Plain Fame Read online

  He laughed softly and caressed her hand with his thumb. “You won’t be home for chores tonight, Amanda Beiler. But you’ll be just fine.” He paused before adding, “I’ll make sure of it.” She was the image of innocence and clearly a long way from home. While he knew nothing about Lititz, Pennsylvania, he suspected it was far from Philadelphia or Pittsburgh. And certainly not close to New York City. “I promise,” he heard himself say.

  He could hear the mumbling behind him. The crowd was beginning to liven up. If people hadn’t recognized him before, he knew the word was now floating through the flock. He could sense the energy as more people began to peer over the heads of others, trying to see him, trying to take a photograph of him. The cell phones were in the air snapping shots of Alejandro kneeling beside the Amish woman on the streets of Manhattan. No, he corrected himself. Photos of Viper with the Amish woman. Alejandro wondered which one would wind up on the entertainment channels and the tabloids later on this evening.

  The police arrived moments later, their cars making a way through the crowded streets, avoiding the pedestrians who didn’t seem to care that they were breaking the law by darting across the road. Once the police had parked their cars, ignoring the other drivers who began honking their horns at being blocked and delayed, two policemen began to push the crowd back, creating a buffer so that the ambulance would be able to get through when it arrived. Another police officer approached Alejandro, quickly assessing that he was a good person to start interviewing.

  “What happened here, sir?”

  Alejandro glanced up, peering at the officer from behind his dark sunglasses. He tried to pick his words carefully, knowing that too many people were probably recording the scene. What he said now would most likely be replayed over and over again, on television, on interviews, and in court when the young woman sued for having been hit by his driver.

  “I’m not exactly certain,” Alejandro said. “I just know that she was hit by the limousine.”

  The officer peered at him for a moment. It was the moment of recognition. “Aren’t you . . . ?”

  And so it begins, he thought wistfully. Avoiding the question, Alejandro glanced at the woman. “No disrespect,” he said. “But she’s in a lot of pain, Officer. Do you have any idea when the ambulance will get here?”

  To Alejandro’s relief, the officer leaned his chin over to his shoulder, speaking into his walkie-talkie. While the officer was trying to get a reading on the location of the ambulance, Alejandro turned his attention back to the young woman. “Amanda?” he asked softly. “Amanda? You hanging in there, Princesa?”

  She nodded slightly. The color drained from her face again, and tears began to fall down her cheeks. “I just wanted a pair of sunglasses,” she said, her words barely audible.

  “What?” Uncertain that he had heard her correctly, Alejandro leaned down, trying to hear what she was saying. “What did you say?”

  She reached for his hand again, holding it tightly in her own. “While I was waiting for my train,” she whispered. “I was crossing the street for a pair of sunglasses.”

  He didn’t have an opportunity to ask her about what she had said. The ambulance was pulling up behind them, the horn beeping for people to get out of the way. The officer in charge motioned for Alejandro to back away so that the paramedics could bring the gurney closer.

  Respectfully, he moved back but stopped just a few feet from where she was stretched out on the road. He noticed the white cap lying on the ground a few feet away and stooped to pick it up. Clutching it to his chest, Alejandro watched as the paramedics worked, quickly taking her vital signs and asking a rapid barrage of questions. Within minutes, Amanda Beiler was gently lifted from the streets of Manhattan, placed on the crisp white sheet covering the gurney, and whisked away to a hospital.

  Alejandro stared after it, too aware that his cell phone was vibrating in his pocket and the officer was asking him a question. But his mind was elsewhere. This young woman, dressed in such plain clothes and with such a pure, fresh look on her face, lingered in his memory, and he found that he could think of nothing else. She was alone in Manhattan and clearly out of her element. He knew the feeling from his own days as an immigrant with his mother in Miami. And he also knew that he wasn’t going to make that appointment with Richard Gray. Only this was now by his own choice, not because of being delayed by the accident.

  Chapter Two

  When Amanda awoke in the hospital room, it was dark outside. It took her a minute to place where she was. Slowly, the memories came back to her. Bits and pieces: the noise of the streets, the blinking light at the crosswalk, the noise of the screeching brakes, the impact of the car as it hit her. For a while, she relived that moment, seeing the people staring at her sprawled on the ground. Groaning, she turned her head away from the memory and stared out the dirty window by her bed.

  She could see the twinkling lights of New York City from the hospital window. It took her a moment to realize where she was; the white walls, the metal twin bed, the curtain that hung between her and the plain oak door, she took it all in. There was a large bouquet of flowers on the windowsill: pink and white roses. She frowned when she saw them and tried to count how many roses were in the tall glass vase with the pretty white bow around its neck. She stopped counting at twenty-four and left it as “a lot.” But she couldn’t begin to realize why there were “a lot” of flowers on a windowsill in a strange room that she imagined was inside a hospital.

  Amanda shut her eyes and leaned back into the pillow. There was a dull ache in her left leg, and her head felt fuzzy. She couldn’t move anything more than her eyes and even that hurt. Why was she here? she wondered as she tried to piece together the events that had led her to this hospital bed when, instead, she should be home, helping her mamm clean up the dishes from the evening meal.

  The door opened, and she saw a nurse in a white uniform walk through it. She flipped on a light switch, and Amanda blinked as her eyes adjusted. The nurse was an older woman with graying hair that was curly around her forehead and ears. She wore wire-rimmed glasses and had rosy cheeks. When she looked up and saw Amanda looking at her, the nurse smiled. “Well, look who has decided to wake up!”

  “Where am I?” Amanda asked, pulling the sheet and white blanket up to her chin. She tried to remember what had happened, but everything seemed a blur. One minute she had been crossing the street among a crowd of people, the next she was waking up in this strange room by herself. There were faint images that clouded her memory: bright lights, the man with the dark glasses, the loud noises, a police car, and all these Englischers. But she just couldn’t seem to piece it together.

  “NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, my dear. You had quite a nasty accident,” the nurse said, reaching for the chart that hung from the foot of the bed. “Let’s check you out and see how you’re doing, if it’s OK with you?”

  Amanda watched as the nurse checked her pulse. “What happened to me?”

  “Just a few bumps and bruises, dear,” the nurse said, smiling. She seemed pleasant enough, not like the other Englischers that Amanda had met on her journey. “And a broken leg. Nothing that a month in a cast won’t fix.”

  “A broken leg?” She reached down to feel her leg. Sure enough, her left leg was in a cast, all the way up to her thigh. She groaned. What could be worse than a broken leg at the beginning of the summer? How would she be able to help her daed with the harvest? How would she be able to help her mamm with the garden? They were counting on her, she thought to herself. She’d have to find a way. And then it dawned on her. “How long have I been here?”

  The nurse marked something down on her chart, her head bent over the clipboard. “Since yesterday before noon. But you’re in good hands, dear.” She clicked the top of her pen and slid it back into her pocket. “And you seem to have quite an admirer,” she said, nodding toward the flowers.

  “What about my parents?
” Amanda asked in a panic, her eyes big and wide as she stared at the nurse.

  They hadn’t wanted her to go on the trip by herself. They had insisted that she travel with her older sister when they went out to Ohio, but just before the return journey, her sister had decided to stay. Amanda suspected that their cousin’s friend, Jonas Wheeler, had something to do with that decision. Everyone had asked Amanda to stay, but she had insisted on leaving, knowing that her daed would need her help plowing the fields. Without any sons and only two daughters at home, her daed would need all the help he could muster.

  Her parents had been expecting her to arrive home yesterday evening. She was to catch the connecting train at Penn Station in New York City headed for Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where her parents had arranged for a Mennonite neighbor to meet her and drive her home.

  “They must be terribly worried about me!” she exclaimed, knowing full well that they would be panicking. Guilt racked her body, and she shook at the thought, trying not to imagine the worry that her parents were going through on account of her.

  The nurse smiled again. She had a pretty smile that lit up her entire face. “Not to worry! I do believe that it has all been taken care of, Ms. Beiler.” She patted Amanda’s arm gently before hanging the chart back at the foot of the bed. The gesture calmed Amanda, and she felt her pulse slow down. The nurse began fiddling with the equipment behind the bed. “How do you feel otherwise?”

  “It hurts, and so does my head,” Amanda said, lifting a hand to her forehead. She was surprised to feel her hair against her cheek. Her prayer kapp was missing, and her hair hung loose in gentle waves over her shoulders. She blushed. She had never been in front of a stranger with her hair free. In her world, only a husband should see her loose hair. “It feels like I’m dreaming,” she said to the nurse. Indeed, everything seemed foggy and strange, as if she were floating around the room.

  The nurse laughed. “That’s the pain medicine, dear. If you are starting to feel uncomfortable again, I’ll get your next dose. You’re actually due.” She glanced at the watch on her wrist. “Plus, it’ll help you sleep,” she said and smiled. “I’ll be back momentarily. You do need a good night’s rest.”

  Sinking back into the pillow, Amanda turned her head to look out the window again. Outside, she could see the reflection of tall buildings, many with floors still lit up. The lights were fascinating to her. There were so many of them. How could so many people live in such a small place? she wondered. There were no trees, no grass, no cows. It was a strange place, and she certainly didn’t like being so far away from home and her own people. Yet she was curious. She wished that she could see the city, listen to the people, and taste some of the different foods.

  Throughout her life, she had rarely left the small town where she was born and raised. Occasionally, she had traveled with friends and her extended family to work at the market in Maryland. Those were long days, requiring that she’d leave the house by four in the morning and not return home until after nine in the evening. But she had enjoyed meeting the Englischers and answering their questions, even though most of their inquiries were rather silly. Unlike many of her friends who avoided the Englischers, Amanda hadn’t minded being the center of their curiosity. And that had made her quite popular with the tourists and local people who shopped at the market.

  Those days had been few and far between since her daed needed her help on the farm. Unlike other families, her parents had not been blessed with numerous children. So Amanda did her fair share of the work in the fields. She loved the smell of freshly tilled soil, lived for the days when they planted seed, and felt the true glory of God during the harvesttime. Her father used to brag that she did the work of two sons. But that had been a long time ago, she thought.

  Her eyes fell upon the flowers. Roses, she thought. Her mother had several rosebushes at the farm. They were tall and bushy with clusters of vibrant red roses. The buds were small and delicate, unlike these roses that stood tall, with perfectly formed dainty cups, the petals peeling back just slightly to hint at the beauty inside them. Who on earth would have sent her flowers? And roses at that!

  “Hey, you,” a deep male voice exclaimed from the doorway.

  Amanda turned her head around, startled by the familiarity of the voice. A man stood in the doorway, his broad shoulders accentuated by the fact that he wore a crisp, clean black suit. He wasn’t particularly tall, but he seemed to fill the room with his presence. His white shirt was perfectly tailored, and he had on a thin black tie. Despite being indoors, he wore dark sunglasses that hid his eyes. His thick, curly brown hair hung over his forehead, giving him a tousled look that was charmingly handsome and playful. And his voice: it sounded like a song, the words flowing with an odd accent that she had never heard before.

  “The nurse told me you were awake. That’s good,” he said. When he said the word good, it almost sounded like gut. But he had a singsong way of speaking that sounded very different. The man who stood there, his hand on the door handle, smiled at her as if she should know him. But she didn’t.

  “Who are you?” she whispered, pulling at the blankets until they were almost under her chin. With her hair undone and not being dressed properly, she was more than uncomfortable having a strange man approach her.

  Usually, she didn’t mind meeting strangers. On this trip to Ohio, she had met plenty of them. But for the most part, they had merely stared at her and her sister, Anna. That was quite the usual. Having grown up at the heart of the Amish tourist mecca in Pennsylvania, she was used to being stared at by strangers. Even going to the market involved dealing with the Englischers and their staring eyes, so full of questions that only the bravest managed to ask. While she normally didn’t mind, Amanda hoped that this fellow wouldn’t start with any of those intrusive questions. Her head was still feeling thick.

  “May I?” he asked, gesturing toward the room.

  Amanda hesitated a little, but after realizing that he was asking permission to enter the room, she nodded. This man seemed to know her, and he seemed to be concerned about her. She wondered if he was the doctor. He was dressed well enough, she thought. She watched as he walked into the room and softly shut the door behind himself. Then he approached her bed, and with another gesture toward the chair, he waited for her to give him permission to pull it closer and sit down beside her.

  “Do I know you?” she asked, confused by his comfortable mannerism around her.

  “Indirectly, yes,” he said. “My name is Alejandro Diaz.” He paused before adding, “It was my limousine driver who hit you yesterday.”

  A limousine? Amanda frowned, trying to remember. But she couldn’t. Her head hurt, and everything seemed a bit fuzzy. She couldn’t seem to make sense of what was happening around her. Clearly, he wasn’t the doctor. “Why are you here, then?” she asked.

  He raised a finger and tapped it in the air as if making a point. “That is a good question, yes.” And then he smiled. His smile lit up his face and added to his charm. He reached up and took off his sunglasses, folding them carefully before sliding them into the breast pocket of his jacket. It was such a fluid movement that she was mesmerized.

  She had never met any Englischer like this man. Usually the Englischers she interacted with were older men, accompanying their wives to Lancaster County to learn about the Amish and shop the handmade goods and fresh produce they brought to the market. They wore shorts and T-shirts with ratty-looking sneakers and baseball caps. The younger Englischer men who lived in the area were not interested in the Amish. They were much more interested in their cars and their music. This man was very different. He was no typical Englischer, that was for sure and certain.

  With a deep breath, he sighed. “You see, I saw this beautiful damsel in distress, injured on the side of the road, sí? And when she spoke to me, I knew that she was far, far from home and all alone in this big, crazy city.” He leaned back in the chair and cros
sed his leg over his knee. She noticed that he wore shiny black shoes with black socks. Not one smudge on them. “And I knew that I couldn’t leave her alone to fend for herself.”

  Her mouth fell open, and she stared at him. He was a stranger. Yet he hadn’t left her? “You’ve been here with me?”

  “I’ve been here with you,” he said, nodding his head once.

  “The whole time?” she asked, amazed.

  “The whole time,” he repeated.

  She shook her head. “I don’t understand any of this, Mr. Diaz.”

  “Alejandro, please.”

  She frowned, chewing on her lower lip for a second. She had never had much of a reason to interact with Englischers, and certainly not Englischer men. Yet here she was talking to this complete stranger. There was something very disarming about him. Something very different. She realized that she felt relaxed and wondered if it was the pain medicine that the nurse had mentioned earlier. “Alejandro. That’s a strange name.”

  “It’s cubano.”

  “Cubano?”

  He laughed. “Cubano as in Cuba.” She liked the way that he said Cuba: coo-bah. But she still didn’t know where it was. He must have realized that because he added, “It’s near Florida. Certainly you’ve heard of that.”

  The color rose to her cheeks. “I know where Florida is, ja,” she insisted.

  He laughed again. But the sound was cheerful and light, not condescending. “Ay, Princesa, Cuba’s a different country. It’s an island. You have to get there by airplane or boat from Florida. But trust me, it’s not a very nice country. Maybe to visit, but not to live there.” His eyes shifted away as though remembering something from long ago. For a moment, he seemed as if he were transported somewhere else, to a previous life, and not an easy one. She wondered what could have happened in his past to make his eyes grow dark so quickly. But she wasn’t about to ask him. She felt that it would be an intrusion; it would have been rude on her part. He sighed. “Certainly not as pleasant as Pennsylvania. Where is that little town you said you live in?”