Operation Bonnet Page 20

  Um.

  I cocked my head. “The words every girl longs to hear.”

  “Seriously. You are crazy. Nutso. And really kind of irritating.”

  “Are you going to rein this in? I’d like you to rein this in.”

  He tucked a strand of frizz behind my ear.

  “I didn’t flatiron,” I said testily.

  “See?” He laughed. “What the heck is a flatiron? And why would you use it when you’re already beautiful with your huge, insane hair?”

  All right. I melted. “You think that?”

  Kissing distance restored to zero. “Like I said.” He kissed me on the cheek, softly. “I’ve loved you since.” His kiss, the first and sweetest, made every multisyllabic word leave my head. It was a kiss to defy Webster, that kiss.

  When he pulled away, I said, “I love you, too.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Took you long enough.”

  At six o’clock the next morning, my phone rang, and Matt’s number showed up on the screen. I rolled over to snatch it from my bedside table.

  “Are you going to call this early now that we’re kissing? Because I’m really going to hate that.”

  “Morning, cupcake.”

  “And also I hate terms of endearment.”

  “How about muffin? Duck? Lambkin? Cuddles?”

  “I just want to be friends.”

  He did have a nice laugh, but it was still too early.

  “Listen, kitten, I think I can help you clean up the mess you’ve made for yourself. Amos called me and wanted some help with a few woman questions. Clearly he understands the best source for that kind of information.” He made a sound like he was hitching up a horse or maybe spitting tobacco. “Want to go with me to pay a visit to the Amish Don Juan?”

  27

  As Good as It Gets

  We stopped at TasteWay on the way to the address Amos had given Matt.

  “I still don’t understand why he told you and not me where they were staying.” I was pouting as we filled a flat of sour cream doughnuts.

  “I have superb people skills.” Matt tossed in a few doughnut holes. “You really should delegate that part of your business to me. The people part.”

  I karate chopped him in the gut but gave him a kiss on his smooth-shaven cheek, then migrated toward his lips.

  Misty Warren-Pitz cleared her throat. “Hello, public display. First of all, I didn’t even know you were dating, and secondly, it’s early and the baked goods section.”

  “You’re right,” Matt said. “We should have the decency to kiss in the cereal aisle. Or by household cleaners.”

  Misty narrowed her eyes and turned to me. “Word to the wise: Live your life before you’re stuck with a husband and kids.” She gestured to her growing belly. “Keep kissing like that, and you’ll have one of these to carry around with you.” A chocolate éclair in one hand, she stomped off to find that poor Pitz man.

  Matt pulled one hand around my waist as we walked toward the register. “She’s so inspiring. I was all ready to propose Vegas this weekend, and now I think maybe that would be rushing it. What do you think?”

  I laughed. “I think you’re funny. And very attractive for someone who used to have a pronounced stutter. But I still don’t appreciate Amos confiding in you instead of me. You’re not that great.”

  “Aw, thanks, poopsy.”

  That time, the gut punch did not follow with lip action.

  The dive where Amos and Katie had been staying sat at the bottom of a hill on the east side of town. When we’d settled in the living room on a beat-up couch and two folding chairs, I took stock.

  “Amos, this is a dump.” A bit harsh, perhaps, but I was nursing a wound.

  “Yes, it is revolting,” Amos said. He looked around at the peeling paint, the stained carpet, a duct-taped window. “But no one found us here. My friend Steve let us stay here without requiring money. This is a good thing.”

  I looked at Katie. She sat next to Amos on the couch, her hands cradling a paper plate with a nibbled-at doughnut. I’d expected her to be dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. Instead she wore the same clothes she wore to work at the Schrock farm. The only difference was a long braid down her back instead of the traditional pinning-up.

  “You look nice, Katie,” I said, smiling. “Are you doing okay?”

  She nodded and took another nibble of her doughnut while she thought. “I am well, thank you, Nellie. I know my family will never understand, but I believe I needed to do this. To go to the outside and stay with Amos.”

  Matt leaned forward in his chair. “I think you’re both brave.” He looked embarrassed. “For what it’s worth.”

  Amos offered his fist for a knuckle bump. “Thank you, buddy. Maybe brave, maybe stupid, but Katie is correct. We needed to talk in this apartment for some days.”

  Katie sat up straighter on the collapsing cushions. “We have made decisions. I want to be Amish. I want to be myself, and that is Amish.”

  “All right,” I said softly. “So Amos will return with you?”

  Amos turned to Katie and took her hand. “I want to be myself too. And my own self is a wild thing to make your heart sing.”

  Matt raised his eyebrows. “Really?”

  “Yes,” Amos said, nodding soberly. “I’m living la vida loca. I cannot return to the Amish because that is not who I am.” His shoulders pulled downward. “The unfortunate circumstance is that Katie and I cannot be together with this plan.”

  She leaned over and gave him a light kiss on his cheek, which provoked a deep blush from Amos’s gelled hairline to his stubbled chin. He frowned at his shoes.

  Katie looked at his profile while she spoke. “We will always care for each other. Amos Shetler is a good, good man, and this is the truth.” Her voice caught, and I saw Amos squeeze her hand. “But we cannot be honest to us and to what we want if we force one of us to be what God did not intend.”

  The room was heavy. I took in the mourning on Katie’s face and wanted to throw myself at Matt and hug his neck for gratitude that he wasn’t a part of a closed religious sect, so grateful was I not to be enduring this kind of torture. Matt hunched over in his seat, eyes downcast.

  “Do not be depressed, dude.” Amos’s voice was sober but strong. “We know this is the right action, though it is not the first choice.”

  “Amos is right,” Katie said. “And because I have had this time to think, I know to my heart that I cannot marry John Yoder.”

  “This is awesome,” Amos added, “because he is a piece of scum from a pond.”

  “Amos,” Katie warned.

  “Sorry,” he muttered but didn’t look very apologetic.

  Katie let go of Amos’s hand and smoothed her skirt. “So I will need a ride back to my home, please.” She met my eyes with clarity and resolve in hers. “Nellie, will you come with me to the Schrocks? I know my parents will be there, and I want everyone to hear my defending words of you.”

  “I’m not very popular around there right now,” I said, fear prickling the back of my neck at the mere thought of Granny.

  Katie sighed. “Neither am I.” She stood. “If we go together, perhaps they will not kill two people.”

  Matt and I stepped out to the car to let Amos and Katie say good-bye. Amos wanted to go back with Katie and, as he said, “Be the large man about conflict resolution.” Katie insisted this was not his battle to fight and it would be best if he stayed out of it.

  “Where did he learn the phrase conflict resolution?” I asked.

  Matt popped the trunk to place Katie’s near-empty bag inside. He let the door drop and grinned at me. “I finally found a friend who will read the books I recommend.”

  I pointed my finger at him when he approached. “That’s another thing
that won’t change because we’re locking lips. No early-morning love calls, no Princess or Angelface, and no reading self-help books. Got it?”

  He turned with me and faced the door of the apartment building, watching a tear-stained Katie emerge. “We have it really good,” he said before opening the door for me, then Katie.

  Did we ever.

  28

  Grace Sufficient

  Katie and I stood at the weeping willow in the Schrocks’ front yard. We faced the house together, watching the white clapboards mellow to indigo as night began to fall. The cicadas belted out throaty blues, their songs cascading into each other without pause. After a stop at Matt’s house, where we’d left him and his promises to pray like Nona would, Katie had blurted out a last-minute request for Frank’s. She’d poked around her cheeseburger and fries and let most of her strawberry malt puddle in the bottom of the metal glass.

  When I had tucked the receipt into my purse and scooted to the edge of the booth seat, I asked if she was ready.

  “It feels good, like deep water in my heart to go back home. Yet I know that I have hurt the people there.” She tucked a strand of blonde into her kapp. “People are fragile. I will need to be patient with the healing.”

  We stood under the willows, the leaves brushing our arms and shoulders, and I thought of John Yoder. Before Katie’s comment, I would not have pegged John Yoder as one who struggled with fragility. Bad table manners wouldn’t have been a stretch. Or a man who might overuse the phrase women’s work. These were all conjecture; I hadn’t had the opportunity to break bread with John and discuss the forward progression of feminism. But she was right, Katie was. John Yoder, with all his bravado, was fragile, as fragile as I was or Annette was or Misty Warren-Pitz, for that matter. We were all in need of mercy and patience with the binding up after things had been torn to pieces.

  She knocked once on the kitchen door, and Sarah answered before we could take a full breath. When her eyes met with Katie’s, I saw them fill. The door creaked to its greatest width as Sarah pulled Katie into her strong arms. I heard snippets of Pennsylvania Dutch as the two women reconnected. I, however, took great interest in the potted geraniums at my feet. I should have dropped Katie at the end of the lane, I thought, frustrated anew that I was the foreigner back for more emotional flogging.

  “Nellie,” Sarah said, arms still around Katie, “you should come in.”

  “No thanks,” I said, chipper as a talk-show host. I smiled, with my bottom row of teeth thrown in, and said, “I was just leaving. I’m not really dressed—” I gestured to my flip-flops and jeans.

  Sarah looked confused. “You are English. English girls wear denim and flimsy sandals.”

  So my efforts at cultural assimilation had failed as well. Chalk it up.

  Granny appeared in the doorway. She took one look at Katie and said, “I will talk with you now, Nellie Monroe.” Have you heard a dog growl? Same timbre, same warning bells.

  I followed Sarah and Katie, who walked together behind Granny. Sarah’s husband, Samuel, and their three teenaged sons sat at the table over a pitcher of lemonade. They fell silent when we entered. Granny said something in rapid-fire Pennnsylvania Dutch, and they shoved back from the table and retreated to the living room. She moved to the seats they vacated and took one without offering the others to us.

  Katie cleared her throat and distanced herself slightly from Sarah. “Grandmother Mary, Sarah, I want to say my apology for the worry I have created. I will have many apologies, too, for my parents and for John Yoder.” She paused and took a deep breath. “I cannot expect you to understand why I needed to leave, but I did. And I am home now and ready to be who God has intended for me.”

  “Good.” Granny said, with a soft stomp of her foot on the wooden floor. “Your parents deserve honesty. You will go there now?”

  “I will,” Katie said, standing a half-inch taller. “I want first to talk with you about Nellie.”

  “There is no need,” she said, lifting her chin. “I can speak with her myself.” She looked at me with the tenderness of a gargoyle. “Come to me.”

  Why, oh, why aren’t I home? I thought. The elderly woman at my house didn’t hate me and speak condemning words in archaic languages. I padded toward Grandmother Mary, my hands clenched and sweaty at my sides, my cheeks already burning with shame. I’d brought back the could-be-dead Amish girl, darn it. Didn’t that count for anything? Judging by the fire in the Granster’s eyes, I didn’t think so.

  “Nellie Monroe, you have sinned. You did not tell the truth, which steps over the ninth commandment. Even heathens can sometimes obey those ten.” She sniffed. “Also, you have brought trouble into this house and into Katie’s house that would not have come without you. You opened a box that had shut, and this is not wisdom.”

  I hung my head, the truth bearing down on my spine. My toes peeked out on my flip-flops and even they looked pathetic, the nail polish chipped and halfhearted. I was a hunk of pathetic, dishonest, Amish destruction, that’s what.

  “But”—and she hesitated—“I forgive you.”

  I looked up, waiting for the ultimatum or the second verse of the chastising song. I waited for what I deserved, and she said nothing. She looked me full in the face and watched my tears falling hard and fast on her scrubbed wooden floor, and she nodded slowly. Stubborn grace, it turned out, came in various forms, straight from the hand of God and in the form of a cranky old lady in a bonnet.

  29

  Days of Plenty

  Nona sat with me in the kitchen booth, sipping a steaming cup of mango peach tea while I worked on my coffee. I’d cracked open one of the lead-glass windows to let in the morning air. We’d hit the first days of September, and a delicious bite of crisp came with both the sun’s rising and its ever-quickening descent.

  “How is your tea, Nona?”

  She looked up at me and smiled. “I’ve never been to Scotland. Have you?”

  I shook my head. “Not yet.”

  “Not yet,” she repeated, sipping from the china cup as daintily as a lady-in-waiting. In the web of memory and imagination and melancholy and confusion that had occupied her mind, maybe today a lady-in-waiting made perfect sense.

  I drank deeply from my cooling cup, savoring the warmth as it traveled through my fingers, across my palms. From my seat across from her, I watched Nona. I’d helped her pin back her hair, letting some wisps of white frame her face in the way it would have were she to spend the morning painting instead of moving to Fair Meadows. Her eyes were a ferocious blue at such an early hour, nearly jarring in their intensity of color. Every few moments she’d remembered my presence and would smile or tip her head to one side and say whichever words seemed immediate and pressing.

  “I tried impatiens in that flat near the patio, but there just wasn’t enough shade. Begonias did much better.”

  “Nona, you are really beautiful.” The words didn’t pain me because they couldn’t have been more true.

  “I once wore a bright red strapless gown to that dance hall. Probably overdressed, but I loved the feel of that gown.”

  Our conversations tended toward these tangents as of late. Her mind would make a loop toward when she’d felt beautiful, but she couldn’t complete the circle to where I stood in the present, her granddaughter, red-haired and freckled and waiting to hear her say my name.

  “Nona,” I said, covering her hand with mine. “I want to tell you some things.”

  She looked out the open window. A cardinal perched on the back porch railing, preening in his reflection in the glass.

  “I’m going to be okay.” The words caught in my throat but I took a deep breath and began again. “For one thing, I’m ready to go back to school this fall. I’m going to keep taking my criminal justice classes, and I’m working on an internship with a Cleveland law firm.
Using fancy words to catch bad guys might be right up my alley. But”—I paused, brushing an errant grain of sugar from the table—“I might just surprise you too. Now that I’ve learned how to make a mean pastry crust, I might have to open my own bakery.”

  “Casper can be a tough place to live. When we got back from Italy in 1990, Annette wanted nothing more than a loaf of crusty bread.” She giggled. “That woman in the Cascade Bakery said, ‘Well, why don’t you just let it sit out overnight?’” She laughed, a real bell-like laugh that came right from the middle of her.

  I laughed, too, holding on to that story she’d shared with me many times before she got sick. “I might learn crusty bread. Or maybe I’ll just head right through to an MBA and run my own bakery by day, PI agency by night.”

  I picked up the small blue delft pot between us and filled Nona’s teacup.

  “Also, I’m not going to lie to any more Amish people. Or professors.” I shuddered. “That Sonja Moss is one impossible woman when crossed. I think I’m up to about hour twenty of the hundred she’s asked that I serve in penance for delaying her research. So far I’ve alphabetized her files, bought and organized four new bookshelves, and fertilized all her dying ferns back to life.” I raised my eyebrows in conspiracy. “I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to wear her down until she lets me come along to the Schrocks. They liked me better anyway.”

  Nona tapped on the window. The cardinal cocked his head to one side but didn’t fly away. She looked at me.

  “Also, you should know that I’ve been thinking about God.”