The Hand That Rocks the Ladle Page 8

  “You hugged me first,” I said childishly. My behavior raised a sobering thought. “It’s a good thing you don’t have little kids, and by the time you do, well—it may no longer be around by then.”

  “Actually we’ve been trying to start a family ever since we knew for sure we were getting married.”

  “You have?” The thought of being an aunt delighted me. The thought of a possible little Melvin running around terrified me.

  Susannah nodded. “Melvin wants a big family, and I’m already thirty-five. It’s now or never, as they say.”

  “You could adopt,” I wailed.

  “Don’t be silly, Mags. We’ll do that too. Like I said, Melvin wants to have a bunch of kids.”

  “How much is a bunch?” I asked in alarm.

  “Oh, at least a dozen. Six adopted, and six with my honeybuns.”

  Before I could stop them, images of miniature mantises flitted through my brain.

  “Six mini Melvins isn’t a bunch,” I cried. “It’s a swarm!”

  The doorbell rang. Susannah kicked off her shoes before running to answer it, proving that old habits do indeed die hard. No doubt, by the time I left, she’d be back in her swaddling clothes.

  “Hemmy!” I heard her say.

  I heard a familiar voice, but not wanting to be rude, ignored the caller and studied my sister’s decor. Granted, Melvin makes a meager salary, and Susannah none, but their tiny house was crammed with expensive furnishings. An enormous, buttery soft Italian leather sofa took up one entire living-room wall. In front of it were two buttery soft ottomans and a cherry coffee table around which a family of five could eat a full-course meal. Above the couch hung a signed, limited edition print by Jim Booth, the famous landscape painter. Opposite the couch was the largest TV screen I had ever seen. The devil himself could, and probably did, appear life-size on that thing. Against the far wall, between the oversized TV and decadent leather sofa, loomed a monstrous electronic exercise machine that looked like a cross between a bicycle and a medieval instrument of torture—the Exorcist, Susannah once called it—which tells you more about yourself than you’ll ever want to know. How’s that for priorities? Young people these days!

  I know for a fact that Susannah and her hopeless hubby are up to their eyeballs in credit card debt. In my day, we saved up our money until we had enough, and then we paid cash. Okay, so I inherited an inn full of antique furniture—the real thing too, none of those faux, factory-distressed things they sell nowadays. Who wants to pay good money for a table or chair with pretend scars? If I’m going to dish out that much money, I want a new table that I can scar for myself. At any rate, I have always made do with what I had, or made more dough to do with. I have never, and will never, own a single credit card.

  In case you’re wondering why I inherited all my parents’ furniture—well, I didn’t. Papa and Mama, in their wisdom, left the farm and its contents to me, with the provision that I share equally with my sister when I saw that she was responsible enough not to squander her inheritance. The farm, and by extension the PennDutch, is still under my control. However, when Susannah got married the first time, I made the terrible mistake of giving her not only half of our parents’ genuinely distressed furniture, but first pick. Fortunately, my sister thought veneer was a disease and inlay the act which caused it. She picked the most modern pieces and then promptly turned around and sold them to get money for a king-size waterbed and a beanbag living-room suite.

  Ten years later this still annoys me, and I was clucking to myself when Susannah got my attention.

  “Mags, I want you to meet my new neighbor. Her name is Gizella Hemingway.”

  I stared at her visitor. There was no doubt about it. That was Gizella Hemingway all right. Nurse Gizella Hemingway.

  “It’s you!” Nurse Hemingway humphed.

  I was more polite and extended my hand. “What a surprise, dear.”

  Nurse Hemingway handed me what may just as well have been a wet dishrag. “I didn’t know you two were sisters. I mean, I noticed the resemblance, but I thought maybe you were Susannah’s mother.”

  I wrung the dishrag until its owner winced. I have been told that I have a strong grip. Well, if that’s so, it comes from pinching pennies like the Good Lord intended us to do.

  “You thought I was Barbara’s mother,” I said evenly. “And Jonathan’s. Well, I’m nobody’s mother. I’m certainly not old enough to be either of their mothers.”

  “Looks can be deceiving,” Nurse Hemingway said. I eyeballed her bleached blond hair with the high contrast roots. “Some of us are not so easily deceived.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Never mind.”

  Meanwhile, Susannah was staring at us the way I stared at Aaron on my wedding night. “Do you two know each other?”

  “We met at the hospital, dear. I meant to tell you, Barbara’s had her babies.”

  Susannah shrieked with joy and jumped up and down. I don’t know if it was the joy or the jumping, but something set the crazy canine off, and he began to howl like a banshee.

  “Triplets!” Susannah trilled. “I’m an aunt to triplets.”

  “Aoooooooooooo,” Shnookums shrilled. “Aoooooooooooo.” I can’t translate exactly for the mutt, but he pretty much agreed with Susannah. He may, however, have referred to himself as an uncle.

  “Actually, dear,” I said to my sister, “you’re only a kissing cousin several times removed. And you,” I said to the pea-brained pooch, “aren’t even in the family tree. Besides, Barbara didn’t have triplets after all. Only twins.”

  Susannah stopped jumping. “What?”

  “Ask your friend Hemorrhoid here. She was there.”

  “That’s Hemmy,” the bottle blonde snapped, “and only my friends get to call me that.”

  Susannah grabbed Nurse Hemingway by an arm. “What’s this about there being only twins? I was supposed to be auntie to three Hostetler babies.”

  “Kissing cousin!” I hissed.

  Both women ignored me. “Apparently, Mrs. Hostetler's OB-GYN was mistaken. Doctor’s are human, you know.”

  Susannah is a smart girl. She stopped believing in Santa Claus after seeing two of them on the streets of Bedford last year. For her, seeing is believing.

  “But you were there, Hemmy, right? You helped deliver the babies, right?”

  “I did. There were only two.”

  “I can’t believe this!” Susannah wailed, and buried her face in hands that are long and beautiful, very much like my own.

  Nurse Hemingway shook her barely blond head. “I don’t get it. Mrs. Hostetler delivered two beautiful, perfectly healthy boys this morning, and by the way you people have been acting, you’d think there was a death in the family.”

  I sighed. There was, I suppose, no need to kill the messenger. So what if this messenger had dark roots and was an immigrant from Pittsburgh? Some of the nicest people in the world live there, and even on the Magdalena Scale of Sin (transgressions that aren’t covered by the Bible, but should be) dyeing one’s hair rates only a nine.

  “She was hoping for a namesake,” I said. “So was Freni Hostetler, the grandmother.”

  “I still don’t get it.”

  “Susannah, Freni, and I each want a baby named after us. This would have been a possibility if Barbara had delivered three girls. Barbara’s mother is dead, you see, and we three are like—well, Susannah and I are like sisters to her. Okay, so maybe even that’s an exaggeration in Susannah’s case, but at least I’m like a sister to Barbara.”

  “And Mrs. Hostetler senior, this Freni woman, is like a mother to Barbara?”

  “Not hardly. The two women can’t stand each other. Still, one can always hope for a little namesake, can’t one?”

  Nurse Hemingway shrugged. “I was named Gizella after my grandmother. Gizella! In school, kids used to call me Godzilla. That’s why I go by the nickname Hemmy.”

  “My middle name is Portulaca,” I confesse
d. “Mama got the name from a seed catalogue.”

  “No kidding! Well, it’s a good thing she didn’t make Portulaca your first name. Magdalena—now, I like that. It’s classy. Strong, but feminine. Distinctive without being bizarre. More people should name their babies Magdalena.”

  “Thank you. I couldn’t agree more.” I tried to think of something nice to say about her, but couldn’t, so I resolved to keep my mouth tightly shut.

  “What about my name?” Susannah whined. “What about Shnookum’s name?”

  “Yours is a beautiful name, dear,” I said and patted her bare arm. I turned to Nurse Hemingway. “So, you’re my sister’s neighbor, are you?”

  She nodded. “I’m renting the house next door, but I have an option to buy. I met Susannah my first day here. She was cutting her grass and—”

  “Susannah was mowing?”

  “Yes.”

  “In the daytime?”

  “Of course.”

  I smiled reassuringly. “Don’t worry, it won’t happen again. We had a little sisterly chat, and things will be going back to normal now.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “See that?” I said, pointing to Susannah, who had left our company and was busy taking down the drapes. “Give her ten minutes and a five-pound bucket of makeup—although putty will do in a pinch—and you won’t recognize my sister.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Just watch, dear.”

  We watched, she in horror, I in amusement, while my baby sister transformed from a prospective Mennonite church lady to Tammy Faye in bright pink bandages—either that or a dead geisha in a monochrome kimono. At any rate, Susannah has no shame and undressed and dressed right there in the living room.

  “Oh, my goodness,” Hemmy gasped, “what’s that black hairy thing sticking out of her bra?”

  “That’s her dog, the infamous Shnookums.”

  At the sound of his name, the protruding pooch let out a plaintive howl. Still holding a grudge against the mutt, I howled back.

  Nurse Hemingway’s eyes widened. “My, what an interesting family you all are.”

  “Oh, it isn’t just us, dear. We’re typical Hernians. Or is it Herniatites? I can never get that right—oh!” I began to shimmy and shake like a heathen dancer. Maybe even a Presbyterian.

  Nurse Hemingway stepped closer to me. “It isn’t chest pains, is it?”

  “Oh, no, dear. They’re in my back, and they’re really nothing to get excited about. It’s just that my wings are beginning to emerge. They usually wait until later in the day.”

  Nurse Hemingway turned the color of Susannah’s foundation. “If you’ll excuse me, I think I left the water running in my bathroom.”

  With that the transplanted Pittsburgher was out of there like an unrepentant sinner from a revival meeting.

  “How could you do that, Mags?” Susannah demanded. She was now fully covered and made-up. Less than ten minutes had elapsed since the beginning of her metamorphosis.

  “How could I do what, dear?” I asked innocently.

  “Chase her away, that’s what! Hemmy is my only friend.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, dear, you have lots of friends.”

  “Name one.”

  “Well, there’s—uh—uh—there’s me.”

  “Besides you.”

  “There’s Melvin,” I said reluctantly.

  “And?”

  “Freni and Barbara.”

  “They don’t count. They only speak to me because I’m family, and they have to.”

  “Didn’t you used to have a friend over in Somerset?” I asked hopefully.

  “She’s in solitary now, and they’ve revoked all her visiting privileges.”

  “Well, there’s always that dinky dog of yours. He may as well be good for something.”

  “I meant human friends,” she wailed, and then quickly whispered into the gap of fabric at her chest. “Sorry, Shnooky-wooky, Mama didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

  “Aooo,” Shnookums moaned. Apparently, he was hurt.

  I made a face at my sister’s bosom. “Nurse Hemingway was hardly your friend if the sight of the real you sent her scurrying.”

  Susannah blinked at me. One advantage of such heavy makeup is that it discourages scowling.

  “You must have said something nasty. What did you say, Mags?”

  “Nothing nasty,” I said, quite honestly. “Anyway, dear, you hardly knew this woman.”

  “I did so!”

  “Tell me everything you know about her.”

  “Well, she’s from New Jersey, she likes David Bowie’s music, and she lies out in the sun just about every day.”

  I patted my sister’s swaddled arm. “You see, dear, you don’t know her that well after all. Nurse Hemingway is from Pittsburgh.”

  “No, she isn’t. I saw the moving van. It had New Jersey plates.”

  “What about her car?”

  Susannah shrugged. “I didn’t pay attention to it. It’s an old thing, and besides, it wasn’t parked in my driveway.”

  “And her van was?”

  “Just for a few minutes. The movers got the address wrong. Anyway, what difference does it make?”

  “Maybe none.” I glanced at my watch. It was far later than I had expected. In a little more than an hour my guests were going to expect supper on the table. The giggly gals from England and the ignoble Dr. Barnes had not been instructed to come up with a second meal. It was time to hustle my bustle home. “Hey,” I said brightly, “gotta go, sis.”

  “You sure?” Susannah sounded disappointed, a fact that pleased me. Maybe there was hope for us as sisters.

  “Positive. Tempus fugit.” Alas, I may have mispronounced that noble Latin phrase.

  Susannah gasped and then laughed. “Oh, Mags, I’m so proud of you. But if you’re going to swear, at least get it right. It’s—”

  I clamped my hands over my ears and fled. Our bonding was going to have to happen in stages. There is only so much Susannah a good Christian can take in any twenty-four-hour period and still remain true to the faith.

  Thirteen

  It just so happened that if I turned left out of Fox- croft, and right on Blough Road and followed it back to town, I would pass within a block of Mandilla Gindlesperger’s house. It would only take me a minute to stop and ask her a few questions. Then I could zip back up to the PennDutch, throw a can of soup on the stove, and give the hospital in Bedford a call to see how Mose was doing.

  Unfortunately, the Gindlespergers did not live in a nice part of town. Hernia is a fairly homogeneous town, but there are two small streets on the south side that are frequently, and uncharitably, referred to as Ragsdale. When Susannah and I were girls (at separate times, of course), our school bus used to stop in this part of town to take on students. It was common knowledge among us children that the Ragsdale kids were a breed apart. Some of them wore tattoos, many of them smoked, and on at least three occasions Miss Proschel, our bus driver, had to confiscate knives. Like many other stereotypes in this world, Ragsdale’s bad reputation was based on both fact and fancy.

  I will admit that I was nervous, when after leaving Susannah’s brand-new and very bland burb, I headed toward Ragsdale. At the first sign of a broken-down sofa on the front porch, my pulse began to race. When I spotted the first washing machine beside one of those broken-down sofas, my heart began to pound. Call me prejudiced, but I just can’t help it. I know that the depth of my feelings is irrational, but ever since Billy Scott sat on the bus beside me and demonstrated without a shadow of a doubt that he was too poor to wear underwear, I have been devoid of middle-class guilt.

  The Gindlesperger house fits the Ragsdale profile perfectly. It was long and narrow with a gray, tar- shingled exterior, and had a postage stamp-size yard. But it differed with the other houses on the street in that the yard was impeccably neat, and rows of lavender and white periwinkles lined the short, cracked walk. The front porch was devoid of both so
fa and washing machine, sporting instead a wooden porch swing. The swing appeared to be homemade—and not a very good job at that—but in its own way, neat, and had been painted bright red.

  The tidiness of the place did not surprise me. Levi and Mandilla Gindlesperger are both descended from long lines of Amish and Amish-Mennonites, all of pure ancestry. But somewhere along their road to heaven the Gindlespergers took a right turn and ended up worshiping at the First and Only True Church of the One and Only Living God of the Tabernacle of Supreme Holiness and Healing and Keeper of the Consecrated Righteousness of the Eternal Flame of Jehovah, a tiny, independent congregation up by the turnpike. Still, you might be able to take a Swiss person out of his or her religion, but you can’t take order out of a Swiss. As long as they kept marrying cousins, the Gindlesperger descendants, no matter how poor they became, would continue to stand out in Ragsdale.

  Although the front door was open, the house was protected by a neatly mended screen door. I peered through the screen before ringing the bell. The living room was dark and cool. The nearest piece of furniture was an orange and green plaid couch, its long straight back to the door.

  I took a deep breath and rang the bell.

  “Yes?” An enormous shape had risen from behind the wall of discordant plaid.

  “Mandilla? Is that you?”

  “Who are you?”

  “Magdalena Yoder.”

  “Do I know you?”

  “We went to high school together. I own the Penn- Dutch Inn now.”

  “Praise God,” she said, and then, “just a minute.” It took more like five minutes for a very pregnant Mandilla Gindlesperger to hoist herself off the couch, waddle to the door, and flip the hook. She was out of breath.

  “I was napping,” she puffed. She was wearing a blue denim maternity smock over a white T-shirt. Her legs were bare, her feet clad in fuzzy, pink bunny slippers. Loose strands of mousy brown hair mocked the gold-tone clip at the back of her head.

  “I’m sorry,” I said quickly, “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

  “I’m glad you did. It’s a sin, but of course you know that.”

  “I beg your pardon?”