Should she tell him? If she did, he’d be the first person she’d told since leaving Iowa—other than Barbie. “You know I grew up on a farm.”

“Yes.”

“Well, it wasn’t just any farm.”

“What does that mean?”

“I grew up a Mennonite.”

He sat forward. “A what? That’s Amish—or something similar—isn’t it?”

“Sort of. They both have Anabaptist roots.”

“How is an Anabaptist any different from a regular Baptist?”

“Mennonites believe in baptizing as an adult, not as an infant.”

“Is that the only difference?”

“For the most part. That and some other very small differences in the way they practice their religion.”

“Like...”

“Mennonites typically meet in a church instead of a house or barn, for one.”

“Your parents don’t drive a horse and buggy, do they?”

“No. My parents have a car. It’s a black jalopy. We’ve never been able to afford much. But it’s a car. Old Order Mennonites reject certain technologies, but most drive cars, use electricity, have a house phone, and so on. And my parents went through periods when they were more progressive than others of their faith.”

“In what way?”

“Well, we had a TV.”

“That’s walking on the wild side?”

She laughed. “Yeah. It’s letting Satan into your home.”

“Doesn’t that depend on what you watch?”

“They don’t really see it that way. We only had it for a few years, anyway—until I started talking about becoming an actress.”

“And then?”

“I came home from Bible study one day to find it gone.”

When Seth didn’t say anything right away, Tia wondered if he thought that was crazy. To a more modern, secular ear, it had to sound totally nuts, if only because it was so foreign. “What about cell phones?” he asked.

“My father has one. So does my sister’s husband.”

“What—women can’t have them?”

“According to the men, they don’t need one, since they’re primarily for business.”

“And only men do business.”

“Right.”

“Do you have to call a landline to talk to your mother, then?”

“Unless it’s at night, after my father’s gone to bed. Then she’ll text me sometimes—and delete it afterward so that he doesn’t see it.”

“Would he get mad?”

“He wouldn’t like it, and it’s a sin to displease your husband.”

“Hm. Maybe I need to look into this religion.”

She scowled at him. “Not funny.”

“And your sister, who’s younger, goes along with this?”

“For the most part, although she uses her husband’s cell phone more often than my mother uses my father’s. I think it’s one of the compromises he’s made to try to keep her happy.”

He wiped away the drops of water condensing on his face. “I wasn’t brought up with religion. I admit that whole world seems strange to me.”