by Tamar Myers
“Not you!” he shouted. “Her! Push, dammit!”
I forgave Jim his profanity and got into the act myself; exhorting a huffing, puffing, grunting, and screaming Heather to push. In no time at all the rest of the baby came into view.
“It’s a boy!” said Jim with surprising joy.
“How can you tell?” I asked.
Jim cleared the baby’s mouth with his finger, and, satisfied that he was breathing normally, laid him, still attached by the cord, on Heather’s stomach. Then he covered him with a towel. Jim was still wiping his hands with another towel when the paramedics arrived.
“You did good, doll,” Jim told me yet again over a cobbler and coffee. We were the only customers left in Ed’s.
“Thanks, Jim, you weren’t so bad yourself.”
“So, do you think we could date, doll, or what?” We had talked about everything under the sun except our relationship.
“How can we date, Jim? I live up here, and you live down in Baltimore.”
“I don’t mind driving up, doll. And if that gets to be too much, you could spell me by driving down there. Where there’s a will, there’s a way, they say.”
“They don’t single-handedly operate one of the most popular inns in America,” I retorted. Admittedly, there was pride in my voice. But there must have been something else too.
“It’s the height thing, isn’t it?”
“What height thing?”
Jim’s diminutive right fist banged on the table with surprising force. “Dammit, doll, if there’s one thing that pisses me off, it’s you bleeding-heart liberals refusing to call a spade a spade.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” I said quite honestly. Papa had once lectured at me at length on the difference between a spade and a shovel, but I still get the two confused.
“Cut the crap, doll. Cut to the chase. You don’t want to go out with me because I’m short.”
I was momentarily taken aback. I know that this might sound hard to believe, but while we’d been supping and engaged in general chitchat, I had ceased to pay attention to Jim’s height. Of course he had been sitting on both the Bedford and Somerset county phone books. But still, I honestly had ceased to see him first and foremost as a short man, but rather just as a man. A man whom I admired but had decided I didn’t quite like.
“Look, buster, it doesn’t bother me that you are a little shorter than I am. Okay, make that a whole lot shorter. Even if you were a foot taller than me, Jim, I still don’t think it would work out.”
He stared, not believing me. “And why not, doll?”
I started to hem and haw, but Jumbo cut me off. “I said, cut the crap, doll. Give it to me straight.”
I decided to do just that. “Because you’re a boor, Jim.”
“So, you don’t like my stories?”
“You’re definitely not a bore, Jim. What I meant is that you’re—well, a little on the crude side. Rough around the edges.”
“What are you, doll? Some kind of hifalutin snob?”
I considered that for a moment. “I am awfully picky, Jim, I’ll grant you that. But I don’t think I’m a snob. I just don’t think you and I would work out as an item.”
“An item, doll?”
“You know what I mean. Couldn’t we just be friends, Jim, and see each other occasionally? I mean, we don’t have to date to be friends, do we?”
“Ah, I see, I get it now,” said Jim triumphantly. “You’re one of those!”
“Those what?”
“A lesbian, doll. I should have known.”
“Good night, Jim. I’ve got to be going.” I left without saying anything to contradict him. And I’m sure Jim was not the first one to suppose my sexual fantasies were monomorphic. When you’re forty-four and never been married, tongues are bound to wag. Especially these days, when all people can think about seems to be sex. Aunt Sadie and her roommate, Mabel, never suffered such indignities.
“You don’t know what you’re missing out on, doll,” Jim shouted at my back. “They don’t call me Jumbo for nothing.”
“Grow up,” I said quietly.
Jim must have razor-sharp hearing. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Take it any way you want,” I said. Then I felt bad, because I had stooped to his level, which is really pretty low.
Just outside the front door of Ed’s Steak House I ran into Darla Strutt. “Darla!” I cried. I was actually glad to see her.
Darla started to brush past me, but I accidentally stepped on a yard or two of her flowing fabric. “As if that wasn’t enough!" she snapped.
“Come again?”
“I’ll sue, Magdalena. Even if you are from Pittsburgh, I’ll sue.” Of course she was carrying her dog, Fifi, and she waved her in my face like a tempting morsel. But since I had just eaten a steak bigger than the dog, I wasn’t tempted.
“I’m not from Pittsburgh, dear. But about your dress, I’ll pay to have it cleaned.” I was assuming that clothes like Darla’s were not meant to be washed in old-fashioned soap and water.
“Cleaning won’t help!” Darla wailed. The woman was so much like Susannah, I was going to have to do a more thorough check of my family tree. It was beginning to look as if there were a Strutt or two on one of the thinner branches.
“Cheer up, dear. I’m sure it will be just fine. And if it isn’t, I’m sure my sister would be happy to lend you hers.”
Darla wailed like a banshee pup alone on the moors. By the sound of it, Fifi was alone on the moors as well. “Poor Fifi. My poor little baby! How could he do that to her?”
I was as lost as Susannah in church. “I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about, dear. Is this a Pittsburgh riddle?”
“Fifiiiiii!” The banshee pup had lungs like a Great Dane. Fifi’s lungs were even louder.
I do my best to be a loving Christian from time to time. I reached out, albeit gingerly, to give her a comforting pat.
Darla attempted to jerk away from me. Unfortunately, I was still standing on her clothes. Anything that rips that easily should indeed be dry-cleaned.
“Try Quick-Clean. It’s right up street. They do good mending too.”
“You idiot! You blithering idiot!” Darla screamed. “I don’t give a flying fig about my clothes. It’s Fifi, my dog, that I’m talking about!” (Actually, those were not exactly Darla’s words, but Mama would spin into a blur if I as much as quoted them.)
I might have stared stupidly at her.
“Your sister’s dog—Snickems—or whatever its name is, has gone and gotten my little Fifi pregnant.”
I probably continued to stare. I was trying to imagine the two pint-size pooches in flagrante delicto. They must have looked like rats fighting. Why was it that not only the birds and the bees, but dogs as well, managed to do some things so naturally, while I, Magdalena Yoder, had yet to experience my first real kiss?
I was still closing the front door behind me when my personal phone started to ring. The number for my personal line is a secret I guard even more jealously than my weight—right up there with the secret ingredient in Mama’s Peanut Butter Chiffon Pie. Even Freni doesn’t know that. Freni does know my telephone number, but like any good Amishwoman, she does not have a phone of her own, and calls me only in emergencies, from a pay phone. Of course, Melvin Stoltzfus knew my number, thanks to Susannah, but I doubted even he would have the nerve to call me again so quickly. In tenth grade I had arm-wrestled Melvin and won. The match would have been over several seconds earlier if I hadn’t had the flu.
I sprinted to get the phone. The odds were that it was Susannah, wanting me to come pick her up from a truck stop, but barring that, it could possibly be Freni, telling me she had just killed her daughter-in-law. “Hello?”
“Hi, Magdalena, it’s me.”
“You don’t say. Well, this is me too. Of course that shouldn’t be so surprising. Last I heard there were over eight billion me’s on the earth. Now, which one might you be?”
“This is Martha, Mags. Martha Sims.”
“Ah, that me. Well, Martha, you have exactly three seconds to explain how on earth you got my private number, and then three more seconds to apologize for having called it.”
“Now, don’t you be getting bent all out of shape, Mags. I simply wanted—”
“One—two—three, and my shape is just fine, thanks.” I slammed the phone down.
The second time it rang I didn’t pick it up until the tenth ring. “Well?”
“Susannah gave us your number, Mags. Back when she was dating that sweet young man who belonged to our church. If—”
Slam.
The third time Martha apologized right away, and profusely. Some people just need limits set for them.
“You already said you were sorry six times. Now, why is it you’re calling?”
Having learned her lesson, Martha got straight to the point. “I heard about the hairdresser having her baby today. I’m calling to see if Mr. Lapata needs a replacement.”
It would boggle your mind if I tried to explain to you how Martha Sims, the Presbyterian minister’s wife, had already heard that a devil-worshipping hairdresser from out of state had given birth on a Mennonite farm only hours earlier, but that’s Hernia for you.
“Why don’t you ask him yourself,” I said complacently.
“You mean he’s there? Now?”
“It’s twelve-thirty A.M., Martha. What kind of woman do you think I am?” Besides flattered, of course.
“Will he be there in the morning?”
“This is the morning, Martha.”
She had the nerve to sigh impatiently. “I mean the real morning. Like ten or eleven. Like that.”
“No, Martha, he’ll be sailing a yacht from Fiji to Bora Bora. Of course he’ll be here.”
“Well!” said Martha, and she hung up the phone rudely.
I was too tired to be miffed anymore that night. I was just glad my day was finally over and Martha’s call had not turned out to be one from Susannah, stuck at a truck stop. Even though Susannah doesn’t have a car, she manages to find her way to various truck stops with some frequency. Needless to say, it’s you truckers who transport her there. Next time you come across a thirty-four-year-old woman, five foot nine, about 135 pounds, medium- brown hair, blue eyes, and a lopsided chest, trailing enough yards of fabric to clothe a third-world country, who is looking for a ride, poke her in that lopsided chest and see if it yips. If it does, then that’s Susannah, and you’d be well advised to leave her alone. If you don’t, and she doesn’t manage to make you totally miserable, I will. Fair warning.
Anyway, the last time that happened, I had to drive fifty miles to Shippensburg in the middle of a snowstorm to collect her. Lest you think me a fool and an enabler, I wouldn’t have gone, except that Susannah had somehow managed to lose her shoes as well as her purse and coat. Although I was mighty tempted to let her hoof it on home, barefoot, in the snowstorm, thankfully it was the rational side of me that triumphed. With my luck, and Susannah’s penchant for screwing up, the next call I received would have been from the North Pole, with an irate Santa accusing my sister of having molested three of his elves. She probably would have been guilty too.
Chapter Twenty-three
Bright and early the next morning I headed out to Miller’s Feed Store to buy a new pitchfork. The prop department had somehow managed to come up with one for the movie, but Mose would need one to toss hay come winter. Besides which, I needed to plug in to the local gossip circuit if I was going to find out who killed Don Manley. Outside of Norah Hall and my weekly Women’s Prayer Circle meetings, Miller’s Feed Store dishes up the best gossip this side of Bedford.
Roy Miller is a triple fifth cousin of mine, but I certainly don’t claim him. The official rumor has it that he beats his wife, Elspeth. It is common knowledge, however, that it is Elspeth Rhinehart Miller who beats up on Roy. Elspeth is a German-German, not a Swiss-German like most of the Mennonites and Amish in the Hernia area. What’s more, she was baptized a Lutheran—as an infant, no less. No Mennonite or Amishman can comprehend such a senseless act. Perhaps it was being splashed with all that water as a tiny baby that put Elspeth in such a foul mood.
One might have more respect for Roy if he didn’t allow Elspeth to push him around. A man should listen to his wife (didn’t Papa?), but he shouldn’t put up with hitting. No one should—not even a true pacifist like Roy. Sadly, the long-sleeved shirts that Roy habitually wears, even on the hottest days, are not a sign of his Mennonite modesty. What makes the whole thing seem even sadder is that Elspeth is a little bitty thing with a beaked nose and horn-rimmed glasses that flare out like butterfly wings. She seems about as dangerous as Shnookums.
The store parking lot was already a sea of buggies by the time I arrived. Since Roy is a distant kinsman, and only sort of English, his store is the number one shopping spot for most of the plain folk in Bedford County. In addition to feed and pitchforks, you can buy bonnets and suspenders. Even wood-burning stoves. Even though she is Church Amish and not as strict as some of her brethren, Freni does almost all her shopping there. Compared to Miller’s Feed Store, the Kmart in Bedford is a den of iniquity.
“Goot morgan, ” I said to the all the Yoders, Hostetlers, Masts, and Millers I encountered on my way to the pitchfork display rack. The only person I didn’t speak to was Agatha Yost. But since we hadn’t been speaking since the fifth grade, when she purposely sat on my peanut butter sandwich, it made no difference.
When I was within feet of the pitchforks, with only a pile of milking pails between me and them, Elspeth swooped down like a great horned owl. “Why, Magdalena Yoder, whatever are you doing in my humble little establishment?”
I reminded myself that the good Lord died for all sinners, including Elspeth, and forced a smile. “I’m here to buy a pitchfork. Care to recommend one?”
Elspeth fluffed a few feathers and then cocked her head, but she did not regard me wisely. “Tired of shopping at Sam’s?”
“Sam Yoder’s Corner Market does not carry pitchforks,” I reminded her patiently, “only groceries. And anyway, Mose buys all our farm supplies here.”
“Yes, so he does. But that’s Mose. You, however, are a different story. If you want to buy one of our pitchforks, Magdalena Yoder, then you are going to have to sign a special register.”
“A what?” Because of all the background noise, I was sure I was hearing things.
Elspeth scratched her beak officiously with a talon. “You heard me, Magdalena. You want a pitchfork, you sign a register.”
“Do I need a permit as well?” I asked innocently enough. With a Democrat in the White House, anything was possible.
“I wish that were the case. Unfortunately, all I can do is make you sign a register. And notify Chief Stoltzfus, of course.”
“Tell Mel and I’ll—”
“You’ll what? Kill me?” Beady eyes flashed accusingly behind the flaring rims of her glasses.
I tried to swallow my anger. When dealing with Elspeth, it doesn’t take long to fill up. “I did not kill Don Manley!”
Elspeth arranged her face into what I supposed was a smug smile. “You threatened him, didn’t you? There were witnesses, you know.”
That did it. If the pot wants to call the kettle black, that’s one thing. But Elspeth is a virtual coal bin of aggression. Everyone in Hernia has heard Elspeth threaten Roy, and knows that she sometimes carries out those threats. Sometimes before their very eyes.
I struggled valiantly to temper my temper with Christian charity. “You two-bit hypocrite! How dare you accuse me of violence. Have you registered your fists in that precious register of yours?”
Beady eyes bulged behind the horn-rims. “You big damn bitch!” She took a step forward and prodded me, right on the breastbone, with one of her talons. “Get out of my store.”
Undoubtedly, what I did next had both Mama and Menno Simmons, the founder of my faith, rolling over in their respective g
raves. I prodded Elspeth right back. And since I am quite a bit bigger than she is, my prod might have been proportionately harder. Roy, why is it you don’t stand up to your wife?
Elspeth flat out pushed me then. If it weren’t for the pile of milking pails, I would have landed smack-dab against a pitchfork myself. Of course, this one was hanging from a wall display, but its tines were pointed outward, not toward the wall, as they should have been. The milking pails, which crashed around me like thunder, made me lose my balance, and I fell flat on the floor just inches from the deadly tines. Had the aisle been clear, I might well have been skewered like a frankfurter myself. Once she had me fastened to the wall, I’m sure Elspeth would have had no qualms about using my noggin as a bonnet display.
Fortunately the crashing buckets attracted more attention than our little quarrel had, and before I could properly compose myself, we were surrounded by a knot of curious onlookers.
“Avert your eyes this second!” I chided Jacob Beiler. As an Amishman, he should have been ashamed of himself for trying to peek up my skirt.
“Ach, it’s only Magdalena Yoder.” Rachel Krieder might have been Mama’s double second cousin, but she would get no Christmas cake from me this year.
At least Elspeth acted in character.1 “Oh, how the mighty have fallen,” she hooted.
“And the mighty will rise again to sue.” I picked myself up with dignity. It is easy to act dignified when a million dollars has just been tossed in your lap. Along with a pail or two. I turned to my audience. “You all saw her push me, didn’t you? You are all witnesses.”
“I saw nothing,” said Jacob. Not only did he have the nerve to turn and walk away, but he sounded disappointed to boot.
“I only heard you, I didn’t see you, Magdalena.” I made a mental note to ask Rachel to return the waffle iron she borrowed from Mama in 1963.
“Well, surely one of you saw it.” I turned slowly around, so that each in turn could see the pain and anguish on the victim’s visage. Apparently, they were not impressed. Each in turn turned and walked away, leaving me alone with the evil Elspeth.