Plain Again (9 page)

Abruptly, Alejandro stopped and spun around, a finger pushed into Mike’s face. “It’s disgusting. Capitalizing on my wife’s religion? You’ve crossed the line, Mike, and I’m done warning you. That part of my life is off-limits.” As if to make his final point, he jabbed at Mike’s shoulder. “Off-limits!” he repeated before turning around and storming away.

He could feel his blood coursing through his veins. It had been a mockery, and he had been trapped by legal documents that he hadn’t read thoroughly. His anger was just as much directed at himself as at Mike. How could he have been so careless? he berated himself as he changed. It would be the last time that Mike did something so openly hostile toward Amanda, he told himself. And possibly one of the last things that Mike did for him, period.

He hadn’t counted on Mike to wait for him.

“What’s gotten into you, Alex?” Mike walked beside him, keeping up with Alejandro’s brisk pace. “You have to learn to separate it, man. Separate your personal from your professional life or you are going to lose it!”

“I’m not losing anything, Mike,” Alejandro snapped back. “But you are! You’re losing your sense of decency, and I won’t have Amanda be a casualty in whatever game you think you are playing.”

“Hey!” Mike reached out and grabbed Alejandro’s arm. The gesture startled Alejandro. He stopped walking and spun around. To his surprise, Mike’s face was contorted in anger, a fierce expression in his eyes. “This isn’t a game, Alex. This is real. And you brought her into it. You can’t have selective fame, my friend.”

“Selective fame?” He almost laughed at the expression.

Mike released his arm. “You know what I mean. You can’t have some pieces of your life for the public and keep the rest private. It doesn’t work that way. Not if you want to continue with this conquest of world dominance in the music industry, Viper.”

The way he said
Viper
sent a chill down Alejandro’s spine. “World dominance does not have to include the destruction of my soul,” Alejandro countered. “Using Amanda to sell the image is not part of the plan.”

Mike laughed. “Not part of the plan? I don’t think you have a say in that matter. The public demands her. It’s a bundled set at this point, Alex. You made sure of that when you married her.”

“That’s not fair!”

“Hey, you made the rules. I warned you about getting involved with her. It was to counter your image. Now, the softer side of Viper has emerged, and as always, you were right. The public loves it and is eating it up. Deny them the girl, and watch your fans fade, Alex. I’ve seen it before, and I do not want to see it again.”

Alejandro shook his head at Mike. “You’re wrong.”

“Try me,” Mike retorted. “But don’t blame me when it backfires.”

Disgusted, Alejandro walked away, his steps heavy and his fists clenched as he moved past the doors and hurried toward the waiting car outside of the building entrance. Alone in the car, Alejandro removed his dark sunglasses and rubbed at his eyes. When had it become so complicated? he wondered.

Chapter Nine

Are you in Boston yet?

Or Providence?

I can’t keep up.

Missing you.

A.

It was Sunday and they had just returned from church. It had been a disastrous day from the moment she had awoken, and she was missing Alejandro more than ever. Had he been with her, she thought, he would have known what to do.

Earlier that morning, her
daed
had insisted on going to church, and Amanda knew what that meant: her
mamm
couldn’t handle him alone, so she would have to go along. She had arisen early to milk the cows, knowing that it would take extra time without any help from Harvey. Mamm had come out to help her, but Amanda had quickly shooed her back inside, telling her to get Daed ready, when in reality, she was mostly concerned that it was too cold for her
mamm
to work.

By the time Amanda had finished the milking and harnessed the horse to the buggy, she barely had time to wash up and change, never mind have a quick bite to eat. She hadn’t known what to wear, fluctuating between her regular plain clothing or a simple skirt and blouse.

“I’m not plain, Mamm,” she said when her
mamm
had walked by the door and paused, checking to see what Amanda was doing. “What do I wear?”

“They know you aren’t plain,” Lizzie had responded. “Dress accordingly, then.”

There were only two cars waiting outside of the driveway, something that had surprised Amanda. She hadn’t left the property since the incident at the natural food store. With Mamm driving the horse and Daed seated next to her, Amanda had no choice but to crouch in the backseat of the buggy. She had hoped that the photographers would not follow them, but one glance out of the back window had quickly dashed that hope.

Once they pulled into the driveway of the farm where the service was being held, Amanda had breathed a sigh of relief: the two cars had not followed them onto the private property. For a moment, she dared to imagine that the rest of the day would go well.

She was soon proved wrong.

The men had come to help with Elias, expressing their surprise that he had arrived at all. Luckily, the worship service was being held at the farmhouse, which meant no steps and plenty of space for his wheelchair. To Amanda’s relief, the men had promptly taken over Elias’s care, which freed up Lizzie to go inside with the other women, a social outlet that Amanda had suspected her
mamm
desperately needed.

Unfortunately, once they had entered the farmhouse, the women who had been assembled in the empty kitchen next to the gathering room had stopped talking and stared at the two newcomers. Lizzie had ignored the silence and made her way through the line of women, first shaking their outstretched hands before bestowing the kiss of fellowship on the women’s lips. Uncertain what to do, Amanda had walked behind her
mamm
but noticed that the women turned their heads while shaking her hand: the first rebuff of the day.

The second came only moments later. Rather than sit with the women she had always sat next to, her peers and friends, she was forced to sit up front with the elderly, a place of honor for guests as well as a separation from the younger women. Her cheeks had flushed red, this time from embarrassment, as she sat there beside her
mamm
, something she had not done since she was a child.

While the first hymn was being sung, the congregation had waited for the bishop and ministers to return. It was during this time that the leaders of the church usually left the room to decide, among one another, who was to preach the sermons. When they returned to the room, taking their seats in the front row of the men’s side, that was the signal to stop singing the hymn at the next stanza.

It hadn’t surprised Amanda to see the bishop stand and, for a few brief moments, pace the floor before his congregation. What did surprise her was his sermon.

“What does it take to be a disciple of Jesus?” he started in a loud, booming voice. “Is it praising his name? Is it turning the other cheek? It is speaking no evil? Or is it living a life that mirrors the words of the Bible?
‘Whoever wants to be my disciple,’
the Ausbund says,
‘he must forsake the world, in his heart also become pure and hate his own life.’
” The bishop stopped pacing and stood straight before the congregation. “We are a people who forsake worldliness because we want to be disciples of Jesus and follow his teachings. We choose being God’s children over earthly treasures!”

Inwardly, Amanda had groaned, knowing full well that the sermon was directed, in part, toward her. After all, not only had she chosen to join the world, rather than forsake it, her very presence back in the community had brought the intrusion of the world with her. She tried to tune out the rest of his sermon, knowing that her cheeks were blazing red, the humiliation of his words too much for her to bear.

And then had come the fellowship hour.

The men had immediately converted the large worship room into a dining hall, creating long rows of tables by using trestles to slide onto the legs of the church benches. The younger boys had collected the Ausbund hymnals and neatly stacked them in wooden crates. Meanwhile, the women were dishing out the food, all of it having been prepared prior to the service so that the only true work was serving it to the church members. Still, plates and utensils had to be set out, cups had to be filled with water, and the platters of food needed to be placed on the tabletops.

When she had tried to help the women, they had simply responded by ignoring her. After all, Amanda rationalized, guests did not help serve food or clean up. Their silence and lack of accepting her help was a clear indication that they no longer considered her part of the community. She had chosen to not take the kneeling vow and had opted to marry outside of the faith. In return, they chose to keep her at arm’s length in order to remain pure by forsaking the outside world, a world that Amanda was clearly a part of as a result of her own free will.

As if that was not bad enough, during the first seating Amanda had been forced to sit and eat with the older women and very young mothers who needed to feed small children. During the meal, no one had spoken to her, blatantly ignoring Amanda, although she had been somewhat pleased to see that her
mamm
had engaged in plenty of conversation.

The time to leave had not come fast enough for Amanda. She hadn’t even cared that the photographers had snapped photos of her, using their intrusive telescopic lenses, when she had climbed into the buggy.

Driving down the lane toward her parents’ farm had never felt so good before in all her life.

It had been not even fifteen minutes after they had returned when the cell phone rang. Having just come inside from unharnessing the horse, Amanda was at the kitchen sink, washing her hands, while her
mamm
sat in the rocking chair next to Daed. The room was silent except for the gentle ticking of the clock that hung on the wall. But the ringing of the cell phone caught the attention of everyone.

She had left it on the table and hurried over to get it, pausing for just a moment to wipe her hands on a dry hand towel. Only one person ever called her on the phone, and she felt embarrassed that she had to answer the call in front of her parents. Still, since she hadn’t heard from Alejandro in a few days, she quickly grabbed the phone and answered it, moving away from the table and heading toward the door.

She placed the small device to her ear and turned her back toward the kitchen. “Alejandro!” she said happily as she answered the phone.

There was a brief pause. “Amanda, it’s Carlos.”

It took her a minute to realize that the voice on the other end was not her husband’s. “Is everything all right?” she asked in a moment of panic.

“Sí, sí,”
he reassured her. “Alejandro asked me to contact you.”

“Oh.” She couldn’t hide the disappointment in her voice. It was almost two in the afternoon. She imagined that he was already engaged in interviews before the concert that evening. Certainly he was busy; he always was before a concert in a new city . . . even on Sundays.

Carlos cleared his throat on the other end of the phone. “He asked me to call you as he needs you to come to New York for the week.”

New York? Amanda glanced over her shoulder at her parents, both of whom were watching her with apprehension and great interest. She shook her head, indicating that nothing was wrong, before she turned around again and lowered her voice. “I . . . I can’t,” she started. “My
daed
just came home. My
mamm
will need my help. And my sister isn’t to arrive until Tuesday for dinner.”

“He has hired a nurse to help. He needs you in New York,” Carlos said, his voice matter-of-fact. “I have arranged for a car to arrive Tuesday at eight in the morning.”

“I . . .” She didn’t know what to say. If she was to leave on Tuesday morning, her sister would be there later to help her parents. Although Anna and her husband were not to arrive until dinnertime, surely her
mamm
could handle Daed for a day alone. And Harvey would be there in case of an emergency.

Her heart fluttered inside her chest. Part of her worried about the family’s reaction to her leaving just before Anna arrived, but the other part longed to see him. “For how long?” she heard herself ask.

“A week,” Carlos responded. “For the holiday.”

After she ended the call, she took a minute to collect her thoughts. Was it possible that Alejandro missed her half as much as she missed him? Her thoughts turned back to the way she had been treated at church, more a stranger than a former member of their
g’may
. After so many weeks apart, she felt relief at the realization that in less than forty-eight hours, she would be reunited with her husband.

“Wie gehts?”
her
mamm
asked.

“Hmm?” Amanda turned around and tried to smile. “Oh, that was Alejandro’s assistant.”

Lizzie made a face but did not speak her thoughts. She didn’t have to. Amanda could read her expression loud and clear.

“He’s busy, Mamm,” Amanda said defensively.

“I see,” was Lizzie’s only reply.

She walked into the room and sat down on the sofa, her eyes drifting out the window. The fields were empty, the sky gray. With bare trees and a light breeze blowing dried leaves across the grass, it looked barren and unfriendly out there. Her mind returned to New York City, the bright lights and constant noise. She imagined that, even in winter, it was still an amazing place.

“He wants me to join him for the holiday,” she finally admitted. Shifting her weight, she tore her eyes from the window and looked at her parents. “Tuesday.”

Lizzie pursed her lips and glanced at Elias. He was tired, and when he was tired, it was harder for him to talk. Lizzie spoke for both of them. “Anna is due home on Tuesday night, Amanda,” she said slowly. “Do you think that it is the right thing to do, then?”

“It’s only for a week,” Amanda offered. “She’s home for two weeks,
ja
?”

Lizzie didn’t respond, obviously disappointed with Amanda’s answer.

“I miss him, Mamm,” she continued. “It’s been weeks.”

“I understand that,” Lizzie said, her eyes betraying her true feelings. “But Anna—”

“
Nee
, Mamm,” Amanda interrupted her. “I came home in order to help Anna as well as to be here for you and Daed. But he is my husband, and I want to be with him. And it’s clear from how I’ve been treated that I don’t belong here anymore.”

Her
mamm
’s eyes widened at the tone in Amanda’s voice. “Amanda!”

“
Ach
, Mamm,” Amanda said, a frown on her face. “I was all but shunned today at worship service.”

Taking a deep breath, Lizzie pressed her lips together and averted her eyes. Clearly, she wanted to speak more but, in true Amish fashion, kept her words to herself. “We’ll be sorry to see you miss the holiday, then,” was all her
mamm
could muster.

“As am I,” Amanda admitted truthfully. She had never spent a holiday apart from her family. Missing them was only natural. Still, she longed to be with Alejandro again, even if only for a week.

It was the following afternoon when she was sitting on the sofa and crocheting a blanket when her
mamm
approached her, a folded paper in her hands. The weather outside was frigid, and Amanda was already dreading having to venture outside for the evening chores. The cold air just seemed to whip across those empty fields, chilling her to the bone.

Lizzie stood before Amanda for a few seconds, hesitating as though something was on her mind that she didn’t want to share. When Amanda realized that this was certainly the case, she set the afghan on her lap and looked up.

“What is it, Mamm?”

There was no verbal response. Instead, Lizzie handed over the papers that she was holding to Amanda. There was a concerned look on her face as she did so.

Frowning, Amanda slid her crochet needle into the ball of yarn that was next to her on the sofa before she reached out and took the papers from her
mamm
. As she looked at them, a quick moment of panic washed over her: tabloids. She could only imagine what horrible things they said.

There were at least four of them, each with a different date. One headline screamed “Viper Sends Amish Girl Back to Farm.” Her eyes quickly scanned the story, a story that speculated about a recent Viper sighting in Los Angeles without his new bride at his side. The article claimed that it was because of marital problems already, that Viper had sent his Amish wife away so that he could continue his lifestyle of clubbing hard and womanizing.

The other articles were similar, some even posting photos of Alejandro dancing with other women. That caught her by surprise, but upon closer inspection, Amanda realized that it was an old photo of Viper at a club in Miami. He hadn’t been to Miami since they had left together and flown to Philadelphia.