If only she could muster her practical side right now, she could talk herself out of caring for him. Practical Linda would never fall in love with someone like Ben. He was irresponsible, reckless, and liked to set things on fire. It would never work between them, her wanting to be baptized and him wanting to jump the fence. He didn’t believe in essential oils, she used them instead of doctors. He couldn’t make it up the smallest hill without gasping for air, and she had hiked two of Colorado’s tallest mountains.
She had a small, uninspiring voice. When Ben sang, the birds stopped chirping just to listen. Linda had no patience for mistakes and no sympathy for foolishness. Ben gently tended to people’s tiny scratches and gave people second and third and fourth chances. Plus, he had literally saved her life.
Nae. They were not well suited at all.
There were dozens of practical reasons why she should feel nothing for Ben.
And none of them mattered.
She loved him. She wanted to be with him. She had made some terrible mistake, and she couldn’t make it right. Even the brightest night sky was no match for the darkness that penetrated Linda’s heart.
All she could feel was a breathtaking, gut-clenching pain.
Chapter Eleven
Ben, Wally, and Simeon sat at the picnic table farthest from the pavilion where fifteen or sixteen of die youngie were talking and laughing and having what looked like a grand time trying to ignore the three Amish boys smoking on the other side of the park. There was a volleyball game going, and someone had set up croquet, though no one was playing.
Though he tried not to stare or even look at her directly, Ben’s attention was riveted to one particular girl in a lavender dress that he was sure brought out the color of her eyes, though he wasn’t close enough to know for certain. Of course, anything Linda wore made her eyes look a brilliant blue, like the clear sky on a cold day. He envied every person she talked to, watched her eat a cookie, and smiled to himself when he realized she was wearing hiking boots instead of flip-flops. Was that the only pair of shoes she owned? How would she play volleyball in hiking boots?
Maybe she’d play barefoot.
Ben’s face got warm remembering the feel of Linda’s bare foot brushing against his that night at the sand dunes. At the slightest touch, his heart had done a backflip and his stomach had performed a somersault. Ach, what a dumkoff he’d been. It had all been part of Linda’s plan to make him her project, and he’d almost fallen for it.
He took a drag on his cigarette, coughed like he was going to hack up a lung, and tried his best to pretend Linda wasn’t less than a hundred yards away, looking so beautiful that his throat went dry. He didn’t care what Linda was doing. She wasn’t a part of his life anymore, and he was going to cut her out of his heart, even if it killed him.
Ben leaned forward and propped his arms on his thighs. Why did he even come to gatherings anymore? Everybody hated the sight of Ben, Wally, and Simeon at any youth gathering, and it was pretty clear people would rather they stayed away, especially after the fire. Three old ladies and the two ministers had given him lectures after gmay on Sunday. Everyone had glared at Ben the entire service, except the babies and toddlers who were too young to know better.
Even now, die youngie under the pavilion were giving Ben and his friends sideways glances. Some of the boys looked downright hostile. Linda was completely ignoring Ben, or maybe she hadn’t noticed he was there. Ben ran his hand down the side of his face. Of course she’d seen him. He was smoking like a chimney, and he and Wally had been purposefully laughing hysterically to draw attention to themselves. Ben’s throat was already raw from laughing like a hyena. That’s what he got for trying too hard.
Wally liked to go to gatherings, even though he never played games or ate pretzels or talked to anybody. He wanted to make all the self-righteous young people uncomfortable and angry. He wanted everyone in the gmayna to hate him so he felt justified in hating them. It made sense to Ben. Linda would say it was childish. And that’s why Ben was glad she wasn’t in his life anymore. When he was in the middle of it, he hadn’t realized how often he had made decisions based on what Linda would think of him. What a dumm way to live his life. He didn’t owe Linda an explanation for anything, and now he didn’t have to care what she said. It was better if she hated him. Then he wouldn’t have the pressure of trying to live up to her expectations. It was wunderbarr to be so free again.
But making everybody hate him got old after about ten minutes, and Ben would rather be anywhere but here. Every smile Linda gave to someone else, every move she made, felt like a knife twisting in his gut. The raw ache of Linda’s deception nearly suffocated him. He had let himself trust her, but she was just like everybody else—only interested in him as a charity project. Well, now she knew there were some projects doomed to failure from the very beginning.
“What are we doing here?” Ben said. “I’m not having any fun.”
“My dat made me come,” Simeon said.
Ben threw his cigarette on the ground. “Well, he didn’t say you had to stay, did he?”
“I guess not.”
Ben glanced at Wally. “Let’s go find something better to do than watch die youngie play volleyball.”
Wally didn’t seem in a big hurry to go anywhere. “Zoe said if she got off work early, she’d come pick us up.”
In the distance, Linda fell to the ground trying to hit the volleyball. Ben growled under his breath as he watched Freeman Sensenig grab Linda’s hand and help her up. Ben clenched his fist, remembering how good it felt when Linda put her hand in his and dragged him up and down the sand dunes. His hand had tingled for hours afterward. No matter what Wally said, Ben was never coming to another gathering ever again. “How long do you expect us to wait?”
“What’s your rush?” Wally said, realizing he was getting under Ben’s skin but probably not understanding why. “It’s a nice night out here.”
An invisible hand tightened around Ben’s throat as Linda and Mary Ann Miller left the volleyball game and walked straight toward them. What did she think she was doing? Hadn’t he made it perfectly clear he didn’t want her to bother him ever again?
Even though he didn’t care one whit what Linda thought of him, his heart beat the wild rhythm of a freight train barreling down the track. His palms got sweaty, and his hands shook. He had been right about one thing. That dress did make her eyes seem extra blue, extra blue and extra piercing, as if she was looking into his soul. Did she like what she saw there? Not likely. Without taking his gaze from her face, he stood up and stuffed his hands in his pockets.
“Look, Ben. It’s your girlfriend,” Wally said.
“I told you, she’s not my girlfriend,” he muttered under his breath. “I don’t even like her.” Which was a very big lie, but if he told it to himself enough, he might start to believe it.
“Hey, Simeon,” Mary Ann said, raising her hand in a half-hearted wave as she and Linda got closer. “Hallo, Wally and Ben.”
“Vie gehts?” Simeon said. Simeon wasn’t inclined to be flippant like Wally or mute like Ben.
A painful emotion flashed in Linda’s eyes. Ben didn’t like it. Linda should always be smiling. He’d never forget the day they’d spent in the canoe on the river. Combined with the sunlight sparkling off the water, her smile had practically blinded him. That’s how he’d always think of Linda, even if she had just been pretending.
Just as suddenly, the pain disappeared from her eyes, replaced with an awkward smile stretched across her face. Linda seemed less certain of herself than she usually was, but she was still Linda, not inclined to let anyone intimidate her. “We came to see if you’d like to play volleyball. We need more players.”
Wally snickered. “Volleyball is dumm.”
Linda raised an eyebrow. “If you think it’s so dumm, why are you sitting here watching it?”
Wally frowned and squinted into the setting sun. “What do you care?” The irritation rose off Wally like stea
m. Ach, du lieva. If someone didn’t know Linda well, they’d think she was poking fun at them. But that was just Linda’s way. If she thought something was ridiculous or didn’t make sense, she couldn’t keep her mouth shut. Of course it took next to nothing to set Wally off. He was angry at everybody and everything. “It’s not your private park. We can be here if we want to.”
Linda nodded. “It’s okay. I understand why you’d be afraid to play.”
Ach. She was up to her old tricks. But not even Ben was dumm enough to fall for that again.
Wally glared at Linda through the smoke of his cigarette. “We’re not afraid. We just don’t want to play. Volleyball is a stupid game.”
Wally didn’t scare Linda. “For sure and certain, you wouldn’t be able to keep up, not with your lungs full of smoke.” She gave Ben a pointed look, and try as he might, he couldn’t hold her gaze. He’d started smoking again because that was what Wally and Simeon wanted, but he knew how foolish he must look to her. He felt foolish too. All those headaches and suffering for nothing.
A fire started somewhere in Ben’s gut. Pulling back his shoulders, he met her gaze. He didn’t care what Linda thought. “We like to smoke,” he said, because he had to say something, and he couldn’t think of anything clever.
“I’m glad for that,” Linda said. It sounded more like an accusation than the truth. Though her smile stayed glued in place, the light in her eyes went out, almost as if her feelings were hurt.
Mary Ann’s smile faltered as she glanced at Wally. “Ach, vell. We just wanted you to know you’re invited.”
Simeon turned out to be braver than Ben ever could be. “We should go play. It might be fun.” His gaze shifted from Wally to Ben and back again. “Just while we wait for Zoe.”
“We don’t want to play,” Wally said, as if that ended the discussion.
Simeon swallowed hard. “I do.”
A fire flared in Wally’s eyes. It went out as quickly as it had ignited. He sat down on the top of the picnic table and pulled a new pack of cigarettes from his pocket. “Go ahead. Nobody’s stopping you.”
Simeon stood up and gave Wally a doubtful look. “Just until Zoe comes.”
Mary Ann and Simeon turned to go. Linda wasn’t finished. She frowned in Ben’s direction. “We searched for you for over an hour. Even Cathy hiked the sand dunes with us trying to find you.”
Ben looked anywhere but into Linda’s eyes. He didn’t want to see the pain of that night reflected back at him. “I told you I’d find my own way home.”
“I didn’t want to leave without you.” She waited for him to say something. He didn’t. “We were worried. We drove to your house, but you weren’t there. I went back the next morning. Your mamm said you’d come home a little before sunrise.”
It wasn’t like Linda to worry. Ben didn’t like it. “I hitchhiked. A trucker dropped me off outside Monte Vista.” It had taken almost two hours to walk home from the highway, but not long enough to clear Linda from his head. There probably weren’t enough years for that.
“You hitchhiked? That was dumm.”
“Smarter than walking all the way.”
“Dumber than just getting a ride home with me and Cathy.”
She had a point there, but that night no one could have paid him enough to get in a car with Linda Eicher.
Wally, who had been trying to convince Simeon that Simeon wouldn’t have fun playing volleyball, suddenly turned on Linda. “You think you’re smarter than everybody, but Ben is smarter than the whole gmayna put together. I’m sick of you putting him down. You think you’re better than us, but you’re just a preachy, stupid, ugly girl who isn’t better than anybody.”
In one long stride, Ben was face to face with Wally. Wally grunted when Ben jabbed his finger into Wally’s chest. “That’s too far, Wally. Just shut up about it.”
Wally’s eyes nearly popped out of his head as he raised his hands in surrender, his cigarette lodged between two fingers. “Okay, okay. But she shouldn’t put you down like that, like you’re manure stuck to the bottom of her shoe.”
Ben’s throat burned with anger. “She’s not putting me down. She’s speaking the truth, and I deserve it.” Especially after how he’d treated her. Especially because he wasn’t even worthy to breathe the same air as Linda.
Linda stepped forward and laid a gentle hand on Ben’s arm, which was still pressing into Wally’s chest. “Wally is right. I’m too opinionated and harsh, and I’m sorry.”
“You should be sorry,” Wally said. “You’ve done nothing but make Ben miserable.”
The earlier pain he’d seen in Linda’s eyes returned full force. Ben had to grab the edge of the table to keep from reaching out and pulling her into his arms. The sooner she dealt with the pain and realized she couldn’t fix him, realized that he couldn’t be fixed, the better for both of them.
A giant red pickup truck roared into the parking lot, drawing everyone’s attention. The driver, Zoe, killed the engine, and the birds started chirping again. Zoe and her friend Mack jumped out of the cab of the truck and slammed the massive doors behind them.
Wally grinned smugly. “Here they are. Too bad you can’t play volleyball after all, Simeon. Maybe another time.”
Zoe and Mack caught sight of Wally and Ben and practically sprinted across the grass to their picnic table. Linda and Mary Ann linked elbows and took a few steps back to make room for Zoe’s entrance, which was like a bulldozer driving into a church service.
Zoe threw herself into Ben’s arms, wrapping her hands around his neck and her legs around his waist. He had to brace himself hard against the table to keep them both from toppling to the ground. He glanced at Linda before he remembered that this was exactly the thing he needed to do to make her hate him. More than that, this was exactly the kind of thing a boy as wicked as Ben Kiem would do. It was perfect, no matter how offended Linda was.
But she didn’t look offended. She looked stricken, devastated, completely off balance. His heart crashed to the ground. He didn’t want Linda to feel bad. He wanted her to get angry. Anger and disdain were better than this look of wounded betrayal.
Zoe jumped out of Ben’s arms and patted his chest. “You ready for some fun, Bennie?”
Bennie. That was what Zoe called him. To Ben, it was like fingernails on a chalkboard. He faithfully kept his gaze away from Linda and forced a smile. “What are we going to do?”
“It’s not too early to go bar hopping.” Zoe was just blowing smoke. There was only one real bar in Monte Vista, and Alamosa was too far to drive if Zoe got drunk by the end of the night.
Instead of running the other way as fast as she could, Linda seemed eager to meet Zoe. She stuck out her hand. “I’m Linda, and this is Mary Ann.”
Zoe looked at Linda’s hand as if no one had ever wanted to shake hands with her before. “Um, hi,” she said, sliding her hands into the back pockets of her tight jeans.
An amused grin sprouted on Linda’s face. It was the first genuine smile Ben had seen from her today. She pointed to her own cheek. “You have a makeup smear right there.”
Zoe did indeed have a smudge of black makeup in a line down her cheek. She turned to Ben. “Do I?”
Ben nodded. “Yeah. A big one.”
Zoe hissed a few bad words, pulled a thin mirror from her pocket, and looked at herself. She tried to wipe away the smudge with her fingers, and when that didn’t work, she had the nerve to grab Ben’s sleeve, leaned over, and wipe her face with that. Zoe’s makeup was as thick as tar. Would it come out in the wash? Ach, vell, he’d never liked this shirt anyway.
Linda turned her whole body away from Zoe, as if she was suddenly very interested in the outcome of the volleyball game on the other side of the park. Ben pressed his lips together. She wasn’t looking at volleyball. She was laughing. She pressed her hand to her mouth as her shoulders shook violently. At least she wasn’t laughing out loud.
Ben studied his shirt and the black smudge on Zoe’s face that now
looked like a bruise. He was torn between being annoyed about his shirt and wanting to laugh himself. Zoe wouldn’t take the laughing too well. He couldn’t very well claim to be laughing with her and not at her. Linda used to say that, and Ben had never believed her.
Wally lit another cigarette. “Let’s get out of here.”
Zoe kept wiping at her face, slowly moving the black tar into a line at her jaw. “You know you can’t smoke in my truck.”
Wally scowled. “We’re sitting in the back anyway.”
“You’ll be sitting in the back,” Zoe said. “Ben is going to sit in the front with me.”
Wally glared at Ben and puffed slowly on his cigarette. “Then I guess I don’t have to worry about it.”
On one hand, Ben didn’t appreciate Zoe singling him out. Wally was interested in Zoe, and it was obvious he didn’t like the attention Zoe paid Ben. On the other hand, if Zoe’s attention irritated Linda, all the better. But Linda wasn’t even watching how Zoe curled her fingers possessively around Ben’s arm or how she pressed her body against his. Her gaze was squarely and faithfully focused on the volleyball game.
“Come on, Zoe,” Mack whined. “I want the AC.”
Zoe puckered her lips. “Too bad. It’s my truck. I get to decide.”
Linda finally turned around. She had managed to quell her laughter, but she grinned like she couldn’t help it even though it hurt. Her smile was wide and unhappy, as if Ben’s behavior amused and pained her at the same time, as if there was so much about Ben’s life she could laugh and cry about. “Have fun bar hopping.”
Mary Ann raised her eyebrows in Simeon’s direction. “Are you sure you don’t want to play volleyball? We need another player, and you’re the best player I know. Freeman thinks he’s too gute for us and hogs the ball.”
Simeon adjusted his hat and looked at his feet. “I think I’ll stay here, Ben. They really need another player, and I don’t want to sit in the back of the truck. Go without me. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
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