Fraying at the Edge

by Cindy Woodsmall

  It seemed wrong to admit to anyone how much she enjoyed driving. Whatever the driving situation—small towns, major highways, sunshine, or rain—she longed to get behind the wheel. Each time she felt something she’d never experienced before—a surging sense of confidence and power. And guilt. A lot of guilt.

  But the confidence was like warm sunshine melting the snow from a long winter. The cozy, wonderful feeling was the opposite of the powerlessness she’d often felt in being poor.

  “Have you tried a bite yet?” Brandi asked.

  “No. But I asked them to slice the apples so they will be easier to eat.” Ariana opened the white pastry box.

  She and Brandi would stay at a hotel tonight and go back to Pennsylvania tomorrow morning, but Rudy’s driver had to leave this evening between seven and eight, which meant they wouldn’t arrive home until at least midnight.

  Brandi gingerly lifted a wedge of chocolate-covered apple. “I’m so thrilled to be here with you, honey.”

  “I feel the same way.” In the past week Ariana and her mom had made a lot of progress in healing. The planetarium event had reshaped Ariana’s thinking. She’d been born again in a way. Love and hope had flooded her unlike anything she’d ever experienced, and her mind felt renewed.

  “Wow,” Brandi mumbled around the apple slice. “That is so good.”

  Ariana closed the box, not the least bit hungry after her lunch.

  As they strolled down the sidewalk, Ariana’s mind raced. It was tempting to discount some of the experience at the planetarium as emotionalism after seeing the amazing pictures from space. But she couldn’t do that, because her moment of intuition about the security cameras had proved to be spot on. Quill called to tell her the news a few days ago, and he was so relieved. The project manager hadn’t put the updated plans in the permit box before Quill ordered the supplies for the new phase. The time stamp on the footage proved that, which meant all fault lay with Sanders. In addition, the cameras near the flat files at the architects’ and engineers’ office showed that after Quill had ordered and installed the wrong electrical system, Sanders doctored the plans and tried to cover his mistake by pinning it on Quill. Ariana wasn’t familiar enough with the process to understand all of what Quill explained, but the bottom line was Schlabach Home Builders had been reimbursed for the new panels and wiring and had been paid overtime for all the rewiring. McLaren also had followed through and offered to promote them to contractors for a project that would begin next summer.

  Her time at the planetarium had done just as much for her. It had planted a thousand new and exciting seeds, and it would take months to begin to understand all that had taken root during that program. But she’d spent the week studying God’s Word, history, and other cultures. It was all so fascinating she’d hardly taken time to eat.

  It also was amazing, almost surreal, that Brandi and she had come this far in being comfortable with each other. Brandi took another apple slice. “When you’re running the café, will you have some seasonal foods, like caramel apples in the fall and Christmas cookies in December?”

  “I hadn’t really thought about it, but that’s a good idea. Would you help me find and test a few recipes?”

  Brandi’s eyes glistened. Were those tears? “I would love that, Ari.”

  “Me too. And Cameron can be our guinea pig.”

  Brandi laughed and almost choked. “She’ll complain loudly and enjoy every minute of it, even if the food is horrible.”

  Ariana glanced at her phone, checking the time. “We better head toward the park.”

  “Sure.”

  They walked down the street, going toward the small park where Ari would meet Rudy. Her phone pinged, and she checked the text message. When she glanced at the screen, her heart leaped. She grabbed Brandi’s arm, stopping her abruptly. “It’s from Frieda,” she squealed. “I’ve been texting her all week. Listen to this: ‘Dearest Ari, apparently I haven’t been receiving my texts. I realized this yesterday and immediately turned off my phone for the first time in forever. This morning when I turned it on again, my text box was flooded with beautiful messages from you. I’ve cried for joy all morning. As soon as I can stop crying long enough to think, I’ll send a real message. Love you forever and always, Frieda.’ ”

  Tears spilled down Ariana’s cheeks.

  “That’s great, honey.” Brandi studied her. “Who’s Frieda?”

  Ariana looped an arm through Brandi’s. “She was my closest friend, the one who left home with Quill.” She summarized the rest of the story while they walked. “So while I was at the planetarium, even before the program began, I saw God as energetic love, which is in line with His Word, and I got morsels of understanding about God and life.”

  “You haven’t told me any of the specifics, only that going to the planetarium was great and amazing.”

  Ariana pulled her arm from Brandi’s so she could use both hands to gesture. “My aha moment was that everything God did created light and order. He sent His Word to this planet to create light and order in our lives, but not for the sake of order.”

  Brandi took another bite of crispy apple. “You lost me.”

  “Yeah, I guess I’m sharing thoughts from the Old Order culture. To the Amish, order is equal to laws and rules. The question is, are we here to serve them, or are they here to serve us? In Jesus’s day people had the Sabbath tied up in rules—how many steps could be taken, how one obtained food, how many threads could be tied together—and people ended up serving the day rather than God’s intention, which was for the Sabbath to serve people’s need for rest. So I asked myself, on some level have the conservative faithful done that with order, with our view of what’s important rather than God’s view of it?”

  “That’s pretty deep. Really good food for thought.”

  When she was inside the dark dome watching the movie, it was as if her feelings of intolerance for others had been physically pulled from her heart and love had flooded in, taking its place. And forgiveness for her biological parents, her Amish parents, and those who’d left the order came as easily as pulling the plug in a sink of dirty dishwater and refilling it with clean water. She felt as if she had no grudges, hurt, or anger with anyone. All that seemed to remain was love and the hope for a fresh beginning.

  Brandi buttoned the top of her coat. “I’ve grown comfortable seeing God through my personal cynicism with the church. It’s refreshing to think of Him as you just described.”

  “It is, isn’t it?” Maybe now Ariana was in a place where she could share the power and beauty of faith with Brandi and Nicholas.

  Autumn could’ve come and gone in a single night, and Skylar doubted that she would’ve noticed. Life seemed to be constant static, like an old television with a blur of black and white and a persistent buzz.

  She had only one clear thought: four pills.

  That’s all she had left.

  Four pills.

  She lit a cigarette and leaned against the brick wall of the café. “Come on, Cody.” Her hands trembled, but she wasn’t sure if it was from the cold November temperature or from cutting back on the pills. Cody had come to the café just once, eleven days ago. “We’re closing soon, and it’s Saturday,” she whispered as if he could somehow hear her.

  The door to the café swung open, and Susie walked out. “Hi.”

  “Hey.”

  “You know that we really appreciate all you’re doing, right? The help with figuring out what we needed to order for the café, great menu suggestions, hard work for a payday that hasn’t come yet, and especially finding a doctor for Cilla.”

  “Potential good doctor,” Skylar corrected while exhaling smoke. “That’s all we know right now.”

  Abram had called the doctor’s office, and the first available appointment was in six weeks, which stank in Skylar’s opinion.

  Susie folded her arms, shivering. “It’s the best lead you could find, based on the reviews and Yelp. I didn’t realize that they’d do a co
uple of weeks of testing. Abram said the follow-up visit after the testing won’t happen until the first of the year. Apparently getting answers for someone with Cilla’s condition is quite a process.” Susie stomped her feet, obviously trying to warm herself.

  Skylar inhaled. “Yeah, I did a fabulous job poking around the Internet that night.”

  Susie rubbed her palms over her thin sleeves. “I don’t know what that means.”

  “Of course not.” Skylar had no cause to be snippy or to talk in coded nonsense to Susie, but her mood was too foul for her to stop herself.

  Two days earlier Jackson had brought his computer to the café. While the others talked and cleaned, Skylar had spent a couple of hours making a short list of potential doctors for Cilla. Once she had the list, everyone, including Jackson, discussed the information and decided which doctor to call. With that done and Jackson in no hurry to leave, Skylar had played around online. That had been a mistake. She’d gone to YouTube, as she used to do regularly, and typed in some names—hers, Cody’s, her mom’s. It wasn’t until she searched for her dad’s name that she stumbled across a clip of her mom onstage singing with Ariana while he accompanied them…and sang!

  Skylar had no words for the hurt and anger that had rumbled through her as she watched the display of emotion between her mom and Ariana and the pride on her dad’s face. Skylar thought she had talent. But Ariana’s voice was remarkable, and she couldn’t read music and had never had a voice lesson, at least not before leaving Summer Grove. Worse, the stupid thing had been posted Saturday evening, and when Skylar saw it six days later, the clip already had twelve thousand views and every review was glowing with positive comments.

  The whole situation was nauseating, infuriating. So Skylar had exited YouTube and closed the computer, telling no one what she’d seen. She’d bottled her emotions, and now she was a jumbled mess and downing more pills than usual.

  “Why’d you come out here, Susie?”

  “Well, see, you’re smoking out front again. Mamm and Daed and all of us are trying to be cool about this awful habit, but it can’t be inviting for customers to see an employee propped against the front of the café and smoking. You showed us that we’ve earned a few bad reviews on Yelp, and we’d like to avoid any more.”

  “The reviews had nothing to do with me smoking. Ten reviews. Two bad ones based on the first week the café was open, and they said that neither the service nor the food was good.”

  “And you’ve helped set to rights the coffee, the menu, and the service. But can I ask what happened to the agreement that if you had to smoke, you’d do it behind the building?”

  “Change of plans.”

  “Like the change that’s keeping away whoever it is you keep looking for?”

  She inhaled again. “Give the girl a gold star. She’s not as unaware as she looks.”

  “Sorry, Sky, but no one is as naive as you seem to think. So this guy…I’m assuming it’s a guy. What happens if he never shows?”

  Skylar flicked her cigarette in Susie’s direction, using just enough restraint not to hit her with it. “That’s not going to happen.”

  “And if it does? I’ve watched you struggle a little more each day this week, and I’d really like to know what you’re going to do if he doesn’t show.”

  Skylar studied the street, wishing Cody would arrive. If the fuzzy television set inside her brain could get a clear picture for just a few minutes, she might be able to think of a decent retort. “Kill myself.”

  “That’s not funny, but you already knew that.” Susie pressed her foot against the cigarette butt, picked it up, and put it in the nearby trash can. “If you need someone to talk to—”

  “I don’t.”

  What was there to talk about? If Cody abandoned her the way her mom and dad had, she was alone, stuck inside a weird life from another century. Her bio family could barely tolerate her living with them, and her mom and dad had traded her away as soon as they found out about Ariana.

  Without her parents’ support there would be no acting school, but she wasn’t sure she cared about that anymore. She missed her mom and even Nicholas. She ached to be their little girl again. But the oddest thing of all was that she didn’t miss being onstage. Maybe it was because she’d been booted out of drama for the semester, so she wouldn’t have been onstage or learning parts whether she was there or here. But she didn’t even dream of singing or performing anymore. Something was happening in her. Things that used to matter didn’t now.

  The thing she missed most about performing was something she hadn’t even been aware was a part of her. Whenever she had performed onstage, she could feel Mom and Dad in the audience pulling for her to nail every line and hit every note. During those times all of life grew quiet for them and nothing existed but her. Their focused desire toward her felt as if they’d had some sort of supernatural power, like prayer would if God were real.

  Skylar overlapped the front of her coat and started walking toward the gas station. She had to call Cody again.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Since you seem to know so much about me, there’s no need to keep my calls to Cody a secret, is there?”

  Skylar kept walking. She had herself, the cigarettes she’d bought with her tip money, and four pills.

  She rolled her eyes. Life just kept getting better and better.

  Maybe Cody would answer the phone this time.

  Ariana and Brandi sat on a park bench. Children in coats and hats threw a football back and forth. The midday air was brisk, and the delicious aromas of late fall flooded Ariana with memories of home. The closer the time came for Rudy to arrive, the faster her heart beat. He should arrive in the next ten minutes.

  Several benches away an old man and woman clasped gloved hands, a blanket over their legs, bundled against the November chill. She smiled as the elderly couple huddled together, talking. That would be Rudy and her one day, decades after all their children were grown. As comforting as that thought was, her emotions bounced between conflicting waves of excitement and melancholy. In order to get to this park today, she had done several things Rudy might disapprove of. So many compromises that she no longer saw as wrong.

  Would he consider her decisions wrong? Maybe he’d be disappointed rather than pleased. However Rudy reacted, she couldn’t un-learn or un-experience the many things she’d been exposed to. He might consider them worldly, and in some ways he’d be right, but they were also freeing. She could already feel herself changing, looking at life, God, and faith vastly different from before. What would that do to them?

  “You’re trembling. From the cold or nerves?”

  “Maybe some of both.”

  She also worried how Rudy would take the news that she was the illegitimate child of an adulterous affair. She was at peace with it now. Could he learn to accept it? And that she’d driven to Ohio?

  Brandi removed her black neck scarf with its glittery silver threading and placed it over Ariana’s prayer Kapp, covering her ears.

  With Ariana’s hair pinned back in proper Amish style, her ears were aching with the cold. She should’ve worn her black winter bonnet. The warm knit felt good, and she doubted she would take it off, even if it looked a little peculiar.

  In the distance a car pulled into a parking space, and she focused on it, hoping it would be Rudy. A man bundled in a coat and wearing the traditional Amish black hat for winter got out of the passenger’s side and scanned the park.

  “He’s here.” Ariana pointed.

  “He’s cute.”

  “And so good to me.” Excitement pulsed through her, and she got up from the bench.

  Brandi stood. “Call me when you’re ready for us to meet up again.”

  Guilt nibbled at Ariana. She had so much she needed Rudy to adjust to that she hadn’t wanted him to meet Brandi. Not yet. “What will you do with the rest of the afternoon?”

  “Shop, read, eat, see a movie, call Gabe and chat like we used to do when
we were dating.” She grinned. “Don’t worry about me.”

  Ariana pulled out the keys. “You should keep these and take the car for the day. We won’t use it.”

  “Okay. I’ve got a car, money, and time.” She winked. “Once it’s check-in time, I could even go to the hotel and nap between shopping sprees.” She blew a kiss and hurried off.

  Ariana walked toward him, but he’d yet to spot her.

  She would go back to Amish life the moment she was allowed, but she wouldn’t return as the same person who’d left. A nervous chill ran down her spine. Surely Rudy would understand that.

  Finally Rudy saw her, and a huge grin replaced the serious look he’d had earlier. He waved and picked up his pace. Nicholas had assured her that an illegitimate child wasn’t taboo in today’s times. But Ariana’s home wasn’t part of modern culture. She’d thought of various ways to break the news to Rudy, but she decided it would be better just to come out and say it.

  Without a word he embraced her, making her stomach jump to her throat. He trembled as he held her tightly for at least a minute without speaking. He backed up only enough to see her face. “How’ve you been?”

  “It’s been rougher than I expected, but I’m adjusting.”

  “Are you hungry?”

  “No, I’ve eaten. You?”

  “About an hour ago.” He slid his warm hand into hers and held it as they walked toward a bench. “You look great.”

  Ariana clutched the black shimmering scarf. “Really?”

  “Absolutely.” He glanced around. “Think anyone will faint, wag a finger, or call your Daed if I kiss you?”

  “I think it would be worth it.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “I was hoping you’d say that.” He leaned in and kissed her on the lips.

  How could life be so confusing and difficult one day and so perfect the next?

  He put an arm behind her and pulled her close, as close as two people in winter coats could get. “You know, I could’ve found a driver that didn’t need to be home tonight and could’ve gone all the way to Bellflower Creek. I wouldn’t have minded.”