Plain Jayne

by Hillary Manton Lodge

I doubted this kind of thing ever happened to Seymour Hersh.

  I dreamed about aliens that night. They landed in front of the farmhouse, their flashing saucer lights causing everyone concern. Shane captained the ship, although the aliens had trouble communicating with him. Instead of the helm, Shane stayed in the party area of the ship, where the aliens served orange fizzy drinks and made Star Wars references.

  They clapped to an odd kind of rhythm with their webbed alien hands. At some point, I realized I wasn’t listening to the clapping of extraterrestrials but someone knocking at my door. I sat up and reevaluated my surroundings. The tiniest hint of morning light was peeking through the windows.

  The knock sounded at my door again. I shook my head to clear it. “Come in.”

  Sara poked her head in. “Could I come sit?”

  I waved her in. “Sit.” My mouth tasted awful. I yearned for an orange Tic Tac. “What’s up?”

  “I told David to be more careful with his flashlight,” she said, pulling lint off her apron. “The boys always come to the girls’ windows after everyone goes to bed. That’s how we have dates. That’s how my parents had dates.”

  “Your parents are perfectly fine with you crawling out of windows with boys they don’t know?” My parents would have had joint hernias, and before this conversation I would have considered them less conservative than Gideon and Martha.

  “Oh, they know David.”

  “Do they know you’re together?”

  “No.”

  “How many girls come home pregnant?”

  Sara’s eyes widened. “None that I know.”

  I wondered how many she didn’t know about, but I kept that question to myself. “I’m sorry if I startled you last night.”

  She giggled. “David might not come back.”

  “I’m truly sorry,” I repeated.

  “There are other boys,” she said, with a shrug that was almost coy.

  I played along. “Oh?”

  “There is Milo Stutzman. And Henry Mullet.”

  I pressed my lips together to ensure a serious response. “You have choices.”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me about your grandmother,” I said, swinging my feet around. The floor was freezing. “Why does she have a car?”

  “Grandma is Mennonite.”

  “Oh.”

  “She joined the Mennonite church when I was little, she and my grandfather.”

  “And your family still has contact with them?” I didn’t say, “unlike Levi,” but she caught my meaning.

  “They joined a Mennonite church. Because they did that, we could still see them. Not Grandpa anymore, though. He passed on. But Levi joined a Baptist church. Our bishop didn’t accept it.”

  “But the Mennonite church is acceptable?”

  She nodded.

  “Do you miss your brother?”

  Sara nodded again. “Very much. Everyone thought he would marry Rachel Yoder. I heard that she wouldn’t leave with him. Levi wouldn’t talk about it.”

  “How often do you see him?”

  She shrugged. “When my dad’s not home, he’ll come visit. Sometimes…” she leaned in closer, “I visit him in town.”

  “Really?” I couldn’t hide my surprise.

  “At the shop?”

  Sara gave a secret smile. “Grandma takes me.”

  Ida was more of a rebel than I’d given her credit for. “So he’s stayed in touch with your grandmother too?”

  “Oh, yes. Everyone but Dad.”

  “Your dad’s angry?”

  “Hurt, I think. But it’s not my place to question.”

  At that moment my stomach gave a long, loud commentary on the state of its condition.

  Empty.

  “I think I’m ready for breakfast. You?”

  Sara grinned, and the rest of the day began.

  Chapter 6

  I called Levi after breakfast, using the cell number he’d given me earlier. “Your grandmother drives a car and your sister sneaks out at night,” I said. “There’s so much you didn’t tell me.”

  “Is everything okay? Are they treating you well?”

  “They’re fine so far. Why didn’t you warn me that things between you and your dad were weird?”

  “If I tried to warn you about every family struggle, we’d be talking for a very long time.”

  “Oh. Well, then. Anything else you want to fill me in on while you’ve got me on the phone?”

  He sighed. “My mother is wary of outsiders. Amos and Elam rarely speak to me if they have a choice.”

  “Why the tension between you and your dad?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “Try.”

  “Cutting me off is the Amish version of tough love. The reasoning is that if I’m separated from everybody, I’ll eventually relent and return.”

  “But you aren’t separated from everybody. Your mom and your sisters talk to you. Ida too.”

  “They figured out I had no intention of returning, ever. I think my mom decided she still wanted me as a son.”

  “That’s good, I suppose.”

  “And as for Sara sneaking out, that’s how they date.”

  “She told me. Still doesn’t make sense to me.”

  “Imagine having seven or more siblings teasing you about the guy you’re dating.”

  I winced. “Good point.”

  After breakfast, the younger children went to school, the men went to work, and I shadowed Sara with her chores. The Burkholder household attained a level of clean I doubted I could ever aspire to. We scrubbed the floors before moving on to the laundry.

  Never again would I take washing clothes for granted—Sara and I had to start their washer using the gas generator. To dry the clothes, we pinned them to a line of twine strung across the washroom. “If we hang them outside in the wet, they’ll turn colors and smell bad.”

  “I’ll bet,” I said, pinning the shoulder of one of the boys’ shirts. “Mildew is gross.”

  “Mildew?”

  “They get greenish-grayish patches?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s mildew.”

  “What is it?”

  A part of me wondered how on earth she didn’t know about mildew, and then I reminded myself that she’d stopped attending school at fourteen. “Like mold. It’s a fungus—it starts out with spores and it likes to grow in warm, damp environments.”

  “Spores?”

  I bit my lip, thinking of how to phrase it in a way she’d understand. “Fungus seeds.”

  “Fungus seeds,” she repeated, mulling over the concept. “I understand.”

  “And they’re nasty to get out of clothes. I lost a load of towels that way—left them in the washer. Stank so bad.”

  She pinned up a dark dress. “You talk like Levi.”

  “How so?”

  “You both seem to understand the world better. You’ve learned things. Gone to school.”

  I wanted to tell her she could go to school too. I mean, there had to be some sort of program that would help her catch up, wouldn’t there?

  But I didn’t think today was a good day to make waves in the family. “You can learn things outside of school.”

  “I’ve learned everything I can here,” she said.

  The bitterness in her voice took me aback. “Do you want to learn more?”

  She seemed to catch herself. “I want to learn how to be a better person. To serve my community, to serve God.”

  I shrugged. “I’m probably not the best person to talk to when it comes to God, but my guess is that it’s possible to learn and serve at the same time.”

  “Maybe in the English world,” Sara said, pinning the last pair of pants to the line with a kind of sad finality. “In the Amish world, there is only serving.”

  “We’re going to Grandma’s,” Sara told me that afternoon. “There is room for you to come if you like.”

  “I’d love to.” I put down the laundry I’d been fo
lding. “What’s going on at Ida’s?”

  Martha secured a bolt of purple cloth beneath her arm. “Quilting.”

  I almost froze in place. “Quilting? You mean, like actually making quilts?”

  The women gave me twin blank looks.

  “Yes,” Sara said. “Don’t some English women quilt?”

  “They do, some of them. Just not any of the women I know.”

  I dropped my cell phone into my apron pocket, on the off chance that Shane got through. Reception had been spotty during the day.

  Martha hitched the horse to the buggy, and then we set off bumpily down the road. People waved at us as we drove by; Martha nodded, Sara waved back. I probably looked as though I had missed my calling as home-coming queen.

  Along the way, Sara told me about the quilts. Friends and family members often gave quilts as wedding gifts, but the market for Amish-made quilts in the last ten years had skyrocketed to the point where the women felt no qualms about meeting during planting season and working on quilts to supplement the family income.

  I fingered the bolts of cloth as I listened. There was the purple cloth Martha had carried, which reminded me of a Sunday school lesson about Lydia. I couldn’t remember who Lydia was or what she did, only that she dealt in purple textiles. She was probably a believer—most of the women in the Bible were.

  A second bolt shimmered yellow in the pale afternoon sun. “You don’t wear yellow, do you?” I asked Sara.

  She shrugged. “Sometimes the younger children do. Why?”

  I pointed to the fabric.

  “Oh,” she said. “English women like light colors in their quilts. The lighter quilts sell faster than the darker ones.”

  “Makes sense.” That also accounted for the pale blue fabric that reminded me of the last robin’s egg I’d found as a child. “How far is it to Ida’s?”

  “She lives on the outside of town, on the other side.”

  “So…we have to drive through town?”

  Sara nodded.

  Martha remained stoic.

  As we neared town, the other drivers’ stress levels rose. Some passed us in a swoosh of metal and air, honking as though they were auditioning to be New York cabbies. The buggy shuddered each time.

  Others just sat behind us as if we were leading a procession. I suppressed the urge to repeat my homecoming wave.

  Once we got into town, people stared. Some stared openly, others used techniques usually reserved for checking out members of the opposite sex. A few people whipped out their cell phones to take pictures. Sara ducked her head. Martha’s gaze remained fixed on the road ahead of her.

  Suddenly it occurred to me that people were also taking my picture. A giggle started deep inside and grew to a laugh. Sara turned around. “What?”

  “They’re taking pictures of us,” I said, another peal of laughter threatening to break loose.

  Sara’s expressions darkened. “It’s hard to stop them.”

  “But they’re taking pictures of me too! Me! And I’m not even Amish!” Another cackle escaped. “The joke’s on them!”

  She smiled. “I suppose so. But you’re giving them something to photograph: a laughing Amish woman.”

  “Sorry.” I sobered. “I’m just not used to dealing with the paparazzi.”

  Except for the cars in the driveway, Ida’s house and the Burkholder home could have been one and the same. A couple other buggies were parked in an adjoining field, attended by bored-looking horses. Martha pulled up next to them.

  I saw that hitching posts were actually in the field and watched as Martha tied up the horse.

  It answered my question about how one parked a buggy without an emergency brake.

  The sound of women’s voices met us on the porch before we even made it into the house. Once we were inside, I paused.

  How did so many women fit in here? It was like the circus Volkswagen with the clowns. And not only were the women packed in like sardines, they had quilts pulled taut in giant frames.

  Crazy. I assumed the fire marshall had no idea what went on in normally quiet Mennonite homes.

  I watched from a safe spot near the wall as Martha and Sara moved into the crowd. They greeted, they hugged, they commented on fabric. After a few moments, Sara stopped, her eyes searching. When she found me, she wove through the masses toward me and grabbed my hand. “Come and sit with us! You can cut squares.”

  “You don’t want me cutting squares,” I said, shaking my head and trying to free myself.

  But Sara had a farm girl’s grip. “Anyone can cut squares.”

  “I tried making a nine-patch in fourth grade. I was the only kid whose project looked less like a quilt and more like Jackson Pollock. And I really mean Jackson Pollock—not one of his paintings.”

  “You’re not in fourth grade anymore,” Sara retorted, all but shoving me into a chair. I received a few calm smiles, as if reporters got harnessed into sweatshop labor all the time. “Here are your scissors,” she said, giving them to me handles first, “a template, and fabric.” She set the purple bolt in my lap. “Make sure the corners are nice and crisp.”

  And with that she left.

  I struggled through the first few squares. I couldn’t get the fabric to cut without it folding oddly on the scissors, resulting in a less-than-straight edge of the square.

  Or rectangle. I began to think that maybe Sara needed to be more open minded when it came to the desired shape of the quilt pieces. What was the template but a constraint against creativity? She might think she wanted squares, but had she really considered rectangles? Rectangles opened up so many possibilities. They were easier on the eyes, visually.

  At least, that’s what the guy at Video Only said when he wanted me to spend the money on a widescreen TV.

  “You need to use the edges of the scissors,” a voice said to my right.

  I jumped and turned. With the complete commotion all around me, I hadn’t noticed Ida taking a seat next to me. “Sorry…”

  She waved a hand. “Didn’t mean to startle you. You might try moving the fabric down so it’s closer to the tip of the scissors. I think that pair has a dull spot in the middle.”

  I obeyed, moving the fabric down the blade before making the snip. A clean-cut piece dropped into my lap. “Thank you!” I said, picking up the fabric and eyeing its perfection. “That’s much better.”

  “You’ve never sewn before,” she observed.

  “Never.”

  “It’s useful. Even in your world, there’s wisdom in knowing how to sew a button back on.”

  I couldn’t tell her I usually chucked clothes once they began to shed their buttons or grow holes.

  I cut another square. This time it actually looked like a square. “This is fun, though. And I enjoy learning new things.”

  “How is my grandson doing?”

  Okay, that was a serious change in subject, although I suspected this line of questioning to be her original intention. “Fine, I guess. I talked to him this morning.”

  “He’s a good boy, Levi. He had a lot of opportunities to do other things, but he chose to stay near the family that rejected him.”

  I hid my surprise that she would discuss such a personal subject in such a crowded room. Although you could barely hear your own thoughts, much less another conversation. “Why did he leave the community?”

  “I don’t know how he stayed so long. He was so curious, so smart. He wanted to know how the world worked, and he couldn’t understand why no one else did. The teacher at the school used corporal punishment, at the time, and Levi was strapped for asking too many questions. He read better than many adults, and he would read the family Bible. He asked the bishop once if King David got into heaven even though he led armies.”

  “What happened?”

  “The bishop told Gideon, and Gideon had to discipline Levi, or else the community would have looked down on him for being a lax father.”

  “Is the community that involved?”


  “Everyone has to keep up appearances. Watch the squares—you don’t want them too small. There needs to be seam allowances.”

  “Seam allowances?”

  “About half an inch, since they’ll be sewn together.”

  “I get it.” No, I didn’t.

  “After Levi left he went to school and got himself a fancy education on scholarship money. Worked for a big company in California before he came back here and opened his shop. He’s been here ever since.”

  “Why do you think he came back?”

  Ida arched an eyebrow. “To be close. To be available.”

  “Available in case…” I followed Ida’s gaze to where Sara stood, overseeing one of the frames and examining the seams.

  Of course.

  He wanted to be close to help his siblings get out, if they wanted.

  I looked around at the Amish women filling the room. They weren’t highly educated, but these women appeared happy. Industrious. Savvy in their craft. Aside from the overzealous watchdog community, why would anyone ever leave?

  I asked Ida as much.

  “I left because my husband left, and I didn’t want to be apart from him. Not everyone is cut out to be Amish. Still…”

  I waited.

  “Well, I was a little surprised about Levi’s leaving, at least concerning Rachel.”

  Rachel?

  Ida pointed to another woman.

  This woman looked around my age, and resembled what the rest of the world would consider the ideal paragon of Amish beauty.

  There wasn’t a trace of makeup on her face, but she didn’t need it. Her skin was clear, her cheeks, rosy. Her teeth were white and straight, her hair a rich chestnut. She looked like the sort of woman who followed the rules and always did the right thing.

  “Were she and Levi…”

  “They were never engaged, though everyone thought they would be.” Ida shook her head. “But I don’t know that Rachel would have been able to leave.”

  My chest tightened as I looked at Rachel and realized she was everything I wasn’t.

  Chapter 7

  The buzz of my phone interrupted my jealousy of Rachel. “Excuse me,” I said to Ida. I disentangled myself from the pile of squares before picking up the phone.