Chapter 15
When two grown, wind-blown Plain women argued in the middle of a damp street, jabbing index fingers in the air, something was up.
Elijah studied Bonnie and Sophia.
Sophia held their Fabrics and Notions bags in her lap.
Bonnie had one hand on her prayer covering to keep it from blowing away.
Their cheeks were red, but that was probably from the chilly wind that once again refused to acknowledge that May had arrived. A car slowed and honked. Finally, they rolled out of the street.
Sophia entered the store first.
She waved at Elijah and kept on going toward Carol, who was deep in conversation with a customer interested in her embroidery classes.
Bonnie rolled through the door, into the store, and past him without a wave—in fact, with barely an acknowledgment.
What had he done? He followed in her wake.
She glanced back and kept going.
What was her hurry? Elijah quickened his pace.
“I brought a few items—not everything we agreed to, but a few until I can make more.”
Bonnie stopped so suddenly, Elijah had to detour around a greeting card rack to avoid colliding with her.
She made a U-turn.
“You’re not here to pick up your merchandise?”
So she’d assumed the worst.
That didn’t seem like her. “Nee.”
“I heard your wares are on sale at the combination store.”
How did she hear that? The Plain grapevine could choke the life out of a person.
Elijah took off his hat.
He held it in both hands.
It gave them something to do.
“Is that a problem? My mamm did it without asking me. I can take them out.”
No change in her expression.
Did she find it strange that his mom did this without asking him? She chewed on her lower lip.
She shrugged.
“How will you keep up with demand if you’re on the road?”
“It’s temporary.
Until Jason comes back.”
Bonnie didn’t crack a smile.
She didn’t seem pleased.
She definitely wasn’t the woman who stood next to him at the corral eating cookies and drinking coffee the previous day.
“I see.
It’s up to you if you sell in two locations, but you can’t sell your items for less at the combination store. You’ll undercut your sales here. Which will affect our bottom line as well as yours.”
Business.
Strictly business.
“I’ll talk to Mamm when I get home.”
Mom didn’t need his stuff in the store.
He would get it out and bring it to Homespun Handicrafts.
“Bring in what you have, price your merchandise, and then you can be on your way.”
Bonnie resumed her trek to the workroom.
The air was so frigid that a man might think it was midwinter and all the doors and windows had been left open.
“I’m sure you’re eager to get back home.”
Far from it.
Declan would be waiting for him to practice some more while Elijah washed the trucks to get ready for the road trip.
Elijah had practiced so much that he dreamed he was calling auctions.
Loudly, in Deutsch.
Sometimes it went well. Sometimes he stuttered and couldn’t speak English. Sometimes he couldn’t remember how to talk at all. He’d wake up in a cold sweat, trembling, his heart pounding. “We leave tomorrow for Charm.”
Head bent, Bonnie scooped up a folder from her desk and laid it on her rollator.
She slipped around the table and faced him.
“Have a seat.”
The oomph had gone out of her voice.
Dark smudges spread under both eyes.
She wasn’t sleeping well either.
“How long will you be gone?”
Three weeks.
Too long.
Too many opportunities for him to try and fail.
Too long when he could be in his workshop creating toys kids would love.
Instead of sitting, Elijah went to the worktable along one wall. A panda bear still lacking his face lay next to Bonnie’s sewing machine. Elijah picked it up. The material was soft in his calloused hand. The stuffing was spongy, just right for hugging, just right for a child to cuddle while falling asleep at night. “I like pandas.”
“I do too.”
Bonnie didn’t sit either.
She followed him.
He held out the panda.
Her expression softer, she took it.
“It’s funny, isn’t it, how we both make animals but in different media? You with your wood, me with my material and my sewing machine.”
“Kinner like them both.”
“Do you think about the kinner who will play with the toys you make?”
“All the time.”
Elijah touched the tissue pattern pinned to a piece of floral cotton.
It appeared to be a bunny ear.
“I have lots of time to think while I measure, saw, sand, stain, and finish pieces, or when I’m just whittling a little animal the size of my palm.
I hope the kinner find joy in riding the rocking horse or pretending to be on Noah’s ark with all the animals coming in two by two.
I hope they pretend to be farmers with the corral and the horses and cows and pigs.”
That had to be more than he’d ever said to any woman ever.
Each time he saw Bonnie, it became a little easier to talk to her.
Her expression pensive, she stroked a piece of felt.
“I hope a little girl instantly loves my bunny rabbit.
She takes it with her to bed every night.
When storms and the thunder crashes so loud outside her window, she cuddles it close and finds comfort.
She carries it around for so long, it gets ragged and faded. Finally, when she’s ready to go to school, she leaves the bunny on her bed, an old friend but one she doesn’t need with her all the time anymore.”
Her imagination matched Elijah’s.
“Did you have a bunny friend when you were growing up?”
“Not a bunny.
A lamb.
It was just me and my little lamb.
I played by myself a lot.
So Baa was my friend. She followed me around just like Mary from the nursery rhyme. We ate our meals together. I read to her. When I learned to sew, I made clothes for her. I fed her eppies when Mamm baked.”
“It’s hard for me to imagine being an only child.”
“I’m sure it is, what with all your brieder and schweschdre.”
“Are you mad at me?”
Elijah hadn’t meant to ask the question outright.
Somehow it slipped between the bars and escaped.
“Nee, not at you.
Of course not.”
Bonnie straightened the tomato pin cushion, shears, and seam ripper.
Her head bent, she tossed a few scraps of material into a bin next to the table.
“I’m just turning into a grumpy old woman like my mamm.”
“You’re not old.”
“It’s a figure of speech.
We’d better get you squared away.”
Her rollator’s wheels squeaking on the vinyl floor, she headed back to the table used for shop business.
“You never did say how long you’ll be away.”
“Three weeks.”
He settled into a chair.
She might be in a hurry to conclude their business, but he wasn’t.
He could listen to her talk for hours.
“Two auctions in Charm, one in Sugar Creek, and one in Millersburg.”
But for now, he was here with Bonnie.
“Can you help me decide how to price them?”
“I’m happy to do it.”
She shuffled the papers together.
“Would you like to practice calling while we price the toys?”
The lack of segue between the two sentences stumped Elijah for a second.
She wanted to help him practice? It didn’t make sense.
If she supported his desire to start his own business, why would she want him to succeed at calling?
Besides, he couldn’t call in front of her.
The idea summoned a cold sweat on his face and under his arms.
“I don’t think so.”
His throat had gone dry.
His tongue swelled—or was that his imagination? “It takes all my concentration to do arithmetic.
I was never gut at it in school.”
“I’m a friendly audience.
I thought that might help.”
“Danki, but I don’t think I can.”
Her frown was back.
No matter what Elijah said after that, Bonnie kept the conversation focused on pricing his toys and furniture.
It took more than an hour.
Finally he placed the tag on the push mower and set it back on the shelf.
“That’s that.”
“That’s that.”
She stuck a bag of blank tags in a cabinet next to the storage shelves.
The black felt-tip markers went into a pencil holder on the desk.
“You can come back at your convenience when you return to Lee’s Gulch.
We’ll have a sales report for you, and we can discuss whether to replace inventory.”
So formal.
The warm, chatty Bonnie had been replaced by shop owner Bonnie again.
She couldn’t know she’d landed squarely on Elijah’s greatest conundrum.
If he overcame his fear of calling auctions, should he still want his own business? Should he abandon his dream in favor of his family’s business? Even Elijah hadn’t really considered the possibility of this result.
Or at least he hadn’t admitted it to himself.
No matter what happened with auctioneering, as long as he had merchandise at Homespun Handicrafts, he had an excuse to come to the shop.
In other words, he had an excuse to see Bonnie again.
“Will do.”
He tipped his hat to her and scrambled from the office before he told her as much.