The Christmas Courtship. Emma Miller
Note to Readers
Dover, Delaware
At the convenience store that served as the Greyhound bus station, Joshua held open the door for an Englisher. Dressed in a puffy white coat, the elderly woman stared up at him, her mouth agape, as she walked through the doorway. Maybe she wasn’t used to seeing an Amish man in a 7-Eleven, or maybe it was his Ray-Ban sunglasses that surprised her. He offered a half smile and removed them as he walked into the store.
He was looking for his stepmother’s cousin.
He’d seen the bus pull out as he’d secured his horse and buggy to a lighting pole in the parking lot. She had to be here. He scanned the aisles. He spotted a woman and a little boy getting milk from one of the cold cases, and a tall, slender man considering his candy selection. Just Englishers.
He exhaled impatiently. A trip to the bus station hadn’t been on his list of things to do that day. He’d had previous plans. He and his stepsister were supposed to get together this afternoon to talk about their idea of opening a greenhouse and garden shop the following spring. He’d been eager to finally sit down with Bay Laurel and get their ideas on paper. Instead, he was running errands for his stepmother, Rosemary.
Rosemary had married his widower father two years ago, and Joshua couldn’t have been happier. Joshua adored Rosemary and he’d do anything for her. Which was why he was at the bus station on a cold, blustery November day looking for a cousin who was supposed to be here. He didn’t even know what Phoebe looked like. He’d never met her. But how hard could it be to find an Amish woman in a 7-Eleven?
“Need something?” asked an enormous man from behind the checkout counter. He had a beard as long and bushy as any Amish elder’s.
Joshua glanced at the Englisher. “Looking for a girl.”
The man laughed from deep in his belly. “Aren’t we all.”
Joshua didn’t laugh. He didn’t even smile. He wasn’t offended; he just didn’t get Englisher humor sometimes. “An Amish girl. She should have gotten off the bus.” He pointed in the direction of the parking lot.
“Haven’t seen her.”
Joshua hooked his thumbs into his denim pants pockets and sighed with exasperation. He wasn’t sure what to do. He had no idea how to find out if Rosemary’s cousin had actually been on the bus or not. For all he knew, she could have changed her mind and never boarded in Pennsylvania. Apparently, her parents were sending Phoebe to Kent County because she’d been involved in some sort of scandal. Word was she’d have a better chance of finding a husband outside her hometown. Of course, among the Old Order Amish, asking for someone’s secret apple streusel recipe could be considered a scandal, so the idea that the poor girl was coming to them in disgrace didn’t hold much water with him.
Joshua stared at a display of potato chips in front of him, wondering if he should give his stepmother a call. They didn’t have a phone in their house. The Amish didn’t have telephones. It was one of the ways they held themselves apart from others. But his family did have a phone in his father’s harness shop. Most bishops allowed their congregants to have phones for their businesses as long as it wasn’t inside the home. Sadly, more and more Amish needed cell phones for work purposes because more Amish men were forced to work in the Englisher world for financial reasons. But those phones were never left on or carried in pants pockets. They were stowed in pantry drawers and more creative places. One of his neighbors stored his in his chicken house.
Joshua saw no point in calling the harness shop and relaying a message to Rosemary in the house because if the cousin had decided not to come, how would Rosemary know? From what his stepmother had said, Phoebe came from an extremely conservative Amish community in Pennsylvania. She certainly didn’t have a telephone.
Joshua glanced at the man at the cash register again.
He was wearing a camouflage T-shirt and pants, and a bright orange knit cap advertising some kind of sports drink. Despite the clothes, he didn’t look like much of a hunter.
“You sure you haven’t seen an Amish girl?” Joshua asked. “She would have come inside. It’s too cold to wait out there. Probably wearing a black bonnet and long black cloak,” he said, trying to jog the man’s memory.
The guy placed his meaty hands on the counter and leaned forward. “Look, buddy, I haven’t seen any gal in prairie wear today. I know what your people look like. They come in once in a while.”
Debating what to do, Joshua watched the customer who’d been looking over the candy approach the register. He’d gone with the chocolate peanut butter cups. Joshua liked those, too.
A door opened in the back of the store and a woman’s voice caught his attention.
“Atch, you’re so welcome.” She had a Pennsylvania Deutsch lilt to her words. The language, which was equivalent to High German, was what his people spoke.