The Outcast Read Online Free PDF

adrenaline wears off and exhaustion slips over my shoulders like a cloak. I am becoming more and more frustrated by the stares of passing strangers when a huge truck lurches to a stop in front of the hospital’s double doors, a tinted window lowers, and a heavyset woman bawls, “You’re the girl I come to pick up, right?”
    I stare at the woman just as unabashedly as those who have been staring at me. All I can see of her is the bottom of her chest to the top of her head, but that is more than enough. She is so well endowed, her bosom strains against the snap buttons of her Western shirt. Her wiry gray hair looks like it has been shorn with a dull razor blade. One of those Indian dream catchers I once saw at Root’s Market in Manheim swings from the truck’s rearview mirror, and country music blares from the sound system.
    “Welp, girl,” she calls, “you gonna get in here or not? I can’t be waiting round all day.”
    Getting up from the bench, I walk toward the truck. “Where’s Gerald Martin?”
    The woman shifts a wad of snuff to her other cheek. “Dunno. All I know’s I got a call to pick up some Amish girl from the hospital.”
    “I’m Mennonite,” I correct. “You’re sure you’re here for me?”
    “Honey, I doubt there’re too many Amish or Mennonites running round this place. I’m sure it’s you. Now get in. I ain’t gonna bite.”
    Sighing, I walk around to the passenger’s side and open the door. The truck is so high off the ground, I don’t know how to get in it without exposing myself.
    Seeing my predicament, the woman points to my cape dress and says, “Just tuck that skirt between your knees and jump. Nobody’s paying you no mind.”
    I glance around the parking lot to see if this is the case. It isn’t. Three paramedics, two nurses, and one janitor on his smoke break are watching this exchange. I cannot say that I blame them; if there ever was an oddity to capture on film, this is it. Coiling the seat belt around my hand, I use it to lever my body inside. Before I have even closed the door, the woman starts driving out of the parking lot.
    “Kinda like Indiana Jones getting up here, ain’t it?” she says. I look at her blankly, and she waves her hand. “Never mind.”
    Once we’re back on the highway, she asks, “Where should I take ya?”
    “Copper Creek Community,” I reply. “Up on the mountain.”
    “No need to direct me,” she says. “I know right where you live.”
    “You do?”
    “’Course I do. That’s where I get my sorghums and jams.”
    Staring out the window, I watch the colorful trees zip past, but we are driving at such a frightful speed, the blurred kaleidoscope of them makes me sick. I instead focus on the four-lane highway unwinding in front of us. “Do you buy a lot?” I ask.
    “What?” the woman asks.
    “Sorghum and jams.”
    “Yeah, but not for me. I sell ’em in my store.”
    “What kind of store is that?”
    “An Amish one.” Pausing to spit in a small green bottle, she says, “Ida Mae’s Amish Country Store.”
    “Are you Ida Mae?”
    “The one and the only.”
    “Were you Amish?”
    “Not exactly, but I got kin that was.” She nods and points out the window. “Somewhere up in Ohio.”
    I pause to imagine how Bishop Tobias would react if he entered an Amish store and saw a tobacco-chewing, men’s-shirt-wearing, big-bosomed, big-mouthed Ida Mae behind the counter. The thought makes me smile.
    “You get a lot of customers?” I ask.
    “Boatloads.” She lazily moves her hand over the steeringwheel. “They come up from Nashville, and most of them don’t care that I’m not even Amish—just that my stuff is. The Amish and Mennonites I buy from, they don’t care about me not being Plain, neither. They just care that I can sell their stuff for a higher price than what they’d get in their little podunk communities.”
    “You work on commission?” I ask.
    Ida Mae nods, looks over at me with calculators in her eyes.