by Tamar Myers
“You really hate me that much?”
“I despise you. That’s why I have all those life-size posters of you on my office walls.”
“The ones on which you’ve drawn arrows going through my head and daggers into my heart. Don’t you think that’s a bit of overkill? Pun quite intended.”
“This doesn’t make any sense,” Agnes said. “After all, you let Magdalena eat in your restaurant all the time.”
“That’s because I have to, or she’d call the police. She has them in her pocket, you know. Plus, her money is just as good as anyone else’s.”
“You know vhat surprised me vhen I moved to dis country,” Ida said apropos nothing.
Agnes, always kind and considerate, took the bait. “What?”
“Dat dey use the same money here dat we used in New York.”
“Wait a minute,” Agnes said, “I must be confused. Which country uses the same currency as New York?”
“Oy, is dis von slow, or vhat?”
“The place she is referring to,” I said, “is the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. She thinks it’s a foreign country.”
Ida clucked like a hen being robbed of her eggs. “Von must get a new license to drive, yah? Und pay new taxes. In Europe, vee called dat another country.”
“I see,” Agnes said, although she clearly didn’t. “Magdalena, you don’t seem at all upset that Wanda hates you. Do you hate her back?”
“That wouldn’t be Christian, dear. I will, however, admit to intensely disliking her. But don’t get me wrong, I’m not proud of the way I feel, and I pray for a change of attitude.” There was nothing to be served by adding that my prayers to feel better about Wanda are intermittent at best.
Agnes sighed loudly. “What a fine kettle of fish we are. I’m two hundred pounds overweight and so neurotic that my only friend is Magdalena; Ida believes we’re in a foreign country; and you other two hate—or at least, intensely dislike—each other. What if there really are kidnappers, and we catch up with them? What are we supposed to do? Baffle them into submission?”
No one said anything for a long time.
“Vas dat a historical question?” Ida finally said.
“Yes,” I said.
“Gut. Den I vill go to sleep.”
One by one, all three of my passengers succumbed to the sandman. That was fine with me. Although I was tired, I wasn’t a bit sleepy. Route 12 through southern Pennsylvania twists and turns like a stubborn garden hose, requiring one’s full attention. As if the topography isn’t enough to keep one occupied, there is the constant possibility—maybe even a probability—that a deer will leap into the roadway and be blinded by one’s headlights. Throw in the good chance that my missing loved ones might be in grave danger, and I had all the adrenaline I needed to make sure that my peepers stayed wide open.
But to be absolutely honest, I was thinking more about Wanda Hemphopple than anything else. Her words stung my soul; I could feel the pain just as surely as if I’d been slapped in the face with a latex glove—not that I’ve had a lot of experience with such things. What had I ever done to her that was so awful that she would risk hellfire rather than forgive me? Okay, so maybe I did whack her on the bean with a bucket, dip her braids in my inkwell, put gum on her desk chair, sit on her paper-bag lunch, encourage her to copy the wrong answers from my paper during a math test, drop a hot dog into her beehive hairdo, spread a few rumors about her high school love life—but I was just a kid then, for crying out loud. Believe me, I have an even longer list of Wanda’s sins against me, and I’ve managed to forgive her.
Perhaps it has little to do with what I’ve done, but a lot to do with who I am. Scientists have suggested that people have an inborn negative response to approximately one fifth of the general population. This response is visceral, and based on such cues as scent and physiognomy. It supposedly serves some evolutionary purpose—although, of course, there is no such thing as evolution.
I remember Mama saying that, in the 1930s, there was a woman living in Hernia named Barbara Peters, who always had it in for her. For as long as Mama could remember, Barbara Peters was mean to her. Mama never could figure out what she’d done to get on Barbara’s bad side. One day, Mama could no longer stand it and wrote Miss Peters a note asking the woman to please explain what it was that she had done to deserve such treatment. Barbara’s answer was cryptic to the extreme: “I’ve never liked you.” Mama was actually so afraid that Miss Peters might have used poisoned ink in her reply that, after reading the note, Mama scrubbed her hands until they bled.
So preoccupied was I in pondering the enigma of Wanda’s hatred toward me that I almost missed seeing the truck and trailer parked in a picnic area a few miles north of the border. Fortunately my passengers were buckled in. Nonetheless, there followed shrieks of genuine fear and enough blue language to color the Pacific Ocean. I waited patiently for the latter to end before addressing the woman with the mouth of a sailor.
“Really, dear,” I said to my mother-in-law, “is that the same mouth with which you used to sing lullabies to your son?”
“Vhat? You tink I have another?”
“You could have warned us,” Agnes panted.
“Magdalena,” Wanda snarled, “if you’d peed back at the Sausage Barn, you wouldn’t have to go so bad now.”
“Ladies,” I said, “if you’re capable of it, turn your heads and look back up the highway about a hundred yards. Tell me what you see.”
“Oy vey! I can’t turn my head.”
“Ida, darling,” I said with utmost patience, “perhaps it would help if you unbuckled your seat belt.”
“I can’t turn my head either,” Agnes said. “Do you think I have whiplash?”
With the help of the Good Lord, I avoided stating the obvious: Agnes was incapable of swiveling her noggin for the same reason she couldn’t touch her toes.
“Wanda, what do you see?”
“Darkness. The highway. Maybe some trees.”
“Look further to the left.”
“It’s a truck—with a trailer!”
“Bingo.”
“Gabeleh!” In the blink of an eye, Ida had released her seat belt and was crawling over Agnes’s lap.
I pushed the child safety lock button. “Oh no you don’t, missy. Not until we have a plan.”
“Plan, shman. My only son is in there.”
“So is my only husband, and I say wait.”
“Yah? Vell, who cares about your husband?”
“Your son and my husband are the same person, you—you—dummkopf.”
“You see how dis von talks to me?”
“Catfight!” Wanda suddenly sounded happy.
“Vhere? I dunt see any cats.”
“Fie on the felines,” I bellowed. “There may be human lives at stake here.”
The women were silent for all of two seconds. It was Agnes who spoke first.
“Get on your cell, Magdalena, and call for help.”
That’s exactly what I attempted to do, even though I already knew that we were out of range. That particular corner of the commonwealth is so remote that even Daylight Savings Time doesn’t arrive until an hour later. Of course, the ladies had to try their own cellular phones, and with each confirmed lack of success, the panic level rose, like the waters of Slave Creek during the spring thaw. Something had to be done before the more volatile ones, like Ida, flipped their lids.
“Don’t worry, ladies,” I said, “I have an idea.”
“Dis better be gut,” Ida said. “It vas your idea dat got us here in the first place!”
“And to think,” Wanda said, “I could be back at the Sausage Barn watching Jeopardy.”
“Listen to Magdalena,” Agnes said sharply. “The woman is a genius at getting out of impossible situations. Why, once she even brought down a giantess by using her bra as a weapon.”
“Oy, such an imagination dis von has.”
“She’s telling the truth,” I said. “I used my Maiden
form as a sling. One well-placed stone, and that giantess was down on her knees. Just like David slew Goliath, only I didn’t kill the giantess, and I certainly didn’t cut off her head.”
I could feel Ida’s eyes roll in the dark. “Nu, so now you are David? Somehow I dunt tink so.”
“I may not be David,” I said, “but despite all this yammering, I’ve come up with a plan. Does anyone want to hear it?”
“I do,” Agnes said.
“So do I,” Wanda said.
I had to swallow my surprise before speaking again.
35
Strawberry Ice Cream Recipe
Ingredients:
2 cups of strawberries
4 oz (100 g) sugar
3 egg yolks (beaten)
½ pint (250 ml) milk
¼ teaspoon salt
1 pint (500 ml) double/heavy cream
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
Take the strawberries, and mash them in with half the sugar in a bowl. Place in the refrigerator whilst making the rest of the recipe. In a separate saucepan, mix the egg yolks with the milk, salt, and the remaining sugar. Place over a medium heat just to boiling point, stirring all the time. Do not let it boil.
Transfer the mixture into a chilled bowl to cool. When cool, place in the refrigerator for up to three hours, remembering to stir the mixture from time to time. When cool, stir into the mixture the cream and vanilla extract and then blend in the strawberry-sugar mixture.
Transfer the complete mixture into an ice cream maker, and follow the manufacturer’s instructions.
36
My plan was simple: Agnes would stay with Ida, while Wanda and I reconnoitered the pickup and trailer. I chose to have my nemesis accompany me because she was in better physical shape than the other two, and frankly, because she hated me so much; if I were to die, Wanda would have the most to lose. I mean, with me gone, who could she possibly loathe so deeply? Absolutely no one. All the joy would drain from her life, and she’d be just another miserable, middle-aged woman with posters tacked to the walls of her office. Therefore, it was in her best interest to see that I survived whatever it was that lay ahead.
At any rate, we weren’t more than ten feet from the car when we noticed—simultaneously, I might add—a flicker of light deep in the woods. I was the first to react.
“Look,” I whispered. “A light.”
“Jinx, you owe me a Coke.”
“Diet or regular? Caffeine or no? Lime flavored or cherry? Really dear, you need to be more specific.”
“You see how difficult you are?”
If you can’t beat them—even after sticking a hot dog down her bun—you might as well join them. “Indeed, I do. I am an evil woman, the great-great-grandspawn of Attila the Hun. In fact, if I wasn’t a Mennonite, I’d become an Anglican, just so I could call myself a Despicopalian.”
“Now you’re just mocking me.”
“Not just now. Hey, look, the light is really a fire!”
“Are those people I see, or deer?”
“People. But they’re all in silhouette. Anyway, we’re too far away to make out their faces. Still, we better keep our voices down.”
“Who said you could tell me what to do?”
“Scream and shout then, for all I care. What’s the worst that can happen? Maybe they have a gun; maybe they’ll shoot. I could get hit and die. Then whom will you hate? While you’re trying to find a replacement Magdalena, I’ll be flip-flopping about Heaven learning how to fly. I might even try rollerblading on those golden streets.”
“Okay, you win. But you have to shut up as well.”
“Agreed.”
“And no fair dying until I tell you so.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
We crept along in silence—well, relative silence. I’d read The Deerslayer as a girl, and one of the things that I’d always remembered about that book was the description of Indians moving silently through the woods—so silently, in fact, that nary a twig snapped. By comparison, Wanda and I were a pair of pregnant rhinos. Nevertheless, when Wanda next spoke, even though it was in a whisper, I nearly jumped out of my brogans.
“But if you do kick the bucket,” she said, “and assuming that Heaven even allows rollerblading—there are liability issues, you know—reserve a pair of skates for me. I wear size eight triple-A. You wouldn’t believe what a burden it is to have such narrow feet.”
“Issues?” I hissed irritably. “Who would sue God?”
“Plenty of people. After all, He is very rich. America is the most litigious society on earth, Magdalena. You ought to know that, seeing as how a woman fell down your impossibly steep stairs. As I recall, she died—didn’t she?”
“Yes, but folks can’t get hurt in Heaven.”
“Maybe not, but I bet they still make you sign a waiver.”
“Listen! I think that’s my beloved’s voice.”
“Don’t be stupid, Magdalena. The Lord doesn’t mind if we joke about—”
“My husband’s voice.”
We listened; sure enough, it was the Babester. He sounded tired. Also extremely sad.
“By all means kill me,” he said, “but let the child go.”
“I’m not a child!”
“The kid’s got spunk,” a familiar male voice said.
“Which means that if we let her go, she’ll turn us in. A normal kid you can threaten, but not this brat.”
“Hey! I ain’t no brat.”
“You are so.”
“Ain’t!”
“You are. Now shut up, before I make you.”
“Go ahead and try, you old witch.”
“Now you’re asking for it. How does a pair of cement boots sound? After I get you fitted, I’ll toss you into a farm pond. Or better yet, I’ll find a swimming pool and make you walk the diving board, like pirates make their captives walk the plank. Of course, with your cement boots on, you’ll be hopping the plank, not walking.”
She laughed cruelly. Suddenly I knew her identity—Plain Jane! I almost said the words aloud. Just wait until I got my mitts on that disagreeable woman; I’d think of something very un-Mennonite—possibly even Methodist—to do to her. The nerve of that woman, threatening my pseudo-offspring, my demi-daughter. And how dare the two of them threaten the Babester?
Wanda and I crawled on our bellies until we were so close to the campfire that we could feel its heat. I could scarcely believe what mine eyes beheld: my loved ones were trussed up like turkeys, their hands and feet bound with plastic clothesline. It was only by calling upon all my willpower, and of course, the help of the Lord, that I was able to refrain from charging at the Pearlmutters right then and there. It was Wanda, bless her hating heart, who insisted that we retreat and sort things out a bit first. Who knew it was possible for a person you’d like to pinch to actually help out in a pinch?
“I’ve come up with a new plan,” I said to Wanda.
“Does it involve knocking the stuffing out of that witch?” Unlike Alison, Wanda used the B-word.
“You bet your bippy,” I said, trumping her with two B-words of my own.
“I am supposed to do vhat?”
“We have to distract them,” I said, “and the best way to do that is to get them to chase their prize-winning cow through the woods.”
That was the essence of my plan. While the Pearlmutters beat the bushes for their buxom bovine, Agnes and Wanda would untie Alison and Gabe. If the situation called for it, both women were more than willing to physically engage the pair of kidnappers (alas, my strict Mennonite upbringing still held sway, and I was pretty much limited to pelting giantesses with pebbles). Wanda, on the other hand, wanted to extinguish the campfire by dragging Jane through it by her hair (although a liberal Mennonite, Wanda has a bit of Baptist blood coursing through her veins). Not to be outdone, Presbyterian Agnes expressed an eagerness to sit on Dick Pearlmutter while she pummeled him with her relatively tiny fists.
Ida had initially been enthusiastic about my p
lan, until she learned what her role was to be. Although my warriors had long since crept into place, Ida was still staring up at the cow. To be fair, it towered above her.
“You vant me to ride dis beast?”
“She’s a cow. Just think of her as a well-endowed horse.”
“I dunt ride horses neither.”
“Then what are you waiting for? They say that senior citizens who try new things live sixty-point-three percent longer.”
“Longer den vhat?” Despite her thick accent, my mother-in-law had not fallen off the turnip truck—at least not in recent times.
“Longer than fruit flies, dear.”
“Den get da flies to ride da cow.”
“Ida, dearest mother-in-law, we have to do this in order to rescue your son. This cow is worth a lot of money to the Pearlmutters. If it’s lost, that’s all they’ll think about for the moment. You saw me try to push the cow off the trailer; she wouldn’t budge. But if someone is sitting on her back, that might do the trick.”
“Den vhy dunt you climb on?”
“Because I’m too heavy, and could damage her spine. Cows aren’t meant to be ridden like horses. But a pint-size thing like you—that’s a compliment, dear—well, she’d barely know you were there.”
“Den vhat difference vould it make?”
“Trust me, you’d be just enough of an irritant to get her going.”
“Oy, da tings I must do in dis life.”
“So you’ll do it? Please, pretty please? With sugar on top?”
She sighed deeply. “Vell, maybe, eef—”
There was no time for eefs, ands, and buts. Can I be blamed, then, for taking this as tacit agreement? I think not. After all, a mind half made up is like a cake half eaten: if one’s come that far, one might as well commit to the rest. So, to save her the trouble of committing further, I scooped up the scrappy little New Yorker, and plopped her on the cow’s broad back. Unfortunately—for Ida, that is, not the cow—I’d set her down facing the animal’s patooty. I grabbed the startled cow’s tail and thrust it at Ida.