Anna's Healing (9 page)

He stood and pushed his hands into his pockets. “
Danki
for meeting with me and explaining your position.” Turning to Saul, he added, “And
danki
for the opportunity to work on your harvest.”

Then he turned and walked out into the afternoon.

CHAPTER 11

C
hloe shuffled the papers in front of her into a neat stack, clicked the “Sleep” button on her computer, and then she pushed her chair back from her desk. The desk was old and scarred, and one leg was shorter than the other three. Long ago she'd stuck a telephone directory under it and forgot about it. Because she was in the office at all sorts of odd hours, she rarely ever turned off the computer. Her schedule was one thing she loved about being a newspaper reporter. She also realized she was probably the last generation to be able to claim that title. Already they were outnumbered by bloggers, and the trend was expected to continue.

Jobs for traditional newspapers were predicted to decline thirteen percent over the next ten years—she knew that exact number because one of the other reporters had pinned an article to their bulletin board the week before. In addition to the reduction in jobs, many newspapers had closed or gone to online-only editions. The distinction between bloggers and news reporters had blurred over the years, and recently the U.S. Ninth Circuit had ruled that bloggers had the same First Amendment protection as news reporters.

Chloe was glad about that. She had friends who were bloggers. She didn't think anyone should be prosecuted for what they wrote, but she wasn't ready to trade in her shoddy desk for the dining room table in her little apartment, where she could research, virtually file her reports, and immerse herself in social media. She liked going in to work in an
actual office. She liked having a line of separation, even though she often did work on stories from home.

But she always submitted them in the office. She received new assignments in the office. And she learned the ropes from the older reporters in the office.

The newspaper room itself was a large, busy, chaotic, and vibrant place. It practically hummed with activity, reminding her of a beehive. She liked interacting with people and the feeling of being part of a group—part of something bigger than herself. Sometimes, she even liked her boss.

Other times, not so much.

Eric Knowles leaned over the partition that divided Chloe's space from the sports writer.
Leaned over
wasn't an exaggeration. The partition was short and her boss was nearly seven feet tall. He never missed an opportunity to remind folks that he once played college basketball at Oklahoma University. The man could work that tidbit into any conversation.

“Headed out to cover the quilting piece?” At the moment Eric was studying her with a dopey smile, so apparently his day was going well. As usual, he wore tan-colored pants and a button-down shirt. Where did he find clothes to fit his tall frame? Did he have to special order them? Is that why he wore the identical, or nearly identical, thing every day?

Her well-developed radar told her things were going well around the office but Eric was slightly bored. She didn't mind the bored Eric too much. It was the insanely upset Eric that she avoided. When there were problems—missed deadlines, bad photos, absence of a juicy story—he resembled a tall, thin, angry bear.

“I'm headed out to Cody's Creek now.”

“Cool.” He sipped the coffee he'd probably reheated four times. Eric carried around a mug with him everywhere, as if he might need a shot of caffeine and didn't want to be unprepared. He didn't seem to actually consume much, though. Maybe he thought the caffeine would leap into his system by osmosis.

Chloe stuck her cell phone in her purse and looped the purse strap over her shoulder. “Cool, but…”

“No but.”

“Yes, there was. I heard it in your voice. You think this is a lame story.”

“I approved it, didn't I?”

“You did.”

“Quilts.” He shook his head as if the topic offended him.

“Sorry I don't have anything more catastrophic.”

“It's okay. We had a lot of good response on your produce piece. Readers are interested in this Amish thing.”

Chloe didn't bother calling him on the
Amish thing
, which seemed rather offensive to her. What if she talked about the
sports thing
or the
stock thing
or, heaven forbid, the
proliferation of red cars thing
. Eric treated his Porsche like the child he'd never had. He even hung a framed picture of it in his office. The man could probably use some therapy. She couldn't imagine how he afforded the sports car on an editor's salary. For all she knew, he was a trust fund baby and played at being an editor for the sheer fun of it.

Which was not her problem. She was supposed to meet Anna in forty minutes and she didn't want to be late.

Unfortunately, Eric wasn't finished.

“It's just… we're in tight competition with Cherokee County for the small-town newspaper awards this year.”

“They haven't even named the semifinalists yet. It's only September. There are still a lot of news reports to file.” When Eric looked as if he were going to argue, she pushed on. “Also, we have a lot of fine papers as our competition. The
Claremore Daily Progress
and
Delaware News
both had good coverage of the flooding in their area last spring and—”

Eric waved her objections away as if he were batting at a pesky fly. His voice took on a nostalgic tone. “Last year we had that piece on the four dead bodies down by Saline Creek.”

“Only the one body was at the creek.”

“Your reporting literally catapulted us over the competition. You
showed the real stuff then, Chloe. The way you attacked that story, you showed the makings of a seasoned reporter.”

“I didn't attack anything. My car broke down. I happened to hear the call come in on the tow truck's CB radio, and because it was close to where we were—”

“And the pictures!” Eric smiled fondly at the memory. “Wow.”

“I need to go.”

“Sure. Yeah. The quilt thing.”

Chloe didn't look back as she hurried from the room. She was not going to let Eric ruin her day.

She relaxed as she exited the office and climbed into her little blue Chevy Cavalier. It was nearly ten years old and had a horrendous amount of mileage on it, but the car was hanging together. She glanced down at the gas gauge. Early in her career, Martin Star would pull her aside and give her advice, always by relating some mishap of his own career.

The conversation she remembered best was how he missed the biggest story of his life—one featuring a nationally known movie star who had parachuted near a local lake. The guy was a superb actor and his movies were always well attended and well reviewed, but he was terrible with GPS equipment. The pilot had apparently tried to warn him, but Mr. Movie Star had been sure he was landing on a flat area to the east of the lake. Instead, he'd landed in the water and had been rescued by a couple of local fishing buddies. Martin had been called by one of the guys with a “You won't believe who is in our boat” message. He'd hurried out with the camera tech, but missed the entire event because he'd run out of gas.

“They can teach you a lot of things at those fancy schools.” Martin had nodded at the college diploma she'd hung on her cubicle wall. “But if you don't keep gas in the tank, it won't matter one bit. Learn from me, kid. Keep it topped off.”

Martin was part-time now—a victim of budget cuts, which he said was fine. His wife wanted him to clean out the garage anyway. He had a weekly column on agriculture and hunting, and he occasionally covered local conferences or legislation on the same.

Chloe liked Martin, and she missed seeing his old, wrinkled face around the office. Pulling into the gas station at the corner, she topped off her tank even though it was two-thirds full.

“Learn from me, kid.”

That was exactly what she'd done. She didn't plan on missing any career-making stories. Though today, she was ridiculously psyched about going to look at a bunch of quilts.

CHAPTER 12

T
hey had been to three houses, and Anna had several more on her list.

“I've never paid much attention to quilts before.”

“When you grow up Amish, it's like a rite of passage.”

“So you quilt?”

“Some.” Anna studied the scene passing outside their window.

“Does that mean you don't want to talk about it? Or you have nothing to say?”

Anna laughed. “You ask more questions than I do, which I didn't know was possible.”

“I'm a reporter. I'm supposed to ask questions. It helps when you're trying to get information from folks for an article. Of course, some people I interview actually want to be in the paper. It's hard to get them to stop talking.”

“Not so much with the Amish.”

“Not so much…” The afternoon had turned out better than Chloe could have imagined. She never would have found Amish women who sold quilts for additional income on her own unless she'd passed their roadside sign by sheer luck.

“Explain to me why there isn't a quilt shop located somewhere central that these women could sell their quilts from. Somewhere
Englischers
could find.”

Anna shrugged. “If
Gotte
wants them to sell…”

“He'll bring folks down their lane? Come on now.”

Anna only smiled.

Chloe was learning that her new Amish friend wasn't easily offended. She was surprised at how comfortable she felt with Anna. There had been no awkward silences or dead-end topics, though at times—like now—Anna didn't exactly offer volumes of information.

“If there was a central shop—”

“But there's not.”

“If there were, it would bring more tourists and more quilts would sell. Mrs. Troyer…”

“Our bishop's wife.”

“She had more than a dozen beautiful quilts completed. I'm sure plenty of woman would love to have those in their home. They would sell quickly if anyone knew about them.”

“Who would work at this shop?” Anna cornered herself in the car seat so she could face Chloe.

She certainly seemed comfortable riding in the car. Chloe had no idea why she had worried that this might be her first time, that she might not know how to work the seat belt. She realized suddenly that many of her thoughts about the Amish were stereotypes. As a reporter, she should have known better.

“That would depend on how many women you had contributing quilts. If you had at least twelve, I suppose each woman could spend half a day—”

“Amish women don't work outside the home.”

“Never?”

“They don't if they're married. For one thing, there's too much for them to do at home. There's the cooking and cleaning and raising of the younger
kinner
.”

“
Kinner
?”

“Children.”

“What about when they're older? When the
kinner
are gone?”

“Still there is much to do—helping with the
grandkinner
. Plus all
of the work on a farm remains the same. Look at my
aenti
. She has no children, and still the work is almost too much for her. At least in big families the children grow older and can help.”

“Is that why you came? To help her?”

Anna shook her head and popped her finger joints one by one. A nervous gesture? Maybe. Chloe turned the subject back to the prospective quilt shop.

“What about younger women, like you?”

“Most women my age are married already and expecting their first
boppli
.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Why would you be surprised at that?”

“Well, you're not so old. Probably younger than I am.”

“Twenty-four.” Anna again popped the index finger on her left hand.

If Chloe didn't stay away from sensitive subjects, the girl was going to have an early case of arthritis. “I'm thirty-two.”

“And not married?” As soon as she said that, Anna covered her mouth as if she wanted to snatch the words back.

“It's okay. My mom says the same thing, often in the same tone of voice.” She immediately regretted the words. There was no use in being angry at her mother, and she had vowed she would bury the hatchet. Some days it seemed to her that they had been fighting for years, though they never raised their voices. But tension always simmered beneath the surface.

She slowed down as they entered a school zone adjacent to the local elementary school. “But before Amish women marry…”

“Sometimes young girls will work at a shop in town or in one of our local schools, but a woman's place is most often on the farm. We believe it is
Gotte's wille
.”