An Amish Wedding (29 page)

“It’s a great party.”

Priscilla pulled her eyes from his and went back to the task at hand. “
Ya
, it is.
Danki
for coming.” She pushed one of the blue bowls an inch or so to the right, making sure it was the same distance from the pickle tray as the other bowl.

“What are you doing?” Chester folded his arms across his chest, still grinning.

“What?”

“You’ve been moving those bowls not even a quarter-inch back and forth. I think they are perfectly spaced now.”

Priscilla felt the heat rush from her neck to her cheeks. “I wasn’t doing that.”

“
Ya
, you were.”

“No.” She folded her arms across her chest, mirroring his stance. “I wasn’t.” She pulled her eyes from his and kicked at the grass with her bare foot.

He was right. She needed things to be in perfect order, but she wasn’t going to apologize for it. She enjoyed organizing things. She’d recently alphabetized recipe cards for Naomi, and her mother was thrilled when Priscilla organized her sewing supplies, grouping her thread colors together and sorting material by color and fabric. Other people appreciated her need for things to be in order—but Chester was making fun of her for arranging a couple of bowls.

“Are you gonna be at the singing on Sunday?”

Priscilla found his eyes and wanted to look away, but couldn’t. “Uh,
ya
. I usually go.”

“How about going with me?”

She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Chester Lapp was older, handsome, and asking her to be his date for a Sunday singing. She’d be wound up like a top in preparation for it. Finally she took a breath and spoke. “I can’t. But
danki
for asking me.” She turned and darted off before he could say anything more.

C
HESTER TIPPED BACK HIS HAT AND WATCHED
P
RISCILLA
hurry across the grass. Even in her haste, she was as graceful as a snowflake riding the breeze on a winter morning. He pulled off his hat, scratched his head, then replaced the hat, all the while keeping his eyes on her.

He didn’t know that much about her. Beautiful, yes. She was petite with strawberry blond hair, and her blue eyes gleamed when she talked. It seemed like she’d blossomed into a young woman overnight, and she was old enough for him to ask out now. He’d accepted Naomi’s invitation to the party hoping to get to know Priscilla a little better. Maybe asking her to a Sunday singing was too forward. But Chester knew that he had more in common with Priscilla than she realized.

While Chester was talking with Naomi, he’d casually mentioned that he planned to go skydiving before he was baptized into the faith. Naomi had burst into laughter. When she came up for air she said, “My sister has always wanted to do that. We think she’s
ab im kopp
, but she says she will do it before she’s baptized.”

Chester didn’t know any other young Amish woman who would consider such an endeavor, though it was perfectly allowable prior to baptism. This Priscilla King intrigued him.

P
RISCILLA BALANCED HER YOUNGEST SISTER
, S
ARAH
M
AE
, on her hip as she chatted with her guests. Her best friend, Rose, walked up and whispered in her ear, “I need to talk to you.”

Priscilla excused herself, and she and Rose eased away from the crowd.

“I just overheard Chester Lapp telling Naomi that he asked you to a Sunday singing.” Rose thrust her hands onto her hips. “And you said no! Why?”

“I don’t know him.” She thought about the way Chester made her uncomfortable earlier, teasing her about the bowls.

Naomi walked up to them then, her lips pinched together in a frown. “Did you really decline an offer from Chester?”

“Why are you trying to fix me up with him? We barely know each other.” Priscilla set Sarah Mae down in the grass beside her. “Good looks aren’t everything.” She raised her chin, not wanting to admit that Chester made her nervous.

“Too bad.” Naomi tucked a strand of loose hair beneath her prayer covering. “Because the two of you have a common goal.”

Priscilla rolled her eyes. “What might that be?”

“You both want to go skydiving. I don’t know of any other two people in our district who share such a crazy goal.” She shrugged. “I just thought it might be worth a mention.” Naomi picked up Sarah Mae, grinned, and walked away.

Rose’s eyes grew round. “You’ve wanted to go skydiving ever since Barbie and Elam’s wedding.”

“That doesn’t mean that I should go on a date with Chester Lapp.” Although she had to admit, he’d suddenly grown more interesting.

Priscilla had tried and tried to find someone who would jump out of a plane with her. Ever since she’d attended her
Englisch
friend’s outdoor wedding, where a man jumped from a plane and right into the reception area, she’d dreamed of doing that herself. To freefall through the air, soar like a bird . . . such freedom. Priscilla had talked to the man with the parachute for nearly an hour—and she’d left with a business card and phone number to call if she ever wanted to jump.

“I gotta go.” Rose gave her a quick hug, wished her happy birthday again, and headed to her buggy. Priscilla stayed where she was, watching Chester talk with her parents across the yard. When he walked away from them, Priscilla hurried toward him.

“Chester! Wait!”

Chapter One

T
HREE YEARS LATER

H
ICCUP . . .

Priscilla covered her mouth with her hand—not so much to stifle the intermittent spasms in her diaphragm, but to keep from exploding at her five-year-old sister. She took a deep breath as she studied the scene before her, then closed her eyes and blew the air from her lungs in an effort to calm herself. It didn’t work.

“What have you
done
, Sarah Mae?” She stepped forward to where the little girl was sitting in the middle of the sewing room.
Hiccup .
. .

Sarah Mae’s big brown eyes filled with tears. “What’s wrong?” She blinked a few times, her bottom lip quivering. “Why are you using your mean voice?”

Priscilla took another deep breath, hiccuped again, then rubbed her tired eyes. “I’m not using a ‘mean’ voice, Sarah Mae.”

“
Mamm
said I could have these scraps to make a dress for Lizzie Lou.” Sarah Mae lifted up the finely sewn blue material for Priscilla to see.

It was the left arm of Priscilla’s wedding dress, perfectly stitched and ready to attach to the body of the outfit she planned to be married in. In all her nineteen years, she’d never crafted a finer long sleeve.

“See, I made armholes for Lizzie Lou.” Sarah Mae nodded toward her doll, which was propped up against a chair to the left. The rag doll with flowing brown hair went everywhere Sarah Mae went. And Lizzie Lou had many outfits—dresses for working in the fields and going to church service, along with brown, black, and white aprons. Lizzie Lou also had two
kapps
and a black jacket.

Priscilla cringed as Sarah Mae pushed her small fingers through slits on either side of the sleeve. “Sarah Mae . . .”
Hiccup .
. . She clutched her chest and tried to control her voice. Then she pointed with one hand toward a pile of scraps to her right. “Those are the scraps
Mamm
meant for you to use.” She glanced about at the pieces of material scattered around Sarah Mae until she spotted her other sleeve. She squatted down next to her sister, picked it up, and poked her fingers through the holes on either side.

“That’s Lizzie Lou’s Sunday dress.” Sarah Mae tucked her chin, then lifted her watery eyes to Priscilla’s.

Priscilla handed what used to be the sleeves of her wedding dress back to her sister. She scanned the area around Sarah Mae, hoping and praying that the body of her dress was still intact.

“Sarah Mae,” she said softly, following another hiccup, “there was another piece of sewn material, a much larger piece. Where is it?”

Sarah Mae stood up, tucked her chin again, then walked across the room. “Lizzie Lou wanted a hammock and a blanket.”

“Sarah Mae! No!”

The dress was cut in half, one piece tied between two chairs, the other piece on the floor below the “hammock.”

“How could you do this? That was my wedding dress, Sarah Mae! Not scraps!”

“I’m sorry, Sissy! I’m sorry!” Sarah Mae threw her little arms around Priscilla’s legs and looked up, tears pouring down her face. “I’ll make you a new dress for your wedding.”

Priscilla patted Sarah Mae on the back as she thought about the time she’d spent on her wedding dress. “It’s all right. I’ll make an even better dress.” She forced a smile for Sarah Mae. Four weeks until the wedding. It was doable. It might not be as finely stitched as the one that now served as two dresses, a hammock, and a blanket for Lizzie Lou, but it could be done. “Maybe Lizzie Lou needs to get married in her new dress,” she mumbled under her breath.

“Sissy?” Sarah Mae pulled her arms from around Priscilla’s legs and stared up at her sister. “I’m sorry.”

“I know you are, Sarah Mae.” She realized her hiccups were gone. She leaned down and kissed the little girl on the cheek. “You stay here and play. I’m going to go help
Mamm
with supper.”

And after the meal and cleanup, Priscilla would go meet Chester at the phone shanty that bordered both their homesteads—as she always did on Tuesdays and Thursdays. She smiled. She was the luckiest girl in the world to be marrying Chester Lapp. If this was the worst thing that happened to disrupt the wedding she’d been planning for the past few months, she could live with it.

C
HESTER ARRIVED AT THE SHANTY ABOUT TEN MINUTES
early, anxious to hold Priscilla in his arms. In only a month she’d be his
frau
, and there’d be no more sneaking off to the shanty.

He leaned up against the structure, which resembled an old outhouse—a tall, wooden boxlike building that housed a telephone and a small stool. Most families had phones in the barns these days, but his father, along with Priscilla’s father and the Dienners and the Petersheims, chose to keep with tradition, holding on to the shanty they had shared for years.

As he leaned against the weathered wood, he looped his thumbs beneath his suspenders and watched the sun setting in the west, leaving a warm glow atop the fields stretched before him as far as he could see. Tall green grass speckled with brown was evidence of the recent first frost and seemed a prelude for a hard winter.