Famous Amos from the Book

Closing my eyes, my ears swell with the methodic whirr and buzz of the cicadas in the trees. The steady plop, plop of condensing water from the air conditioner strikes the wooden deck with a sizzle like fatback on a skillet. Down on Highway 41 A, cars zoom past this small house so fast it seems even time itself is standing still. My selfish desire is that it would, for directly inside -- on the metal-framed hospital bed hospice has provided -- an 80-year-old man named Amos Stoltzfus lies, waiting patiently for death and the Life to come.

Eight years ago my father called Amos -- then a complete stranger -- and boldly asked him, “So, you’re Amos? The famous Amos from the book?”

Amos laughed at the “famous” reference, but reassured Father that he was indeed Amos from Following the Fire. After Father shared with Amos his own heart for revival, Amos asked him when they could meet.

“The sooner, the better,” Father replied.

Less than a month later, on a Sunday morning in late summer, my family traveled from our home 45 minutes north of Nashville to a small town near the Alabama line called Winchester, Tennessee. I still can so clearly remember seeing Amos for the first time. At 73-years-old he was tall, tan, and lean. He had hair so fluffy and white it looked like a snowdrift. His eyes were deep-set and a startling, crystal blue not often found beyond the pages of fiction. An extrovert in every possible sense, he went around greeting everyone before church, and as he did his laughter would rumble up from deep within his chest as if it were a distant peal of thunder. Later, to encourage his son while he stood behind the pulpit and preached, I remember how Amos’ right arm would shoot up to the ceiling and he’d belt out a hearty, “Hallelujah!”

That Sunday morning in late summer I met another remarkable man: Amos’ grandson, Randy Petersheim. Over the next four years, as my family took trip after trip down to Winchester, through Randy I learned about Amos’ adventurous life.

While still in his teens, he was shunned by his Amish family after surrendering his life to the Lord. On one of the first dates with the woman who would later become his wife, he drove his car onto a frozen Minnesotan Lake and -- to the immense, squealing chagrin of his passenger -- spun the vehicle like a top. As the Six-Day War was fiercely raging, Amos took his wife and children and set up camp on the Israeli deserts sands. He and his family, on a limited budget, for months toured the beauty of Europe by living on hearth-baked breads and fresh cheese.

During the course of his nomadic lifestyle and many occupations, the Lord also healed him from numerous injuries: He was given up for dead by his fellow crewmen when the oil rig he was working on caught on a drill bit far below, the top of the machine began to wildly swing, and a piece of it collided with his head, cracking open his skull. On completely different occasions, he also broke his neck, back, was stabbed after witnessing to someone in the city, had two hip replacements, and open heart surgery. Regardless of these events, and perhaps because of them, Amos possessed a zeal for life those with the wealth and experience of kings never find.

This morning my husband, Randy, and I received the call to return to Winchester. Now we are here with the rest of our Stoltzfus and Petersheim family, praying for Amos to go Home even while our hearts are begging for him to stay. This afternoon we clustered round his bed and sang the hymns he used while leading worship during the revival described in Following the Fire. Every once in a while, as our acapella voices harmonized despite the emotional strain, Amos’ startling, crystal blue eyes would open and his white eyebrows raise. And although he could no longer move or speak due to his sudden illness, I knew that if he had that ability, he would’ve shot his right arm up to the ceiling and belted out a hearty, “Hallelujah!”



*Five hours after I finished this entry, Grandpa Amos peacefully went home to be with the Lord while sheltered in the loving arms of his wife, Joy.

The Support System

Last night, my husband and I returned from visiting his grandfather who is recovering from a severe stroke. Over the weekend, watching the love his grandparents exchanged, I was reminded of an article I wrote in 2007 about Randy's other grandparents whose marriage was so filled with unconditional, unshakable love that even death could not diminish it.
______________________

In Lancaster, Pennsylvania my boyfriend's grandfather has just passed away. We have known for over a month that his dying was inevitable, but even with this preparing knowledge his wife of 54 years grieves.

Only a day after his death she began packing up his winter wear: thick woolen jackets he took on his hunting trips to Wisconsin, lined pants he used while working on the farm, flannel shirts made thin by time--all remnants of a life he no longer lived.

As she carefully folded his clothing and gave it to their sons, she told her family she longed to speak to her husband about his own death, about how hard it was for her to let him go. After all the years they had spent together, she still desired to share every detail of their entwined lives. How, with one breath, could it stop now?

A week before he died, they had sat next to each other in silence, their hands clasped, as their imminent separation weighed heavily on their minds.

"What are you thinking about?" she had asked, watching him stare out the window.

Tears flooded his eyes as he turned to her and simply said, "You."

I find myself amazed by the level of their love. In our culture, many husbands and wives cannot live with each other much less grieve over the concept of living without each other. The divorce statistics alone tell us that something has been lost by our generation. How can we possibly get it back? What are the secrets the other generations shared that nourished their love into something that for richer or poorer, sickness or health could not diminish?

Centered in my parents' backyard is a tree whose beauty grows more intricate with every passing year. One day, stepping closer, my mother realized that the one tree was actually woven together by two bases. They had become so entwined that you could not tell one from the other. Together, those trees have withstood hailstorms and tornadoes, ice storms and torrential rains. Through their linked support system they have been able to withstand the ravages of time.

I believe my boyfriend's grandparents' 54 year marriage was built upon the analogy of that tree. They too had interwoven their support system until you could not distinguish one person from the other. Despite the many trials and tribulations that buffeted against their lives, they stood firm, knowing they had been placed next to each other for a purpose.

Like the farmers they were, they were careful to nourish the soil surrounding their love in laughter as well as tears. Sometimes the husband knew that he would have to be the one supporting her, and that in a moment his time would come to be supported. In this beautiful exchange of trust and companionship, they had pressed into their hearts the shape of their love so its form could not float from their memories.

An American in Bogotá: Part Two

If it weren’t for the tattered cardboard and tarp shacks tucked into every rock crevice, vomiting whatever fermented garbage they could no longer contain, the Colombian mountainside would’ve been the most beautiful place I’d ever seen. It was surrounded on all sides with ridged peaks bathed in black shadow, and it looked like God Himself had poured a bucket of velvety green down over them, letting it pool at their base. But my attention was quickly diverted from this beauty as a barrage of people began running toward me with their mouths open and hands outstretched. Forgetting I was currently dressed like Bozo the Clown while firmly recalling scenes from Proof of Life and headlines proclaiming: “AMERICANS KIDNAPPED IN COLOMBIA!” I almost began running as well--only in the opposite direction.

But my flight or fight mentality soon just fled, for as the encroaching mass drew closer in one undulating, putrid wave I saw it was mainly composed of children and their non combative-looking parents. Thus, I stood my ground in my too big red rubber shoes and hoped I wouldn’t be trampled into a splat of oily paint and a polka-dotted onesie beneath them. Once they did arrive without stampeding me, I was shocked by what the parents were wearing and what the children were not. The adults must’ve sifted through mounds of refuse to seize one strip of material that sparkled or felt soft against their wind-chapped skin. They then stitched these pieces together without a pattern or a plan and what resulted was an eclectic mixture of rhinestone, lace, and fur that would’ve made even Porter Wagoner cringe.

The children, in comparison, were wearing next to nothing. Some of them did not have shoes on their feet or shirts on their backs. Their faces were striped with dirt and their hair straggled with knots. But the clarity of the children’s eyes shone even more due to this contrast of filth, like that patch of velvety green against the backdrop of the blackened mountains. The larger children held the smaller ones up to me like an offering. I smiled my banana-shaped smile and ran a finger over their dusty cheeks. Their reaching hands made me realize they desired to touch my cheeks as well. They patted my painted face (ahhing when the white wiped off on their fingers) and fluffed my yellow wig. A few of the more adventurous even tugged on the kinky tendrils, and the children gasped in unison when the wig came sliding off. They must’ve thought they’d scalped me.

Either to keep me from being further dissected or to monopolize on a bonding opportunity, Jeanene Thicke, the founder of Children’s Vision International Inc., came over with a bag of fun-sized Snickers and handed it to me. I started passing the bars out, and the children -- smelling and seeing the chocolate the others had received -- began clambering over one another like kenneled puppies after their food bowl had been filled. It was a heart-wrenching sight but I barely had time to register it, for I began to fear my initially exaggerated thought of being trampled into a splat was now not too far from reality.

Randy then came to my rescue by taking the bag from the tug-o-war of our hands and holding it against his chest until everyone quieted. Once they did, he motioned for the children to align themselves into rows. He then placed chocolate into every outstretched palm.

Watching the calm proceedings, I folded my arms in frustration. “It’s just ’cause you’re tall,” I said.

Randy smiled but tried to hide it. He passed out another piece. “Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I don’t think it’s because I’m tall. Jolina--” he said, looking at me from beneath his brows “--if you haven’t noticed, you’re dressed like a clow-n. They’re not supposed to be taking you seriously.”

I walked off -- my head held as high as possible while weighed down with that ridiculous, canary-yellow wig -- and went to help the Thickes and Petersheims distribute food and clothing. I was beyond relieved when we finished; for, ironically, I was looking forward to the enclosing walls of The Beulah House if it meant blocking out this sad, ravenous world hovering just above it. But Jeanene Thicke and her husband Richard had other plans. We were instructed to follow as they marched up the trail hemming the mountain edges. Pieces of rock and clods of dirt cascaded as we climbed. Darkness now had not just bathed but drenched the peaks and with it the temperature plummeted.

“Where they taking us?” I asked Joanne, Randy’s sister, over my shoulder. She shrugged. Finally, we arrived, but I couldn’t see our destination due to the caravan of hikers in front of me. Our group surged forward one step at a time, and with each my too big, red rubber shoes sawed into my skin. Randy, in front of me, turned around and said, “Jeanene just told Mom these are parents of some children in the orphanage.” I nodded -- for what else was there to say? -- and filtered into the tattered tent behind him.

Crouched in front of the fire a gaunt women sat, stirring coals in a circular motion as if it were a pot of soup. “Bienvenidos a nuestra casa,” she said. As covertly as I could, although it didn’t matter for there was barely enough firelight to see by, I looked around. I felt it shouldn’t be called a home at all, for in the States a dog would’ve had better accommodations. The floor was packed dirt; dented Coke cans and plastic Mountain Dew bottles were piled in the corners. Where did they get them, and how could they possibly afford to? I wondered. The tarp was held in place with two tree branches. Despite this, the wind whistled as it tore into every hole it found and cracked the tarp like a whip when there weren’t enough holes to alleviate the pressure. Everything smelled of mildew and the tang of sickness.

A man stepped from the shadows. He smiled, and I saw his teeth, what he had of them, were nothing but black pegs. Suddenly, the woman set her stick in the coals and stood, moving next to him. He placed an arm around her. Despite the lines etched into their faces, I saw how young they were--no older than 25. In the corner, near the cans, we heard the sound of mewing. I thought it was a kitten, but then the woman held up her hand in an apologizing gesture and moved two steps to the right corner. She picked up a bundle of blankets and held it tenderly against her chest. The mewing continued. It wasn’t a kitten but a child.

Jeanene walked over to the woman and pulled back the top blanket. She began to talk in low but rapid-fire Spanish. The woman started crying, and the man, who was the father of the child, stepped closer to her. Jeanene put her arm around the woman and stroked the thin black hair trailing down her back. A war seemed to be waging, and I didn’t even know where the battles lines were drawn. But, eventually, it seemed Jeanene was the victor, for the woman placed the child into her arms. “Usted todavia puede venir a verlo,” Jeanene said and kissed the woman’s wet cheek. The whole walk down the mountain and the whole ride back, the child mewed but did not cry. Jeanene, in the passenger side of the Blue Ox, held the bundled body closer to her heart and shed the tears the baby girl was unable to.


In the orphanage, the Petersheim girls and I filed into the Thicke’s two bedroom apartment above The Exodus House and watched as Jeanene laid the child on the kitchen table. The odor of wood smoke permeated the room as Jeanene peeled layer after layer of urine-soaked rags from her emaciated body. The baby’s diaper was a pile of rags looped between her legs and tied around her waist, but her bony bottom was not covered in sores like many of the babies who’d been taken off the mountain. Her parents had been trying. Her hair, never washed, stood in tiny jet spikes all over her head. Her eyes were nut-brown with long curving lashes that intermittingly brushed her hollow cheeks. As Jeanene turned her to unravel the swaddling, her head swiveled on the cord of her neck like it wasn’t part of her. This weakness was not the only sign of her malnutrition; for once she was completely undressed, we could clearly see the button-like protrusions of her ribs and spine. Jeanene bathed her in a tub of warm water, and still she did not cry but only whimpered weakly.

“This whole child’s life,” Jeanene said, “she’s only been given a bottle of sugar water because her mother’s so malnourished she cannot produce milk.” Jeanene paused and poured a handful of water over the baby’s forehead like a blessing. She looked up, and there was a glint of anger in her crystal blue eyes. “The same thing’s happened with her other children. They’re both here. Now she is, too.”

The orphanage’s doctor came in to examine the baby. Her name, Jeanene told him, was Deanna Marcella, and the parents had named her before she was taken off the mountain. The doctor assessed various measurements and calculated Deanna Marcella to be five months old and a weight of six pounds. After listening to her lungs and taking Deanna Marcella to his office for an X-ray, it was determined she suffered from Philomena and chronic malnutrition. “But everything considered,” the doctor said in accented English, “it’s a miracle she’s even alive.”

An American in Bogotá: Part One

Chef Hector Gonzalez, the head cook of the orphanage, was supposedly the former sous chef for Hotel De La Opera: the fanciest hotel in Bogotá, Colombia. He did wear the squashed white hat and white outfit as he ladled up our meal, but what composed it made me question the validity of this information. I glanced down at the piled, pale-green vegetable and cringed. It was some sort of shredded cabbage interspersed with little marshmallows. To the left of this was a soup based on oily broth with a few chicken bones floating on top like the detritus of a flooded butchery. I sat at the long plastic table centered in the courtyard and just stared, with all my seventeen-year-old American pomposity, at the plate.

The rest of my group, if their slurping was any indication, did not seem to be having the same trouble as I. It was probably due to my imagination which conjured forth all sort of pestilences crawling around that food as plentifully as salt and pepper. Randy Petersheim -- who was my friend in 2004 but became my husband in 2008 -- met my eyes and understood my quandary. He swept his hands toward him.

“You’re sure?” I mouthed. He nodded. As inconspicuously as possible since the courtyard was in view of the kitchen, I stood and carried my tray over to him. He handed his empty one to me so quickly it looked like we hadn’t exchanged them at all. I carried the tray back to my seat and sat down. I then watched as he scooped that bony broth up to his mouth and ate that cabbage and marshmallow salad as if he wasn’t just saving me from having to.

But by three in the afternoon, I was famished. I was prepared, though, for I’d packed a chocolate protein bar in case something like that horrid lunch had happened. But when I checked my cloth bag to get it out (we’d been advised not to carry purses in Colombia), the bar was gone. Frantically, I searched beneath the bunk beds of the room we were renovating and in the orphans’ emptied cubby holes.

"Where’s my chocolate!” I exclaimed, hands on my hips. Randy's sisters, Jenny and Joanne, and his cousin, Sarah, glanced down from their ladders where they were systematically sponging and stripping paper from the wall.

“Don’t know,” Joanne said. “Are you sure you brought it?”

“Yes! I know I brought it!” I said.

Joanne’s eyebrows rose until they disappeared into the blunt line of her bangs. “Sorry,” she softly said, and I felt like such a jerk.

“The children might’ve grabbed it while we were at lunch,” Jenny commented after a few of my sulkily-spent minutes had passed.

I was incensed. “You’re kidding me! Orphans steal?”

“They never get things like chocolate, Jolina,” Jenny said with a tinge of annoyance. “You know that--you saw our lunch.”

My pious air was punctured as if someone had jabbed it with a pin. My squared shoulders sank; my face drained its color. Here I’d been begrudging a protein bar from orphans who only had bone-filled soup, cabbage salad, cubby holes, and rickety bunk beds to their name. And I had everything someone could desire and didn’t even want it.


After this realization, I tried to suck it up. I didn’t grumble when Betty Petersheim, Randy's mother, told me to begin peeling the zebra-striped wallpaper from the bathroom walls. I started wearing long-sleeved layers so when one became as soppy as the sponge I was using, I could just take it off and continue working unhindered. When Chef Gonzalez dished up our plates at lunchtime, I received mine with a smile and a gracias regardless if I found it worthy of one or not (this was also because Randy ate my truly less savory sides). The only thing I could not become accustomed to was our inability to go outside The Bethel House’s walls after nighttime. At my parents’ insistence, I had read splashy articles about the guerilla warfare and drug cartel infiltrating the deceptively scenic countryside. But I soon started thinking those events had been reported through the spectrum of yellow journalism, if they’d been reported accurately at all, for we’d been there three days already and hadn’t seen or heard anything to cause alarm except a few beggars and their slinking, rail-thin dogs.

Because of this nighttime curfew, the walls of The Bethel House started closing around me on Wednesday. We’d just eaten a quick dinner of spaghetti, and the Petersheims had cleared the table and settled in to play another round of spades. I’d tired of card games two days before and went to sit in the living room where there was nothing to do but translate sentences into English from the Spanish Bible. Randy had been playing with everyone else, but when he saw me sitting there -- pretty much pouting as I conjugated verbs -- he set his cards down and came to ask what was wrong. I told him without a moment’s hesitation. He looked to the side, then into my eyes. “Come with me,” he said. Setting La Biblia on the couch, I stood and followed him out through the living room and up the cement steps.

There were three levels to The Bethel House. The first was composed of the kitchen, living room, bathroom, and one bedroom where Randy’s parents, Betty and Rich, slept. The founders of the orphanage, Jeanene and Richard Thicke, had designated the second floor Girls Only. The right half of it was one big room where eight bunk beds were wedged. A bathroom composed the left half, but the hot water was so minimal we were restricted to military showers, and even then the water was glacial before we’d rinsed the shampoo from our hair. Randy led me past all this and up to the third floor: Boys Only. I was not fearful, for he’d only treated me with brotherly/sisterly-style affection and nothing more. I wouldn’t have admitted it to anyone, for I’d barely admitted it to myself, but despite our seven year age gap I almost wished he’d express his affection in a deeper, less platonic way. I knew, though, if he did I would run right out The Bethel House’s door regardless of any nighttime restrictions.

The boys’ floor was a mirror image of our own--excluding ours smelled better and every surface was not draped in dirty clothing (those two factors were unquestionably linked). Randy said, “’Scuse the mess,” and went past even this. He opened what appeared to be a closet door, and although the area inside was the size of one, it wasn’t. “That’s an opening to the roof,” Randy explained, pointing to the seven foot ceiling where a square of tin was bolted with a rusty latch.

“You’re kidding!”

He smiled at the excitement in my words. “Well, no. I found it last night.” Taking a wobbly wooden chair from the room, he set it beneath the square.

“You’re gonna stand on that?” I asked. “Can it hold your weight?”

Randy put a hand to his chest and opened his mouth in mock horror. “What exactly are you saying?” His dimples flashed. “Just kidding. I used the chair last night. It worked fine.”

Despite his reassurances, I held the seat of the chair as he stood on it and wiggled the rusty padlock. He opened it as easily as Houdini, and this made me question his previous history of occupations. He pushed the tin off the opening with a solid punch, bracketed his hands on the ledges, and lifted himself inside. Once he was firmly settled, I climbed on top of the chair. But even when I was standing on tiptoe, I couldn’t touch the ledges. Randy reached one hand down. “I guess I’ll have to pull you up,” he said. There was no way around it: either I was staying inside another night, or we had to make contact.

My claustrophobia made the latter choice the convincing one. I clasped his hand with both of mine. His fingers were more calloused than I’d imagined. He lifted me up like I was a leaf, but I couldn’t flatter myself too much for he’d obviously been preparing himself for something far heavier. He pulled so hard and so fast when I made it to the top, his body went sailing backward and mine went sailing forward onto the flat cement roof of The Bethel House. Thankfully, these kinesics did not cause us to collide, and besides a few dust and pigeon specks, we were fine. I just flipped onto my back, and we lay there, side-by-side, sharing sips of the cool night air and seeing what we could of those citified stars.



On Sunday, after the Thickes picked us up from The Bethel House, I sat in the back of that bucking Blue Ox (a 1980-something suburban), stared at the sparse countryside sliding past, and thought this road trip to Guatavita something much deserved. In less than a week, the Petersheim girls and I had sponged and peeled wallpaper from an entire floor of rooms and used paint-thinner and sandpaper to annihilate whatever pasty glop was left. We’d covered the edges of numerous windows and trim pieces with tape and begun painting the walls in colors of wonder: sea-foam green and summer-blue; mango-orange and sunset-mauve. (Out of the five, I was the only one whose hair, hands, and clothing were coated with every color we’d used. Let me just say, the effect was not very inspiring.)

Besides the loss of a few key brain cells from inhaling all those chemicals, the physical labor at the orphanage hadn’t been that bad. But I was still looking forward to getting out of the city and seeing a patch of countryside for a change and perhaps, if they weren’t too hostile, a few guerillas. And as luck would have it, it was right during this sporadic thought process I overheard Jeanene and Richard discussing what we would do if we came upon them.

Tapping Randy on the shoulder, who was seated in front of me, I whispered, “What are they saying?”

He angled his body toward me and said, “They’re telling Mom and Dad what we’ll do in case the guerrillas set up a road block.”

“They do that out here?”

Randy nodded gravely. “Yeah.”

I hollered up to the front seat, “I’d like to see a guerilla!”

I was trying to lighten the severity of the situation -- like we were traveling to a zoo or something -- but the silence following my sentence told me humor, at this point and time, was not appreciated. To my surprise, Randy didn’t slip me the reassurance of his smile either, but just faced forward again--rather quickly. So I resumed staring out the Blue Ox’s window and didn’t say anything until we'd arrived in Guatavita. And even when I did speak, it was only a terse comment about the weather.


Although we’d been advised to stay together, in Guatavita's outdoor plaza I zigzagged in and out of the twisting crowds while tucking my bag firmly against my side. The vendors -- despite their darkened skin, leather hats, and wool clothing -- reminded me of the ones from my home town’s annual threshermen show. They all had the same crinkled faces and gap-toothed grins as they held up their wares while hawking about their one-in-a-kind attributes. Thankfully, though, unlike the ones at home, I could just sputter No Habla Espanol and walk right on by.

But the deeper I went into this labyrinth, the more I liked what I saw. I started pitching pesos like they were pennies for items I wanted simply because, like the vendors said, they’d be purchased somewhere other than the States and when complimented on them I could say so: a chunky-knit scarf for Mom; rose petal earrings for Misty; a buckskin drum for Caleb; a jangling Gypsy belt for me; a leather wallet for Josh; Columbian, whole bean coffee for Dad--even though he never really drank it. And then I saw the magnum opus of my shopping frenzy. A pure silk shawl that was dragon’s breath red, braided, woven, weeping with fringes. It was exquisite, and I imagined wearing it to my college banquets and balls with lipstick and jagged stilettos to match.

“65,000 pesos,” the vendor said. I looked down from the wooden rack where it was being displayed to the shriveled, pint-sized lady watching me with a capitalistic gleam in her eyes.

Hoping I’d heard her wrong, I repeated the number. “65,000 pesos?”

The lady knotted her hands together and bobbed her head in agreement. “65,000 pesos.”

I pointed to it and frowned. “50,000 pesos?”

She shook her head--her heavy earrings swinging; her silver hair catching sunlight. “No,” she said, jabbing an arthritic finger at me. “You pay 65,000 pesos.”

Ah, she speaks some English, I thought. Reaching up, I plucked at that beautiful shawl like it was something diseased. “Really?” I sneered. “How ’bout 55,000 pesos?”

“NO! 65,000 pesos!”

It was obviously time to walk away. Everyone always said when you did that, they always called you back. I did that, and she didn’t. The fashionable part of my soul was swooning with remorse, but I wasn’t about to pay that price--mainly because the people with me would ask, and I would have to tell them; and they would know what that translated to in dollars, and what that sum could purchase for those darling but destitute orphans.

I absolutely hated being a short term missionary right then.


Minutes later, while I was still mourning the loss of my shopping magnum opus, a hand snaked out of the crowd and clenched my elbow in a vice grip. Perching my mouth into The Scream position, I took a deep breath before letting it rip; but right before I did Randy’s voice hissed into my ear, “What do you think you’re doing--running away like that?”

Casually turning away from the beaded jewelry I’d been browsing, I faced him -- inches away -- and shrugged. “I just had to get away for a little while.”

“Well,” he said, stepping even closer, “that’s perfectly all right, but not when we’re in kidnapping territory!”

“Who died and made you my bodyguard?” I snapped.

At my words, Randy’s face took on a tinge of red and his nostrils flared. But only once. “Oh, just take care of yourself,” he muttered, releasing me to stalk through the crowd.


All shopping desire dissipated after Randy and my altercation. And when I made my way back to the plaza’s entrance, everyone was waiting. Of course, I was the only one laden with more things than a pack mule.

“Get some deals?” Betty Petersheim asked.

I gave a tight smile. “Yes. Souvenirs. For my family and Misty.” (They didn’t need to know about my jangling Gypsy belt.) I loaded it all into the back hatch of the Blue Ox and went around to climb inside. Leaning forward, I asked Jeanene in the passenger’s seat, “How much is 65,000 pesos in American dollars?”

She replied, “About 30 bucks.”

“Oh, my word!” I exclaimed. Grabbing my bag, I scrambled over the girls’ laps and slung open the suburban’s door. I began to run as soon as my feet hit dirt. I sprinted past the plaza’s stucco entrance and wove through the tangle of people with no trouble at all due to my boost of bargain adrenaline. Regardless, I was breathless and sweaty by the time I arrived at the pint-sized lady’s booth.

She actually cackled when she looked up from her knitting and saw me there: hunkered over, gasping, my pesos fluttering from my bag onto the earthen floor. But then she stopped, for I hadn’t been at her booth for more than 10 seconds when Randy arrived. His hazel eyes were wild and his face -- only tinged with red before -- pulsing blood. “I thought I’d lost you,” he panted, hands on his knees.

“No,” I said, smiling benignly, “I just had to get something.”

Scooping up the paper littering the floor, I counted out 65,000 pesos and handed it over without haggling the price. The pint-sized lady jerked on the silk shawl displayed above, and it fluttered like a fiery bird of paradise into my arms.

“Happy now?” Randy asked, wiping his brow.

“Oh, yes,” I said.

Thanking the lady, I marched out of that outdoor plaza with the shawl draping my arms, and Randy trailing behind me. Before we reached the Blue Ox, I sneaked a glance over my shoulder. He was shaking his head. But his lips, they were smiling.