Lizzie Searches for Love Trilogy

by Linda Byler

  She knew, too, that her fight to look good would be a long battle. She didn’t necessarily want to outdo the other girls. She just wanted to look pretty and be noticed as someone who was tastefully fancy. Was that so terribly wrong?

  It made Lizzie sad, though, to think of hurting Mam and Dat. For a moment, she looked at Mam and thought about all she had to overcome, living on this terrible run-down farm. She had recently asked Mam, “Do you like it here now? I mean, better than you did that first year?”

  Mam had gazed across the living room, seeing nothing as she struggled for the right answer. “Yes, Lizzie, I do,” she said quietly, but there was a sigh in her voice, a kind of hollow undertone that wouldn’t quite go away when she tried to use words to cover it.

  Lizzie couldn’t help wondering if Mam believed it was God’s will for them to move here. Not only were they trying to make a livable farm and home on this heap of a place, but Dat’s and Mam’s daughters had to travel to another county for friends, both girls and boys.

  She wanted to ask Mam how God’s will could work if there were no Amish boys to marry in Cameron County and very few in Allen County. How will Mandy and I manage to get married if there aren’t boys?

  “Mam,” she said when she got her nerve back.

  “Hmm?”

  “What does ‘God’s will’ mean?”

  “It just means he will be able to guide our lives.”

  “Oh.”

  “He has a perfect plan for each of you, and if we pray and seek that will, everything will work out.”

  “How do you know what it is?”

  Mam paused. “You don’t always. Although, I suppose if we made more of a sacrifice, instead of seeking our own selfish desires, we could tell so much better.”

  Lizzie’s mind conjured up Abraham sacrificing a lamb in the Old Testament. Now that was confusing.

  “What do you mean, ‘sacrifice’?”

  “It’s hard to explain, Lizzie. I guess the more we learn to give up our own selfish desires, the easier it is to discern and be content with God’s will.”

  “What do you mean, we have to listen for God’s will for a husband? I mean, this is getting serious. I’m 16, and I still don’t understand.”

  Mam put down her sewing and searched Lizzie’s face. “Lizzie, if you read your Bible more, and tried to be more mature about your faith, you wouldn’t be so confused.”

  Lizzie’s face felt warm and she said quietly, “Right now, I don’t know where my Bible is.”

  “Lizzie, I do not believe it!” Mam was shocked, as Lizzie knew she would be.

  So Mam talked, explaining to her how she would understand more fully as the years went by. She had nothing to worry about because God knew her heart and would help her through every situation as life went on. It was all very comforting that day, sitting in the gaslit living room, with the rain and the dark, scudding clouds.

  Lizzie’s heart felt lighter and quite unafraid as Mam talked. She still did not understand everything, although she was comforted when Mam said that finding the right husband was not a hit-or-miss kind of thing. Apparently it wasn’t like Lizzie thought. Mam said that if you prayed honestly, God would direct you to the right husband, although somehow it was still your own choice. Of course you could marry someone that you wanted to! she said.

  Lizzie walked slowly into the living room, trying to make sense of that slim ray of light that had pierced her soul as Mam talked about finding a husband. She picked up the sleeve with all the gathers, then looked out the window and down across the fields that led to the creek. Her shoulders slumped as she slowly, slowly let out some of the gathers, the battle within far from resolved.

  She threw down the sleeve when the thread snapped and yelled at the top of her voice, a sound mostly driven by frustration at her sewing and her own personal battle. “Emma!”

  “Coming,” Emma said, dashing to her rescue.

  As the afternoon wore on, Lizzie finally realized that it was perfectly possible for her to make a dress. It wouldn’t have happened without plenty of help from Emma, but she began to see how the pieces fit together. Everything made more sense than ever before.

  When she pulled the new dress over her head, letting the soft blue folds of the skirt hang almost to the floor before Emma pinned the hem, she was so happy she felt like a princess. Whirling her way from the kitchen to the living room, she lifted her arms and told Emma she was Cinderella.

  Emma grinned wryly. “Well, you’re not exactly Cinderella, scrubbing floors as your sisters while away the hours in luxury.”

  Emma’s own patience had nearly run out. Now here was Lizzie, the cause of a whole afternoon of stress, suddenly happy as a lark, showing off, in Emma’s opinion, her still too-fancy sleeves. But Emma said nothing as Lizzie climbed up on a chair so Emma could pin up the hem.

  “Shorter, Emma,” Lizzie commanded.

  “Lizzie, your dresses are short enough. No.”

  “I’m 16 now!”

  “So?”

  “Mam!”

  Mam walked over, assessing the new outfit as Lizzie stood on top of the chair. In Mam’s view, the sleeves still looked a bit too fancy. She narrowed her eyes as Lizzie asked if she could have her dresses a bit shorter now because she was 16.

  “Why would you want to, Lizzie? Your dresses are too short as it is.”

  “They are not, Mam. They hang almost to my ankles.”

  “Stop it. No.”

  Mam turned to go back to her baking, and Emma pinned the hem securely. Lizzie hopped off the chair and glared at her.

  “So, if I don’t get a boyfriend by the time I’m 25, it’s all your fault, Emma. Yours and Mam’s.”

  “Stop being so childish. Joshua says that’s about the last thing he notices about me.”

  “What?”

  “The style of my clothes. Boys don’t always think about such things. They think more about a pleasing personality.”

  “Joshua isn’t the only boy in the world. Some boys notice how you look. I’ll never be asked out on a date, as long as that dress is.”

  Mandy abruptly changed the atmosphere when she walked into the house from her day’s work at the hatchery. She took one look at Lizzie’s lovely new blue dress and shrieked her admiration.

  “Li-izzie, you look so nice! You are so lucky to be 16! Mam, I want a dress exactly like that when I turn 16!”

  Emma exhaled in relief as a big smile appeared on Lizzie’s face and she said, “You think so, Mandy? Isn’t it too long?”

  “No-o. Not a bit. It makes your gray eyes look blue, Lizzie!”

  “I made this dress all by myself, Mandy!”

  “Did you really?”

  “Yep!”

  Mam and Emma exchanged knowing glances. Emma wondered later if Cinderella would be back.

  Chapter 32

  Uncle Marvin was Dat’s youngest brother and only a year older than Emma. He had started accompanying Emma on the drive to the young people’s gatherings in Allen County a few weeks earlier. Marvin paid half the amount the driver charged them, which helped cut down on expenses for Dat and Mam.

  Dat’s youngest sister, Elsie, was 16, too, but she had already joined another group of young people in a larger community about 90 miles away. She had found friends there who were more conservative like she was. She was still a dear aunt whom Lizzie and Emma were very fond of, but during their years of being with the youth, Elsie went her separate way on the weekends.

  Not Marvin. He joined Emma most weekends and she loved his companionship, each of them sharing their own thoughts and opinions on many subjects as they traveled to and from Allen County, where there was a larger settlement of Amish. Marvin had always said what he thought to Emma and Lizzie without inhibition. In fact, he had recently told Lizzie in no uncertain terms what he thought about her looks, her behavior, her attitude. In a way, Marvin was like her older brother. He cared deeply about her and wanted her to mature and find good friends.

  One afterno
on, he stopped at their farm to make plans with Emma for the coming weekend.

  “Are you excited to come with us to Allen County?” he asked Lizzie as he sat at the table eating a whoopie pie.

  Lizzie nodded as she watched Marvin eat. She had already had a whoopie pie that forenoon, but she wanted another one.

  Marvin brushed the crumbs off his hands as he leaned back in his chair.

  “Lizzie, I know you hope to meet some boys during these weekends in Allen County,” he said. “But I have to be honest. Boys will think you’re a lot prettier if you lost more weight. You’re still a bit on the heavy side.”

  Lizzie was appalled. She didn’t think she was one bit fat anymore. Well, she knew she wasn’t skinny and rail-thin like some girls, but she didn’t feel heavy at all. Marvin’s comments stung, but Lizzie liked that he was honest. She believed he wanted the best for her.

  That night at dinner, Mam was busy filling everyone’s plate with steaming chicken stew. Large chunks of chicken, white cubes of soft potatoes, orange carrots, peas, and slivers of onion and celery floated in a thick, creamy sauce. Specks of black pepper and little pieces of dark green parsley dotted the broth. Best of all, Lizzie thought, were the mounds of fluffy white dumplings on top. Mam plopped half of one on each plate, and then spooned gravy over it. Cold macaroni salad and thick slices of homemade bread with butter and peach jam completed their meal.

  Everything tasted wonderful, even the macaroni salad. Emma didn’t eat very much anymore, picking daintily at her dumpling with her fork. She didn’t eat any macaroni salad at all, saying it was too fattening with all that mayonnaise. Lizzie took a huge bite of dumpling and gravy, chewed thoroughly, and looked at Emma with narrowed eyes.

  “Mayonnaise isn’t fattening.”

  “It is.”

  “No, I know it isn’t.”

  “Lizzie!”

  “It isn’t.” Lizzie scooped a large spoonful of macaroni salad onto her plate, her second helping, before taking a large bite.

  “Lizzie, mayonnaise is one of the most fattening things you can eat,” Dat said.

  “Who said?”

  “I don’t know. I guess everybody just knows—it’s quite a common fact.”

  Mandy jumped up, opened the pantry door, and came back with a jar of mayonnaise. “One hundred calories for one tablespoon!” she announced. “See?”

  “If you’re on a strict diet, you are allowed 1,000 calories. So imagine! One-tenth of those are used up by putting mayonnaise on your sandwich,” Dat said.

  “I’m not on a diet!” Lizzie said loudly.

  “No doubt,” Emma muttered.

  “Mam, Emma is being mean,” Lizzie said.

  “Emma,” Mam said.

  So Lizzie ate a large piece of pumpkin pie for dessert, free of guilt, because it seemed as if Mam was on her side. That one piece was not quite enough for her, so when they were clearing the table, Lizzie ate another piece, only smaller, when Emma wasn’t looking. That left kind of a yucky sweet taste in her mouth, so when she took the pie back to the pantry, she got a handful of stick pretzels from the jar. Emma came into the kitchen just as Lizzie grabbed another handful of pretzels.

  “Lizzie,” she said. “Are you still eating?”

  Lizzie turned and ran out of the room. She felt miserably full. It just wasn’t fair. Look at Mandy. She naturally didn’t like to eat a lot. She certainly did not like creme-filled doughnuts. The filling made her gag, she said. Lizzie loved those doughnuts, easily wolfing down two of them at a time, the last bite tasting every bit as wonderful as the first. Lizzie threw herself on the couch, crying, sniffing loudly, snorting, and blowing her nose in a crumpled paper towel she had found on the floor.

  “You just like Mandy better. You’re both so much thinner and prettier than me,” she sobbed when Emma followed her into the room.

  “Eww! Lizzie, don’t use that dirty paper towel!”

  “I will if I want to.”

  Emma shrugged her shoulders, watching Lizzie crying on the sofa. Suddenly, Emma could stand it no longer. She sat down beside Lizzie, touched her knee and said, “Lizzie, listen to me.”

  “What?”

  “Why do you have this thing about nobody liking you? That gets really old. You claim Mam likes me better than you, and now you’re saying Mandy and I stick together. You know that’s not true. It’s always you and Mandy doing things together, not me. Now you even sleep with her in the same bedroom, and I’m always by myself. You know I like you just the same as I always have. Mam gets impatient with you sometimes, but Lizzie, she has reason to. All you do is …” Emma hesitated, because she couldn’t say what needed to be said.

  “Eat! Just say it, Emma. I’m fat and lazy. Go ahead, say it!” Lizzie burst out.

  “No, seriously, Lizzie, I honestly don’t think you like yourself right now—that’s why you feel as if no one else likes you. Your weight does bother you, only you won’t admit it.”

  “I’m not that fat, Emma.”

  “But you are.”

  Lizzie looked steadily at Emma. Emma looked steadily back.

  “See, Lizzie, Mam doesn’t mean to be unkind. She’s so busy with the twins right now and wrapped up in her own little world. So why don’t you and I write each other a diet every day? You write what I can eat, and I’ll write what you can eat! That would be fun! Do you want to?”

  There was a long pause. “Hm-mm.”

  “You know what, Lizzie? You’re just not yourself anymore. You’re not even happy!”

  “Are you allowed to have any mayonnaise on a diet? Emma, I mean this—seriously—I can’t eat sandwiches without it.”

  “No, Lizzie, you can have mayonnaise. But instead of eating three sandwiches at lunch, try taking one. You can have all the mayonnaise you want on one sandwich.”

  Lizzie thought about this long and hard. Emma watched anxiously as Lizzie blinked, chewed her lower lip, and stuck a straight pin in and out of her dress.

  “Lizzie, don’t.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t jag yourself with that pin.”

  “I have a rash from doing it.”

  “Let me see.”

  Lizzie showed her.

  “Lizzie!”

  “I guess it’s a nervous habit.”

  “Why are you nervous?”

  “I dunno.”

  They sat in silence before Lizzie said. “Okay, Emma, you may write me a diet for tomorrow, and I’ll write you one. Only don’t make it too strict, or I won’t stay on it anyway.”

  “I won’t, Lizzie. This is going to be fun!” Emma beamed.

  Lizzie didn’t say anything. After a while she said, “I’m only 16, Emma.”

  “Sixteen is old.”

  “Is it?”

  “Yes, it is. You’re getting older.” Emma nodded her head wisely.

  Lizzie sighed. But secretly, she was pleased. How nice of Emma to worry about her. She really did care. Suddenly she leaned over, put her arm around Emma’s shoulder, and squeezed. “Thanks, Emma.”

  “Now you can never say I don’t like you, Lizzie. I do.”

  The first morning of Lizzie’s diet, she stepped on the scales for the first time without hanging onto the bathroom sink. She had learned long ago that if you crept onto the scales a bit slowly while you held onto the bathroom sink, you didn’t weigh quite as much.

  She knew she weighed a lot. Way too much for a girl in her mid-teens. She stepped off the scales. Why? How in the world could she weigh so much? She needed to lose at least 25 pounds. No one had noticed anything different that morning. Lizzie ate a bowl of Cheerios and a piece of toast with butter. But she drank only a small glass of orange juice instead of a large one. Later, when Lizzie packed her lunch, she took only half a sandwich.

  “Lizzie, are you sick?” Mam asked.

  “Why?”

  “Half a sandwich? You?”

  “I’m going to lose weight.”

  “You are?”

  “Good for you!”
Mandy had said.

  “You can do it,” Emma encouraged her.

  All those words helped so much, Lizzie could hardly believe it.

  That evening at supper, Dat had asked Lizzie why she was eating less.

  “I’m not hungry,” she said.

  “You must be sick then,” Dat said, taking a big spoonful of macaroni and cheese.

  Lizzie swallowed, watching him lift a steaming forkful to his mouth, shaking his head because it burned his tongue. She could eat the whole dish of macaroni all by herself, she was so hungry. For a moment, she felt like crying, but the thought of her weight and the size of her waistline filled her with determination. She would go through with it.

  And she did. The first few days were the hardest, but slowly the weight came off, until one Saturday morning she stood on the scales and weighed exactly 25 pounds less.

  She was so thrilled she put her hands to her face and shrieked. Emma and Mandy came running into the bathroom.

  “Look! Oh, Emma, look at the scales!” Lizzie had gasped.

  “One hundred thirty!” Emma said. “You did it!”

  Mandy clapped Lizzie’s shoulder. “You really did!”

  Mam smiled broadly.

  “Well done, Lizzie,” she said. “But you know, Lizzie, you’ll need to be careful from now on. They say it’s harder to keep it off than it is to take it off.”

  “I know,” Lizzie said. “I realize I can’t eat everything I want to, probably never in my whole life.”

  Chapter 33

  They had a full carload that first Sunday afternoon Lizzie went to Allen County—Emma’s friend Sara and her boyfriend, Uncle Marvin, Emma, and Lizzie. Lizzie had never been to Allen County, so she got caught up in looking at the homes and roads and scenery around this Amish community. There were fewer hills than in Cameron County, and so the roads were wider and straighter, with only gradual slopes instead of long, steep hills.