“It was a bra, for heaven’s sake. Let me pay for it now.”
“Oh, I don’t want your money-although you do have too much of it for your own good. I want revenge, and that is a dish best served up cold.”
“Cold dishes are way overrated. Have you ever tried eating fried liver and onions cold? Or boiled turnips?”
“You can’t dissuade me.”
I pushed my call button. I pushed it hard and repeatedly.
“What are you doing?” she demanded. “I’m the nurse assigned to you, and I’m right here.”
“So you are. Silly me.” As she watched, scowling, I rummaged through my purse until I found my cell phone. The number I wanted was prerecorded on my speed dial. “Hello, Ed?”
“Magdalena! I heard you were staying with us. How are we treating you?”
“I’ve been treated very well, Ed, thank you. Say, do you mind dropping by for a moment?” Out of the corner of my eye I saw Nurse Dudley turn to stone-petrified stone.
“As it so happens, I’m on your floor. I’ll be there in a second.”
25
Fresh Coffee Ice Cream Recipe
Ingredients:
6 egg yolks
4 tablespoons fresh coffee beans, finely ground
8 oz (200 g) light brown sugar
1 pint (500 ml) milk
6 oz (approx. 185 ml) very hot water
Take the finely ground coffee, and pour the water onto it, then let it stand for about ten minutes. Strain the mixture. In a heatproof bowl, mix together the sugar and egg yolks, then whisk until thick and pale. Whisk in the milk and the coffee, then put the bowl over a saucepan of simmering (though not boiling) water. Cook until the mixture is thick (i.e., until it forms a layer on the back of a wooden spoon), being sure to stir it all the time. Take the saucepan off the heat and place the bowl to one side to cool. (If you want to prevent a skin from forming on the mixture, you can try covering the surface with a piece of damp, greaseproof paper.)
When cool, transfer the mixture into an ice cream maker, and follow the manufacturer’s instructions.
26
Ed actually took several minutes to arrive, and by then I had the check written and recorded. We greeted each other warmly (we’ve served on many boards together), and he nodded at Nurse Dudley. Personally, I think he tried too hard to appear as if he wasn’t trying to read her name badge. Oh well, no one is perfect.
When the pleasantries were done, and he’d turned his attention back to me, I handed him the check. “Here is a small gift to the hospital; a token of my thanks for the excellent care I’ve received.”
The hospital administrator glanced at the check. Then he looked at the check. Next he stared at the check, his eyes bulging.
“A-a-million dollars? There must be a mistake.”
“Oh, no mistake, dear. But strings, yes.”
“Wonderful. Strings are just great.”
The petrified woman to my right returned to life enough to blanch, thereby turning herself into a white statue. Perhaps she was a pillar of salt.
“Ed, I was thinking-always a dangerous activity for me- that some of the hardest-working and least-appreciated professionals are nurses. Where would patients be without them? Or doctors, for that matter? So I would like this money to do something that makes life easier and more rewarding for nurses. I was thinking it might be a down payment on establishing a day care center-or a really special nurses’ lounge. At any rate, that is really up to you and the board.”
“Those are fantastic ideas, Magdalena. The day care center especially. Would you mind if it was available to all hospital employees?”
“That would be zippers with me, but there is a condition.”
“Zippers?”
“You know-like cool. You unzip anything, you’re bound to get a cool breeze.” I’ve been trying for decades to get one of my clever expressions accepted into the lexicon of American lingo, but so far there hasn’t been even one taker.
Ed smiled indulgently. “Ah, zippers. I’ll have to remember that. So, what’s the condition?”
“I want the facility to be named after Nurse Dudley.”
There were two audible gasps, followed by two soprano voices speaking in unison. “You do?”
“Indeed, I doodest. The Nurse Dudley Day Care Center-has a nice sound to it, doesn’t it?”
Ed managed to pull his voice down an octave. “But Nurse Dudley-and I mean no disrespect-is our least-liked staff member. Not just in the nursing department, but in the hospital in general. As a matter of fact, she’s pretty much hated by-”
“Now, now, Edwin, we mustn’t be so judgmental.” I turned to the object of Ed’s scorn. “Were the window open, Nurse Dudley, a sparrow could fly down your throat. Trust me, all those feathers in your tummy can be a mite tickly.”
“But-but-Miss Yoder, I’ve been so bad to you over the years. I don’t know how you can forgive me, much less do something so awesome in my honor. Sure, you’ve been even worse to me-”
“Stop while you’re ahead, dear. And for the record, I’m not naming the center in your honor-although you may choose to believe so. I’m merely naming it that because it will need a name, and you’re standing right here.”
The tears coursing down her face were following the topography, as laid down by a lifetime of sun exposure and years of heavy smoking. “That’s a lie, Miss Yoder, and you know it. But I’ll take what I can get.”
“You’re right, that was a big fat lie. I’m spending a million dollars just to get back at you. Having your name on the center will be a daily reminder of how I countered with kindness the hot coals you’ve heaped on my head over the years.”
Now the tears ran so freely that they overflowed the smokers’ lines. “Thank you, thank you, thank you! Commemorating my meanness is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me. How can I ever pay you back for this wonderful gift?”
“Bring me lunch, for starters-with an extra dessert. I’m so famished, I could eat even my own cooking. And then be a dear, and give me a ride into Hernia. Ed, you won’t mind if she takes the afternoon off?” It was neither a question, nor a command; it was a statement that left little doubt in his mind that cooperation was expected.
“Anything you’d like, Magdalena,” Ed said, as tears flowed down his face as well.
I would have left the hospital much sooner, but, as I was reaching for my glasses-in order to read the ingredient list on my juice box-my hand accidentally alighted on something called a remote control. It is used to turn modern televisions on and off, and also, if one is skilled in these matters, to select various stations.
Needless to say, I’d never felt one before. It was long, hard, and disturbingly exciting. As strange as it might sound, I found that I was incapable of letting go. Then, just as surely as if Satan himself had pushed my finger, I pressed the on button. A minute later, with Beelzebub at my side, I began to watch my first fea-ture-length motion picture. In all sincerity, I must let it be known that I was powerless to stop.
The movie, if you must know, was Imitation of Life, with Lana Turner. I’d once heard my sister, Susannah, refer to this movie as a tearjerker. Boy, was she ever right. By the end of the show, I’d jerked my way through an entire box of facial tissue, and had just rung for a second box. To be absolutely honest, I never even cried that much when my parents died.
Of course, after that I had to wait for the puffiness below my eyes to subside, which took another hour, and then I had to check on Doc. He was sleeping as peacefully as a baby, although judging by the configuration of his sheet, he wasn’t dreaming of mobiles and pacifiers.
At any rate, Nurse Dudley was an excellent driver, despite being such a poor winner. We hadn’t so much as exited the hospital parking lot when she began in on her list of demands: the letters of her name had to be at least four feet high and chiseled into Indiana limestone-certainly not attached letters, ones that could be torn down at the whim of another CEO. In addition, there was to be a ta
stefully sized bronze bust of her just inside the main doors. And oh, if a new sidewalk was part of the package, there was to be a star embedded in it, as well as her handprints.
I told her to go on a solo picnic lunch in the Allegheny National Forest, after first smashing any compasses she might own. She then told me to take a running leap from Bedford’s tallest building, which is a silly thing to say, given that I’d land on either concrete or asphalt and hurt the dickens out of myself. At any rate, after that, we got along famously, and by the time she dropped me off at Hernia High stadium (where the competition was held), we were no longer the worst of friends.
My best friend, incidentally, was one of the few people left at the stadium. She appeared to be directing several young Amish men, telling them how they should go about scooping up cow dung.
“Agnes!” I cried in bewilderment. “Where is everybody?”
“They’re gone, Magdalena. How are you doing? What are you doing here? Gabriel said you were in the hospital.”
“I was. But I’m good as new now.”
Agnes is a short, round woman with a round face framed by round glasses. Despite the fact that she is grossly overweight, she positively brims with energy. In fact, she bounces when she walks. When she gestured me away from the Amish men, I found it hard to keep up with her.
But when we were well out of earshot, she bounced in place until I caught up. “What was your diagnosis?”
“Diagnosis? Agnes, dear, you of all people should know that, despite advancements in modern diagnostic machines, doctors are reluctant to give diagnoses. They’d rather have their egos excised.”
“Why, Magdalena, what a judgmental thing for you to say. So you are all better!”
“I’m fine as frog’s hair, dear. Now tell me where everyone is.”
“They’ve gone home-I guess. The first annual Hernia Holstein Competition is officially over.”
“Agnes, I’m not in the mood for jokes. Besides, you’ve never had a sense of humor-and I mean that kindly-so why start now?”
“It’s not a joke. Your handsome husband rushed things so much, he was able to cram two days of judging into one. As for the festivities, well-you can see for yourself. Three Amish men on poop-scooping detail, and they’re not even cute. Whoopee.” She twirled her index finger in the air.
“But what about the hot dog vendor and the cotton candy machine? And the three-legged stilt walker? Where are they?”
“The stilt walker called in last night to say he’d broken one of his legs. The vendors stayed only until the winner was announced, because that’s when the crowd, such as it was, left. Everyone is angry, Magdalena. They say that they were ripped off by the high ticket prices for a show that didn’t deliver. As for the contestants and their cows-they actually came to fisticuffs. I mean the contestants did. For the most part, the cows were well-behaved.”
I moaned, my new alternative to wailing. “Whose cow won? Was it a local farmer?”
Agnes, like Freni, lacks a neck. Shaking her head must create a good deal of friction, but she bravely did so anyway. That’s how strong her emotions were.
“A local win, suspect as it might be, would be great for the economy. I’m afraid it was one of your people.”
“My people? I only have Mose and the Amish lad who milks for me. I don’t recall either of them entering a cow.”
“No, one of your guests.”
I had to swallow hard to keep my heart in my chest. “Who? What were their names?”
“Hmm. Pearlman, I think.”
“You mean Pearlmutter? Was she uncommonly plain, to use an oxymoron, and was he to-die-for gorgeous?”
“Yes, one might describe them like that.”
“Rats. I was really hoping that, if it couldn’t be one of our homegrown farmers, the delightful Gertie Fuselburger would win.”
“Now you’re joking-right?”
“Nay, I joketh noteth. I think she’s a hoot.”
“Wrong. You should have witnessed the hissy fit she threw when she was eliminated after the first round. I was seriously worried that she would have a stroke. How old is she anyway? A hundred?”
“Knock off a third of a century and you’ll be closer. But don’t stop there. Tell me what her hissy fit was like. And it’s not that I just want to gossip either-a good grasp of human nature is helpful to me as an innkeeper.”
Agnes chortled. “A good grasp? Magdalena, if human nature had an esophagus, you’d have long since asphyxiated it. Anyway, she cussed a blue streak-even threatened to call the cops.”
“The police? What for?”
27
“Something about the contest being rigged. At the very least, she said, she’d be calling the BMC. Magdalena, what on earth is that?”
“Bovine Mediating Council. It’s a little-known organization that settles cow disputes. But never mind that, could you please give me a ride home? I was planning to ride with Gabe. Speaking of whom, how did he do? More importantly, how did he manage to run through two days’ events in less than one?”
“He spoke like an auctioneer, that’s how.”
“Well, he is a New Yorker; they all talk fast.”
“No, I mean he really spoke like an auctioneer. He rattled off a million words a minute. It seemed like he didn’t even stop to breathe. Everyone was complaining, Magdalena, but your husband essentially told them all to shut up. He said that you gave him the absolute authority to do things however he pleased. You should have seen the faces of the judges. That’s how the Roman senate must have looked when Julius Caesar took over as lifetime dictator. Although I’ve seen statues of Caesar, and your Gabriel is much better looking.”
I nodded. “And if there’s a dish named after my sweetie, it better be more than just a salad.”
We chatted amiably on the way home, as best friends are wont to do. But when we got to the juncture of Main Street
and Hertzler Road
, Agnes pulled over onto the shoulder, which is also the west bank of Slave Creek. Legend has it that escaped slaves followed this stream north from Maryland and to freedom. I am all for believing in legends-just as long as they don’t contradict my faith-but the truth is that not only does Slave Creek begin in Pennsylvania, it ends here as well, having emptied its meager flow into the mighty Allegheny. Still, it is a nice legend, and the only other person aware of this fallacy is Doc, and neither of us intends to breathe a discrediting word.
“Agnes,” I said with as much pleasantness as I could muster, “why on earth are we stopping? I need to get home pronto. ASAP. Be a dear and press the pedal to the metal.”
“Magdalena, I need to ask you something first.”
“The answer is no. I will not run away with you to homestead in the wilds of Alaska. I hear that in the summer the mosquitoes are as big as starlings, and that-”
“Please don’t wisecrack.”
I sighed. “Okay, I’ll try not to, difficult as it may be. Now, what is it?”
“I think I’m in love.”
“That’s exactly what I was trying to get across. I love you too, Agnes, but only as a friend.”
“What? I’m not in love with you! Honestly, Magdalena, when are you going to learn that the world does not revolve around you?”
That stung. Yes, I am guilty of thinking that I am the center of the universe-but only my universe. It’s called having an ego, and it’s not necessarily a bad thing. As tempted as I was to retort with the argument that we all think that way, I took the high road and merely pantomimed locking my mouth with a key and tossing it out the window.
Agnes gave me a challenging look until she was quite satisfied I’d been properly put in my place. “I’m in love with Harmon Dorfman. He’s in love with me too, I just know it. It was love at first sight. He wants me to move to North Dakota and marry him there. When I told him I have the uncles to care for, he volunteered to move down here.”
I sat bolt upright, my eyes bulging from the pressure of unreleased words.
I didn’t even bother to look for the invisible key. “I think that you must be nuts. Not only are you off your rocker, but you must have fallen off and hit your head. Agnes, Harmon Dorfman is one of the most irritating men I’ve ever met, and I say that with Christian charity.”
“Magdalena, I’ve always been glad that you’re not a pagan. So Harmon isn’t your cup of tea-that doesn’t mean he’s not right for me. I’m forty-six years old, Magdalena, and not pretty like you. The last date I had was in college, and he was a blind date. I mean that literally.”
Tamar Myers Page 15