Second chance christmas, p.20
Second Chance Christmas, page 20
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-eight. Why?”
Drats. Ten years might be too big of a gap. She discarded the idea of matching him up with Ada. “My oldest schweschder, Sarah, is twenty-eight.”
Gideon shrugged as if he couldn’t care less. Why wasn’t he married? He was good-looking enough; though at the moment, those good looks were marred by an expression of utter dismay.
“Are there always this many people?”
“It’s a gut-sized crowd today. Summers are busy, our special weekends in the fall are busy, even Christmas is busy.”
“Christmas?”
“Ya, we have a special Christmas market—not on Christmas Day, of course, but the weekend leading up to it.”
“Why are we talking about Christmas?”
Becca smiled in what she hoped was a pleasant way. “Because Christmas is my favorite holiday.” She started to add that he hadn’t seen anything yet, but she didn’t want to scare him off. She also thought it best not to add that, in her opinion, a ninety-day trial period was ridiculously long. Surely, three weeks would be enough. Perhaps once her dat saw how well Gideon took to the job, he’d change his mind.
“It’s a beautiful May day. Folks like to come out and do their shopping when the weather is gut.”
“Feels a bit cool to me. It’s already in the nineties in Texas.”
“Is it now?”
Gideon looked a bit homesick.
She needed to distract him, and she needed to do so before he could catch a bus out of town. “Vendors set up in the auction barn are first on the list. Ready?”
She motioned toward the large red building. Gideon absently ran a thumb under his right suspender before shrugging. “Sure. Let’s do this.”
The list had her guiding Gideon through every part of the market grounds, ostensibly to give him an overall feel for the place. Becca had started helping at the market when she was eleven, but she’d been visiting the market since she could walk. She remembered coming here with her mamm.
That thought brought a familiar ache. Her mother had died when she was only seven years old, and yet Becca still felt the pang of loss when she thought of her. Being Amish, they didn’t have many photographs taken, but neither were they forbidden. She knew of three that included her mother, all kept in the family keepsake box in the living room. Her memories of her mamm were more vivid than those photographs. Still, she sometimes liked to pull one out and trace her fingers over the image.
Her mamm had loved the market as much as her dat did. They both considered Shipshewana to be the best place in the world to live.
But Becca wasn’t like her mamm or anyone else in her family. She’d always been the odd girl out. She’d been reading books about other places since she was old enough to borrow them from the library. It seemed ironic that now she was supposed to convince Gideon that the job she couldn’t wait to be rid of was the perfect job for him.
“The market has grown a little busier every year,” she admitted as they walked toward the auction building. “Shipshewana has become quite the tourist mecca, and many of those people come to our little spot in northeastern Indiana specifically to visit our market and auction.”
“How big is this place?”
“Forty acres, with over seven hundred vendor booths.”
Gideon let out a long whistle, causing several of the teenaged Amish girls passing by to glance his way. They smiled, put their heads together and giggled behind their hands.
“I thought Shipshewana was a small town.”
“It is. Our population is still under a thousand.”
“Many towns in Texas are smaller than that.”
Was he going to bring up Texas at every turn of the conversation? Becca darted left to avoid being run over by a baby stroller being pushed by a child barely old enough to see over the top. “That’s the population in the town limits, but there are many more than that in the surrounding county.”
“Oh.”
“And market days bring our numbers up to approximately thirty-five thousand folks.”
Gideon stopped at that, looking at her in disbelief.
Oops. Maybe she should have held that news back until he’d become acclimated.
She cocked her head. “Did you read up on the place before you accepted the job?”
“I read the job requirements.”
“Ah.”
“Not sure I read that number. It’s rather...alarming.”
She smiled brightly, hoping to ease his concerned expression. She’d been in this guy’s presence less than fifteen minutes, and she was already learning that Worried might as well be stamped on Gideon Fisher’s forehead. He had that in common with her dat. But how was he going to be a competent assistant manager if he was overwhelmed by the sheer number of people?
Not her problem.
She was sure her dat had it all worked out.
Amos Yoder didn’t hire someone without checking their background thoroughly and being completely convinced that the applicant was the correct person for the position. Sure, the job offer had also been a favor for his parents, but that didn’t mean Gideon couldn’t do it. If her dat said that Gideon would make a good assistant manager, then Becca shouldn’t doubt for a minute that he would.
Once he learned his way around the market.
And stopped gawking at all the people.
And quit comparing everything to Texas.
* * *
Gideon felt like he was riding the tilt-a-whirl at the county fair. He wasn’t sure he’d ever actually been surrounded by this many people. Rebecca—correction, Becca—was easy enough to follow. She marched through the crowd with such authority that the flood of people practically parted to make way for her.
An Amish woman parting the Red Sea.
He almost smiled at the thought, but there wasn’t time. She’d darted right, then left, then entered a door marked Employees Only on the side of the auction building. He rushed to catch up with her. How did she move so fast? She was pretty, energetic and a good six inches shorter, with much smaller feet. Yes, he’d checked her out. He certainly wasn’t in a place in his life where he wanted to court someone, but he had a beating heart. What man wouldn’t notice her?
Personally, he preferred women who weren’t so bossy.
She also seemed rather pushy and dismissive. She’d barely acknowledged his comments about Texas. Obviously, she didn’t realize what a unique and wonderful place it was. Probably she’d never even been out of Indiana. Many Amish never left the county they were born in. Talking of Texas would be like describing the moon to her—totally irrelevant.
The next three hours passed in a blur of names and buildings. They toured the auction building and the livestock barn. At least the smell of animals brought him some sense of familiarity, even comfort, but they stayed less than twenty minutes before Becca hurried him out to walk up and down the aisles separating the rows of outdoor booths. Over seven hundred vendors sold everything from sunglasses to comic books to soaps and other handmade items.
He slowed near a booth selling cookies and cupcakes and pies. Becca pulled him away. “Three more aisles, then we’ll stop for lunch.”
The words were more of a command than a suggestion. She smiled, but he saw the steely resolve in her expression. She wasn’t his boss. Was she?
Gideon realized in that moment that he was starving. How long had they been walking through the market? And how much more was there to see?
Apparently, a lot—they sailed past booths with produce, spices, even rugs. Finally, they reached the end of an aisle that bordered the red parking lot.
“Questions?”
“Lots.”
“Great. Let’s head to the auction restaurant and debrief.”
Debrief? Did she just say debrief? Was she even Amish?
His mood improved after he’d eaten a roast beef sandwich with fries and a piece of fresh apple pie, plus slugged back three cups of coffee. Maybe the caffeine would help him keep up with her.
Becca had chosen an egg salad sandwich, side salad and chocolate pie.
“Food’s gut.”
“You definitely won’t go hungry here.”
“How do you do it?” He popped the last piece of apple pie into his mouth, again drained his cup and sat back.
“Do what?”
“All of it—keep up with such a big place, remember everyone’s name, handle everyone’s crisis?”
Twice she’d been stopped because of vendor disagreements regarding space. She’d handled those deftly, and both vendors had good-naturedly accepted her solution. But when she’d helped a young Amish teenager change the roll of paper on a mobile cash register, he shook his head in disbelief. Was there anything that Becca Yoder didn’t know how to do?
“It’s not that hard—plus, I’ve been doing it since I was...”
“Young. Yeah, your dat mentioned that.”
“Plus, I’m good.” She wiggled her eyebrows.
“Modest, too, apparently.” He said it softly, but she didn’t let it go.
“Is that what you like, Gideon? Modest girls?”
Instead of looking away, he met her gaze. “You know what they say about pride...going before a fall and all that.”
“Actually, the proverb says Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.”
“Same difference.”
“Is it?” She shrugged and finished the last bite of her pie. “I didn’t mean to come across as bold or proud. But I am good at this job.”
“Then why are you leaving it?” There. He’d asked the question that had been niggling at the back of his mind since meeting her. There must be something wrong here if she was so anxious to leave. “I assumed you were marrying, but...”
“But what, Gideon?” Now her eyes were laughing. She waited, not letting him off the hook he’d put himself on.
“Well, it’s just that you haven’t mentioned a beau or any wedding plans or...”
“Maybe I don’t like talking about personal stuff.”
“Maybe.”
She checked her watch, then pulled out her dat’s list. “We still have the parking lots to cover, all the entrances and exits, rest areas... And I want to show you the scooter rental and ATM machine.”
Gideon groaned.
Becca drummed her fingers against the table. “How big is your parents’ farm?”
“One hundred and twenty-two acres.”
“Fairly large by Amish standards.”
“And yet small by Texas standards.”
Just the memory of home lowered his blood pressure. How he wished he were there. Why had he left? He should be checking the crops in the fields, not walking the aisles of a market.
“You worked on the farm?”
“Every day—planting, harvesting, checking fence.”
“But, see, that’s my point. Our entire facility is only forty acres—a third of what you’re used to.”
Which didn’t make him feel a bit better. Becca popped out of the booth, carried her dishes to a bucket and deposited her trash in the receptacle. Only then did she look back to see if he’d followed.
“Ready?”
“Or not...” But they weren’t children playing a game of hide-and-seek. He was a grown man. He was a farmer, and he was totally out of his comfort zone at the Midwest’s largest outdoor market.
Why had he let his parents talk him into this?
Why hadn’t he argued with them?
Somehow, he’d thought that if he came up here, gave this job his best shot and convinced everyone how ill-suited he was for such a venture, his parents would readily dismiss the idea. He’d thought that he’d be home within the week.
Home.
Nausea filled his stomach as he stepped back outside with Becca. He didn’t want to be here. He did not like large crowds of people, and he did not remember a single thing that he was supposed to have learned today.
He closed his eyes and pictured the cottonwood trees next to their creek. He imagined the grain ripening in the fields.
Becca cleared her throat.
He opened his eyes.
Crowds of people, a line of Englisch cars and pretty Becca—impatiently tapping her foot.
Exile. That was what this was.
But he could—he would find a way home.
Copyright © 2022 by Vannetta Chapman
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ISBN-13: 9780369725196
Second Chance Christmas
Copyright © 2022 by Betsy St. Amant
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Betsy St. Amant, Second Chance Christmas
