Monday after work, Livy picked me up and drove us to the apartment complex she’d scouted. The manager walked with us to the open unit, carrying on a one-sided conversation about the episode of 24 slated to air later that night.
“Do you watch 24?” he asked as he unlocked the door to apartment 22B.
“I’m more of a What Not to Wear fan,” I answered.
He didn’t say much after that. I guess he didn’t know how to relate.
Livy walked in first. I followed.
The apartment was…stark. Even for a girl who was raised Amish.
Not only was the place devoid of furniture—as I expected—it was devoid of color. I felt like Dorothy stepping out of Technicolor. The carpet was somewhere between gray and beige, the linoleum white yet speckled with gray. The walls were white.
One thing was clear. I’d need to decorate. Or go a little crazy.
The bathroom was large, larger even than the bathroom at Jayne’s, with a large closet equipped with doors that squeaked when they slid.
The bedrooms were small but only a bit smaller than Jayne’s.
The kitchen was small and serviceable. Livy had mentioned the lack of a dishwasher, but that didn’t bother me. I still preferred to wash dishes by hand anyway. Washing them before placing them in a machine to wash them again made no sense to me.
Livy and I picked up applications before leaving.
“I know its bare-bones,” she said in the car, “but it is the cheapest non-scary place in the area.”
“Cheap is good. I like to be frugal.” I decided to address the question that had been bothering me. “Do you have…curtains?”
Livy laughed. “I have some, but you’re welcome to make something you’d like better. I’m going to be working a lot, so I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re there more than I am. As long as the place doesn’t look like a bordello, you can do what you’d like.”
I looked up bordello later. Oh. I didn’t think I was likely to decorate a home to look like one.
I used the bookstore’s fax to send in my application for the apartment. “So, you’re moving?” William asked, looking over my shoulder. “Found a place?”
“A place and a roommate,” I said, unable to hide my satisfaction.
“Need help moving?”
The question caught me off guard. “Well, I…”
“You’re moving?” Zach stuck his head into the office. “Cool. Need help?”
Amazing that these moments only seemed to happen when there were no customers desperately requiring assistance.
“I don’t have that much to move, but I guess help would be good.” Wouldn’t it? At home, everyone pitched in for everything. Maybe the English and the Amish were more similar than I had thought.
The next twenty-four hours sped by in a whirlwind of classes and work peppered with apartment paperwork. Livy and I decided she would cover the first month’s rent and I would cover the last month. In an instant, I watched my savings take a significant dip.
There was no getting around it. If I wanted anything resembling a financial safety net—that didn’t include my brother—I needed to get quilting.
Kim called me on Thursday. “I know it’s been a while,” she said. “The job’s still good, right?”
“I enjoy it,” I said, thinking of Zach and William and the many, many books I got to watch over.
“Cool. Well, I heard through the grapevine that you’re moving out with a friend of Gemma’s. I think it’s great—really. Should help get Jayne down the aisle and marry that man before I steal him away.”
I did not mention that I didn’t think Kim was Levi’s type. “Mm-hm.”
“Anyway, what I was going to say is that since you need transportation, and the weather’s not crazy freezing anymore, I thought you might be interested in my old bike. Oh, and by bike I mean bicycle. Not a motorcycle like Jayne’s. I don’t ride it anymore, and you’re welcome to it.”
“That’s a great offer.” I hesitated, searching for words. “I, um, actually don’t know how to ride a bike.”
“Really?” I could hear the shock in Kim’s voice. “But…it’s not a car. And it’s not electric in any way.”
“But it’s tricky to ride in a skirt,” I explained. “The Amish are more likely to use roller skates for that reason.”
“There you go, then. You can roller skate to work.”
I shuddered thinking of it. “No thank you. I’d be open to learning to ride a bike someday, but I’m frightened enough driving around the bikers. I think I’d be too terrified to bike around the drivers.”
“Fair enough.”
“I’m thinking of buying a car,” I admitted. “I don’t know anything about cars though.”
“Expect to pay between two and three thousand for something that runs well and doesn’t need constant repair.”
I processed the amount. “Good to know.” I could sell a quilt for somewhere around that if it were well detailed and of good size. It wasn’t an unattainable goal, and that way all of my financial aid would go straight to school and living expenses.
A part of me began to panic as the sheer amount of work in my future took shape in my head. I shoved the desperate thoughts aside. As much as I wanted to pretend I wasn’t raised Amish, nothing would ever change the fact that I was raised to work hard. I was no stranger to long hours and manual labor. Quilting wasn’t brick laying, but it was a lot of labor.
“Let me know when you move,” Kim said, interrupting my thought process. “I’ll come over and help.”
I doubted I’d need the assistance of—five people, was it now? But if Kim wanted to help…“Absolutely,” I heard myself say. What was that phrase Jayne used? The more the merrier? I supposed it would be a very merry move.
The week of the move, it rained like crazy. Making matters worse, every forecast agreed the rain would only continue.
I loved weather forecasts. Did English people realize how wondrous it was to be able to know what the weather would be like ahead of time? Granted, I knew how to read clouds better than Jayne, but I liked having an idea in the morning exactly how cold it would be in the afternoon.
Keeping the forecast in mind, Levi suggested renting a small moving truck to move my things rather than filling the back of his truck and suffering potential water damage.
I agreed. Levi made the arrangements.
As it turned out, Meg, Britta, Sonnet, and I all had sewing projects for school that week. We piled into Meg’s Camry—the cleanest car I had ever seen—and drove to Bolt together. During the drive I happened to mention that I’d be moving to a new apartment.
“I’d love to help,” Britta said while fingering a white dotted swiss. “You’re moving Saturday?”
“Saturday,” I confirmed.
“How much of a cliché is red satin?” Sonnet asked.
Meg shook her head. “Too much. Back away from the red satin. Think olive or aubergine if you’re committed to satin.” She tapped my hand. “I’m mostly free Saturday. I can help too.”
“Yeah, me too,” Sonnet added. “What if I used the red satin ironically?”
Britta rolled her eyes. “Get over the red satin already. What time Saturday?”
“Around ten or so,” I said. “I thought it might be nice to get it over and done with.”
“Cool. Well, I’ll be there. How’s the knitting coming?”
“Slowly,” I admitted. “I like it, but I haven’t had much time lately, and I’m not quite good enough to knit in class without being distracted.”
“I understand. Life is busy. Don’t worry about it.” She smiled. “We all go through seasons.”
I hoped this was only a season. Personally, I was done with it.
Gemma called the morning of the move, letting me know she’d be there to help and was bringing, naturally, quite a lot of food for everyone to eat afterward.
Joely called shortly after, saying she’d been able to rearrange her shift and would be able to carry as many boxes as I needed. All told, that meant that ten people, not including myself, were helping me move. I told Jayne as much as we shared the bathroom mirror, each of us putting on makeup for the day.
She paused and slung her arm around my shoulder. “The Amish have barn raisings. The English help move people from one part of town to another. We could have a conversation about how the Amish help people stay in one place, and the English help each other go away, but it’s best to enjoy it for what it is—free manual labor. You know, some people actually pay for movers.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Really?”
“I kid you not.” Jayne dusted her cheekbones with blush. “And they’re famous for dropping pianos from high-rises.”
“Interesting. Should I warn Gemma how many people will be there? So she brings enough food?”
“You could, but it’s Gemma. When doesn’t she bring too much food?”
“Good point.” I fished through my makeup bag for the right lipstick.
“So who else is coming? I’m guessing Britta, Meg…the one with the cool name, what is it?”
“Sonnet.” I finished. “Zach and William are coming too.”
“Really?” Jayne put her mascara down. “Who’s running the bookstore?”
I hadn’t thought of that somehow. “I have no idea.”
The crowd started showing up at 9:45, starting with Zach and William.
“Who’s at the store?” I asked as they came in and wiped their feet.
William smirked. “Richard is. He’ll be there by himself, but it’s good for him. Helps him stay in touch with the little guy.”
“Oh.” I couldn’t imagine informing my boss that his schedule was changing. It didn’t seem to intimidate William in the slightest.
Meg and Britta showed up moments later. “Sonnet’s on her way,” Meg explained. “She’s running a bit late.”
“Missed her alarm.” Britta clarified. “She’s not much of a morning person.”
I had almost finished introducing everyone when another knock sounded at the door.
I opened the door to find Gemma. “It’s just me!” She gave me a hug as she came inside. “Are you excited?”
I nodded, and I couldn’t help but notice that Zach had turned Roma tomato red.
“The food’s in the car, in the cooler. I figured I’d pop it into your new oven when we made the first trip over. I’ve even got plates, cups, silverware, and napkins, so don’t worry about a thing.”
My stomach lurched. Silverware, plates, cups—I didn’t have any of those things. I hadn’t even thought about it, with the craziness of packing things up. Oh my goodness. How would I cook, much less eat? What if Livy didn’t have a frying pan? Or a soup pot? Or a rolling pin?
The only thing I could think at that moment was that if I were still Amish, this wouldn’t be a problem. Moving out would mean I was getting married, and getting married meant that my new husband and I would be provided for with practical gifts to start our lives together and would travel every weekend to visit relatives and receive yet more gifts. I wouldn’t have to worry about whether I would have a pie pan to my name. It would be taken care of.
Jayne must have noticed my face. “What’s wrong?”
“Spoons,” I said. “I don’t have any. I didn’t even think about it. I don’t have spoons or forks even. Or glasses or pots or ladles or—I don’t even have bath towels!”
As soon as the words left my mouth, I felt my face flush. I couldn’t believe I’d just mentioned bath towels in front of my coworkers. My male coworkers.
“I picked up extra towels when you moved in,” she reassured me, “and I assumed you’d take them with you. As far as kitchen things, don’t worry about it.”
“But I—”
Jayne grasped my shoulders just as the door opened again. “Don’t worry about it,” she repeated.
“Put her in a headlock, that always convinces me,” said Joely, looking around the now crowded room. “Everyone here helping move? Good times.’”
I forced myself to calm down.
Levi arrived several moments later with Sonnet just behind him. “Good crowd,” he said, nodding to everyone. That was my brother. He always knew the right things to say. Unlike me, who had meltdowns about spoons and towels in what Jayne called “mixed company.”
“This should go quickly,” he added, taking the lead. He reintroduced himself to Zach, whom he’d met briefly after my car accident, and shook William’s hand. “The three of us should be able to handle the heavy stuff. I’ve got a quilt frame in the back of my pickup that will have to be moved in at the end, and there’s Sara’s bed, the desk, and a small bookcase.” He glanced at me. “There may also be a tall bookcase in the back of the pickup as well. I might have had it made and driven up from the shop.”
I smiled, thinking of the shop he used to own and run in Albany. “There may be?”
“It’s possible,” he said. “And don’t worry, they’re well secured and very dry. The ladies,” he added, looking at Jayne, Gemma, Joely, Sonnet, Meg, Britta, and myself, “can handle the boxes, giving them to the men to take down. Where’s Kim?”
Yet another knock at the door. “I’m here!” Kim announced, lowering the hood of her rain slicker as she stepped in. “Sorry I’m late. Are we moving Sara, or is this a political rally of some sort?” She raised her fist. “Votes for women!”
Gemma patted her shoulder. “Up late last night, sister suffragette?”
“The newspaper biz is a cruel mistress. Or mister. Whatever.” Kim tugged off her jacket. “Am I that loopy?”
“Not in the slightest, Mrs. Pankhurst,” Jayne reassured her. “Let me give you the roll call.”
Jayne listed the names of everyone present, pointing as she went. “Got that?”
Levi didn’t wait for a reply, giving everyone marching orders instead. It was official then. I was moving out.