Plain Return (The Plain Fame Series Book 4)

by Price, Sarah

  Harvey took off his hat and wiped his brow with the back of his arm. “I can run over to the harness shop, fetch a new one.” His offer would save them time since, as a Mennonite, he drove a car. It would be much faster than Amanda or Jonas hitching up a horse to a buggy and riding over. “Amanda, you want to ride along?”

  She was about to decline, but Jonas nodded his head. “You haven’t left the farm since Alejandro left. Might do you some good.”

  Surprised that Jonas had mentioned Alejandro, she could not respond to turn down Harvey’s offer. It was the first time Jonas, or anyone besides her sister, Anna, had said anything about her husband.

  The morning that he had left, her family quietly accepted Amanda’s explanation for Alejandro’s abrupt departure. She tried to tell them that he had meetings and she hadn’t wanted to leave yet, especially with Isadora’s progress adapting to her new life in the United States. Despite her puffy eyes and tearstained cheeks, they simply listened to her, nodded, and never asked another question about him.

  Later that morning, in the privacy of the grossdaadihaus, where Amanda stayed with Isadora, Anna had inquired further. When Amanda burst into tears, sobbing into her hands that covered her face, she shared the entire story. She told her sister about the South American tour, the truth about Isadora’s appearance in their lives, about Alejandro’s rebuffing the child and leaving her in Amanda’s care, and about the final hours of their time together.

  As any good sister would do, Anna listened and then embraced Amanda, holding her while she cried. Afterward, the rest of the family seemed to look at her with a sense of pity. But they never asked any questions. When it came to matters of the heart between husband and wife, they wouldn’t interfere or even probe for more information.

  While grateful for their support, Amanda found the cautious way that they treated her, as if she were a fragile doll ready to break at any moment, hard to bear. Only one person ever asked about Alejandro’s absence and that was when Isadora asked where “Papa” had gone. When Amanda explained that Papa had gone away on business, Isadora hadn’t mentioned him again.

  “Ready, Amanda?” Harvey asked, the broken tie strap and trace carrier in his hands.

  She nodded and followed him as he walked across the field toward his car parked behind the barn.

  The number of paparazzi that camped out by the entrance to the farm had declined since Alejandro’s leaving. With Amanda staying on the farm and no news to report, most of the photographers moved on to somewhere, and someone, else. A few remained, and when Harvey drove past them, they eagerly snapped photos of Amanda riding in the car with him. She ignored them, oblivious to their intrusive lenses and knowing that at least one of the photographs would make the tabloids and social media news.

  “You’d think they’d give up,” Harvey said as he drove down the road.

  Amanda shrugged. “They hardly bother me anymore.”

  He nodded as if he understood.

  Feeling as if she should fill the silence in the car, Amanda continued explaining. “Those few photographers are nothing like the paparazzi at the airports and arenas. The Englischers sure do have a propensity for enjoying gossip about their favorite celebrities, I reckon.”

  Harvey chuckled under his breath. “Like the Amish grapevine?”

  She smiled. “Ja, I reckon so.”

  Even though the Amish community shunned all worldliness, allowing only what the bishops of each church district permitted, they were human beings who spread stories as often as the non-Amish people. Amanda remembered when she had returned to Lancaster to help her mother when her father first fell ill. Women in the community had known about her leaving with the famous singer known as Viper in the media. The younger ones might have stared at her in awe, while the older ones scowled and scorned her. On more than one occasion, the bishop had arrived with a tabloid in his hand, angry that so much attention was focused on their community.

  “Just worse, I imagine,” Harvey added.

  “Much worse.”

  Harvey cleared his throat and glanced at her. “Ever think about calling him, Amanda?”

  She shook her head. Harvey knew better than to ask that question. Only once had she gone against the unspoken rule from her upbringing about a woman reaching out to a man. That had been when Alejandro first left her after the accident. He had accompanied her back to the farm, and they had spent a week together: she was curious about his world, and he was eager to disappear into hers. When the paparazzi discovered he was there, he left. The only problem had been that the cameras didn’t.

  When the bishop wanted her to leave the community, perhaps to return to Ohio to stay with family, Amanda resisted. She didn’t want to be shuffled from community to community. So she had approached the media that lingered by the driveway and spoke to them, hoping against hope that Alejandro would get the message.

  He had.

  And he had come for her.

  She leaned her head against the headrest and watched as they passed farm after farm. With everything turning green at last, she couldn’t help but take comfort in the fact that at least she was not in Los Angeles, surrounded by tall buildings and busy highways. She’d probably be spending her days alone or, at best, sitting in the studio as Alejandro recorded new songs. She thought about her friend, Celinda, a young singer who she had met last autumn. Amanda wondered if, had she gone to California with Alejandro, they would have caught up for lunch or shopping like they had one day so long ago. Of course, according to the tabloids, and confirmed by Alejandro, Celinda, too, was in the midst of a separation from her longtime love, Justin Bell.

  Amanda couldn’t help but wonder how Celinda had coped with the devastating discovery of his indiscretions.

  At the harness store, Harvey got out of the car and hurried around to open the door for her. She hadn’t realized they’d pulled into the parking lot.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said as she started to get out of the car. He held out his hand for her and she accepted it, looking up at him and managing to thank him with a soft smile.

  She knew that it was a fortunate day when Alejandro had arranged for him to work on their farm. He had become like a brother to her and an uncle to Isadora. Without Harvey, Amanda knew that the farm would have fallen into disarray before Jonas arrived. Now that Jonas was fully entrenched in the community after moving there from Ohio, the two men managed the farm without need for much assistance. Still, when the four walls of the kitchen felt like they were closing in on her, Amanda often escaped to the outside to lend a hand.

  “You all right?” he asked.

  She nodded her head and looked away. The sting of holding back tears forced her to blink several times. She would not cry, she told herself. Do not cry.

  “I’ll go in. Why don’t you just take a seat on that bench yonder?” He pointed toward the shade of a large overgrown tree.

  With misty eyes, she nodded her head and obediently walked to where he had pointed. Sitting on the bench, which was long overdue for a fresh coat of paint, Amanda stared into the distance, watching a car pulling out of the parking lot. But her mind was elsewhere, across the continent, lying in the arms of her husband. She smiled, her first genuine smile in weeks, as she shut her eyes and remembered the feel of his touch on her bare skin.

  It was a memory that she was beginning to fear would fade over time.

  When Alejandro awoke, the sun had not yet risen. He had an appointment with the recording company first thing in the morning and then needed to work with the choreographer and dancers on some new routines for the European tour. With only one week until his departure, he felt as though he were on autopilot, simply moving through the day and responding to the reminders from both his smartphone and his manager, Geoffrey.

  Shuffling from the kitchen to the bedroom of his condominium, he stretched his arms over his head, feeling the tightness in his neck
and shoulders. The stress of the upcoming tour combined with the added strain of his separation from Amanda weighed heavily upon him. While he almost dreaded the former, being busy kept him from thinking too much about the latter.

  He missed her. That was something he had anticipated when he made up his mind that space was what she needed. Leaving her had been the hardest thing that he had ever done. Her face, her tears, and her pleas haunted him at night, and he found himself taking a strong nightcap each evening to avoid struggling with sleep. Many times, especially at night, he longed to pick up his phone and call her.

  But he knew that he couldn’t.

  For all the awful things that his former manager, Mike, had done to disrupt his relationship with Amanda, Alejandro was now starting to see the wisdom behind the actions. How could he have anticipated that Amanda would adapt to his lifestyle? With her Amish upbringing, she had handled it as well as anyone could have expected. And when Isadora was thrust into their lives, she had taken to the role of mother better than any other woman would have.

  The only problem was that he didn’t want children. Not yet. And dragging a small child on tour with them was not only taxing, it was also inappropriate. When Amanda left Rio de Janeiro, his first feelings of anger at her abandonment were soon replaced with enlightenment at the situation. His alter ego, Viper, would always be a playboy in the minds of the fans, even now that he was married to Amanda, the princess of social media. Just as Mike had predicted, the fans quickly devoured any controversy over love. And as Justin Bell had played the media with his relationship to Celinda Ruiz, the social media gobbled it up, so Alejandro realized that they wanted the return of the old Viper.

  Perhaps they merely wanted to see how that played out, a philandering Viper with innocent Amanda. At first, he had no intention of giving the public what they wanted. His love for Amanda was unquestionable. Even before his rise to fame, people always wanted something from him. Always people surrounded him with ideas and schemes, trying to become a part of the story. His story. Alejandro had learned long ago to proceed with caution and to ensure that his own reward far outweighed anyone else’s.

  With Amanda, he had finally learned how it felt to be loved and supported with no expectations in return.

  He ran the faucet to fill the Keurig water reservoir. Coffee. That’s what he needed. Something strong to jump-start the day.

  As he waited for the liquid to pour into his mug, he leaned against the counter, rubbing his forehead and wondering what Amanda was doing at that moment. Perhaps sharing breakfast with Isadora? Or milking the cows with Jonas and Harvey?

  He grimaced as he thought of Harvey. For the past two weeks, he had tried to abolish the memory of Harvey carrying Isadora and hearing the soft banter between Harvey and Amanda. When the media published photos of Harvey protecting Amanda from the paparazzi a few months earlier, he had never given it a second thought. The photographers hadn’t wasted any time before speculating about a possible relationship between the two, a thought that Alejandro easily dismissed.

  But when he saw them together and the ease with which they worked side by side, Alejandro saw something that made the pieces of the puzzle come together: What if Amanda was not meant to be his wife? What if all of this was God’s plan for her to return to the Amish community and find a husband more aligned with her past?

  His phone vibrated, and Alejandro broke free from his thoughts. He looked around the kitchen to locate his cell phone; it rested on the counter near the stove. He hadn’t remembered placing it there. When he glanced at the clock and saw that it wasn’t even six thirty yet, he sighed. Probably Geoffrey confirming that a car would be waiting downstairs for him in forty-five minutes.

  He reached for the phone and answered the call. “Dígame, chico.”

  “Alex! You’re up already?”

  “Sí, sí,” he responded. “Claro, Geoff. ¿Qué pasa?”

  There was a brief pause on the other end of the phone. For a moment Alejandro wondered if the call had dropped. When he heard Geoffrey clearing his throat, he knew something was going on, something that his manager hesitated to tell him.

  “You asked me to alert you if there was . . . uh . . .”—another hesitation—“any word from Lancaster. My guys just saw photos hitting the social media circuit. I wanted to alert you.”

  Alejandro took a deep breath. If Geoffrey was calling him, the photos were not good news. Geoffrey would not bother him with photos of Amanda hanging out the laundry or sweeping off the porch.

  “You want me to send you copies?”

  Alejandro nodded, even though Geoffrey could not see him. Behind him, he heard the hissing noise of the coffeemaker finishing the brew for his coffee. He didn’t need it anymore: he was wide awake. “Send it to my private e-mail, sí.”

  “There are more than one, Alex.”

  Bracing himself for the worst, Alejandro hung up the phone, set it on the counter, and started pacing. He kept his hands clutched behind his back, his thumbs tapping nervously. Other than that, he tried to maintain his composure as he waited for the digital photos. Geoffrey’s voice said it all. Whatever was being sent would most likely be the one thing he did not want to see: his wife assimilating back into the life of the Amish. Still, he knew that it was her choice. He had given that to her: the gift of choosing which life she wanted.

  When his phone made a noise, Alejandro picked it up and prepared himself for opening the e-mail. One tap of his finger on the link, and the images began to display on his screen.

  His heart fell.

  The photos confirmed his suspicions. As he swiped through them, seeing Harvey Alderfer talking with Amanda on the crest of a hill, Harvey opening the car door for her, and Harvey guiding her through the parking lot of a store, Alejandro knew what her choice would be. When he saw the final image, the one of Amanda staring up at the Mennonite man, with that look of innocence on her face, he shut his eyes.

  Maybe he had known from the beginning that she belonged there, with her family and community. If it wasn’t Harvey, it would be someone else to accept her for who she was and who she should become: a hardworking farmer’s wife and doting mother. He had fooled himself to think that he could settle down into the role of loving husband.

  “Ay, Dios mío,” he muttered, clicking the phone so that it shut down. He shoved it into the pocket of his robe and stood at the counter, both hands pressed down on the granite top. With a lowered head, he took several deep breaths. He didn’t want to leave her. Losing Amanda would be the single most difficult thing he would ever do. He knew that. His fans would greet a divorce with mixed feelings: some supporting the decision because they missed the old Viper, and others hating him for leaving Amanda. But she deserved better. She deserved happiness.

  Alejandro needed time to think through the decision before making a final choice. He knew she loved him. There was no reason to doubt that. The only problem was that he loved her more, and from the look on her face in that final photo, he knew that his love was just not enough to maintain her. Not with his lifestyle. Now, if he could only get Amanda to arrive at the same realization.

  About the Author

  The Preiss family emigrated from Europe in 1705, settling in Pennsylvania as part of the area’s first wave of Mennonite families. Sarah Price has always respected and honored her ancestors through exploration and research about her family’s Anabaptist history and their religion. For over twenty-five years, she has been actively involved in an Amish community in Pennsylvania. The author of over thirty novels, Sarah is finally doing what she always wanted to do: write about the religion and culture that she loves so dearly. For more information, visit her blog at www.sarahpriceauthor.com.

 

 

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