by Susan Rohrer
Just then, a harried businessman barged through, banging right into her. In the jolt, he sloshed steaming coffee on his pants, but most of it splashed on her. Charity felt the heat of it soak through her skirt, but the man seemed only worried about himself.
“Great!” the man griped. He swiped a hand across his trousers. “That’s just perfect.” Angrily, he tossed his coffee cup into a trashcan and hustled down the street.
With concern in his eyes, Daniel turned to Charity. “Is that hot?”
Charity stopped on the sidewalk to brush the coffee off her dress. “It’s nothing. I’m fine.”
A woman groused from behind them. “Hey, move it or lose it!”
Realizing she was blocking the way, Charity stepped aside from the flow of traffic. Daniel quickly followed. He retrieved a handkerchief from his pocket and offered it to Charity.
As she blotted the coffee, Charity glanced up at the passing throng. Few made eye contact with anything but their electronic devices. “So many people. Everyone’s in such a hurry. Do you suppose any of them actually like it here?” Something about the absurdity of it all made it almost amusing.
“I don’t know.” Daniel scratched behind his ear, a little grin forming. There were those dimples of his. He examined the abandoned watch. “Reminds me of my uncle’s hives. Everyone buzzing by, pressed in tight, so intent to get to wherever it is they’re going.”
Charity nodded. “It really is like that, isn’t it?” As she straightened, her eyes fell on the paper machine beside them. It advertised free job listings. “Daniel, look. Jobs. Maybe there would be something temporary for you.”
Daniel set the watch down on top of the vending machine and pulled out a paper. It was not thirty seconds before a teenager reached in, snatched the timepiece, and sprinted away.
Charity could hardly believe it. Just yesterday, they’d happened upon that job listings paper. Today, there they were, seated in a Manhattan employment office. The agent wasn’t the friendliest of fellows, but she was thankful to see how busily he scanned his computer screen for job possibilities, popping his lips all the while. Surely, there must be something in there.
Charity smiled at Daniel. He really wanted to do what he could to help her Aunt Hope in any way he could, even if just for a little while.
The employment agent hacked loudly, a phlegmy cough rattling through his chest. He cleared his throat and glanced at Daniel. “Your aunt was right. Without a G.E.D. you’ll get nothing but grunt work.”
Daniel referred to the job listing paper. “I noticed there’s something for framers here. I have six years of carpentry experience.”
The agent peered at them over his reading glasses. “As you might guess, they use power tools here. Did you also notice it’s union? Somehow, I’m guessing you’re not.”
Charity saw Daniel’s face fall. She longed to encourage him.
The agent rubbed his right wrist. “Carpal Tunnel is killing me.” Again, he hacked. “Look, I get that you’ve put up a few places out there in the country. But this is the Big Apple. You got any hands-on experience here in the city at anything whatsoever?”
Daniel exchanged a glance with Charity. “We’ve, uh... Well, we’ve filled in a little, so we did. Doing dishes at this restaurant in town.”
“And I can cook,” Charity added.
The agent checked the listings on his computer again. “Pro chefs are lined up all round the block to cook. That’s not gonna happen. Okay. Let’s see, let’s see...”
Charity found herself holding her breath as the agent hunched over his computer, tapping the same button over and over. On and on, he scanned down his computer screen.
Finally, the man looked up. With a tip of his head, he swiveled his screen around for them to see. “Well, ho, ho, ho, and a Merry Christmas! The Café Troubadour just posted for a dishwasher this morning. Might get a jump on that.”
Charity blanched. Reading a computer screen for the first time was daunting. There was so much information. Finally, there it was. The job listing. Frank Abernathy’s name was right there as the contact. Sure enough, the Café Troubadour was where Aunt Hope worked, and that dishwasher position was Leanne’s. Charity glanced at Daniel, disturbed in the pit of her stomach. Frank was already taking steps to find Leanne’s replacement.
eight
Hope tucked herself behind the Café Troubadour’s counter. Quickly, she pulled out her cell and checked her voice message alerts.
Nothing.
It had not been the first time she’d checked that morning, not to mention the day before that. Every hour, on the hour, she’d stopped. She couldn’t help it. Surely, there would have been word about the status of her audition by now. That is, if there was ever to be any word at all. The New York “Slow No” was definitely the worst part of this process.
Why people couldn’t call your agent and let you know when you didn’t get a callback, she’d never understand. Rejection tasted rotten, but at least there was something good served by it. Getting rejected meant you could start trying to deal with your disappointment. You could pry your fingers off what you’d wanted so much, and begin the process of letting go. This way, for at least a few days—a week if you were especially pathetic—you kept staring at your phone. You kept the itty-bitty fantasy that they might still want you alive. It was the same every last gut-scraping time. Even after you tanked.
Myrna sidled up next to Hope. She started to butter some toast. “No word yet?”
Hope pocketed her cell. “This is crazy-making.”
Myrna gave her an understanding squeeze. “Baby, either that director calls you back or it’s his loss.”
Hope leaned back against the counter. “Maybe it’s better this way. With Charity and Daniel here. What, am I going to work here days, rehearse every night, and never even see them?” Hope sighed. “Why am I obsessing over this?”
“Pursuing your dream?” Myrna served Goldie his toast.
“Which one?” Hope asked.
Goldie twisted on his stool at the counter. “Would you like to hear my oh, so very humble opinion?”
Hope cast a half-mast glance at Goldie. “Yes, Goldie. More than anything.”
Goldie spread a glaze of orange marmalade on his sourdough bread. “I say you’re compensating.”
Hope rubbed her neck. Why had she even opened that door?
“You know they don’t remember your name, much less your phone number,” Goldie gloated, “because they have no intention whatsoever of singling you out from the hordes of marginally talented wannabes, all drooling for their attention.”
Hope just shook her head. She would not let on that Goldie was getting to her.
“So, you rationalize that, of course, the timing is all wrong,” he prattled. “You should be with your family, who, in some kind of psycho-ironic twist, has banned you just as surely as the Broadway stage has. Only you can’t accept that, so you’re...” He flipped his wrist over to extend an open palm and the conversational floor to Hope.
“Compensating.” Just then, Hope noticed that Charity and Daniel had arrived. A reprieve. Quickly, she excused herself.
Frank put two steaming plates on the kitchen pass-through for Myrna as Hope scooted by sideways. “Order up!”
As discreetly as possible, Hope examined the dishwasher job posting. Charity and Daniel looked on as Leanne bussed a table nearby.
“What should we do?” Charity whispered.
Hope shook her head. “I don’t know. Looks like a guillotine or a noose to me.”
A look of confusion crossed Daniel’s face. “What?”
“No matter what, it’s not so great,” Hope explained. “If you do take it, she’ll think you edged her out and if you don’t—”
Daniel nodded, catching on. “Then Frank will just hire someone else.”
Charity tucked the job listing away. “Either way, Leanne loses her job. What else can she get in her condition?”
Hope straightened, pointing up with
her index finger. “Unless we make a deal.”
Hope peeked into the kitchen. As usual Frank was working triple-time. How perfect.
Hope ushered Charity and Daniel through the swinging doors. They waited discreetly by the entry while Hope approached Frank at the griddle. Deliberately, she situated herself so he couldn’t miss the growing pile of dirty dishes, pots, and pans just over her shoulder. Frank was a bottom-line kind of boss. When he got desperate enough, he’d allow a bit of wiggle room. As long as it wouldn’t cost him anything more than he’d already offered, he might just consider it.
Hope explained how things could work as concisely as she could. The fewer words, the better with Frank. He continued to prep dinner plates all the while. It was hard to tell if he was listening at all.
Finally, he shook his head. “Can’t hire but one of them if I keep Leanne.”
Hope didn’t miss a beat. “Charity will do it. And Daniel can be on standby in case Leanne flakes.”
“I dunno,” Frank started. “All I got’s what I got, even if I’m paying two of them to split it.”
“Fine,” Hope agreed. “But Sunday’s off. Same as me. Just pull in relief crew to cover that.”
Frank looked over Daniel’s and Charity’s Amish garb, a dubious expression forming. “An apron’s enough for him, but she’s gotta wear a uniform.”
Satisfied, Hope shook Frank’s hand. “I’ll work on it.”
Leanne padded into Hope’s living room. It was hard enough to figure out how to behave in someone else’s house, much less with an Amish dude plopped right there on the sofa. But really. Just because Daniel was sleeping there at night didn’t mean he owned the place. It was the living room, for cryin’ out loud. The television should be fair game.
Leanne snatched the remote and flipped on the set. “You don’t mind, do you?” She eased herself down into an overstuffed chair.
Daniel looked up from perusing a booklet. It said G.E.D. on the cover.
Great. He must be sticking around for a while.
Leanne zapped her way through the channels. There was hardly a thing worth more than half a second’s time. She turned the set back off. “Nothing on anyway.”
He just smiled a little, and then went right back to reading.
Not so chatty, she guessed. “I used to like that show where the rich girl was crushin’ on this poor boy and... You probably never watched that show.”
Daniel shook his head, his brows raised.
Leanne studied him. “No TV, no radio, no computer, no texting, nothin’?”
“Not really.”
“Seriously?” That was just plain wacko. What did a person possibly do without all of those things? “Don’t you get bored?”
Daniel turned a page in the booklet. “There’s always something to do when you live on a farm.”
“I mean like fun. What do you do for fun?”
Daniel put the booklet down and rose from the couch. “Well, there are lots of things. I can show you one.” He went to his suitcase and opened it up. “I have a little brother and a younger sister. So, with Christmas coming, I always like to make them something.”
Homemade presents? Really? Way too much work. “Why don’t you just go to the store and buy it?”
A twinkle sparked in Daniel’s eye. “Because that wouldn’t be as much fun.” From the corner of his suitcase, Daniel pulled out a carving project. He handed over what looked like a miniature wooden buggy in progress. Leanne examined it.
Daniel held up an uncarved block. “There’s a horse in this piece. You just can’t see it yet.”
Leanne looked the carving over skeptically. “And you think he’ll actually like that?”
Daniel nodded. “I can understand why you might not. But he will.”
Leanne thought of her kid brother, Jay. Video games, computers, and science kits—that’s what the Jaybird would like. “My brother always gives me a list a mile long and there hasn’t never once been a horse or a buggy on it.”
“We could make him one,” Daniel suggested.
Leanne sighed. Daniel just didn’t get it. He didn’t know Jay-Jay, not at all.
A thickness came over her throat. She tried to rub it away. Man, she missed that kid brother of hers. Forget how nerdy he was or what a pain in the patooty he could be. She just wanted to see his pudgy little face.
Her parents floated through her mind. She ached for them most of all. Being away from them sure was a hard lump to swallow, like taking one of those big chalky vitamins that stuck side-to-side on the way down. The poke of being apart just wouldn’t leave, no matter how she tried to wash it away. Whatever. There was no way she could let any of that show.
She heaved a sigh and handed the carving back to Daniel. “Thanks, but...don’t think I’ll be seeing my brother this year.”
Charity watched as Aunt Hope rifled through her bedroom closet. Colorful sweaters and print dresses hung across the bar. There were also quite a few pairs of jeans. Actually, except for the white blouse, piping, and buttons, the Troubadour’s dark green jumpers were just about the closest thing in there to an Amish dress. They even included a matching white apron.
Aunt Hope pulled one of her uniforms out and held it by the hanger. “You think?”
Charity looked it over. It wasn’t as bad as other skirts she’d seen in town, but it was definitely shorter than she was used to wearing.
Give it a chance.
She held the uniform against her body. “Ooh,” she cringed. It would hit just above her knee.
Everything in her wanted to help out at the café, but she couldn’t help feeling torn. How could she wear this without feeling completely self-conscious? “Oh, Aunt Hope... I don’t know.”
“I really do remember that feeling, Charity.” Her expression had understanding written all over it. “You’ll get used to it.”
Charity folded the uniform over. “Won’t people stare at my legs?”
Aunt Hope lifted the apron’s laces. “It’s not exactly a fashion statement. Actually, you’ll get more stares in what you’re wearing right now. And hey. At least it’s a solid color.”
Charity perched on the bed. “To be honest, it just feels like...like I’d be violating some kind of...” Charity stopped. What they were talking about went far beyond the appropriate length for a woman’s skirt. It was about much more. It was about the woman underneath the skirt, and who it was that she’d decided to be at her heart.
Then again, the last thing Charity wanted to do was to make Aunt Hope feel bad about the choices she had made. This was a skirt-length she wore all the time, apparently without a second thought. She searched Aunt Hope’s face with concern. “Can you tell me something?”
Aunt Hope sat down beside her. “Sure. Anything.”
“You were raised Plain,” Charity started, “just like we were.”
Aunt Hope nodded. “That’s right.”
“You left all of us, but was it more than that? Did it mean leaving your faith, too?”
Aunt Hope took Charity’s hand in hers. “Oh, Sweetie, no. Not at all. I didn’t leave my faith.”
It was hard to understand, but still... What a relief it was to hear those words. “You didn’t?”
Aunt Hope smiled softly. “Oh, I guess I ‘ran around’ longer than I should have at first, and it must have seemed to my brother that I’d gone completely off the rails, but then... You know what I found out? See, Charity, I found out that God... He’s so much bigger than I used to think. He’s all over Amish Country, yeah. But turns out He’s all over the place, here in the English world, too.”
Charity’s mind clouded. “I do know that. They teach us to respect people of other faiths. But being Plain people... The Bible, it talks about coming out from the world, about being separate.”
“You know, it might surprise you, Charity, but I still read my Bible most every day.”
A weight lifted off Charity. “You do?”
Hope nodded. “The same Bible that talks a
bout being separate, it also says to be in the world but not of it.” Hope opened the worn Bible on her nightstand and flipped through its pages. There were underlines and highlights. Little notes extended into the margins. “Look here, it says ‘Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel.’ Jesus’ words. Not mine.”
Never once had Charity questioned what she’d been taught. But seeing the words of her Lord, there in red amongst the black and white, she could hardly find room to argue.
Hope set her Bible aside. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s just that different people get different marching orders. Maybe you’re called to stay inside and I’m called to stay out. And if I’m in pants or in my uniform or in my footie pajamas that have holes in them, it doesn’t matter. I guess I’ve made peace with that. It’s all good.”
Still unsure, Charity took it in. “You go to the English churches?”
Hope smiled. “I go to the same one as Myrna. Ivan sings in the choir, too—more of a joyful noise, really. But trust me, Charity. No matter what anybody says, you have not been to church till you’ve gone at least one time with Myrna.”
Charity took a seat in the church pew between Daniel and Aunt Hope. Her breath felt shallow in her chest. The sanctuary alone was a far cry from anything she’d ever seen. For starters, the place was much larger than the home church where they gathered every other week.
Vaulted ceilings with exposed beams reached toward the sky. Colored light shone in through intricate stained glass. The way those windows were pieced together almost reminded her of a quilt. Festive Christmas decorations were all about the sanctuary. Tiny white electric lights twinkled on a tree covered with handmade ornaments, all in white and gold. There were stringed instruments and a piano, an organ, even drums.
Mostly, though, it was the crowd. Charity turned to look behind them.
Hundreds were already there; more streamed down the aisles. Singles, families, couples of all ages—people of so many races gathered together. Just as Hope had prepared her, the women were dressed up in ways Charity would never describe as plain. The men were in everything from business suits to blue jeans. Some of the ladies wore fancy hats, while others left their heads uncovered. Still, there was something that seemed to set these people apart from the masses she’d seen before in Manhattan. It was the smiles on their faces.
