A Plain Love Song (42 page)
Her band?
Waiting for her? The desire to sink to the floor in a puddle that would seep through the planks and disappear into the earth overwhelmed her.
Please, Gott. What am I doing here?
Indeed, what are you doing here?
“Somebody bring up the house lights,” Dottie commanded.
Lights burst from the ceiling. Seats appeared and with them, Mac, Roy, and Jackson. Jackson slouched in the front row, his arms crossed over his chest, his face stony. He lifted one hand and gave her a half wave.
“I thought Jackson was going to sing with me.” Her voice sounded odd in her ears, disengaged, floating around her head. “He said he would ask to sing with me.”
“Not today, honey. Roy wants to try something a little bit different.” Dottie patted her shoulder. “My brothers and my cousins have been practicing your song. They’re ready for you.”
She tugged Adah forward to the center of the stage. “This here is my brother Jason and my other brother Mark and my cousin Bobby and my other cousin Larry. Boys, this is Adah, the Amish girl.”
They nodded a greeting. “We’re ready when you are.” Jason plinked a string on his guitar. “Have at it, Adah.”
“They’ll introduce you as Adah, the singing Amish girl. You’ll walk out onto the stage to this spot and pick up the microphone from the stool, sit down, and sing. That’s all there is to it.”
Dottie handed Adah the microphone. It felt heavy in her hand. She wrapped her fingers around it. Still too heavy. She gripped her other hand around it.
Still too heavy.
“One, two, three…”
The music began. It no longer sounded beautiful to her. It screeched
and tore at her ears. She wanted to slap her hands over them, protect them, but she couldn’t. The microphone was too heavy. She needed both hands to hold it.
The drums pounded against her temples, beating in a painful staccato.
It’s wrong. It’s wrong. This is wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong for you, wrong, Adah, wrong.
The words she knew so well were gone, swallowed up in the certain knowledge that she did not belong here on this stage.
Gott, forgive me. Please forgive me.
She dropped the microphone on the stool, whirled, and fled, followed by the reverberating screech as it rolled, fell to the floor, and rolled some more.
“Adah, Adah, stop!”
Jackson’s shouts mingled with the music as it chased her off the stage, down the long hallway, and out into the street. She couldn’t stop. Not for him. Not for anyone. Long after the notes died away, they nipped at her heels and threatened to trip her up. As she ran, she wiped at her face with her sleeve, trying desperately to remove the slick lipstick and the powder and the goop. The stuff that hid her face but couldn’t hide the real her. The one who knew she didn’t belong on a stage, showing off as if her talent, whatever talent she possessed, was her doing. It wasn’t; it never had been. God gave her the voice. He gave her the words. They belonged to Him. Not to a world that needed bangles and rhinestones to see and amps and speakers to hear.
All He needed from her was a quiet voice that said,
Lord, Your will, not mine. In Your time, not mine.
The songs belonged to Him.
Finally, she couldn’t run anymore. She slowed, her legs shaking. Gasping for air, she bent over, hands on heaving chest. “Gott, forgive me. Forgive me.”
She sank to her knees on the hard cement, ignoring the strangers who passed by, eyes averted, faces advertising their embarrassment at having seen this public display. “I’m so sorry. Forgive me.”
A hand touched her shoulder. She couldn’t bear to look up.
“Come on. I’ll take you home.”
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” She wrapped her arms around her waist, still gasping for air. “I didn’t mean to disappoint you. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“I know.” Jackson knelt and gathered her into his arms. She had no strength left to protest or hold back. Her head landed against his hard chest. He felt like the boulders that jutted from the side of the hills. Rock-hard and safe. She knotted her hands together to keep from holding on to him. He patted her back as if he soothed a baby. “It’s okay. It’s all right.”
Not okay. “I wanted to do this for you. I wanted to give you your dream.”
“I know, and I love you even more for trying.”
“You can’t love me.”
“But I do.”
“You can’t.”
His grip tightened until she couldn’t breathe. He touched her chin with one finger, gently forcing her to raise her face to him. His gaze held such a knowing, such a disappointment, such an understanding. Her heart broke for him. “I know. Let’s go home.”
He helped her to her feet and together they started toward the truck.
“Tomorrow’s another day.”
He sounded so hopeful.
It would be another day. But it wouldn’t change a thing.
This wasn’t Adah’s home and it never would be.
R
aeAnne was as good as her word. Matthew barely had time to pick up Daniel and get back to the house, where he told Molly what had happened while she packed a bag and prepared food to take with them. No one took a trip anywhere without proper provisions. Molly’s number-one rule to live by. Repeated, incessant honking drew them out to the porch exactly two hours after RaeAnne walked away from the buggy at the pool.
Their transportation to Branson turned out to be a dust-covered rusty station wagon of an indeterminate color and no hubcaps. RaeAnne rolled the window down with much contorting of her face. “Get in. I’d like to be there before dark.”
“Will it make it to Branson and back?” Daniel held back while Matthew opened the door for Molly to slide in. “The engine sounds rough. It’s kind of old, isn’t it?”
“So are you.” RaeAnne looked Daniel over. “You sit up front with me.”
“I’m not old.” Red blossomed and spread over his face. “I don’t think I should—”
“I’ll sit up front.” Matthew hiked around the car and jerked open the passenger door. “Let’s go.”
After the introductions, conversation drifted away. RaeAnne concentrated on the road and Matthew concentrated on praying he would
have the words to convince Adah to come home. For a teenage girl, RaeAnne seemed pretty capable of keeping her mouth shut and her gaze on the road. Again a surprise. Maybe because she didn’t know any of them. Or maybe because she didn’t have that much experience driving on the highway. Not a comforting thought. He added getting to Branson safely to his prayers.
And back.
With Adah in the car with them.
The scenery whooshed by in a whir that left him a little dizzy, as did the smell of RaeAnne’s perfume with its fake flowery scent. The only other noise was the crackle of a radio that didn’t seem to be able to find a station and Molly’s gentle snore as she slumbered, head propped against her window. True to form, his sister could sleep anywhere, anytime.
“Do you know what you’ll say?” RaeAnne broke the silence for the first time in more than an hour. “To your girlfriend.”
“What did your parents say about you driving to Branson?” Matthew didn’t see any reason to share those thoughts with this girl. “You did talk to them, didn’t you?”
“I left a note.”
Matthew snorted and concentrated on scenery that gave way to limestone rock walls and billboards of musicians he’d never heard of. “Like Adah did to her parents.”
“I’m coming back.”
“So’s Adah.”
“She hasn’t yet.”
“Maybe she doesn’t have a way.”
“Haven’t you ever heard of the bus?” RaeAnne drilled him with a quick frown and returned her gaze to the road. “You really think my brother would leave her stranded?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know your brother.”
“He may be a lady’s man, but he’s a gentleman, if you know what I mean.”
“I don’t.”
“He’s one of the good guys.”
“He’s Englisch.”
“What?”
Matthew searched for the right words. “Like you said it would be a mistake for your brother to get tangled up with an Amish girl, the same is true for Adah. It’s a mistake to get tangled up with a—”
“Guys like my brother.”
“Any Englisch man. Like you said, we believe in sticking to our own kind.”
“Apparently Adah didn’t get that message.”
Apparently not.
“Sorry, I’m not usually so mean.”
“It’s okay. You’re right.” Matthew rummaged in the cooler wedged between them and brought out a root beer. “Would you like one?”
“No thanks. I don’t want to have to stop for a bathroom.”
Embarrassment heating his neck and face, Matthew turned back to the window.
“You guys are really old fashioned, aren’t you?”
“If that means we stand by our traditions, then yes, I guess.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why do you dress like that and drive buggies and give up electricity?”
“We didn’t give up electricity. We never had it.” Matthew took a sip of his pop, searching for words. “We hold ourselves apart from the world so we won’t be like it.”
“The world’s so bad?”
“If it keeps us from focusing on God and His plan for us, yes.”
“So Adah singing in Branson is bad.”
“If it takes her further from God, yes.”
“Wow.”
She had no idea.
“What if she doesn’t want to come back?”
“We’ll convince her.”
“Why’s it so important to you? Why would you chase after a girl who dumped you for some sweet-talking guy with a guitar?” RaeAnne snapped her gum as if to punctuate her disbelief. “Don’t you have any
pride? You’re never gonna be able to beat a guy with a band. She’s like a groupie by now.”
“It’s not about me.” Matthew tried to ignore the way her words hit him like stones battering his face and chest. “Or my pride.”
“Then what is it?”
“It’s about Adah’s life.” Would this Englisch girl understand about eternal life and salvation? He had no idea what her family believed. “It’s about choosing God over things that aren’t important.”
RaeAnne beat her hand against the steering wheel in time to the scratchy, static-filled song on the radio. “So Adah needs to pick God instead of Jackson.”
“Something like that.”
“But she can pick you and still be right with God.”
Matthew swallowed. God’s will. God’s plan. “I hope so.”
“Lucky for you.”
He didn’t believe in luck, but he hoped she was right. “I don’t expect you to understand.”
“Good, because I don’t.” RaeAnne wiggled in her seat and leaned forward as if she were having trouble seeing. “But it doesn’t matter, as long as we both get what we want.”
Not what he wanted. What God wanted. Matthew had to keep reminding himself of that important fact.
I’m sorry, Gott. Help me get this right. Your will, not mine.
“Are we almost there?” Daniel piped up from the backseat. Matthew thought he’d been sleeping too.
“No, go back to sleep.” RaeAnne sounded like his mother. She nodded at Matthew and returned her gaze to the road. “You too. You don’t have to stay awake on my account.”
“I’d rather stay awake.” He settled against the seat, determined to help her to stay alert. He wouldn’t sleep until Adah was safe. “For however long it takes.”
A
dah smoothed the folds of the apron and laid it in the tattered duffle bag. It only took her a few minutes to pack her things. She hadn’t accumulated much in the few months she’d been in Branson. She regretted not being able to return her work apron to the coffee shop before she left. The experience with the Dillon sisters, those revealing moments on the sidewalk, told her she couldn’t wait. She and Jackson hadn’t attempted to speak on the trip back to the house. He hadn’t even turned on the radio. The silence had vibrated with words already spoken, feelings bared, emotions poured out. Everything had been said. More than said.
She had to go home. Today. Now. Staying here would only be a constant reminder to Jackson that she wasn’t the girl he wanted her to be. Adah smoothed the silky material of the pink Western shirt with its white piping around the pockets and the sparkling pink and white rhinestones and shiny snaps. Maybe Jackson could return it to the store and get his money. She fingered the denim jeans. She’d never even tried them on. Sighing, she laid them aside and zipped up the half-empty bag.
Captain, who hadn’t left her side since she hopped from the truck and ran into the house, lifted his head and whined, his expression troubled.
“You should be downstairs.” She patted his head and scratched
behind his ears, eliciting another soft whine in the back of the dog’s throat. It sounded like she felt. “Jackson needs you more than I do. Come on.”
He got to his feet and hobbled to the door, then stopped and looked back, his ears lifted, nose up. She hoisted her bag to her shoulder. “I’m coming.”
