Almost Amish (30 page)

“I know.” He reached over and squeezed her hand. “I know.” He left his hand on hers for another second, then returned both hands to the wheel. “Do you have any idea where they might be?”

“One of the guys on the crew told Whitney that Chris had taken the car, saying he was going into town for a while. That’s all I know.”

“So you’re not even sure that she’s with him?”

“I’m sure.” She paused long enough to gather her thoughts into a somewhat coherent answer. “She got a letter from home that upset her. The next thing I knew, she’d crawled out her window. I’m sure she was looking for someone to talk to.” As she made the statement, it stung all the more. Teenager or not, what could possibly possess her to pick some weird teenage boy to talk to about something like this?

“Well, town isn’t all that big. We’ll drive down the main strip and see if we see any sign of them. Chris drives an old black Jeep. Help me keep an eye out for it.”

Gary’s truck lumbered over the country lanes, and Susan watched the side of the road, just in case Angie was hitchhiking. Soon enough they’d reach the four-lane that comprised the major part of the city area. Several strip malls lined the street, and in almost all the parking lots, kids could be seen sitting on the hoods of cars, on the tailgates of trucks, and otherwise just loitering around. So many kids wasting so much time.

“They could be anywhere.” She shook her head, realizing the futility of even attempting to come after her. “How are we ever going to find them?”

“You could just go home and wait for her to show back up, but I know that’s not exactly your style.”

“You can say that again.” Susan looked at every car they passed as desperation began to get the best of her. “For all we know, they might even be back at the house right now. It’s not like we have phones to get in touch with each other. Not until this moment have I fully understood the importance of modern conveniences.”

“At least you’re not out searching with a horse and buggy.”

Susan would have laughed at this at some other time, in some other circumstances, but tonight, nothing was funny. “It’s crazy for us to be wasting our time out here. Maybe I should go back, tell Kendra everything. I’m sure they could use their resources to find them.”

“I guess this turned out to be a real
rumspringa
for you, huh?”

“
Rumspringa
. That’s right! What else was it they were talking about doing this week? Going to the movies? McDonald’s?”

“I’m with you.” Gary turned the truck into the parking lot of the local movie theater. It was mostly full, and they drove up and down the four rows searching for the black Jeep. There was nothing.

“McDonald’s is just down the road, and it’s on our way back to the house. We can check there and then head back if that’s what you think we should do.”

“It’s definitely not what I want to do, but I don’t know that there’s a better choice.”

They turned into the McDonald’s parking lot, then circled around the back to look at the other side. As they rounded the back corner, Susan continued to survey every single parked vehicle. There was a particularly large pickup truck, jacked way off of its oversized wheels. She was just shaking her head at the absurdity of it when she saw what was parked on the other side of it.

A black Jeep with California plates.

“Stop!” She jerked open the door and jumped from the truck before Gary could bring it to a full stop. She didn’t have time to wait for things like that. She needed answers. Now.

Julie’s favorite rocking chair—usually a place of comfort and peace—jerked and squeaked as her legs refused to be still. No amount of effort could calm her nerves enough to stop them from pistoning up and down. She focused on the fabric in her lap, trying her hardest to make straight stitches. She found this all but impossible under the circumstances.

“King me.” Brian’s voice lacked its usual in-your-face tone when he was beating Whitney at a game of checkers. They were both doing the same thing she was, going through the motions.

Whitney put a black checker on Brian’s new king without a single bit of smack talk. She glanced up at Julie, shook her head once, then looked back down. Julie tried to focus on her quilt again.

“Knock, knock.” Kendra breezed into the room and looked around. “My, my, aren’t you all up late tonight? Where are Susan and Angie?”

Julie glanced toward the kids and found Whitney’s gaze firmly planted on the game board. Brian did look at her, studying her like he would one of his astronomy books.

“To tell you the truth”—Julie looked from the kids to Kendra—“I’m not sure where they are.”

“What do you mean?”

“They, uh, they needed to have a private conversation, so they’ve gone out somewhere. I have no idea where they are.” Julie had carefully worded what she said so that nothing was actually untrue, but if taken for what it implied, it would hopefully steer Kendra away from what was happening.

“All right.” She walked to the edge of the living room as if verifying that Susan and Angie truly weren’t there. Once she’d established this to her satisfaction, she said, “Well, that’s okay. It was you I wanted to speak with anyway. Privately, if you don’t mind.”

Oh no. The crew must have seen enough to figure out what was going on. Julie didn’t want to be the one to break the news that would wreck everything. “Okay.” She stood slowly and followed Kendra from the room. When she reached the doorway to the kitchen, she chanced a glance backward.

Whitney and Brian were both staring after her. Whitney opened her eyes wide for just a split second, conveying her panic. Julie turned around and followed Kendra outside.

“Let’s go talk in the shack, if you don’t mind.”

Julie didn’t respond, she just followed, her mind frantically searching for ways to defuse this situation. Nothing short of lying came to mind. The important thing was going to be to limit the amount of information given and not volunteer anything Kendra didn’t already know. She likely didn’t know Gary was involved, and there was no reason to get him in trouble for being willing to help. She walked into the office and took a seat, vowing to keep as silent as possible.

“So I’m guessing that you must be quite curious about how these episodes are being received by our viewers.”

Julie just stared, the words having almost no meaning.
Episodes?

She shook her head, relieved to talk about something other than what she’d expected. “I really am interested. It’s Susan’s deal, as far as all that goes, but I can’t help but wonder how it’s all working.”

“We’ve been polling our audiences, and we’ve gotten some pretty interesting results.”

“Really? Like what?”

“The ratings for this series have been the highest we’ve seen in a long time.”

“That’s great news!” And it truly was. Success in this show would give Susan one less thing to worry about, and at this point she had plenty. “I know Susan will be really thrilled to hear this.”

Stupid. Why did she bring Susan’s name up in the conversation? Now Kendra was going to want to go find her and share the news.

“Y-es,” Kendra said, though her voice was hesitant. She glanced down at a graph on her desk. “Yes and no. See, the thing is, everyone is enjoying watching the simple life and your families as you struggle to live it. But the interesting thing that we’ve found is, the viewers appear to be more sympathetic to you than to Susan. By quite a lot.”

“I don’t understand.”

“We didn’t really, either, so we called in more polls. It seems that most women identify more with someone like you. Someone who struggles with the day-to-day life of being a mother and housekeeper, especially in such trying circumstances. They seem to think Susan is a bit too perfect and a bit too cold.”

“Oh.” Julie wasn’t certain what she was supposed to do with this information, but Kendra was looking at her expectantly. “So I’m not clear on why you’re telling me this. Am I supposed to help soften Susan or something? I’m not really sure how to do that.”

“Julie, we went into this knowing that this series had the potential to become a regular feature on the Lisa Lee show. We’ve been looking at all this data, and we believe that it will work. But here’s the thing, I want you to be our star, not Susan.”

“What?” The full weight of the burden of a missing niece, and Susan’s career dreams being perhaps taken away pressed against Julie so hard that she couldn’t breathe. “No, this is Susan’s dream. She
needs
this.”

“And we need to do what is best for our show. And what works best for a television show is connecting viewers with people whom they care about. That equals ratings.”

“I can’t believe Lisa would consider doing this. I thought she genuinely liked Susan.”

“I’m sure she does, and I haven’t even broached the subject with her yet. I wanted to get you on board first.”

“I’m on board for helping Susan get her ratings up. Listen, I am not a cook, I am not a home manager. The people of America certainly don’t want to watch the chaos of my normal life.”

“The women of America like a woman who struggles with the same things they do. They like to see her overcome, of course, which could be part of your continuing series.”

“No.” Julie shook her head firmly. “No. I would never take Susan’s dream from her and make it mine. Never.”

“You don’t have to give a final answer now; in fact, I won’t accept that right now. I want you to spend some time thinking about it.”

“There’s no reason. That’s something I would never do. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going back to my family.” Julie hurried from the building. She made it only until she closed the door behind her before she had to run to the bushes and empty her stomach.

Susan jerked open the door so suddenly, a man with an armload of Happy Meals stumbled through it. He reached forward just in time to catch a loose box before it hit the ground.

“I’m so sorry. Are you all right?”

“No harm done. You want to slow it—”

Susan hurried inside, leaving the man and his admonition behind. There wasn’t time for it right now.

It took a few seconds to get her bearings, but then she saw them. They were sitting on opposite sides of a corner booth, leaning in toward each other, holding hands across the table. Chris released Angie’s right hand just long enough to wipe tears from her cheek with the back of his fingers; then he grasped onto her hand again.

The sight of her daughter so upset momentarily tempered her fury, but not completely, and not for long. If Angie was upset, then she should have come to Susan to talk about it. Sneaking off with this . . . person, was not the answer. She marched up to the booth. “Angie Reynolds, you are coming back to the house with me right now.”

Angie jerked back in her seat and looked up. “Mom! How did you find us here?”

“It doesn’t matter. You’re leaving with me right now.”

Chris nodded. “You should go.” The ruffian had the nerve to pull Angie’s hand up to his lips and kiss it before he let her go. “I’ll be praying for you.”

“I’m sure you will.” Susan couldn’t believe the nerve of that boy, acting like he had any sort of real spiritual beliefs just to get on Angie’s good side, or perhaps out of trouble with Susan. Either way, she wasn’t buying it. “Come on, Angie. We’re leaving right now.”

Angie stood up slowly, her eyes trained on Chris the entire time. She walked to his side of the booth, leaned down, and hugged him. “Thank you.” She let him go and stood up, her tears falling harder now. “I’m sorry.” She more or less whispered the words, but she wasn’t talking to Susan; she was still talking to Chris.

Susan waited until they were outside before she said, “Let me get this straight, you run off in the middle of the night with a boy you were forbidden to see, and you tell
him
you’re sorry? What about the mother who has spent the last hour frantically searching for you? Why aren’t you sorry about that?”

“I am sorry, Mom, but I needed someone I could talk to. Chris is the only one who understands.”

“That boy would tell you anything to make you think he’s truly interested in you, Angie. All you have to do is take one look at him to know his interests in anyone are far from noble.”

“Maybe if you spent some time caring about the inside rather than the outside of everything!” Across the parking lot, a family of four turned to watch them. Susan tried not to imagine the smug look on the wife’s face.

“Don’t you dare talk to me that way.” By now, Susan was shaking with rage. “We’re going to get in that truck and not say a single word in front of Gary. But as soon as we get back to the farm, we are going to have a very long talk.”

“Fine.” Angie walked past Susan toward the truck. Gary was leaning against the tailgate, obviously making a point not to look in their direction.

As Angie approached, she did say, “Good evening, Gary.”

“Evening to you, too.” He raced around and opened the passenger-side door. Angie climbed in and slid across.

He held the door for Susan. “Thank you so much for bringing me out to find her. Can I ask one more favor?”