As the World Churns (30 page)

    “Wanda, may I take this in your office?”

    “No. Take it outside.” I put young Chris on hold. “If you expect posse privileges, Wanda, you’d better pony up.” Ida looked crestfallen.
“But I dunt ride horses.”

    “I wasn’t speaking to you, dear,” I said kindly. “Never mind that a nag on a nag would be quite redundant.” I smiled pleasantly.
“So, how about it, Wanda?”

    “You won’t like my office; it’s just a hole in the wall.”

    “I’ve survived many a hole.”

    “Not like this one.”

    As it was not an altogether unpleasant day, I was prepared to capitulate and take the call outside. However, today, more than on any prior occasion, I sensed that Wanda was hiding something in her hole, and I aimed to see it. I realize now that it was utterly selfish of me to concern myself with something so petty when two of my most cherished family members were missing and quite possibly in peril, but I couldn’t help myself.

    You see, for years everyone in Hernia has observed Wanda slip in and out of a small white door directly behind the checkout counter of her restaurant. She is not a large woman by any means, but the door perpetually scrapes against her bosom as her buttocks are pushed flat against the doorjamb.

    Everyone has their own theory. Colleen Fitzgerald believes that Wanda keeps a pot of gold back there, one she stole from a leprechaun. Jimmy Hildebrand swears he heard an infant’s cry once when the door was cracked. By the way, Jimmy and his wife, Gloria, lost a three-week-old daughter on the
New York
subway-literally lost her. Although the child was soon found unharmed, ever since then, Jimmy has never been quite right in the head.

    My personal theory is that Wanda has secretly converted to Melvinism. This is an abhorrent and patently pagan religion, seeing as how it is based on a revelation not in the Bible, a book which every thinking person knows is true, if only because it says so right in it. Melvinism, on the other hand, was invented by Zelda Root, who just happens to be my half sister and a former policewoman.

    Zelda was in love with her boss, the infamous Melvin Stoltzfus, and, although lacking any proof, came to the conclusion that the mantis is divine. One might suppose that such lunacy would be unique, but the cult of Melvin has inexplicably spread, and now there are hundreds of lost souls who claim to believe this word-of-mouth faith and its preposterous tenets.

    “I know what you’re hiding,” I said, “and disgusted as I might be, I’m not shocked. You’re a Melvinite, aren’t you? You have an altar in there dedicated to Melvin-possibly even with a goat’s head on it.”

    “That’s disgusting. But, since you’re such a smarty-pants, be my guest.”

    Wanda may be small, but she’s also very quick. Before I could think through her change of heart, she’d opened the mysterious white door and pushed me through. The space was indeed not much more than a hole, but it was well lit. Still, it took me several seconds to comprehend what I was seeing.

    
“Ack!
Get me out of here.”

    “Seen enough?”

    
“Almost.
Give me another minute, so that I can commit it all to memory. I’ll need details for my lawsuit.”

    Wanda grabbed the collar of my dress, and yanked me out so fast that I left my dandruff behind. In one fluid motion, she kicked the door shut behind me, and secured it with a padlock.

    “You sue me,” she hissed, “and I’ll sue you.”

    Agnes draped a large, heavy arm across my bony shoulders. “Magdalena, what is it? What did you see?”

    
“Yah, vhat?”
Ida tugged at my sleeve, like a street urchin begging for alms.
“Vhat?
Vhat?”

    I could feel Wanda’s beady black eyes boring through my back. Slap a three-inch scar across her left cheek, and she’d be an archetype-just not the type to mess with. Not now, at least.

    “She has male pinups on the walls,” I lisped, as I lied through my teeth.

    
“Vhat?”

    
“Pictures of half-naked men.”

    
“Yah?
Vich half?”

    
“Diagonally, from top right to bottom left.”

    “Magdalena,” Agnes whispered, “you’re dissembling, aren’t you?”

    
“Maybe.”
I shrugged free. “Wanda, dear, I’m not so sure you should come along.”

    
“Because of what you saw in there?
That’s no fair! You practically forced me to show you.”

    “It’s not that. You see, I read somewhere that it can be confusing to have multiple characters take part in the same conversation.”

    “Not if there are ample tags,” Agnes said. “Maybe you have a point,” I said. “It’s a very good point,” Wanda said. “Vhat are you talking about?” Ida said. “Never mind,” I said gently.
“Any other questions, ladies?”

    “Duh,” Wanda said. “Why are we taking Route 96 down into
Maryland
, instead of the turnpike in either direction, or any of the other million roads that lead out of the commonwealth?”

    If patience is a virtue, then I am most definitely a woman without merit. I sighed, I tapped my toes,
I
even rolled my eyes a wee bit.

    “
Because
, dear, if you really must know-”

    
“Which I must.
I am, after all, supplying the food.”

    “And I’m driving,” said my best friend, Agnes Judas Mishler. “
Und
I am geefing da moral supports.”

    “That’s not necessary, dear; you already gave at the office.”

    “I
did
?”

    
“Oodles of it.
Just remember come March that it’s tax deductible.”

    
“Tanks.”

    “Mags, you’re awful,” Agnes said. “Tanks,” I said. “Look, gals, it’s like this: unlike some of the other contestants-and I hereby exercise a great deal of Christian charity-the Pearlmutters are both bright people. She’s a surgeon, and he’s a stockbroker. They’re going to stay clear of any major roads. At the same time, they’re going to be checking a map, looking for the quickest way across the state line. And guess what?”

    
“Vhat?”
Ida said.

    “That was a rhetorical question, dear.”

    “That means it wasn’t meant to be answered,” Wanda said.

    “Like most of Magdalena’s qvestions, yah?”

    Give credit where credit is due, I always say, so I gave Ida an air point. After all, the woman is merely annoying, not dense. Who knows, if we both weren’t in love with the same man, in another time, in another place, she might even grow to like me.

    
“Anyway,”
I said, “Route 96 is torture if you’re pulling a trailer, which is exactly why Gabe and Alison, if given the chance, would urge the Pearlmutters not to take it.”

    
“Because den dey vould for sure take it, yah?”

    “You bet your bippy. And once you start down that road with a trailer, there’s no turning around.”

    “Oy, but it’s getting dark outside!”

    
“Exactly!
You see, there is a little pullover-where there used to be a kind of primitive rest area-and the odds are that, if they have indeed taken this route, they will avail themselves of this place until morning.”

    “Hmm,” Wanda said, pretending to write on a pad, “now let me see, we have an order of kidnappers, and an order of rest area, and if we add an order of deputies-I’m sorry, to say, Magdalena, but they don’t add up. If this couple is as bright as you say they are, they’re not going to park a cow carrier alongside a highway.”

    “O ye of little faith,” I said, quoting the latter part of Matthew
6:30
. “I said there
used
to be a rest area. Now it’s just a dent in the trees where folks in the know park to get to know each other in the Biblical sense. Not that
I
know whereof I speak, of course, at least not from personal experience-okay, so maybe once, or twice, six at the most, but we were already married, and how else were we going to get away from the prying eyes of you-know-who, and anyway, whether or not I did the backseat bossa nova is nobody’s business but mine, and-”

    “Such a slut, I tell you.”

    I prayed for patience, and for once it was granted. “Since it was with your son, I will choose to take that as a compliment, dear. But listen up everyone, there is one other very important reason I think that the Pearlmutters are on Route 96 headed for the
Maryland
state line, and that is because once they reach it, there is another state line just five miles farther south.”

    “
West Virginia
,” Wanda said knowingly. “Their motto is ‘the
Mountain
State
.’ It’s supposed to be even wilder and woollier than
Maryland
. If you don’t get captured by a mountain man and taken back to his cabin to be his sex slave, you could hide for the rest of your life in those hills, and even the feds couldn’t find you. I get this from my customers, by the way.”

    “Do you think any of those mountain men like their sex slaves on the plump side?”

    “Agnes!” I cried. I was shocked from the top of my cap-cov-ered bun to the tips of stocking-clad toes. I was also somewhat pleased by her gumption, misplaced as it was.

    “Actually, they don’t,” Wanda said. “They prefer gaunt women. But don’t worry; I get plenty of unmarried male customers who much prefer the curvier sort. Would you like me to fix you up?”

    “Yes,” she said shyly.

    “
Und
do you get unmarried Jewish vomen customers?”

    “I don’t think so. Why?”

    “She’s just being silly,”

    “Speaking of being silly,” turncoat Agnes said, “Magdalena, you take the cake. This is the computer age. States share their information. It’s not like you can hide anymore, not in this age of Big Brother.”

    “Yes, but computer systems
break down-so do
power grids-and sometimes even the local jurisdictions engage in disputes. Tell me, Agnes, if you were on the run, where would you rather hide out, in the mountains of
West Virginia
, or in the
Commonwealth
of
Pennsylvania
?”

    
“Touché.”

    I clapped my hands. “Ladies, attend to your assignments. Agnes, call the sheriff as previously instructed, while I talk to the chief-if he’s still on the line. Wanda, pack us up a box of nonperishable food sufficient for three days. As for you, Ida, just stay out of trouble.”

    I have sturdy Christian underwear older than Police Chief Ackerman, yet he had the gall to forbid me from undertaking my trek south to
Maryland
. Not only was it too dangerous, he said, but somewhat silly. Since none of my guests had arrived from that direction, none were likely to return by that route. People were creatures of habit, he informed me, as if I were a first-year psychology student inquiring about the workings of human nature. Besides, he went on to say (somewhat carelessly, I might add) that my assumption that my loved ones had been abducted by Holstein aficionados was absurd. What could possibly be the motive? To make an unwarranted trip to the wilds of
Maryland
was to behave foolishly.

    When I trotted out my “two facts from a man” theory, he countered by claiming that gay men were the exception to the rule. “One hunch from a gay man is worth two hunches from a straight woman,” he said.

    “What if I were a lesbian?”

    “Then my hunch would be worth one and a half of yours.”

    “You’re just kidding, aren’t you?”

    “Weren’t you?”

    I’d been mentoring young Chris ever since his arrival a year ago as a fresh-faced assistant to our late chief, who met her untimely demise at the hands of one of Hernia’s homegrown killers. Chief Ackerman had originally come across as both shy and eager to please. Clearly, he now had found his stride, which, although somewhat out of sync with mine, was a good thing. No longer did I have to hold his hand. This freed me up considerably, allowing me a lot of time to behave foolishly. And that is exactly what I intended to do.