I really don’t think so. We Amish don’t like to appear on camera if we don’t have to.”
“Yeah, I Googled you on the way down,” he says. I think I know what he means.
I hope I do.
He goes on to say, “Could be great exposure, bring a lot of interest into Lancaster, pump up those coffers? You people live on a kind of shared wealth system, right?”
“You people?”
He chuckles. “You know what I mean.”
“Yes, I’m afraid I do.”
And here we go. Now I get to be manipulated by the media, instead of merely by my family, friends, neighbors and even people in other counties and, amazingly, other states.
There’s no way this could turn out well, I say to myself, or at least there are all kinds of ways it could go terribly wrong. No, the smart thing to do is nip this in the bud.
And I’m about to do just that, when another thought occurs.
If I turn them down, everybody will say I’m being selfish, denying the community an opportunity to really beef up those reserves, make sure nobody goes hungry this winter or next or for any winter over the next generation.
And maybe they’ll be right.
I have to correct myself, It’s a moot point anyway because the elders won’t stand for it, and my daed won’t stand for it.
Hey, that’s right...
I smile at Cam. “Well, as I said, that really is flattering. And I’m not, um, closed to the idea, not at all. I think it might be fun and, as you say, good for the community.”
“All right then, let me just give you a few papers to sign and we’ll arrange for a film crew to come in and start shooting interviews.”
“Interviews?”
“Sure, you and your neighbors, really give our audience a feel for the place. Then Chef Cherierre will come in, you’ll mix up a batch of those pies, we’ll throw another little party in the town square, for production value, you understand...”
“Right, yeah,” I nod, “production value. Well, the thing is, before I give you the go-ahead on any of this, we have to clear it with the town elders.”
And they’ll never go for it, I don’t bother to say. Then they’ll have to take responsibility for that decision when it comes to dealing with my neighbors and I’ll be off the hook.
Cam thinks about it, then nods. “Well, when can I meet these...these elders?”
“I’ll have my daed call a meeting.”
“Oh, your dad is one of the town elders? Impressive.”
“It doesn’t give me much clout...”
Cam chuckles a bit, confidence brimming. “It’s television, Mrs. Troyer. Everybody says yes to television.”
I can only think, Welcome to my world, pal.
“Hey, what about the pies?” the woman behind Cam asks again.
Oh, right! Probably not the best time to announce my retirement. After the elders bring the axe down on Cam’s Hollywood invasion, I’ll blame that whole fracas on them and let the matter lay.
To keep them until then, I say, “Sorry, folks, no pies this week. But we’ve got something very special in the works, so stay tuned.”
I look at Cam and he gives me a little wink.
* * *
That night at Olaf Thompson’s house, the elders gather at my request. I appear with Simon and Gramm, who already seems to terrify them, and of course Cam Carlson. They’re instantly suspicious of Cam, which is exactly what I anticipated.
In fact, I’m counting on it.
After making his pitch, the elders give the matter only a momentary consideration. They don’t have to think about it long. Olaf says, “Mr. Carlson, we appreciate your interest in our community, but we’re going to have to decline. It simply isn’t our practice to engage is such...activities as television programs.”
“But I’ve seen documentaries, there’s a series on cable, a few of them...”
“And we do not wish to exploit ourselves or our fellows in such ways as those,” Olaf says, his smile melting from his bearded jowls.
And there you have it, I think to myself. This worked like a charm, easier than I thought! Let them deal with the blow back, it’s out of my hands.
Cam says, “It would only be a one-off thing, and it could put a lot of money in your socks for a rainy day.”
After a doubting moment, I have to admit, Of course they weren’t bashful about making me do something I didn’t want to do when it suited their purposes. Odd that they won’t do the same thing now.
My daed just watches the exchange, his eyes falling upon me as well, knowing that I am at the center of this dust-up, albeit unwillingly.
Sort of unwillingly.
Cam says, “Think of all the new folks who’ll come in for those pies, and your other things: quilts and bridles and the like. You’ll never have to scramble to put up a new schoolhouse again!”
“With God’s he
lp, we resolve these matters as they arise.”
Cam smiles, extending his hands in a way that is not meant to invoke Jesus on the cross, but still does in an offhand sort way, especially when Cam says, “How do you know we’re not sent by God to help you.”
“I’ll thank you not to blaspheme in our presence,” Olaf says, his smile completely melted away.
I think, Sure, when they want me to jump through hoops, it’s all in the name of the community. Ask one little thing of them and suddenly it’s blasphemy. How dare they? These old grouses, pushing me around like a pawn on a chessboard while they sit back and have to do nothing, above it all? I told them there would be ramifications, that there would be complications from that big bake-off! Well, now their chickens have come home to roost, and I don’t think I feel like watching them avoid their part of the responsibility for all this.
There are always ramifications, for them as much as for anyone else. Maybe it’s time they learned that for themselves.
I say, “If I may speak, gentlemen...” and then I add, without being given permission, “maybe we’re being too quick to judge here. I mean, we’re flush now, but doesn’t it make sense to harvest as much benefit from all this as we can, to brace against lean years to come? If this is God’s will for us, a way to prepare us for some unforeseen time of trail, and we deny it...”
“We cannot know the will of God at every turn,” Olaf says. “But we are also committed to lives of simplicity, humility, anonymity.”
I ask, “Was putting me on that stage to stake my reputation on challenging another, your idea of humility, simplicity or anonymity?”
“They are not the same.”
“But they are the same,” my daed says, his voice low but still strong. “My daughter is correct. We have asked her to do what we ourselves are not willing to do.”
Olaf glares at my daed now. “Hyamm, you’re still quite new to Lancaster, to this body of elders, and...”
“It is not relevant how long I have been here, but what I will do, what we all will do, in the years to come. Are we going to be the honest and straightforward men and women that we claim to be? Or are we going to be hypocrites, liars, and cowards?”
The elders gasp at this, but my daed isn’t swayed. If anything, his commitment is growing. I’m not sure if he really likes the idea of a TV crew in our midst, in fact I know he doesn’t like it at all. But he’s standing up for me against this body of powerful men. It’s more important for him to be my daed than to be a member of this board of elders, and that’s more important to me than any point I’m trying to make to the board now.
But I am committed to my position as well, which is quickly turning against my original purpose of avoiding the question of the TV show all together. Now it’s starting to look like it may actually happen.
My daed says, “If this has happened, it must be God’s will that it happen. He would not try us beyond our means or abilities. ‘Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds.’” After a long, righteous pause, he says, “You gentlemen aren’t going to deny the holy word, are you?”
Olaf and the other elders look at him silently, then at us with grim faces but slow, unwilling nods that tell us they have made a choice they feel they will live to regret.
I’m thinking the same thing when I turn to Cam, shake his hand and say, “Welcome to Lancaster.”
Tensions ratchet up even higher when, quite innocently, Cam replies, “Welcome to Hollywood.”
* * *
The next day Cam and his TV crew follow me around on a little tour of my corner of Lancaster. We pass the new schoolhouse site, still being torn down in order to be rebuilt. We get some coverage (that’s what the crew calls it) of the places Simon and I met and fell in love. It’s all very sweet and harmless, and although I do feel a little conspicuous about being on camera at first, it does become fairly familiar reasonably fast. I’m surprised at how comfortable I feel answering Cam’s questions with that big camera trained on me, the boom mike hovering over my head.
But seeing the stares and glares from my neighbors in the parking lot doesn’t do much to bolster my mood. I’m not sure if it's the inconvenience of the camera and mike crew, or their big SUV that provides just the smallest obstacle to my neighbors’ freedom of movement. Or it might be that I’m consorting with Englischers, appearing with them on camera (for which some people would have been put through the fire, or excommunicated). The only reason I’m safe is that the elders decided to welcome the crew into our midst, so nobody is in any violation if they answer a few questions.
Still, they snarl at me as they pass.
But I think, when all is said and done, they’ll have learned a valuable lesson and will probably climb down off their high horses willingly, or be toppled from them. When we get to my mother’s house and the crew takes Abram aside for an interview, I have more of a chance to explain it to my mamm in a private conversation.
“Do you think you’ll be doing an interview, Mamm? Could be kind of fun, something to look back on later? I’d love to have a souvenir for your grandchildren.” To her suddenly intrigued expression, I say, “No, not yet, you know I would have told you, first thing.” Reflecting on Simon, I add, “Maybe second.”
We share a little giggle before Mamm’s attention is drawn to the camera crew and Abram across the field. “Do you really know what you’re doing here, Hannah?”
I look at her, unwilling and unable to be less than honest with her. “Sometimes I think I do.” We share an uneasy chuckle before I add, “These people are so manipulative, y’know? And no matter what I do, they judge me harshly for it.”
“The camera crew, or the community?”
“Both. But the camera crew will come and go, we’re stuck with this community for a lifetime.”
“Exactly, Hannah. And you don’t think that, whatever this television program brings, it won’t also be used against you?”
“Well, what am I supposed to do? Ask ‘how high?’ when they say, ‘jump’? They wanted to put me through the ringer, but won’t go through it themselves? No, this time they’re gonna learn a thing or two about dealing with the ramifications of trying to manipulate somebody else. You can’t enlist others in a cause you’re not willing to fight for yourself, right?”
She nods, patiently. “Do you think being right is going to do you any good?”
“Again, Mamm, what choice do I have?”
She sighs, considering, before setting her hand on mine. “Honey, we’re all being manipulated to a degree, by God. And we all wind up doing a certain amount of manipulating of our own. And if God uses us to influence the paths of one another, to create what God wants for us, isn’t that a blessed thing? Isn’t that what community really is, God’s way of bringing us together, of bringing the best out of us, and bringing us closer to God?”
I give it some thought, my mind starting to swim. “And if God sent the camera crew for that very purpose?”
She gazes at them, about fifty yards away, interviewing Abram under a willow tree. “I only hope and pray that’s the case.”
CHAPTER SIX
Over the next few days, the crew shoots interviews with some of the people closest to me. I don’t see much of them in this time and I almost get the feeling that some of them are deliberately trying to avoid me. Well, I reason, if they’re going to be nasty about it, they may as well keep a distance.
I’ve got other things to deal with. Cam has suggested that I host a big dinner for my family, the elders, and of course celebrity chef Jacques Cherierre, due to arrive soon. So I have to spend all my free time making sure the house is extra clean, especially the kitchen. It is generally a very clean house, don’t get me wrong. But I’m new to the place and I don’t know how long it’s been since the ovens have been moved, or the floor cleaned behind the icebox. And then there is the matter of the food, an Amish feast for at least a dozen people, one of them among the most highly regarded chefs in the wor
ld.
And, on the third day, Cam comes to me with an invitation to view some of the interview footage they’ve edited. “It’s very...enlightening,” he says with a mischievous grin before sitting me down in the makeshift office they’ve put together in the Lancaster Holiday Inn suites.
I sit in the room in front of his laptop computer at the little round table near the window. “It’s just a rough cut, you understand,” Cam says, “give you an idea.”
I nod and wait while he pushes a few keys on the laptop keyboard, then I sit back and enjoy the show.
Sort of.
The first person interviewed in the sequence is Abram, under the willow tree on my family’s farm, inherited from my granduncle, Zeek. He smiles in his innocence as Cam’s voice asks him questions off-camera (that’s the term Cam uses).
“My sister?” Cam says, “she’s the best. She’s kind of like, well, I guess she’s like my hero in a way. She’s a lot like the person I’d like to be.”
“Oh, Abram,” I mutter, warmth pulsing through me.
Off-camera, Cam asks something, the words “her pies” leaking in through the muttering. “She’s famous for her pies.” More muttering off-camera, Abram squirming a bit in his seat. “Well, I support my sister whatever she does.” More muttering, more squirming. “Okay, well, since you’re asking, I kinda like the old pies better. I’m not saying they are better, I just like ‘em better.”
“Abram!” I say again, in an entirely different tone.
The screen changes abruptly with another cut to a different interview, this one inside someone’s home.
Lilly’s, I guess, seeing her and Jessup fill the screen. She’s really overworking it, waving her hands in front of her, rolling her shoulder, flipping her head. “Well, I think of Hannah as my best friend! I’ve sort of...taken her under my wing since she arrived. Why, her family was in an awful state when they got here, but I’m glad to say that they’re much closer now. We look out for each other around here.”
Jessup looks the other way, fidgeting in his growing discomfort, eyes darting from her to the camera and then back to her.
Lilly adds, “I was the one who thought of the bake-off that got this whole thing started. She wasn’t sure if it was a good idea, but I told her, ‘Hannah, you are just too talented to stay hidden in the shadows!’ And, as you can see, I was quite right.”
Whoopie Pie Betrayal - Book 2 (The Whoopie Pie Juggler: An Amish of Lancaster County Saga series) Page 7