Little Amish Matchmaker (5 page)

Isaac sized up the dollar bill, turning George Washington’s head the same way it was imprinted on the Pepsi machine. He held his breath as it gobbled the dollar, then whirred softly, and with a clattering sound his green and red can of Mountain Dew rolled into the little tray.

Expertly, he popped the top, and turned to see Catherine Speicher watching him.

I
T WAS UNSETTLING, SORT
of.

Teachers were teachers in the classroom, dressed a certain way, always professional, sort of untouchable, set apart.

Here she was, standing in the bright December sun, her hair as light as an angel’s, wearing a black coat fancier than the one she wore to school, with a red scarf thrown loosely over one shoulder.

Isaac held his Mountain Dew, then returned her smile, and said, “Hey, Teacher!”

She looked at him a moment longer, and for one mortifying second, he thought she was going to hug him.“Isaac! It’s good to see you!”

“Yeah. You, too. You buying a horse?”

She laughed, adjusting her scarf.

“Actually, I am helping at the tack shop today. My friend Liz helps her dat when they’re busy before Christmas.”

“That’s nice.”

She hesitated for only a second, then asked, “Are you here by yourself?”

“No, I came with Dat and Sim.”

Was it his imagination, or did her face change color only a bit? Perhaps it was the red scarf that gave her cheeks that glow.

He’d have to find Sim, which he accomplished in short order, weaving his way in and out of the crowd, searching the seating area where you could pretty much find someone easily, the seats stacked up the side of the room like bleachers at English peoples’ stadiums.

There he was.

Isaac plopped himself in the seat beside Sim, and said, “Catherine Speicher is helping her friend Liz at the tack stand.”

That got his attention.

He looked very nice, with that narrow-brimmed straw hat he wore, turned down in the front and back with a piece of rawhide knotted around the crown instead of the black band that belonged there traditionally. A lot of the youth didn’t wear hats, but Sim was older, a member of the church, and Dat’s ways were deeply ingrained and respected.

Maybe, though, Catherine wouldn’t match. For one instant, this flashed through Isaac’s head. She was definitely not quite like Sim, and maybe Sim was right that he didn’t stand a chance.

No, you just couldn’t think along those lines. God wasn’t like that. You just took a chance, went ahead and asked the question to see what happened.

“So, are you going to ask her for a date?” he asked, after a long swallow of the sweet soda.

“No, Isaac.”

“Why not?”

“Because.”

“That’s no answer.”

“Go away.”

“Oh, come on, Sim. You big ‘fraidy cat. Just go down to the tack stand and act like you need a new halter, and when she hands it to you, say, ‘Could I come see you on Saturday evening at 8:00?’”

“It’s not that easy!” Sim hissed. “And don’t talk so loud.”

Isaac found Tyler, the neighbor boy, who was horse-and-buggy Mennonite. He wore jeans and a thick coat with a zipper and a narrow-brimmed gray hat. Tyler talked with a different accent, although it was the same Pennsylvania Dutch that Isaac spoke.

They clambered up on the wooden fences, perched there and watched the horses milling about. Tyler said the horse dealers drugged the ponies so everyone thought they were safe, and once the drugs wore off, some of them were wild and vicious. Isaac said Dat never bought ponies at an auction, and Tyler said that was smart.

They got to the food stand early, and bought cheeseburgers and French fries and more Mountain Dew. They tapped the glass ketchup bottle hard and a whole glug of it clumped on to their fries, but that was fine with them. They loved ketchup.

They talked about school and Christmas and sleds. Someone stopped at their table, and Isaac looked up to find Catherine Speicher with a tray of food.

“May I sit with you? The tables are all full.”

“Sure.”

Isaac slid over immediately, and she sat beside him.

“I’m starved; no breakfast.”

She ate hungrily, saying nothing. Tyler’s father came to get him, so that side of the table was empty, until Sim came in with his lunch and slid in opposite them.

Catherine stopped eating, then, and got all flustered and acted so dumb Isaac could not believe it.

Sim took off his hat and asked if they’d prayed. Catherine shook her head. They bowed their heads for a short while, then Sim began eating his ham hoagie. He had coffee, too, which seemed awfully mature. Isaac was glad, him being so confident and all.

They talked, and Catherine’s face turned pink, and then it turned a greenish-white, and sort of leveled off to the usual color as she finished her roast beef sandwich. Isaac sat in the corner and drew down his eyebrows and made “Ask her!” motions with his mouth, which did absolutely no good.

They talked about the snow and school, and who went to which crowd, all having names the way the youth did nowadays. There were Eagles and Pine Cones and Hummingbirds and what not. The wilder youth had their own group; the more conservative ones their own as well. Some of them had rules and were parent-supervised, which turned out well. Sim was with the Eagles, but not the same group as Catherine, since she was so much younger and all.

Oh, she and Sim could talk all right. Endlessly. Same as the night they fixed the water pump.

Well, this was enough. Sim wasn’t even close to asking her for a date, so what was the use talking about all this other stuff? Who cared if there was a singing here, or a supper crowd there, or who was marrying who after Christmas?

Just when Isaac was seriously thinking of sliding down beneath the table and crawling out over their feet, Dat came by, looking for him. Catherine blushed again. She said “Hello,” very politely, answered Dat’s questions respectfully and then let Isaac out of the booth.

Isaac could see the pure elation on Sim’s face when Dat said he bought a pair of Belgians, and would Isaac like to ride home in the truck with him?

When Isaac looked back on his way out of the dining area, Sim was leaning forward with that intent look of his, and if he wasn’t careful he’d have to have his back adjusted at the chiropractor’s office to put his head back in place.

But Sim just wasn’t getting anywhere, that was the whole trouble.

At home, Isaac decided to talk to Mam about the impossibility of the whole situation. It was Saturday afternoon, and she was taking five loaves of whole-wheat bread from the oven. Her gray apron was pinned snugly around her ample waist, covering the front of her dark purple dress. Her covering was large and white, the wide strings pinned together behind her back to keep them from getting in her way as she moved effortlessly from table to stove and back again.

There were four pie crusts cooling on the countertop, so Isaac broke off a tiny piece. Mam yelped and came bustling over, saying, “
Doo net! Doo net.
(Don’t) They’re for Barbara, for church. Don’t touch them. I’m making coconut cream.”

“Never chocolate,” Isaac muttered.

Like a fluffy, warm comforter, her heavy arm enfolded his shoulders as she steered him to the refrigerator and opened the door, proudly producing a wonderfully high chocolate pie, crowned with an amazing amount of whipped cream and chocolate shavings.

Isaac turned his face to his mother’s.

“For us?”

So often, these wonderful concoctions that Mam made on Saturday afternoons were for someone else. Chocolate layer cakes, loaves of bread, creamy vanilla pudding were usually all “for church.”

“For you, Isaac! Just for you!” Her words were better than Mountain Dew. What a mother!

“Mam, did you really bake this chocolate pie for me?”

“Yes, for you.”

Love looked and tasted exactly like that pie. It was cool and creamy, rich, the chocolate neither too light or too bitter. He ate two wide slices, then asked Mam what she thought of Sim asking Catherine Speicher for a date.

Mam’s eyes opened wide, she threw her hands in the air, then folded herself into a kitchen chair and said, “Good lands! You make me weak.” She shook her head.

“He likes her. He just doesn’t have the nerve to ask her for a date,” Isaac said, scraping up the last of the chocolate pudding with his fork.

Mam said there was more to it than that. Dates had to be prayed about and God’s leading felt. It always took patience. She wasn’t even aware of the fact that they knew each other, and besides, Sim was older, and she thought the teacher a bit fancy. For us, she said.

Isaac told her that had absolutely nothing to do with it, look at him and Calvin. Mam nodded and said maybe that was true, and that Abner Speicher’s family was a nice family. It was just that Abner wasn’t too good with money, and now he was sick in the hospital. She made that clucking sound.

Isaac told her money has absolutely nothing to do with it either. Did God check out money before he put two people together?

Mam wagged her finger at him and said he better watch it, he was getting too big for his britches. She would talk to Sim about this, he needed to be careful, Catherine was … then she didn’t know what to say.

Isaac shrugged into his chore coat, slapped his straw hat on and went to start the chores. Sim was batty as a loon. He was either whistling or looking as if he would burst into tears at the slightest provocation.

Isaac ignored him.

Even when Sim showered, shaved, dressed up and left with his sorrel horse and buggy, he ­ignored him. He didn’t talk to Mam about it again, either.

In the morning he tumbled out of bed and did all his own chores, plus Sim’s, when Dat told him Sim was attending church services in another district. Well, that was a fine thing to do. Why would he go off to another church district if Catherine Speicher was in this one? So much for the budding relationship today.

But as these things went, Isaac forgot about Sim, dressed in his Sunday black suit with his white shirt, heavy black felt hat, gloves and boots. Isaac went with Dat and Mam to church at Johns. John was married to his sister Barbara, Bennie’s mother.

By the time all the women had been seated on their side, and the men on the other side, and it was finally the boys’ turn to file into the warm basement, his toes felt like 10 nuggets of ice. He was cold and sleepy and not in the mood to sit on that hard bench for three hours. Isaac slumped forward and put his chin in the palm of his hand, until he caught Dat’s eye. Dat drew his eyebrows down and shook his head slightly, the sign of ­disapproval.

So Isaac snapped to attention, held his corner of the heavy
Ausbund
, and tried to look attentive and alert. The slow German hymn rose and fell, babies cried, fathers got up to take them to their mothers.

When the minister stood to begin the sermon, Isaac listened to his voice, hearing the usual German verses he heard most Sundays, followed by an explanation in Pennsylvania Dutch. The real German (
hoch Deutsch
) was still read and used in the sermon, but explained in the everyday Pennsylvania Dutch as well, for the children and those who found the German difficult. It was, indeed, an old and precious tradition, to be well-versed in both German and Pennsylvania Dutch. It came easy to Isaac, so he understood and recognized most everything from both sermons.

He fell asleep once, the minister’s face swimming in a sea of black-clad men, and he knew nothing for awhile. He was dimly aware of his head drooping to the left. He was so glad to sing the last hymn, then shuffle his way out to the blinding white snow, free at last.

Isaac ate at the last table, after the men and women had already eaten. His stomach was so painfully empty that his head hurt. It was the most cruel thing to eat breakfast so early and dinner so late. He spread a thick slice of homemade bread with soft cheese spread made with white American cheese and milk cooked together, piled on a liberal amount of ham, speared two red beets and a sweet pickle and began to feel instantly ­better.

Teacher Catherine was pouring coffee at the boys’ table, dressed in a purple dress and a white organdy cape and apron. Isaac thought what a golden opportunity Sim was missing. When she poured his coffee, Sim could ask her for a date, very quietly, of course, but he could.

If Sim never got it accomplished, it sure wasn’t for lack of his younger brother’s great ideas. Or his subtle scouting skills, for that matter.