Love Redeemed (20 page)

“You don't look fine.” A red blush crept up the neck of the man next to her, darkening an already dark tan. “What I mean to say is, something is ailing you. There's not a thing wrong with the way you look.”

He'd gone from sure of himself to a stuttering mass of embarrassment in a few seconds. Somehow Phoebe found that endearing. It had
been a long time since she'd really looked at the men who crossed her path. Her gaze had been for Michael only. The void in her chest where her heart had once resided twisted in a sudden, violent spasm. Michael might be gone, but he still had a fierce grip on her heart. “It's hard to imagine feeling better.”

“Before my family moved back from Indiana to Bliss Creek, my little brother's horse spooked and he fell off and broke his neck. He was twelve.”

He said it so matter of factly, Phoebe had to review the words in her head to make sure she'd understood. “How old were you?”

“Fourteen.”

“Does it still hurt?”

“I figure it always will. It's one of the reasons I came out to New Hope. Still looking for a fresh start, I guess.”

She'd figured that. How could it be any other way? “I'm sorry.”

“I'm glad it still hurts.”

“Why?”

“For the one thing, I never want to forget Liam. Also, it helps me remember my blessings. Every day is a blessing. Every day.”

She wouldn't have guessed from looking at his smiling face that Richard had ever experienced anything remotely like what she had been through with Lydia.

Or that Irene had, for that matter.

Gott, what are You telling me?

Richard took the drive in front of their house and kept going until he rounded the corner and pulled up along the clotheslines. Mudder was pinning Elam's pants to the line, a huge wicker basket at her feet. She pulled a clothespin from her mouth. “
Gudemariye
.”

Richard nodded in return and scrambled down from the buggy. He strode around to Phoebe's side before she could slip out on her own. “Down you go.” He held out his hand.

“I can get down myself.”

“You were a little unsteady back at the house.” He wiggled his fingers as if to say
take them
. “Edna told me to get you home safe and sound and that's what I plan to do.”

She swallowed, aware of her mother's gaze on them. “I'm fine.”

“You are.” Something in his gaze communicated to her a thought so different from her intent that she felt a burning blush start at the base of her neck and leap like wildfire across her face. With reluctance she allowed him to take her hand and settle her to the ground.

“You think you'll come back to the singings any time soon?”

She shook her head. “Nee.”

He doffed his hat in a gallant motion and headed back to the other side of the wagon. “Might be a good time to think about moving on.”

“Moving on?”

“Getting on with your life.” He hopped aboard the buggy and picked up the reins. “God's timing is everything.”

She watched as the buggy rolled away, leaving a cloud of dust behind it.

She didn't want to move on. She wanted Michael.

If her mother hadn't been standing in the yard, a pair of Daed's pants in her hands, Phoebe might have considered falling to her knees in that very spot where she stood. Instead she held herself still, her back to Mudder, listening. Trying to hear something, anything, in the air, now bereft of the slightest breeze.
Gott?

Nothing.

Chapter 16

M
ichael quickened his pace on the crowded, dirty sidewalk, dodging a couple holding hands and sharing a stinking cigarette. The old man behind him who smelled like beer and licorice seemed to be doing the same. Like a dark, skinny shadow, he'd been behind Michael ever since he left the motel room. When Michael turned left at the corner, the man turned left, his sneakers making a now familiar squeaking sound.
Following, following, following
, the noise said.

He couldn't be following Michael. Why would he do that? To ask him for money. To demand money. Michael didn't have much and he needed to make it stretch until he found a job. A good chunk had gone toward putting down two weeks' rent on his room. It seemed like a small fortune for a tiny room with a bed, a chair, a desk, a bathroom, and a tiny kitchenette. He wanted the kitchenette. If he continued to eat in restaurants as he had for the past few days while job hunting, he'd have no funds left in very short order.

All the job interviews had been the same. After taking a gander at his clothes and his haircut, the man or woman—it had surprised him that sometimes women did the hiring—had asked two questions. What experience did he have? Did he have a high school diploma? He'd worked in a nursery growing plants. He also knew how to harvest wheat and cut hay and saddle a horse and drive a buggy. He'd planted
vegetable gardens with his mudder from the time he was three and learned to ride a horse not long after. He'd helped deliver foals and regularly milked cows before breakfast so the milk would be fresh. Not job skills anyone seemed to need in the city. He didn't have a high school diploma. Never before had that been a problem.

“Hey, man, you got a cigarette I can bum?” The old man had gained on him. He was a big greasy hairball. He wore a gray T-shirt and gray sweatpants. His white hair had been caught back in a skinny, greasy ponytail. He grinned, exposing teeth yellow with age and tobacco. “I got a light if you've got the cigarette.”

“I don't smoke.” Michael stepped off the curb. A horn blared and he stumbled back, nearly falling. He kept doing that. When would he learn? The old man gripped his arm and Michael jerked away. “I don't have anything you want.”

“How do you know? Maybe I can be your guide. You're new in town; I can show you around.” His grin widened, revealing gaps where teeth should have been. “Maybe I can show you a good time. I have some lady friends.”

As if on cue, a woman in a dark pink blouse and a skirt that molded to her thick body waved from across the street. “You looking for a date, honey?” She sashayed back and forth on the sidewalk in shiny black high heels. “I'll show you a real good time, baby. Step right over here to my office.”

“I don't need a guide.” Michael looked up and down the street for oncoming cars, careful not to make eye contact with the woman again. “I'm not looking for anything.”

“Sure you are. Why else would someone like you come to the city?” The man chuckled and then coughed and spit on the sidewalk. He leaned closer to Michael, his breath a cloud of alcohol and the stink of onions. “You're a country boy, ain't you? Come to the big city looking for a good time.”

Michael shrank back. He needed to get away from this stranger with his false friendliness. A green and yellow neon diner sign blinked up ahead. A large handwritten
HELP WANTED
sign had been posted in
the diner's window. Michael veered toward it and the old man followed. Michael picked up his pace until he was almost running.

“Hey, man, slow down. I ain't gonna hurt you. I'm just looking to make a quarter. Fifty cents to buy me a cup of coffee.”

Michael slowed long enough to dig a dollar bill from the pocket of material he'd pinned inside his shirt. “Here, take it.”

His black eyes bright with surprise and satisfaction, the old man snatched the bill with grimy fingers, whirled, and shot in the opposite direction.

“You can't be giving them money.” A lady who sat on a nearby bench shook her finger at him. “They beg all morning and then they use the money to get drunk all afternoon. We always give them granola bars or breakfast bars—better for them.”

Michael nodded to acknowledge her advice, but didn't speak. Maybe he shouldn't have given the man money. It had seemed like the right thing to do. Or maybe it had been the easy way out of a situation. Just like running away from home.

He shook off the feeling he'd let down God again and pushed through the glass door of the diner. Inside a crush of people sat in booths and filled every stool that ran along a gray Formica counter. Everyone seemed to be talking at once. Everyone knew someone. He hadn't had a real conversation with anyone since he got off the bus and left behind the kind lady who dispensed advice and sandwiches from a basket. The room had a phone, but he had no one to call. The only person he wanted to call didn't answer her cell phone.

The diner reminded him of Cooney's Restaurant back home, except the customers didn't look like farmers in town to buy a part at the hardware store or shoe a horse at the blacksmith shop. Cool refrigerated air mixed with steamy heat from the kitchen. A cook shoved plates of scrambled eggs, bacon, and pancakes through a long rectangular window toward a skinny red-haired waitress who blew bubbles with her gum as she worked. Her nametag read
Crystal
.

The food smelled wonderful. The aroma of frying hamburger mixed with bacon and sausage. His mouth watered and his stomach
rumbled. He'd been trying to get by on two meals a day. He didn't really need breakfast. He usually woke up feeling sick to his stomach, anyway.

“There's a seat open at the end.” A second waitress, this one with long blonde hair in a ponytail that swung when she walked, squeezed past him with plates of bacon and eggs in one hand and waffles held high in the other. “I'll be with you in a sec.”

“I wanted to see about the job.”

“Oscar, there's a guy here about the job.” She kept moving as she yelled, the muscles in her thin arms bulging with the weight of the thick white china plates.

Oscar, a mammoth man with a shiny bald head, was dressed in a red shirt and a huge red apron. He looked up from the register long enough to eyeball Michael. His shaggy gray eyebrows did pushups. He slapped some bills into the register, speared the ticket on a spindle next to it, and slammed the drawer shut. “In the back. We're swamped. Let's make it fast.”

Michael's heart began to slam in his chest. He'd applied at fourteen businesses in three days—why was he nervous now? He followed Oscar through the swinging doors.

Sizzling heat hit him in the face and knocked him back a step. Despite the sweat that soaked the back of his shirt, Oscar didn't seem to notice. Nor did the two cooks who slung hamburger patties onto a grill next to heaps of onions and a pile of hash browns that sizzled in butter. French fries crackled in baskets sunk into vats of oil that spit and spattered.

“You know how to work an industrial-sized dishwasher?” Oscar cocked his head toward a enormous machine that sat silent, plastic gray tubs filled with dirty dishes stacked all around it. “My dishwasher was a no show this morning. Ain't had a busboy in two weeks. I need both. Now.” He glanced at the open window. “I got customers trying to pay. You wash dishes? You get paid three bucks an hour plus your share of tips.”

“You don't want to know if I have experience?” Michael wanted the job—he'd take any job at this point—but he wouldn't do it under false pretences. “I mean, I don't actually know how to run the machine.”

“It ain't rocket science, kid. Everybody's washed dishes now and again.”

Truth be told, Michael had never washed a dish a day in his life. A Plain man with sisters didn't wash dishes. His stomach rumbled. “I can learn. I'm willing to figure it out.”

“Great. Can you start now?” Oscar gave him the once-over and cracked a smile for the first time. He had silver caps on his front teeth. “You might want to find something cooler to wear. T-shirt is fine. You'll fit in better too.”

“I don't have anything else.” His clothes had been a dead giveaway at every job interview, but he didn't dare spend his precious reserve of money on new ones until he actually had a job. “But I'll get some right away.”

“There's a pile of T-shirts in a box in the back. Grab a couple. They're on the house—good publicity for the restaurant. We'll do the paperwork during the afternoon lull before the supper rush.” Oscar shoved open the door, then looked back again. “Food's fifty percent off for employees. Gotta pay up front, though—no charging to a paycheck you ain't got yet. Food's not bad.” His deep belly laugh wafted through air thick with food smells and steam. “If I do say so myself.”

The man hadn't even asked for his name. Somehow that made his trust that Michael could do the job all the more terrifying. Or comforting. Michael couldn't be sure which. He had a job. All he had to do was figure out how to run a dishwasher.

Aware of sweat running down his back between his shoulder blades and soaking his shirt, Michael rooted through the boxes until he found the t-shirts. Red. He'd never worn red before. Blowing out air, he shoved open the door marked
EMPLOYEE RESTROOM
and changed. He expected there would be many firsts in his life from now on. Clothes were only the start.

Next came the mammoth machine. He confronted it in the middle of the kitchen. A strange looking contraption. He gritted his teeth and examined the label on the side with its tiny print. A diagram. Power button. There it was. He touched it. Soap first?

The waitress with the blonde ponytail trotted into the kitchen, an
irritated look on her face. Her nametag read L
ANA
. She looked to be about his age. “Oscar says to not put too much soap in the machine. It leaves a film on the dishes and the folks get mad if they can taste soap in their eggs.” She slapped her hands on her hips. “Why are you standing there? We're gonna be out of forks like any minute now.”

“I don't know where the soap goes.” He would get some kind of award for holding a job the shortest amount of time. Two minutes and counting. “I'm not sure how to turn it on.”

“Leave it to Oscar. Always a softy for sad faces.” She rolled her eyes under eyelids covered with shiny copper eye shadow. “It's like a conveyor belt. You stack the dishes in the rack and shove it in. It goes from left to right.”