A Plain Love Song (41 page)
Gott, help me.
RaeAnne strolled through the door on the girls’ side, a pink and white striped bag slung over one bare shoulder. She’d pulled her long, wet hair back in a ponytail. Her tanned face glistened with sweat under a sprinkling of freckles. She tugged at a red bathing suit top that covered little, but didn’t seem concerned about cut-off jean shorts determined to ride low on her hips. “Bye, Kyle, see you tomorrow,” she called over her shoulder to some unseen person. “Unless I find something better to do.”
Keeping his gaze on rubber flip-flops that matched her fire-enginered toenail polish, Matthew slid from the buggy and stepped into her path. “Can I talk to you a minute?”
“I don’t know.” She snapped her gum with a loud
pop-pop
. “You gonna look me in the eye or do you have a foot fetish?”
He forced his gaze to her face. She looked as if she’d be happier to see a wild hog barreling toward her. “What do you want?”
“I’m a friend of Adah Knepp’s.”
“So I assumed.” Frowning, she shifted her bag to her other shoulder. “What do you want?”
“I need to find out where she is.” A gaggle of girls rushed from the building, all skinny arms and legs, chattering and giggling over a lone boy who marched ahead of them, head bent as if ignoring them, the red of his face announcing that he wasn’t succeeding. Matthew shifted
toward the buggy. RaeAnne followed. “I mean, I know she’s in Branson. I want directions to your house there.”
RaeAnne climbed into the buggy without an invitation and planted herself on the seat. “I’ve been on my feet in the blazing sun for the last six hours.” She patted the seat. “I won’t bite. Sit.”
As if she could tell him what to do in his own buggy. Still, he climbed in and sat a careful distance away. Up close she smelled of flowery shampoo, recently applied deodorant, and bubblegum. “Can you give me directions to your family’s home there in Branson?”
“You’re going after her?”
“Yes.”
Chomping on a wad of gum so big her cheek bulged, RaeAnne undid the clasp holding her hair back and began to comb her fingers through it. Droplets of water flung themselves at Matthew, tiny spots darkening the blue of his work shirt. “How are you getting there?”
“What do you mean?”
She waved fingers with nails painted the same shade of red as her toes. “You’re not driving this thing all the way to Branson, are you?”
“I’ll hire a driver.”
“Just you going?”
Why the twenty questions? He curbed his impatience. He wanted something from her. Apparently to get it, he would have to answer her questions. “No. Adah’s brother Daniel and my sister Molly want to go with me. The bishop and her parents have given us permission to go talk to her.”
“Are you her boyfriend?”
Matthew studied his hands. He could’ve done a better job of washing them before making this trip into town. He concentrated on scrapping dirt from under his fingernails, but the question still burrowed under his skin. “I don’t know.”
“Then why are you going after her?”
“For her own good. She needs to come back to her community. To her faith.” He looked at RaeAnne head-on. “She needs to be with her own kind.”
“You’re so full of it.” RaeAnne hooted. “What a crock.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re going after her because you have a thing for her.”
“That’s private.”
Wrinkling her freckled nose, RaeAnne blew a bubble and then popped it with her thumb and forefinger. “You really think she’ll want you after being with Jackson?”
“What do you mean?”
“Jackson is a force of a nature when it comes to girls.”
Dread knotted in his stomach. Her words only fueled his unspoken fears.
Steady. Steady
. “Adah’s not a girl.”
“Not like me, you mean.”
“I don’t know anything about you. I just know Adah.”
“Okay.” RaeAnne wrapped her hair in a knot and secured it with a scrunchie. “Hire me.”
“What?”
“To drive you. It’ll be easier for me to show you where the house is. It’s on the lake. It’s not in Branson exactly and traffic is terrible.”
Matthew couldn’t believe he would even contemplate the possibility. With her wet hair, scrawny frame, and wad of bubble gum bulging in one cheek, she looked about twelve. “Do you even have a driver’s license?”
“I’m eighteen. Of course I have a driver’s license.” Her lower lip puffed out in a pout. “And access to a car.”
“You want to go to Branson?”
“I miss my brother.” Emotions flitted across her face. A sadness Matthew found surprising. Something like longing. Despite all her bluster, the girl was lonely. “And I don’t want him to make a big mistake.”
“A big mistake?”
“Getting all tied up in knots over an Amish girl is a big mistake. Even I know that. You all don’t usually mix with our kind.” She picked at a hangnail on her thumb. “And I’m tired of listening to my parents fight about it. They’re gonna end up divorced and it’ll be Jack’s fault. He couldn’t live with that.”
RaeAnne Hart was smarter than she looked. Not book-learning smarts, but the kind that came from living. His judgment of her as
shallow based on her looks and her kin convicted him. He owed her an apology she wouldn’t even understand. “Okay.”
“You’ll let me take you? I’m gonna be like one of those Amish drivers.” Now she sounded like a little girl again. “When do we go?”
“Today?” He wanted to go now. Right now. “Can you ask your parents today?”
“Who said anything about asking my parents?” She hopped from the buggy and turned to look up at him. “I’ll be at your place in two hours. Be ready to go.”
“Hey, you need to ask—”
“Let me take care of my parents. Two hours. Be ready.”
A
dah hesitated at the Country Notes dressing room door. The array of clothes and boots and hats and doodads she didn’t recognize made the long, deep room seem small. Two pink sofas faced each other in one corner and a long dining room table with six chairs took up another corner. In front of her, a counter stretched from one side to the other completely covered with jars, tubes, fingernail polish, lotions, and perfumes. The Dillon sisters had a lot of stuff.
In between the furniture stretched racks filled with dresses, blouses, jackets, and pants in every color. Reds, blues, purples, shimmering greens, sunshine yellow, tangerine orange, and creamy pink. Rhinestones glittered and sparkled in the bright overhead lights that hung low from the ceiling. She’d never seen so much clothing anyplace besides a department store.
Instinct screamed at Adah to run. She put her hand on the doorframe to steady herself. On the drive over she told herself over and over again,
You can do this. You can do this. Last chance. Last chance. Do it. Do it. It’s now or never. Do it for Jackson.
I can do this.
But should she? That was a different question. She shivered against the icy air blasting from overhead vents. She had to do this for Jackson. She owed him that much.
Maisie Dillon grabbed her arm, her long red nails digging into
Adah’s wrist. “It’s okay, I promise. Mac said you were a little skittish, but that’s okay. We don’t bite. Ain’t that right, Dottie?”
Shiny red hair cascaded down Dottie Dillon’s back, matching the deep red hue of her suede jacket. When she moved the long fringe that decorated the shoulders and the back of the sleeves rippled. “Bless your heart! Aren’t you just the sweetest thing ever.” She pursed lips painted a matching shade of red and tilted her head to one side, making her long silver and gold earrings jingle. “The audience will love you, especially the boys!”
“I’m not—”
“You have gorgeous skin.” Maisie Dillon chimed in as if she didn’t hear Adah’s feeble attempt to deny any desire to be loved by an audience—especially the boys. She stalked around Adah, the heels of her red and blue cowboy boots making a
tap tap
sound on the burnished wood floor. “And your hair is like spun gold—what I can see under that little cap doohickey. Anyone ever tell you that, honey?”
No one had. Or ever would. Not back home, leastways. Where Adah desperately wanted to be at this very moment.
“A little lipstick, some mascara, we’ll make those baby blues pop.” Maisie’s eyes narrowed. She wore enough mascara and eyeliner for a horde of Englisch women. She followed her sister in the same tight circle around Adah. Her jacket was black but had the same long red fringe as Dottie’s. “Daddy told us to fix you up right nice and that’s what we aim to do.”
“You haven’t heard me sing yet.” They needed to stop circling. They were making her dizzy. She hadn’t eaten breakfast or lunch. “You shouldn’t go to any trouble for a girl who might get cold feet.”
“Don’t you worry yourself none. You’ll give yourself wrinkles.” Dottie waved a hand as if to wave away Adah’s concerns. “Daddy heard your demo. He loved it. He said you sing real pretty. Once we get you fixed up you’ll be so gorgeous you’ll be chomping at the bit to get on the stage and show off your good looks and that sweet voice.”
The knot in Adah’s stomach ballooned.
Be not conformed to this world.
How many times had she heard Luke and Silas say that? Now she truly knew what they meant. “I don’t think I—”
“Come on, girl, you look like you’re about to lose your lunch.” Maisie patted a padded red stool situated in front of the enormous mirror that ran the length of the counter under an equally long row of oversized lightbulbs. “Take a load off. We’ll do the rest.”
Adah’s pale, sweaty face stared back at her, her blue eyes huge against her pasty white skin. “I’d rather not—”
“Daddy says he doesn’t want to change up your clothes too much.” Dottie bustled across the room and took a long blue dress wrapped in a plastic bag from the rack. “But this color would be so good on you.”
“I brought an outfit Jackson got for me.” Adah remembered with a start the bag clutched to her midsection. “A Western shirt and pants with sparkling things on them.”
How could she wear pants in front of a bunch of people? Her heart pounded. Her palms were so slick the paper sack was dark and damp. For Jackson. To give him his chance. She would do this.
“No, no, Daddy wants you to look like the sweet, innocent Amish girl you are. Cowgirls are a dime a dozen around here.” Maisie held the dress up, her gaze going from the garment to Adah and back. “We can have it sized for you. You can use the same apron, I suppose—gives you that innocent homegrown look.”
She ripped off the plastic and dropped it on the floor. “See, it’s perfect.”
Adah fingered the gauzy material. It felt silky under her chapped, dry hands. “It’s so fancy.”
“Fancy!” Dottie chortled. Maisie joined in. “It doesn’t have a single rhinestone and it’s all one color. It’s as plain as we get around here. It’s perfect. It’ll make the color of your eyes pop!”
Maisie picked up a tube and unscrewed the lid. “Close those eyes now, sweetie.”
The two women took turns painting and brushing and fluffing until Adah didn’t recognize herself in the mirror. The pain in her stomach blossomed until it became entwined with the throbbing in her head. Everything felt wrong. Her joints ached with a pain the likes of which she’d never experienced before. Her jaw clenched and her hands balled in fists. Did God recognize her?
Do you really want to strut
around on a stage with goop all over your face in front of a bunch of strangers ogling you?
The memory of Matthew’s scornful face as he uttered that question smacked her across burning cheeks.
Did she? Was it worth it?
She opened her mouth, but no words escaped. Her tongue felt swollen, her throat closed.
“Honey, you need to relax.” Dottie leaned back, arms crossed, surveying her handiwork. “You’re wound up tighter than a jack-in-the-box. How about a cup of tea with a dollop of cream and a shot of whiskey?”
Adah shook her head. Pain shot through her neck and ran down her spine.
“Then it’s time to put on the dress so we can see how much to take it in.”
“No. Thank you, but no.”
“Okay, sweetie. For now.” Maisie tucked one arm through Adah’s. “It’s so fun having a sweetie like you to gussy up. Like having a little sister.”
“Oh, she’s a lot nicer than a little sister.” Dottie took the other arm. “Up you go. Time for rehearsal.”
Adah’s legs were planks of wood. They refused to bend. “Now?”
“No better time than the present.” Maisie beamed.
Together, Maisie and Dottie propelled Adah out the door and down the long corridor that seemed to stretch farther and farther, filled with people talking and talking and rushing to and fro, back and forth, but not seeming to get anywhere.
“There you are.” A man cut in front of them, forcing the sisters to slow and leaving Adah teetering on legs that seemed to belong to someone else.
“Not now.” Dottie waved him away. “Can’t you see we’re helping the new girl get ready to rehearse?”
Dottie edged Adah onto the expanse of a stage so massive she couldn’t see the other side. Stars sparked behind her eyes. The lights were so bright overhead, so intense, she couldn’t see. She stood on the edge of the world and stared out at a void so deep and so dark, it
seemed to have no end. Half a dozen men who looked enough alike to be brothers stood in clusters toward the middle of the shiny wooden floor. One held a guitar, another a bass, and then a fiddle and a banjo. A man sat behind a pile of drums, tossing sticks into the air and catching them like a juggler. A band.
