Batter Off Dead (16 page)

“Peter was a Jew. You see, Merle, I was the Scripture-verse-memorization champion three years in a row at vacation Bible school. After that they made me ineligible; they said I was demoralizing the other kids.”

“Mmm, maybe you know your Scripture, Magdalena, but you obviously haven’t been around those people very much. In college—”

“Well, I do know this, Merle: in Hernia the mayor is also the president of the school board.”

He took two steps back as his face assumed the color of a bratwurst, which is yet another German sausage. “Is that a threat?”

“Heavens, no; I was merely stating a fact. And I shall be stating this same fact when I speak to your principal in a few minutes. Of course, I will also remind him that we already have two applications for eighth-grade math teachers for next year and that your contract is up in June.”

“Mmm, you wouldn’t dare.”

“On the other hand, getting a new teacher is akin to buying a pig in a poke, no matter how well we screen him or her; applicants are not above lying, or getting their references to lie. But I already know what kind of pig you are. And if I need to, I know just where to poke you—it’s called a salary freeze.”

“Hey, I’ll make the kids stop harassing her.”

It may have been childish on my part, but I prefer to view the fact that I swept past him to the door as a power move. “See that you do, Merle Waggler. Oh, and by the way, when you come to church Sunday, bear in mind that you’ll be worshipping one of my husband’s people; one of
those
people.”

“Huh?”

“Think about it, dear.”

On the way back to the inn to feed my sweet Baby Bumpkin, I decided to make an unscheduled stop at Susannah’s house. This was a dangerous move on my part: dangerous, that is, for my psyche. My sister is as unpredictable as a Super Bowl game, plus she has a master ’s degree from Adolescence State University.

Once I found her hanging by her knees from a trapeze in her living room. She said she’d read somewhere that Australians were the smartest people on the planet, and that since their brains were “upside down,” she wanted hers to be oriented that way as well. I told her that made sense, and then I sat down and waited until her knees gave out—all of two minutes later. Fortunately, my reactions were quick that day and I was able to catch her before she broke her neck.

When our parents died, squished as they were between the milk tanker and the semitrailer carrying state-of-the-art running shoes, they left us the farm on which I later established the PennDutch Inn. My sister is a full partner in this endeavor, although she’s never lifted a manicured finger to do as much as fold a towel or mail a brochure. One might reasonably ask why I haven’t tried to buy her out, or otherwise exclude her from the huge profits I’ve managed to make over the years.

The answer is twofold: first, Susannah is a free spirit who doesn’t just march to the beat of a different drummer; she has an entire college band in her head—and, I’m ashamed to add, at times in the past they were sometimes found in her bed as well. Second, even though our parents lied to me by not disclosing my adoption, I promised them I would always look after my sister. On her own, my sister could not survive. Of course, I’m not a total idiot; Susannah’s fortune is in a trust until she proves herself responsible. In the meantime she receives an allowance that is sufficient for her needs, but not so generous that it encourages her to lead a life of flagrant debauchery.

A little circumspect debauchery might even be a necessary requirement for maintaining one’s sanity for those folks who live in Foxcroft, our only, and incongruously, named subdivision. There the houses are cookie-cutter images of one another, the paint colors vary only slightly, and the foundation shrubs differ only in the amounts of foliage their respective owners elect to leave before they tire of playing with their electric shears. It is understandable, then—just not excusable—if a little spanky along with the hanky-panky is seen as a morale booster. This, of course, brings me back to poor Susannah, who, now that her murdering husband is out of the picture, has been lonelier than a cat at the Westminster Dog Show.

They say that water seeks its own level; therefore, I should not have been surprised when a nun with a very morose expression opened Susannah’s door. The woman’s face was as pale as my cellulite, and her gray eyes appeared almost translucent.

“Yes,” she said. “May I help you?”

“Uh—isn’t this 907 Red Fox Lane?”

“It is.”

“I’m here to see Susannah.”

“She isn’t receiving visitors.”

“I’m not a visitor; I’m her sister.”

“Ah, so you must be the bossy one they call Magdalena.”

“Indeed I am—Wait a minute! Bossy? Says
who
?”

“Says me.” The nun started to close the door, and might have gotten away with it had I not noticed that beneath her surplice there was a surplus of activity. In fact, to the uninitiated it might have appeared as if the nun’s bosoms were running from side to side, pausing every now and then to leap outward, as if to strike me. But the clincher was the attendant vocalizing. Real bosoms seldom growl, and in my experience never, ever bark.

“You’re not a nun,” I said calmly. “You’re Susannah.”

“No, I’m not.”

At this point the leaping, snarling bosom emitted an odor so foul that its origin was incontestable. “Calm down, Shnookums,” my sister cooed as she peered down into the recesses of her habit. “It’s only your auntie-poo.”

“I’m not that thing’s auntie, dear,” I said, “and I’m certainly nobody’s poo.” I gently pushed my way inside. A second later I wished I’d kept on driving. “Susannah! What on earth have you done with all your stuff?”

“Really, Mags, you know good wordsmiths eschew the word
stuff
.”

“Stuff and nonsense! All your things, for crying out loud! Where is your furniture—although you’d think that would take a plural verb—and the rest of your bric-a-brac?”

“Which is just a fancy word for
crap
.”

“Susannah, what happened? Were you robbed?”

My sister’s high-pitched laugh set the mutt in her Maidenform to howling, which in turn set my teeth on edge. I have nothing against dogs, but the rat-size pooch that prowls her bra is undeserving of the moniker. Should I ever find myself alone in a room with him, and me with a frying pan in one hand, I’d conk myself up the side of the head to put myself out of my misery until help could arrive.

“Please,” I begged.

“Oh, all right.”

She reached down her habit and withdrew a two-pound beast, half of which was sphincter, the other half teeth. “Now, run along, sweetie, to your beddy-bye and take your morning nappypoo. Mommy will be there in a minute to tuck you in.”

The hideous thing snarled and snapped at me for good measure and then trotted off, nails clicking on hardwood floors, as bid, into Susannah’s boudoir. I waited until I was sure the coast was clear before speaking my mind.

“How old is that thing?”

“Mags, I keep telling you, he’s not a
thing
; he’s a pure-blooded, prize-winning, stud-quality Russian terrier. But to answer your question, he’ll be eight in June.”

Endeavoring always to be kind, I tried not to smile. “So what’s he got left—two, maybe three more years? I mean, what a shame.”

“More like eight or nine. Usually the smaller the dog, the longer they live.”

“Like I said, what a shame.” I swallowed hard; disappointment can be as difficult to get down as Granny Yoder’s rhubarb pie. “So tell me, what’s with the empty house?”

“I sold everything. You’re kinda stingy, Mags, and I wanted a new vehicle.”

“A
vehicle
? What exactly does that mean?”

“It’s an old school bus. I’m having it painted black with white lettering. It will be delivered tomorrow.”

“What lettering?”

“The name of my order.” She fingered a cross that appeared to be carved from a bar of soap and which hung from her neck on a length of white cotton clothesline.

I felt the need to sit down. “Do you still have kitchen furniture?”

She shook her head, causing her wimple to rustle. “We can sit on my bed. It’s the only thing left.”

I pictured the college band doing more than sitting on Susannah’s bed. “No, thanks; I’m good. Okay, spill. What order?”

“It’s a religious order, silly—only it’s not exactly religious on account of I’m not religious. I’m calling it Sisters of Perpetual Apathy—SOPA is the acronym. That’s why I’m wearing this cross. Our motto is ‘We care about nothing, so leave us the heck alone.’ I might leave off that last part, though, because it could be a turnoff to potential postulants. Then again, why should I care?”

I had a short-lived vision of me slapping Susannah on both checks, knocking some sense into her, as it were, and then us hugging and crying, and vice versa, but at the same time I knew it was all a senseless fantasy. Once she has her mind made up, there’s nothing you can do about it but wait it out. Really, it’s hopeless.

In the meantime, however, a sister has a right to know a few things. “Susannah, who is this ‘we’ that you mentioned? Aren’t you the only member of the Sisters of Perpetual Apathy?”

“You see just how little you believe in me?”

I shrugged. “Why should that matter?”

“For your information, Mrs. Mayor, Mrs. I’ve-Got-a-Doctor-for-a-Husband, Mrs. I’ve-Got-the-Perfect-Baby, there are fifteen other nuns in my order. There’s Sister Despair, Sister Disgruntled, Sister Disenchanted, Sister Disingenuous—”

“Wait a minute! You’re serious?”

“No, I’m Mother Dispirited.”

My knees shook, my head swirled, and giant hands were ringing my stomach like a dishrag, and all because I knew now, without a doubt, that she was indeed as serious as a preacher on Judgment Day. This was exactly the kind of thing my baby sister would do if she ever found herself desperate and disconsolate.

I lowered my body to the floor. “Let me guess, dear. Is there a Sister Disconsolate?”

“Yes, how did you know?”

“A Sister Desperate?”

“Mags, how did you know?”

“Just a guess. Where did you find these women—if you don’t mind me asking?”

“They’re former Melvinites who have seen the light—more accurately, that there isn’t any. Just shades of gray. Gray and beige.”

Of course, why hadn’t I thought of that? The Melvinites were members of a wacky cult who literally worshipped Melvin Stoltzfus, the convicted murderer, who also happened to be Susannah’s ex-husband. The proof of their religion lay in their so-called holy book, the Book of Melvin, which declared itself to be true. Come on, give me a break.

“Look, Susannah, we all feel discouraged from time to time.”

My sister held her long slender hands in the air, palms outward. “Not me! Sister Discouraged might be the prettiest one of us all, but this isn’t
that
kind of a group—not that there’s anything wrong with it.”

“But that’s not what I meant!”

Of course she wasn’t listening at that point. “There’s too much pain in this world, Mags. War without end; that’s what Bush gave us. And when we pass that on to Little Jacob’s generation, it will be along with a national debt so high that—never mind, there’s no point in even getting upset about it. Or global warming. Or hunger, poverty, injustice—or anything. You know why? Because we can’t do anything to fix any of those problems. It’s all too late.”

“What’s your solution, then? Should we all just lie down and die?”

No matter how hard I try, I’ll never be able to sigh like my little sister. “Honestly, Mags, don’t you listen to a word I say? We’re going to travel around the country—maybe even the world—and preach the Gospel of Despair.”

“The
what
?”

“Instead of giving the people false hope, like the establishment has been doing for thousands of years, we’re going to tell it like it is. Like it
really
is. You see, when people have hope, they also hope that someone else will do the work for them. But when they believe that their backs are truly against the wall, that’s when they come out fighting.”

“Yes, but we finally have a large segment of the population excited about a presidential election, one of historic significance. That qualifies as real hope to me.”

“It won’t last more than two years, just like Sister Discontent predicts.”

I nodded just to keep the peace. “Well, sis, I’ve got to be running. I just stopped on my way home from the school. But I’m sure glad I caught you. When are you leaving?”

“Tomorrow.”

“That soon?”

“As soon as the bus arrives. We have an apathy rally scheduled in Cleveland at six p.m.”

“But who’s to care if you’re a no-show, right?”

“Very funny, Mags. Sister Distemper handles our bookings, and she’s the least mellow of all of us. But hey, don’t worry, we’ll make it a point to stop by the PennDutch first and say good-bye. I have to see my nephew before I go.”

I struggled to my feet. “Right. And would you have stopped by if I hadn’t come here today?”

“Of course, silly. Now you’re being paranoid.”

“Reasonable people have always been called that. Tell me, doesn’t Sister Distemper’s name sort of depart from the rule?”

“Yeah, kind of. But she was bitten by a mean dog once, and she gets crabby if you don’t call her that.”

“Speaking of the little beast, are you taking him with?”

“Of course! Sister Disengage—she’s the one who made all our habits—is sewing him a tiny robe, because I’m giving him the title—”

“Rabbi Rabies? No, wait, that would be the wrong religion. Okay, I got it now; Friar Yuck. No? Then how about Brother Bottom-Sniffer?”

“Out, Mags, out!”

“Okay. There’s no need to be snippy, Sister Mother. I’ll still be seeing you tomorrow, right?”