Plain Again (30 page)

The crowd was responding to him, apparently not caring that he was torn apart on the inside. They only cared about the music and the partying. As always, they were standing and dancing as Viper performed for them, the mood in the club full of energy and life.

And then, in the middle of the song, he stopped singing.

The music continued to play, the band members looking at each other as they repeated the beat, waiting for Viper to continue singing.

But he didn’t.

He stood there, the microphone in his hand as he stared into the audience. After a few long moments, the band stopped playing and the audience quieted. They watched as Viper stood there, almost in a trance.

“I can’t do this,” he said and placed the microphone back into the stand before walking off the stage.

For a long moment, the audience stopped dancing and a silence fell upon the club. Then, after the realization hit them that Viper was not returning to the stage, people began to boo and shout, angry that he had abandoned them.

Alejandro heard them but didn’t care as he passed the stunned faces of the backstage crew at the club, heading toward the dressing room.

“What just happened out there?”

It didn’t surprise Alejandro that Mike was on his heels, his face red with rage as he screamed at him. As his business manager, of course Mike would be enraged by watching his client walk offstage in the middle of a set. But Alejandro didn’t care. Not anymore.

“Are you out of your mind? Have you completely lost it?”

“Leave me alone,” Alejandro snapped. He felt a hold on his arm as Mike grabbed him. The shock of the gesture caused Alejandro to spin around and face his manager. “I’m finished! Cancel everything.”

“Is this still about Los Angeles? Are you still wallowing in such guilt?”

Jerking his arm free from Mike’s grasp, Alejandro glared at him. “Don’t you talk to me about Los Angeles! You’re the one who brought Maria to the concert!”

To his surprise, Mike laughed, his eyes narrowing and a smirk on his face. “I don’t believe this. I never thought you’d take it this far.”

For some reason, Mike’s words cut through Alejandro. Taking a step forward, Alejandro leaned in close and lowered his voice. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, come on!” Mike shook his head. “Don’t tell me that you didn’t know!”

“Know what?”

“The whole thing was a setup! A publicity stunt,” Mike snarled. “And a chance to get the real Viper back, not this . . . this lovesick Alejandro.”

“What are you saying, Mike?”

Mike glanced around, too aware that people were watching from a respectful distance. He reached up and rubbed his forehead, small beads of sweat starting to form over his brow. “Nothing happened with Maria that night,” he finally admitted in a low voice. “You kept talking about Amanda. Maria slept on the sofa after we put you to bed.”

“We?”

“Yes, we!” Mike shouted back. “I was there!”

A silence fell between the two men as Alejandro tried to digest what Mike had just told him. And then it dawned on him. Something Mike had said that morning. “That’s how you knew to reschedule my appointments,” he whispered, more to himself than to Mike. “You planned the whole thing.” He lifted his eyes and glared at the man standing before him. “You let me believe . . .”

“Now, Alejandro,” Mike said, holding his hands up and taking a step backward. “Your numbers are off the charts. Your concerts are sold out. If anyone knows that the bad-boy image sells, it should be you.”

“You let me believe that I was unfaithful to Amanda!”

“Alex . . .”

Alejandro didn’t let him finish the sentence. Within a split second, Mike was on the floor, Alejandro towering over him. Not caring who was watching, for everyone was silent and staring at the two men, one flat on his back and the other enraged above him, Alejandro pointed a finger at Mike. “You, my friend, are fired!” He didn’t wait for a response as he took a step back and lifted his chin, defiantly glancing around at the people who were staring at them. He knew that this story would break in the tabloids by morning and certainly spiral out of control on social media within the hour. He didn’t care. Instead he felt elated, and vindicated.

Without a word, he turned and retreated down the corridor toward the dressing rooms. Once inside, he found his cell phone and quickly punched a few numbers in it and then lifted it to his ear. The phone rang only twice. “Carlos? Get me a flight to Philadelphia. I don’t care how, but I want to get there first thing in the morning. And call Rodriego to get my things ready.
¡Pronto!
”

Chapter Twenty-Six

When she answered the door, Amanda wasn’t surprised to see another deliveryman standing there with a large bouquet of flowers in his arms. The flowers came every three days, like clockwork. Some days they were roses. Other days they were a mixture. But they always had the same card:
Missing you. Please speak with me. V.

“More flowers, then?” Mamm said, tsk-tsking with her tongue, clearly disapproving. “Such an expense.”

“But they sure are beautiful and brighten the room, ain’t so?”

Amanda looked up at her sister. Leave it to Anna to look at the positive side and try to cheer up a bad situation, she thought.

“Never saw such pretty flowers in winter!”

Without a word, Amanda carried the flowers to the kitchen sink and set them down. She moved in a robotic fashion, not speaking and showing no emotion. It had been over a week since she had last spoken to him. Almost ten days. She knew that he had performed in Atlanta over the previous weekend and that he continued to text her multiple times during the day. But she didn’t respond. How could she? Those photos of Maria in his arms and entering their condominium in Los Angeles haunted her. And if that had not been enough, the tabloids had run wild with the story. Someone had been kind enough to forward
those
stories to her attention as well.

“You best be putting those in fresh water, Amanda,” her
mamm
scolded. “No sense in wasting them!”

“I’m tired,” she replied, ignoring the flowers as she turned to go to her section of the
haus
. She needed to lie down. Her energy level was gone . . . had been since she had learned about Alejandro’s infidelity. Her heart was heavy with grief, and her stomach churned each time she thought about it. The only things that could make her feel even a touch better were to pray and sleep. Today, sleep sounded like the better of the two options.

Not fifteen minutes had passed when she heard a knock on the door. Amanda tried to ignore it, but whoever it was persisted. Sighing, she sat up on the bed and turned toward the door.
“Ja?”

“May I come in, then?”

Anna. Of course it was Anna. The peacemaker.
“Ja, ja,”
Amanda said with a heavy sigh and sat farther back in the bed so that she leaned against the headboard.

Anna walked in slowly, carrying two mugs in her hands. “I thought a little hot cocoa might cheer you up on such a chilly December day,” she said as she handed one mug to her sister. “I even put in those yucky little marshmallows you always liked.”

“They aren’t yucky,” Amanda said, a halfhearted smile on her face. The steam from the cocoa caressed her chin as she lifted the mug toward her lips.
“Danke,
Schwester
.”

The bed shifted as Anna sat down beside her. For a few long seconds, neither spoke. Instead, they sipped their mugs of hot cocoa and stared out the window. The sky was gray and hinted at more snow. Amanda couldn’t help wondering if this would be a tough winter with lots of snowstorms. She had been looking forward to spending Christmas week in Miami. Now, however, it did not seem that was likely.

“What’s going on, Amanda?”

Ah, she thought. Time to talk. Amanda set down the mug on the nightstand next to her bed. “I really don’t know what to say,” she started.

“You need to talk to Alejandro about this,” Anna stated, her eyes leveled at Amanda. “You can’t hide here at Daed and Mamm’s. You’ve made a choice, and you have an obligation to the man who you married before God.”

She shut her eyes and leaned her head back so that it touched the headboard.
“Ja, ja,”
she mumbled. “I know that I made a choice. I took vows before God. But so did he, Anna.”

“You haven’t even spoken to him, Amanda,” Anna said, a hint of reproach in her voice. “It’s as if you have given up on him without understanding the situation.”

“Understanding? The situation?” She practically croaked the words. How could she explain this to her
schwester
? How could she expose sweet Anna to the ways of the music industry? Amanda could remember when Alejandro had first talked to her about the dark side of his world. She had been sitting on the porch, her leg broken, as he crouched before her while they talked. He had told her about sleeping with women whom he didn’t know and certainly didn’t love. She had learned to overcome that, knowing that the past was just that: the past. But what he had done with Maria? She wasn’t certain that she could ever forgive that, despite her upbringing within a tradition that held forgiveness as one of the highest virtues.

In truth, his actions had broken her heart and, with shattered faith, forgiveness was simply impossible.

“I know what those horrid tabloids are saying,” Anna said softly. “I saw one at Smart Shopper.”

Amanda’s mouth fell open. She had never considered that possibility. The shame of what that meant flooded over her and she covered her face with her hands. If Anna knew, that meant that others in the community knew, including her parents. Before she knew it, the tears began to stream down her cheeks and she felt the weight of the emotions that she had been holding back lift from her shoulders as she began to sob.

Her
schwester
shifted her weight on the mattress so that she was sitting closer to Amanda. She rubbed her back, trying to soothe Amanda’s tears. “Now, now,” she said softly. “You need to calm down, now.”

“I can’t,” Amanda cried. “I simply can’t. The thought of Alejandro with that . . . that . . .” She thought many different words, but not one of them was suited to say aloud. “Woman!” Removing her hands from her tear-streaked face, Amanda looked at Anna. “My heart broke, Anna. It simply broke. I love him so much, and to think that he could do something like this? I don’t know how I can go on!”

“Shh!” Anna pulled Amanda into her arms. “Don’t say such things. We all felt that way after Aaron joined Jesus. Do you remember? And we got through that, as a family. We will get through this, too.”

“I’m so ashamed,” Amanda sobbed. “How can I ever face anyone again in the
g’may
?”

“You can and you will.”

But it was so much more than that. Amanda struggled to find the words to express to her sister exactly what she was feeling. “It will never be the same, Anna,” she said, extracting herself from Anna’s arms. “Nothing seems right here. Not anymore. I look around, and where I used to see such vibrant life and colors . . .
vell
, it’s all black, gray, and white to me now. I will spend my days dreaming about what could’ve been.” She paused and wiped at the tears in the corners of her eyes. “What should’ve been.”

“It could be again, Amanda,” Anna offered.

“I’d have to get used to settling,” Amanda replied. “To go from that life back to this?”

“What’s wrong with this?” Anna asked, no hint of any contempt in her voice. “It worked fine for us for years, ain’t so?”

“After having tasted that life, Anna, I don’t know if I could be plain again.” She laughed through her tears. “There was something magical about those endless nights and all of the city lights in New York, Los Angeles, and Miami! So much life and so many colors!” Her laughter turned back to sobs. “All of those memories . . . just crumbling to dust with that one photo!”

“Now, Amanda,” Anna said, her voice a bit more stern. “You are the one who always said not to believe those horrible tabloids. You haven’t even given him a chance to explain.”

“I just can’t face it,” she whispered through her tears.

“You can’t hide here forever, either,” Anna pointed out. “He
is
your husband.”

“He was unfaithful to me!” Saying the words out loud hurt twice as much as having thought them over and over again in her head. There were not enough tears in her body to cry away the pain that she felt.

There was a soft knock at the door. “Amanda?” Lizzie opened the door and peered inside. “You best be coming out here, Dochder.” She paused, her eyes taking in the sight of Amanda’s tearstained face. She lowered her voice as she added, “He’s here.”

Amanda wiped at her face, staring at her
mamm
as she tried to understand what she had just said. “Who’s here, Mamm?”

“From the looks of the car that just pulled in, I reckon it must be your husband.”

The color drained from Amanda’s face as she looked to her sister. Anna forced a smile and patted Amanda’s leg in reassurance. “You can do this, Amanda,” Anna said. “You’ve always been the strong one among us. Listen to what he has to say, and let God guide you. You can never go wrong when you cast your worries into his capable hands.”

Nervously, Amanda got out of bed. Her hands were shaking as she hurried to the small mirror and looked at her reflection. Her face was blotchy from crying. There was nothing she could do about that. Not caring that her
mamm
and
schwester
were watching her, she smoothed back her hair and quickly pinched her cheeks.

She was wearing a plain black skirt and a white shirt that was tucked in at the waist. The skirt was dirty from when she had worked outside in the morning. Luckily, her shirt had been shielded from dirt as she had worn a jacket to keep herself warm.

“Come now, Amanda,” her
mamm
urged and pushed the door open so that Amanda had no choice but to hurry out of the room and follow her into the main
haus
.

He was standing in the doorway, the frame of his body taking up the entire opening. His legs were apart as he stood there, and his hands were behind his back. For a split second, she had the distinct feeling that she had lived this moment before. It was the day that he had first come back for her, to rescue her from the bishop demanding that she be sent away. He had worn the same expression on his face with the same air of confidence surrounding him.

This was not the look of a man coming to confess his sins to her.

“Amanda,” he said, nodding his head in her direction.

She remained silent as she stared at him, ashamed of herself for feeling her heart race and her knees weaken. She willed herself to remain strong and not to break down in tears at the sight of this man, this man whom she loved with her entire being. The very same man who had broken their marriage vows.

“Excuse me,” he said, turning to Lizzie and Anna. “It’s good to see you again, Lizzie. And you must be Amanda’s sister?” He crossed the room to shake Anna’s hand. “I wish we were meeting under different circumstances.”

Anna didn’t reply and lowered her eyes.

“I saw your father in the barn,” Alejandro said, directing his attention back to Amanda. “He looks well.”

Amanda had to blink her eyes to fight back the tears.

“¿Permiso?”
he said to Lizzie and Anna. “I should like to speak to my wife alone.”

He didn’t wait for their response as he walked toward Amanda and reached for her hand. When she didn’t take it, he frowned. “Come,” he demanded, his voice soft but firm. “Enough is enough, Amanda. We must talk, and that is best done in private, no?” He took her hand and led her through the door toward the
grossdaadihaus
, having witnessed her walk through that same door just minutes before, a clear indication that she was staying there.

In the privacy of the
grossdaadihaus
, Alejandro released her hand and turned to stare at her. His eyes roved over her, from head to foot, as if drinking in the sight of her. For a moment, she thought he was going to pull her into his arms, embrace her, and kiss her. She felt ashamed of herself for realizing that had he done such a thing, she most likely would have let him.

“You do not return my texts or my calls.” There was no accusation or tone to his statement, just the clear facts. “You did not come to Miami. Why?”

She lifted her chin.

“Ah,” he said, jabbing at the air with his finger as if he had just realized why, despite the fact that they both knew what the reason was. “The tabloids, no? The story about Maria at our place in Los Angeles made its way to Lititz, Pennsylvania.” He narrowed his eyes as he looked at her. “And I bet that . . . what do you call it? The Amish grapevine was quick to share that with you, no? For a community that professes to be so plain and against worldliness, they certainly like to follow the gossip in the entertainment world, no?”

“That’s not fair!”

“Nor is spreading gossip!” he retorted quickly, obviously pleased that she had finally broken her silence. “Since you are so eager to believe the gossip from those god-awful tabloids, Amanda, perhaps you would like to hear some more of it.”

He turned his back on her and walked toward the window. She watched as he peered outside, seeming to take in the empty fields, some with slight patches of snow on the ground that hadn’t thawed out from the previous snowstorm.

“This story,” he began, “it is about a man who fell in love with a woman,
sí
? Before he met her, he was carefree and full of sin. But once he met her, everything changed. It was as if God had placed this beautiful angel in his path. The man’s life changed, and that change had a ripple effect.” He glanced over his shoulder, pausing long enough to make certain she was paying attention. “You see, there were other people who benefited from this man’s success. They didn’t want him to settle down with a woman, especially a woman as special and magnificent as this particular woman. So they did everything they could to break up the relationship. They mocked her in music videos, they poked fun at her upbringing in advertisements . . .” He turned around and took a step toward her. “They even made it appear that he had been unfaithful to this woman. They convinced him, too, that he had broken his marriage vows and let him believe that he had betrayed the one woman in his entire life whom he had sworn to love, honor, and protect.”

She felt her heart beat faster as she listened to his words. Was this true? Was it possible?

“The woman wouldn’t take his calls nor respond to his texts. She had lost faith in him. The man wallowed in self-pity and despair. He had lost faith in himself.” By now, Alejandro was standing before her. There was a sorrow in his blue eyes, something she had never seen before. And at that moment, she knew that he had been suffering as much as she had. “But it was all a lie. A lie to tear apart the man and the woman.”