Just Plain Sadie Page 7

  Surely that wasn’t why she had called. He hoped it wasn’t. She’d thanked him four or five times on Saturday. And it was really no big deal. He enjoyed spending time with Sadie. There was a calmness about her that spread into his bones, even though an energy followed her wherever she went. It was a strange and interesting combination that he wanted to stand next to always. “You’re welcome out here anytime.”

  “And we’re still on for Saturday with Cora Ann, right?”

  “Of course.” He was excited at the opportunity to see her again. Even though he knew he shouldn’t be, he was looking forward to it.

  “That’s not why I called.”

  Ezra smiled. “Yeah?”

  “Do you like to bowl?”

  It was perhaps the last thing he expected her to ask. And that was surely why it took him a moment to answer. But just in case . . . “Like in an alley? On lanes?”

  “Is there any other kind?”

  Ezra shook his head. “I guess not.”

  “So do you?”

  “Do I what?”

  “Like to bowl?”

  “Yes. Of course. But I’m not any good.”

  Sadie laughed. “You don’t have to be good. Just breathing.”

  “I think I qualify.”

  Her chuckle came across the line again, and he realized that he’d do almost anything to hear that sound. “Do you want to go tonight? My normal bowling partner can’t make it, and I hate to let my group down.”

  Ezra stood still for a second, letting the question wash over him. Had she just asked him out on a date?

  “I mean, it’s only bowling, right? Nothing else. Unless . . . I mean, I think it would be fun if you came, but you don’t have to. Never mind, it was a dumb idea.”

  “No, no, no, and don’t hang up, Sadie. Of course I’d like to go bowling with you. What time?”

  “We usually start at seven.”

  “Pick you up at six thirty?”

  “That’s okay, I can take the buggy and—”

  “And drive home after dark. I’ll come get you in my truck.”

  “Okay,” she said. “See you at six thirty?”

  “I’ll be there.”

  * * *

  The moment Sadie heard his truck rumbling down the road, she grabbed her bag and rushed out the door. After she had gotten off the phone with Ezra, she called Hannah back with her change of plans. Thankfully, this was Mamm’s day to work the open-to-close shift at the restaurant. Sadie didn’t want to hide the fact that she and Ezra were going bowling together, mainly because there was nothing to hide. But she surely didn’t want to try to explain that to her mother. Not after Lorie left.

  Lorie’s discoveries about their father and the double life that he’d been leading had almost torn the family completely apart. Lorie had wanted to go off to Tulsa and experience the Englisch world like her father had known, but Mamm was not having any of it. She told Lorie straight out if she went to the Englisch world, she wasn’t welcome back in their home. Never mind that Lorie hadn’t joined the church and couldn’t technically be shunned. Mamm was just like that, a little on the stern side and very much concerned with the actions of all of her children. It was a good thing to be loved as much as Maddie Kauffman loved her children, but Sadie had no doubts that their sister Melanie had gotten married so young simply to get out of the house and out from underneath Mamm’s thumb.

  Cora Ann had come home from the restaurant to watch after Daniel while Sadie went bowling. As she had expected, Cora Ann had stopped by the library and checked out a couple of new cookbooks. Sadie caught sight of Your Double Boiler and You: A Hundred and One Recipes You Never Thought to Make and All About Pies before she hustled out the door to meet Ezra.

  He turned down the drive when she cleared the porch. She raced toward him, the strings of her prayer kapp flying out behind her as she ran.

  “Hi,” he said with a smile as she came around the passenger side.

  “Hi,” she returned. She was staring at him like a young girl with a serious crush.

  “Are you going to ride with me the rest of the way to the house?”

  She shook her head. “There’s no need to go back to the house.”

  A small frown furrowed his brow. “I don’t need to meet your mother?” She had told him all about her father’s death the day they were out at the ranch. He’d understood and nodded, apparently figuring out there had been a death since she was always wearing black. A few more months of that, and she could go back to wearing her favorite blue.

  “She’s at work.” Sadie reached for the door handle, hoping he’d let the matter drop. “Besides, this isn’t really a date.”

  The words gave him pause, then he nodded. “Right. Bowling.”

  She slid into the cab of his truck. “Just bowling,” she repeated.

  Ezra looked into his mirrors and backed the truck out into the street before starting them toward town once again. “Buckle up,” he said, nodding pointedly at her seat belt.

  “Of course.” She wrapped the thin strap around her and snapped it into place. With all the work they did at the restaurant, she hardly ever traveled by car. That was why she didn’t remember to buckle her seat belt. It had nothing to do with those dark brown eyes that were smiling at her from across the truck cab.

  “So who are we bowling with again?”

  “There’s William and Hannah Lapp. They got married this past October. And Ruthie and Mark Chupp.”

  “Let me guess, they’re not brother and sister.”

  “No,” she said. “They got married in January.”

  “It is January.”

  Sadie chuckled. “So it is.”

  “So we’re going bowling with two sets of newlyweds?”

  It sounded terrible when he said it like that. “Three. My sister Melanie and her new husband, Noah, will be here too.”

  “And you’re not bringing your boyfriend?”

  Heat rose into her cheeks, and she knew she had turned a bright shade of pink. “I don’t have a boyfriend.”

  “So who do you normally bowl with?” Ezra pulled the truck onto the highway that would take them back into town.

  “Chris is usually my partner. Chris Flaud.”

  “Is he the guy that was waiting for you at the restaurant Saturday night?”

  Sadie turned to study him. The sun had long gone down, and darkness had settled around them. She couldn’t read his expression. How had he seen Chris on Saturday night? “Jah, that’s Chris.”

  “What does he say about you asking me bowling?”

  “He doesn’t care. We’re just friends.” For some reason she wanted to tell him about Chris’s plans to go to Europe that summer, but she kept them to herself. She wouldn’t want anything to accidentally get back to Chris’s parents before he had a chance to talk to them. She had made a promise, after all.

  Ezra nodded, but didn’t say anything further on the matter as they continued into town.

  As usual, the bowling alley was full. There wasn’t a whole lot to do in tiny Wells Landing on a Thursday night in January. Once the summertime hit, hardly anybody would be indoors. There would be nighttime softball games, fishing after dark, and a ton of other activities that involved a bunch of kids being together.

  Ezra found a space and parked the truck.

  Sadie got out, shutting the door behind her before reaching into the truck bed and retrieving her bag.

  “Is that what I think it is?” Ezra pointed to the bag she held in her hand.

  “It is if you think it’s a bowling ball.”

  Ezra nodded. “I’ve never known anyone Plain to have their own ball.”

  “Amish and Mennonite?” Sadie asked as they walked around the side of the building toward the front doors. She could already hear the music blaring from their nighttime bowl. She couldn’t say she liked the music. It was loud, rock ’n’ roll, they called it. But it somehow made her more anxious than she wanted to be. There were times when she found that she
left the bowling alley and her heart was pounding in her chest way faster than its normal rate. Or at least it felt that way.

  “Uh, neither, I guess.” He held the door for her and waited for her to enter, then shook his head. “You know what? Forget I said that. That’s got to be the dumbest thing I’ve ever said.” He chuckled at himself, and Sadie found herself joining in.

  “Well,” she said in the small foyer. The bowling alley had two sets of double doors with a small room in between. It was the last chance to talk without screaming before they went into the actual bowling alley. “Me either.”

  “You either what?” Ezra’s brow wrinkled with a frown.

  “I don’t know anyone Plain either that owns a bowling ball. Except for me.”

  Ezra shook his head. “Then where did you get it?”

  “It belonged to my father.”

  The air between them got a little thicker. A little sadder. And somehow despite the rock ’n’ roll blaring on the other side of that thin sheet of glass, a little quieter.

  Ezra reached for the silver handle, his eyes unreadable. “Okay then, Sadie the owner of bowling balls. Show me what you got.”

  Chapter Seven

  “What were you thinking, bringing him here?” Sadie glanced up from the scorecard as her sister Melanie flopped down in the seat beside her.

  “What do you mean?” She knew what Melanie meant, and she would have to answer that question eventually, but for now she was playing dumb.

  “If Mamm found out that you brought a Mennonite boy bowling . . .”

  Sadie briefly closed her eyes and let out a heavy sigh. When she opened them again, Melanie was still staring at her intently. Her sister was not going anywhere.

  “Who invited you, anyway?”

  The comment was meant to be a joke, and Melanie knew it, but still she crunched up her forehead into a scowl. “He’s a Mennonite.”

  “I wish everyone would stop saying that like it’s catching. So what if he’s a Mennonite. I’m not planning on marrying him.”

  Melanie’s stare was hard and steady. “You know what Dat always said.”

  “Never date a boy you won’t marry.”

  Now that Sadie knew that her father had truly been Englisch pretending to be Amish instead of Amish like everyone in the community thought, that comment had a whole new meaning. No wonder he said such things; Englisch boys were so different than Amish boys. But Ezra was a Mennonite. It wasn’t like he had completely different values than Amish. Were they so different after all?

  “That’s right,” Melanie said. “And you know that you could never marry a Mennonite boy.”

  “So because I won’t marry a Mennonite boy, I can’t bowl with one.”

  “Sadie, a date is a date.”

  “This is not a date.”

  Melanie leaned back in the molded plastic chair and gave her another one of those looks. With that expression on her face, her sister looked so much like Mamm that Sadie almost grabbed her shoes and headed for the door. “Did he pick you up tonight?”

  “Jah.”

  “And is he going to take you home tonight?”

  “Jah.”

  “That, my sister, is a date.”

  “Melanie, I need you.” Hannah waved to her from the other side of the ball return.

  “Think about it.” Her sister’s voice was so soft she almost didn’t hear it, then Melanie gave Sadie one last look and went to see what Hannah wanted.

  It wasn’t a date, Sadie argued in her head. No matter what Melanie said, no matter what anyone said. She and Ezra had agreed this wasn’t a date. It was two friends who were going bowling together with other friends. Never mind that all the other “friends” were newly married and very much in love. That didn’t mean she and Ezra had to be. Look at her and Chris. They had been bowling with this group for years. And he hadn’t exactly promised his undying love to her, now had he?

  “How’s it going?” Ezra eased down into the seat next to her, the one that Melanie had recently vacated.

  Sadie pasted on a bright smile and turned to face her new friend. “Everything’s great.”

  “Then why do you look like you could bite nails in half?”

  Sadie sighed. “It’s nothing. Really.”

  He studied her with those so-brown eyes, but after a moment, he gave a small nod. “Okay, but don’t think I believe you. You can tell me when you’re ready.” With that, he rapped his knuckles on the Formica-topped desk, then sauntered away.

  Sadie watched him go, her emotions a jumble of twisted turns and knots.

  Why was everybody making such a big deal out of this? Even if everyone insisted on calling this a date, who was to say anything more would come of it than this one night? As much as she liked Ezra, and she was finally admitting that she really truly liked him, who was to say that he wanted anything more from her than merely friendship? He himself had never given her any indication that he held feelings for her outside of friendship. But everyone assumed that their one bowling date would lead to something more.

  She tapped the eraser end of the pencil against the paper-thin scorecard. And even if their one date led to more, why was everyone so upset?

  She knew the Mennonites and the Amish were on different sides of the fence. All over shunning eons ago. But did their views on shunning make them all that different? Most folks outside the Anabaptist had no idea the difference between Amish and Mennonites. And as much as she knew their differences, she could not wrap her mind around them. Was it such a big deal that they had electricity and the Amish didn’t? The Kauffmans had electricity at the restaurant. They used a phone on a regular basis. Mamm used a computer to take care of all the bills. The big difference in the Amish like her family and an Amish family like the Riehls was that the technology that the Kauffmans used was solely in place to keep them on the same level with other businesses—Englisch businesses—of the times. Unfortunately, old-fashioned methods did not make for good twenty-first-century business practices. The Mennonites had electricity, but they didn’t use it to power televisions, radios, computers, or other things that might lead to the temptations of the outside world. So were they really that different after all?

  Sadie looked up as Ezra approached the ball return. He looked so different standing there in his blue jeans and patterned shirt, but that stuff was on the outside. Did it really make a difference?

  No, she decided. It didn’t. Ezra was a nice person, generous and handsome. He took care of his disabled mother. He raised animals on his ranch. He even cared enough to drive from Taylor Creek all the way into Wells Landing to pick up her and Daniel and take them to his ranch. And he had asked nothing of her in return.

  She watched as he executed a perfect throw, but the ball had a bad spin and hit too far down the side, leaving him with a seven/ten split. She couldn’t help but smile as the boys all groaned. Ezra threw his head back and sighed with the impossibility of the pickup. No, she decided, they weren’t so different after all.

  * * *

  Of all the luck, Ezra couldn’t believe his. He managed to pick up the seven pin, but missed the angle enough that it didn’t ricochet and collide with the ten. He took his seat on the bench and watched as Mark took his turn.

  “Tough break.” Mark sat down next to him. A few inches away but still close. But Ezra had to scoot a little closer as Noah sat down on the other side. The two of them effectively pinned him in, and he knew what was coming next.

  Sadie didn’t have any brothers save Daniel. And he was too young by far to make sure that a guy treated his sister right. Ezra felt these two had appointed themselves as honorary brothers to Sadie Kauffman.

  “So,” Noah started. “You like Sadie.”

  That was a question that had no right answer. “She’s a nice girl.” There. That was good enough.

  Apparently not for Noah. Perhaps he thought as Sadie’s younger sister’s husband, the duty of both brother and father fell to him. “She is. How did you two meet?”
<
br />   Ezra had the feeling that Noah knew how he and Sadie had met, but wanted to see how Ezra himself felt about it. “She came to the market with her friend.” He’d almost said boyfriend, but was that what Chris was to her, a boyfriend? And if he was, what right did Ezra have coming bowling with her tonight? She had said they were only friends. Now he was wondering if perhaps she had talked him into coming bowling in order to make Chris jealous. The thought made acid churn in his stomach. He didn’t want to be used for anybody’s revenge.

  “And then you invited yourself bowling?”

  “I think you guys have this all wrong.” Ezra stood, unwilling to put up with too much of an interrogation. “Sadie wanted to bring Daniel out to my ranch and allow him to look at the animals I keep. So she did. Then she asked me to come bowling with her. As a friend. That’s all.”

  Before he could walk away, Will finished his turn and came up next to him. “What the guys mean to say is, we all like Sadie. She’s a good girl, good friend, and deserves to be treated right.”

  “And then there’s Chris,” Mark added.

  If Chris and Sadie were truly just friends, then his friends evidently hadn’t gotten the memo.

  “Listen, guys,” Ezra started, not really sure how he was going to finish. “I think Sadie is a nice girl, but I’m not looking for a girlfriend right now. She invited me to come bowling, so I did. Really. That’s all there is to it.”

  Noah stood to stand beside him. Ezra was fairly tall, and Noah hardly reached his shoulder. But there was something fierce in his gaze, and Ezra thought he had heard Sadie mention that he was a bishop’s son. That explained a lot.

  “Know this,” Noah said. “We’re a peace-loving people, but hurt Sadie and I can’t guarantee what happens from there.”

  Ezra gave a small nod. “Understood, and can I say that Sadie couldn’t ask for a more protective bunch of guys to look out after her. She’s a very lucky girl.”

  * * *

  “I’m sorry about that.” Sadie took off the rented bowling shoes and handed them to the guy behind the counter. He grabbed them and handed back her black walking shoes as Ezra stood beside her, waiting for his own lace-up boots.