by Tamar Myers
Arnold Ledbetter didn’t seem to realize that my arms were longer than his, and like a crane snatching up minnows, I managed to grab the six remaining samples before he could react.
“Miss Yoder!”
“It really is very good,” I said. I hoped that my sincerity showed for a change.
After lunch, which was the cheese, I found a secluded phone and called Aaron. I said secluded, not private. The phone was a public one, inside the vestibule of the public library. As it was a school day, and, coincidentally, Bunko day for the Farmersburg Women’s Club, the library was all but deserted.
“Hello? PennDutch Inn,” Aaron said in his dreamy voice.
“Aaron! It’s me.”
“Me who?”
“Now cut that out, Aaron. It’s Magdalena, and I’m calling from another pay phone. These things eat money.”
“What? You don’t have a credit card?”
“Don’t be silly. I have Susannah for a sister, remember?”
“Yeah, how are you doing, Magdalena?” It was precious of him to ask.
“Fine. And you?” I longed to add the words “Pooky Bear,” but wisely restrained myself.
“Oh, me, I’m fine.” I heard a female singing in the background, then some high-pitched laughter.
“Who’s that? Mose?” Of course I knew it wasn’t. Outside of Bishop Kreider, few men can hit clear notes that high.
“Oh, that?” Aaron paused two quarters’ worth. “That was—uh, Hooter Faun. She managed to get back here after all. Hitched up with some guy on a snowmobile.”
“What is she doing now?”
“Uh—”
“Why, Aaron Miller!” I was about to hang up the phone, but then for the second time that day decided to take my sister’s advice. “Now, listen here, buster. You tell that floozy to knock off whatever she’s doing and pack her bags. The PennDutch is a respectable place, and no one but Susannah—”
“Magdalena, calm down, will you?” He had the nerve to chuckle. “Hooter was just singing some camp songs for the children. I’m afraid they’re bored.”
I’d forgotten that in a rare burst of generosity, call it insanity, I’d relaxed my rules and let a young couple with preschool children rent a room. I wouldn’t have done it except that the mother is a highly placed government official, and she had just been forced to give up her Bolivian nanny. That, and they were so desperate to get away from reporters that they offered to pay me twice my regular rate. Somehow word has gotten around that I respect my guests’ privacy.
“What is Hooter wearing?” I stooped to ask.
Aaron chuckled. “You’re going to love this. The power lines are down, so the furnace is out. Hooter is wearing a parka zipped to her neck, and a stocking mask, and she has her hood up. I’m surprised she can still talk, much less sing.”
I breathed my sigh of relief with my hand over the phone. “Well, enough of that. I was just calling to see how everyone is doing. You guys getting enough food?”
“We’re making do. How did it go yesterday?”
For a split second I considered being the mature and circumspect person I hoped Aaron believed I was. But he has such a sympathetic voice, and I really did need a good listener, so I gave him his money’s worth. Actually, it was my money, and I had to interrupt the call three times while I ran to get bills changed at the checkout desk. If the librarian had been helping patrons, or had been a woman less easy to intimidate, I might not have gotten it all said. When I was through, I, for one, certainly felt better.
“Dammit, Magdalena! It sounds like you’re in it up to your ears again.” The concern in Aaron’s voice was music to my ears.
“Well, someone has to look out for these Farmersburg Amish. They’re certainly not doing the job.”
The music swelled. “But not you! You could get hurt, or worse. Don’t you realize that?”
Of course I did. “I have no choice, Aaron. We are our brother’s keeper, after all.”
The music reached a crescendo. “Well, I’d like to keep you right here in Hernia where I can keep an eye on you. I could kick myself for not having gone with you.”
“Maybe you could borrow that snowmobile from Hooter Faun’s friend. I’m only over the river and through the woods.”
‘I’ll—”
We’d been cut off. I tried calling three more times and each time I got a busy signal. The fourth time I got a recording saying that all circuits were busy. I left the library resigned, yet strangely hopeful. Fairy tales sometimes do come true, like that time Susannah crashed a Little People of America conference and dated seven men. It was possible that Aaron, my knight, would come skimming to my rescue on a borrowed snowmobile. Then we would ride off toward the sunrise (Hernia is in the east) and live happily ever after. Just thinking that was enough to keep me warm that cold February day.
Chapter Fourteen
Even though it was after two in the afternoon when I got back to the Troyers’, Susannah was still in bed.
She was sound asleep and obviously dreaming by the smile on her face. Although Mama almost always sided with Susannah, I know she would have agreed with me that sleeping past seven in the morning, and enjoying it, has got to add up to sin. One can thereby conclude that sleeping into the afternoon, unless you have a night job, is pure, unadulterated wickedness. And in my sister’s case, often adulterated as well.
Since I am a God-fearing woman, and my sister’s keeper, I did my duty and yanked the pile of quilts off her. To my relief there was no sign of Danny Hem. Susannah was even still wearing the same nightie she’d gone to bed in. Yet all was only temporarily well. Before I could wake Susannah, a snarl escaped the silken shift and Shnookums scrabbled out, snapping. That minuscule mutt is a mangy menace. One of these days I’m going to buy a Roach Motel and send him on his last vacation.
“Tell that rat to stop biting, or I’ll feed him to a cat,” I said charitably. After all, the Troyers didn’t feed their barn cats, but made them work for their lodging.
Susannah yawned and stretched a myriad of times, and finally sat up in bed. Shnookums slid into her lap, where he sat snarling. Four bleary eyes regarded me balefully. It didn’t take a genius to tell they were both hung over.
“Is it morning already?” my baby sister asked.
“Where are we talking about, dear? It’s already tomorrow morning in Japan.”
Susannah rubbed her eyes and yawned again. “Oh Mags, you are so mean. What time is it? I mean here?”
“Two-sixteen p.m.”
“Is that all?” Susannah flopped back down in bed and Shnookums went flying. Bowsers that small best wear ballast.
“How was your date, dear? You make it into Columbus?”
Susannah forced herself up on her elbows. The cur climbed back to his coveted cove in her concave cleavage. You know what I mean.
“Yeah, Columbus was super. The Vibrators gave a rad performance, and after that we went to the Club Nude downtown. It was awesome.”
It amazes me that my sister feels so free to tell me these kinds of things. Even those of you who may have judged me harshly regarding my treatment of Susannah will have to concede that the lines of communication between her and me are definitely open. Often far too open for my liking.
Anyway, I declined to pursue Club Nude. “I take it you had a good time. Did Danny boy behave himself?”
“Of course he did,” Susannah said. “That is, until that waitress with the giant—”
I spared us both. “Where is he now?”
Susannah and Shnookums yawned simultaneously. “How should I know? He said he had to go to work today, so we had to come back early. Maybe he’s there now.”
“Unh-unh.”
Susannah sat up abruptly, sending Shnookums flying again. I stepped aside adroitly as two pounds of hair and teeth whizzed by. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Why nothing, dear. Except that I just came from Daisybell Dairies, and there was no sign of your boyfriend.”
&n
bsp; “You what?” Susannah was on her knees now, threatening me with a pillow. You’d have thought I’d read her diary again.
“Relax. I didn’t stop by to talk to what’s-his-name,” I said. “I just wanted to take a tour of the plant. You don’t expect me to just sit around twiddling my thumbs, do you?”
My beloved sister yawned again, exposing flawless teeth. Rock-hard enamel, our dentist called it, and Susannah, unlike me, had been allowed an unlimited amount of candy as a child.
“You don’t even watch TV, Mags, so you’re used to doing nothing every day.”
Maybe Mama might not have understood, but the good Lord surely would have if I had wrested that pillow from Susannah and smothered her. As proprietress and principal chambermaid, I work twelve-hour days at the PennDutch Inn. Meanwhile, Susannah sleeps, smokes, and slithers through the lobby in search of male guests with strong libidos and weak morals.
“Well, I never!”
“Then don’t you think it’s about time you did? Use it or lose it, I always say.”
I clamped my hands over my ears to protect them from further defilement. “Susannah Yoder Entwhistle! You should be ashamed of yourself. For your information, I am saving myself for the right man, and when he does come along it is going to be very special.” Although from what little Mama had told me, and from what I’d picked up from my female friends, it was just a little less tedious than rolling up one’s hair. And apparently far messier.
“And anyway,” I continued, my hands still clamped tightly over my ears, “I wasn’t going to tell you this, but now I think I will. Your rich new boyfriend lied to you, because he never even planned to go to work today. In fact, according to the plant manager, he’s off for the rest of the week.”
I paused to let the information sink in. Even with my ears covered I could hear some of my sister’s response, so I had to resort to singing hymns. I can set a mature example, you know. Fortunately Susannah ran out of energy before I ran out of hymns, so I was able to get the last word in.
"Schteh uff, ” I said in Pennsylvania Dutch. “Get up and get dressed. This afternoon we’re going over to cousin Sarah’s house to see how she’s doing. And don’t even think about wiggling out of this. You do want your allowance this month, don’t you?” I immediately began singing that old favorite hymn of Mama’s, “Work, for the Night Is Coming.”
I know that threatening my thirty-five-year-old sister with withholding her allowance might sound punitive, but unfortunately it is my prerogative. If she would get a job like everyone else, or at least help out at the inn on a regular basis, she wouldn’t be in that position in the first place. Being on the dole has its consequences, you know. While I don’t mind doling out dollars to destitute derelicts who decidedly deserve it, I do mind shelling out shekels to a shiftless sister who shirks work and shies away from responsibility altogether.
Susannah must be a closet Republican, because even though I couldn’t hear her reply, I could read her lips loud and clear. However, I stood my ground, and when I drove off to Sarah’s house a half hour later I had my shiftless sister and her shaggy Shnookums safely stashed in the backseat.
Either Sarah had kept her children home from school or the little Amish school down the road had let out for the day. At any rate, the yard was again full of towheaded youngsters, all of whom bore an uncanny resemblance to old photographs of Susannah and me. Seeing Susannah (she was wearing a purple jumpsuit topped by a fake leopard-skin cape made out of the finest polyester), they began to giggle. Dutifully I stomped my foot at them and called them hammerheads in Pennsylvania Dutch, but they laughed harder, so I grabbed a fake leopard-skin glove and whisked my sister into Sarah’s house unannounced. We are family, after all.
We found Sarah in the kitchen kneading bread dough. Freni does that whenever she is upset about something as well. There is something very therapeutic about punching and pulling a good elastic dough, and I would recommend it as something to try before one sees a psychiatrist. It is certainly a lot cheaper. Of course, in some cases a therapist is in order from the get-go, while in others bread-making can become somewhat of an obsession. But I won’t be mentioning any names here.
“Ach, but you startled me,” Sarah said. Our sudden appearance had resulted in floured hands flying to her face.
“The children told us to come right on in,” I said. Truly, it was more a rearrangement of the facts than a lie. If I had asked the children for permission, I’m sure they would have given it.
“Freni’s not here right now. Jonas and Anna Beiler came by to get her for the day. She’s Jonas’s second cousin three times and Anna’s first cousin twice removed. Does that make any sense to you?”
“Makes perfect sense, dear.”
Sarah resumed her kneading. “There is cocoa on the stove. Pour yourselves some and pull up some chairs.”
I poured the cocoa and pulled up the chairs, while Susannah watched expertly.
“How are you doing today, dear?”
The fingers moved faster. “It comes and goes. One minute I’m wondering if I should plant two rows or three rows of snap beans this spring, and the next I remember that Yost is dead. Snap beans were a favorite of his, you know. Now he’ll never eat them again.”
Big tears rolled off her face and splashed onto the dough. Mercifully, bread dough is a forgiving substance.
“Well, at least he won’t be hungry where he is now.” It was a very Mennonite thing to say, but even as I said it, I regretted it. If something happened to Aaron, I wouldn’t want somebody quoting platitudes, even if they were spiritual truths, to me.
Sarah jabbed at the dough with closed fists. “Yah, Yost won’t be hungry anymore.” She jerked her chin in the direction of the door. “But they will. And children need more from their papa than just food.”
“That’s for sure,” Susannah said. My sister has always maintained that I was Papa’s girl, and that the two of us contrived to shut her and Mama out of things. This from a woman who had Mama wrapped around her finger tighter than a tourniquet.
“How are you going to manage the farm by yourself?” I asked.
The heavy wooden table shook from her next blow. “Ach, but I won’t be by myself. Yost’s youngest brother, Enos, and his wife, Dorothy, will be moving in to help me. They just got married last summer and don’t have any babies yet. They’ll help me until I can get this place sold.”
“What? You’re selling?” I remembered what Stayrook had said about the Amish pulling up stakes. Surely that had been an exaggeration.
“Why, I think that’s a wonderful idea,” my dear sister said sweetly. “I try to make a fresh start whenever I lose someone I love.” Despite her worldly ways, Susannah is as innocent as a newborn babe. I have yet to convince her that naivete is not the arrival of Baby Jesus on Christmas morning.
“Not that I want to move,” Sarah said more to herself than us. “All my babies were born here, and even though Yost died here… ” Her voice trailed off, and for a moment she stopped punishing the dough.
“Then don’t move,” I said. “Maybe Enos and Dorothy can stay on permanently here. Or at least until your kids are old enough to make the difference.”
“I’d move to Hawaii,” Susannah said helpfully. “Or Myrtle Beach. I hear it’s cheaper than Hawaii and a lot more fun. The guys are supposed to be cuter there too.”
Sarah responded with a sob.
I gave Susannah the kick she was due and patted Sarah on the back. Four hundred years of inbreeding may have made me undemonstrative, but it didn’t leave me without feeling. “It isn’t time to be thinking of moving, dear. Not now. Give yourself time. And plant three rows of snap beans, because I’ll come and help you eat them.”
Sarah smiled weakly and wiped her face on her sleeve. Four hundred years of inbreeding had made her strong as nails, the occasional sob notwithstanding. “Yah, now is not the time to think about such things. Would you like to stay for supper, Magdalena? You too, Susannah. We’re having frank
furter rafts and sauerkraut salad. The children all love frankfurter rafts.”
My mouth watered. I hadn’t had frankfurter rafts since the day—I was twelve—Mama discovered TV dinners.
“Thanks, but no thanks,” said Susannah, who had never had frankfurter rafts. “Magdalena and I already have plans.”
“We do?” That was certainly news to me. I had purposely told Lizzie Troyer not to count on us for supper. While bread and fish might be sound Biblical fare, pies and cakes have their place too.
Susannah gave me what was supposed to be a meaningful look. Anyone else would likely have thought it gas. “Yes, we made plans earlier, remember?”
I didn’t. Undoubtedly Susannah had another date lined up with Danny Hem, but that didn’t mean I had to be stuck eating sardines in solid oil.
“Actually, dear, I remember no such thing,” I said. “However, if you have plans, feel free to run along. But leave me my car, of course.”
Even I began to wonder if Susannah had gas. Either that or had gotten something in her eye. I hadn’t seen a human face go through so many contortions since back in seventh grade when Ernie Hershberger replaced the lettuce in Lydia Kauffman’s BLT with poison ivy. The Pennsylvania DMV would have loved that.
“Are you all right, dear?” I asked kindly.
Susannah’s left eye gave a final twitch that would have dislodged her false eyelash had I given her time to apply it that day.
“We have plans, Mags. Thank you, Sarah, but we’ll have to take a rain check on that dinner.”
I could hardly believe my ears. Not only had Susannah displayed exceptional manners in thanking our cousin, but she actually wanted me to tag along with her someplace.
“Well, I guess we do have plans after all,”
I said. “You can at least stay for another cup of cocoa, can’t you?” our cousin coaxed.
We stayed and sipped the delightful brew while Sarah shaped the bread into loaves, put them into well-greased pans, and set them aside to rise.
“It’s a funny thing about Yost,” she said suddenly, “but he wasn’t himself the night before he died.”