Sugarplums and Scandal

by Dana Cameron

  “The truth’s often more interesting,” Renie remarked.

  “That’s so.” Judith turned down the burner underneath the potatoes, which had started to boil. “Speaking of Mother, I should bring her in here to help. She can cut up the onions. What’s your mother doing today?”

  “Worrying about me—as usual,” Renie replied, “and entertaining her drop-in friends who’ll bring her all sorts of stupid gifts she doesn’t need, not to mention doughy banana bread and ugly refrigerator magnets. She’ll be busy until it’s time to pick her up to come over here.”

  “Aunt Deb loves company,” Judith commented. “I’m going out to get Mother. Keep an eye on those eggs so they don’t boil over.”

  Judith didn’t bother with a jacket to walk the short distance between the back porch and the converted toolshed that served as her mother’s apartment. It was cool and drizzly, a typical December day in the Pacific Northwest. Snow wasn’t in the forecast, although Judith wouldn’t have minded a slight dusting to enhance the season as long as it didn’t impede driving on the city’s steep hills.

  She paused at the bottom of the back steps and then walked far enough to see the length of the driveway along the side of the house. There were several cars parked in the cul-de-sac, probably owned by family and friends of the other neighbors. If Renie had seen someone in the drive, it was probably a stray visitor who was unfamiliar with the area. It could, she reassured herself, even be someone scouting out the B&B for a future stay.

  Judith opened the toolshed door and saw her mother sitting at her usual place behind a cluttered card table. “Want to help cook?” she asked.

  Gertrude didn’t answer. The old lady stared straight ahead, but appeared not to see her daughter.

  “Mother?” Judith asked in sudden alarm. “Mother, what’s wrong?”

  Gertrude was very pale. Her arthritic hands clawed at the card table’s edge. As Judith approached, the old lady swallowed hard and finally spoke. “Nothing,” she said in a voice that was scarcely a whisper.

  “You don’t seem well,” Judith said, putting a hand on her mother’s forehead to check for fever. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  Gertrude grunted and pushed Judith’s hand away. “I have,” she said. “Go away.”

  Judith refused to budge. “Mother, you have to tell me what’s wrong. Are you sick?”

  “No.” Gertrude shook her head. “Just let me be.”

  “I can’t. It’s Christmas Eve. If you’re upset, I’m upset. At least tell me what’s the matter.” Judith quickly scanned the card table and the rest of the small sitting room. Nothing seemed unusual. Except, she noticed, a plaid muffler lying on the arm of the empty easy chair. “Where’d that come from?”

  Gertrude turned to see what Judith was pointing at. “What?”

  “That muffler, that scarf. It’s not yours.”

  Gertrude let out a heavy sigh. “Somebody must have left it.” She began fumbling with the candy wrappers, the jumble puzzles, and the playing cards on the table. “Get my heavy sweater. Your house is cold.”

  “You’re coming?”

  “ ‘Course I’m coming. It’s Christmas Eve.”

  ———

  Judith decided not to press her mother for details. Every so often Gertrude suffered some kind of spell, even a faint. But for her advanced years, she was in good health. Crippled, unable to walk on her own, occasionally forgetful, and a bit deaf, but otherwise the old lady was usually able to cope, despite her protestations to the contrary. She was, as Judith sometimes put it, too ornery to die.

  “Renie’s here,” Judith said, helping Gertrude get ready to go outside in the motorized wheelchair that made life much easier for both mother and daughter. “I found the old farm bell, by the way.”

  “Good,” Gertrude said. “Where was it?”

  “Joe had put it in the wrong box,” Judith said as she let her mother go through the door first. “You know how I hate to go up and down the basement stairs since I’ve had my artificial hip. That means I have to trust Joe to organize everything we store downstairs.”

  “Lunkhead couldn’t organize his clothes,” Gertrude snarled. “It’s a wonder he doesn’t wear his pants on his head.”

  “Now, Mother…” Judith began, but stopped. She was too relieved that Gertrude seemed to have reverted to her usual caustic form.

  Renie greeted her aunt with a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “What’s with you?” Gertrude demanded. “Your bosom glows in the dark.”

  Renie looked down at her sweatshirt. “I’m festive.”

  “You’re festiferous,” Gertrude snapped.

  “That’s not a word, Aunt Gert,” Renie countered.

  “It is, too. I made it up years ago. And it suits you. It means you’re as welcome as a boil.” The old lady revved up her wheelchair and sped past her niece.

  Gertrude began peeling onions; Renie started making salmon pate; Judith mixed the ingredients for artichoke-crab dip. The CD player on the counter played Christmas carols, and Sweetums the cat roamed around the kitchen, apparently hoping for a taste of the seafood. Tempting aromas wafted through the air, Bing Crosby crooned as if it were 1944, and harmony reigned among the three women. Or at least as much harmony as the cousins could expect with Gertrude telling them at five-minute intervals what they were doing wrong.

  “Nobody ate artichokes in my day,” she asserted, glaring at her daughter. “You should have boiled the potatoes with the skins on. Your generation’s too lazy to peel them after they’re cooked. You have to do it the easy way. Serena,” she rasped, eyeing her niece, “why are you putting that salmon in the blender thingamabob? Do it by hand. How can you tell if it’s smooth, if you aren’t mixing it yourself?”

  “I could put my hand in the blender to check,” Renie said.

  Gertrude’s chin jutted. “Do it while it’s still running.”

  By noon, Judith was beginning to feel as if the buffet supper preparations were coming together. She’d almost forgotten about her mother’s unsettling behavior earlier in the day. She had, in fact, forgotten about the unfamiliar muffler left on the easy chair. It was, after all, Christmas Eve.

  ———

  “Let’s take a break,” Judith said. “I’ll make some lunch. What would you like, Mother?”

  “Ham sandwich,” Gertrude replied. “I saw that ham in the refrigerator. Cut me a big slice. White bread. I don’t like that dark stuff with seeds. They get stuck in my dentures.”

  She turned to Renie. “Coz?”

  “Sounds good,” Renie said, “but I like the seven-grain bread. Got any Swiss cheese?”

  “Not yet,” Judith said. “Isn’t Bill buying cheeses at the German deli?”

  “You’re right,” Renie agreed. “I’ll wait. The guys should be back any time.” She gazed at Gertrude, who was taunting the cat with a sliver of Dungeness crab-meat. “Say, how about a hot buttered rum?”

  Judith frowned. “We have to stay focused.”

  Renie looked exasperated. “A mug of hot buttered rum isn’t going to make us tipsy. It’s Christmas.”

  Judith gave in. A little pick-me-up wouldn’t do any harm. “I’ll make the sandwiches, you do the toddies. The batter’s on the second shelf in the fridge.”

  Gertrude finally permitted Sweetums to eat the crab. He showed no sign of gratitude, narrowing his eyes at the old lady, lapping up the crab in a single gulp, and licking his whiskers as if to say, “I am Cat. I win again, Stupid Human.”

  Judith made ham sandwiches for her mother and herself. Renie prepared the hot buttered rum and poured the steaming liquid into coffee mugs decorated with holly decals.

  “Bottoms up,” she said, toasting Gertrude and Judith.

  Gertrude took a swig and coughed. “Ack! This is strong!”

  “No, it’s not,” Renie said. “Honest, Aunt Gert, I’m not trying to get you drunk.”

  “Hunh.” Gertrude gave her niece the evil eye before she took another, slower sip. “It
is tasty, though.”

  Judith sampled her own toddy. “Renie’s right, Mother. I can barely taste the rum in my mug.”

  Gertrude looked skeptical, but kept on sipping.

  “Hey,” Renie said to her aunt, perching on the edge of the kitchen table, “Judith found some of those old family pictures this morning. Want a peek?”

  “What pictures?” Gertrude asked, looking downright suspicious. “The ones of me in my Flapper days? I looked like Joan Crawford, didn’t I? Why didn’t they get her to play me in that dopey movie?”

  “Communication problems,” Renie replied. “Joan was hard to reach. St. Peter’s cell phone battery went out.”

  “Your battery went out a long time ago, nitwit.” Gertrude took another swig of her drink. “Still, I like what your bosom says, joe no. Sounds good to me.” She chuckled richly at her own skewed humor.

  “Mother…” Judith sighed. She didn’t want to get into an argument, not on Christmas Eve.

  Renie hopped off of the table and went over to the carton to get the photographs. She handed the 1941 picture to Gertrude first. “Remember this?”

  The old lady’s wrinkled face softened. “Oh, yes. Yes, I sure do. See? Don’t I look like Joan Crawford?”

  “Remarkable,” Renie murmured.

  “It’s your mouth,” Judith put in. “And the hair style.” In fact, Gertrude had resembled the late film star in both of their primes.

  “Look at your father,” Gertrude said to Judith. “Isn’t he handsome? He never did have much hair, though. And what’s Cliff doing to Vance? It looks like he’s pulling bugs out of her hair.”

  Renie’s father was turned slightly away from the camera, plucking at Auntie Vance’s curly blond bob. “I think,” Renie said, “knowing my dad, he was probably trying to get a rise out of her. Dad enjoyed teasing his sisters-in-law, especially Auntie Vance because she always gave as good as she got.”

  “We had fun,” Gertrude declared. “We always had a good time.” She shuddered slightly. “Look at Al and Corky and Ellen’s hubby, Win. We didn’t know then if they’d ever come back from the war in one piece. Or at all. Scary times. Those boys really were the greatest generation.”

  After refilling Gertrude’s mug, Renie slid the older photo onto Gertrude’s lap. “How about this one?”

  Opening the folder, Gertrude frowned. “My folks,” she said softly. “I haven’t seen this in years.” With a hand that shook a little, she sipped more rum toddy. “Oh, my!”

  Judith tried to catch Renie’s eye and give her cousin a warning to back off. Renie ignored her. “Good-looking people,” she said. “I’m sorry I never knew any of them—except you.”

  “Don’t be,” Gertrude snapped. She ran her hand over the picture as if she could feel her family’s presence in the room. “Oh, they were all right. Nobody’s perfect.” She bent her head closer to the photo. “They look fuzzy. Where’s my magnifier?”

  With a distrustful glance at Renie, Judith picked up her mother’s mug and took a small taste. “My,” she said pointedly to her cousin, “Mother’s drink seems to be unusually powerful.”

  Renie feigned innocence. “Oh?”

  Gertrude looked up. “What’re you talking about?”

  Judith switched her mug for her mother’s. “I think I have the wrong drink,” she said. “Let’s get back to work. You still have to make the liver pate, coz.”

  “Hold on,” Renie said, with a scowl for Judith. “Tell me about your family, Aunt Gert. What happened to all those handsome brothers?”

  “They croaked,” Gertrude replied, closing the folder. “So did my sister, the Canadian turncoat.”

  “You seem to be the youngest,” Renie noted. “Did those handsome big brothers spoil their baby sister?”

  “Coz!” Judith barked, waving a cooking fork at Renie. “Knock it off! We’ve got tasks to do.”

  Renie, however, was looking mulish, a not uncommon expression for a woman who would rather get her own way than win the lottery. “Shut up,” she snapped. “Where’s your famous curiosity?”

  “This isn’t the time for it,” Judith shot back. “It’s after one o’clock. Our husbands are here with the rest of the food.”

  Joe and Bill trooped in through the back door, each carrying several large white paper bags and singing “O Tannenbaum” in very bad German.

  Judith noticed that Gertrude’s expression showed a rare sense of relief at seeing her son-in-law and her nephew by marriage. “Hullo, boys,” she said, raising the mug that Judith had been using. “Have a tooty. I mean, toddy.”

  Joe shot Gertrude a wary glance; Bill made a noise that sounded like “Brmph.” The two men set all their purchases on the counter and left the kitchen via the backstairs.

  “I bet they’re going to the family quarters to watch football,” Renie murmured, “or basketball. Even hockey, if they can avoid being asked to do anything else today.”

  Judith shrugged. “It’s better if they’re not in the way.” She glanced at Gertrude, who was humming “Adestes Fideles” in an off-key accompaniment to Frank Sinatra. The old lady had tears running down her cheeks.

  “Mother,” Judith said, “what’s wrong now?”

  “I miss your father,” Gertrude said softly. “I miss my folks. I miss everybody.”

  “Oh, Mother!” Judith put her arm around Gertrude’s sloping shoulders. “Of course you do! Christmas can be a sad as well as a joyous time. We all have memories of lost loved ones.”

  “Not like mine,” Gertrude declared, trying to wipe away the tears.

  “You mean your brothers and your sister moving away?” Judith said. “Renie and Bill’s kids live far from here. They’re lucky if they see them once or twice a year.”

  “It’s not the same,” Gertrude asserted.

  “That’s true,” Renie put in. “There’s e-mail and phone calls and even cameras on the computer that can…”

  Gertrude emphatically shook her head. “I’m not talking about modern doodads.” She sniffled and cleared her throat. “I mean the ones who just… go.”

  Judith studied her mother’s face. Gertrude was a little glassy-eyed. Perhaps the heavy dose of rum had made her maudlin.

  Judith pulled a chair up beside her mother and sat down. “I’m not sure what you mean. Go where? To heaven?”

  “Hell’s more like it,” Gertrude muttered, her tears no longer falling. She looked angry—and then bewildered. “No—I don’t mean that.”

  Gertrude looked not at Judith but at Renie. “You’re the one asking all the questions. It’s usually my dopey daughter who has to find out everything. Some sleuth! She doesn’t even know a criminal when he’s staring her in the face.”

  “Hey, Aunt Gert,” Renie began. “I didn’t intend to upset—”

  “Be quiet!” Gertrude snarled. Calmly, she folded her hands in her lap. “It’s time to tell you anyway,” she went on, looking at Judith, who had edged away in the chair. “I don’t think it’s smart to take this kind of stuff to the grave.”

  Judith started to protest. “Mother—”

  “You, too,” Gertrude rasped. “Keep your trap closed! And listen.”

  Judith leaned forward in her chair; Renie hopped back on the table. Neither spoke, but waited for the older woman to continue.

  “My folks were good people, but strict,” Gertrude began. “Papa and Mama were born in Germany. We all were. But Papa came to this country first, to take a job on his cousin’s apple orchard east of the mountains. He sent for us a year later. I was just a baby.”

  Judith nodded. She knew this part of the story.

  “Cousin Josef—Joe, they called him.” Gertrude grimaced at the name. “I remember him—he wasn’t a bit like Lunkhead, despite the name. He knew how to make money, and the orchard was a big success.”

  Judith wanted to interrupt and defend her husband, who, unlike his predecessor, Dan, was a good provider. But she thought it best not to derail her mother.

  “Papa didn’t lik
e the weather on the other side of the mountains,” Gertrude said, looking straight ahead in the direction of the kitchen cabinets. “Too cold in the winter, too hot in the summer. When I was four, he moved us all over the mountain pass where we settled on a farm he bought with his savings. It wasn’t an orchard—a couple of apple and cherry trees. But we had chickens and cows and a swaybacked horse and a big vegetable garden, enough food to feed ourselves, but Papa had to take a job in one of the mills a few miles down the road.” She paused to sip from her toddy. “The horse’s name was George, and that animal was the cause of it all, I’m sure of that.” Gertrude nodded twice. “George was an ornery critter. Stubborn as any mule—Mama always said George was part mule, but he wasn’t. Anyway, he kicked Bart in the head one day. My brother was never the same after that. He got ornery and moody. He didn’t want to live on the farm any more. A year or so later—he was twenty-five—he went off to the city to find a job. He got on with the city clerk’s office and fell in love with a girl who was engaged to one of the city attorneys.”

  Gertrude seemed to be running out of breath. She took a wrinkled handkerchief out of her housecoat pocket and blew her nose.

  “Can I get you anything, Mother?” Judith asked.

  Gertrude shook her head. “Let me finish. Bart was crazy about her, and maybe she led him on, I don’t know. Anyway, he thought she liked him and intended to break off her engagement. The problem was, and this is what I figured out years later, being too young at the time to know what goes on in people’s heads—that the girl was one of those softhearted, or softheaded, people who can never hurt anybody’s feelings, even when it’s the thing to do. I’ve never had that problem.”

  “Very true,” Judith put in, aware that her artificial hip was beginning to ache. She was past due for her six-hour dose of Percocet, but didn’t want to distract her mother. “You always are… direct.”

  “Honesty’s the best policy,” Gertrude declared. “So this girl—I don’t remember her name, don’t want to, really—told Bart that her fiancé was the jealous type and if he ever caught her even talking to another fellow, he’d do something awful, so she’d have to stop seeing Bart even on a casual basis. My brother was heartbroken. The next morning, he left the rooming house where he lived up the hill from city hall and came downtown. He waited in a doorway, and when this attorney fellow got off the streetcar, Bart shot and killed him.”