The light was red at Main and Cookman. Robby gunned his engine while waiting.
“Would you behave yourself? I’m trying to figure out how to use your phone,” Susan said.
He laughed. “Just dial the area code for Indiana and then the number.”
Susan punched in the numbers and listened as loud beeps followed each number she pushed. “What now?” she asked.
“Push the send button,” he said, taking off when the light turned green.
“That’s not funny!” she said, trying to glare at him as she grabbed the door handle to hang on. “Oh, it’s ringing now.” Likely no one will answer, she thought. The phone shack is a long way from the house, and it’s the middle of the morning back home. Folks would be busy with the day’s work, although someone might be walking by if it is time to pick up the mail.
There was a click and little voice said, “Hello.”
“Hello, hello!” Susan replied. “Is this Vernon?” she said, taking a guess. It was often hard to tell voices over the phone.
“No, it’s Andrew. Who are you?”
“Susan,” she said. “I’m calling about Jonas. Do you know how he is?”
“Oh,” he said. “Susan.”
“Yah. How is Jonas?”
“He’s home from the hospital, that’s all I know. Do you want to speak with Mamm?”
“Yah.” She clutched the phone. Do I really want to speak with Edna? Will she lecture me? Likely. But I need information about Jonas…
“Mamm!” Andrew hollered.
Susan jerked the phone away from her ear. There was nothing like a farm boy’s voice to stretch a person’s eardrums. Susan rubbed her ear and glanced at Robby.
“He’s calling his mother,” she explained.
She heard Andrew shout again, the phone further away from his mouth this time. “It’s Susan from that faraway city.”
Finally Edna’s voice came on. “Hello. Is this Susan?”
“Yah,” Susan said, relaxing. Even if Edna pressed her about coming home, it was good to hear her sister’s voice. “I’m calling about Jonas. I received Mamm’s letter last night. Is he doing okay?”
“As well as can be, considering his arm was all chewed up from hog bites. You know how infectious those can get.”
“He won’t lose his arm, will he?”
Robby jerked to a stop at another stoplight.
The roar of car engines coming from the vehicles crossing the intersection made it hard for Susan to hear. She held her hand over her free ear to block the noise.
“No,” Edna was saying. “Where are you, Susan?”
Oh no! Here come the questions. What can I say? I’m driving around with an Englisha boy, going to get my GED and take my driver’s test. No! “I’m living in an apartment in Asbury Park, New Jersey,” she finally managed.
“Is that a big city?” Edna asked.
“I don’t know. I guess so. It looks big…at least to me.”
“Are you behaving yourself, Susan?”
“You know I am,” she whispered, lest Robby hear.
“When are you coming home? We all miss you an awful lot.”
“I wish you wouldn’t say that, Edna. This is hard enough already.”
“Then why don’t you patch things up with Thomas? Surely whatever your problems are with him they can be worked out.”
“How do you know I haven’t been trying?”
“Well, of course I don’t know for sure. But whatever you’re doing doesn’t seem to be working.”
“I can’t make it work with Thomas,” Susan said. “That’s why I’m here and not there. Tell me, is Thomas dating Eunice?”
“Not that I know of,” Edna replied. “Why do you ask?”
“Then he’s keeping away from her to make me look bad,” Susan responded. “I found them together after a hymn sing one night.”
“Ah, now I see. But you shouldn’t be so bitter, Susan,” Edna said, her voice patient. “It could be making you do things you wouldn’t do otherwise.”
Susan took a deep breath. “He betrayed my heart,” she whispered. She didn’t want this to go any further. “I’ve got to go, Edna. I’m using someone’s phone.”
“Okay, but don’t forget us now, Susan. Remember!” Edna said.
“I won’t. Please tell Mamm I called.”
“I will,” Edna said. “Goodbye.”
“Goodbye.” Susan closed the phone and handed it back to Robby.
“I take it that didn’t go too well,” he said.
“Jonas is doing okay. That’s the important thing,” she said.
“I suppose so.” He accelerated as another light turned green and nearly ran into the car in front of him.
“That was close!” he muttered, slowing down, allowing ample distance between the two vehicles.
“So enough of my troubles,” Susan said. “Tell me about this girl you were talking about earlier.”
“Why should I tell you? And if I do, will you tell me your secrets?”
“No,” Susan said. “But I want to know your girl troubles anyway. Tell me about her. Please.”
“Well, I met her at a bar last week…”
“You go to bars?” She gasped. “But you’re Laura’s boy!”
“So what? A lot of guys with nice moms go to bars,” he said with a laugh. “Look, Susan, I’m not interested in Mom’s religion anymore, not with church and all. And besides, what has my going to a bar have to do with Mom?”
“It’s not right, Robby. That’s what it has to do with.”
“Oh, so you don’t want to hear the story after all?”
Susan met his look. “Of course I do. But you shouldn’t be in bars. So go ahead. I’m listening.”
Robby sighed. “It’s not like I’m a bad person just because I go to bars for a quick drink. I don’t get drunk or do drugs or sleep around, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“I should hope not!” she exclaimed. “Amish boys aren’t saints either. Well, some of them aren’t. Thomas was never wild, but some of the others are. But they straighten up eventually. I suppose that can happen to you too.”
“Well, that’s a novel way of looking at it,” he said with a shrug. “But, hey, I’m not wild just because I go to bars occasionally. Look at me! Do I look wild to you?”
Did she dare say the truth? “To be honest, you do look a little wild.”
He laughed out loud. “I suppose it’s my long hair. Okay, so I may look a little wild to an Amish girl. But I don’t act wild.”
“No, I’ve never seen you act wild,” she agreed.
“Well, that settles it then.”
“Yah. So we agree. You go to bars, which you shouldn’t. But you don’t act wild.”
Robby laughed. “Back to the story. I had never met this girl before. Well, maybe once in passing a few weeks before, but she was with someone else. That night she was alone, so I walked up and talked to her.”
“Just like that?”
“Of course. How else would I do it?”
“Perhaps a woman wants to know who you are. I mean, you could be anyone.”
“That’s why I told her, first thing. ‘I’m Robby and I grew up around here,’ I said.”
“How does she know that? You could be lying. You’re in a bar, which is not exactly the best place to be.”
“I know,” he said. “Sin, degradation, evil, wickedness, and all that.”
“Yah. And especially in a place like that, a girl wants to know who you are before she becomes friends with you.”
“Do you want to hear the story or not?”
“Yah, go on.”
“I asked her if she wanted to go across the street for a burger, and she said yes. We had a nice chat over our meal, and I thought everything was going great.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“The problem is that when we parted, I asked her if I could see her again next week. She said no! I don’t get it. Why did she accept my invitation for a burger when she obviously wasn’t as interested in me as I was in her? I don’t get women!”
“You shouldn’t take it personally, Robby. There could be any number of reasons. Maybe she’s seeing someone else.”
“Of course I take it personally! That’s what it’s all about.”
“Have you thought about meeting the right kind of girl in…say… church?”
Robby let out a long sigh. “I’ll take your advice under consideration.” He wrinkled his face into a fake smile as he turned left and pulled into a triple-story parking garage. Squeezing the car into a parking slot he said, “This is the closest parking to the college—our first stop of the day. Does the princess need an escort inside?”
“You might as well come,” she said. “That way I won’t feel pressured about hurrying—worrying about you being bored in the car all alone. You might even find a self-help book in their library on how to win girlfriends.”
“Cute, really cute.”
Robby led the way to the college administration building, pausing to point out the tall pillars in front that reached all the way to the second-story roof.
“That’s nice,” she said. “It’s certainly nothing like the little buildings they have in Salem, Indiana.”
“They built the pillars to impress country girls who come to visit,” he said with a grin.
As they stepped inside, Robby said, “Over there is the information desk, the place to start your journey. As for me, I think I’ll go see about a girlfriend book.”
“What do I ask for?” she whispered.
“Just explain what you need,” he said, not pausing. “They’ll be helpful.”
Susan watched Robby walk away and then took a deep breath. The place was huge, even larger than it had appeared from the outside. She never felt more like a little Amish girl far away from home.