by Tamar Myers
“Yeah? Who am I kidding, I could never afford a place like that.”
“Don’t be so negative. I know the owner quite well, and I’m pretty sure I could talk her into arranging a special price for you. It’s not going to be cheap, but then quality never is, is it?”
“I guess not. How much will it be for three nights?”
“With or without ALPO?”
“Excuse me?”
“That stands for Amish Lifestyle Plan Option. For just fifty measly bucks more a day you get the privilege of living like a real Amish person. By that I mean you get to make up your own room, feed the chickens, milk the cows. You know, all that fun stuff.”
“Cool! But how much?”
“Just a minute, let me calculate.” I made pinging noises with my mouth. “Well, well, well, what a coincidence; you’re never going to believe this, but it comes out to exactly ninety-nine ninety-nine times six easy payments.”
“Fantastic! How do I sign up?”
I took a credit card number before heading back to the warm, welcoming spigots of Big Bertha. I settled into the lather with a groan of sinful pleasure, and that’s when the Devil grabbed me by a foot, and pulled me under. I mean that literally.
9
There is nothing more frightening than Satan trying to drown you in an oversized whirlpool tub. I fought back mightily, tooth and toenail. I bit, I slapped, I scratched—all things a proper pacifist would never dream of doing. But if, indeed, all things are fair in love and war, then surely they are fair in mano a mano combat with the Prince of Darkness.
I wasn’t surprised that the Devil had chosen to attack me physically while in a corporeal form; I’ve been a wicked woman. What surprised me is that the His Evilness had taken the form of a woman.
“Stop it, Mags,” she shrieked when it was clear I had finally bested her.
The fact that the Devil was using my sister’s voice was unconscionable. Of course, the Devil doesn’t have a conscious, and can’t really be bested by a mere mortal, but I had soap on the brain. While my thoughts struggled to keep up with me, I gave Lucifer another good whack, this time with a Lifebuoy bar.
“Ouch! That hurt, darn you.”
“Susannah? Is that really you?”
“No, I’m somebody else. Of course it’s me. You’re really weird, Mags, you know that?”
“The pot calling the kettle,” I said, glowering at the only other human being to form in my mother’s womb, and then not until a full eleven years since I’d called that uterus home. “What in tar-nation are you doing in Big—bathtub? You weren’t in it when I filled it.”
“I spoke to you when I came into your bedroom, but you were on the phone and didn’t hear me. I guess you didn’t see me either. So when I came in here to use the toilet, and saw those bubbles—well, you can’t blame a girl for not wanting to see them go to waste. And it’s not like I have a setup like this at home.”
“So you sampled my bubbles. Now, get out. Please.”
“Why can’t I stay? We used to take baths together all the time when we were little.”
“We were never little together; I was thirteen, and you were two. The only reason I bathed with you is because Mama forced me to, in order to save water. Then came the notorious day of the floater—never mind. Just am-scray.”
“Fine, if that’s the way you’re going to be. Kicking a poor widder woman out into the cold.”
“You’re not a poor widder woman. I give you an allowance large enough to support a small kingdom, and your husband is not dead. He’s a cold-blooded killer who will spend the rest of his days behind bars.”
Susannah stood, the bubbles sliding in gentle avalanches. “You don’t have to be so mean. I didn’t know Melvin was a killer when I married him.”
“Yes, but everyone told you he was a—” I clapped a soapy hand across my mouth. There was nothing to be gained by reminding my sister that she had chosen to spend the rest of her life with a loser. Anyway, I had done the same thing. The only difference was that my loser has yet to kill anyone. Of course I’d married an extremely handsome man, not a giant praying mantis. And furthermore, everyone in Hernia had thought the world of Aaron Miller, whereas only Zelda Root, my half sister, and her merry band of Melvinites thought well of Melvin. Even his mother didn’t have such a hot opinion of him.
Susannah reached for one of my large, fluffy towels. They are one of the few luxuries I indulge in. (I thoughtfully provide my guests with the rough, cheap variety; yet another way for them to exfoliate.)
“You’re right,” she said.
“Excuse me?”
“I was an idiot. A fool. What am I going to do, Mags? No one in their right mind would marry me now.”
“That’s because you’re still married.”
“Besides that. You know what I mean.”
“There is no ’besides that.’ Don’t you think that divorcing the murdering mantis would be a place to start?”
“I thought you were against divorce.”
“I am—in theory. In practice, sometimes it’s the only option. That said, I do think divorce is way overrated. Believe me, dear, it’s not gay marriage that is going to ruin the institution; it’s divorce, and contributing to that, the ease with which one can get married in this country. Consider the fact that one has to be tested in order to get a driver’s license, but not to get a husband license. Believe me, husbands are a lot harder to handle than cars.”
“You’re preaching to the choir, Mags. I agree with everything you say.”
“You do?”
She nodded, flinging clusters of bubbles dangerously near my eyes. “Like I said, I’m a fool. Because of that, I’m ruined.”
There is nothing more heartbreaking than having a worthy opponent capitulate because of a broken heart. I wanted to hug Susannah, but we can barely do that while wearing clothes. I would try to compensate with a platitude.
“Just think of poor Priscilla Livingood. Now, there is a woman who won’t be able to hold her head high in Hernia much longer. She was engaged to the male version of a slut—wait just one ding-dang minute. How come there isn’t a word for the male version of a slut?”
“There’s lothario.”
Frankly, I was surprised Susannah knew the word. “Nope. Lothario doesn’t have the same moral connotation. Now, where was I?”
“You’d just called Cornelius a slut. You must have found out about Thelma Unruh.”
“Huh?”
“I told Thelma she was kidding herself, but you know those Unruhs; they’re more hardheaded than us Yoders.”
Never complain, never explain, a wise woman once said. And really, when it came to push versus shove, what did it really matter how much I knew, versus how much I was about to know? Withholding information isn’t exactly a lie, is it?
“Poor, poor, Thelma,” I said,
“She’s a natural blonde, you know. You’ve got to watch those natural blondes; they’re sharper than you think. It’s the brunettes who dye their hair and try to pass themselves off as blond—they’re the ones missing a few marbles. Like, please, who do they think they’re kidding with those dark roots and sallow complexions? Besides, their boyfriends will find out soon enough, when the cups don’t match the saucers.”
“What does dying one’s hair have to do with dishes?”
My sister rolled her eyes. “The drapes won’t match the rug.”
My brain is dense, not impermeable. “Susannah! How crude.”
“I’m not being crude, merely stating a fact. Anyway, like I said, it’s the natural blondes you have to look out for. Cool as cucumbers, some of them. I told Thelma she was too smart to be messing around with Cornelius, but do you know what she told me?”
“Spit it out!” I said, spitting out soapy water.
“She told me she didn’t care that Cornelius was engaged to Priscilla, because she had a surefire plan to bust them apart. I asked her what, but she wouldn’t say. She said that in the meantime it was kind of
fun to be the other woman and sneak around. So I asked her if she at least cared if what she was doing hurt Priscilla.”
“And?”
“She said that it was Priscilla’s fault, not hers. If Priscilla was too stupid to hang on to her man, she deserved what she got.”
A shiver ran up my warm, sudsy spine. “Who knew Thelma could be so cold?”
“You’ve got to be kidding, Mags. That woman is a conniving skank. I wouldn’t trust her with yesterday’s garbage. Like I said, it’s the natural blonde in her.”
Both Susannah and I missed being blond by a hair. We share the same light brown color that is as close to dark blond as one can get without crossing the line from mousy to dishwater. Just a couple of highlights would put me over the great divide, while robbing me of at least twenty IQ points. Susannah has gone the other way, dying her hair an impossible shade of auburn that has strong purple undertones.
“I didn’t realize you knew Thelma so well,” I said, reaching for a towel. I wrapped it tightly around me as I stood, so that Susannah couldn’t even peek at my birthday suit, had she been so inclined. It’s not that I was ashamed or bashful; I didn’t want her to be envious of the bounteous booty—I mean, beauty—the Good Lord had bestowed upon me—just in case she hadn’t already noticed it.
Susannah didn’t question the towel. “Thelma and I are the same age, Mags. We were in school together, all the way through twelfth grade.”
“I don’t remember that.”
“Jeez, are you losing your memory? She came to practically all my sleepovers.”
That explained it. My poor overtaxed brain has graciously deleted most memories involving childhood inequities. Mama was as high-strung as a two-tailed kite on a windy day, and her first time through raising a child—that would be me—she ruled with an iron fist and a concrete mind. I wasn’t allowed to have any friends visit the house lest they observe some minor imperfection in her housekeeping and report it to their mothers. By the time Susannah came along, Mama had begun a slow trend toward both moderation and modernization, which peaked, wouldn’t you know, after I’d turned twenty-one and was officially no longer her responsibility.
Someday, when I get to heaven, I’m going ask the Good Lord why He picked me to be Mama’s guinea pig. Life is so not fair. Why is it that the odds appear to be stacked against me, and not against ne’er-do-wells like Susannah? That woman breezes through life, swaddled in fifteen feet of filmy fuchsia fabric, with a dog in her bra—her dog! Where was that mangy mutt now that she was naked? It never left her sight. Ever! The cantankerous little rat even piddled in her bosom when she smuggled it into the movies.
“The rat,” I shrieked. “Where’s the rat?” I had a nightmarish vision of having to give mouth-to-mouth to a three-pound dog that is two-thirds sphincter and one-third teeth. What if I blew on the wrong end?
“A rat?” Susannah shrieked as well and jumped up on the toilet lid, which, fortunately, was in the down position.
“Not a rat, your rat. The malicious mongrel that inhabits your Maidenform.”
Susannah jumped down. “His name is Shnookums, and you know perfectly well that he isn’t a mongrel; he’s a purebred Russian toy terrier. And if you must know, he’s up in Johnstown doing his studly thing.”
“His what?”
“I’ve been renting him out for stud service, to generate a little more income—one that I can spend as I please. I told you. You see, you are losing it.”
“People actually pay to have that thing do the terrier tango with their dogs?”
“A thousand dollars a pop, or pick of the pups. I always take the money, because I could never love another dog as much as I do my Shnooky-booky.”
Thank heavens there weren’t any flies hovering over the tub, because I might have inhaled them. “A thousand dollars for that?”
“He has impeccable lines, Mags. Besides, he was third runner-up in Best of Breed last year. His kennel name, by the way, is Volga Mist’s Prince Shnookums.”
I heard her words, and understood their meaning; I just couldn’t comprehend them. “I’m afraid you’ve lost me, dear. Did you say he has a title?”
“Think of it as a beauty contest for dogs, but it’s much more than that. You see, they have a breed standard, to which the dogs have to conform—oh, never mind, you’re not going to get it, so why should I even try to explain?”
“But I am interested. Did you just say Shnookums has a title? Should I have been calling him Your Royal Highness?” Sometimes the Devil just has to insert a bit of sarcasm. I try to fight it, I really do.
“He has lots of show titles, but Prince is just a name I gave him.”
My nose itched, which is always a signal that I’m about to have a moneymaking thought. “Hmm. If an ugly beast—and I mean that kindly—can make a thousand dollars a pop for doing something he likes to do against my leg for free, how much money could one make with a good-looking dog? You know, like a golden retriever or a lab?”
For some strange reason, Susannah was miffed. “I take that back, what I said earlier. You’re not losing it; you’ve never had it.”
“At the risk of sounding proud, may I remind you that I made straight As in college?”
“I’m not talking about intelligence. You have guests coming here from all over the world, but you’re still a country bumpkin, and you’re the greediest woman I’ve ever met.”
I reeled in shock, which is a dangerous thing to do when standing in a soapy bath, especially one with thirty-two powerful jets. “I am most certainly not a country bumpkin!”
“Yes, you are. I bet you didn’t know there was such a thing as a dog show until just now.”
“Of course I did; you’ve mentioned them before. I just didn’t know there were bucks to be made in the barking biz.”
“That’s just like you; all you ever do is think about money! And what for? You have oodles, but you never spend it. You’re the cheapest woman in the universe, you know that? You can pinch a penny till it screams.”
“Not only that, but I once made a nickel beg for mercy.”
“And that’s the other thing you do that drives me up the wall.”
“What? Squeeze my dimes so hard I stunt their growth? I always wondered why they’re the smallest coins.”
“You’re always sarcastic, that’s what. I hate it, I hate, I hate it!” My sister stomped from the room, leaving soggy footprints on my bathroom carpet. I shook my head in shame. When I had the inn restored, after the devastating tornado that flung me facedown into a pile of cow manure, I should have sprung for tile, or at least a good-quality linoleum. Susannah was right; I am cheap. But waste not, want not, right? One must save for the proverbial rainy day—or string of rainy days, given how inaccurate weather forecasts generally are. Besides, what Susannah didn’t know is that I’ve saved up a hefty amount of money for her retirement. She is never, ever, going to be truly in need. Neither is anyone else I love, including my pseudo-stepdaughter.
“You can thank me later,” I hollered after her.
Immediately my words came back to haunt me.
10
Lamb Curry
Ingredients
1 cup yogurt
5 cardamoms (whole)
¼ teaspoon turmeric powder
2–3 teaspoons ginger-garlic paste
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
3–4 medium tomatoes, finely diced
1 teaspoon cumin powder
1–2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 teaspoon coriander powder Salt to taste 1 pound lamb, cleaned and cubed 1 tablespoon oil
2–4 green chilies slit down the middle, but kept intact with stem to make it easier to remove from curry after cooking.
3–4 medium onions, finely sliced
1 teaspoon garam masala
4 bay leaves (whole) 4 cloves (whole)
¼ cup coriander leaves, finely chopped, for garnish (optional)
Yield: 4 servings
Preparation
2. In a heavy-bottomed pan, heat oil over medium-high heat and sauté onions, bay leaves, cloves, and cardamoms till a light golden brown.
3. Add ginger-garlic paste and fry for a few minutes.
4. Add tomatoes, tomato paste, green chilies, and garam masala and mix thoroughly. Add a little warm water now and then if mixture gets too dry or starts to stick.
5. Add marinated lamb mixture. Mix well. Let lamb cook 15 minutes. Add a little warm water. Mix. Cover, lower heat, and cook till tender (approximately 45 minutes) and oil separates.
6. Garnish with coriander leaves. Serve with rice or naan bread, accompanied by a nice salad and raita.
Notes
Work with chilies carefully and wash your hands immediately after. The heat is in the seeds, so you may remove them before using the chilies. Chilies and cayenne pepper may be adjusted to taste and other peppers may be substituted, but sparingly. It may be safer to start with 2, taste along the way, and adjust. The curry will marinate with the green chilies, so remove them from leftovers to prevent further spiciness.
Beef, chicken, or both may be substituted as well.
For a variation, just add cut pieces of eggplant in step 4. If using potatoes, add them to step 5 to avoid ending up with mashed potatoes!
Discard whole spices, that is, cloves, cardamom, and bay leaves, before eating.
In step 5, when adding water, adjust it accordingly: more water if you want a slightly soupy curry to enjoy with rice and bread, or less water to keep it a bit on the dry side. Your choice.