The shop got busier as the days grew warmer. Summer always brought tourists from all over the country. Lavinia loved hearing the different accents and had gotten quite gut at recognizing the origin of a visitor from just a few words—the slow, easy drawl of a Southerner, the brisk, quick speech of someone from New York. She was as curious about them as they were about the Amish but was more of a silent observer.
It was fun to see the reactions of the kinner some brought into the shop with their eldres. They regarded her with wide eyes, and often she heard them ask their eldres questions—sometimes so loudly and inappropriately that they were quickly shushed.
“Mommy, is that a Pilgrim lady?” she heard one ask. “Did she come over on the Mayflower?”
Her mudder blushed and apologized. “I explained to her who the Amish are, but she’s just six. She doesn’t understand.” She looked at her dochder. “Honey, why don’t you go sit with your father on the bench outside?”
“It’s okay, really. Children are curious.” Lavinia smiled at the little girl, who wore a Disney princess dress, as she rang up the woman’s purchase. “We came here for the same reason as the Pilgrims all those years ago,” she told her. “The people where we lived in Europe were mean to us because of our religion.”
“Did you fight with the Indians when you got here?”
She shook her head. “We try to live peacefully.” She looked at the mudder. “There are some great children’s books on the Amish in the local bookstores.”
“Thanks. We might get one. She loves to read.” The woman studied the rug Lavinia had pushed aside on the counter to take care of the sale. “You really make these yourself?”
She nodded. “I started making them when I wasn’t much older than your daughter. It was fun to play with scraps of fabric in different colors and textures. Still is.”
“It’s too bad you don’t sell kits. I’d like to try making one.”
“That’s a good idea,” she said, surprised. “I’ll mention it to my mother. Maybe next time you visit we’ll have them.”
She couldn’t wait to tell her mudder, who was off on an errand to the post office.
And she couldn’t wait until the business day was over. She and Abe had been seeing each other nearly every day since last Sunday, when he’d taken her for a ride, apologized, and kissed her for the first time. They were dating, and this evening they were going to eat at their favorite Italian restaurant. Abe was going to pick her up in his familye’s buggy.
They still hadn’t talked about the future, but she felt that Abe’s accident had taught both of them to appreciate each day more.
She walked to the front door of the shop when there was a lull in customers to look outside. The sky was a vivid blue without a cloud in sight. Tourists and locals wore summer clothes, and some looked a bit overwarm as they strolled the sidewalks. She wore her favorite cotton dress, the one the color of the wild violets that grew abundantly near her home.
Sunny days were ahead. She just felt it. Abe was healing well, according to his doctors. And it was summer, when a young maedel’s thoughts turned to the marriage season coming up after the harvest was over….
As much as she loved her job, she wanted the day over so she could spend an hour or two with Abe in the little Italian restaurant, where it could be just the two of them talking about their day, where they could look into each other’s eyes and feel the connection they’d had since childhood. She’d begun to hope they’d talk soon about marrying after the harvest.
The many years of growing up together, studying in their one-room schul, learning about each other while they were taught reading and writing and arithmetic, as well as Amish history…it gave them a foundation for their relationship. It was no surprise that this foundation, built from childhood friendship and a commitment to stay together through the storms of life, kept couples together in her community.
Not all Amish couples knew each other since childhood, of course. Occasionally someone would move into the area, like Samuel, Rebecca’s mann. But most of the couples she knew were like her and Abe—first childhood friends, then teens who dated and, in their twenties, realized they loved each other and wanted to be married.
She enjoyed listening to the voices of their customers to figure out where they came from, but she also observed the relationships the Englisch couples had. It was a wonder to her that their marriages worked when couples so often didn’t know each other for years like the Amish did. She thought of Cassie, one of Rebecca’s Englisch friends. Cassie hadn’t known her mann all her life, but Rebecca said the couple was very happy and had recently welcomed a boppli.
Did the Englisch believe that God set aside someone for them the way the Amish did? she wondered. She studied Englisch couples when they visited the store to see if they had the same sense of unity that the married Amish couples she knew had. All she knew for schur was that the Englisch didn’t often work together on farms or businesses the way the Amish did, which she felt gave them a common goal and helped them have more time to be together.
The woman who’d visited the shop a little while ago with her daughter walked past carrying another shopping bag. Lavinia smiled at the Disney princess and found herself musing about how she’d read some Englisch fairy tales when she visited the library when she was younger. They had often featured a young woman waiting for her prince to come riding up on a white steed. She hadn’t known what to think of such stories. Her mudder hadn’t told her she couldn’t read them, but she’d said they were the kind of thing that just made girls have unrealistic expectations of men.
Well, she didn’t have any unrealistic expectations of Abe. She’d known him for too long.
Her mudder came bustling into the shop, carrying a bag from a sandwich shop nearby. “Decided to treat us to a sub.”
“But we brought our lunch.”
“So we’ll leave it in the refrigerator and have it tomorrow. Unless you don’t want a turkey sub?”
Lavinia laughed. “As if I’ve ever been able to turn one down. This is a day for treats. Lunch from the sandwich shop and pizza with Abe after work.”
“How were things while I was gone?” she asked as they sat behind the counter and ate their sandwiches quickly.
“Busy until a few minutes ago.”
Rachel nodded. “Looks like another gut summer for us. I’m going to get a glass of lemonade. Do you want one?”
“Ya, danki.”
Two customers walked in complaining about the heat, so the glasses of lemonade sat on the counter while Lavinia answered their questions about the carved wooden bowls they’d seen in the display window. Each bought a bowl, and one added a small carved bird by the same artist.
One woman looked at the other. “I think it’s time for us to go find a cold drink and have a sit-down.”
The other woman lifted the bag with her purchases and nodded. “Sounds good to me.”
Rachel smiled at Lavinia as the women left. “I think it’s time we had a cold drink, too.”
But it was as if a schul bus had let out down the street. Customer after customer came in, and the afternoon passed in a blur. By the time they got to sip their drinks, the ice had melted. Lavinia sighed. It was going to be nice to sit down in the restaurant with Abe and enjoy eating and drinking in a leisurely manner. Really nice.
* * *
There she was.
Abe pulled up in front of Rachel’s shop just as Lavinia came out, her mudder behind her. She looked like summer itself in a dress the color of the wild violets that bloomed along the road, her eyes bright with pleasure as she caught his gaze. Rachel waved at him as she locked the door, but he only had eyes for Lavinia as she walked toward his buggy. Was it possible that she was growing prettier the longer he knew her?
She smiled as she saw him and walked gracefully toward the buggy. A breeze caught her dress and molded it against her slender form.
“Right on time,” she said as she got into the buggy.
Her smile warmed his heart. Abe wasn’t going to tell her that he’d gotten into town a half hour early and had to drive around for a while. She didn’t need to know how much he’d come to want to see her.
He wanted more with this maedel. He wanted to see her more than a few hours each day.
He wanted a life with her. He wanted to marry her.
“Are you allrecht?” she asked as he stared at her.
“Ya,” he said slowly, and shook his head as if to clear it.
Careful! he warned himself as he checked for traffic and pulled out onto the road. Precious cargo aboard now. Watch what you’re doing.
He frowned as they moved forward slowly. “Traffic’s really heavy today.”
“Have you forgotten we’re in our busiest tourist season?” she asked.
“Guess I’ve had a lot on my mind.”
“I know.”
It was growing closer to the time they needed to talk if they were going to marry. The marriage season started right after harvest. If they didn’t do it then, they would have to wait a whole year….
“Did you have a gut day?”
She nodded. “Busy but pleasant.”
Abe stopped for a jaywalking shopper then proceeded slowly. When he glanced back, he saw Liz guiding her van into the parking space he’d just left.
“How was your day?” she asked him.
“Busy as well. Doctor and physical therapy appointments in the morning. I’m still not much help to Wayne in the cow barn, so I spent a lot of the afternoon working with Mamm in the farm stand.”
“Is she still making ice cream? I remember how delicious it was.”
He rolled his eyes. “She won’t listen to me that she’s doing too much. And Daed gets such a charge out of setting up that noisy ice-cream machine.”
“They really enjoy helping you. And doing things together is what makes a happy marriage, don’t you think?”
Abe glanced over at her. “I guess. But they’re getting older, and I was really hoping they’d take things a little easier, you know?”
“I think staying active makes them young.”
He hadn’t thought of it that way. “Daed does need to be careful, though, with his MS.”
“True.”
Traffic was heavy, with some of the cars on the road bearing out-of-state license tags. “It’s easy to forget how busy it gets in town this time of year when you don’t come in often,” he said.
“Great for business.”
He guided the buggy into the parking lot of the Italian restaurant. He’d left the choice of where they’d eat up to her and wasn’t unhappy with it. The pizza was wunderbaar and the prices were reasonable, so it was a favorite with locals. But he felt a little guilty that he’d never taken her to one of the fancier places available.
“What?” she asked.
He glanced at her. “What what?”
“I can almost hear you thinking.”
“Are you schur you don’t want to go someplace nicer?”
She shook her head. “This is very nice. And I love pizza. You know that. Come on. They’re going to get busy as people get off work.” She got out of the buggy and waited for him to join her.
It was great fun to surprise her with the fact that he now used a cane—one with four legs that stuck out at the bottom for balance—instead of the walker.
“You don’t have your walker!” she exclaimed.
He grinned. “Hoping to fire my therapist soon.”
They went inside and sat in their favorite booth in the back. The waitress, a young Mennonite teenager, brought their soft drinks without needing them to order, even though they hadn’t been in since Abe’s accident. “Large thin crust, half pepperoni, half mushroom?” she asked as she set the drinks down on the table.
Abe grinned. “You sure remember your customers.”
“That I do.” She bustled off to put in their order.
He watched Lavinia settle back against the plastic cushions of the booth with a sigh.
“Feels gut to get off my feet,” she said when she saw he was looking at her.
There was a candle on the table stuck in the neck of an empty bottle of wine. Different colors of wax dripped down it. The candle flame cast a golden glow on Lavinia’s face.
Abe reached for her hand and rubbed at the palm of it with his thumb. Public displays of affection were discouraged by their church, which was one reason why they liked the privacy of the booth at the rear of the restaurant. “You look so pretty tonight.”
She shook her head. “I’m schur I look tired. It was a busy day, like I said. Mamm and I barely got to eat, and we didn’t get to sit down but for a few minutes.” Then she smiled. “I don’t mean to complain. I like to stay busy. We sold two of my rugs today. It’s nice to have people like them.”
He was a man. He didn’t know quite what to say about the decorative rugs. “Why wouldn’t they? They’re attractive and make a room look better. My mudder loves the one you gave her for the dawdi haus.”
Lavinia shrugged as she picked up her drink to take a sip. “I just take scraps of fabric and make them into a rug.”
“It takes creativity. And there’s something nice about not wasting things, don’t you think?”
“I guess.”
An Englisch familye with several kinner took the table near them. He saw Lavinia’s gaze go to them.
“A little girl came in today and wanted to know if I was a Pilgrim,” she told him as she looked back at him. “You know, like from the Mayflower. Such a sweet kind. She was wearing a Disney princess dress.”
“Disney?” He smiled at the server as she set the pizza on the table, made sure they had plenty of napkins, and left them.
“You know. Disney like in cartoons and movies,” Lavinia said as she placed a slice of pizza on her plate. “I know neither of us was much interested in a rumschpringe, but you went to some movies, didn’t you?”
“I don’t remember seeing any Disney movies with princesses.”
She laughed. “I guess you wouldn’t have gone to one. Disney makes cartoons about Englisch fairy tales. Made me think how differently the idea of love and marriage are in those stories.”
Abe paused with his slice halfway to his mouth. “How’s that?”
“In their fairy tales, they talk about how someday a prince will come and the couple will live happily ever after.”
“A prince, huh?”
“Ya, you know what a prince is, right?”
“Of course I know what a prince is.” He bit into his pizza and thought about that. He was hardly what any woman would consider a prince, but then, Amish maedels didn’t expect them.
But was she hinting about marriage? He chewed and swallowed and waited for her to say more.
Instead, she finished her first slice and reached for a second.
The server returned to see if they needed anything else and brought a box so they could take home leftovers. When she left the check on the table, Lavinia reached for it. Abe grabbed the slip of paper away from her.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“You shouldn’t pick up the check every time we go out,” she told him.
“That’s what a man does.”
She raised her eyebrows. “That’s ridiculous. Let me pay for it this time. You’ve had so many expenses lately.”
“I can afford to take you out for a pizza.”
“And I can do the same.” And yet she let him pull out his wallet and count out bills.
“You’re being old-fashioned.” She picked up her purse and stood. “That’s another thing that’s different between the Englisch and us Old Order Amish. I’ve heard that the Englisch men let the women pay for a date sometimes.”
“Well, you’re with an Amish man right now. And even if he’s not a prince, he’s getting the check.”
They walked out to his buggy and got in.
“So this buggy won’t change back into a pumpkin at the stroke of midnight?” she asked with a grin, and then had to explain what she meant as they began the drive home.