Grape Expectations: A Pennsylvania Dutch Mystery With Recipes Read online

  I don’t hit Alison, and since my looks of disapproval are not only ineffective but often met with mockery, I am usually at a loss when she and I hit a bumpy patch in our relationship. (Yes, I’ve tried reasoning, but some experts believe the ability to reason isn’t even present in the early teens.) Even grounding doesn’t work with Alison. Tell her she’s grounded for a week, and before she slams her door she’ll tell you she’s grounding herself for a month. What’s a pseudo-mother to do?

  Imagine, then, my state of mind when, after leaving Satan inside Wilhelm I. Hinkledorf and Sons funeral home, I found my young charge leaning against the hood of Vinny’s limousine and smoking a cigarette. I did a double take, and then a triple take. It is said that we each have a twin out there—may the Good Lord have mercy on mine—and I was hoping against hope that Alison Miller, born in Minnesota, had a Pennsylvania twin. After all, her father was from these parts and every bit as inbred as I am.

  But alas, the smoke-puffing teenybopper I’d spotted was the real McCoy.

  By the time I’d done the triple take, Alison’s face had gone from winter pale to ghostly white. The cigarette now lay on the asphalt, partly covered by her shoe. Wisps of smoke escaped from the corners of her tightly drawn mouth.

  “Alison!”

  “M-Mom?” she sputtered, the smoke pouring from her mouth in a wave of carcinogenic fog.

  “As big as life, and twice as ugly, dear.”

  “It isn’t what you think.”

  “I think you’re not in school.”

  She glanced around, as if looking for someone else I might be addressing. “Uh—it’s a holiday, Mom.”

  I prayed for wisdom. “Which one?”

  “Uh—some dead president’s birthday I think. Yeah, that’s it.”

  “Which president?”

  “Grants Tomb. Something like that”

  “Ah, President Tomb. I remember her well.”

  “He was a she?”

  That was the first time I’d seen Alison stimulated by anything academic. I hated to derail that locomotive to nowhere.

  “Grant’s Tomb is where President Grant is buried—in case someone should ask. Unfortunately, we have yet to elect a woman president, even though more than half the country is female. Also, unfortunately, you’re busted.”

  She glanced down at her chest, which had been on a growth rampage ever since she’d come to live with me. Believe me, it wasn’t something in Hernia’s water supply. “Yeah. Ya think I’m bigger than you are now, Mom?”

  “Don’t rub it in, dear. Now, you have exactly five seconds to tell me what you’re doing in downtown Bedford in the middle of a school day.”

  “What happens if I don’t tell? Ya gonna ground me like usual?”

  “No. I’m going to call the police and tell them you’ve run away.”

  Her brown Miller eyes widened. “Ya can’t do that! They’ll send me back to Minnesota to live with my dad and what’s-her-name.”

  “Won’t that be fun. What is it she does that you enjoy so much? Oh yes, she makes you chew each bite thirty-six times. I wouldn’t worry too much about that seven thirty bedtime, though. Now that you’re fourteen, she might let you stay up until eight.”

  Alison stamped her foot, which was a good thing, because the cigarette under it had begun to glow again. “Man, that’s no fair!”

  “Life isn’t fair. If it was, do you think I’d look like I should have a saddle slapped on my back—”

  “Stop it, Mom. You’re beautiful.”

  “I am?”

  “Way more beautiful than my friends’ moms.”

  “lorn?”

  “Tons more beautiful. You’re the most beautiful—”

  “You may continue later, dear. But now I want you to tell me what you’re doing here.”

  She sighed and rolled her eyes. “I know, it was stupid of me, but I wanted to see where Jason Dunbar lives.”

  “Who is Jason Dunbar?”

  “Some guy I met at the basketball game Saturday. He said he was rich and lived in this big house and had an awesome sound system. Yeah, like right. He lives in this dump with plastic all over the windows, and he isn’t even home. His mom said he was in school, and that’s where I should be too, and that if I didn’t take a hike, she was calling the cops.”

  “Alison, how did you get to Bedford? It’s twelve miles, for crying out loud. Fourteen from our house.”

  “Otto.”

  The short hairs on my neck saluted the long hairs on my arms. “Otto? Which Otto?”

  She kicked the closest tire. “This one. Ya know, the one who works for them wine people.”

  “Explain, dear,” I said, my dander rising to keep my hair company.

  “Well, I was hitchhiking, see, but nobody would stop, on account it was still real early and they was all Amish, and they don’t stop unless you’re one of them. Then Otto comes along in this awesome limo and asks me if I need a ride. And I’m, like, ‘Are you crazy? Of course I want a ride.’ And he’s, like, ‘Hop in.’ Only he’s got that funny accent. So anyway, I tell him to drop me off downtown—I didn’t want him ta know where I was going, so he wouldn’t tell nobody—and then I walked to Jason’s house. But it took me forever, and then he wasn’t home, like I said. So then I walk back here, ’cause I don’t know what else ta do, and then I see the limo, and then along you come. So what are you doing here, Mom?”

  “Moi? Well, I thought I was doing a good deed, helping a veritable stranger, but it turns out—hey, never you mind. This is about you. And where did you get that cigarette?”

  “What cigarette?”

  “The one that’s burning a hole in your left shoe.”

  I’d encourage Alison to be an actress were it not for the fact that Hollywood is filled with harlots and Democrats. “Dang! You’re right, Mom. There is a cigarette.” She made a great show of shaking her foot and examining the sole of her shoe for damage. Fortunately for her, there was none. “Save the theatrics, dear. Where did you get it?”

  “Ah, man, no fair! Ya always figure me out. I got it from Otto. And it’s not like I asked for it, Mom. He offered.” “You expect me to believe that a grown man offered you a—”

  “Ask him yourself, Mom. He’s right behind you.”

  I whirled. Being vertically enhanced, I’m always surprised when I encounter someone who looms over me. And that’s precisely what Otto did. At such close range I had to throw my head back at an uncomfortable angle to see his face. But I will have it known that I was not intimidated by such unnatural height.

  “Did you give my daughter cigarettes?”

  “Uh—hey, I don’t have ta answer ya, lady.”

  “Oh yes, you do.”

  “Says who?”

  “How about your boss, Vinny Bacchustelli?” Technically, all I did was ask a question. Therefore it was not a lie.

  “He said that? No way, lady.”

  “Hey,” Alison said, “my mom doesn’t lie. Do ya, Mom?”

  “Well—uh—this is not about me, dear. It’s about Otto contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Now let’s see,” I said as I took my cell phone from my purse and tapped it lightly against my chin. “Shall I call Chief Hornsby-Anderson, Sheriff Johnson, or the Bedford Chief of Police? Seeing as how Otto picked you up in Hernia, drove halfway across the county, and dropped you off here, I’d say all three of them have the right to be involved.”

  It’s been said that the flutter of a butterfly’s wings along the coast of Africa can set into motion a chain of events that culminates in a hurricane by the time it reaches the coast of North America. I have no doubt that Otto was shaking in his shoes so hard that folks in San Francisco could hear their windows rattle.

  “Ma’am, please don’t call no one.”

  “Anyone.”

  “Them either. I didn’t give this girl no cigarettes—I swear on my firstborn, the fruit of my groin.”

  “That would be loin, dear.”

  “Ain’t that a cut of pork?
”

  “A pig’s a pig, no matter how you slice it.” I turned to Alison. “Well?”

  “Big deal, so I already had the cigarettes. Still, he gave me a ride. That’s illegal, ain’t it? Ya know, like raiding and betting a runaway.”

  “That’s aiding and abetting. And you weren’t running away—were you?”

  “No.” She sighed dramatically. “I already told ya where I was going.”

  “So you did. And you can tell me all about how, and where, you bought the cigarettes while Otto drives us back to where I left my car.”

  “Sorry, lady, but I ain’t driving you nowhere. Gotta wait for the boss.”

  “Au contraire, Otto. Either you give us a lift, or I’m singing like a canary.”

  “Ya better listen to her,” Alison said, “because she really sounds like a turkey with a sore throat.”

  “Why, I never!” Although perhaps I do. I joined the choir at Beechy Grove Mennonite one year, and attendance plummeted.

  “Hop in,” Otto growled, “but if either of youse opens your yap, out ya go.”

  “Deal.”

  On the way back to Hernia my precious charge admitted to swiping the cigarettes from Yoder’s Corner Market Then, much to my horror, she confessed to also stealing hair spray, gum, magazines, and a can of Vienna sausages. “Why the potted meat, dear?”

  “It was Lindsey Augsberger’s idea. Ya see, Mr. Casey— that’s my history teacher—is really mean to us, making us take pop quizzes and all. And he carries this really dumb suitcase thing with our papers and junk in it. But sometimes he forgets it, because it’s the last period, and he’s gotta go off and find Miss Hansen so the two of them can make out together in the copy room.”

  “They what?”

  “Ya know, kiss and fool around. Anyway, so Lindsey comes up with this idea of putting something gross in the suitcase thing—”

  “Attaché case?”

  “Yeah, whatever. So I get some of them little sausages from the market and we put them in. First we take them out of the can, of course.”

  “Of course. What else would be the point?”

  “Right. But this is on a Friday, see, and Mr. Casey goes home without the case. Then he gets sick, and is out a whole week. Meanwhile that case is sitting about six inches from a radiator, and since Mr. Ferguson—he’s the janitor—doesn’t hardly clean at all, and nobody says nothing to the principal’s office, that thing starts to smell—”

  “That will be all, dear.”

  “But I ain’t finished with the story.”

  “Oh yes, you are. Besides, you might want to use the next few minutes to work on your apology.”

  “What apology?”

  17

  “The apology you’re going to make to Mr. Yoder when you pay him back what you owe.”

  I glanced at Alison just in time to see her blanch. “Mom! You’re kidding, right?”

  “I’m as serious as a history test How much money do you have?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe ten dollars—ya know ya don’t hardly give me nothing for my allowance. Mary Jane says she gets—”

  “Mary Jane milks cows, dear. You make your bed on days you feel like it.”

  She folded her arms across her blooming chest “Not hardly. If I don't make it, you holler like I killed someone.” This mom stuff was not what I expected. Sure, there were bound to be days when one, or both, of us were out of sorts, but I didn’t expect her to argue with everything I said. I hadn’t dared talk back to my parents. I certainly never would have dared steal anything. And it’s not that I wasn’t tempted, mind you. That shiny new lunchbox with Dale Evans’s picture on it called to me with its siren song from the McCrory’s Five and Dime throughout the fifth grade. Of course, Mama—not to mention Grandma Yoder—wouldn’t hear of spending that much on something so frivolous. If a brown paper bag was good enough for the boy Jesus, it was good enough for me. I was practically willing to sell my soul for a sandwich container and a thermos with its own plastic red cup. For weeks that’s all I could think about, especially at school, and my grades dropped precipitously. But my point is, I didn’t steal it.

  Alison was neither a cooperative nor a compliant sinner; I literally had to drag her into the market by a sleeve. When I let go she slumped just as surely as if I’d removed her backbone in one quick motion. Sam, who’s had a thing for me even before my lunchbox days, didn’t even notice the girl at first.

  “My, my, what a fine-looking specimen of a woman,” he said.

  “Stop it, Sam. We’re first cousins, for crying out loud.”

  “I hear that’s legal down in South Carolina. Encouraged, even.”

  “You’re a married man, Sam.”

  “Yes, but you’re not. Even the patriarchs in the Bible had more than one wife.”

  “You forget I’m engaged to be married to the handsomest man in the world.”

  “You’ve accepted my proposal?”

  “No, and I wouldn’t even if you were the last man alive.”

  “You might change your mind after I’d had a chance to shower you with kisses, from the fuzz on your upper lip to the—”

  “Ew, gross,” Alison said.

  Sam noticed her for the first time. “Ah, the little one. What is she doing out of school?”

  “I’m wondering that myself.”

  “I’m not little,” Alison said, and stamped her foot so hard a display of Little Debbie snack cakes collapsed and tumbled to the floor. “In two years I’m getting my driver’s license.”

  “We’ll see about that,” I said. “In the meantime, dear, pick up the goodies.”

  “Aw, do I have ta?”

  “Yes, and please hurry. You don’t have all day.”

  Sam winked at me. “If she’s squashed any of them, Magdalena, you’re going to have to pay.”

  “Gross again,” Alison said, and scooped up the jelly-filled rolls. Arms full, and unable to deposit the treats neatly on the display stand, she dumped them into a tub containing cans of tuna fish packed in water.

  “Not there,” Sam said.

  Alison scooped up a dozen or so of the packaged treats and dropped them on the floor again.

  “Alison!”

  “Mom, you said yourself that I ain’t got all day.”

  “Well, no matter what, you have time to apologize to Sam.”

  “No need, Magdalena. I was a teenager myself once. Hormones make you clumsy.”

  “Were that it was merely an estrogen surge. Go on, Alison, tell Cousin Sam what you’re really sorry for.”

  “He ain’t my cousin, Mom.” It was the first time my stepdaughter had purposely tried to distance herself from me by playing the genetics card. Frankly, that hurt.

  “Actually, he is your cousin. Your father and Sam are first cousins on his mother’s side, and double second cousins once removed on his father’s side. Add that all up, remove the ‘removed,’ and the two of you are brother and sister,” Sam laughed. “Something like that, I’m sure. Go on, little lady, tell me what it is you have to apologize for.”

  “Like I said, I ain’t little.”

  “Alison!”

  Sam put up a restraining hand. “That’s all right, Magdalena. She’s right; she’s not a child.” He smiled at Alison. “I’m sorry I called you that.”

  “Yeah, whatever.”

  “What are you sorry for?”

  Alison hung her head and mumbled something that sounded like “If this is Belgium, I’ll have pajamas for breakfast”

  Sam cupped both ears. “Couldn’t quite catch that”

  “I’m sorry I stole a bunch of stuff from your store.”

  I’ve known Sam his entire life—he’s six months younger than I—but I’ve never seen him so angry. Even when his wife, Dorothy, spent ten thousand dollars on a face-lift (a botched one, at that) and didn’t tell him until after he’d opened the bill, he hadn’t looked this upset.

  “You stole from my store?”

  “Yeah, but it was o
nly cigarettes and sausages—dumb stuff like that. It wasn’t, like, anything important.”

  “How many packages of cigarettes?”

  “I dunno.”

  “A million?”

  “No—sheesh! It was more like—uh—a carton.”

  Sam scribbled on a scrap of yellow paper. “That’s over a hundred dollars’ worth. Did you know that’s a felony?”

  “Uh—no. Is that, like, something really bad?”

  “If I press charges—”

  “Which you won’t,” I said, and showed Sam my teeth. It was the closest thing to a smile I could manage just then.

  “The heck I won’t!”

  “Hey,” Alison cried, “I’m gonna pay ya back.”

  “You’re darn tootin’. But that’s just for starters. Stealing cigarettes one day, and cars the next. That’s how these things go.”

  “I won’t steal any cars! I promise.”

  “The only way to make sure you don’t steal my car someday is to have you shipped back to Minnesota from whence you came.”

  “I didn’t whence anything; I only stole.”

  “Samuel Nevin Yoder,” I roared, “how dare you threaten this child with repatriation?”

  Alison’s eyes widened with horror. “That ain’t the death penalty, is it?”

  “Absolutely not—well, for some it may be. For you it just means going home.” I glared at Sam. “If you want trouble, Sam, that’s what you’re going to get. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  “Magdalena, didn’t your mother—my aunt, may she rest in peace—teach you that you can catch more flies with honey than you can with vinegar?”

  “She tried, but I never did see the point of catching flies.”

  Sam refused to crack a smile. “It’s your call, Magdalena;” “All right. What kind of honey did you have in mind?” “Our thirtieth high school reunion is coming up. I want you to go as my date.”

  “At the risk of sounding like a broken record—you’re married.”

  “It’s a reunion party, Magdalena, not an invitation to a drive-in movie. Dorothy won’t mind. She already said she refused to go. In fact, she even suggested I take you.”

  “In a pig’s ear.” Although she had no reason to be, Dorothy Yoder is intensely jealous of yours truly. I’m sure it’s because Sam talks about me too much. I mean, she has nothing to worry about. Her papa is rich—he bought the store for Sam—and she is basically an attractive woman. So what if, thanks to an incompetent surgeon, her nose slants across her face, her lips resemble a lightning bolt, and one bosom is so much higher than the other that water spilled on her chest runs sideways instead of down?