As I listened to Dat’s buggy roll away, I second-guessed my decision to move here. I’d been hired on Olivia’s recommendation without a proper interview. If I hurried, I could catch up with him and return home.
Hold on. That was downright silly, immature thinking. I was a grown woman and needed to take care of myself. Why wouldn’t they like me as much as Zook’s owner had?
First things first. I stowed Mamm’s food in the pint-sized refrigerator. I’d rarely seen an empty refrigerator, and it was so clean inside too. Our refrigerator at home was always jam-packed with meats, cheeses, and yummy leftovers. Well, I doubted I’d starve working near a café, which must stand behind the greenhouses. I supposed it depended on when they served food. I knew Olivia’s baked goods would be available if employees were allowed to eat meals there. Still, after laboring in the soil all day, they might not be permitted to dine with the café’s patrons.
Deciding I’d have a snack later, I unclasped and opened the suitcase and then spread an armload of clothes across the bed. A tall bureau stood ready and welcoming. Above it hung an oval wood-framed mirror with a bedraggled woman gawking into it.
Ach, my heart-shaped kapp had collapsed like a failed soufflé. Clumps of my hair Mamm thought was the color of caramel straggled out from under it. I untied my kapp’s strings. My beige dress and black apron did nothing to improve my appearance, but I’d fix my hair later.
I knelt on the floor and pulled open the bottom drawer of the bureau. I was pleased to see plenty of room for my black socks. As I arranged them neatly, I imagined moving into my future husband’s home someday. Always his face looked like blond and striking Jake’s, my first love, whom I hadn’t seen for seven years. Silly musings. I was determined to replace his face with another man’s. Soon, I hoped.
Without warning, the door blew open, and I let out a surprised yelp.
“Sorry I startled you.” A tall man dressed in jeans and a yellow collared work shirt stepped into the room carrying an LED lamp—not Amish, judging by his clothing and Englisch haircut. “Are you the new employee?” he asked.
I got to my feet and put out my hand to shake his. “Yes. Hello. I’m Eva Lapp.” I scanned the bed and felt heat flushing my face when I saw my nightgown draped across it. I bundled it up and stuffed it in another bureau drawer.
He tilted his head. “We weren’t expecting you for a couple of days.”
“I’m sorry. I should have called ahead to warn you I was coming early.” I’d spare him the details of my mad dash to get packed and leave home.
“No matter. I’m Stephen Troyer, in charge of the nursery while the boss is out of town for a couple of weeks. I was just stopping by to make sure everything is okay.” He set the lantern on the small table next to the bed. “We’re happy to have you, Eva. The café has practically had to run on its own since Olivia left.”
“Café? I thought I’d be working in the nursery with plants. And perhaps maintaining a vegetable garden.” Gardening was my passion.
“No, we need a replacement for Olivia in the café. We have plenty of staff in the nursery. Although the little herb garden behind the main house might need tending now that Edna’s gone. She’s the Amish woman who used to live here and was my boss’s housekeeper for many years. But she had a stroke, and her family moved her to Indiana to live with one of her nieces.”
My mind spun with the impossibility of the situation. Why hadn’t Olivia been clear about this? “But I know nothing about running a restaurant.” Or much about cooking.
The corners of his mouth dragged down. “Can you manage a cash register and credit cards?”
“Yah, I did that in the fabric store, my last place of employment.”
“And can you brew a decent pot of coffee?”
“I’m used to making it for large crowds after church services and such. Nobody has ever complained.”
“Anything will taste better than the coffee made by the two girls we have now.” He raked a hand through his nutmeg-brown hair. “Olivia said you could accomplish anything if we give you directions. We were so relieved when she suggested you and said you needed a place to live.”
“I’m afraid my cousin might have stretched the truth a little.” I scanned the cabin and reminded myself she was doing me a favor. “I don’t possess half of Olivia’s culinary skills. Only what I’ve done at home. I always favored the garden and helping Dat with the milking when he needed me.”
“No cows to be milked around here. But we do have chickens and fresh eggs you’re welcome to gather and eat for breakfast.” His hazel-brown eyes probed mine. “Should I find someone else for the job?”
I canvassed my cozy new abode. “Nee. I’m used to working with the public. I’m sure I can learn what’s needed.” I hoped.
“It’s still early in the year, but we expect to get busy once the flowers are in bloom. Our goal is to have the café cover its overhead and make a profit. My boss was determined to build the place. It was his dream, so there you go. The nursery’s a bustling place spring through autumn. In winter, we sell Christmas trees. Glenn plans to have the café open all year.”
“I’m used to waiting on impatient customers. We would get buried at the fabric store during a sale. And I’m here now.” My being here must be God’s will. Wasn’t it?
“Come on. Let me walk you over there before you settle in.” I understood him to mean, before I have to kick you out in favor of someone more suitable for the job.
He glanced down at me. “I feel as if I know you, Eva. Have we met before? Wait. Didn’t you date Jake Miller?”
I cringed. “Many years ago.”
“I heard he still lives in New York.” Again he gave me an inquisitive look, waiting for my response.
“I heard that too.” Jake had sent me only two letters—both without a return address—and left me one voice message on the phone shanty recorder, just to say hello. But he never explained why he left or what was to become of our relationship. He just told me he was fine, all in the vaguest of terms. And then I never heard from him again.
“Someone said Jake was working for a construction company in the Conewango Valley.” Stephen’s tone was somber. “He and I lost touch shortly after his older brother died.” He tugged his earlobe. “You must know his father always favored his older son over Jake.”
“Yes, Jake’s dad treated Jake unfairly. Finding fault in everything he did.”
“I figured that’s why Jake took off.” Stephen’s statement sounded like a question, the way it went up at the end.
“I’m still not sure. I was away then.” I didn’t want to bring up the rumors circulated about me, but I did wish to continue our conversation. “Is Jake… Is he married?”
“I don’t know. Possibly, after all this time.”
I expelled an audible sigh and felt my shoulders droop. Well, of course he’d be married by now and probably have several children. But if so, that news had never reached my ears.
“You know about that barn fire?” Stephen’s mouth grew hard.
“I’ll never forget it as long as I live. Praise the Lord no one was killed or even hurt. But I felt sorry for the calves.” I snuck a peek at his ruggedly handsome face. “Still an unsolved mystery?”
“Yes, but I do know Jake wasn’t guilty. He was with me that night, not that he was following the Ordnung. I was and still am Mennonite and not under the same restrictions. But I was acting like a knucklehead.”
“I’ve always wondered why Jake didn’t defend himself.” Finally, I might get a straight answer to the questions that had plagued me about that fire.
“Well, like I said, we were both up to no good. On a lamebrain lark, Jake bought his wreck of a Toyota sedan and hid it from his folks. As I recall, he was twenty-two and still in rumspringa. Fact is, he and I and some buddies were in that old barn that evening, drinking beer, playing cards, and joking around, but nothing more. We were using a battery-powered lantern and knew better than to smoke in there. When we left the barn, it was standing. None of us would’ve been foolish enough to do anything to start a fire. We knew the value of barns. Someone must have seen his car and reported it to the police.”
“Why didn’t you tell the police all that?” A better question would have been to ask why Jake hadn’t defended himself.
“The barn’s owner was and still is Amish. He didn’t press charges. I never have understood that way of thinking. But the whole community pitched in, including Jake and me. Our heads hanging low, we all helped rebuild that barn better than new. Tongues were wagging the whole time, but no one came out and accused us.”
“But still, you could have spoken up. You both should’ve come out and confessed to being in the barn.”
“You’re right, but that would have meant telling everyone Jake owned a car. His father was already angry with him. Jake sold that ill-fated Toyota a week later. I still feel as if it were my fault. I was two years older and should have set a better example for him.”
Stephen must have seen an expression of worry on my face. “A year later—I guess you were out of state—I heard Jake left. He’s only returned to Lancaster County a couple of times that I know of.”
“And you never hear from him?” What was I doing speaking of a subject so personal with a stranger? Yet for years I’d ached to have this conversation with someone who’d not only known Jake, but was willing to talk to me about him. A gravitational pull still drew me to him.
“I was surprised he did, but he made a couple of calls to my cell phone.” Stephen shifted his weight. “He asked about you.”
I held my breath and waited for him to continue.
“Jake said he’d heard you had a new boyfriend.”
“Did you tell him I didn’t?” My mouth was so dry I could barely get out the words.
“I’m sorry, Eva, but I had no way of knowing. I’d heard you were seeing someone in Ohio, but I didn’t know if that was true.”
“None of the stories about me are true.” I shuddered to think of what Jake and Stephen had heard. Rumors that I’d run off to Ohio to give birth to either Jake’s or another man’s child had swirled like a flock of crows throughout the county. But I’d been in Ohio taking care of premature newborn twins for an ailing cousin.
Rubbing his chin with his knuckles, Stephen appeared uncomfortable. “Shall I show you the café now?”
“Yah, sure.” I tried to insert a ring of enthusiasm into my voice. For an Englischer, Stephen seemed to know the Amish well.
He moved toward the door just as a young Amish woman carrying towels glided onto the porch. I had a multitude of questions I still wanted to ask Stephen, but our conversation would have to wait.
“Oh.” Her eyes widened. I was glad the door was open. The last thing I needed was to be seen as a loose woman, something I wasn’t and never had been. But shaking a bad reputation was like pulling your foot out of a wasp’s nest without getting stung.
“Eva, this is Susie.”
“Nice ta meetcha,” we said in unison and then both chuckled.
Susie seemed around seventeen. Maybe younger. “I brought ya clean towels.”
“I wasn’t expecting to be waited on, but I’m delighted. I neglected to bring towels and a washcloth.” What else had I forgotten?
“Edna left them. They’re nice and soft. So are the bed linens she left.” Susie stepped into the bathroom and spoke to us through the open door. “I do several loads of laundry for the nursery every day anyway, so it’s no trouble to do whatever washing you need done. Really.” She hung the pale pink towels on a rack.
“Denki.”
“My bruder Mark works here too.”
“He’s quite popular with the young ladies,” Stephen said.
“Yah, he is.” Susie sent me a grin.
“But no time to chitchat right now,” Stephen informed her in a no-nonsense manner, as if he wanted her to get back to work. “We’re off to the café.”
As I followed Stephen down the steps, a black cat streaked across our path. I inhaled the heavenly aromas of sarcococca and daphne. The early-blooming flowers must be nearby. On either side of the pathway, pansies, bleeding hearts, and blooming hellebore grabbed my attention, along with many species I didn’t recognize. Clumps of miniature daffodils and tulips pressed their way through the earth. But there wasn’t time to investigate now.
I increased my speed to keep up with Stephen’s long legs. We strode by the main house and the enormous glass greenhouses I was dying to explore.
We passed several young, clean-shaven Amish men wearing straw hats. They spoke to Stephen in Deitsch, asking questions and listening to his instructions. I was surprised to hear him speaking to them in fluent Pennsylvania Dutch.
One of the young men tipped his hat at me and sent me a goofy grin that seemed flirtatious. But he was too young for me.