The Hand That Rocks the Ladle Read online

  Both of Melvin’s orbs focused briefly on Elspeth. “Is there somewhere I could interview this woman? Maybe a storeroom?”

  Much to my surprise, Elspeth grinned. “The unloading door is locked now. She won’t be able to get away if I lock you in from this side.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Melvin said, even more to my surprise.

  Elspeth frowned but led us through the throng, and eventually through a set of scuffed metal doors at the far end of the store. Just inside the storeroom she grabbed a pitchfork from a barrel and handed it to Melvin.

  “If she tries to get away, just poke.”

  “In your eye,” I said, forgetting for a moment that, as a Christian, I’m supposed to keep a civil tongue.

  “Ladies, please,” Melvin said. That was quite possibly the first time he had ever used the P word on me.

  Elspeth drew another fork from the barrel. “Don’t worry. I’ll be waiting just on the other side of those doors. She won’t get away.”

  I glared at Elspeth. “What’s with the forks and shovels? Don’t you usually ride a broom?”

  Melvin snickered. I had the feeling he disliked her almost as much as he disliked me.

  “Why I never!” Elspeth said, and stormed off, fork still in hand.

  I prayed silently for her customers on the other side of the door. I also waited until the doors had swung shut behind her before speaking, and you can be sure that when I did, it was in a whisper.

  “Now, what’s this about Susannah?”

  Melvin sat on an empty wooden crate turned sideways. He sighed dramatically.

  “Out with it,” I snapped.

  “Remember those little fried apple pies your mama used to make?”

  “Snitz turnovers? The ones with dried apples.”

  “Yeah, those are the ones. Susannah’s making them.”

  “What? She hates to cook!” I’m not sure my slothful sister knows what a stove looks like anymore. “And that’s not all. She bought a dress.”

  “A dress'?” To my knowledge Susannah hasn’t worn a dress since our parents’ funeral eleven years ago. She hasn’t worn pants either since then. Don’t get me wrong. She doesn’t go around naked, like that vamp Vivian and her boy-toy. To the contrary, my baby sister drapes herself in yards of fabric, and floats through the house like the ghost of a half-wrapped mummy. “It gets worse.”

  I steadied myself against a stack of heavy barley bags. “Go on.”

  “She’s stopped wearing makeup.”

  I gasped, thereafter choking for a few seconds on barley dust. “None?”

  “Not a lick. I didn’t recognize her at first. She looked awful. In fact, Yoder, I thought it was you come to pay a visit.”

  “Thanks, dear.” I would have pinched Melvin, had my knees been strong enough to get me that close.

  “Oh, I’m not through yet, Yoder. We’re just getting to the good parts.”

  I slumped to the floor. “I don’t know if my ticker can take any more.”

  Melvin leaned forward, no doubt checking for a shadow under the swinging metal doors. “This morning she made the bed.”

  “Lies, Melvin, those have got to be communist lies!”

  Melvin is linguistically challenged. “Now this is the piece of resistance,” he said, and proceeded to tell me the most shocking thing these ears have ever heard, bar none. If there had been anyone else present to revive me except for Melvin, I would have fainted.

  Ten

  Easy Snitz Turnovers

  2 cups dried apple slices

  1 cup sugar

  2 tablespoons butter

  1 teaspoon cinnamon

  1 teaspoon nutmeg

  2 nine-inch pie crusts cut in half

  Soak dried apples in two cups warm water. Cook until tender. Drain off most of the liquid, and stir in sugar, butter, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Divide pie crust into halves. Spoon several tablespoons of apples on one- half of each pie crust half. Fold over, moisten edges, and crimp.

  Fry in deep fat at 375 degrees for approximately four minutes or until golden brown. If baking, bake in oven at 375 degrees for approximately twenty minutes.

  Yields four large turnovers.

  Eleven

  “She what?” I asked weakly.

  “Your sister asked me to take her to church next Sunday.”

  I fanned myself with my skirt. Of course, it was an immodest thing to do, but Melvin politely averted at least one eye.

  “Did you say church?”

  “Yeah, Yoder. Did you put her up to this?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Susannah hasn’t listened to me since she hit puberty. I wonder what those pushy Presbyterians are bribing her with now.”

  “That’s just it, Yoder. She doesn’t want to go to the Presbyterian church, she wants to go back to the Mennonite church. Beechy Grove Mennonite to be exact.”

  I know, by now you must be wondering why it is I wasn’t rejoicing. I’ll tell you why. The Susannah that Melvin had just described was not my sister. Or if it was, she was deathly ill.

  “Shnookums!” I cried. “Does she still have Shnookums?”

  Melvin shrugged. “I haven’t seen that mutt around for ages.”

  I felt a sharp pang in my heart. Something was dreadfully wrong. Susannah and her pitiful pooch are inseparable. Who else would carry a dinky dog around in her bra? She even has that miserable mongrel trained to brush her teeth. That’s right—the dog brushes Susannah’s teeth.

  “What shall we do, Melvin?” My voice sounded like a little girl who’d been sucking on her helium balloon.

  Tears rolled out of Melvin’s left eye. “I don’t know, Yoder. That’s why I came to you.”

  I closed my eyes and prayed. I asked the Good Lord for strength, wisdom, and, above all, patience. Now that I’ve conquered pride, a lack of patience is my one shortcoming. At any rate, after praying for a few minutes I felt calm, collected, and as my former guests from Hollywood might have said, “centered.” I knew exactly what I needed to do, and much to my amazement, I didn’t even have to struggle to get to my feet. “Where are you going, Yoder?”

  “To see your wife!”

  “Good luck.” He was actually sincere.

  “Thanks, but I won’t be needing luck. I’m a woman on a divine mission.”

  I strode from the storeroom, through the swinging metal doors, and straight into the tines of Elspeth’s pitchfork.

  “Ouch!”

  Fortunately for me, Elspeth was engaged in a conversation with a customer, and her grip on the fork was loose. Unfortunately for Elspeth, my bony elbow knocked the fork out of her hand, and true to its name, it pitched. The heavy scoop brought the tines down on the tip of Elspeth’s black brogan, while the handle swung up, hitting her chin.

  Elspeth screamed bloody murder, all the while hopping about like a one-legged chicken on a hot asphalt road. For a heart-stopping moment I thought I may have done her serious harm.

  “Call 911 again,” I wailed miserably.

  The Amish woman Elspeth had been talking to stared at me, her eyes as big as snitz turnovers.

  “Never mind, I’ll do it myself.”

  But before I could move, the swinging metal doors parted and Melvin burst on the scene. Alas, he didn’t seem at all surprised.

  “What did you do this time, Yoder?”

  “Me? I didn’t do anything.”

  Elspeth froze in mid-hop. “Magdalena tried to kill me, that’s what she did. Look!” She pointed first to her chin, which sprouted a nice little tuft of hair, but no bruise as far as I could see. “And there!” Elspeth, who was really quite agile for a woman her age, grabbed her right foot and raised it almost chest level.

  I, for one, tried to focus on Elspeth’s foot, and not her unmentionables which, incidentally, could stand a good bleaching. To be honest, there was a small indentation in the leather of her shoe, just above the spot where her big toe should be, but it was really nothing to get upset about.

  “A
little shoe polish, and who’s going to notice the difference?” I said in a reassuring voice.

  “Arrest that woman!” Elspeth screeched. Balancing on one bandy leg, she unlaced her brogan, removed it and the sock, and searched in vain for a wound.

  I was shocked by the state of Elspeth’s foot. “You really should trim your nails, dear.”

  “Your foot looks all right to me,” Melvin said, obviously much relieved. Even a man with half a brain would want to stay clear of a fight between Elspeth and me.

  “But she tried to kill me!”

  “Nonsense, dear,” I said calmly. “You were the one holding the weapon. Anna,” I said to our Amish witness, “you saw it happen. It was an accident, wasn’t it?”

  “Ach!” Anna squawked and fled from the store.

  “You see? She doesn’t even think answering the question is worth her time. Well, I’ve got to go too.” I trotted after Anna, fully expecting to be tackled by Elspeth.

  Much to my surprise, she made no move to stop me.

  ***

  Melvin and Susannah live in a modest, aluminum-sided home on the south end of Hernia. This is a new neighborhood of blue-collar folks, and bears the lofty, but nonsensical name Foxcroft. In my dictionary a croft is either a small, enclosed field adjoining a house, or a small farm worked by tenants. It has nothing to do with rows of identical homes on postage-stamp lots.

  Since all the homes on Susannah’s street, Foxhaven, look the same, and all the unimaginatively planted yards are in their infancy, I was forced to pay attention to house numbers. Unfortunately for me, the builder of this subdivision bought his numerals from the same company that supplies the last line of letters on eye charts. Fortunately, however, Susannah’s blinds were open, and on my third pass I noticed the hot pink drapes. I never did see the 666 that was supposedly tacked to the right of the front door.

  As it was already well into the afternoon, I was pretty sure I would catch my sister awake. And no, she doesn’t hold down a night job. Susannah and daylight have just never really gotten along. Maybe it is because she was born at night. Who knows? But even as a baby Susannah kept midnight hours.

  Frankly, I think sleeping past eight in the morning is a sin. The Good Lord created sunrise and sunset to tell us when to get up, and when to go to bed, respectively. Not the other way around. And for those of us who strive for holiness, he created roosters. My cock Chauntecleer, for example, crows every morning at five thirty-five. Smarter than most humans, he even knows how to adjust for daylight savings time. This is not to say that I get up with the chickens, however. Chauntecleer has been repeatedly warned to keep the racket down before six, or one of these days he’s going to end up as a fricassee.

  Susannah opened the door before I even had a chance to ring the bell. Had I been wearing dentures, I would have dropped them on the porch.

  “Oh, silly, stop your staring,” Susannah said, after perhaps five minutes had passed.

  How could I not stare? My baby sister did indeed own a dress now, and she was wearing it: a modest, short-sleeved navy shirtdress with a white collar. It was buttoned at the throat. Susannah’s knees were covered by the skirt, but her legs were encased in hose. On her feet, she had proper, store-bought shoes. They weren’t even patent leather.

  “Uh—uh—”

  Susannah pulled me inside. “Do I look that bad?”

  I shook my head.

  “So you approve?”

  “Well—”

  Susannah pushed me into an armchair. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost, Mags.”

  “It is quite a shock. You always wore jeans as a girl, and then those—how shall we say—flowing outfits. I hadn’t seen your legs in so many years, I wasn’t sure if I remembered correctly. But I see now that you were indeed born with ankles.”

  “Very funny, Mags. You hate it, don’t you?”

  “Let’s just say it isn’t you.”

  “But it is me. It’s the new me.”

  I glanced around at an impeccably clean house—and yes, I could see most of the house from that one little room. It would take a dorm full of college kids an entire week to turn it into a replica of Susannah’s old room at home.

  “Why?” I asked quietly.

  She was still standing, and I could see for the first time that she had a figure. Not a curvaceous one—you can’t have that and wear a dog in your bra, but a decent enough form nonetheless. If I, her sister, looked anywhere near that good, I was, in her words, “one hot mama.”

  Susannah shook her head, and I noticed that even her hair was neatly combed and held in place with a veneer of spray. “Isn’t this what you guys wanted?”

  “We guys who?”

  “You, Melvin, the whole world!”

  I was flabbergasted. “You threw away your bandage dresses for us?”

  Susannah sighed. “They weren’t bandage dresses, Mags, but yes, I threw them away.”

  “I repeat. Why?”

  To my astonishment, she burst into tears. “Because I’m married now, that’s why!”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  Susannah threw herself on the Berber carpet at my feet. “I’m supposed to be normal now. Don’t you get it? Look out there!” She pointed past the hot pink drapes. In the driveway across the street I could see a woman about Susannah’s age washing her car clad only in halter top and shorts.

  “She isn’t dressed like you, dear.”

  “Yes, but she isn’t the police chief’s wife.”

  My mousy brown hair bristled. “So that’s what it’s about, is it? Melvin asked you to dress like this? Like Barbie goes to church?”

  “Oh, no! Melvin didn’t ask me to do anything. I want to do this for him. For his career.”

  I tried not to smile. “Susannah, dear, I’m afraid he’s gotten as far as he’s going to go, and he did it all unmarried, and while dating you, Queen of the Fabric Outlet Mall.”

  “Mags, you are so wrong. Melvin is going places. Hernia is just his jumping-off place.”

  “Too bad we don’t have any really high cliffs,” I mumbled.

  “I know you’ve never liked him, but he has so much potential. Someday he may decide to run for the state legislature, maybe even the national. Who knows, maybe someday there will be a Stoltzfus in the White House.”

  I shuddered. Well, at least the nation wasn’t unprepared.

  “What about church, dear? Is that why you want to go to church? To get the Religious Right to back you?”

  Susannah looked away. “Yeah, that and other things.”

  “What other things?”

  She was silent for a long time, and I respected that until I saw tears.

  “Susannah, tell me,” I said gently.

  “I want to stop being a disappointment. To you—and to Mama and Papa.”

  That caught me off guard. “Me?”

  She turned a tear-streaked face my way. “I want you to respect me, Mags.”

  “I do.” Okay, so it was a fib, but the Good Lord knows I tell only necessary lies.

  “No, you don’t. You think I’m a floozy.”

  “Not anymore, dear. Now you’re just a former floozy.” I laughed at my little joke. “But seriously, Susannah, this isn’t you, is it?”

  She glanced at me, then away. “Well, I no longer sleep around, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Good. Sleeping around is dangerous under any circumstances. But I mean this—” I waved at her clothes and the neat surroundings. “Except for those hot pink drapes, this could be anybody’s house. Anybody boring.”

  “I bought the drapes before I began my transformation. I had them custom-made. I can’t take them back.”

  “I don’t think you should. They are very you.”

  “You want me to be myself?”

  “Perhaps you could compromise. Perhaps—oh, forget what I just said. Yes, you should be yourself.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. Wear your drapes if you like. Swaddl
e yourself in enough fabric to clothe a third world country for all I care. I just want you to be happy, and you don’t look very happy now.”

  She beamed, but a second later her face darkened. “What about Melvin?”

  I was tempted to tell her to forget about the miserable mantis, that his opinion didn’t count. But it did. And anyway, there was no need for her to worry any longer.

  “The man worships you. Of course, worshipping a human being is a sin, but that’s another issue. My point is, he loves you. And we all know this isn’t you. As for the voters—well, they’ll vote anything into office that promises them financial stability. Promise them a Porsche in every pot, so to speak. Go for it, girl!”

  Susannah yelped with joy, grabbed my hands, and pulled me to my feet. Then in an act that defied five hundred years of stern Anabaptist inbreeding, she enveloped me in a hug. Disregarding my own, almost identical set of genes, I hugged her back.

  A second later I screamed.

  Twelve

  “Ouch! He bit my bosom!”

  Susannah patted the left side of her own bosom. “You mean Shnookums?”

  “That mangy, miserable, maniacal mutt bit me!”

  “Aw, Mags, he’s just happy to see you.”

  “Well, I didn’t see him! In fact, dressed the way you are, in a real dress, I just assumed that he was living on the ground now like any normal animal.”

  Susannah recoiled in horror. “Shnookums is not an animal!”

  “He’s a dog, dear. And that’s if you’re being charitable. I’ve seen rats in Philly twice his size and every bit as nice.”

  “But they’re not housebroken, are they?” She sounded almost hopeful, like she was considering a Philadelphia rat to balance the load.

  “Aren’t you even a little concerned that I might be hurt?”

  “Well, are you?”

  I peered down my dress at my deficit chest. There didn’t appear to be any teeth marks. Maybe I ought to have given the rat credit for finding the needle in a haystack.

  “I guess I’ll live. But you better teach that beast some manners.”

  “You squeezed him, Mags. What was he supposed to do?”