Anna stood. "It's not right to keep a secret. We're supposed to all love each other and take care of each other."
"But you keep secrets," Mary Katherine pointed out. "You won't talk about what happened with—"
"Stop prying!" Anna retorted. With that, she flounced out of the room and shut the back room door with more than a little enthusiasm.
Leah threw up her hands.
"Look who I ran into," Naomi said as she walked into the shop a little while later.
Jamie strolled in wearing hot pink streaks in her hair, a mile-long scarf in rainbow colors wrapped around her neck, and a short plaid dress.
"Well, guder mariye, it's good to see you. How are classes going?" Leah asked her.
"Great. Thanks so much for working with my schedule this week."
She walked over to look at what Mary Katherine was weaving on her loom. "I like the pattern. What's it going to be?"
"Tote bags with leather handles from Sam. He has a leather shop."
"Neat. Say, we're still on for tonight, right?"
"Tonight." Mary Katherine searched her memory. "Oh, tonight." She bit her lip and blushed.
Jamie pretended to scowl. "Oh, tonight," she mimicked. Flopping into a nearby armchair, she pulled out the knitting she kept in a basket. "Well, good thing I don't get my feelings hurt easily."
Mary Katherine must have made some movement because Jamie glanced over at her and tilted her head. "You okay?"
She nodded. "Just had a bad headache most of today."
"Well, then, a nice, relaxing evening with the girls will cure that."
"Girls?"
"Naomi and Anna are coming, too. Won't that be fun?"
"Schur."
"Wow, the enthusiasm." Jamie glanced up at Leah as she walked by with a bolt of fabric. "Leah, would you like to come over to my apartment tonight, have some pizza, and watch a movie?"
She smiled and shook her head. "No, thanks. I'm looking forward to a quiet night and a book."
"Peeeet-za," Jamie teased.
"Definitely not pizza before I go to bed," Leah said with a laugh. "You young people don't get heartburn from such things, but people my age do."
"Stop talking like you're old," Anna said. "I don't like to hear you talk like that."
"Well, I seldom do, so you're safe. But pizza and a late night—no, I grew out of that a long time ago." She turned to Anna. "Will you help me get together the deposit?"
"If I must," Anna said, sighing melodramatically. But as she passed them, she winked. Her moods—when she had them— were mercifully short, Mary Katherine couldn't help thinking.
Mary Katherine wanted to beg off. She was in no mood to be with anyone else. She just wanted to go home, hide under the covers, and feel sorry for herself.
"Come on, do you good to get out," Jamie murmured.
Maybe it was her imagination, but she thought she saw sympathy in Jamie's eyes.
"What do you know?" she asked her. "Have you heard the gossip, too?"
"I talked to Ben today. He's worried about you and Jacob."
16
Men!" Anna shook her head.
"Tell me about it," Jamie said. "And here I thought they were better in the Amish community than the ones I know. Why, Ben—" she stopped when she realized that Mary Katherine, Naomi, and Anna perked up.
"What about Ben?" Anna wanted to know.
"Nothing. He and I are just friends," Jamie said quickly.
"That's what Mary Katherine said about her and Jacob," Naomi observed. "But now here she is crying because we asked her if she and Jacob had a fight."
"I don't want to talk about it," Mary Katherine told them. "It hurts too much."
"It'll help to talk it out," Jamie said. "Really."
"It just doesn't make any sense."
Jamie laughed derisively. "Men don't, but go ahead."
"He knew how I felt about him but the minute he heard gossip he believed I was going to go off with Daniel." Angry now at the memory, she pulled a tissue from the box Jamie had brought to her at the first sign of tears.
She blew her nose. "And he has no reason to be jealous of Daniel."
"Sometimes men don't need a reason," Naomi said quietly.
"Well, he just ruined yesterday."
"By fighting with you?"
Mary Katherine nodded. "I had this good news to tell him, and he just ruined it all."
"What is it?" they clamored. "What is it?"
The doorbell rang.
"Oh, honestly!" Jamie exclaimed. "Hold that thought!"
Picking up her purse, she went to the door and looked through the security peephole. "What—?"
"Don't open it if it's not someone you know!" Naomi called to her.
"Oh, I know this person!"
When she opened the door, Ben stood there with a long-stemmed rose atop two pizza boxes.
"I told you this was Girls Night In," she said, frowning at him. "You're not charming your way in with a rose."
"I do my own charming," he told her, leaning forward to kiss her on the tip of her nose, startling her. "But the rose is from Jacob. It's for Mary Katherine, and there's a note attached."
"He better not be here, lurking in the hallway," she warned, stepping out into the hall to survey it.
"He's not. Anyway, here are your pizzas." He shoved it into her hands. "I'll see you tomorrow. Lunch and a movie?"
"Sure. How much do I owe you?"
"It's on me. Or maybe Jacob. Maybe I'll make him pay for delivering everything."
Leaning in the doorway, he waved to them. " 'Night, ladies. Enjoy the pizza!"
Jamie shut the door. "Well, that was clever." She looked at Mary Katherine. "If Jacob had been out there, would you have wanted to see him?"
She shook her head. "No."
Jamie held out the note and the rose. "Here."
"I don't want it."
Her eyebrows went up when Jamie tossed them into her lap. "Don't take it out on the flower. Enjoy it—it doesn't deserve to go in the trash can."
Sighing, Mary Katherine opened the note. She read it quickly. Jacob apologized and asked to see her. She frowned. She wasn't ready to forgive him. Shoving the paper into her pocket, she lifted the rose and sniffed its rich perfume. When she realized she was brushing its petals against her cheek, she stopped and blushed.
Jamie smirked. "C'mon, everyone, grab a plate and let's eat." She carried the pizzas into the kitchen and opened them up. Breathing in the scent, she grinned. "I've heard of doghouse flowers—you know, the ones guys send after they've done something they need to apologize for. But I never heard of doghouse pizza. Guess there's a first time for everything."
Each of them took a plate piled with several slices of pizza and a can of soda into the living room. Anna won the right to choose the movie—a DVD of Tangled—and soon Rapunzel was letting down her hair, song filled the apartment, and everyone became absorbed in the story.
Mary Katherine was reminded of that night in the pizza place when she'd dressed in Englisch clothes and left her hair loose—no tightly drawn bun, no pristine kapp. Jacob had seemed to be fascinated by her hair, staring at it.
The fairy tale played on. The one on the television screen, that is. She wasn't so sheltered in her community that she didn't know about fairy tales. She'd read a number of them in books that she'd checked out from the library bookmobile. Maybe she'd even had a few girlish dreams of a handsome man falling in love with her.
But in the end, she was too practical to really believe in them. She didn't understand the Englisch fascination with such. Wasn't it better to look at love the way the Plain people did? You didn't wait for some handsome stranger—you dated the boy you'd grown up seeing in church, in schul, at singings and other social events. You knew you'd be his partner in his life's work—and he in yours if you chose to work as well as raise your kinner—so you made certain that your love ran true and deep and it wasn't just some story you'd made up about him.
Just ho
w true and deep had Jacob's love been for her? she asked herself. If you loved the way you should, you didn't jump to conclusions about the other person. Did you?
Jamie got up from the sofa to get more pizza. "Something wrong with yours? I got pepperoni, your favorite," she whispered.
"I'm not very hungry," she confessed.
"Come on, let's go into the kitchen and talk."
"Shh," Anna hissed, her attention on the television set.
Mary Katherine got up and followed Jamie into the kitchen. "I really don't want to talk anymore. It just hurts too much."
Jamie gestured at a chair and took a seat. "I want to try out something I learned in Psych class this semester. Psychology class," she explained.
She narrowed her eyes. "You don't cut up animals in that class, do you?"
Jamie laughed. "No, that's biology and we do it on the computer. No animals are harmed in biology class at the college— actually, in a lot of those classes in other colleges and high schools."
She took a deep breath. "Okay, let's do this little experiment. When's the last time you felt this bad? Who hurt you?"
"You know the answer to that," Mary Katherine said. "My father."
"So you're feeling like you did something wrong when you didn't?"
Mary Katherine nodded, not sure why Jamie was asking such questions.
"You said once you didn't want to date because you weren't sure if you were going to join the church. But do you think maybe you were afraid of being hurt by a guy? I mean, if you didn't feel loved by your own father . . ."
She was right, of course. Although she'd really said as much to Jamie, Mary Katherine knew it was true for her, too. Sighing, she nodded.
"Do you think you overreacted?"
Mary Katherine stared at her. "You're not saying I shouldn't be upset with Jacob?"
"No, no, of course not. I'd tell him to his face he was a jerk. Anyone who sees the two of you together can see that you love him." She patted Mary Katherine's hand. "And anyone can see that the man is head over heels in love with you. I think he's a little insecure and maybe jumped to conclusions, reacted to that nosy woman."
"What's he got to be insecure about?"
"I don't know. But from what you told me, it sounds like he is. I think you should ask him about it." She grinned. "Maybe not until you cool down. But you owe it to yourself to find out and then see if the two of you can work it out."
"You're right. And you're right about another thing. Remember you said I really didn't want to leave the community, because I was Amish? Well, I'm going to take instruction to join the church."
Jamie didn't even blink. "I knew it!" She clasped Mary Katherine's hands and squeezed them. "It feels like a good decision?"
"It feels like a good decision."
She glanced at the pizza box. "I want another slice of pizza, but I guess that would make me a little piggy, wouldn't it?"
"Ya, a little oinkette," Mary Katherine agreed with a straight face.
Jamie stared at her and then she laughed. "So, the little Amish girl is starting to get her sense of humor back. That's a good sign. "
"I'm not little, but I'm an Amish girl," she said, grinning. "We'll see how it goes with the Amish boy when I talk to him. I don't intend to be a pushover just because I love the man."
"You go, girl!"
Anna came into the kitchen. "Have you guys eaten all the pizza?"
"Not even close. And there's ice cream in the freezer. I think we should celebrate, don't you?"
"Celebrate what?" Naomi asked as she put her empty plate in the sink.
"Mary Katherine taking classes to join the church."
"Oh, I always knew she'd do it," Anna said airily.
"Oh, you did, did you?"
"Of course. What kind of ice cream?"
Jamie winked at Mary Katherine as she got up to look in the freezer. "There's Rocky Road and butter pecan."
"Rocky Road," said Anna.
"Butter pecan," said Naomi.
"Mary Katherine?"
She grinned at Jamie and her cousins. "I think I'd rather have butter pecan than Rocky Road."
Jamie hugged her and handed her the carton of ice cream. "Smooth roads ahead, huh?"
"Ya," Mary Katherine said fervently. "Please, God, smooth roads ahead."
Her mother wasn't home when Mary Katherine stopped by.
She checked inside the house and the barn and discovered both her parents were gone. When she'd talked to her mother the day before, she hadn't said anything about plans, but then again, Mary Katherine hadn't said she was going to drop by.
She supposed that was what she got for assuming that her mother was just waiting for a visit.
Disappointed, she bit her lower lip and decided to wait around a little while. As she sat in the rocker on the front porch, she thought about how she'd sat with Jacob on his porch and absorbed the serenity of his farm.
The plants he'd brought her mother were still ranged around the porch. The warming spring breeze brought the heavy sweet scent of the hyacinth drifting to her and made the yellow heads of the daffodils and narcissus nod.
It wasn't planting or harvesting she'd disliked or any of the work, really—well, she could be very happy if she never had to milk another cow. What she'd grown to hate was being under the harsh, overly critical scrutiny of her father.
Restless, she decided to make good use of her time. Going to the barn, she found a shovel and set about digging holes in the flowerbeds and planting the spring flowers.
A half hour later, all of the plants had been de-potted and set into the holes she'd dug, and the rich, fertile soil patted around them. She sat back on her heels, smiling at her work.
She turned at the sound of a buggy pulling into the drive. As the vehicle moved forward she blinked, when she saw that her father was in the front seat but it was her mother who held the reins.
Interesting. She didn't think she'd ever seen her mother drive the buggy when she was accompanied by her father.
Her mother stopped Ned, the horse, handed her husband the reins, and climbed out of the buggy. "Mary Katherine! I didn't expect you."
She stood, and her mother's eyes widened as she caught a glimpse of the flowers. "Why, look at what you've done!"
"I hope you don't mind."
Her mother kissed her cheek. "Of course not. I'll be busy enough with my kitchen garden soon."
"Did I put them where you wanted? Because I can move them—"
Miriam bent to touch the cheerful face of a purple pansy. "Don't you dare. They're perfect." She straightened. "Can you stay for supper?"
Mary Katherine shook her head. "Not tonight. I—" she brushed at the dirt on her hands. "I need to do something. Maybe another night."
"Well then, come inside and clean up. Leave the shovel and the pots. I'll have your father store it all away later." Her mother put her arm around Mary Katherine's shoulder to lead her inside.
"I have something to tell you first."
Miriam stopped walking and went very still, then turned and stared, stricken, at Mary Katherine. "What's wrong? Mamm?"
"Nee, she's fine."
"You." Her arm fell away from Mary Katherine's shoulder, and she sank down on the porch steps. "You've come to tell me that you're going to leave." Her lips trembled.
"Nee," Mary Katherine said, and she sank down on the steps beside her mother and took her cold hands in hers. "Just the opposite. I talked to the bishop about joining the church."
"You did what?" Her eyes wide, Miriam pressed her fingers against her lips, looking as if she was afraid of what she was hearing. "But I thought—"
"I took the advice of someone I know, and things started getting clearer. And I also didn't let the bishop keep me from where I belong."
Miriam threw her arms around her and hugged her. "Oh, thank you, God!" Tears flooded from her eyes. "I don't have to lose you."
Something moved in her chest. "You were afraid you'd lose me?"
Miriam nodded. "It was God's will that I had one kind, one precious daughter. I just didn't know how I'd bear it if—if—" Sobs shook her slender body as she searched the pockets of her dress for a tissue. Finding one, she wiped her eyes and took a shaky breath. "I feel like God's given me my daughter twice."
Mary Katherine felt a rush of guilt. Oh, she knew her mother loved her, but she'd been so caught up in her own feelings, she hadn't thought how her mother would feel if she left. She realized she'd thought of her mother as . . . her mother, not a person with her own fears and insecurities and wishes.
The front door opened. "Miriam, supper's ready—" He stopped when she turned and he saw her tears. "What's wrong?" He looked at Mary Katherine. "Have you upset your mamm?" he thundered.
Miriam jumped to her feet, and it must have been a case of too much, too soon, for she swayed on her feet. Isaac rushed down the steps and clasped her around the waist.
"No, no, I'm fine," she insisted.
After a long moment, he released her, but she stayed in the circle of his arms. "Our daughter here just told me she's joining the church. She's joining the church, Isaac!"
Their eyes met, father and daughter, and the glare faded from his. "Really?"
"Really," she said, nodding. She frowned when she remembered what the bishop had said about her father going to speak with him, but when she opened her mouth to say something, he shook his head, glanced at her mother, and then sent her a silent message.
They'd never communicated properly, but in that instant she understood that he didn't want to talk about it then because it would upset her mother.
"That's gut news," he said in his usual brusque tone.
So it wasn't the enthusiasm her mother had displayed. Well, her dat had never displayed emotion like her mamm. Sometimes, growing up, she'd wondered why she got the parents she had—well, parent, mostly. Her father was so harsh, so critical. If God truly loved her, why hadn't He given her a father who'd love her like He supposedly did? Didn't the Bible say we were made in His image?
And her mamm. She had always reminded Mary Katherine of a scared little mouse, scurrying around looking anxious about pleasing her mann.
Her Restless Heart Page 21
