FanStory.com - Nothing's As It Seems (Rachelle)by Rachelle Allen

In true Mid-Atlantic States style, by the time we have made it inside the siblings' house, the skies have started to offer up some signs of clearing. There's still some rain, but all the electricity in the air has abated. The sun is even trying to beam down onto the far-reaching bucolic landscape and drench it in hues to rival a Norman Rockwell lithograph. The only interruptions to the variegated rows of green countryside are the intermittent silos, gleaming like snub-nosed rocket ships.

It is simultaneously peaceful and unnerving - and for the exact same reason: not another living soul for miles, save for these people who rescued us.

There was a guy with a scythe who'd sauntered out of one of the barns when we'd arrived and set Gretchen sprinting, like an Olympic qualifier, back toward the road. But other than that, there is just this patchworked family and two FanStorians until at least Wednesday. In a word, OY!

Rebekah presents me with some consolation prizes in lieu of my actual clothes, which are now making their way down the digestive tracks of her family's goats.

I see two white towels, two neatly folded blue cotton dresses, dark hose, flat, black, high-top work shoes, a shawl and an apron. She looks at me apologetically as she says, "They're not glamorous, like you're used to, but they're clean."

"Oh, Rebekah, I feel so guilty taking your clothes!" I tell her.

She looks down, and tears drop to the floor. Softly, she says, "They were my maam's."

I'm now the one blinking back tears. "Are you sure you're comfortable seeing them on me, Sweetie?"

"So very much," she says, barely audibly, as she squeezes her eyelids tight.

Quickly, I clap the bottoms of the flat shoes together and say, "Well, at least I won't be getting THESE caught in the sideboard of your buggy!"

As I'd hoped, this gets her smiling again and even laughing a little.

"I have these for you, too," she says, handing me four kernel-less corncobs and several strips of washed out fabric. "Do you know what they're for?"

"I DO!" I exclaim. "But I'm flabbergasted that YOU do, Rebekah! Have you been sneaking peeks at Glamour magazine when you go into town?"

She gives me a quizzical look just as Gretchen arrives, wearing her tidy, dry-again outfit and still looking like the plucky Englisher she is. Meanwhile, there I stand, the one-shoed, mud-caked leopardess that I have become.

"Rebekah's taking me to the hot springs so I can look presentable again," I tell Gretchen. "You want to come, too?"

"Sure!" says my travel buddy, and off we go.

A few feet to our right, Rebekah points to a small building. "The outhouse," she advises.

"Like, WHAT?" squawks Gretchen.

"Oh, this from the girl who, just an hour ago, was whizzing beside an oak tree?" I say with my eyebrows raised.

Rebekah covers her teeth with her lips for the second time since we entered her orbit. Oh! The stories this girl will be sharing at the next quilting circle!

We don't have to trek far into the woods before everything feels very different. There's an unbelievable serenity suddenly. No birdsong, no moving air, in fact, no motion at all. There is an all-but-palpable holy feeling that suddenly surrounds us that reminds me of the mikvah - the ritual Jewish bath - I took before my wedding day. G-d's country, indeed.

We reach a clearing, and a liquid oval of sapphire blue spreads out before us, looking like a Caribbean postcard. Gentle eddies percolate all across its surface as it gives off a satisfying sensation of heat.

"Our hot springs," Rebekah says, enjoying the looks of incredulity on Gretchen's and my faces.

"Can you find your way back alright if I leave you here?" she asks. "I should get home to help Aunt Helene with supper."

"Of course!" we assure her.

"Don't be too long, though, please," says Rebekah. "When the sun is just over that silo, you should head back."

"Will do," says Gretchen.

"Rebekah, is it alright if my hair's still wet and 'in progress' at the dinner table?"

"I don't see why not," she says, though I I worry she's just being polite. I make a mental note to do my reading-the-room thing when we return and proceed accordingly.

Rebekah turns in the direction of her home, and we can hear her singing, "Amazing Grace" so beautifully that it's as if an angel is on the periphery, completing the final perfect touch to this tableau. The music teacher in me will be exploring this discovery more after dinner.

"Are you going in?" I ask Gretchen, nodding toward the clear and beautiful water.

She gapes at me. "Like, get naked and dip down into the hot unknown in the middle of an Amish farmer's field?"

"Not naked," I say. "I'm going to just go right in in my dress. It's ruined anyway from the rain and then the mud. So now I'll just call it my "swim dress."

"Who ARE you, and what have you done with the fashion frou-frou leopard Barbie person I picked up at her cousin's house in Baltimore?" she asks, wide-eyed.

"I'm (a) acclimating to my circumstances - the old When In Rome thing - and (b) communing with my roots."

"Yeah, right!" Gretchen rolls her eyes. "You grew up on a farm? You, Miss Opera Singer Sophisticate grew up on a farm?"

"Actually, I did," I say proudly. "In Palmyra, New York. My family owned four horses and fifty-two acres of farmland with a creek that ran through it, a big barn and even a chicken coop.

"What'd you do - gather eggs and then carry them back to the house in your high heels every morning before heading off to school?" Gretchen laughs heartily at her own joke.

"I did everything barefooted back then," I tell her and wait for the astonishment to reach her eyes. "I caught frogs, I went for walks in the woods behind our house with my Great Dane. I was a bona fide country girl."

I continue. "My parents worked in The City, but they rented fifty of our fifty-two acres to the farmers whose properties abutted ours. They rented out the chicken coop and half the barn to them, too."

Gretchen is officially speechless. "Mind. Totally. Blown," she says, shaking her head.

"So, you might not want to take the plunge here, but you're also not the one covered in sludge. Myself, I cannot wait to indulge and get squeaky clean again...and try to tame my hair back from this frizz-fest it's become with the rain."

I make my way down the path toward the gentle bubbles.

"Oh!" I say, suddenly remembering. "And look what else Rebekah bestowed!" I point toward the corn cobs and strips of well-worn fabric.

"What are those?" Gretchen asks.

"Makeshift curlers!" I exclaim. "I can't imagine how an Amish girl with such silky red hair could possibly know about using curlers to eliminate frizz in hair like mine, but there it is!"

"Wow!" says Gretchen, matching my own enthusiasm. "Someone's giving her bootleg fashion mags!"

"I know! That's exactly what I said!"

Gretchen decides to go back to the house and maybe help Helene and Rebekah prepare dinner while I sink into the heavenly waters of the hot springs and explode with the joy of it all.

As the sun crowns the silo, I make my way back to the farmhouses, now ensconced in Rebekah's maam's blue button-down dress. It's so roomy that Gretchen and I could fit in it together. It flows to my ankles, where it is met by the flat-bottomed, high-topped work boots. I've used one of the fabric strips to tie my unruly mane into a high ponytail, which I've divided into four sections - one for each corn cob curler - and used the remaining fabric strips to hold them in place.

My couture might not be exactly haute anymore, but I'll be damned if my hair's going to be a mess! Surely, I'm allowed to maintain SOME semblance of fashionable dignity!

Everyone, even Gretchen, is out on the front lawn, spreading corn to the chickens as I approach. Upon seeing me, they all freeze and gape. A full minute passes before Helene finds her voice.

"Um, Rachelle," she says in a tone I recognize immediately as diplomatic, "those pieces of old fabric and corn cobs weren't intended for that purpose."

"They weren't?" I ask.

She shakes her head and shares a look with Gretchen.

"Then what are they for?" I ask, thoroughly perplexed.

Helene points toward the outhouse. Diligently keeping her tone even and pleasant, as if she's talking a jumper down from the ledge, she says, "We use them in there. Fabric strips for the, um, front part, corn cobs for, well, you understand."

I exchange perplexed looks with Gretchen, who, I'm suddenly noticing, is wearing the pained expression of someone who's watching a trainwreck in slow motion. I turn back to Helene. "No, honestly, I don't understand. What front part? What does that mean? And corn cobs for what?"

For the BACK part!" shouts Ezra in exasperation and, bending in half, pats his hind quarters several times.

As reality hits, I emit my best operatic high note of all time while Gretchen and the children have all they can do to remain upright. They are holding their stomachs and braying like donkeys at a group singalong.

Helene rushes over to disengage the outhouse toileting aids from my hair while also encouraging me, over and over, to please, please, please stop screaming. I can't seem to comply.

*******************

When we have all finally regained our composure, we sit down for dinner. Immediately after the "Amen" from Ezra's prayer of gratitude, Hannah takes in my halo of flame-colored frizz that I am just sure must resemble a sea anemone, then turns to Gretchen and says, "I think Rachelle's about to get struck by lightning!"

"Eat your scrapple," says Helene.

Scrapple, I think to my Jewish, Celiac-compromised self: a traditional mush of fried pork scraps and trimmings, combined with cornmeal, wheat flour and spices.

Amish life sucks. Is it Wednesday yet?