The Crepes of Wrath

by Tamar Myers

  Elam softened further. “I love my brother.”

  “That’s a hoot!”

  “But I do.”

  “Then why are you willing to risk his life?”

  “Ach, I would not do such a thing.”

  “Wrongo! Every time he participates in one of your little drug parties, his life is in danger.”

  “It is his decision,” Elam said, gathering strength like a worn-out hurricane traveling back over warm water.

  “Just out of curiosity, who started in on drugs first, you or him?”

  “He asked.” Elam’s eyes were flashing again. “I did not push this on him.”

  “Yeah, well, I noticed you have some very little brothers. If one of them asked for matches to play in the hay barn, would you give them to him?”

  “That is not the same.”

  “Bull.” That is not a swear word, but a gender-specific term for the male bovine. “The newspapers are full of stories of people dying of drug overdoses and drugs laced with other dangerous chemicals. What makes you think your brother isn’t going to get hold of some lethal substance one of these days?”

  He shrugged sullenly.

  “Don’t think for a second that you can trust your supplier.”

  “I do trust him.”

  “Well, what’s his name—” I let my voice trail off, hoping he’d be tricked into filling in the blank.

  “Miss Yoder,” he said instead, “I must be going now. It is light already. Papa will worry because we are not there to do the chores.”

  “I’m sure he is worried. Although I should think he’d be used to it by now. Anyway, before I let you go, I’m going to offer you a deal.”

  “Deal?” he asked in surprise. “Elam Keim never makes deals.”

  “He does now, buster, and here it is. You tell your parents what you’ve been up to, and you tell me the name of your supplier, and I’ll do everything that I can to see that the law goes easy on you and your brother.”

  Elam laughed. “This you can promise?”

  “I know Judge Greenburg up in Bedford, and he likes to give deserving kids a break, if he’s convinced they’re deserving. That’s where I come into the picture. I can be very persuasive.”

  “I think maybe you talk like a sausage,” he said, using an idiomatic expression I find particularly offensive. He leaned out the window. “Seth! Come now! We go.”

  “You don’t sound convinced, dear. So, I guess I’m going to have to put a little more effort into this.”

  “You speak in riddles again, Miss Yoder.”

  I glanced at the Timex my parents gave me for a high school graduation present. It is my only piece of jewelry, if one can call it such, and has been more reliable than any number of friends. It’s kept right on ticking, while I’ve taken a number of lickings.

  “Six o’clock this evening,” I said. “That’s twelve hours from now. That’s how long I’m giving you. If you haven’t told your parents by then, I will.”

  Elam paled, his dark skin a sickly shade of beige. “It will kill them,” he whispered.

  “And you or Seth dying from an overdose won’t?”

  “Please Miss Yoder, Seth comes now.”

  I glanced out the window. “So? He’s going to have to know. One way or the other by six o’clock.”

  “Please.” For the first time I heard pleading in his voice. “I will do it my way.”

  “As you wish.”

  Seth was beside the car then. He peered in the window and seemed almost surprised to see me. Perhaps he had been using his time in the cemetery praying that I would disappear. If that was the case, I knew how he felt. The day after I discovered I was a bigamist, I refused to wake up to a world gone haywire. I’d open my eyes, willing everything to be the way it was a mere twenty-four hours earlier, and at the encroachment of the first painful memory, I’d close them again. Over and over I tried to manipulate reality this way. By the end of that day I had not stirred from my bed, but both my bladder and my eyes got a thorough workout.

  Poor Seth didn’t even get a second chance to wish me away. “Get in the back, Seth,” Elam ordered.

  “No.” I opened the door, and jumped out. “Ride up front, Seth. I’m going to walk.”

  “Ach!” the boys squawked in unison.

  “Well, it is a nice day,” I said. “And I could use the exercise.”

  “But Miss Yoder,” Seth protested. “You are—uh, you are old, yah?”

  “Old, no!” I snapped. “I could walk circles around you if I wanted to.”

  Elam was stupid enough to take drugs, but not dumb enough to look a gift horse in the mouth for more than a few seconds.

  “Have a safe walk!” he yelled, and the second his brother shut the door, Elam pressed the pedal to the metal. The ancient yellow Buick shot forward, spraying my poor, but sturdy, ankles with stinging gravel.

  “Remember,” I whinnied, “six o’clock!”

  The car disappeared in a cloud of dust.

  My intention was to initiate a couple of mountaintop chats before descending into the chaos of the world below. If I had to follow through on my threat to Elam, I was going to need a lot of emotional support. Dealing with the Keims was going to be one of the hardest things I’d ever done, of that I was sure. I may not know what it is like to be a disappointed mother (Little Freni brings me only joy), but I am the world’s expert on disappointed sisters. Pain is pain.

  At any rate, the first of these chats was with my Maker. I do this on a regular basis, by the way, and not just in church or on mountaintops. Okay, to be totally honest, these aren’t so much chats as they are opportunities for me to demand answers, but you get the picture. At least I make an effort to communicate. The Good Lord, however, has never once bothered to answer me in an audible voice. This frustrates me to no end, and I’ve gone so far as to take up the matter with my pastor who, as it turned out, was not nearly as sympathetic as I had hoped. Pastor Schrock merely smiled and said that if the Lord ever did speak to me in an audible voice, I’d either die of shock, or shock treatments in a rubber room.

  Maybe the Reverend is right, but I still think it would be nice if God communicated more directly. If He would just give me a sign, a single sign, like He gave the Israelites of old, I would never ask for another. And I’m not talking about plagues, of course, but maybe a little handwriting on the wall, in a neat legible cursive. Or maybe a nice block printing.

  So, not really expecting an answer, I demanded of God a very clear path to follow in the Keim case and asked whether or not anything would come of the blossoming romance between me and Gabriel Rosen. I reminded the Good Lord that Gabe was one of His kinfolk, and that I wouldn’t be at all averse to Him shutting Lodema Schrock’s big mouth, just like He shut lions’ mouths for Daniel.

  As usual, God did not answer, so I went over to chat with Mama. I don’t pray to her, mind you, because that would be idolatrous. Instead, I inform Mama of everything that’s been going on in my life, and allow her to vent. You might find even that notion sacrilegious, but you don’t know Mama. Not only can I hear her responses in my head, but I see them with my eyes, and hear them with my ears. Unlike the Good Lord, Mama is not opposed to dispensing signs and wonders to the present generation of believers.

  She didn’t have much to say about the Keim kids, but she had plenty to say about Gabe. She was, if you’ll pardon the pun, dead set against him. She made that clear by the brief downpour that materialized out of an only partly cloudy sky and drenched me the moment I mentioned his name.

  “But he’s a doctor, Mama. A heart surgeon. That means he’s saved many lives.”

  The sun appeared just as suddenly and warmed the back of my neck.

  “But he’s retired now. He wants to write mysteries.”

  The sun popped behind another scattered cloud and a chill wind blew across the top of Stucky Ridge.

  “Writing is a worthwhile profession too, Mama. Isn’t reading a better way to escape than, say, drugs or alc
ohol?”

  Mama must have heard about the mimosas, because at the mention of alcohol, the wind picked up considerably. I huddled next to her stone.

  “That was by accident!” I wailed. “You should know that. And I promise it will never happen again. If these lips of mine as much as touch a drop of alcohol, I’ll tell everyone I know that you were absolutely right about everything we disagreed about, and I was wrong.”

  Immediately the wind abated and the sun shone warmly all over my body. Steam rose from my clothes. Still, I had been chilled to the bone and, despite the sudden increased temperature, sneezed.

  “Bless you.”

  Mama’s voice was deeper than I remembered, but perhaps the grave does that to one.

  “Thank you, Mama.”

  “I am not your mother.”

  “You mean I was adopted?” I asked hopefully.

  Mama laughed. “Magdalena, you’re such a hoot. Have I ever told you that?”

  I whirled. Mama would never call me a hoot.

  “Gabe!”

  He grinned. “Who else?”

  “But—but—” I struggled to my feet. I was tempted to make a run for it. Thanks to the rain, I was a mess. My hair, which I normally wear in a very neat bun, was wet and stringy, and only the mere remnants of a bobby pin–encrusted lump remained, clinging precariously to the left side of my head like some horrible growth. My white prayer cap was nowhere to be seen. My dress clung to me like a second skin, and underscored in embarrassing detail the sturdy underpinnings of a pious, albeit small-bosomed woman.

  “You’re something else,” he said, the admiration in his voice unmistakable. “I bet there’s never a dull moment living with you.”

  “Well, you’d bet wrong.” I clawed wet hair away from my face and tried to fluff the bodice of my dress. At least the bra was thick enough to hide the fact that the wetness had created mountains where only molehills had been.

  “Aaron Miller was a lucky man. A fool, of course, but lucky nonetheless.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “What on earth are you doing up here?”

  “I came up to see the view I missed the other evening.” He chuckled. “You were right, it certainly is beautiful.”

  “How did you get here? Where’s your car?”

  “I parked it over on the other side, by the picnic tables. I’ve never been up here. Thought I’d explore around a bit, see the view from both sides, and voilà, there you were, talking to a gravestone.”

  “I wasn’t talking to a gravestone.”

  He grinned again. “I’ve got good ears, Magdalena.”

  “Then you should know I was talking to my mother, who incidentally disapproves of you.”

  The grin widened. “Because of my religion?”

  “That, and the fact you’re now a writer. More specifically, a mystery writer. Mama never read a book of fiction in her life. ‘What’s the point?’ she’d say. ‘It’s all made up.’ ”

  He laughed. “She sounds like a hoot too.”

  “Shhh!” I held a bony finger to shriveled blue lips. “Talk about good ears,” I whispered, “she can hear a toad belch in China. She wouldn’t approve of being compared to me.”

  “I see.” His gorgeous brown eyes were still laughing. “Mrs. Yoder,” he said in a loud voice, “you are incomparable. I wish I could have met you. I’m sure we would have gotten along very well.”

  As Gabe is my witness, that very second the sun hid its face behind a thimble-size cloud. Dr. Rosen the mystery writer was alone in the shadow.

  “You see?” I said. “She doesn’t like you.”

  “That’s just a coincidence. Mrs. Yoder,” he practically shouted, “if that’s really you, then I’m disappointed. I thought you could do better than that.”

  Gabe had barely closed his mouth when we were deluged by a gully washer of a rain. We made a dash for the nearest tree, but the second we reached it, the sun came out brighter and hotter than ever. Already the offending cloud was a mere cotton puff on the horizon.

  “Just another coincidence, dear?”

  “It certainly is weird, I’ll grant you that.”

  We stepped out into the warm sunshine. “Frankly, dear, you got off easy. Mama can be as mean as a snake. Why once when I—”

  The floodgates of Heaven opened yet again. This time a bolt of lightning hit the tree we’d just been standing under. There was a second loud crack as a large limb crashed to the ground, obliterating one of the tombstones.

  “Now do you believe?” I demanded.

  “I believe it would be stupid of us to keep standing here.” Gabe grabbed my arm. “Come on, we’ll be safe in my car. I’ve got a towel in my trunk. You can dry off with that.”

  I went with him willingly. “I don’t suppose you have any food too?”

  That was perhaps a silly question, but I was ravenous. Even a breath mint would be gratefully accepted.

  “As a matter of fact, I do. How does a bagel with lox and cream cheese sound?”

  “Well—”

  “And if that’s not your shtick, I have both cheese and raspberry Danish. Oh, and I couldn’t remember if you like coffee, so I brought a thermos of hot chocolate as well.”

  I wrenched free of his grasp. “Wait just a minute! How did you know I was up here?”

  “Call it a hunch. I went over to the inn first thing this morning. I wanted to invite you up here for a breakfast picnic. Anyway, your car wasn’t there, so I was hoping you’d somehow managed to read my mind.” He grabbed my hand. “I guess you did.”

  I freed myself again. Romantic as that notion was, it didn’t fly. A man who didn’t believe in ghosts, even when he met one, face to bird droppings, wasn’t going to drive up a mountain on a hunch.

  “What if I hadn’t been here, then what?”

  “Well, then I guess I would have eaten alone.”

  I sneaked a peek at my Timex. “It’s not even seven o’clock. What were you planning to do, wake me?”

  “Give me a break, Magdalena. You’re a farm girl. You’re used to getting up with the chickens.”

  We rounded the copse of trees that separates the picnic area from the cemetery. I gasped when I saw the sleek blue car ahead.

  “Is that your car?”

  He laughed. “Do you see another?”

  “I didn’t know you had a new car,” I managed to say calmly. My heart, by the way, was pounding like a madman on an xylophone. You wouldn’t believe the crazy thoughts that were flitting through my brain.

  “It’s not a new car,” Gabe said. “It’s the same one I’ve always had. Are you okay, Magdalena?”

  I slowed, forcing him to follow my pace. “Speaking of cars, dear, you don’t see mine, do you?”

  He glanced around. “I guess not.”

  “You guess not? What kind of an answer is that?”

  “Okay, I don’t see it.”

  “Then how come you’re not even the least bit curious about how I got up here?”

  “I am. I figured you’d tell me all about it over breakfast.”

  I tried not to panic as the thoughts began to gel.

  “Show me the food.” If the coffee is hot, I’ll believe him, I told myself. There was no way Gabe could have followed the Keim car up the mountain from the Berkey farm, and then dashed home to make breakfast.

  “Well,” Gabe said, “if you’re that hungry, why do you keep slowing down? Would you like me to carry you?”

  Perhaps he meant it as a joke. Perhaps not. For all I knew he wanted to carry me to the nearest cliff and throw me over.

  “Most definitely not.”

  Gabe stopped. “Magdalena, what’s wrong?”

  I tensed, ready to run. “You tell me.”

  He shrugged. “It’s damn hard to figure out any woman, and you’re twice the woman of any one I know.”

  “I’ll thank you not to swear,” I said. One must demand good manners, even in the face of death.

  “That’s my Magdalena, always prim and
proper.”

  “I am not your Magdalena.”

  It was the first time I’d seen a full-fledged frown on that handsome face. “Okay, enough of this horsing around. Out with what’s bothering you.”

  I stepped well out of reach. “So, you want the truth, do you?”

  “Nothing but.”

  “Then you asked for it, because I saw your car last night parked behind the Berkey barn.”

  Gabe didn’t even have the decency to blink. “I was home all evening.”

  “Are you calling me a liar?”

  “I’m saying you’re mistaken.”

  “Oh, is that so? Am I mistaken about the fact that you called yesterday and begged me not to spy on those Amish kids?”

  “I didn’t beg,” Gabe said quietly. “I certainly didn’t use the word ‘spy.’ ”

  “That’s exactly what you said! I couldn’t figure out why then, but now it all makes sense.”

  “What does?”

  “You’re from New York, aren’t you?”

  “So?”

  “The big city,” I said. “Drug pushers. I may not watch television, Gabe, but I read the papers.”

  He gaped at me, frozen in time, like one of those fossilized people they found in Pompeii.

  “You might want to be careful of flies, dear.”

  Gabe came to life, slapping his forehead with a broad palm. “So that’s it! You think I’m a drug pusher just because I’m from New York. From the outside.”

  “If the shoe fits.”

  “There are other outsiders,” he growled. “Like the Hamptons.”

  “They didn’t try and stop me from doing my job. Their car wasn’t parked behind the Berkey barn. And—”

  “It wasn’t my damn car!”

  “And,” I said, my voice rising, “you still haven’t explained how you found me up here—unless you’d been following me.”

  “I said it was a hunch.” Each word was spit out like a nail.

  I smiled sardonically. “Men don’t have hunches.”

  “The hell they don’t!”

  “I’m not putting up with your swearing any longer.” I turned and headed for the road.

  “Magdalena, come back!”

  “When pigs fly.”

  “You’ll be sorry.”