by Tamar Myers
“Magdalena! Are you out there?”
“What?”
“You are out in the spaces of your mind, yah?”
“I’m fine. Just prone to daydreaming—as is my wont.”
Freni nodded, which is quite a feat, given that she has no neck. “You have always many such dreams. Now tell me about this girl. Is she a good Christian?”
I was taken aback. That was one thing I had failed to ask. Ding dang, where were my standards these days? On the other hand, ever since I’d said “I do” to an upstanding Jewish man, I felt uneasy about inquiring about other folks’ religious affiliations before agreeing to do business with them. Such inquiries—very discreet, of course—were still common amongst my acquaintances. There was even a Christian business phone book of sorts that I had seen in circulation, although I personally refused to consult it.
After all, if given the choice—and this still a free country—who in Hernia wouldn’t prefer to buy their shoes or plumbing supplies from a good Christian than from a nonbeliever? And just to set the record straight, our good folk were not just discriminating against Jews, Muslims, and Hindus, but anyone who was not “born again”—i.e., the Roman Catholics and Episcopalians.
I cringed dramatically. “Oops. I’m sorry, Freni, but Amy is a heathen.”
“Ach!” She dropped both pot lids as she threw her pudgy hands up to shield her face from impending evil. Then on second thought, she abruptly dropped them. “You are joking. Yah?”
“Oh no, I’m quite serious. This woman’s a card-carrying member of PAPA—Pagan American Princess Association.”
Freni gasped. “Get behind me, Satan!”
“Speaking of whom,” I said casually, “I was thinking of opening a snack bar in the lobby that Amy could run. We could stock it with Devil’s food cupcakes, deviled eggs—”
Freni was beside herself, which made for a crowded space in front of the stove. “Then I quit!”
It was oops for real this time; I hadn’t seen this one coming. Freni has quit a grand total of 187 times. Thank heavens the last time I hired her back, I made her sign a contract stating that she would give me two weeks’ notice and put me in touch with at least three other Amish women who could benefit from earning a little extra pocket money. Since Freni—and she does so with the greatest of humility, not to mention justification—considers herself to be the best cook between the Allegheny and the Delaware rivers, it didn’t seem likely that she would have ever been able to name a replacement.
“Then quit, dear,” I said calmly. “I’ll mark the date on the calendar.”
She tore at her apron. “I quit now.”
“You can’t! Remember?”
“So I signed this paper—but this was before you invited this heathen woman.”
“Besides, dear, I was indeed just joking; I have no idea what Amy believes. For all I know she’s a Holy Roller or even a Southern Baptist who believes that you’re not going to Heaven because you haven’t been dunked.”
“Ach! This is so?”
“Well, I don’t know about Baptists for sure, but there are some denominations who do believe that. At any rate, you’re not quitting, so don’t get your bloomers in a bunch.”
Freni looked like the proverbial sheep that had been asked an algebra question. “My bloomers?”
“Your panties—your underwear. Freni, you still wear them, don’t you?” Freni’s particular subset of Amish is amongst the most conservative there are, and they do not wear the type of undergarments that we are generally familiar with. Instead, the women wear a heavy muslin underslip and the men don loose-fitting muslin underpants that reach to the knees. It took me many moons to talk Freni into wearing a brassiere and white cotton briefs by Hanes Her Way.
“Ach, I cannot believe—Magdalena, you are so—ach!” Freni flushed as she furiously tried to flail past me. Forsooth, given her fervor, it appeared that I was finished. Fortunately for me alliteration was not her forte, so that finally when she ceased to flounder, her speech was neither flowery nor foul.
“You make me so mad sometimes, I must spit cotton! Always the jokes, Magdalena. Always the teasing. This time I have had enough; this time I will not recommend to you the name of Mary Berkey.”
“But you just did,” I said gently, before clapping a hand over my big mouth.
15
Lemongrass Snowballs
Ingredients
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
½ cup confectioners’ sugar
1 teaspoon lemon extract or lemon baking oil
2 cups all-purpose flour
⅔ cup unsweetened coconut, fine or medium shred
2½ tablespoons lemongrass puree or 1 tablespoon lemongrass powder2
2 cups (12-ounce package) white chocolate chips, chopped and divided
Additional coconut and lemongrass powder for decoration (optional)
Cooking Directions
Preheat oven to 350°F. Beat butter and sugar with an electric mixer until creamy. Add lemon oil or extract. Gradually beat in flour, coconut and lemongrass. Stir in 1½ cups white chocolate chips. Shape dough into 1-inch balls and place ½ inch apart on parchment-lined baking sheets. Bake on middle rack until cookies are set and light golden brown on bottom, 10 to 12 minutes.
Cool on baking sheets 2 minutes; remove to cooling racks to cool completely. Microwave remaining white chocolate chips in heavy-duty plastic bag, kneading at 10- to 15-second intervals, until totally melted and smooth. Cut a tiny corner from bag; squeeze to drizzle over cookies. Sprinkle with additional coconut and lemongrass powder, if desired. Refrigerate cookies for about 5 minutes or until chocolate is set. Store cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 1 week.
Courtesy http://www.eatwisconsincheese.com/
16
Was I ashamed of myself for having played a joke on a seventy-six-year-old woman? Maybe just a little. Was I sorry for lying? No, because I hadn’t lied; telling a fib within the confines of a joke is not lying, and I should know, because I do it all the time. Now where was I? Oh yes, the breakfast Freni had been working on was utterly ruined by her sudden departure, and I was forced to feed seven hungry, and somewhat grouchy, guests cornflakes and home-canned peaches.
“What’s this?” Carl demanded, his visage as stern as ever.
“A bowl of peaches, dear. Take a couple, put them on your cornflakes, and then pass them around.”
“Why would I want to do that? They look like dog crap.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You heard me, Miss Yoder. The brochure said that we would get a full farmer’s breakfast—eggs, meat, potatoes, pancakes, toast. These aren’t even peaches; they’re brown balls of crap.”
“It was a bad year for canning, I’ll admit, and they might have been cooked a trifle long. Still, they are quite edible, so you will take at least one and then hush up about it.”
Everyone in the room froze in shocked silence, most especially my beloved husband, Gabe. No doubt he thought it was that time of the month for me: time to give me wide berth, most especially if he entertained any hope of bedding yours truly in the near, or even the distant, future. Of course that was a lot of bunk, given that I am really a pussycat and not given to holding grudges, no matter how well deserved.
Since the clanking of cheap stainless-steel spoons was the only sound to be heard for an unnervingly long period of time, it behooved me to otherwise finally break the silence.
“Tiny, be a dear and pass that plate of delightfully brown toast around.”
I possess extraordinary peripheral vision, and I could see Surimanda Baikal’s torso stiffen. “Forgive me, Miss Yoder, but this brown is the color of your hair, dah? This toast, she is the color of my hair—like coal.”
George Nyle and Peewee Timms, cowards both, chortled under their respective breaths.
“How very rude,” I huffed. “You try using an institutional-size toaster that’s on its last legs. Even on the medium-high setti
ng, nothing seems to happen, but then, when you slide the gizmo up just a hair, suddenly you’ve got hellfire and brimstone.”
Surimanda Baikal looked like President Number 43 after he’d been asked an algebra question. “What is this gizmo and brimstone?”
I am better at complaining than explaining; besides I didn’t have time for a language lesson just then. This, not impatience, is why I steered the conversation in an entirely new direction.
“One of my errands this morning takes me to visit a traditional Amish woman—one who has remained virtually untouched by tourism and the modern world. After all, we are a tiny, somewhat isolated community, not at all like Lancaster. Would any of you be interested in accompanying me?”
Surimanda Baikal immediately raised her petite aristocratic hand, but the other six guests traded looks as if their glances were hot potatoes and the guests were playing a party game. Frankly this really annoyed me. It hadn’t been easy to make this offer. Mary Berkey was more than likely to be skittish if I brought any English with me, and besides, not a single one of these guests was likely to add joy to my day.
I decided to pare my offer down. It had been too generous to start with, and as we all know, universal availability breeds contempt. Diamonds are coveted because the diamond industry conspires to have us believe that they are rare; the truth is, however, that these stones, which are controlled by a cartel, fill up warehouse after warehouse, and are purposely released in a trickle to the retail market.
“I’ve changed my mind,” I said. “I’m only going to take two of you. Miss Baikal, you get to come along. The rest of you nominate one person who you think is the most deserving of this honor, and he or she should meet me at the front desk in exactly one hour. Oh, by the way, has everybody met Amy, my new receptionist?”
The subsequent buzz sounded as if a hornet’s nest had been knocked loose from my barn rafters and thrown in the middle of the dining room table. It was clear to me that no one gave a hoot about Amy; all the chatter had to do with the selection of the unlucky victim.
“I met Amy,” Gabe offered gallantly. He was sitting at the other end of the table, spooning sugar on our son’s cornflakes. “I think she’ll work out nicely.”
“Her mother’s hideous,” I lied. “Look at the mother to see how the daughter will age; isn’t that what they say?”
“Hon, you know I only have eyes for you. Besides, she’s far too young for me. I would only ever consider a mature woman who knows her own mind.”
My extraordinary peripheral vision gave me a glimpse of Olivia Zambezi hiking her bosom heavenward with one hand, while patting some stray hairs back into her gray coiffure with the other. How does that old saying go: hope springs eternal in even the most sagging of breasts? Well, something like that.
“Here’s to my mind, dear,” I said, speaking to the coffeepot in front of me. But Olivia’s unseemly, not to mention pathetic, attempt to appear comely in Gabe’s eyes had reminded me of the puzzle involving the transport of a goat, a wolf, and a head of cabbage. The trick is to get them all across the river in a small boat, one at a time, before the wolf can eat the goat, and the goat can eat the cabbage. Using this paradigm the three wives present at the table all represented wolves, the tiny blond one with the not so tiny assets stood the best chance of being the most successful predator: Gabe had a “thing” for blondes, natural or bottle.
“Tiny, dear, I pick you to come along on this morning’s exciting excursion.”
“Oh, thank you, Miss Yoder,” she trilled in her tiny voice.
“Meanwhile, what am I supposed to do?” Peewee whined.
“Why, read a book, dear. Take a long walk. There’s a wooded trail through a boulder-studded glen just across the road. Or drive into town and check Yoder’s Corner Market. In the so-called produce section, you’ll find a head of lettuce that bears my initials. They were carved into the stem three years ago.”
“Piffle,” Peewee puffed dismissively.
“She isn’t kidding,” Gabe said. “But you’d have more fun at Miller’s feed store or watching the blacksmith shoe the Amish horses.”
“That really still goes on?” Barbie asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “We permit only well-dressed horses in Hernia. In fact, the farrier ’s name is Jimmy, so the horses all wear Jimmy’s shoes.”
The women groaned in unison, whereas the men looked as if they’d been asked to name the three countries which compose North America.
“Hey,” Gabe said, “now that we have someone to watch the desk, why don’t I take you on a tour of the area?”
“And what about our son?” I asked archly.
“What about him?” Gabe said. “What were you planning to do with him?”
Caught between a rock and a hard place, I chose to lean on the rock. After all, diamonds, sapphires, rubies—they’re all rocks.
“Why, he’s coming with me, of course. I was checking to see if you’d thought of him.”
“I want to go with my papa,” Little Jacob said.
“But your mama is so much fun,” I cooed.
“Yes, but Papa lets me do things.”
I gave everyone at the table a stern look; in other words, my glare informed them, unequivocally, that they were to stop listening to what was essentially family business. “What things?” I said.
“He buys me ice cream.”
“What else?”
“And candy.”
“Uh-huh. What else does he do?”
“He lets me put my arm out the window.”
“What?”
“Just his hand,” Gabe said. “Every little boy needs to feel the breeze on his hand.”
“Tell that to Kurt Zimmerman—or One-Armed Kurt, as the kids used to call him at school.”
Gabe recoiled. “Is that how he lost his arm?”
“Lost it to the side of a farm truck on Yutzy Road.”
Our guests gasped.
“Well that settles it,” I said. “This morning our son rides with me.”
Mary Berkey has been a single mother for the past half dozen years, ever since the day her husband suddenly disappeared, leaving her with six children under seven. One minute Lantz was there, tending to their commercial chicken operation, and the next minute he was gone. It even occurred to Mary that the rapture had taken place, leaving her behind; although why her somewhat-innocent children hadn’t been caught up to Glory was a bit puzzling to her.
I mention the rapture business because it proves that I am not a nutcase for having jumped to a similar conclusion from time to time; after all, this is the way Mary and I were both brought up to think. I must confess, however, that I am as curious as a stimulus package full of cats as to what it was that Mary had done to make her think that she was undeserving of Heaven, even after she had accepted Jesus as her savior. Oh well, you know what they say about the quiet ones.
At any rate, several weeks after her husband’s disappearance, Mary Berkey noticed a foul odor emanating from the tall silo in which they stored the chicken feed. She had it emptied, and sure enough there was Lantz’s badly decomposed body—still dressed in his outside work clothes. An autopsy showed that the poor man had fallen into the silo from the trapdoor in the roof, and had literally “drowned” in the sifting grain.
There were those in the community who chose to believe that Lantz had committed suicide. However, as far as anyone knew, there had been no suicide note, so most of us chose to believe otherwise. After all, there were well-documented cases of men having fallen into silos while inspecting their grain levels, and subsequently suffocating. But sadly, there were even a few folks—and I am not one of them—who went so far as to speculate that perhaps Mary Berkey, in a moment of passion, may have pushed her husband through the trapdoor and into the silo. Their flimsy theory rests solely on the fact that the Lantz and Mary Berkey union, six children aside, was clearly not a match made in Heaven. While most Amish couples strive to at least present a peaceful face to the world,
the Berkeys were either incapable of doing so, or else their marriage had deteriorated to the point that neither of them cared anymore.
Whether it was the stigma of a possible suicide, or the rumor that she may have murdered her husband, the sad fact is Mary Berkey would always live under a cloud of suspicion. Although no formal shunning was ordered by her bishop, Mary’s in-laws (Mary’s own parents were no longer alive) refused to have anything to do with her after the funeral. This harsh treatment unfortunately set the tone for others, and soon Mary and her children found themselves living on the periphery of the Amish community.
No longer able to run the chicken farm by herself, she began taking in sewing and soon developed a reputation for excellence at it. Although her fine work did nothing to enhance her social standing, or improve her relationship with her suspicious in-laws, it did keep body and soul together for her and her six children. Every Amish woman knows how to sew, and while most sew their own dresses and intricately pleated bonnets, no one in a six-county radius could do so as expertly as Mary Berkey. Eventually overworked Amish women were thinking up reasons not to make their outfits. So popular did Mary’s expertly sewn clothes become, that in one district the bishop saw reason to ban them, citing the sin of pride inherent in their ownership.
No sooner had I pulled into the long gravel drive than the front door to the white frame house opened and a passel of kids, ranging from ages seven to fourteen, piled out. Close on their heels came Mary, a tall, angular woman, with a pinched narrow face and cobalt blue eyes. When she saw that it was me, her thin lips parted, forming a sparse smile, and she waved.