A small laugh flew out of my lips. “Any movie would be special for me. I’ve never seen one.”
“Shut up!” said Josh, but it didn’t sound like he wanted me to be quiet. “So you’ve never seen The Wizard of Oz or Star Wars or ET?”
I shook my head. Then I remembered something about my mother’s rumspringa. “I’d love to see The Sound of Music.”
“Yeah, if we get into a time machine and go back like fifty years,” said Josh, laughter shaking his words.
I looked down, embarrassed without knowing why.
“I’m sorry,” said Josh. “The Sound of Music was from a long time ago. But we can rent it and watch it on TV if you want.”
“Why don’t you pick the movie and surprise me.”
“Deal,” said Josh. “Listen, I’ve got to go back to work. Call me after you talk to Rachel. She has my number.” He said that in such an ordinary way. I hesitated for a minute. “What?” he said.
“I’ve never used a telephone before.”
Josh shook his head back and forth in an exaggerated way. “Really? Are you for real?”
I had to admit that it was fun watching him wonder about me. “Yes, I’m real. And my family doesn’t have a telephone.”
Joshua laughed as he got to his feet and walked over to the table, picking up the phone from its base.
I paid careful attention as he cradled the phone in his hand, holding it out so I could see the lighted numbers arranged in a rectangle. “Now, everyone has a phone number,” he explained. I watched him press a series of buttons, each creating a different beeping tone. When he was done, he reached out his hand and pressed the end of the phone lightly against my ear. I heard ringing sounds, more like a faint buzz than a bell. After three such sounds, I heard Josh’s voice, not in the room, where he sat beside me, but from inside the phone itself. “Hi, you’ve reached the Nathans,” he was saying. “We’re not home right now. But leave a message after the beep, and we’ll return your call.” With that, his voice was replaced with a loud beep, and I pulled the phone away from my ear.
“You’re supposed to leave me a message,” Josh said. “That was voice mail. If the person you’re calling isn’t there, you leave a message and they call you back. Do you want to try it again?” I nodded, and this time Josh handed me the phone and told me which numbers to press. As I pressed the buttons, he took his cell phone out of his pocket. A moment after I pressed the last number, a musical sound came from the phone in Josh’s hand. He signaled me to put the phone to my ear, and he flipped his phone open, silencing the music. “Hello?” he said, his phone pressed against his ear.
Now I heard his voice twice at the same time—in the room, next to me, and through the phone at my ear. I wasn’t sure what to do next.
“Just say hello,” Josh whispered.
I smiled. “Hello, Josh,” I said slowly. Then I realized he was waiting for me to say more. “I’m glad you came over.”
“Me too,” he said, his voice a little too loud. “I’m going to work now, so call me later.” He shut his phone with a snap and reached for the phone I was holding, showing me how to turn it off and put it back in the stand.
“I’ve gotta fly,” he said. “But I’ll write down my cell phone number for you, and you can call me whenever you want to talk.”
He reached for the pen and paper that Rachel kept by the phone and jotted down a string of numbers. Then he looked at me in a thoughtful way. “I want to see it one day.”
“See what?”
“The place where you live. I bet it’s real peaceful.”
I nodded. “It’s definitely peaceful.”
After Josh left, I thought that if the pressing of a sequence of numbers could bring the voice of Kate or Annie to my ear, I would be able to tell them my stories instead of writing them out in letters.
Staring down at the numbers that would connect me to Josh, I felt a twinge. Now that I was beginning to understand how to create the magic of this place, I wondered if I’d ever be able to get along without it.
At first, Rachel’s face had one of those eyebrow-raised smiles when I told her about my movie plans with Josh. Then she turned serious. “Your father talked to me about dating.” We were in the kitchen, where I had become the cook. I realized that I didn’t want to hear what my father had told her. I wanted to be here in this moment, not bound to the rules from home. I pressed a spatula into the ground beef until the meat hissed in the frying pan.
“Your father told me that you can go out if you’re with people I know,” Rachel continued. “So Josh passes that test. And that you should be home by midnight.”
“I know,” I said. “He told me the same rules.”
Rachel looked thoughtful, almost nervous. She cleared her throat, and I waited, the spatula poised over the sizzling meat. “I don’t want to go against what you’re taught at home.”
I looked up. “I’m not sure that the rules at home would work here,” I said. I thought about the courting carriages and the barn parties, the boys calling for girls by shining a lantern or flashlight in their window. I turned off the stove and set the spatula on the counter. “Josh is only taking me to a movie. It’s not like we’re courting.”
“Things move a little faster here, Eliza.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I can take care of myself. It’s not the first time I’ve been out with a boy. And anyway, Josh and I are going out together as friends. He isn’t my…” I fumbled for the English word. “Boyfriend.” When I thought of that word, a queasiness rushed through me. It was one thing to sit with Josh in Rachel’s living room and listen to music. But we were going out to a place I’d never been. I tried not to think of all the mistakes I could make. “But thank you for being concerned about me, Mrs.…” I paused and shook my head. “I mean Rachel.” It was nice to call Rachel by her first name. Her golden eyes crinkled into a smile.
With this conversation over, there was something else I wanted to ask her. I had spent my whole life hearing that the way I looked on the outside wasn’t important. But now I knew that it was. “What do you think I should wear Saturday night?”
Rachel grinned. “It’s been a long time since I was on a date,” she said. “But after dinner I can help you pick something out.”
Later that night, with the children settled in their favorite positions on the couch, laughing at the predicaments of an imaginary family, Rachel and I stood before my open closet door.
In Seventeen magazine, the women’s clothing looked like artwork. I was realizing that there were clothes for different occasions and for different girls. I thought of Jess and Caroline, and how comfortable they looked in their clothing. My own wardrobe, which had seemed so rich and varied when my mother and I shopped together, now appeared skimpy.
“When I see teenagers out at night, they look pretty casual,” Rachel was saying. “I think your jeans and a pretty top would be just right.” She reached for the white blouse with the eyelet stitching. I remembered how my mother had insisted that I buy it instead of a more colorful one that I had wanted instead.
“But it’s so plain,” I told Rachel, just as I had told my mother.
“It looks great with your dark hair. And we can spruce it up,” said Rachel. Minutes later, I was standing in Rachel’s room, the white shirt tucked crisply into my jeans, while Rachel searched her closet. I had never stood for so long before a reflection of myself. I tried not to stare.
“This is what you need,” Rachel said, emerging from the closet with a short jacket made of blue jean material.
I slipped my arms through the sleeves of the jacket. When I saw the way it framed and offset the simple white blouse, I smiled. I could imagine the girls in the magazines wearing this outfit.
“What do you think?” said Rachel.
“I think the people at home wouldn’t know me.” And it was true. I stared into the mirror. The white of the shirt stood out against my tanned skin, and my legs looked long and slim in the jeans. There wa
sn’t a trace of the girl who, only a week ago, had never gone out of the house without a bonnet, who had never stepped into a pair of trousers, who had never fastened an article of clothing with a button.
The girl who stared back at me from the mirror was anything but plain.
On Saturday afternoon, Josh called to tell me he’d be over at
7:00 to pick me up. He also said that another couple would be joining us. I was happy to hear about the other couple. Now the plans seemed less like a date and more like a group of friends going out.
That night I was too excited for dinner. My entire body felt the anticipation. Rachel seemed to understand when I took my plate to the sink while the rest of the family was still eating.
In the bathtub, I sank into deep warm water, letting my hair fan out around me. I wasn’t doing anything wrong, I told myself. Josh and I were going out as friends. And Daniel wasn’t my beau, so I wasn’t exactly betraying him. Still, the earnest look on Daniel’s face as I had unwrapped the wood carving kept slipping into my thoughts.
Later, as I was putting on the jean jacket, Rachel knocked softly on my door. “You look beautiful,” she said. “Thank you.” I tried to remember if I’d ever heard those words spoken to me. “Actually, there is one thing I need help with,” I said. “At home we always pull our hair back or wear it in braids. But here I see girls with their hair arranged all different ways.”
Rachel gave an eager kind of smile, and I found myself staring into a mirror again, this time with Rachel standing behind me. I wondered what my mother would think of all this time I’d been spending gazing at my own image. “You have such pretty hair,” Rachel said. “I think it would look nice down.” My hair was still damp from the bath. One day I hoped to learn how to use a hair dryer, but for now it would just have to dry on its own, as it always did. I felt the brush pull through the curly layers, and watched in the mirror as Rachel arranged pieces over my shoulders and down my back.
I blinked at my reflection. It felt free to have my hair untethered. “I like it,” I said. But what I was thinking in a silent, private part of me was, I’m pretty.
When the doorbell rang, the chime went right through me. I grabbed my purse and went downstairs. Sam had already answered the door, and I could see Josh’s now-familiar figure beside two other people.
Josh smiled as I stepped toward them. He was wearing jeans and a long-sleeved blue shirt that buttoned down. The first few buttons were open, exposing a white T-shirt underneath. He pointed to the boy and girl beside him, each staring at me curiously.
“This is Greg,” he said. Greg’s skin was the color of dark caramel, and his fuzzy brown hair was clipped close to his head. His clothes—faded jeans and a shirt the green of a duffel bag—hung on him in a smart way. Until now I had only seen black people from a distance in town. I tried not to stare at him. “Hey,” he said, his voice deep and mellow.
“Hey,” I answered back, feeling suddenly shy. My hand was engulfed in the firmness of his handshake, and I smiled at his friendliness.
“And this is Valerie,” Josh said.
Valerie’s hair fell over her shoulders, straight as string, a mix of yellow shades as though someone had painted it unevenly. Her eyelashes were so dark they looked like they had been coated with shoe polish. She wore a black T-shirt with a deep V-neck, tucked into a flouncy red skirt. The skirt settled above her knees, showing off her long lean legs. On her feet were strappy black sandals.
I had worked so hard to put together the outfit I was wearing, and now it looked simple and bulky next to Valerie’s sleek clothes.
“So, I hear you’re Aimish,” said Valerie.
Greg groaned. “Jeez, Val.”
“I’m sorry. Was it supposed to be a secret?”
“It’s okay, I am Amish,” I said, careful to show her the correct pronunciation. “And, no, it’s not a secret.”
“Well, you don’t look it,” said Valerie, who seemed unaware of the glances that Greg and Josh were exchanging over her head. “I mean, where’s your bonnet and your apron? You look just like the rest of us.” I wasn’t sure if this was a compliment, but I liked the idea that I fit in.
In the car, Valerie and Greg slid into the backseat, leaving the front seat for me. Valerie leaned forward into the space between
Josh and me. “So, really,” she said. “no cell phones, no Facebook?”
I turned, feeling the seat belt shift with my movements. Greg was wincing at Valerie’s questions, but he looked as though he, too, wanted to know the answers. “Hey, Val,” Josh called into the backseat. “This isn’t a reality show.” Everyone in the car laughed, so I did too.
“It’s all right,” I said. I didn’t mind the questions or this girl’s surprising boldness. Valerie was all on the surface. You didn’t have to look too far to know her, and there was something appealing about that.
A few minutes later, we parked in a big lot and joined the messy line gathered outside the building. Josh and Greg reached into their back pockets for their wallets and exchanged money for tickets. When we got inside, Greg turned to Valerie. “You and Eliza can find seats while we get the popcorn.” Valerie nodded, accepting the two tickets Greg handed her. Again I followed, still dazed by the number of people and all the steps involved. Valerie led me down a carpeted hallway, past a series of doors, each posting a sign with the title of the movie that was being played behind it. I had thought there would be one theater showing one movie, but instead I found a richness of choices. I wondered how Josh had picked this movie and which other ones he had decided not to see.
Inside the theater, a slanted floor held chairs in perfectly spaced lines. Valerie seemed to know exactly where to go, marching down the sloping aisle toward a row of seats in the middle. I followed her down the row, turning sideways as she did, and watched as she pulled down a seat and flopped into it. I stopped beside her, but Valerie pushed out her hand before I could sit. “Not here,” she said. “We have to sit boy-girl-boy-girl.”
I moved one seat over and turned to face Valerie while we waited for the boys. “You’re looking at my teeth, aren’t you?” she asked. She was right: I couldn’t help myself. They were so unnaturally white.
She flung her hair back, away from her face, and stretched her lips so each tooth was in full view. “They were getting kind of yellow, so I bleached them.”
“I beg your pardon?” I thought that maybe I hadn’t heard correctly.
“It’s just these strips you put on your teeth to whiten them.”
“Well. They look very nice.”
Valerie nodded her satisfaction. “I know, right?” Valerie’s eyes were on me now. “So, how did this work? On your first day in town, Josh just breezed in?”
“He was mowing the lawn,” I said. “He knows the people I work for.” Valerie nodded, but she was still staring at me.
“Your eyelashes,” she said. “What do you use on them?”
“Excuse me?”
“They’re so dark. I’m guessing you don’t have mascara where you come from.”
I shook my head. I couldn’t tell if she was giving me a compliment or criticizing me.
“Lucky you,” she said. I still couldn’t tell.
At that moment, Josh and Greg returned, Greg sidestepping around my knees to sit in the chair between Valerie and me. Josh sat in the seat at my right, holding an enormous container of popcorn and a paper cup of Coke almost as big.
For a few minutes, Josh and I didn’t talk. We reached into the warm bucket of popcorn, our fingers bumping together, and I listened to the chatter around us. The cup of Coke sat in an opening at the end of the armrest we shared.
Then the lights dimmed gradually, the murmuring voices began to quiet, and the large screen at the front of the room glowed white. Colorful images appeared like on the television shows that the children called “cartoons.” A large popcorn box, equipped with a face, arms, and legs, waited outside of a cartoon movie theater. Bouncy music played as the box smiled
and reached out his hand to a cup of Pepsi. “Is this the movie?” I whispered to Josh.
“It better not be,” he said, grinning. “It’s just something to make us buy popcorn and turn off our phones.”
The picture faded away, and another one replaced it. This time, horses filled the screen, their hooves drumming up dust on the road and flooding the theater with a thunderous rumbling. A man’s low voice spoke over the pounding hooves, telling a story about an old Western town. “Is this the movie?”
“No,” whispered Josh. “This is a preview. To get you to see the next movie.”
I took another sip of Coke and settled back in the chair and watched two more previews. Soon the screen went dark again, and there was an audible sense of settling in the theater. The fidgeting and whispering died down as the screen lit up, and the words
“The Best Bet” appeared. Music played, and the movie began.
What I couldn’t get over was how gigantic it was. Everything was spread grandly on the wall before us, hugely magnified. Music surrounded us, lacing through the background, even while the people on the screen were talking. Soon the gigantic people on the screen became part of a plot, like the elements of a novel that I could see right in front of me.
The story focused on one awkward girl who didn’t bounce around with the fluid grace of the other girls. Her clothing was baggy, her eyeglasses thick and foggy, and her hair lank. To the girl’s surprise, a suntanned boy with a swaggery step asked her out on a date. She was excited and nervous, so the graceful girls took her under their wing, replacing her shapeless clothes with clingy fabrics, styling her limp hair, adorning her face with colors, replacing her foggy glasses with tiny lenses that sat right on top of her eyes.
Each of the characters began to encounter frustrating complications and misunderstandings. It turned out that the suntanned boy had lost a wager, which was why he had asked the shy girl out to begin with. The shy girl, basking in her new popularity, was suddenly looking more like the other girls, so the boy who had taken her out only because he had lost a bet was beginning to feel that maybe he’d won something after all.
A World Away Page 10
