I’m not sure where we are when Jeremiah finally stops the buggy, but I hear someone mention Yoder’s barn. I have no idea who Yoder is and don’t really care, but as Rachel is climbing down from the buggy, I notice a number of young men, all dressed in dark pants with suspenders and all sporting the same kind of straw hats. They’re milling about the door to a barn that looks very much like the one Dawdi and Uncle Ben share. Suspecting that Ezra might be amongst these guys, I try not to trip over my long skirt as I get out. I don’t want to fall on my face again.
The light is getting dusky now, but I can make out the faces of these guys well enough to spot Ezra. I’m about to wave to him when he suddenly turns away from us, and just like that, he seems to disappear around the corner of the barn. I’m not sure if this is a snub or perhaps an invitation. As we walk toward the door, I wonder if I’m supposed to follow him. I’d like to.
“Come on!” Rachel grabs my hand. “Let’s go inside.”
I want to protest, but feeling like an intruder on foreign turf, I decide I’d better follow her lead. I have no idea how these kids act in a group like this. Will they be prim and proper? However, as we go past the guys clustered by the door, they call out cheerful greetings. “Good ev’nin’, Rachel,” a dark-haired guy says in a slightly slurred voice. I pause to look at him, certain that I can smell beer on his breath, and I spot a shiny can in his hand.
“Are they drinking beer?” I whisper to Rachel as we go inside the barn. Music is playing and the interior of the barn is lit with a few lanterns, but it still looks fairly shadowy in here.
“Ja,” she says in a slightly disgusted tone. “Those boys don’t think it is a party without their beer.”
“Oh.”
A trampoline is set up on one side of the barn, and a couple of barefoot girls are jumping on it. Holding onto each other’s hands, they giggle as they bounce, and their full skirts balloon up around them each time they land, exposing more leg than I’m sure is acceptable. The guys and girls watching the pair laugh and joke—sounding almost like some of the kids I go to school with. Except that they are different.
I can feel eyes on me, and before long Rachel begins introducing me to some of her friends—or maybe they’re just acquaintances, because she doesn’t act particularly friendly to any of them. She seems stiff and unnatural, and I’m certain she would rather not be here—and doesn’t care who knows.
“Are you the English girl?” a guy named Levi asks me.
I nod. “Yeah.”
He grins. “Want a beer?”
“No, she does not,” Rachel answers sharply for me.
“Why can’t she speak for herself?” Levi demands.
Rachel folds her arms across her front, glaring at him.
“No thanks,” I tell Levi. I glance around the barn, hoping to spy Ezra again and wondering if it would sound odd if I asked about him.
“Ezra was here earlier,” Levi tells us.
“I know,” Rachel says. “I saw him.”
Levi glances at me now, as if to see whether I’m interested in hearing more about Ezra. I decide to risk it. “Ezra invited me to come tonight,” I explain. “I thought I’d get to talk to him.”
Levi nods with interest. “Ja, I thought he would want to talk to you too.”
“Why?” Rachel’s brow creases and she makes a deep frown as she glares at Levi.
Levi looks uncomfortable. “I, uh, I don’t know.”
I’m getting a little fed up with my uptight cousin. “Maybe I’ll go look around,” I say lightly, hoping to pry myself away from Rachel. She seems determined to ruin my fun.
I wander around the barn now, smiling and saying hello to people I’ve never met before. To my surprise, they are all pretty friendly to me. Some of them ask who I am and why I’m here. I simply tell them I’m Rachel’s cousin, and that seems to satisfy their curiosity.
“You don’t seem much like Rachel,” a skinny blonde girl named Phoebe says to me. She’s got a beer can in her hand, and I suspect it’s not her first.
“I don’t know,” I say. “To be honest, I don’t know Rachel that well.”
She frowns. “But you’re cousins?”
“Ja.” I try to sound Amish now. “I live far away.”
“Oh, ja.” She nods. “You want a beer?” She holds up her blue and silver can. “To loosen you up?”
“Ja,” I tell her, knowing this is probably a stupid mistake. I have no intention of drinking, but I hope that holding a can in my hand will help me to fit in better with this crowd. Besides that, if Amish kids think it’s okay to drink beer, maybe it’s not such a big deal.
She walks me over to a cooler by the door and plucks a dripping can from the icy water. “Here you go.” She grins. “Bottoms up!”
I laugh nervously as I pop open the can and pretend to take a swig. I sampled beer last summer at a friend’s house, but I decided then and there that it was nasty and not for me. Still, I pretend to be sipping this foul-smelling brew as I look around the barn. “Ezra invited me to come here tonight,” I tell Phoebe. “But I don’t see him around.”
“He was here earlier,” she tells me.
“Uh-huh.” I pretend to take another sip.
She gives me a curious look. “You and Ezra?” she asks with a teasing tone.
“What?” I act innocent.
“Do you like him?” she asks with twinkling eyes.
“Sure,” I say offhandedly. “He’s a nice guy.”
“And nice looking too.” She grins. “All the girls like Ezra.”
“Really?”
“Ja. All the girls are interested in Ezra Troyer, but he has only been interested in one girl.”
I smile, thinking that, like Levi, she’s heard about Ezra and the English girl. “Who is that?” I ask innocently.
She laughs. “You must be joking.”
I giggle, taking another fake swig of beer.
“Your cousin,” she tells me. “Didn’t she tell you?”
I’m confused. “Tell me what?”
“About her and Ezra.”
I blink, then glance over to where Rachel is talking to a girl. “What about her and Ezra?”
“They used to be together,” Phoebe says in a conspiratorial tone.
“Really?” Suddenly I feel off balance, like the earth beneath my feet is tilting slightly. I know it’s not the beer since I’ve only inhaled the fumes.
“Ja. But Rachel broke it off.”
“Rachel broke it off?” I echo dumbly.
“Ja.” Phoebe glances around like she’s worried someone’s listening, then lowers her voice. “Rachel’s daed is a minister, ya know?”
I nod. “Ja. I know.”
“Rachel is studying for baptism now. I think she plans to join the church this summer.”
“Oh . . .” I recall what I’ve heard about baptism and how it’s a life commitment that makes a person really Amish.
“But Ezra isn’t ready for that yet,” Phoebe tells me.
“I know.”
Phoebe’s eyes light up again. “But you and Ezra . . . ?” She grins. “Ja, that makes sense.”
I frown. “Maybe so . . . but where is he?”
“He might be outside with some of the other boys,” she suggests.
“Should I go look for him?” I ask her.
“Ja,” she says eagerly. “I’ll go with you.”
Grateful to have her company, I let her lead me out a side door in the back of the barn. I don’t look at Rachel as I exit. I suspect she wouldn’t approve of me going outside with Phoebe, but the truth is, I don’t care. All I care about right now is seeing Ezra. I feel like I would swim across a raging river, climb a steep mountain, walk over hot coals just to see him again.
Outside, the air feels fresh and cool. I look up to see the stars shining brightly and spy the moon coming up through the branches of some evergreen trees. “What a beautiful night,” I say to Phoebe as she leads me over to where someone has built a bonfire back behind the barn. A number of guys are standing around it, plus a couple of girls. All are drinking beer and seem close to being intoxicated.
“Anyone seen Ezra?” Phoebe asks loudly.
“Ja,” a guy tells her. “He’s around about here somewhere.”
“I saw him sitting by himself on a wagon over there.” Another guy jerks his thumb over his shoulder.
I peer in the direction of his thumb, but it’s so dark I can barely see. “I guess I’ll go look for him,” I mutter. This sets some of them to laughing, and as I hurry away, I can hear them making jokes at my expense. I don’t care. All I want is to find Ezra so I can find out what’s going on between us. I’m worried that he didn’t recognize me, dressed like this. Or maybe he didn’t like it. Or maybe it’s something else—something to do with my pretty cousin.
As my eyes adjust to the darkness, I see the shape of what looks like a wagon, but I don’t see anyone sitting on it. Just the same, I continue over there, thinking I might sit there by myself and hope that he will return.
“Who’s that?” a voice says in the darkness. I think it’s Ezra and a rush of hope surges through me, but I am not certain.
“It’s me,” I say pleasantly. “Shannon.”
“Shannon?” Almost in the same instant, a figure leaps from the wagon and runs over to grab me, sweeping me into his arms. “I’m so glad to see you.”
I can smell beer on his breath, but I don’t care. “Why are you out here hiding?” I ask as he leads me over to the wagon with his arm still around me.
“I’m not hiding.” He pauses now, peering down at me in the moonlight. “What are you wearing?”
I giggle.
He taps my white kapp. “What is this?”
“You know what it is.”
“But why?”
“Because it was the only way I could get out of the house.” This isn’t exactly true, but I don’t think it’s exactly untrue either.
He points to the can in my hand. “I see you got yourself some brew.”
“Ja.” I nod, acting like this is nothing out of the norm for me.
Ezra puts his hands around my waist now. “Up you go,” he says as he hoists me to a sitting position on the wagon’s tailgate. Then he sits beside me. “Look at that moon,” he says as he pops open a can of beer and takes a swig.
“Yeah,” I say, watching as its nearly round shape crests the tops of the trees. “Beautiful.”
He slips his arm around me, snuggling close. “Not as beautiful as you, Shannon. I’m so glad you came tonight.”
“You didn’t seem glad,” I say in a slightly hurt tone.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean when Rachel and I got out of the buggy.” I peer at him. “Didn’t you see me?”
He looks puzzled. “I saw Rachel,” he says quietly.
“But not me?”
He takes another swig of beer.
“Was it because I was wearing Amish clothes?” I ask hopefully.
“Ja,” he says quickly. “I never saw you dressed like this before.”
Part of me doesn’t believe him, but the rest of me doesn’t care. It’s almost as if I’ve switched off my ability to care—or maybe I checked my brain at the door. But I shut down the inner voice that always seems to question everything. Before long we are kissing again. Tonight it feels even more passionate and breathtaking than last night. Was that only last night? I find myself getting lost in his kisses . . . and liking it.
I’m not sure how it happens, and I suspect I’m intoxicated—not from drinking beer, but from being with him—but soon we are lying down in the wagon. I can feel and smell hay, and I can feel his body pressed close to mine. “I love you,” he mumbles into my ear, sending a fresh new thrill through me.
“I love you too,” I tell him.
His hands are starting to wander, and although a part of me isn’t comfortable with this, another part of me likes it and doesn’t want him to stop. Oh, I know I will have to draw a line eventually. But I don’t mind going right up to that line first.
“There she is!” a male voice exclaims as a blindingly bright lantern is held up to the wagon.
I scramble to push Ezra away and sit up, smoothing my rumpled clothes, squinting into the light.
“What are you doing?” a familiar voice demands.
Shielding my eyes from the light with my hand, I see that it’s Jeremiah.
“What does it look like she’s doing?” the other guy jokes.
“Ezra?” Jeremiah holds the lantern over where Ezra is slowly sitting up, rubbing his eyes and looking slightly confused as well as sheepish.
“Hey, Jeremiah,” he says in a slurred voice.
“Rachel is worried about you.” Jeremiah reaches for my hand, pulling me down from the wagon and onto my feet. “You shouldn’t be out here like this, Shannon. Daed would not like it.”
“But I—”
“Come on,” he says, tugging on my hand. “I’m taking you back to Rachel.”
I turn to look at Ezra, but he seems slightly disoriented, and I suspect he’s had more beer than I thought. “See ya,” I call over my shoulder. He says nothing, not even good-bye.
I can’t help but feel embarrassed as Jeremiah and his buddy escort me back into the barn, which seems brighter than before. I brush loose pieces of straw and hay from my bodice and my skirt, trying to appear more together than I probably look.
“You found her,” Rachel says to Jeremiah with a scowl.
“Ja,” his buddy says in a teasing tone. “We found her, all right.”
Rachel reaches over to pluck a piece of straw from my hair, tossing it to the ground. “What were you doing out there, Shannon?”
“She was with Ezra,” Jeremiah quietly explains.
Rachel gives me a disgusted look, then turns to her brother. “I want to go home.”
“Already?”
“Ja. Already,” she insists.
He frowns. “But it’s still early, Rachel.”
She folds her arms in front, glaring at him. “If I told Daed that I wanted to go home and you refused to—”
“Why don’t you drive the buggy home,” he suggests.
“Jeremiah!”
“I can drive you,” the other guy offers. I can tell by the way he’s looking at Rachel that he’d be more than happy to take her home.
“Thanks, Jonah,” she says lightly. “But I’ll drive Shannon and myself home.” She points a finger at Jeremiah. “Do not forget we have church in the morning!” she says sternly. Then she grabs me by the hand like I’m a six-year-old and marches me out of the barn.
I feel like protesting and demanding to stay here, but her power over me is overwhelming. Besides that, she’s taller than me and probably stronger, and it’s as if I can feel her personality dominating mine. Rachel is definitely a force to be reckoned with. And I get the distinct feeling that she is more than just disgusted with me—she is angry!