Lark popped a bean in her mouth as she regarded me, chewing thoughtfully. “So where’s the beard and the Amish clothes? Can’t you get shunned for dressing like this, even on vacation?”
I hesitated, wondering how to sum things up for her in the easiest possible way. “First of all, I’m not on vacation. I’m here to stay with Brady while Dad and Liz are out of town.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“Second, I can dress like this when I’m away from home because I haven’t yet officially joined the church. Once I do, the jeans and things will have to be put away for good.”
“I see.”
“Third, no Amish man starts growing a beard until the day he gets married.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes. Then he doesn’t shave it off, ever.”
Her eyes widened. “Get out of town.” She seemed delighted by that notion, though I wasn’t sure why until she continued. “If only a wedding ring were so hard to ditch! I mean, it’s not like a philandering Amish man can slip off his beard for a night out on the town and then put it back on before he goes home to his wife.”
We both laughed. “I guess not.”
“So I assume your mom is Amish?” she asked, popping another bean into her mouth.
“She was raised Amish, yes. She passed away when I was six.”
Lark froze for a moment, looking shocked. Mortified, even.
“My father was just about to ship off to Turkey when she died,” I explained, “so he sent me to live with my mother’s parents. My grandparents. I’ve been there ever since.”
Lark sat back in her chair, shaking her head thoughtfully. “I’m really sorry, Tyler. I shouldn’t have been so nosy.”
Her eyes were so genuinely repentant that for a moment she reminded me of Rachel.
Rachel. My girlfriend. The woman I hoped to marry.
Clearing my throat, I sat back as well, my face flushing with heat. What would Rachel think if she could get a look at me right now? Truly, I didn’t want to know.
To my relief, our number was called then and Lark left the table to get our food. I had managed to recover by the time she returned, bearing our plates and two iced teas. As she set the food down in front of me, I saw that my “roll” was six round slices of rice-wrapped clumps of pale pink, yellow green, and verdant emerald.
“So what is this exactly?” I said, poking one of the pieces with a chopstick.
“Crab, avocado, cucumber, and nori wrapped in rice and sesame seed.”
“What is a nori?” I plied the sticks to attempt to lift a piece to my mouth with no success.
“Nori is seaweed. And no yucky faces. It’s good for you. Lots of vitamins.”
I spun one of the slices around on my plate for a couple more seconds before I set the sticks down, picked up the piece of sushi in my fingers, and popped it into my mouth.
“Fingers? Really?” Lark exclaimed.
The piece was bigger than a normal bite, and I couldn’t immediately respond to her friendly indignation. I chewed and found the taste to be agreeable but not amazing.
“Well?” Her eyes sparkled with anticipation.
I swallowed and reached for the iced tea. “Pretty good.”
“Pretty good. That’s it?”
I took a drink and swished away the strange, lingering flavor of seaweed. “It’s a nice snack. I can’t see making a whole meal of it.”
She shook her head. “There’s more to life than meat and potatoes, Amish boy. Here. Try one of mine.” Lark wrangled a piece from her plate, where something brownish gray peeked out of her sushi roll.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Eat it and then I’ll tell you.”
I used my fingers to pick it up from where she’d placed it on my plate. I smelled a distinctly fishy fragrance. I took a small bite. It was rubbery, earthy, and mushroomy, as if I had eaten some of the reeds in my mother’s pond back home. A very strange taste.
“Like it?”
“What is it?”
“Raw eel.”
I reached for my drink again. “And you think lima beans are disgusting.”
Lark laughed in mock exasperation. “Fine! You can pick the next place.”
I didn’t know how to move on from that remark. Would there be a next time? Again, our impromptu stop for food suddenly felt a little too much like a date. Lark was just someone who knew something about photography and was willing to share it with me. We weren’t on a date. There would be no next time.
“So, what made you want to major in photography?” I said, as much to remind her as myself why we had met.
“I’ve always loved it. Always been drawn to it. You must like it too or you wouldn’t want to spend the month you’re here with your brother learning about it.”
I took another bite of my own roll. “Not exactly. I just found out a few days ago that my mother was into photography when I was younger. I want to learn so I can see what she saw in it, what she liked about it.”