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A week passed, in which Samuel called at the house again and used his handsome lips to kiss her much and confess little; Mark called at the house also, and also kissed her much, and told her even less; and Joseph mailed three regrettable pages of poetry in which he compared her to a large chicken, though she was fairly sure he was trying to say that she would make a good wife, in a very roundabout way.
She hadn’t had much time to think about the letter, but the memory of it nagged at her. She had received what she believed to be direction from God to sell it, and the proper thing to do now was to call that Englisch reporter and get it over with.
But she dreaded it.
She counted it sheer Divine Intervention that he hadn’t kept the letter for himself. That must surely be it, because she had no confidence in the fellow’s ethics, or, to be honest, his sanity. He’d behaved like a madman the first day she met him. And his behavior hadn’t improved – the last time she’d seen him, he’d jumped at her from the bushes in her mother’s garden, like a wild animal.
He even pretended to be interested in her, though they were total strangers.
Still, it was her duty to sell the letter, and she supposed she’d better get on with it and have done. And since the crazy Englischer was the only person she knew that could help her, she guessed she ought to call him up.
Of course, it would all be very awkward, and not at all proper. As an Amish woman, she was not supposed to talk to Englischers and Englisch men in particular. But in a case like this, what other choice did she have?
She couldn’t think of any other choice, anyway. But once the letter had been sold, and she had the money, no one would have to know what she’d done. She would just be an anonymous donor to people who needed help.
There was one possible problem, though: the Englisch reporter had said he wanted to write a story about her. That part did worry her. But since she didn’t intend to see him again if she could help it, she supposed it would be all right to tell him her story over the phone.
There was little danger that her family and friends would ever find out. No one she knew read Englisch papers or visited their websites.
She sat on the porch swing, shelling beans into a big metal bowl. She still had the little card the reporter had given her. She could go out to the little phone shack at the end of their driveway and call. She would tell the Williams fellow to go ahead and put the letter up for auction.
Maybe she wouldn’t even have to see him again at all. Maybe she could just tell him to take pictures of the letter, and tell him her story over the phone and tell him not to share her name.
Yes, that was it! She would give him permission to tell the story but not use her name. Then no one, not even the people who read the story, would ever know it was her.
Yes, that would be perfect. She smiled to herself, comforted by the belief that even if she had to do some unusual things at first, everything would be all right in the end.
Jemima put her plan into action early the next day.
At sunrise, she sat patiently on a small bench in the phone shack. The phone rang and rang...four times, five, six.
She wondered why the Englischer didn’t answer his phone. He had written that he was staying at the motel outside of town. Surely he was up by now – it was almost 6 a.m., and the sky had been light for almost an hour.
After the tenth ring, there was a fumbling sound, and a clunk, and more fumbling. A bleary, irritable voice snapped:
“Very funny, Delores! Six o’clock in the morning! I’m reporting you to Dapper Dwayne for employee abuse. He’ll be sending you a list of my grievances.”
Jemima frowned. “I must have the wrong number,” she stammered, and prepared to hang up the phone.
There was a frantic fumbling sound on the other end, followed by: “No, no, um, yes, this is Brad Williams. I’m sorry – is this – is this Miss Jemima King?”
Jemima frowned. He was babbling like a lunatic, and she was seized by the urge to hang up the phone and forget the whole thing. But the remembrance of the sermon she had heard spurred her to take a new grip on her resolve.
She took a deep breath. “Yes, it is.”
“Ah! Ah, I apologize, Miss King. I, ah, mistook you for someone else.”
She set her mouth, and replied firmly: “I’m giving you permission to sell the letter for me. You can give it to those people, and they can put it up for auction.”
“Wonderful! I’d be delighted to help you! Would you be open to meeting me in town and letting me drive you out to the auction house?”
Jemima frowned into the receiver. His voice sounded absurdly excited. She shook her head, thinking: Greed.
“I’m not going to meet with anybody,” she told him firmly, “and I’m not going to the auction house, and I’m not going to get my picture taken. But if you want to ask me questions, I’ll tell you about how I found the letter. But only if you don’t use my name or my family’s name.”
“Ah.” There was a split-second of silence, followed by: “I ah, appreciate that, Miss King! I would absolutely like to ask you questions about how you found the letter! Maybe I could come out to your house, it would only be for a–”
She shook her head vehemently. “No, I don’t want anyone to come out to my house!”
“Okay, I understand,” he replied quickly. “We can do it over the phone! I’ll call you the day before the sale – when everything is ready.”
“I’ll call you,” she told him.
“Or, you could call me,” he amended quickly.
Jemima looked out the window toward the house. She only had a few minutes.
When she returned to the conversation, the reporter was saying, “Call me at this same number next Monday, about noon. I’ll walk you through the small print, because there are some legal formalities. In order for us to sell the letter, you’ll have to fill out some forms, and give the auction house your written permission to sell.”
Jemima frowned. “Will they keep my name a secret?”
“If you want that.”
Jemima nodded. “I do.”
“I, ah, the appraisers recommended Brinkley’s, is that all right with you?”
“Who’s Brinkley?”
There was a long silence. “Ah...I’m sorry...Brinkley’s is the auction house.”
“As long as they keep my name private, and don’t come out to the house or bother my family, I don’t care who sells it,” Jemima answered.
She looked up and saw her father standing on the front lawn with his hands on his hips. He was looking for her. Rufus was hitched to the buggy, and it was time to go back to Mr. Satterwhite’s with the batch of dolls that she’d promised him.
“I have to go,” she said suddenly. “I have to go to town.”
“Wait – I mean, is it all right if I mail the documents to your home? You’ll have to–”
But Jemima was no longer paying attention. Her father had stumped off to the garden, and she knew that once he missed her there, he’d be coming in the direction of the phone shack.
And she couldn’t afford to be caught in it.
She dropped the phone and decamped, hoping that she could reach the lawn before her father returned.
Meanwhile, the phone receiver swung back and forth, as the reporter’s tiny, agitated voice spooled out uselessly into the air.
