by Tamar Myers
‘Exactly,’ Wanda said cruelly. ‘Your butt. And other parts of your anatomy as well.’
‘Enough already,’ said the shirtless fry-cook. He stepped sideways toward Agnes and would have slipped a hirsute forearm around her heaving shoulders if it hadn’t been for Wanda’s incredibly swift reaction time.
‘Back to work!’ she barked at the man.
‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said and then, looking back at Agnes, he said, ‘Well, I think you’re beautiful. I’ve always liked a woman with meat on her bones.’
That’s when I took another look at the hunk from Hoboken. All I’d known about him up until then was that his given name was Stanley, and that he was originally from New Jersey. That, and that he had a variable number of front teeth (he always had a full set on Tuesdays). Oh, yes, and that he also made the world’s best pancakes.
‘Mags, did you hear that?’ Agnes said. She’d gotten her mojo back in a nanosecond. ‘He likes a woman with curves!’
Harrumph, I thought. Yes, I was jealous. I would rather be a sphere than a stick, any day. A sphere can get around, but a stick tends to just lay there.
By then us three amigos were practically alone in the parking lot. It reminded me of our best of times, which were also our worst of times. Unlikely trio that we were, the three of us had survived some hair-raising times together, solving some of Hernia’s most difficult mysteries. One of the cases had even involved Wanda’s infamous hair, which had had to be uncoiled and lowered down into a sinkhole, as if it were a rope, in order to rescue a desperate maiden. Experiences like that bond one for life; we were like sisters, which meant that we were stuck in a relationship whether we liked each other or not.
‘Well,’ Wanda said at great length, ‘you might as well come inside so that Agnes can eat.’
‘What is that supposed to mean?’ Agnes hissed, appropriately too.
‘It means,’ Wanda said, ‘that you have scared off all my customers, and the only way for me to make up for it financially is for you to eat your fill.’
‘How rude!’ Agnes said as she headed for the restaurant door. She was walking as fast as I’d ever seen her go.
‘Stop complaining,’ Wanda said. ‘I’ll seat you in the booth nearest the kitchen pass-through so that you can make googly eyes at Stanley.’
‘Tell him to put a shirt on,’ I wailed inappropriately. ‘I don’t want hair in my pancakes.’
‘Oh, stop your whining,’ Wanda said. She clomped ahead of me back into her restaurant, and with each step her massive beehive hairdo swayed like the belly of a pregnant cow. There was at least one difference, however: should Wanda’s coil of keratin explode, the cooties unleashed might devour half of mankind.
But true to her word, Wanda seated us in booth fourteen, which happens to be my favourite anyway, because the food there has the best chance of getting to one while still hot. She also knew better than to hand either of us one of the greasy laminated menus.
‘You,’ she said to Agnes, ‘undoubtedly want the super-size Farmer’s Skillet Breakfast with eight eggs, over-easy; cream cheese-stuffed French toast; the tall stack of pancakes topped with fresh creamery butter and dripping with thick maple syrup; and the usual meats, but also extra portions of sausage, bacon, fried ham, and home-fried potatoes, plus an extra basket of assorted pastries, in addition to the one that comes with your meal. Oh, an order of whole-wheat toast on account of the fibre it contains, as well as a bowl of raisin bran for the same reason, plus a bowl of oatmeal as a nod towards eating healthy. Am I correct?’
‘Yes,’ Agnes said. Then, quite unprovoked, she had the temerity to turn and address me. ‘The Bible says: “Judge not, lest ye be judged.”’
‘Why, I never!’
‘You were about to,’ she said. Agnes turned back to Wanda. ‘And peach pie for dessert. You make the best peach pie in the world. Which reminds me, Wanda, I want to personally thank you for toiling in that hot little tent behind the judges, cutting pies and serving up the slices. If you had entered your own peach pie in the competition, and that inconsiderate interloper of an author hadn’t so rudely elected to die when she did, I haven’t the slightest doubt that you would have won.’
‘Agnes,’ I said, ‘aren’t you being a bit unfair? There are others in this community capable of baking a passable peach pie.’
‘But none quite as annoying as you,’ Wanda said. ‘What with your fondness for excessive alliteration, you should be writing nursery rhymes.’
Agnes squealed with delight. ‘My uncles would love that!’
‘It’s a wonder that we’re still all friends,’ I said.
‘Yes, it is,’ Wanda shot back. ‘Now, look, unlike the two of you, I don’t have all day. Magdalena, I suppose you also want your regular order. That would be two eggs, poached hard; four strips of bacon, crisp on the ends, a short stack of three pancakes, so pale and undercooked that the batter isn’t even cooked all the way through, an extra slab of rich creamery butter, and a double ladle of warm maple syrup. If your syrup isn’t warmed to the temperature of the rat’s armpit, you suffer a complete meltdown.’
‘I do not!’
‘How do you test the temperature of the rat’s armpit?’ Agnes said. The dear woman was without guile.
‘Wanda keeps it in a cage in the pantry,’ I said. ‘The thermometer is glued to a long stick, and because the rat has four arms – uh, legs – any of which will do for the test, it really isn’t that hard. You just toss in a bit of cheese, poke the stick thingy behind one of his legs, and presto, you have a reading!’
‘Wrong!’ Wanda said gleefully. ‘Herman died last week, and I’ve had to send off to Pittsburgh for a new pantry rat.’
The woman with the wobbly hair may have been telling the truth. I had heard of folks keeping pet rats, and there was that memorable occasion when the Sausage Barn was shut down for three weeks on account of a new fry-cook (they quit as often as Wanda changes her underwear) found rodent remains at the bottom of the chips vat.
Wanda turned our orders over to Stanley, and was back in a flash with a carafe of orange juice and a thermos of coffee. Then she slipped into the booth beside me.
‘OK, I’m all ears now,’ she said. Unfortunately, with her hair pulled back in the twist, I could see that they were very dirty ears.
‘Go ahead, Magdalena,’ Agnes said, ‘Spill your beans. Now that you have both of your “besties” here, tell us exactly what’s going on? What are you doing with Toy’s car? Has our new Chief of Police quit already? What a crying shame that would be! I haven’t even had a chance to cook him my famous “meatloaf surprise” – you know, the one where I hide hard-boiled eggs inside? I was going to have him slice it at the table so I could enjoy the expression on his face when he sees those cute yellow circles surrounded by perfect white rings.’ Agnes clasped her hands in delight; the dear woman is so easily pleased.
‘Your famous “meatloaf surprise” is a cliché,’ Wanda said. ‘I did it first, then the entire world copied me.’
‘Don’t be hurtful,’ I said to Wanda. ‘And no, Agnes, the chief is not quitting; I thought I made that clear on the way over here. He’s just very, very busy.’
‘You mean handling all the tourists that have been pouring into town since our one, and only, genuine celebrity – and no, it’s not you, Magdalena – is now deader than a doornail.’
‘My, but somebody sounds bitter, doesn’t she?’ I felt compelled to say.
‘Well, look around you, Magdalena,’ Wanda said. ‘Do you see any customers?’
‘There were thirty-eight customers here when we arrived.’
‘Yes! Day-labourers. I hardly break even feeding them. They order just one or two things from the children’s menu. I need real American customers to come back, like in the old days, before the recession. I want customers with money to spend, who like to gorge at the trough. I want people who aren’t ashamed to waddle in the door and back out.’
‘Wanda, that’s awful! If people knew that
you felt that way they would never eat here. Some folks can’t help their weight on account of thyroid problems.’
‘Oh, give me a break, Miss Skinny Minnie. I have hypothyroidism, for which I take medication. But I also don’t eat enough for ten people like Miss Bottomless Pit here – not that I’m complaining, Agnes.’
I had to kick sideways, but nonetheless the heel of my brogan connected with Wanda’s shin. Much to my satisfaction she yelped like a whelp. I might have been born and raised a pacifist, and I would certainly never take a human life. In fact, we are not to exact vengeance of any kind. That said, please understand when I say that my swift kick to Wanda’s shin was of a prophylactic nature, intended to make her think twice next time before she insulted our mutual friend.
‘Agnes,’ Wanda roared, ‘was that your fat foot kicking the meat off my bone?’
‘W-what?’ Agnes said.
‘How many times is it now?’ Wanda demanded. ‘Seven? Eight?’
I gulped. Oops. When would I ever learn to stay out of other people’s problems? Agnes was my age, for goodness’ sake, she’d been to college, and she wasn’t seeing a therapist (although she had every reason to see one). Theoretically she was quite capable of taking care of herself.
‘OK, so you busted me,’ Agnes said. ‘But I only kicked you six times. I think that what we should really be discussing is not my weight, nor your deplorable standards of hygiene; instead it is that fact that Ms Magdalena Portulacca Yoder Rosen is currently investigating the murder of that dead diva, Ramat Sreym, and that the two of us – her very best friends in the entire world – are on her shortlist of suspects.’
FIVE
FRENI HOSTETLER’S RECIPE FOR SHOOFLY PIE
Makes 8 servings
1 nine-inch unbaked pie crust
1½ cups flour
½ cup dark brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon nutmeg
Pinch of ground cloves
¼ teaspoon salt
1 stick cold butter (½ cup)
¾ cup water
¾ cup unsulphured molasses
½ teaspoon baking soda
Combine the flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and salt. Cut the butter into pats and add it to the flour mixture. Using a fork, mash the butter into the flour mixture until you get a texture like coarse crumbs. Combine the water, molasses and baking soda. Pour into the unbaked pie crust, then spoon the crumb mixture onto the liquid. Bake at 375 degrees for thirty-five to forty minutes. Best served at room temperature.
SIX
‘That’s not true!’ I wailed.
Wanda responded immediately. I can only think that at some point in her life she’d taken a correspondence course from the Vice President.
‘I’m going to hair-board her,’ she said, by way of explanation to Agnes, ‘unless she explains herself.’
‘Excuse me,’ I said. Meanwhile, I’d scooted my bony behind so far over that I’d become one with the cheap plywood divide that separated booths one and fourteen.
Wanda cackled maniacally, as extremists are wont to do. ‘What I am about to do is remove my hairpins, one by one. There is a child’s game like this played with wooden sticks. In the game, eventually the little wooden tower collapses, and whoever pulled out the last stick is the loser. But this won’t be a game.
‘Oh, no. Eventually, my beautiful French twist, which you uncultured country bumpkins refer to as a hotdog bun and a rat’s nest – this vestige of feminine fertility, what the Apostle Paul referred to as a woman’s “glory” – this too shall collapse. And when it does, there won’t just be a player out of the game, but all of Hernia – in fact, all of Bedford County – is liable to die from the Black Plague.’
Agnes, who was not being pressed into yet another layer of plywood, and who sat farthest from the vermin, chortled.
‘You find that funny?’ Wanda said. ‘Maybe I’ll aim my Toppling Tower of Doom in your direction when I come close to pulling the last pin.’
My fluffy friend gulped and turned the color of unbuttered popcorn. ‘Gosh, no! It’s not funny. It’s just that I can’t imagine how it is that you know all this stuff – the things we say about your – well, that thingamajig on your head.’
‘Besides which,’ I said, ‘you’ve got it all wrong. We always alliterate. Copy-editors might hate that, but not readers. For example, dear: we refer to that Pitiful Pile of Parasites on top of your noggin as the Toppling Tower of Terror and the Disgusting Doughnut of Doom.’
‘But not me,’ said Agnes in her best teacher’s pet voice. ‘I never use the doughnut imagery because it makes me hungry.’
Personally, I think that our honesty should have counted for something with Wanda. Like Catholics in their confessional, one traditional Mennonite (moi), and one modern Mennonite (Agnes), had put everything we had right out there in the open on the cheap Formica tabletop in an even cheaper plywood booth of a greasy breakfast food restaurant. So how many points do you think Wanda gave us? Nada. Zero. Zilch. Zed.
‘Well, girls, that was certainly enlightening,’ Wanda said. ‘Too bad it wasn’t what I was after. So out comes the first pin.’
It was only a small exaggeration to say that Wanda’s hairpins were the size of croquet wickets. But whether they were smaller or larger it’s hard to remember, given the stress I was under. In any case, just the act of removing one was enough to start an avalanche of dandruff and assorted animal protein products, the likes of which I choose not to enumerate, lest I trigger a post-traumatic gag response. Suffice it to say that the chances that I would stay and eat breakfast at the Sausage Barn that morning were the same as those for the continued existence of an orb of frozen precipitation in a sinner’s place of perpetual punishment. In other words, not much.
Let it be known that I did not crack until the fourth hairpin was pulled from Wanda’s swaying stack of vermin-infested keratin. Then I cried ‘uncle,’ and just so as not to give her complete satisfaction, I added the name of Mama’s brother to the word.
‘Uncle Harlan!’
‘So that means you give up?’ Wanda said gleefully. The woman is a card-carrying sadist. Quite possibly she’s even a card-carrying nudist – the English English have their quirks, you know.
‘Don’t press her,’ Agnes begged. ‘You know our Magdalena. She couldn’t be more stubborn if she was the son of a two-headed mule and a US Congressman. Please, Wanda, just let her explain why she is investigating us while she is still willing to do so.’
‘All right,’ Wanda growled. Mercifully she snatched the hairpins off the table and jammed them back into the structure of destruction.
I smiled pleasantly – as is my wont, I might add. ‘Ladies, it is like this. I was living my life, ever so peacefully, like the meek and mild little housewife that I am—’
‘Hardly little,’ Agnes muttered. ‘You’re five foot ten.’
‘Hardly meek, either,’ Wanda said. ‘You’re like a wounded badger that keeps trying to hug a porcupine.’ Actually, Wanda said something cruder, but my mind refuses to go there.
‘That is so not true!’ I declared. ‘For your information, Agnes, I’ve already shrunk an inch, and I’m as docile as—’
‘Ah, ah, ah,’ Wanda said, wagging a greasy finger in my face. ‘Lying will make your nose grow, and given your already out-of-kilter proportions, I wouldn’t do that, Magdalena.’
‘Agnes,’ I implored. ‘Aren’t you going to defend me?’
My very best friend squinted before answering. ‘Well, your nose is a little long and pointy.’
‘Et tu, Brutus? OK then, here goes! I was going to spare your feelings, but not anymore. As you both know by now, that despicable – but may she rest in peace – bestselling author, Ramat Sreym was poisoned. Our earnest but not very experienced Chief of Police has asked me to assist him in interviewing a list of potential suspects.’
‘Speaking of whom,’ Wanda snapped, ‘why did you essentially bankroll his transfer here
from Charlotte?’
‘Yeah,’ said Agnes. ‘Why?’
‘I didn’t bankroll anything,’ I wailed. Oops. ‘I funded it,’ I said firmly. ‘That makes me a fundamentalist, just like the two of you.’ At that I chuckled pleasantly.
‘I resent that implication,’ Agnes murmured. ‘I am a closet Democrat with such leftist leanings that I am thinking of leaving the Mennonite Church and becoming a Presbyterian.’
‘But Jesus was a Mennonite!’ I said. Right away I realized that I had misspoken; Jesus was Jewish. After all, Jesus’ mother was Jewish, and so was Jesus’ father. They even had a Jewish wedding, not a Christian wedding, much to the disappointment of some of his twenty-first century followers.
‘Listen up, people,’ Wanda said, ‘we have to stay on track. At any minute more day labourers are going to come pouring in demanding to be served cheap but delicious children’s lunch plates. Magdalena, are you saying that this boy-toy Chief of Police actually thinks that Agnes and I are capable of murder?’
‘You and I are not on the list, Wanda, dear; just Agnes. And for your information, I only wanted pancakes.’
Wanda slid from the booth and was on her feet in a flash. ‘What in the blazes kind of insult is that? Miss I-Never-Saw-A-Cheesecake-I-Didn’t-Eat, Agnes Miller, is on the suspect list, but me, the woman who is so mean that everyone says that she puts gravel in her granola, doesn’t rate being a suspect – tell me, how is that fair?’
I shivered. ‘I don’t write the news, I only report it. But for the record, I never heard that bit about the granola.’
‘Oh, I did,’ said Agnes. ‘Jeb Peterson cracked a molar last July on a bowl of Wanda’s granola.’
‘Nothing lasts forever,’ Wanda said, ‘including body parts.’