Kendra's feet went still as she waited for more.

"I did the same thing last night." Angie's voice was so low it was difficult to hear. "But it was never Chris's idea; it was all mine. He told me I shouldn't do that because it could get me into trouble." She rubbed the back of her right hand with her left. "I guess he was right." She looked up then, her eyes full of fresh tears. "But honestly, if you're going to get mad at someone, get mad at me. It was all my doing, not his."

Susan's breathing was getting shallow. She couldn't stay silent any longer. "You've never done anything like this in all your life, and now we come here, and all of a sudden you're sneaking out at night to hang out with some boy. And not just any boy, but one who looks as wild as they come. Angie, this is not at all acceptable. You are going to have some serious consequences to pay for this."

Angie looked down at her hands folded in her lap and never responded, by word or movement. She simply remained still.

Susan looked at Kendra. "Am I to a.s.sume this boy will be relieved of his job effective immediately?"

"No!" Angie jumped to her feet, fists clenched at each side. "Did you not hear what I just said? I'm the one who talked to him; I'm the one who decided to go out there and see him. He didn't know I was coming out there until I showed up. This is supposed to be our rumspringa week, remember?"

"It doesn't matter. He knows he's not supposed to be talking to you, so his actions are still his responsibility."

"What was he supposed to do? Tell me to shut up and leave him alone? I think you would call that rude, Mother."

Angie's eyes flashed in a way that Susan had never seen before. In truth, it scared her. Had this boy gained so much control over her in such little time that she was willing to act this way?

"All right, all right. Let's calm down," Kendra said. "I'll bring Chris in here and talk to him and try to hear his side of things. I'll make further decisions based on what I find out." She slid off the desk to a standing position, a grin quirking the left side of her mouth. "I can guarantee, no matter what else happens, Chris will no longer be driving the three of you to youth group during the week." She walked over to the door and grasped the k.n.o.b but did not yet turn it. "Or working night security duty. That leaves his options somewhat limited."

"But it's not his fault. I told you it was me."

"Then your recklessness has cost him his job. I hope it was worth it."

Susan regretted the words the instant they left her mouth. But they needed to be said. She hated the pain this was causing her daughter, but the sooner Angie learned that these kinds of irresponsible decisions could affect not only herself, but others, the better.

Angie covered her face with her hands, her shoulders heaving with quiet sobbing. After a brief period of time, she drew in a deep breath, wiped her eyes and looked up. "Can I go now?"

"Our conversation is finished," said Kendra. "But, Susan, I need to talk to you for just another minute." She opened the door and Angie fled through it, never looking back.

"I really need to go talk to her. We can finish this conversation when I get back."

"Um, not really a good idea. See, here's the thing." Kendra drew her back inside and closed the door. "It was intentional that we had this conversation in here. Emotional drama usually makes for good reality television, but we're a different kind of show, and having your daughter sneaking around with a nineteen-year-old member of the crew is not something we want on the Lisa Lee show-as much as I'd like to, because it would send our ratings through the roof." A covetous gleam came to her eye and she paused for a long second. "But we have to live with the limits that we've been given: I lose some rating points, and you need to spend a little time cooling off before you deal with this further. Go for a nice long walk with your daughter. We don't want any of this footage to accidentally make its way into the week's highlights. You see, there's more to it than just avoiding any hint of scandal. We need to be careful of your viewer approval ratings, too."

A cold chill raced through Susan. "What do you mean?"

"We polled viewers, and after these early segments a good portion are undecided about their opinion of you." She opened a file, looked at a graph, which Susan could not quite see clearly from her angle, then closed the file again. "In fact, a majority seem to prefer your sister-in-law. For you to have a major rift with your daughter right now . . . that could be disastrous for all our future plans."

Susan stared at Kendra, willing her feet to remain beneath her. How could this be? Julie couldn't accomplish anything on her own without Susan prodding her. She let the words soak in for just a moment, then began to let reason sink back in. "It seems to me that the Amish are known for having well-disciplined children. Shouldn't it make sense that I could be seen as a disciplinarian in this case?"

Kendra nodded once slowly, then said, "There's some truth to what you're saying. But I guess there's a balance, too. The comment that seems to come up about you more and more is the expression, *helicopter mom.' You're familiar with it?"

"Yes." Susan was more than familiar with the phrase. "But there's a difference between wanting what is best for your child and hovering over and controlling her every move."

"Our viewers seem to think differently. And as I said, this is not a part of this story that we want portrayed right now."

"All right, then." Susan took a deep breath. "I'll just go speak with Angie now. I'm guessing that our walk might take awhile, a long while."

"You can't do that right now because she's no longer here."

Susan stepped outside of the shack and looked around. There was no one in sight. "What? Where is she?"

"You'll need to wait until school gets out. I instructed Art to take her back to her cla.s.ses immediately after she walked out of here. I know how important her education is to you." Kendra quirked her left eyebrow, daring her to respond to that.

Focus. Stay calm. "Yes, her education is very important to me, but right now, I am going to speak with my daughter."

"Have a nice walk out to the schoolhouse." Kendra shut the door to her office, effectively ending the conversation.

Julie hung the clothes on the line, glancing toward the shack, again. Something was going on over there, and she couldn't help but worry. Between Kendra summoning Susan, Angie arriving in the car and leaving just as quickly in the same car, something absolutely had to be wrong.

Just as she was hanging the last of the shirts on the line, she heard Susan's voice. And Kendra's. She couldn't hear what they were saying, but they sounded angry. She turned in time to see Kendra shut the office door in Susan's face.

Susan pivoted on her heel and started down the driveway, toward the back of the property. Julie ran after her.

"Susan, wait." Susan didn't turn, but she did slow down just a little. Julie jogged up to her side. "What's the matter?"

Susan's face was flushed with anger, her lips pressed so tight they had gone white. "I've got to go talk to Angie."

Julie reached out and grabbed her arm and pulled her to a stop. "Susan, take a breath and calm down. Tell me what's going on."

"Apparently there are lots of things going on. For instance, my daughter has been cheating on the rules we were given when we came here. That same daughter has been downright deceitful, sneaking out of the farmhouse after we've all gone to bed at night."

Julie almost cried with relief that this wasn't something more serious. Sneaking out of the house was wrong, and she didn't blame Susan for being upset about it, but she had seen that one coming from a mile away. "I'm a.s.suming she was sneaking out to see Chris?"

Susan's jaw dropped open. "Did Whitney tell you? Have you known this was going on all along?"

"No, of course not. I just guessed. It's been more than obvious since our first day here that the two of them have chemistry between them. I guess I just hoped they could wait till the end of filming before talking."

"You knew that my daughter was seeing that . . . gothic thug, and you never told me?"

"Susan, I didn't know any more than you did. I just saw the way they looked at each other."

"Well, I'm hoping that boy is going to be fired, and Angie is going to wish that's all I was going to do to her."

"Susan, you're mad. I would be, too. But let them finish up their day at school. Come work out some of your frustrations on the weeds in the garden-you know it relaxes you. By the time she gets home, you will have calmed down enough to talk to her."

Susan pulled her arm away. "I need to deal with this out here."

"I don't think-"

"I was told to deal with this in private. Kendra doesn't want any of this captured by the cameras. She doesn't want the word to spread around."

"Oh. Well, how about this? Let's go back to the house, work on today's ch.o.r.e list"-which was so huge they couldn't finish it if they had a week, much less a few hours-"and when it's almost time for school to be out, we'll walk that way together. I'll get Brian and Whitney, and you can walk with Angie. No one will think anything of it; they'll just think we're mothers checking in on our kids."

Susan let out a long breath and almost seemed like she might collapse. "You're probably right. It's better in many ways if we just bide our time."

Julie needed to do what she could to defuse the situation in the next little while. If not, she sensed an explosion on the horizon.

Chapter 29.

A fine coat of dust covered the weathered sides of the schoolhouse. Even from a distance, the windows seemed nearly opaque. The entire place looked as old and worn and tired as Susan felt. It was times like these when she most felt James's absence. Not having a husband to back her up was one of the many ways that life had gotten so much harder in the last few years. Angie's deception, however, felt a little too familiar. One little lie, allowed to flourish, would only grow bigger and lead to more malignant lies. Susan was not going to allow that to happen in her daughter.

"Now remember, this is one of those times that can determine your future relationship right here." Julie made this statement as if she were so much wiser and more experienced than Susan.

"Thanks so much for the advice."

"I mean it, Susan. You've got to make her see how much you dislike what she did, but that you still love her to pieces. She's got to understand that."

Susan's anger boiled up again, but this time it took a different object. "You know, maybe you should rethink your way of parenting. This being all concerned about never hurting their feelings, never letting them know that they've completely blown it-well, all that does is raise a bunch of soft kids who think they can do anything and get away with it."

It didn't feel good, but it needed to be said. She expected Julie to look away, maybe even cry, but that didn't happen. For a second she thought Julie might even yell at her. But that didn't happen, either.

"Not do anything wrong and get away with it," Julie said carefully. "Do anything wrong and yet still be loved by her mother-who may be furious, and rightfully so. I'm not even saying not to punish, severely. But you can't take it too far."

"I've never gone easy on Angie, and she has a track record of success to show for that."

"Some things are more important than success."

Susan knew she needed to stop this conversation now before it got ugly. She chose to be the bigger person and let Julie end with the last word. A wrongheaded word, of course, but Susan was too concerned about Angie right now to start dealing with Julie's issues, too.

Susan went up the stairs to the building; its door was already standing open to let cool air pa.s.s through. She hurried inside, ready to tell Angie it was time for a little walk. It took her eyes a moment to adjust to the low light, and somewhere during that adjustment she came to the realization that the room was empty. She turned back toward Julie, who was just now catching up. "Surely we didn't miss them on the way back?"

"No"-Julie looked around-"their things are still here. They're likely down by the creek again."

Susan pivoted and hurried out the door, her anger only increasing with the thoughts that the education here was so lacking. She found them sitting quietly in the shade, each with a couple of books in front of them, looking conspicuously busy with their studies. "Working on some math, Angie?"

"Mmm-hmm." She didn't look up.

"We need to take a little walk."

Angie looked up, first at Susan, then at Charlotte. "Mom, we're in cla.s.s."

"My fault. I was enjoying our outdoor setting so much I forgot to check my watch." Charlotte made a show of looking at her wrist. "Y'all go on now, and have a nice day. I'll carry your books back to school; you go on with your mothers. We'll pick up tomorrow where we left off." She said the last part of it while looking directly at Angie.

Angie nodded, and even offered a grim smile in the direction of her teacher before turning toward Susan. Her mouth set in a hard line as she walked past her and didn't look back. Susan turned and quickly caught up with her daughter, but she chose not to say anything until they were far out of earshot of the rest of the group. Then she said, "Now, I want to know how long this has been going on, and I want to know what else you've been up to that they simply haven't caught you at yet."

"There's nothing going on, and there's nothing else. I told you everything."

"What kind of lies has that boy been telling you that persuaded you to risk everything to sneak out and be with him like that?"

"He hasn't told me any lies."

"Ha. So he'd like you to believe."

"And we didn't do anything wrong." She looked up defiantly into Susan's face. Susan simply stared back long enough that Angie broke the gaze and shrugged. "Other than sneaking out like that, but I can't help it if there are a bunch of stupid rules around here. It's bad enough we're having to live in an oven, wear weird clothes, and be separated from our friends-but we're not even allowed to talk to other people? That's ridiculous."

"You are allowed to talk to other people-your friends at church, for instance; you're just not allowed to talk to members of the crew."

"Chris is my friend from church, so I guess I am allowed to talk to him after all."

"Don't you dare insult me by lying to me right now."

"I'm not lying."

"That boy is nineteen years old. You go to the high school youth group at church. For everyone's sake I hope he's not part of that group. Lying like that will only get you into deeper trouble, and believe me you're already in trouble enough."

"Fine." She crossed her arms and increased her pace, never looking toward Susan at all.

"When we get back to the house, I want you to go upstairs to your room and write a three-page apology to Kendra and to me for taking part in this. As far as I'm concerned, this incident is not over, but since you're obviously not ready to come clean yet, you can just stay in your room, except for when you're doing ch.o.r.es, until you're ready to talk."

"Fine."

They didn't speak another word all the way home. Angie ran up the front steps and inside the house. The screen door slapped the doorframe behind her, just seconds before Susan could hear her footsteps running up the stairs, followed by the door to her room shutting. Angie had the common sense not to slam it, although Susan was more than certain she had wanted to do so.

Kendra came to the back door and motioned her outside. "I wanted to let you know that I spent quite a bit of time talking with Chris this afternoon."

"And?"

"He admitted that it was all his fault, that it had all been his idea."

"Well, of course it was. I could have told you that without putting you to the trouble of asking him. I'm just glad to know he is confessing the truth and a.s.sume you will take measures accordingly."

"I didn't fire him, if that's what you mean."

"Why not? He admitted the truth."

"See, that's where we disagree. I think he's saying what he thinks he needs to say to keep your daughter out of trouble and your family on the show."

"Angie has always been honest and upstanding to a fault. The blame lies squarely on that boy."

"Well, if that's the case, then your honest and upstanding daughter shouldn't give us anything more to worry about, now should she?" Kendra turned and walked back into the shack. Susan was more than a little certain there was a smile of victory on her face.

"What is Aunt Susan in such a lather about?" Whitney asked, watching Angie and Susan walk away. She folded the blanket the kids had been sitting on during their lesson.

"Whitney, you need to show respect when you talk about your aunt." Julie started toward the pile of Angie's books. "I've got empty hands. I'll get those things."

Brian straightened out his arm in her direction, palm facing her. "Halt. We men do the heavy lifting for our womenfolk when they've been summoned away by the powers that be." He squatted down and put his books on top of Angie's. When he stood back up, his arms were fully extended. "Now go on back and cook me some supper, woman."

Charlotte laughed. "Sorry, Mrs. Charlton. I think I'm going to have to take the blame for that. I've been trying to get Brian interested in reading fiction, so I turned him on to westerns."

"And I much appreciate your efforts toward the betterment of my education, ma'am." Brian nodded toward Charlotte. "You need me to carry your books, little lady?"

"I've got it Brian, thank yo-oh no. We left our water bottles cooling in the creek. I better go down and get them."