Plain Fame (11 page)

Smiling, she turned her thoughts back to the meatballs, rolling the fresh ground meat between her hands, Alejandro’s gentle touch on her skin still somehow lingering in her memory.

Chapter Eight

The next day followed the same routine. Alejandro awoke at five and helped with the morning milking. It was easier to get up that second day, and he didn’t seem to mind greeting the dawn before the sun rose. Indeed, he stood for a moment on the porch and stared at the bluish-gray skies. It was breaking dawn, and he found it inspiring to watch it happen. Usually he was heading back to bed at this hour, not starting his day.

The barn was quiet when he walked inside. The cows were already lined up and ready for their milking. Elias glanced up, greeting Alejandro with a simple head nod before returning to work. Looking around, Alejandro was relieved to not find Amanda also at work in the barn. Clearly, the visiting nurse had helped her realize that she needed to take it easy for a while. He just hoped that she kept listening and laying low.

During breakfast, Amanda seemed quiet and withdrawn. From time to time, she glanced at him but quickly looked away if he caught her gaze. He wondered about her shyness this morning, finding it charming after all that they had been through. They had spent a lot of time together in the past week, he realized. More time than he had spent with any single person in quite a long while. The people he usually met came and went quickly, mostly because of his own crazy schedule, but also because he just wasn’t interested in expanding his trusted circle of close friends. With Amanda, he realized, he felt different. She didn’t expect anything from him, and that was something he found refreshing.

After breakfast, Alejandro volunteered to help Elias in the fields. He was relieved when Elias smiled and thanked him. “Sure could use the help,” he had said.

Alejandro noticed that Amanda sighed at her father’s words and looked away.

For the rest of the morning, Elias and Alejandro worked at cutting the hay, the disk mower being pulled behind the team of four mules. Elias told him that the hay had to be left to dry in the sun for a few days before it would be baled. To bale it sooner was to risk having the barn catch fire because damp, smoldering hay was a fire hazard to any farm.

“Does that happen frequently?” Alejandro asked, wiping the sweat from his brow. He wondered when was the last time that he had worked so hard, and realized that he couldn’t remember. He didn’t count his endless concerts or interviews, despite the fact that it was, indeed, hard work. It was just not the same as laboring in the fields. He decided that it had been close to twenty years.

“Ja,”
Elias said. “Young farmers just starting out often bale it too soon. They learn from experience. You hear about a barn or two burning each year.”

“What happens then?”

Elias shrugged casually. “We build them a new barn!”

“We?”

“The other farmers and the surrounding community.” Elias took off his straw hat and waved it back and forth to cool down his burning cheeks. “We take care of each other here.”

That surprised Alejandro. In his world, someone’s loss was another performer’s gain. It was rare to have true friends among the circuit. There were alliances, true. But, for the most part, it was every man for himself. Even the female performers were known to be cutthroat. These days, Alejandro was fortunate to be at the top of the food chain, which meant less need to battle others but always harboring a lingering concern about watching his back.

“Sure is
gut
to have some help,” Elias said, rubbing his brow and sliding his battered hat back onto his sweaty head. “A strong man in the fields is a blessing.” He smiled at Alejandro and clapped him on the back. “
Company ain
’t so bad, either!” It was clear that a friendship was rapidly forming between the two men: one for want of a father figure, and the other for want of a lost son.

“Who normally assists you?” Alejandro asked. Clearly, Elias owned a large farm, larger than one man could possibly handle by himself. From what little he knew about the Amish, they tended to have many children. Yet, it was clear that Elias and Lizzie had only conceived the three, and with the son having passed away, that left little help for Elias.

“The girls help,” he replied, leaning over to pick up a large rock that was half-buried in the soil. He tossed it as far away as he could. Looking back at Alejandro, he smiled, but there was a definite sadness to his expression. “My Amanda sure does work hard. As
gut
as any son, I reckon.”

But she’s not a son, Alejandro thought. “She’s a lovely young lady,” he said casually.

“Ja,”
Elias agreed. “That she is. Make a
wunderbar gut
wife to an Amish man one day.” He gave a slight shake of his head. “If only . . .”

Alejandro raised an eyebrow. “If only what?”

“
Ach vell
, she has these ideas,” Elias said. “That she has to stay here to help us.” He paused, then added, “Help me, I reckon. Ever since Aaron . . .”

Elias didn
’t finish the sentence. Alejandro respected his silence, feeling his pain. Several birds flew overhead, swooping down to collect some seeds from the cut timothy grass. A gentle breeze blew over the hill, and Alejandro shut his eyes, enjoying this newly found feeling of becoming so in tune with nature, even if only for a few seconds while Elias collected his thoughts.

Finally, Elias took a deep breath. “
Vell
, she seems much more lively these days, ever since that trip to Ohio. Must have done her some good to get away.” He started to walk toward the mules, grabbing the reins and leading them down the hill toward the farm. “Reckon the other one won’t be coming home at all.”

“Anna?” Alejandro inquired.

“
Ja
, Anna,” Elias said. “Reckon she found herself a young man out there who captured her fancy. As long as he’s a good Christian and follows the Plain way, I won’t be having no objections.” He smiled at Alejandro. “That’s just the way it works. The young need to live their own lives,
ja
?”

Back in the barnyard, Alejandro helped Elias unhitch the mules and put away the equipment. Both men remained deep in thought. Alejandro couldn’t stop thinking about what Elias had said about Amanda. Without a son and with Anna possibly staying in Ohio, Elias needed Amanda’s help to run the farm. That meant a limited opportunity for her to have a social life that might introduce her to young men for courting. He didn’t know the culture well enough to understand their approach to dating, but he did know that she didn’t seem interested in any men. No, he corrected himself.
Not any Amish men.

It dawned on him why she had been quiet that morning, and he felt his own heart quicken. Indeed, he knew that she had grown too familiar with “
Alejandro
” and not enough with “Viper.” He sighed, suddenly realizing that, despite his own tender feelings for the young woman, hers may have taken a turn in a direction that needed to be changed. Unlike Amanda, he knew that Viper could walk away without looking back. But it was Alejandro who didn’t want to leave a broken heart behind.

Amanda was sitting on the porch when Alejandro returned from a late afternoon walk through the fields. Her leg was propped up on a chair while she folded laundry that had just been pulled off the clothesline stretching from the corner of the house to the near side of the barn. For a moment, he paused and watched her. Her head was bent down, a blue handkerchief covering her hair. She seemed to be humming while she worked, a slow and soft tune that kept her distracted. There was a radiance about Amanda, a softness in her expression. If he had thought she was a pretty girl before, he saw how truly beautiful she was at this moment.

Woman
, he corrected himself.

It was hard to realize that she was, indeed, an attractive woman. She was so different from the women who infiltrated his world. He leaned against the barn as he continued to watch Amanda. There was no comparison. She was pure and honest, beautiful on the inside as well as on the outside. He had learned that much about her in the short time that he had known her.

In his world, sophisticated women wore $1,500 dresses and $700 shoes in order to attract his attention. With fancy makeup and professionally coiffed hairstyles, these women wanted one and only one thing: to claim Alejandro as their own. But it wasn’t Alejandro, he reminded himself. It was Viper. The image of Viper caused women to do things that they were not raised to do. Too often, Alejandro had succumbed to their pretty faces and fashionable looks, taking them to big-profile clubs and parties, only to later end up in his hotel room. In the past, he hadn’t thought much about it. However, at this moment, he realized that he wasn’t proud of his past. Not now as he watched Amanda, sweet Amanda, sitting on a porch in the shade folding laundry with a soft tune on her lips.

“You scared me!” she said as he approached her.

He leaned against the porch railing, still watching her. Suspecting that the shine in her eyes was more than just friendship, Alejandro had to remind himself to pull back. But as he watched her, it was more difficult than he could have imagined. There was something so striking about Amanda, so endearing.

“Did I?” he asked, his voice soft.

She laughed. “Were you out walking, then?”

“Sí.”

“It’
s beautiful,
ja
?” she asked, looking around at the fields. The sky was blue and the field green with grasses waving in the gentle breeze. The contrast in colors was glorious, and she smiled. “Now you can see for yourself why I think the city is so ugly.”

He didn’t respond right away, and after a few long seconds, she turned to look at him. The breeze caught a stray piece of hair and brushed it against her cheek. Her dark-brown eyes narrowed, just momentarily, as she met his gaze.

“
Beautiful,
sí,
” he said, his voice low and his eyes still holding hers.

She looked away.

“How is your leg today?” he asked, changing the subject as he sat down on the porch stairs.

“It was hard to sleep last night,” she admitted. “But it doesn’t hurt so much anymore. How long did the doctor say until the cast comes off?”

Alejandro glanced at the fields. The corn was growing, lifting its soft green blanket toward the sun. He wondered when it would be ready to be harvested. Surely Elias would need Amanda’s help. “Four more weeks,” he responded. “It wasn’t a bad break. We were lucky.”

“We?”

He looked at her. “You,” he corrected. “You were lucky.”

“I was lucky,” she repeated, her voice barely a whisper.

Raising one eyebrow, he tilted his head as he stared at her. Her eyes broke free from his gaze, and she looked at the cows wandering through the fields. Her skin was a golden brown, flawless in complexion and tone. With high cheekbones and a full mouth, she was truly a natural beauty. “I was lucky, too,” he said, his voice husky and low. She turned to look at him, a question in her expression. “It brought me here, no?”

“But you will leave for more exciting adventures,” she said matter-of-factly. “For you, that’s what this is, Alejandro. An adventure. For us, it’s our way of life.”

He took a deep breath and nodded.
“Sí, sí,”
he admitted. “But I’m glad to have this . . . adventure, as you call it.”

She bit her lower lip, assessing him for a moment as if to gauge whether he was serious or just mocking her. “I wonder if I’d feel the same about experiencing your way of life.”

At this, he laughed. He couldn’t imagine Amanda on the road, living the life of a pop star. “If I were a betting man, I’d say that
that
would be highly unlikely.”

“Why?” she demanded, an unexpected edge to her voice.

“
Ay,
Princesa
.
My life is everything that you are not.”

“Really?” she said, a hint of sarcasm in her voice.

“Really!” he teased back. Sobering, he watched her reaction. When she didn’t look away, he realized that she was waiting for him to go on. He sighed and rubbed his temples. “It’s a hard life, Princesa. Constantly traveling. Constantly living out of a suitcase. Constantly wondering who to trust. The days and nights are switched. There are concerts and crowds and photographers everywhere. There is no such thing as privacy. You sell a piece of your soul when you become famous.”

“That’s a horrible thing to say!” she gasped.

But it’s true, he thought. “The public owns you, Princesa. They love you. They hate you. They want to be you. They want to destroy you.”

She stared at him, the color draining from her face. “Then why? Why do it?”

He shrugged. “It’s the price you pay to do what you love to do.”

“What’s to love about it?” she demanded.

He smiled wistfully. “There is good, too. Music is the universal language. It changes lives. I love traveling, meeting new people. Before concerts, there are VIPs to meet. After concerts, there are parties to attend.”

“VIPs? Parties?”

He shut his eyes for a minute, visualizing the large rooms with a bar in one corner and a DJ in another. Usually tall cocktail tables covered with white linens surrounded the perimeter of the room, the center space reserved for a dance floor. Meandering through the crowds, well-dressed servers wearing white gloves carried a never-ending stream of food to offer the guests. Oh, the food! Appetizers of shrimp and lobster and caviar. And the alcohol: champagne, vodka, cocktails, and wine. Alejandro usually didn’t partake, sipping on his bottled water while the people clamored around, eager for a few minutes of his attention before the show was scheduled to begin. He had always vowed that he wasn’t going to become one of those singers who partied before shows and delivered less than 100 percent onstage.