by Lexi Whitlow
“Shit,” Nathan huffs. “She’s coming this way.”
She’s coming this way and she hasn’t broken eye-contact with me. By the time she arrives at our table, she’s smiling like a little kid at the county fair. There’s something about her smile that’s irresistible. It’s innocent with the smallest hint of wicked.
“You two look like just what I need to solve a small problem I have,” she says, putting her hand on the chair between me and Nathan.
Nathan and I share a look. An uneasy feeling sweeps over me. I’ve had issues with women who want to solve a little problem. Those problems usually involve a large portion of my checkbook. And I’m done with that.
Nathan shrugs at me, and I look back to the girl. The woman. No girl has what she has. Confidence, a spark behind those intelligent eyes. A plan, a secret.
“May I have a seat?”
“By all means,” Nathan says, pulling her chair out.
It’s not every day a lovely young woman walks up to you in a bar unsolicited, so my natural sense of paranoia peaks.
“You,” she says, staring me in the eye boldly but with an artlessness that’s both charming and disarming. “You’re very handsome. You’ll do really well.”
Nathan grins at me, lifting his drink, eyes flashing. He’s loving this. I have no clue what’s going to happen next.
“I’ll do?” I ask, trying to read her expression. Her eyes glitter and crackle again. “What did you have in mind?”
“A small business deal,” she says.
Oh shit. Is she …
“Not like that.” She rolls her eyes adorably. “Much simpler. I’d like you to have dinner tonight with me and my very weird parents. All you have to do is play along like you’re my fiancé for the evening. You’ll need to be polite, gracious, and above all, smitten with me. I’ll pay you five hundred now, and another twenty-five hundred dollars at the end of the evening.”
Nathan is doing his best to keep quiet. He stifles his laugh with one hand over his mouth.
She barely blinks. She’s very matter-of-fact; quite direct. I like it, even if this is the craziest pitch I’ve ever heard in my life. This woman shouldn’t need to pay some strange guy in a bar to go on a date with her, even if it is with her ‘very weird’ parents.
“Fiancé?” I repeat, stifling a laugh. “How long have we been together?”
She grins. “A little over a year,” she informs me. “I’ll tell you everything you need to know in the cab ride over. They’re staying at the Iroquois on 44th street. I can even pay your cab fare home.”
Nathan sees the telltale signs of doubt in my eyes. I certainly don’t need the money, but it is a good deal. The whole being out with a real woman thing might even get Nathan off my back.
“You know that conversation we were having,” he says to me. “I checked your calendar. You’ve got nowhere to be tonight.” He puts down his glass and addresses the girl. “He’d love to have dinner with you and your parents,” he says, making my decision for me. “And by the way. I’m Nathan. This handsome guy in the suit here is Justin. And you’re…?”
She smiles broadly, putting out her slender hand to shake; first Nathan’s then mine. She’s got a solid grip.
“I’m Sarah,” she says. “And I’m just tickled to meet you both.”
No one in New York says that. She’s got a vague lilt in her accent, with round O sounds buried in her words. I can’t place it. If I had to venture a guess, I’d say she was from some hick town in the middle of nowhere. But she’s dressed like a business executive, wearing an expensive Cartier watch of rose gold.
All her jewelry is rose gold.
Maybe her father’s in the mafia. That would make for an interesting evening.
“We should go,” Sarah says to me. “We have a big night ahead and I have a lot to catch you up on.”
“I don’t know…”
“Go on, handsome,” Nathan says. “Get out of here.”
What the hell? I’ve got nowhere to be. I was going to go home and scour the news for more failing companies to ravage. This will be a fascinating diversion.
“Good,” Sarah says, matter-of-factly. She nods and motions for me to follow her.
The Lyft ride to midtown in rush hour traffic offers half an hour of the most unaccountable tale I’ve ever heard.
Her father isn’t mafia, or a celebrity, or in the witness protection program—all of those possibilities ran through my imagination.
He’s Amish.
“Amish?” I repeat, incredulous. “You don’t look Amish.”
Sarah rolls her eyes. “I’m escaped Amish. I left home at sixteen. I came to the city and met up with some really great people. I graduated high school from Winterhaven Acadamy, then went to City College for computer software engineering. I finished my MBA at Columbia four years ago.”
She doesn’t look old enough to have done all that four years ago. I tell her as much while the cab driver navigates us down Broadway toward the hotel.
“I’m twenty-eight. I’m plenty old enough,” she says with a humble smile. “Everyone thinks I’m younger. Good genes, I guess.”
“And what do you do now?” I ask this unaccountably pretty girl with pink tipped blond hair and lots of authentic, pink-gold bling, accompanying her MBA from Columbia.
“I run a company called PinkBook,” she says. “It’s a media company for women. It’s got everything from—”
“I know PinkBook,” I interrupt her. It’s a mid-sized social media and entertainment company catering to mostly professional women. “What do you mean, you run it?”
Sarah smiles, batting her long, strawberry blond eyelashes at me. “I mean I run it. I’m the co-founder and CEO. My college suite mates and I started it in our dorm room freshman year. We’ve done alright with it.”
I can’t believe my luck. Sarah of the pink-dyed tips and a runaway Amish girl is the founder and CEO of a publicly traded company worth a couple hundred million, last I heard.
“What do you do?” she asks, appearing genuinely interested. She has no clue who I am. Maybe she doesn’t read Forbes.
“I’m in recycling,” I say vaguely.
“That’s nice,” she replies. “Like aluminum cans and pop bottles?”
I give her a cryptic look. “Anything I can break down and resell. Sure.”
“That’s great for the environment,” she says. “You’re doing the Lord’s work.”
She’s Amish. I remind myself of that fact before she draws me in any more than she already has.
“So, you go to church?” I ask her directly. “You were raised in religious culture, so you must still go to church?”
Sarah laughs, shaking her head vigorously. “Oh, heck no!” she replies. “Not at all, much to my poor parents’ disappointment. No, I’m decidedly in the undecided camp. If there’s a God up there, and I’m not saying there’s not, but if there is, he doesn’t care what I wear or what books I read, or what kind of illumination I read by. He’s got bigger fish to fry.”
I laugh. “I guess you’re right.”
“I might be,” she says, shrugging. I catch that lilt of an accent again.
She coaches me on what to say about us when we meet her parents and cautions me not to swear or bring up religion with them. I’m to tell them—if they ask—that we’ll pick a date to get married whenever Sarah is ready.
“More important than anything,” she instructs me. “Be a gentleman. Call my father ‘sir’ and my mother ‘ma’am.’ When the check comes let him get it. It’s one way he exerts his authority.”
“I can’t do that,” I say, smiling coyly. “I’ve been waiting over a year to meet my future in-laws, I’m gonna pick up the check.”
“Don’t,” she insists. “My father invited us. It’s custom that the host pays. He’s an extremely traditional man.”
I shrug. “Whatever,” I say. “This is your fake fiancé meets the folks soiree.”
“And don’t shrug and say ‘
whatever’ either,” Sarah says as the cab pulls to the curb in front of the hotel. “It’s considered very disrespectful in their world.”
Once in the hotel lobby I straighten my tie and check myself in a big, gilt-framed mirror hanging nearby.
“You look nice,” Sarah says, slipping her arm into my elbow, getting close. “You’d look great in brogans and dirty overalls. That’s my fantasy,” she says. She looks at me and winks.
The restaurant is just a few steps away, and as we make our way to it, I feel Sarah’s tension rise.
“How long since you’ve seen your folks?” I ask.
“Five years,” she says, her voice brittle and thin. “My father is from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. He comes to see his parents and siblings once every five years or so. Before they leave, he and mother take the train from Philly to the city for a few hours. In ten years I’ve seen my mother twice. This is the first time my father has come. I haven’t seen him since I was sixteen.”
I realize now, this is a very big deal—far bigger than she let on in the cab.
I see them at the same time Sarah does. Her mother is plump, dressed in a blue and white dress with an apron in front, wearing a white bonnet covering her hair. I can see some resemblance to Sarah in her eyes, but that’s where it ends. She’s shorter than Sarah and weathered from the sun. Her father is tall, muscular, with a wiry salt and pepper beard and fierce blue eyes that drill straight through me as soon as he sees me with his daughter. His expression is as stern and the wide-brimmed hat he has on. Sarah’s mother’s eyes are kind, and already filling with tears before we even make our way to them. The two of them, standing stiffly in this fancy New York City hotel look like time travelers zapped in from another era. It’s almost comic, if it wasn’t so very strange.
It’s awkward at first, as we’re seated together near the back in a quiet corner of the busy restaurant. Sarah introduces me by the name I gave her—Benjamin Lucas—my middle and last name, rather than Justin. Justin Lucas is famous, and I’d just as soon keep him a secret for all of this.
“Sarah doesn’t write as often as I’d like,” her mother says, that same southern lilt lifting her accent. “But she told us about you and we’re happy to finally meet you.”
I do my best to return the sentiments without lying to egregiously. Before our first course comes her father starts in.
“What is it you do for a living, Benjamin?” he asks.
“Call me Ben,” I reply. No one has ever called me that, but we can start a new trend. “I’m in recycling. I buy things no one wants. Things that are broken. I salvage the good, discard the rest.”
He doesn’t bat an eyelash. “I do some of that too,” he says. “Scrap metal was profitable a few years back but there’s a glut of it now. It all went to China. My brother does some old house scavenging, but that’s drying up too. Must be a hard line to make a living in.”
I can’t help but smile. “I’ve done alright, sir. My operations are on a slightly larger scale.”
He nods at me. “Good. Do you own anything? Land is the thing. It’s the one thing the Good Lord isn’t making any more of. Land is the backstop. You own property?”
“Yes, sir,” I say. “I own property.”
“Good land though?” he asks. “Something with water? Good soil?”
I’m about to answer when Sarah pipes up. “He’s got a nice piece of farm and woodland in central Virginia. But we’re not farmers. We’re not ever going to be.”
I give her a sideways look.
I’m trying not to lie to her father, and she’s just making shit up as it comes to her.
Her father’s expression shows his shock at her interruption. He doesn’t glare at her so much as try to fathom her. He hasn’t seen her in a decade, at least. She’s not the same person he once knew.
“Mama, Hannah’s helping you in the bakery? What are Ruby and Jake doing? They must be almost grown.”
Her mother smiles sweetly, trying to ignore the tension at the table. “Ruby’s sixteen this year. Rumspringa. She’s at home. She bought a computer and a Toyota and she runs a stereo system in her room from the battery. She’s having fun, but still working in the bakery too. She and John Yoder go to the singings together. She’s told us she’s joining the church as soon as John asks her to.”
Sarah nods without expression. “And Jake?” she asks, her voice frail. “What’s Jake doing?”
I glance down and see Sarah’s hands folded neatly in her lap. Even though their folded, they’re still shaking.
“Jake’s got a vocation,” her father says. “He’s taken up horses with me, and bee keeping. He’s a natural with the honeybees. Fourteen-years-old and he runs seven hives by himself. He didn’t make the trip with us this year because he wanted to stay home and look after the bees. It’s May, and time to start splitting colonies.”
All this banter means something to Sarah. I can see it in her face. Her mother sees it too.
“Jacob’s got his fourth little one on the way. His wife, Mary is the sweetest thing. You remember her?”
Sarah nods. “I remember. Did they come with you to Lancaster?”
“No, dear. Not with three little ones and a fourth coming. Jacob wanted to, but her parents had something to say about it.”
By desert, Sarah’s father manages to regain the direction of the conversation. He addresses me once more.
“Benjamin, what faith do you follow?”
Oh shit.
“Father, please, let’s not—”
The older man holds up his hand to quiet his daughter.
Better truth than more lies.
“I’ve only ever been to a Baptist church,” I say honestly. “But I don’t attend church regularly. I’m not a religious man.”
I see him flex his fist while clenching his jaw. “And why is it you don’t go to church?”
Here we go. I’m probably going to blow this whole thing up. I can’t help myself.
“Well, sir, I see a lot of hypocrisy in the Church. I see the corruption of money. Big, ornate buildings made to gratify the tastes of the congregants, while outside, homeless, hungry people huddle on the sidewalk. People get dressed up in expensive clothes for church, then go home and play golf, while kids don’t have the money for breakfast or school clothes. That’s not the kind of religion I want to be part of.”
Sarah’s mother and father gape at me slack-jawed. I turn to Sarah, and she’s smiling at me.
She slips her left hand into my right, threading her fingers snugly around mine. Then she faces her parents. “And now you know why I love Ben. Isn’t he wonderful? Isn’t he wise?”
Her mother smiles warmly. “He’s quite the prize, daughter. In this world, where you’ve chosen to live, he’s rare.”
“I wish you’d convince her to cut that dye out of her hair,” her father states sternly. “And maybe raise the neckline of her blouse. Doesn’t it bother you that she shows so much flesh?”
While I’m on a roll, I may as well go for broke.
“I think Sarah is beautiful, just as she is. I’m lucky to be in the company of such a successful, confident woman.” I pause and look over at Sarah. “I think you two deserve a lot of the credit. You raised a bright, hard-working daughter who knows her own mind, and has never let convention get in the way of doing the right thing. That takes bravery. You should applaud yourselves for raising her that way.”
I have no idea where that speech came from. Sarah is smiling wickedly at me, so it must have been okay.
Sarah’s mother beams, then she almost weeps. She takes Sarah’s free hand in hers. “I’m glad you’re happy, dear. We just want you to be happy and live righteously. It’s hard to do that in this world, but with a good man to guide you, you can.”
Good Lord.
Sarah squeezes my hand so hard that it hurts. I’m fairly certain the CEO of PinkBook wasn’t looking for a good man to guide her.
After hugs and tears and firm commitments to write more of
ten, we leave Sarah’s parents and make our way toward the hotel lobby. Once on the street, she pulls an envelope from her purse.
“It’s all there,” she says. “Thank you. You did great.”
I regard the envelope and then her, alternating.
“No,” I say. “Hang onto that.”
A small furrow plows the space between her perfectly shaped eyebrows.
“See me again,” I say. “I want to see you again.” I take up her hand in mine, looking deep into those baby blue eyes. “I know this was a strange way to get to know one another, but what do we have to lose?”
“Absolutely not. This was a business arrangement.” She tries to hand me the envelope again.
“Dinner. One dinner. Without your parents.”
I can’t believe I’m asking her this. Tonight was the most bizarre night I’ve had since I was a little kid. Sarah’s looking at me like I have two heads and she’s not sure which of them to address. She stares at me blankly for a painfully long time, then, as quickly, she draws a pen from a side pocket of her purse. She takes my arm, shoving my coat cuff and shirtsleeve back, then scrawls a number above my wrist.
“If you call me, we’ll see,” she says, regarding me cautiously. She pauses, considering me. “I’ll think about it.”
“Do more than think on it,” I insist. “Count on it. Come out to dinner with me tomorrow. You’re the most fascinating woman I’ve met in years.”
“And I know a lady’s man when I see one,” she quips, smiling. “I know when I won’t hear from a man. And I won’t hear from you.”
She shakes my hand, that grip firm again. It’s clear that she intends this to be the last time she sees me.
Screw that.
“I’d like to kiss you now.”
Her blue eyes grow wide, and her breath hitches in her throat. The palest pink blush comes over her cheeks. She falters and then steps in closer to me.
“Okay,” she breathes softly. “Maybe…”
I pull her to me, circling my hand around her back while planting a kiss on those pert, cherry lips I hope she won’t soon forget. She tastes like fruit; pineapple and lime, and a little of the tart red wine she had with dinner. She’s soft and firm in all the right places; hot and chill and complicated in my arms. I kiss her hard, parting her lips with my tongue. Grazing her teeth, drawing her into me.
