“This is a summer job,” I said.
“Then what?”
Then I go back to the life I had before, I thought. The life I’d wanted to leave. But I didn’t say that. Instead, I said, “I’m not sure.”
“I don’t get it,” said Valerie, stirring her drink with a plastic straw. “So you just pop in for a while and live a totally new life, and then you go back to the old one?”
It did sound kind of silly when she said it like that. I tried to explain. “I met Mrs. Aster, and she was looking for a nanny, and I was looking to get away from home for a while. So it seemed to work out for both of us.”
Valerie nodded and leaned back in her chair. “And Josh?” she said. “Where is he in all this?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I just met him a week ago.”
Valerie looked thoughtful. “Well, this all seems to fit. You come here looking for something new, and that’s just what Josh has been doing.”
“He has?”
“Oh, yeah. This last year at school, it was like none of us were good enough for him anymore. He didn’t go out as much as he used to. He started hanging with a different group every few weeks, acting all aloof.” She paused and looked at me. “And then he finds you.”
“I don’t know Josh very well,” I said. “Everything’s still pretty new to me here.”
“Oh, he’ll like that,” she said. “He’ll want to be the big shot who shows you around. It’ll be one more reason why he’s not like the rest of us.”
I didn’t have time to think about what she meant, because just then two girls appeared at our table. They seemed to fall into Valerie’s arms, hugging her and talking too quickly for me to make out what they were saying. Valerie interrupted them, pointing to me. “Guys, this is Eliza,” she said. “She’s Amish.”
Heat pumped to my cheeks as the two girls turned to me with open curiosity. Valerie continued the introductions, pointing to a petite girl with dark curls framing a round face. “This is Jill,” she said, before turning to a taller girl with pale skin and long hair the color of polished copper. “And this is Carly.” I tried not to stare, but Carly had what appeared to be a small needle slicing through the edge of her eyebrow. Looking at it made me feel queasy.
“Really, Amish?” said Jill.
“Yes, really,” I said, turning away from Carly’s eyebrow. Searching for something light to say, I added, “I can show you my bonnet if you’d like.”
They all laughed, and I felt a little better. It was hard to be on display, but there was also something exhilarating about it.
“It’s her first time in a mall,” said Valerie.
“No way,” said Carly. “Did you buy anything?”
“A dress and some makeup,” I said, trying to sound casual.
“How was the party last night?” Valerie asked Carly.
“Fun,” said Carly. “I’m sorry you couldn’t come.”
Valerie looked at me as though we were in on a secret. Then she turned back to Carly. “I couldn’t come because I was out with Greg. And Eliza and Josh.”
Jill’s eyes widened at the mention of Josh’s name. “Yeah, you heard right,” said Valerie. “We got Josh out.”
Jill turned to me. “Nice move.” I wasn’t sure what she meant, but it seemed related to what Valerie had just told me about Josh.
“I know, right?” said Valerie. Then she started lifting out her purchases for Jill and Carly to admire. As I watched them, my thoughts returned to Josh.
Apparently he had a story, and Valerie thought I was a part of it.
I still couldn’t figure out what to write in my journal, so I began to list the things I’d done here that I couldn’t do at home. Every day I had new items to add, like listening to music through the computer, setting the coffeemaker so the coffee would be brewed when I woke up in the morning, and maneuvering my own set of controls when I played Mario with the children.
Ben had seemed to enjoy teaching me how to play the video game, so I started searching for ways he could show me other things that he knew and I didn’t. I thought it might help him get more comfortable about having me around. One day after camp, we leaned together over the kitchen table with the sports page open to the box scores. He pointed to one of the squares of neat, numbered rows and columns. “See this row on the left? These are the players,” he said. “And these boxes show how many at bats, hits, runs, and runs-batted-in each player had.”
I thought about what he had taught me about the game of baseball and tried to make sense out of the numbers on the page. I pointed to a player’s name and followed the line of numbers with my finger. “So, he got up to bat four times, had one hit and scored one run?”
Ben looked up at me, respect in his round eyes. “Yeah, that’s right,” he said. “It took Missy a lot longer to figure that out.”
I felt the thrill of this small victory.
My second week skipped by, and things that had at first seemed magical started to make more sense to me. I forgot to be amazed at how warm the clothes felt when they came out of the dryer, or how the electric lamp let me read in bed late into the night. Ben taught me how to command the television set through the remote control, which would swing me seamlessly from laughter to mystery to romance as I changed the channels. And the ring of the telephone now had the ability to bring the voice of Josh or Valerie right into my ear.
That Saturday night, Josh and I went out alone for the first time. When I answered the door in my new dress, he looked me up and down. “Did you buy that with Valerie?” he asked. I nodded, but he was still staring at me. “Your face looks different.” He didn’t say it unkindly, but it didn’t sound like a compliment, either.
A warm feeling crept up my neck. “Valerie helped me learn how to wear makeup,” I said. Josh shook his head. “What?” I asked, feeling a mix of awkwardness and defiance.
“I don’t know,” he said with a shrug. “You didn’t really need any of that. You’re pretty without all that stuff on your face.”
I felt the rush of his praise, even though I knew it wasn’t intended as flattery.
We went to a movie, this time a dark film about teenagers on vacation at a cabin, who start to disappear one by one. There were heart-pounding moments when something unexpected would be on the other side of the door or reflected in a mirror. During one of these moments, Josh slid his arm around my shoulder, and I felt safe in his closeness. When the movie ended, we made our way out of the theater toward the parking lot. Outside, Josh reached for my hand. It was a natural gesture, easy and relaxed, and I let my hand slip inside his, as though familiarity with an English boy was a commonplace occurrence in my life.
The following Sunday, Valerie called to ask me to go with her to a poetry reading. She was taking a summer school class for English credit, and this was something she was required to attend. “So will you come?” she asked. “I really don’t want to go alone.”
I had no idea what to expect, but I was happy Valerie had asked me. She picked me up after dinner, and we drove to the bookstore where the reading would be. “What’s summer school like?” I asked on the way there.
“It’s no big deal. Just a Creative Writing class,” she said. “My parents said I had to get a job or go to school this summer, so I picked school.”
In the bookstore, Valerie led me to the café, where a stool and microphone were set up. We got cups of coffee and sat down at a small table in the back of the room. Valerie took a pink notebook with a flowery cover out of her purse and set it on the table. Looking around, I saw that most of the other tables were occupied by kids our age, ready to take notes, as Valerie was.
I sipped my coffee. I had read some poetry when I was in school, but I didn’t know much about it. To me, poetry seemed like urgent stories, cut to their bare bones.
At that moment a woman came to the microphone, welcoming us in an elegant voice. “That’s my teacher,” whispered Valerie. “She brought these poets here for the reading and she wante
d an audience, so she made it a class requirement.” At that, Valerie rolled her eyes, but I thought I saw a bit of eagerness in her expression.
The teacher introduced the first poet, a woman with olive skin and shiny black hair. She looked out at the audience and took a breath. Her voice, heavily accented, rang out in the small space. The poem she read told the story of migrant workers from Mexico, bending over snap peas, carrying bushel baskets on their shoulders, squinting in the angry sun. The words flowed like a song, her voice alternating between anguish and tenderness. When she was done, she lowered her head for a moment while applause filled the room. The poem settled inside me in a way I didn’t expect. She had read for only a few minutes, but in that short time I was somewhere new—in a world of hard work and the search for belonging. I looked at Valerie, who was scribbling in her notebook. “I liked that,” I said. “It took me to another place.”
Valerie smiled. “That’s what a good poem does.”
For the next hour we sipped coffee and listened to poems about lovers and war and children and disappointment and deep desire. Valerie occasionally jotted notes, but mostly she watched and listened. After the last reading, everyone stood and clapped while the poets took the stage for a final bow, and the teacher thanked us for coming.
“Do you have to rush home?” Valerie asked. “I could use some more coffee.”
We refilled our mugs and returned to the table, some of the lines of poetry still dancing in my head.
“What did you think?” Valerie asked.
“I loved it. Thanks for bringing me.”
“Thanks for coming. My other friends would have thought this was lame, but I had a feeling you’d like it.” I was pretty sure that was a compliment.
Valerie closed the notebook and looked at me, a softness in her eyes I hadn’t seen before. She cleared her throat. “Um, is it okay if this is just between us? You know, that I like poetry?”
I smiled. “Your secret is safe.”
“Thanks,” she said, sliding the notebook into her purse. Then she leaned forward. “So, how are things with Josh? I hear you saw your second movie last weekend.”
“We had fun,” I said, “but the movie gave me nightmares.”
“And last night?” she asked.
“Last night I had to babysit, but Josh came over and we watched TV.”
“So,” said Valerie, “three weekends in a row.” Suddenly, I realized that when I was with Valerie, she asked all the questions. I took a breath and prepared to ask one. “What about you and Greg? How long have you been going out?”
“A couple of months,” said Valerie, “My parents aren’t thrilled, but they’ll get over it.” I smiled, thinking that Valerie and I would have that in common, courting boys that our parents didn’t approve of.
“He seems nice,” I said.
“He is, and so far we’re pretty good together. And he’s not too bad to look at either,” she added, grinning. “What about you guys? Where do you think you and Josh are headed?”
I shrugged. “We have a nice time when we’re together.”
“That’s how it starts,” she said. Her tone was cheerful, but also a bit ominous.
Sitting at my desk while Ben and Janie were at camp, I looked at a clutter of unanswered letters. I had thought that I’d look forward to mail from home, but now the Friday parties and the quilt circles and the gossip about Sally and Peter sounded as shallow as a puddle. I wrote to my parents with each weekly check, describing my work with Rachel’s children and how Ben’s manners were improving and how nice the family was to me. But writing to Kate and Annie was a little harder. I wanted to be able to describe to them how the characters in a movie become a part of your life, or how much you miss the strumming of a guitar when the song is over.
Kate and Annie usually dropped a mention of Daniel, but in the four weeks I’d been gone, I had yet to receive a letter from him. When we said good-bye I had promised that I’d write, so I sent him a few letters with descriptions of the music that swelled from black boxes and the voices that traveled from one telephone to another.
Today I sifted through the pile of letters and noticed one in my mother’s hand, her carefully looped lettering clear and distinctive. It was a curious letter, short and to the point, with my mother’s utter refusal to relate to me in a personal way.
Dear Eliza,
There is someone I want you to see. Her name is Beth Winters. Her address is 367 Elm Street in the town of Evanston. I don’t think it is far away from where you are living, but I don’t know how to get there. You will have to find the way. Please don’t write to me about this because your letters are not read by me alone.
Love,
Mother
She didn’t even bother to write that she missed me or that she was curious about my life here. There was just this command that I find some stranger. Knowing my mother, this Beth Winters was probably someone who would convince me to go back home and return to my plain ways. I put the letter at the bottom of the pile and started writing to Kate. I had already written to her about my shopping day with Valerie and the movies I had gone to with Josh.
In this letter I described how every day now held the prospect of Josh stopping over to listen to music or watch a movie on TV with me, and how that possibility charged my days with anticipation. I wrote about how rumpled he looked from his work mowing lawns, and how when we sat close together he smelled like a warm spring morning.
After sealing the envelope, I went downstairs to check the refrigerator and plan for the family’s dinner. When the doorbell rang, I rushed over, happy to find Josh on the stoop. “I finished early,” he said. “Do you want to get an iced coffee?”
I checked the clock. The children wouldn’t be home for another hour, so I fell into step beside Josh on the now-familiar route to town. “Did you get any letters today?” he asked. He had told me that letters delivered by the postman had become a quaint relic—“snail mail” they called it. But there was something wistful in his tone. He seemed envious of the daily arrival of handwritten messages.
“Just two today,” I said. “My grandmother and my friend Mary.”
“Have you told anyone about me?” Josh asked as he opened the door to the coffee shop.
I raised my eyebrows. “Why would I tell them about you?” I liked the way my voice sounded sly and innocent at the same time. But I didn’t tell him that the letter to Kate I had just dropped in the mailbox had described how my time with Josh was beginning to feel like a courtship.
I stirred sugar into my iced coffee and took a long sip. “Listen,” said Josh. “I’m not working tomorrow. If I promise to get you home before the kids get back from camp, can I take you out during the day?”
I looked up. “Where?”
“I thought we’d take the train downtown. It’s about time you saw the city.”
“Yes,” I said, already looking forward to it. “As long as it’s okay with Rachel.”
“Cool,” he said, looking pleased. “You know something?” He leaned back in his chair and looked at me as though we had just been introduced. “I wasn’t really looking forward to this summer. Working two jobs, mowing lawns, saving money. But it’s turning out pretty sweet after all.”
I smiled. “Jah,” I said. “So is mine.”
The place they called “downtown” smelled like dirt and metal and old rain. The sounds were sharp bursts and long hums. The sidewalk felt hard and sticky beneath my sneakers. Going into town with my mother was nothing like this. Josh pressed his hand against the small of my back as we walked, and I enjoyed the warmth that settled there.
We turned a corner, and he guided me to a building beneath a set of railroad tracks. I looked up. I had never seen train tracks above the ground before. Bits of gray sky peeked down from between the railroad ties.
“That’s the el,” Josh said.
I looked at him. “The ‘L’?”
“It’s short for elevated. Do you want to ride it?”
&
nbsp; I grinned. “Yes, please.”
“Okay,” he said. “But first we have to do something. Follow me.”
I trotted behind him until we were standing directly underneath the train tracks. People brushed past us, some turning to look, maybe wondering why, in this place, where everyone was going somewhere, these two people were standing perfectly still.
“What are we waiting for?” I asked.
“You’ll see,” said Josh. “It shouldn’t be long now.”
I waited, my arms and legs tense. Josh stood behind me, his fingers curved around my elbows. I leaned into him.
Then it started, just a small rumble at first, something approaching from the distance. Then the rumble grew, and a quick breeze shot through my hair, sending it flying around my face. I wanted to leave, felt like I had to leave, fast. Now it wasn’t rumbling anymore. It was roaring and dark. I took a step to get away from it, but Josh’s hands tightened, holding my arms, keeping me in the spot. “It’s all right,” he was saying, but the roar carried his words away.
It got louder, a thunderstorm where the thunder doesn’t stop. It vibrated around and through me until it was all wrapped up inside me—wind and dark and noise and vibration. And then it was gone. Suddenly gone. My hair settled back on my shoulders, and I could hear the coming and going of voices again. Josh’s hands were still on my arms, but his fingers loosened. It had been twenty seconds only, maybe ten. But it was also forever.
Josh was smiling down at me when I turned to face him. I was afraid it would happen again, but more afraid that it wouldn’t.
“That was an el train,” Josh said. “It went by right over our heads. If you liked it, it happens about every five minutes.” His voice had a laugh in it, and I laughed, too. This extraordinary event that took away sound and breath and light—this incredible shaking moment happens every five minutes. It didn’t seem possible.
“Can we do it again?” I asked.
He smiled. “Okay, but don’t try to get away this time.”
A World Away Page 12
