“Or we girls could all ride in with you men some Saturday, see the new shops, and then take the buggy into town to buy dress fabric before school starts,” Mamm said as she removed the big skillet of pork chops from the stove top. “No reason for the mare to stand around all day waiting for you.”
Dat took his place at the head of the table. “She won’t. The shopkeepers’ horses graze in the pasture under some shade trees,” he explained, “and Pete’s putting up a pole barn for them soon. We’ll put that barn to gut use during our auctions—and when the scholars drive their ponies to school, too.”
Mamm set the platter of sizzling chops near Dat’s place and fetched the bowl of fried apples. “Sounds like you figure to be at The Marketplace every Saturday for a long time to come,” she remarked. “Do you really want to spend so much time there after you’ve put in a full week at the furniture factory, Martin?”
As Gabe took his seat, his parents continued their conversation. Mamm had been hinting for the past few months that Dat should retire, but his father was having none of that—because he preferred spending his time with the men in the factory to being at home, where his wife would come up with chores he didn’t really want to do.
After their prayer, Gabe filled his plate and ate without saying much. Dat was regaling Mamm and the girls with gossip he’d heard at The Marketplace, so Gabe’s mind wandered to what seemed to be his favorite subject of late. What would Red be eating for supper? Would she spend her Saturday evening alone—or had she taken Hartley the money he’d earned on his paintings? If Gabe stopped by her place, would she welcome him in for a glass of lemonade? Or would she beg off, finding reasons not to spend time with him after hours?
Only one way to find out.
After he’d eaten a couple of his sisters’ brownies, Gabe slipped into the bathroom to check his appearance in the mirror. He doubted Red would care if he put on a clean shirt, but on the off chance that he’d see her, he did it anyway. He slipped through the front room, where Dat was absorbed in the Budget, and out the front door before Mamm noticed he was leaving. Living at home with his family meant he couldn’t come and go in total privacy—and sooner or later, he’d have to answer some questions about his after-supper destination.
What would his parents say about his strolling past Red’s place, hoping to see her? Would Dat insist it was bad business to date an employee? Would Mamm bombard him with questions about whether he was courting Red with the intention of marrying her? His mother was eager to see him hitched and starting a family—
And what would Red say to that? She doesn’t seem to hanker for the traditional Amish lifestyle, or she wouldn’t work in the furniture factory, right?
Gabe strolled quickly toward the county blacktop that marked the city limit of Morning Star, which bustled with car traffic and folks going out for Saturday night supper. He turned down Maple Lane and stopped when Red’s house came into view. It was a red brick bungalow—a single-story home with a pillared front porch beneath what was most likely an attic.
It had been an English house in the countryside when Red’s father, Fred Miller, had bought the place, and it sat on a couple of acres of land, which he’d fenced as a pasture for the horses. Because Fred didn’t farm—and because the babies that had come after Regina hadn’t survived long—the house and the property had been just the right size for the three of them. After Fred and Edna had died in that horrific bus accident, Red’s insistence on remaining in her home alone had been yet another choice that set her apart from most young Amish women.
Gabe recalled that Preacher Clarence and Cora had made quite a fuss about their niece keeping her house, because it gave her too much independence—and because living in the country alone left her vulnerable. They’d objected to her holding a job at the furniture factory, too. Preacher Clarence, as Regina’s closest male relative, felt responsible for her and believed her place was with them until she married. As Gabe recalled the situation, Clarence would’ve forced Red to move to his house, had Bishop Jeremiah—and Dat—not taken her side and agreed to assist her shortly after her parents’ funeral.
Red stood her ground—has lived life her own way. Maybe she thinks you don’t have much to offer, without a home of your own . . . or maybe she’d be content to remain at her place after she married—
Gabe started walking again. Where were these thoughts about marriage coming from, when he hadn’t even kissed her?
Hah! She might run screaming in the other direction if you tried that. This is Red we’re talking about, after all. Quiet, blend-in-with-the-furniture Regina Miller.
As he approached her house, he noticed that the lights above the porch were on again, and the attic window was open. Why would a woman alone need any more space than she had on the main floor? Surely her bedroom wasn’t in the attic—the spacing of the back windows suggested two bedrooms downstairs. And in the summertime, it would be uncomfortably warm for sleeping up there. As he wondered about these things, Gabe felt compelled to call her name, to see if she’d come to the window.
But he kept quiet. He didn’t knock on her door, either, which would’ve been the normal thing for a guy to do if he wanted to see a woman. Gabe had so many questions for Red, yet he hesitated to ask them. Was that due to the shyness and uncertainty he’d never felt around other young women—maybe because the relationship might turn out to be special?
Or are you afraid of what you’ll find out about her?
After a few more moments of indecision, Gabe headed back toward town. On the chance that Red might come to the window for a breath of air, he hurried past. He didn’t want her to spot him staring up at her, after all. Dusk was turning the sky to a pale, pearlescent gray as he crossed the county highway and headed into Morning Star’s business district.
When he spotted a Mennonite guy he knew outside the bulk store, he called out to him. “Hey there, Nick—long time no see! How are you and the wife doing?”
Nick looked up from his cell phone. “Can’t complain,” he replied. “Just finished a pizza, and Mary Beth wanted to shop for a couple things before we headed home.”
Gabe glanced at the screen of his friend’s phone. “You’re watching a baseball game—on your phone?”
“Checking to see how the Cardinals are doing. While we were in the pizza place, they had a no-hitter going.”
Gabe blinked. He was way behind, tech-wise, and he marveled at how quickly Nick was flipping from one image to the next with his dexterous thumb. As faces flashed by on the screen, a thought popped into his mind. “You can look stuff up about people on that thing, jah?”
Nick chuckled. “It’s called googling them, Flaud,” he teased. “You want me to do a search for hot, single girls willing to date a knucklehead like you? I could sign you up for a dating service—”
“Forget that noise,” Gabe interrupted playfully. “Look up a painter named Hartley Fox. He’s surely got a website, and maybe a photo of himself on there.”
“Hartley Fox,” Nick murmured as he brought up a screen with a search line. “Does that end in Y or I-E ? And is it Fox like the animal, or with an E on the end?”
Gabe spelled the name he’d seen in the shop at The Marketplace, watching closely as Nick typed it in and tapped the little magnifying glass beside it. Almost immediately, several lines of print and some photos popped up.
Nick slowly drew his finger upward as he scanned them. “Hmm. Stuff about Fox News . . . people with the last name of Hartley. Here’s a Hartley Fox who lives in Canada. Would that be him?”
“Nope, this guy doesn’t live very far from here,” Gabe replied. “He paints nature scenes like you wouldn’t believe—”
“No sign of anyone like that. He must not have a website—and he’s never made the paper or done any local showings, apparently.” Nick looked up with a shrug. “Sorry.”
Gabe’s brow furrowed. Before Nick quizzed him about why he wanted such information, he said, “Well, denki for looking. Gut to see you, Nick.
Tell Mary Beth hi for me.”
As he headed down the sidewalk, Gabe’s mind clouded over with questions. Why wouldn’t a painter who supported himself with his work have a website? Was Fox so reclusive that no one around the area knew who he was?
Red knew about him. But she’s never mentioned how they met. Wait—check a phone book!
Gabe paused on the corner of Morning Star’s main street, where a steady stream of cars was going by. With pay phones being a thing of the past, large directories weren’t easy to come by around town. If Fox had a cell instead of a landline phone, a print directory wouldn’t help anyway, but Gabe turned back toward the bulk store. The owner there might have a newer, more complete listing than the small one in the phone shack at home.
He walked quickly past the produce section and jars of locally made jellies, toward the deli counter in the back. “Hey there, Clem. Got a phone directory I can look at real quick?” he asked the beefy fellow behind the glass display case.
“Sure—on the desk in the office.” Nodding toward the doorway, Clem kept slicing sandwich meat from a large block of ham.
“Denki. Won’t take me but a minute.”
Gabe entered the small room and sat down in the wooden swivel office chair. As he flipped through the large regional directory with white and yellow pages, he had the unsettling feeling he was on a wild goose chase. And why would that be?
Mumbling the alphabet, he finally arrived at the name Fox—five listings. Three of them had only initials for first names, and all of them were on the far side of North Haven, several miles away.
“No Hartleys. No H ’s, even,” he muttered.
As Gabe thought back to the questions he’d asked Red about her reclusive artist friend—and recalled the sketchy answers she’d given—he frowned.
What’s going on here? What’s this guy got to hide?
When he left, Gabe ambled along the crowded sidewalk, lost in thoughts that circled like suspicious dogs. The Methodist Church, with its high white steeple and its empty parking lot, beckoned him like an old friend. The back chapel door was always unlocked for those who wanted to pray, so he stepped inside the cool, unlit room to soothe his soul . . . to indulge in the comfort he could confess to no one.
Chapter Twelve
The Sunday service passed at a snail’s pace as Regina struggled to stay awake. It hadn’t been a good idea to slip up to the attic after she’d returned home from her busy Saturday at The Marketplace, but the sketches on her worktable had lured her to her easel for just an hour of painting to relax . . . which had become two hours, and then four. The day’s sales had surpassed the previous two Saturdays’, so sheer excitement—and the need to replace a lot of inventory—drove her on.
She’d gotten a good start on five new paintings, and she’d completed a few she’d begun before. Regina’s brush had moved of its own accord, creating more ducks, flowery meadows, and rustic split-rail fences. The work had gone so well that she’d dared to dream about how much painting she could get done if she quit her full-time job at Flaud Furniture.
She hadn’t gone to bed until well past one o’clock.
Regina’s inner eyelids felt like sandpaper. As her uncle droned on—why did he always seem to preach on the parable of the prodigal son?—Regina felt her head drifting downward. She jerked awake, glancing around to see if anyone had noticed. Beside her, Jo was either intently focused on Uncle Clarence or sleeping with her eyes open, while Lydianne shifted frequently on the wooden pew bench. It was June sixteenth, and the summer humidity was making her aunt and uncle’s crowded front room feel very warm and stuffy.
Regina’s thoughts drifted as she went through the motions of kneeling for prayer—and then the sound of Gabe’s voice leading the final hymn roused her. When she fumbled with her heavy hymnal, it fell to the wooden floor with a smack that surely told folks she’d been caught off guard, napping.
“Number fifty-eight,” Jo whispered with a knowing smile.
Regina nodded gratefully, riffling the yellowed pages of the Ausbund until she reached the correct hymn. With a sigh, she saw that they had nine verses to plod through at the slow, methodical pace with which they sang most of their hymns. Just once she wished that Gabe would sing the opening line with gusto, at a snappier tempo—or surprise everyone by launching into one of the gospel songs the men often sang at their Friday night practice gatherings. She yearned for words that had more to do with praising the Lord than the weight of the sins for which they needed His pardon.
Sin was a heavy subject, of course. But Regina had noticed that her success with her NatureScapes shop made it easier to forget she was living a double life. Her lies were piling up at such a rate that she’d stopped thinking so much about them, to escape their weight on her conscience.
At long last Bishop Jeremiah gave the benediction. “No need for a meeting today!” he called out. “The Marketplace continues to attract a lot of customers, and our shopkeepers are all doing better than they’d anticipated.”
As everyone stood up, Regina moved toward Aunt Cora’s kitchen with the rest of the women. The men headed outside to set up the tables for the common meal under the shade trees.
“Hallelujah,” Jo remarked as she fanned herself with her hand. “It’s very warm today.”
“Jah, my dress is sticking to me,” Lydianne murmured. “Makes me grateful we can spend our Saturdays in an air-conditioned building—and thankful that the bishop decided we’d lose a lot of customers if we didn’t cool the place down.”
“It’s a blessing to have ceiling fans there, too,” Jo put in with a nod. “My kitchen at The Marketplace is much more bearable than the one at home. When I mentioned that last night, Mamm said I was getting spoiled by worldly conveniences.”
The maidels chuckled together and began carrying pitchers of ice water and platters of cold sliced meats to the outdoor tables. As they usually did, Regina and her friends replenished the lemonade and water for the other folks before the five of them went through the line to fill their plates. The only place left to sit happened to be at a long table where Bishop Jeremiah, Deacon Saul, Gabe, and Martin were nearly finished with their first round of food.
Was it Regina’s imagination, or did Gabe seem eager for her to join them? When he smiled at her, pulling out the folding chair beside him, she hoped no one would think he was getting interested in her—
Why is that? A few weeks ago you would’ve given your right arm to sit next to Gabe.
“Denki,” Regina murmured as she set her plate down before taking her seat. The Helfings, Jo, and Lydianne didn’t seem to think anything of it that Gabe had paid extra attention to her, so she tried to relax. She hoped he wouldn’t start in about her paintings or ask more questions about Hartley Fox, because she was tired enough to slip up on the details of her story about the fictitious artist.
“Another fine day at The Marketplace yesterday,” Martin remarked cheerfully. “We sold a couple of bedroom sets, and a dining room table with a hutch and twelve chairs. Looked to me like all you ladies were doing well, too.”
“We were seeing lots of customers who came to the grand opening two weeks ago and wanted more of our noodles,” Marietta said.
“Jah, we sold out and had to take some orders,” her sister continued as she picked up a piece of cold fried chicken. “We’ll have to spend a lot more time in the noodle shed this week if we’re to keep up with our bulk store orders as well as stocking our shop.”
“Maybe you should hire Pete to help you,” Bishop Jeremiah teased. “But not to worry—he’ll be starting on a pole barn soon.”
“And we’ll get him going on the schoolhouse after that,” Saul put in. “We need to decide where to dig the foundation for it, so it’ll be close to the road but won’t interfere with parking and traffic at our auctions.”
Regina focused on her ham sandwich, happy to let the conversation flow around her. Every time Gabe shifted in his chair, his knee brushed hers. Was he doing that on purpose?
She should’ve been ecstatic, because he was such a nice guy—not to mention good-looking. Yet his nearness unnerved her.
You’d welcome his attention if you didn’t have so much to hide from him.
“Your artist friend must be very excited about his success, too, Regina,” Bishop Jeremiah remarked from across the table. He flashed her a teasing smile. “Do you roll his money over to him in a wheelbarrow?”
“When you do,” Deacon Saul chimed in, “let him know that we’re grateful for the commission money he’s generating for our new school.”
Regina forced a smile, chewing her mouthful of broccoli salad as an excuse not to answer.
“Jah, out in the commons I hear a lot of folks speculating about Hartley Fox,” Martin put in as he leaned around Gabe to look at her. “They wonder why they’ve never heard of him, and why he doesn’t sign his paintings. He’s a real mystery man, it seems.”
“You know, as adept as Red is with a paintbrush in the shop,” Gabe said, green eyes dancing, “I’m wondering if she isn’t our artist! But of course she’s not—she’d never do that,” he added quickly.
The room began to spin. Regina’s cheeks blazed like hellfire, and when her food caught in her throat she began to choke and cough. She couldn’t refute Gabe’s joke and she couldn’t stand to remain at the table one second longer, so she bolted. On her way through the kitchen, she spat her broccoli salad into the wastebasket—and kept on going. Out the back door of her aunt’s kitchen she raced, wondering where she could go that folks wouldn’t find her.
You can run but you can’t hide. Now everyone at that table knows you’ve been painting those pictures and telling all those lies about it.
* * *
Gabe sat at the table, stunned. The faces around him mirrored his shock. He was appalled at himself for blurting out his suggestion in front of everyone at the table—even if he’d been joking.
Morning Star Page 10
