Suspendered Sentence (An Amish Mystery) (14 page)

T
here was something about crossing off the very last item on her daily to-do list that never ceased to lose its thrill for Claire. It was like a mini pat on the back for a job well done.

But at that moment, looking down at the now-completed list, she felt little more than total exhaustion. From the moment she’d stepped out of her room that morning, she’d been running on overdrive—baking, playing host to her fellow Lighted Way shopkeepers, stocking shelves, pricing inventory, arranging displays, and serving her customers. There’d been no time to really sit and think, no time to process the news of Miriam’s sudden departure from Heavenly or to even have so much as a cracker from the lunch she’d hastily packed before heading out to the shop at the crack of dawn.

Lunch.

She looked up at the clock on the shop’s back wall and noted the time: three thirty. No wonder she was starving . . .

Tucking the clipboard under her arm, she headed toward the back hallway and the tiny office beyond. Barely big enough to accommodate the beat-up metal desk left behind by the building’s previous tenant, the room was rarely used for anything other than a coat closet now that Esther was gone. Without the extra pair of hands her friend’s presence had provided, Claire had little to no time to balance the shop’s books during normal business hours. Instead, that cumbersome task was now done in her room at the inn, after the guests had been fed and the kitchen cleaned.

She reached into the windowless room and flipped on the fluorescent overhead light for as long as it took to deposit the clipboard onto her desk and to retrieve her paper lunch sack from her oversized purse.

“Finally,” she mumbled as she turned the light off and made her way back to the front room, the cushioned stool calling to her tired body every bit as loudly as the trio of chocolate chip cookies in her lunch sack were calling to her stomach. Flopping down onto the stool, she reached into the bag and pulled out its contents one item at a time.

Ham sandwich.

Grapes.

Crackers.

Cookies.

She arranged her late lunch on the counter in front of her and resisted the impulse to start with dessert. As tempting as a sugar boost was at the moment, she needed a more sustaining kind of energy if she was going to make it through the remaining ninety minutes that stood between her and closing.

She scooted closer and reached for the sandwich only to drop it back to the counter as the all-too-familiar jingle announced the arrival of another customer. Stifling the groan that threatened to earn her and her shop an online thrashing for unfriendliness, she stood and smiled. “Good afternoon. Welcome to Heavenly Treasures.”

A young Amish girl paused just inside the entryway and glanced around, her wide-set brown eyes missing nothing, including the buffet of uneaten food in front of Claire. “Are you Claire?”

“I am.” She rounded the counter and met the teenager on the other side. “Can I help you?”

The girl said nothing as she continued to survey her surroundings with an air of grudging approval. “Is it always like this in here?”

She followed the teenager’s gaze to the display of baby items she’d spent a chunk of her day fiddling with and gave a half-nod, half-shrug combination. “I tend to base the front window display on the season, but this particular rack leans more toward a special sale or a peek at a new category of items. Are you looking for something in—”

“I mean, is it always quiet like it is now?”

“Quiet?” she echoed in confusion.

“Yah. No customers to talk to, no bags to carry . . .”

“I—”

“Because if all I have to do is sit behind a counter and eat, I will take the job.” The girl reached up, pulled her kapp off her head, and crumpled it into a ball in her hand. “It’s like Kendra said, having a little cash in my pocket might not be such a bad idea.”

Startled, she allowed herself a moment to really study the teenager, to catalogue the usual giveaways that someone was Old Order Amish, as opposed to a slightly more relaxed sect.

No jewelry—check.

No buttons—check.

Plain clothes—check.

No makeup . . .

The girl leaned backward as Claire leaned forward, rolling her eyes as she did. “Yes, I took off my kapp . . . yes, I’m wearing eyeliner. I’m on Rumspringa.”

Claire straightened. “Do I know you?”

“I’m Annie. Annie Hershberger.”

“
Hershberger
? As in
Bishop
Hershberger?”

This time, Annie’s eye roll was followed by a snort of irritation. “I know, I know. What a disappointment I must be for my father, yah?”

“I didn’t say that,” she protested weakly.

Annie waved her off. “It doesn’t matter. You have no idea what it’s like to grow up an Amish kid. And you have no idea what it’s like to have an Amish bishop as your dat.”

Claire walked backward until she reached the paneled upright and leaned against it heavily, the day’s lack of food starting to take its toll. But at that moment, if given the choice between food and the conversation taking shape in her store, she’d pick the conversation a hundred times over. “Does he have higher expectations for you than other Amish parents do?”

“Nah, not really.” Annie wandered over to the counter and stared down at Claire’s lunch. “But people act funny around me because he’s my dat.”

“Help yourself to a cookie if you’d like.” She smacked a hand over her stomach but not before its growl earned an odd look from Annie. “They’re really good.”

“I would enjoy a grape, if that’s okay.”

“Sure. No problem.” She pushed off the upright and joined Annie at the counter. “So how do people act funny around you? You know, because of your father?”

Annie popped one grape and then another into her mouth before moving on to the pile of crackers. “Some girls do not speak to me because they are afraid. I think some speak to me because they want to be good.”

“I don’t understand.”

“When someone is shunned for doing wrong, it is my father who decides. I think some think to be nice to me is to . . .” Annie cast about for the right words, only to shake her head in frustration when she came up short. “I do not know how to say it.”

“Do you mean that you think your friends try to curry favor with your father by being nice to you?”

Annie nodded, fast and furious. “Yah.”

“Can kids your age be shunned?”

“No, but their mamm and dat can.”

She contemplated the teenager’s words and compared them to everything she knew about the Amish at that point. On one hand, the girl’s gripe sounded plausible, if not more English-like. On the other hand, it was hard not to chalk the whole thing up to Annie’s status as a teenager—a time when everything lends itself to being angst-worthy, especially on the family front.

“I’m sorry to hear—”

Annie moved on to the cookies, downing two of the three before Claire knew what was happening. “Anyway, I think I could do this a few days a week.”

“Do this? What’s
this
?”

Lifting the third and final cookie to her lips, Annie popped it into her mouth, whole. “Work here.”

She resisted the urge to search high and low for a hidden camera and, instead, kept her focus on the girl hell-bent on eating her way through Claire’s lunch. “Did you say w-work ?
Here
?”

Annie nodded. “Yah. Esther Miller stopped by the farm this morning and said you were looking for help at your store. She said I would have fun. She also said I would need to wear my boring clothes, but that is okay. I can wear both.”

Then, without waiting for anything resembling a follow-up question, Annie lifted her dress to reveal an ultrashort skirt. “See?”

“Wow. That’s really . . . uh,
short
.” It was all she could think to say at the moment, but it fit, unlike the skirt.

Annie released the Amish dress from her hands and laughed. “That is what Rumspringa is for—to do as the English do.”

“I don’t wear skirts like that.” Claire reached around Annie and liberated the sandwich from the counter before it, too, disappeared.

“You’re old.”

She had to laugh. “No, I’m not old, Annie. I just don’t feel the need to showcase myself like that. Most English women don’t.”

A flash of something Claire couldn’t quite identify skittered across Annie’s face, disappearing as quickly as it had come. “Plenty do. I see them at the bridge. I see the attention they get from boys.”

“It’s the wrong attention, Annie. From the wrong boys.” She took a bite and then brought her free hand to the side of the teenager’s face. “The right boys see
this
, Annie. And your face is beautiful with nothing more than a smile. Remember that, okay?”

Annie stepped back, surprised. “You think I am beautiful?”

“You don’t?”

“I am plain.” Annie brushed at her dress like one might brush at an unwanted crumb. “Like these clothes.”

Reluctantly, Claire lowered the sandwich back to the counter and, instead, reached for the small handheld mirror she’d bought for Esther’s use whenever Eli’s buggy appeared in the alleyway. She held it up in front of Annie. “Look at your eyes, Annie . How can you call them plain?”

“That is because I am on Rumspringa and I wear makeup.”

“Smile, Annie. A real smile.”

Annie made a face first, but finally did as she was told, her cheeks rising upward and igniting a sparkle deep inside her eyes.

“Do you see that sparkle? The way it makes your eyes dance? That’s not makeup, Annie, that’s you.”

The chocolate brown of the girl’s eyes disappeared momentarily behind lashes clumped with too much mascara. “The Amish boys do not notice me. But, with makeup, the English boys do.”

Claire tucked the mirror back on its original shelf beneath the register, shaking her head as she did. “I don’t believe that, Annie. I really don’t. You are far too pretty to go unnoticed. But you are also only, what? Fifteen? Sixteen?”

“Sixteen.”

“Don’t be in such a rush,” Claire cautioned. “And stay true to yourself. It’s the only way to be, and the only way to find the person who is truly right for you.”

The girl fell silent for a moment, her demeanor softening for the first time since walking through the door. “Do you think I could?”

“Could . . .”

“Work here. In this shop. With you.”

Claire’s knee-jerk reaction was to say no. After all, she’d specifically told Esther she wasn’t ready to hire anyone yet. But when she opened her mouth to say so, something made her hold back long enough to consider the many pluses and minuses of employing Annie Hershberger.

In the plus column, she’d have the help she knew she needed and the opportunity to come in a little late or leave a little early once or twice a week. By hiring someone, she would also have more time to make the candles and decorative picture frames she’d been unable to make with her crazy schedule the past three months. Being able to make those items again would increase her inventory and the dollar amount on her own bottom line.

In the minus column, she had a teenager who was obviously trying to find herself. That could have no negative impact on Claire and the shop at all, or it could come back to bite her in more ways than just unreliability. And to top it all off, Annie wasn’t Esther.

“I could be a hard worker if that is what you need.”

“That’s exactly what I need, Annie.” She crossed her arms in front of her chest and met the teenager’s gaze head-on. “This place is quiet right now, but the reason that food was on the counter was because I hadn’t had a chance to eat lunch yet.”

“That was your lunch?” Annie whispered.

“I was working so hard all day, this was the first break I had.” She reached again for her sandwich and finally took a bite, the ham lukewarm. “Some days are quiet around here. Others are like today—where there’s a decent amount of customers to take care of and lots of tasks to get done, as well. Once spring and summer hit, the quiet days will be no more. Can you handle that?”

Annie took a moment to look around the store, her focus shifting rapidly from one gift display to the next, the nature of her thoughts difficult to guess.

“I need someone who will be here when they’re supposed to be . . . doing the things I ask, and knowing what needs to be done if I’m too distracted to ask.”

“And if there is quiet time like now?” Annie asked, returning her gaze to Claire’s. “What is to happen then?”

“If everything is done, we eat.”

“And talk?”

“Uh . . . if you want to.”

When Annie said nothing, Claire took advantage of the momentary lull in their back-and-forth to finish her sandwich and poke around in a nearby drawer for anything resembling a forgotten snack.

“Claire?”

She pushed aside a pad of paper and a handful of pens but found nothing. No snack-sized bag of pretzels, no mints, no edible cookie crumbs, no nothing.

Her stomach gurgled in disappointment.

“Claire?”

Pushing the drawer closed, she forced her attention back to Annie. “Yes?”

“I will work hard. You have my word.”

Chapter 14

S
he located the bookmark beside her thigh and slipped it into the mystery novel she was simply too tired to keep reading. Try as she might, she couldn’t absorb the comings and goings of the story’s protagonist any longer.