The Crepes of Wrath (21 page)

“I am. You see, I can be clumsy at times and I accidentally spilled a drop of cranberry juice on Miss Quiring’s white rug. A
drop
. I mean that literally. Anyway, the woman went crazy and started pulling my ears, and yelling at me like I was a little kid. So I pulled back.”

“You go, girl!” I said, mimicking my sister Susannah. I know ear pulling is unhealthy, and violence should never be condoned. But this was Betty Quiring we were talking about!

Darlene smiled. “I thought you’d like to hear that.”

“What happened next?” I asked breathlessly.

“Well, I guess what I did kind of took her by surprise. Then we both started laughing. We got along really well after that.”

“Oh.” I didn’t bother to hide my disappointment.

“She’s a nice woman, Miss Yoder. Just a little bossy. Anyway, I asked her if she knew of any girls who were good at the game—basketball, I mean—and she suggested Dorothy Mitchell and Anna Lichty. Do you know them?”

I frowned. “Dorothy Mitchell is a Presbyterian.”

“What does that mean?”

“Well, they’re almost as bad as Episcopalians. They’re allowed to drink beer. In fact, I’ve heard rumors that some of them even bathe in beer.”

“Really?”

I nodded. “The Episcopalians, of course, bathe in wine.”

She laughed. “I’m an Episcopalian, Miss Yoder, and I don’t drink at all.”

“Well,” I sniffed, “perhaps you’re the exception to the rule. At any rate, I know
of
Dorothy Mitchell, but I don’t know her personally. Her parents own a dry-cleaning store over in Bedford. Anna Lichty I know quite well. She was in my sixth grade Sunday School class four or five years ago. Even then she towered above all the other kids. Come to think of it, she was almost as tall as me.”

“How tall is that?”

“Five ten.”

“Miss Yoder, that isn’t exceptionally tall by today’s standards.”

“I know, but I see Anna almost every Sunday. She’s grown since then. Now she’s a veritable giantess. Why, she’s almost as tall as you.” I bit my tongue, for having let that slip out.

Darlene merely smiled. “Do you think her parents could be persuaded to let her attend St. Daphne’s in Philadelphia?”

“I rather doubt it. We Mennonites shy away from saints.”

“Why is that?”

“Praying to all those statues, well, that’s the same as idol worship.”

Darlene laughed. I’m almost positive I heard the Bontragers’ donkey down the road bray in response.

“We don’t pray to any statues at St. Daphne’s. In fact, I don’t even know who St. Daphne was.”

“Well, in that case, you might stand a chance. The Lichtys are very reasonable people and proud of their daughter. But I have to warn you, they don’t have a lot of money.”

“Oh, that doesn’t matter. If Anna qualifies, I’m prepared to offer her a full scholarship.”

I sighed. Where were the Darlene Townsends of the world when I was sixteen? I’d have given my eye teeth to get away from Hernia and—well, let’s face it—Mama.

“You’re very generous,” I said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m getting cold sitting here.”

She remained sitting, as still as my faucet. “Would you be willing to call ahead and introduce me? Miss Quiring would, but apparently she pulled Anna’s ears one too many times. Supposedly the girl hates her.”

“Okay!” I practically shouted. “If you’ll get out of my bathroom.”

“Certainly.” She took her time unfolding her long limbs. “I tried to ask you last night, but you weren’t here.”

“Don’t be silly. Of course I was here. I just went to bed early.” There was some truth in that.

She looked down at me, her eyes unblinking as a cow’s. “No, you weren’t here. I got in late from seeing Miss Quiring. It was just after ten, and as I came up Hertzler Road, I thought I saw your car driving the other way. I took a chance and knocked on your door.”

“I didn’t hear you,” I said.
That
certainly wasn’t a lie.

She smiled. “I knocked really loud. And your car wasn’t in the driveway. Where were you?”

The nerve of the woman! There I was, naked except for a towel, and she was quizzing me like I was her teenage daughter.

“Out!” I shouted. “Out, out, out!” I grabbed my bottle of Suave moisturizing conditioner and waved it threateningly.

Darlene ambled slowly out of the room. “Let me know when you get the introduction set up, Miss Yoder. This morning would be best but—”

I threw the bottle of conditioner, causing ten generations of pacifist Amish and Mennonite ancestors to turn over in their graves. Fortunately I didn’t hit her, and the tremors caused by all those rolling relatives ceased by the time I got dried and dressed.

The day was definitely off to a rotten start.

Freni made me cinnamon apple pancakes. After gorging, I went back to my room, hung a
DO NOT DISTURB
sign on the door,
locked
the door, and took a good long nap. When I awoke two plus hours later, I felt both ravenous and bloated. I also had a splitting headache. Most importantly, however, at some point during my truncated sleep cycle I’d had a dream, one which, upon awakening, still made sense. A lot of sense. Call it an epiphany if you will. The first piece in solving the puzzle of Lizzie Mast’s incongruous death by drugs had suddenly fallen into place. But in order to see if the piece did indeed fit neatly, I needed my car.

Since I can just as well be sick away from home as I can at home, I gave Susannah a call. She answered just as her machine picked up. Apparently she was giving herself an avocado facial in preparation for her first TV appearance. She sounded as if her jaws were wired shut.

“Susannah, dear,” I said cheerily, despite my pounding head, “do you still have the keys to Melvin’s cruiser?”

She hesitated. “Technically it isn’t against the law,” she finally said. “The law says the cruiser is supposed to be used for official police business, but I’m Melvin’s
wife. And what’s more a Police Chief’s business than his wife?”

“Nothing, dear.”

“Cool, Mags, I think you’re finally loosening up. Hey, you want to go for a spin sometime?”

“Absolutely. How about now?”

“No can do.”

“Of course you can, dear. I just want you to drop me off at the old Berkey barn. I seem to have left my car there.”

Susannah wasn’t the least bit curious. “It’s a mask, Mags. I have to leave it on for an hour, and I just started.”

“Avocados are meant to be eaten, not worn,” I said patiently. “But since you insist on putting it on your face, instead of into it—well, it doesn’t bother me.”

“But it will bother me. If I go out now, I’ll look like a Martian.”

“I can’t believe you care,” I said bitterly.

A good deal of the cleansing hour passed in silence. “I do care,” Susannah finally said. “I’ve turned over a new leaf. I now have a reputation to uphold.”

“You do?”

“Look, Mags, I know you don’t like Melvin, so—”

“Oh, but I do,” I said. My nose itched fiercely.

“Give it a rest, Mags. You think he’s an incompetent nincompoop. You’ve said so a million times.”

“Well, I take some of that back. If Jesse Ventura can be elected as Governor of Minnesota, there is no reason Melvin couldn’t be President. He could even ask Dennis Rodman to be his running mate.”

“You mean that?”

“Truer words were never spoken.”

“Because I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what kind of a First Lady I’d be. I mean, should I be a fashion plate like Jacqueline Kennedy and reintroduce elegance to the White House, or an environmentalist like Lady Bird Johnson and—”

“Susannah,” I said softly, “don’t you think you should wait at least until after Melvin wins the councilman’s seat before you install yourself in the White House?”

“Don’t be silly, Mags. Now is the time to start planning. And I’ve already picked my pet project.” She giggled mysteriously. “Don’t you want to hear about it?”

“If it will make you happy, dear.”

“You’re a pal, sis, you know that?”

“I try to be.” The truth be known, there was no way I would have listened to a woman who was unable to move her lips tell me her plans for the White House, had I not needed a favor.

“Well, I’ve decided that my number one priority will be doggy diapers.”

“What?”
I quickly jiggled a pinkie in my phone ear to make sure it was in working order.

“You know, canine nappies. Poochie Pampers. And tougher leash laws. I plan to spearhead a national drive to make every dog owner responsible for cleaning up after his or her pet.”

“That’s what I thought you said. What about cat diapers?” I asked guardedly. Little Freni was, at that very moment, taking her own bath in the privacy of my brassiere.

“Naw, cats are different; they cover it up when they’re through. But whenever I take Shnookums for a walk around our neighborhood, I have to be careful not to step in these huge piles left behind by bigger dogs. Shnookums, of course, always wears the little diapers I make for him from Melvin’s old T-shirts. It isn’t fair what the other dog owners let their dogs get away with.”

I nodded. That was certainly a cause I could get behind.

“I’ll contribute a thousand dollars to Melvin’s campaign.”

“Really?”

“You’ve got my word. Now hurry on over with the cruiser. I need to retrieve my car.”

It is undoubtedly hard to whine through an avocado mask, but she did a pretty good job. “Mags, I told you I can’t do that.”

“I’ll make that two thousand dollars then.”

“I’ll be right there,” she said and hung up.

Susannah showed up ten minutes later, even though she lives a good fifteen minutes away. Somehow she had found the time to cut eye holes in a brown paper grocery bag, which she wore over her head. Why she didn’t find
that
embarrassing is beyond me.

She chatted the entire way to the old Berkey barn, but the combination of mask and bag made it impossible to decipher a single word. I nodded and smiled at regular intervals and that seemed to keep her happy. To my knowledge she didn’t even ask what I was up to, but her muffled cry of joy when I said good-bye made me a tad nervous. Two thousand dollars was as much as I was willing to contribute to Melvin’s hopeless campaign.

At any rate, I was relieved to find my car exactly where I had left it, and in the same condition. I patted my Beamer lovingly—a sin, I’m sure—and spoke aloud to Little Freni.

“Ready to take a spin, dear?”

Little Freni purred. She loves my car almost as much as I do.

We got in and, after carefully negotiating the stubble in the field, pulled out on the highway just behind, of all people, Lodema Schrock. I will confess now that what I did next was purely of the devil, but I must hasten to explain that I have long since repented for the error of my ways. At any rate, just to irritate my clergyman’s meddling wife, I inched my car as close as I could to her rear bumper without actually touching it. One tap on her brakes, and our vehicles would have kissed, but I knew Lodema would never allow that to happen. She was, after all, a control freak. Besides, we at Beechy Grove Mennonite Church don’t believe in overpampering our
pastors, and I knew that Buick meant as much to her as my Beamer meant to me.

Sure enough, when Lodema saw what I was doing, she floored it. Unfortunately for her, the pastor’s old Buick has about as much oomph as a satiated man, and I was able to maintain my distance. From what some of my guests have told me, drivers in both Carolinas would have been proud.

Lodema was livid. She turned to look at me, her face as white as a Longhorn’s breast. I could see her lips moving, but thanks to the roar of her engine, I couldn’t hear a word. How blessed, I thought, to go through life being unable to hear one’s enemies—or in Susannah’s case, a money-siphoning sister.

Finally, when I thought both she and the old car were about to blow gaskets, I dropped back and, when the gap was right, passed her with as much ease as I might have passed an Amish buggy. Of course, I couldn’t resist looking back with a gloating grin. Who knows, I may even have stuck my tongue out at her.

Perhaps it was Divine retribution but I noticed my turnoff in the nick of time. I had to do some fancy steering to get my Beamer on to Augsberger Lane in one piece. The pinging of gravel against my newly waxed finish was like a volley of stones striking my soul.

“Darn!” I said, which is as bad as I can swear. “Darn, darn, darn!”

Lodema Shrock leaned on her horn as she passed on the highway behind. No doubt the Mennonite Women’s Sewing Circle was in for a few chuckles at my expense.

Needless to say, thanks to my headache and a pockmarked car, I was not in the best of moods when I pulled into the Troyer drive. Therefore, I prayed for a Christian tongue. If the Good Lord did not see fit to give it to me—well, then it is really His fault, isn’t it?

Gertrude Troyer was on her hands and knees in her front yard weeding her dahlia bed. The Amish may be plain people, but they have an appreciation for the
beauty of creation. Still, kneeling in a flower bed seemed a little too fancy to me.

She looked up suddenly, startled to see me, and for a second I thought she was going to bolt. Had she, I would have been flattered. After all, a fierce reputation is better than none. But Gertrude quickly composed herself and continued to weed as if I weren’t there.

I got out and approached her. “Your husband anywhere around?”

She pulled a dandelion out with its root intact, a feat which impressed me. “Do you see him?”

Her caginess impressed me even more. “That isn’t the question I asked, dear. Is he around?”

She refused to answer.

“Fine. I’ll find out for myself.” I trotted off in the direction of the barn.

“Miss Yoder!” She was a spry little thing and caught up with me after I’d gone only a few yards. “Miss Yoder, it is not right that you should—ach, what is the word—barge, yah? Barge into our farm. It is illegal, no?”

“No. I’m not barging into anything. I’m merely looking for a neighbor.”

She grabbed my right elbow with her dirt-stained hand. “But the barn you will not go into.”

“Says who?” I said as I started for the barn.

She grabbed my arm with both hands and tried to restrain me. She was surprisingly strong, but not nearly as devious as I. A hard kick to her shins and I was free and running.

“Jacob!” Gertrude yelled. “Jacob!” Fortunately she has a thin high voice that didn’t carry at all well.

I raced for the barn, ignoring the horse and buggy parked outside the closed main door. The horse whinnied as I approached, and it was only then that I realized Jacob must have company. Why hadn’t I noticed the horse before? Jacob, like any Amish man, would never leave a horse hitched unless he was intending to go somewhere momentarily. Besides, the buggy didn’t
belong to the Troyers. Not that it mattered now. Magdalena on the warpath is as unstoppable as a German panzer, if I may be permitted to use a very unpacifist analogy.

The barn door was not locked, but it was heavy. I’ve been opening barn doors all my life, and I knew to throw my shoulder into the act. It slid open smoothly, so smoothly that I took Jacob by surprise. In fact, I caught him right in the act of taking money from another man. It looked to be an enormous amount of cash.

I gasped, not at the size of the wad—I’ve seen bigger before—but upon recognizing Jacob’s companion. It’s hard to say who was more surprised, the men or I.

Needless to say, I found my tongue first. “Benjamin Keim! What are you doing here with Jacob Troyer?”

Elam and Seth’s father looked as pale and rigid as Freni might have, had the Almighty chosen to smite her for blasphemy. His arm remained extended, his hand still clutching the cash. Only the blinking of his eyes convinced me I wasn’t looking at a statue.

As for the drop-dead gorgeous Jacob, he recovered the instant I said his name. He turned to me, just as calmly as you please, his full lips arranged in the most seductive of smiles.

“Good morning, Magdalena.” His voice was like that of a cat purring, not out of contentment, but from a need to be fed. “It is good to see you.”

“I wish I could say the same,” I snapped.

“You look upset, Magdalena. Is there anything I can do to help?”

I laughed bitterly. “Well, you could come right out and confess. That will save me oodles of time. Maybe even a few gray hairs.”

“What should I confess?”

He smiled again, and just seeing that smile made
me
feel a need to confess—if you know what I mean. It took all my inner strength to look at his shoes while I spoke.

“You can confess to supplying the young people in this county with drugs.”

As you well know, I don’t swear, but if I did, I’d swear that even Jacob’s shoes smiled. What’s more, the man seemed to read my mind.