The Search Page 11

  Dear Jonah,

  Your note said you would be gone only a few days. It has now been nearly a week and I haven’t heard a word from you. Should I be planting celery? Can't have an Amish wedding without celery!

  Affectionately,

  Sallie

  “Today’s the day, Bess,” Billy said when she came into the greenhouse to bring him a glass of lemonade. “We’re going to the bakery today to talk to Eddie Beaker.”

  Bess’s eyes went wide. “We? What do you mean, we?”

  He took a sip of his lemonade and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “You’ve met him. I don’t have any idea who he is.”

  “I haven’t met him. Lainey pointed him out, that’s all. And you can figure out who he is. He wears a plaid blazer and his hair is slicked back with Crisco and he chews on a cold cigar.” She shook her head. “You go. He gives me the creeps.”

  Billy blew air out through his lips like an exasperated horse.

  “What would we say, anyway?”

  “Bess, think,” he said patiently, as if she were a schoolchild stumped on an easy problem. “We need to be talking about the lake just loud enough so that he overhears us. He needs to think it’s his story to break.”

  She bit her lip. He made it sound simple, but she knew it wouldn’t be. It was just like Mammi and the sheriff’s car. Same thing.

  “Come on, Bess,” he said, as she hesitated. “We’ve got to try and save our lake! You’re the one who found out it was polluted in the first place!”

  The way he was looking at her, so passionate and fired up, made her fall in love with him all over again. And he had said “our lake,” like it belonged to just the two of them. “Fine,” she said. “I’ll tell Mammi that we’re going to buy some cherry tarts from Lainey. She’ll be thrilled.”

  But there were no cherry tarts at The Sweet Tooth today. It was Lainey’s day off, Bess and Billy discovered unhappily when they arrived at the bakery five minutes before three. Mrs. Stroot was trying to lock up for the day and seemed anxious for them to leave. Billy stood in front of the counter, stalling for time, pretending that he couldn’t make up his mind about what to buy. Bess kept looking down the street to see a man in a big plaid jacket head this way. Finally, just as Mrs. Stroot was about to shoo them out, in came Eddie Beaker. It was just like Bess had told Billy, he was chewing a cold cigar.

  “You go first,” Billy told Eddie as he walked up to the glass counter. “I’m still thinking it over.”

  Mrs. Stroot rolled her eyes.

  Eddie pointed to the Danish. “How much?”

  “Ten percent discount,” Mrs. Stroot bargained.

  “Make it half off and I’ll take them all,” he growled.

  As Mrs. Stroot sighed deeply and started to pack the Danish in a box, Billy unrolled his spiel. “I was planning to go fishing, but there’s just no fish at Blue Lake Pond.” He motioned with Bess to pick up his lead.

  “Still none?” Bess asked, too loudly.

  “Just the dead ones on the shore,” he said.

  “Such a pity,” Bess said. “And all of those birds gone too.” She wished Lainey were here. She would have been able to engage Eddie Beaker into the conversation. He seemed far more interested in the Danish than in the missing wildlife.

  Billy sidled closer to Eddie Beaker. “It’s the strangest thing. Ever since that paper mill went in, there’s been less and less wildlife up there. Now, there’s virtually none. Can’t figure it out.” He looked at Eddie Beaker to see if he was taking the bait. What more of a morsel could he toss to a reporter hungry for news?

  Eddie Beaker pulled out his wallet to pay Mrs. Stroot. He handed her a few dollars, took the change, put it in his pocket, and left the bakery.

  Billy exchanged a defeated look with Bess. “Let’s go home.”

  Mrs. Stroot groaned.

  Bess woke to the sound of bacon sputtering and popping in the pan. She lay in bed and smiled. Mammi said she would be making pancakes with maple syrup today.

  Bess was delighted that her father wasn’t talking about returning to Ohio anytime soon. She had assumed they would be heading back as soon as possible, but no. Jonah had told her that he was waiting on blood test results to see if he could help out Mammi’s brother with his cancer. And happily, there was no mention of Bess as a donor.

  She was glad she didn’t have to worry about returning to Ohio. She had enough worries on her plate without adding more.

  Her main worry was Billy Lapp. He’d taken up the outrageous notion that Bess could give him advice about how to get Betsy to stop flirting with other boys and just concentrate on him. “I know she’s sweet on me,” he told her just that afternoon while they were bagging up dried rose petals from the drying frames.

  Bess listened sympathetically with her face and about a third of her mind. The rest of her thoughts were on memorizing Billy’s face. “How do you know that?” She bent down to scratch a mosquito bite on her ankle until it bled. “Well?” she asked defiantly.

  “She tells me so.”

  Bess straightened up and rolled her eyes to the highest heaven at that comment. “If she’s telling that to you, Billy, she’s telling that to all the boys.”

  He scrunched up his handsome face. “Nah. You don’t know Betsy like I do.”

  How could Billy be so smart in rose grafting and mathematics and so dumb when it came to understanding women? The way the male sex thought had her stumped.

  Bess had tried to have a conversation with Betsy Mast after church the other day, just out of curiosity. She couldn’t deny that Betsy was exceptionally pretty—even more so, up close—but she had a breathy, baby voice and answered questions with questions. Bess asked her if her parents were farmers, and she responded by saying, “Aren’t all Amish farmers?” Well, no, Bess told her. Some build furniture, like her father. One fellow manufactures windows. Others even work in factories. Betsy looked at her as if she was describing life on another planet. Bess wasn’t sure if Betsy’s lantern in her attic wasn’t lit or if she was just trying to pretend she was interested when she wasn’t.

  Billy nudged Bess to bring her back to his problem at hand. “What do you think I should do? Should I tell her I want her to stop seeing other fellows?”

  They were working side by side. She enjoyed being this close to him. He smelled of earth and sweat and roses. “I don’t know, Billy.”

  He lifted a frame and leaned it against the wall. “Sure you do. You’re a girl, aren’t you?”

  Charming. At least he had noticed that.

  “You can’t make someone like you.” She knew that to be true. “There was a boy in Ohio who drove me cuckoo, he liked me so much. Kept trying to walk with me to school and hold my hand and talked about getting married someday. He hung around me like a summer cold. He even had our children’s names picked out. All ten of them!” She shuddered. “If he had just left me alone, maybe I would have taken notice of him.” Probably not, though. Everything about Levi Miller was annoying to her.

  Billy lifted the last empty frame and set it against the wall. He swiveled around on his heels, his head cocked. “Okay, I’ll try it! I knew you’d have an idea of what to do. You’re a peach.” He smiled, exposing two rows of very white, straight teeth. Possibly one of his best features, Bess assessed. Either that or the cleft in his chin.

  Bess turned away. Don’t tell me I’m a peach, she thought. Tell me I’m . . . what? Beautiful? Hardly. The love of your life? That would be Betsy Mast. A loyal friend? Oh, that sounds like a pet dog. So what did she want? Why was she so determined to keep on loving him, knowing that he loved another?

  She had no answer.

  In the middle of her musings, Billy surprised her with a loud and brotherly buss on her forehead. He grabbed his hat and waved goodbye as he left the barn for the day. She went to the open barn door and watched him walk down the drive, hat slightly tilted back on his head, whistling a tune as if he didn’t have a care in the world. Blackie—fatter than ever fr
om hunting all those barn mice and birds and other things Bess didn’t want to think about—came out of his hiding place and wound himself around her legs. She bent down to pick him up, the traitor.

  She wasn’t sure what she had said that gave Billy a better plan to woo Betsy, but she knew she wasn’t going to wash that kiss off of her forehead for a very long time.

  Billy hurried through his chores that afternoon to get home, shower, and change, so he could hightail it over to the volleyball game at the Yoders’. He was grateful to Bess for giving him such good advice. Bess was turning out to be a valuable resource. He hadn’t really had a friend who was a girl before. Bess was easy for him to talk to, maybe because she was a good listener. When Bess told him the story about the fellow who overly liked her, it hit him like a two-by-four. That was just the way he’d been acting toward Betsy.

  It made so much sense. Betsy was more than a year older than he was. The last time he had tried to talk to her about courting, she tilted her head and asked him how old he was.

  “Eighteen,” he said. “Nearly nineteen.”

  Betsy gave him a patronizing look. “You can’t even call yourself a man yet.”

  “Years aren’t everything,” Billy said. “I’m taller and stronger than most grown men.”

  Betsy had smiled and let him kiss her on the cheek, but he knew she never took him seriously. Of course not. He’d been acting immature, fawning and obsequious. Girls didn’t like that, Bess had told him. That came as a surprise, but most things about girls came as a surprise to him.

  Starting tonight, he was going to ignore Betsy. Not talk to her. Not even look at her.

  When Billy arrived at the Yoders’, he found his friends huddled together in a sad circle. “Who died?” he asked his best friend, Andy Yoder, who claimed to also be head over heels in love with Betsy. But Billy wasn’t at all concerned. Andy was always in love with somebody.

  “Haven’t you heard? Betsy Mast ran off. We think she’s with an English fellow who works at the Hay & Grain. Guess they’ve been planning it for months now.” Andy looked as if his world had just imploded. “She’s just been using all of us as decoys, so her folks wouldn’t catch on.”

  That night, Bess was sleeping deeply until a noise woke her. She opened her eyes and tried to listen carefully to the night sounds. She wasn’t entirely used to Rose Hill Farm yet, the way the walls creaked or the sounds of the night birds, different from Ohio birds. At first she thought the sound must have been Mammi’s snoring, but then she heard something else. Something thumped the roof by her window. She hoped it was a roof rat. Or maybe Blackie, finally coming out of that barn for a visit. Where was Boomer when she needed him? Probably snoring right along in rhythm with Mammi.

  She tiptoed out of bed and looked out the window. Sometimes at night the leaves rustled branches at the window, but she didn’t see leaves or branches. A shape was down there and it scared her half to death. She was just about to scream when she heard the shape calling up to her.

  It was Billy, below her window, waving to her. He cupped his hands around his mouth and whispered loudly, “Get dressed and come down! I need to talk to you!”

  Bess’s heart sang. She never dressed faster in her life. She stuck herself twice as she pinned her dress together. She bunched up her hair into a sloppy bun and jammed her prayer cap over it, then quietly tiptoed down the stairs and slipped out the side door.

  Billy was pacing the yard, arms crossed against his chest. When he saw her, he stopped and motioned to her to come. “Let’s go to the pond.”

  He had left his horse and courting buggy on the road so that he wouldn’t waken Mammi and Jonah, he said, so they hurried down the drive and climbed in. Bess looked back once, but the large farmhouse looked silent. Billy slapped the horse’s reins and kept his eyes straight ahead. He didn’t say a word, but Bess didn’t care. Here she was on a perfect, moonlit summer night, being secretly courted by Billy Lapp. This was the most wonderful, splendid moment of her life. She wanted to remember every detail of the evening so she could relive it during dreary moments—math class came to mind—when she returned, inevitably, to Ohio. The night was dark, so she chanced a glance at Billy, admiring the determined way his jaw was sticking out, the stern set of his mouth, his two dark eyebrows furrowing together.

  All of a sudden, Bess’s dreamy hopes evaporated, like steam rising from a tea cup. She felt something was wrong, but then she was always feeling that and it never was. “Billy, is something bothering you?”

  He took in a deep breath. “She’s gone, Bess. She ran off with an English fellow who worked at the Hay & Grain.” He wiped his eyes with the back of his sleeve.

  “Who?”

  “For crying out loud, Bess! Who do you think? Betsy!” He jerked the horse’s reins to sharply turn right onto the path that led to Blue Lake Pond. He pulled back on the reins and stopped the horse at the end of the level space, then hopped down and tied the reins to a tree. He sauntered down to the water’s edge, looking bereft.

  Bess stayed in the buggy, watching him, half furious, half delighted. A part of her was disappointed that Billy used her as a listening post for his troubles. The part that felt delighted Betsy was gone made her feel shamed. What kind of person took delight in another person’s downfall? She knew that wasn’t right and she breathed a quick apology to the Lord for her sinful thoughts. But from the start she knew what kind of girl Betsy was, that she never did care about Billy or see how special he was. Betsy Mast wasn’t good enough for Billy Lapp. Then she caught herself. That, too, was a sinful thought, and she had to apologize again to the Lord.

  Goodness. Love was a tricky business.

  She could see that Billy was suffering, and she tried not to be too glad for it. She sighed and hopped down from the buggy to join him.

  “This is the worst summer on record,” he said mournfully. “My lake is ruined. My love life is ruined.” The words gushed out of him, heartfelt. He pressed a fist to his breast. “I love her so, it’s like a constant pain, right here in my chest.” He glanced at Bess. “You probably don’t understand that kind of love.”

  Oh, I understand it all right, Bess thought. Love that burns so hot and fast it makes you act crazier than popping corn on a skillet.

  He was sitting at the water’s edge with his elbows leaning on his knees. “It’s your fault, you know.”

  Her jaw dropped open.

  “It is. If you had only given me the idea of ignoring her before today, maybe she would have taken me more seriously.” Billy looked up at the moon. “I should have told her how much I loved her. How I was planning on marrying her. I shouldn’t have waited.”

  Bess rolled her eyes. One minute he’s ignoring Betsy. The next minute he’s professing undying love.

  “It’s just that . . . I’ve never felt like that about anyone before. And I’m sure she was in love with me. I’m just sure of it.”

  Bess plopped down on the shore next to him. “Lainey said she’s seen Betsy zooming around town in that English fellow’s sports car all summer.”

  Billy froze. “That’s not true.”

  “Lainey wouldn’t lie about that,” she said softly. “And you must know she was spending time in other boys’ courting buggies.” She looked away. “Even I knew that, and I’ve only been here a little over a month.”

  “That is a lie!” Billy shouted.

  “No, it is not. You know it’s the truth. I’ve seen Betsy in Andy’s buggy and Jake’s buggy and—”

  Billy scrambled to a stand. “Aw, you don’t know what you’re talking about! She told me to my face that she was pining only for me!”

  Bess rose to her feet and brushed off her dress. “Billy . . . you must have had some inkling—”

  “Why am I even trying to talk to you about this? You’re nothing but a child! What would you know about love?” He spun around and marched to the buggy.

  Bess opened her mouth, snapped it shut. How dare he call her a child! She stomped up to the bugg
y. “Betsy Mast was never sweet on you! You got caught up like all the others with her . . . her curves and big lips and wavy hair. There was nothing in the attic.” She tapped on her forehead. “Kissing don’t last. Brains beats kissing every time.”

  Billy stared at her, as if he was trying to absorb what she had said. Finally, she threw up her hands in the air, turned, and marched up to the road to walk back to Rose Hill Farm.

  She was halfway down the dark road and thought she heard a rustling noise in the berry bushes along the road. She stopped, slowly turned, looked back. The movement behind her also stopped. Each time she paused, it happened. Was Billy really going to let her walk all of the way home by herself? She was determined not to look behind her to see if he was coming, but now she was sure she heard a loud scruffling noise. Why, it was as loud as a bear, she started to think, though she had never actually come face-to-face with a bear. Bears liked berry bushes, she knew that for a fact. Yes, it definitely sounded like something was following her. A spooky owl hooted, wind cracked in the trees, and something else made a slithery noise that she hoped wasn’t a snake, because she was afraid of snakes.

  Just when she was about to run for her life, she heard the gentle clip-clop of Billy’s horse pull up the road.

  When he was beside her, he called out in his soft, manly voice, “Bess, hop in.”