Butter Safe Than Sorry

by Tamar Myers

  Agnes was aghast. “They have names?”

  “Don’t yours?”

  “Of course not! Magdalena, do your whatchamacallits have names?”

  “They’re called breasts,” Dorothy hissed.

  Although Agnes was my very best friend in the entire world, I wasn’t about to squeal on Esmeralda and Hermione—and certainly not with Dorothy and Amy listening. Besides, an idea had been forming in my little pumpkin brain that could be beneficial to both Amy and me. To everyone in my family as a matter of fact. And not only that—and this is not a Christian attitude, and I have since repented of it—what I was about to propose would really stick it to Pernicious Yoder III.

  “Ladies,” I said, clapping my hands, “this is no time for girl talk.” I turned to Amy with a smile that stretched painfully from ear to ear. “Whatever he’s paying you, I’ll double it.”

  The lass recoiled as if I were the Devil. “What did you say?”

  “I said that I’ll double your pay—whatever it is.”

  “Do you want me to work for you?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact, I do. Running an inn involves a great deal of bookkeeping and accounting, as well as greeting customers, and frankly, I don’t have the time to do either anymore.” I swallowed a tablespoon of annoyance before continuing. “With your bubbly personality and keen mind, I see you as a great fit.”

  “Really?” Amy said.

  “I think I’m going to puke,” Dorothy said.

  “It couldn’t have been the crumpets,” Agnes said. “But just so you know, Dorothy, I have a good lawyer.”

  I ignored the ignoramus asides. “Really,” I said. “You’ll be making twice the money; think about it.”

  “Yes, but he offered me a promotion—with a new title: Chief Assistant Clerk in Training. Do you know how long I’ve been waiting for that title?”

  “Far too long, I’m sure. I tell you what: I was originally going to hire you as Chief Front Desk Manager in Training, but I am going to give you an instant, on the spot, promotion to Front Desk Supervisor.”

  “But that’s a shorter title.”

  “Exactly. The shorter the title, the higher the position. Think about it—Vice President Biden, but President Obama. In no time at all you’ll be working your way up to plain old just supervisor.”

  “I’d take the deal if I were you,” Dorothy said. “Magdalena’s husband is a hunk—and then some. Maybe you’ll get lucky.”

  “Ooh,” Agnes squealed, “pop her one.”

  “Okay, I’ll do it,” Amy said. “But what exactly is it that you want from me?”

  I took off my shoes as well as my coat. “Make me a cup of hot cocoa, dear. And don’t forget to float lots of those miniature marshmallows on it—oh, and I’d like some ladyfingers to go with it. You know, for dunking.”

  “Some what?”

  “Ladyfingers. They’re a kind of cookie.”

  “I’ve never heard of them. But I have some windmill cookies with almond slivers in them. And I might still have some gingersnaps.”

  “Bring them both, dear. After all, I’m one of those folks with a one-word title.”

  “Which is?”

  “Boss.”

  “ ‘Bossy’ is more like it,” someone said, but I ignored whoever it was. With hot cocoa and two kinds of cookies in my near future, I could afford to be generous.

  14

  Amy was adamant about having never seen any of the bank robbers before. She said that about a quarter of her customers were Amish, most of them men. All told, she said, she knew the names and faces of at least eighty percent of the people she dealt with, because they were repeat customers. First Farmer’s Bank was a workingman’s institution, where laborers came to store their hard-earned money in lieu of tucking it in the mattress. It didn’t offer fancy services, and it had no gimmicks.

  When I grilled her about the way Pernicious reacted to the attempted robbery, Amy got green in the face, and for a moment, it looked like she was going to lose the two gingersnaps and one windmill cookie she’d eaten. Wisely, I held my plate well away and aloft.

  “I can’t ascribe motives to someone else’s behavior,” she snapped.

  “Of course you can, dear. Why, just now I’d say you’re trying to cover something up.”

  “I bet she’s having an affair,” Dorothy mumbled.

  Agnes gasped. “Is that true? I swear, there’s more hankypanky going on in this world than I ever dreamed of.”

  “Why don’t you two take a walk?” I said. “You know what they say about a watched pot and all that.”

  “She’s not a pot,” Agnes pouted.

  “Of course not,” I said, “but the same principle applies to weenies.”

  “Weenies?”

  “Grilled weenies,” I growled. “Now am-scray, the two of you!” I could see the light click on in her head. “All right,” she said, “but you don’t have to be rude about it.”

  “Magdalena’s nuts,” Dorothy said, but I chose not to take offense. After all, it wasn’t every day that a genuine harlot called me names.

  “Now where were we?” I said when we were alone. “Oh, yes, did Pernicious threaten you in any way?”

  “Miss Yoder, are you related to him? I mean, you know, yinz have the same last name.”

  “Yinz? Amy, you’re originally from Pittsburgh?”

  “Yeah, I moved to Bedford when I was twelve.”

  “I see. To answer your question, virtually all Yoders in North America are descended from a pair of brothers who emigrated from Switzerland almost three hundred years ago. But since both our forebears settled in Pennsylvania, we are more closely related to one another than to those Yoders living in other parts of the country.”

  “Uh-huh. Well, it wasn’t Mr. Yoder who threatened me.”

  “Was it the clueless guard?”

  When she shook her head, her mousy brown hair parted in greasy clumps. “No. It was some guy on the phone—a foreigner, I think.”

  “You mean like Al Qaeda?”

  “No, more like Al Canadian.”

  It was then that I realized that Amy, as sweet as she was, did not genetically descend from Alfred Einstein. “What? You mean, French?”

  “I don’t know—it was different, that’s all. Anyway, he wanted to speak to Mr. Yoder, so I put him through. He called three times after that, and each time he asked for Mr. Yoder’s direct number, but I refused to give it out, on account of Mr. Yoder says I’m not supposed to. Even if God calls and asks for it, he says I’m supposed to make Him wait a few minutes and then put Him through. But never to give out that number. Ever.”

  “Why, that’s just plain sacrilegious, not to mention the fact that Mr. Yoder could well be imperiling your soul. I mean, what if the Lord did call, and you put Him on hold? Think what would happen if He turned the tables on you. Let’s say that you’re taking off from Pittsburgh airport, headed for Charlotte, when your plane gets hit by a flock of geese. So you pray for deliverance, but God says, ‘Just a minute, Amy,’ so when your plane goes down, it doesn’t come in for a textbook landing on top of the mighty Ohio River. It plows up mud on the bottom, and all this because you put the Good Lord on hold.”

  “Holy crap, Miss Yoder, I hadn’t thought of that!”

  “That’s no reason to swear, dear. It’s just something to think about. Like wearing underwear at all times.”

  She chuckled knowingly. “Yeah, in case I get hit by a car.”

  “No, in case of the rapture. When you’re floating up to Heaven, you don’t want the people left behind getting some final thrills they don’t deserve, do you? And of course this underwear rule applies doubly to men. I mean all that business swinging free in the breeze—what if they hit a tree branch? No, a rupture during the rapture must surely be avoided.”

  “Miss Yoder, you’re awful!”

  “Just practical, dear. Think how embarrassed that Spears woman would have been.”

  “Somehow I don’t think so—I me
an I think she intended for people to get a peek. Anyway, are you going to let me finish?”

  “Go for it!” I cried.

  “Miss Yoder, you’re weird.” The greasy locks got another workout. “As I was about to say, the fourth time that foreigner called—after he spoke to Mr. Yoder—he starts lecturing me, telling me my phone manners aren’t what they should be. Then he tells me that it was my fault that I got shot in the robbery attempt. My fault! Can you imagine that?”

  “I can, but only because I’ve met some folks in my time who are even weirder than I.” Really, the nerve of that whippersnapper calling me weird, and here I always thought she was such a pleasant young woman.

  “Hey, you’re not the one who should be bent out of shape. I was just doing my job when those three men came in and pulled out their guns. But that’s not the whole thing!” She paused to glance out the window. “You see, this guy on the phone said that I wasn’t allowed to say one more word about what happened that day to anyone—or else.”

  “Or else what?”

  “You know.” She made a slicing motion across her soft white throat.

  “He said that?”

  “Well, maybe not in so many words, but isn’t that what ‘or else’ means?”

  I thought back to when Mama used to threaten me with those very same words. Would she have sliced my scrawny tanned throat for not picking up my woolen stockings, or for sticking the hanger through only one side of my dress, or for leaving a soap ring around the edge of the tub, or for answering her nervous calls as slow as a “drugged seven-year itch”? Somehow I don’t think so. However, she would have—and did—warm my bottom with a willow switch or, if one of those wasn’t handy, the palm of her hand.

  “What did you say in response?” I asked.

  “I hung up. Then I went to see Mr. Yoder, only he said I should stop making things up—if I wanted to keep my job.”

  “Now that sounds like an ‘or else’ to me.”

  “Huh?”

  “Go on, dear.”

  “Well, there isn’t much more to tell, because I kept my mouth shut. Even when the police came a third and a fourth time, I just kept giving them the same old answers, even if that did make them kind of pissed—Oops. Sorry, Miss Yoder.”

  I scowled obligingly. “Just don’t let it happen again. Foul language is indicative of either a foul brain or poor dental hygiene. Either way, it is not to be tolerated.”

  “Forgive me, Miss Yoder, but you’re such a prude.”

  “And you’re such a disappointment, dear. You’re not at all like the sweet young thing that used to work behind the counter at First Farmer’s.”

  “I guess a bullet wound to the arm will do that—make one rough around the edges, I mean. Or maybe this is the real me. Anyway, you seem to be missing the point.”

  I sighed, before slapping my own mouth. I did it gently, of course. She was quite right on that score. It wasn’t the first time that my priggish, obsessive-compulsive need for civilized discourse had led me down meandering paths of judgmental verbiage.

  “Please elaborate, dear. Nary a word shall pass these shriveled lips till thou hast completed thy elucidation.”

  “Huh?”

  “I’ll keep my mouth shut and let you talk.”

  “Yeah, okay. Well, all I’m saying is that Mr. Yoder knows something about the bank robbers that he’s not saying, which is funny, on account of he didn’t see them except for on the surveillance tape. And someone is threatening him if he goes to the police, and now I’m starting to feel the same kind of pressure. So you know what? I accept your offer, Miss Yoder—only you gotta give me medical insurance too.”

  “If you stop saying ‘gotta.’ I run a high-end business.”

  “Whatever. And I want a uniform.”

  Now that was a pleasant surprise. Who would have thought? I hadn’t bothered to suggest it, being positive that she’d reject the whole idea as being too controlling.

  “What a great idea, dear. Of course, we wouldn’t want you to dress like a traditional Amish woman, but in something simple and modern—like a waitress uniform.”

  “Why not as an Amish woman?”

  I smiled wickedly. “Well, our local Amish are amongst the most conservative in the world. Their clothes are all handmade and take hours upon hours to complete. Why, the bonnets are masterpieces, with hundreds of little pleats that require thousands of stitches. Of course, you’d be a huge hit with the guests in that getup, but I could never ask you to dress in something so quaint.”

  “I’ll do it.”

  “Mmm—I don’t know. I’d have to locate an Amish seamstress who would be willing to sew an outfit for the English—that’s what they call us—and it won’t be easy. And of course, you’ll need two so that you can launder one and still wear the other. That could cost a pretty penny because some of these Amish have really wised up to the ways of the world when it comes to commerce.”

  “Please let me do it, Miss Yoder. You can take the uniforms out of my salary. Please.”

  “Oh, all right. Why not? But you have to wear the clunky shoes too, and no complaining when the weather gets hot. A good Amish woman is all about yielding to authority. And that rule applies to fake Amish women as well.”

  “You’ve got yourself a deal!” Amy cried happily, and would have thrown herself into my arms, had I not even more quickly placed my arms across my bounteous bosom. Five hundred years of inbreeding has rendered me incapable of both giving and receiving hugs without putting a great deal of thought and effort into them. Above all, hugs must be accompanied by a good deal of backslapping, lest they degenerate into dancing.

  “Yes, a deal,” I said. I also had an idea. At that point it was just the kernel of a theory, a seed barely sprouted in the rich furrows of my brain. As there were numerous things germinating, and thriving, in there, including a number of weeds, I wasn’t about to get too excited about this one, but still—a cotyledon was better than nothing. “I’ll get started on finding a seamstress first thing tomorrow morning,” I said.

  Freni Hostetler, my dear friend and much convoluted (our family tree, not her) kinswoman, is not a morning person. Neither is she particularly an afternoon, evening, or night person. One can usually tell by the way she bangs my pots and pans around if she has had a good night, or perhaps rolled off the side of her bed.

  That morning the din in the kitchen sounded like a pitched battle between the ancient Greeks and the Romans, both sides wearing full body armor. If we had been alone, I might have been tempted to ignore the clanking and clanging out of much-deserved spite—for a few minutes at least. After all, my husband, who hails from Manhattan, can sleep through anything, and I mean that literally. Last summer he slept through a thunderstorm so bodacious it woke the dead in three surrounding counties and rattled fillings loose in the teeth of dozens of Herniaites—as we refer to ourselves.

  But guests who are paying through the nose expect the luxury of sleeping in a little bit, just as long as those same guests haven’t signed up for milking duties. A full udder, just like a full bladder, can be a painful thing, and emptying it cannot be put off. Knowing, as I did, that not everyone had volunteered to rise with the cows, I scurried into the kitchen to try to calm the storm.

  “Freni,” I managed to hiss without a single “S,” in the tradition of many established novelists. Of course, she didn’t hear me, so I shouted through cupped hands, “Freni!”

  Two pot lids froze in midair and the stout woman turned slowly. “So, finally, the beauty sleep is over?”

  “Yes. At six thirty, I’m as beautiful as I’ll ever need to be. How about you?”

  “Ach, we Amish don’t care about such things; you know that.”

  “That’s true. But you obviously care a great deal about something else at the moment. What is it?”

  Freni stared at me through lenses as thick as the bottoms of the old nickel Coke bottles. “That woman, she drives me up the walls, yah?”

  “Several
walls simultaneously?”

  I could feel her stare intensify. “Always the riddles, Magdalena.”

  “That woman,” I said, “is your dear, sweet daughter- in-law, Barbara. And the only reason you don’t like her is that she’s from Iowa—and she’s married to your son, Jonathan.”

  “And she is too tall, yah?”

  “Too tall for what? In September you had her picking apples from the top of your tree, and she didn’t even have to use a ladder.”

  “Yah, and she cleans good the dust from the top of my cupboard.”

  “You see, she’s indispensable. Not to mention that she gave birth to your three grandbabies, whom you absolutely adore, and two of whom take after their mother.”

  “Yah, maybe they will be too tall as well.”

  “Freni, count your blessings. You know how much Barbara misses her family in Iowa, and your precious Jonathan would do anything to please her. I think you’re fortunate that she hasn’t picked up stakes and heeded the words of Horace Greeley.”

  Despite the smudges of grease and flour on her lenses, I could tell that Freni was blinking. “What words?”

  “Just silly unimportant words.” It was time to change the subject. “Freni, do you know any Amish women who could sew a complete traditional outfit for me?”

  She blinked again, but then like a faulty headlamp that had finally started to function, her face was transformed into a circle of beaming light. “You are the daughter I never had, yah? But still, you want to be Amish! For once I do not know what to say.”

  “Oh Freni, alas, ’tis true. I am not the lass of thy loins—would that I were—but thou must not misconstrue my motives for acquiring the aforementioned garment.”

  “And now more riddles.”

  “No riddles. I just want to know the name of a good seamstress. You see, I’ve hired a girl for the front desk, and I want to get her a nice authentic Amish outfit.”

  Poof! The glowing orb of light was extinguished, and it was all my fault—except that it wasn’t; Freni should know that I will never become an Amish woman. Amish women don’t shave their legs, or under their arms, or their mustaches—not that I need to do that quite yet. And they certainly don’t drive cars, and they have to be subservient to their husbands, which, of course, any good Christian wife should be, just not to that degree, and they don’t get to have air-conditioning, which surely ranks among one of God’s greatest gifts—