"Only one of my kids ever gave me trouble," Alma said.
She had a matter-of-fact way of speaking that didn't invite questions. I questioned, nonetheless. She didn't have to answer, if she didn't want.
"What kind of trouble, dear?"
Alma looked down at her plate. "That was before Ed died. Ed was my husband. He was always hard on the kids. Made them act out, like they say. Anyway, Gary took a car that didn't belong to him."
"You mean, he stole it."
"Yes, but he was only fourteen. The slate was wiped clean when he turned eighteen."
I patted her arm. "That's nothing, dear. My sister's slate is white with chalk dust."
She sighed. "Okay, so maybe that's not all he did. But holding up that gas station was his girlfriend's idea. And Tiffany's the one who shot the clerk."
I will confess to an intermittent mean streak. "So, Mr. Dolby, can your daughter top that?"
"What can be worse than a daughter deserting her father?"
A father deserting his daughter, I said to myself. I still have not forgiven Papa for dying in that tunnel, squished between a milk tanker and a load of Adidas shoes. Neither has Susannah. Sometimes, however, I think my sister is more upset that the shoes weren't Nike than that Papa perished.
Alma reached for the ranch, full-fat salad dressing. "In what way has your daughter deserted you?" she asked.
Gordon Dolby stiffened. "Well, uh - "
"Go ahead, dear," I said with a smile of encouragement. "Mrs. Cornwater and I are both parents - so to speak. We will certainly understand."
Alma nodded, her glasses held snugly in place with an index finger.
"She wants to move out," he said, his voice barely a whisper.
"Please pass the ranch," someone at the other end of the table called in a loud voice.
"Will the farm do?" someone else said.
There was the expected twittering that, I'm proud to say, I ignored. The fact that I tossed the bottle down to the other end of the table was only partly due to the distance it had to travel.
"Is that really so bad?" I asked Gordon Dolby. Susannah has moved out several times, and each time I danced for joy. Believe me, that's saying a lot for a woman whose religion not only frowns on dancing, but forbids performing the sex act in a standing position, lest it lead to dancing.
"She's all that I have," he said to his plate.
Alma stabbed at her salad. "Where does she want to go?"
"Albuquerque."
"New Mexico?" I asked stupidly.
"That's the place. She's never been farther away from home than Washington, D.C., and now suddenly she wants to move to a foreign country. I don't suppose you could talk her out of it?"
"New Mexico is a state, dear," I said kindly. You'd be surprised how many people, even well-educated folks - i.e. my guests - are unsure on that score. Of course there is no excuse for such ignorance. I learned all forty-eight state capitals, and so can they. But, in their defense, naming a state after a neighboring country is a little confusing. And why, for crying out loud, are there two Dakotas? Why not, in the spirit of New Mexico, rename North Dakota and call it New Canada?
"Just the same," Gordon Dolby said, "a daughter's place is in the home. She's never been married, you know, and her mother's been dead since she was three. We're all each other has."
"Maybe she wants more," I said.
Alma nodded.
Somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done one thing really rotten. That might help to explain why Art Strump was laid up at the inn with a migraine headache, and I was traipsing up and down the narrow aisles of Pat's I.G.A with the child Carlie glommed to my side. Well - maybe not literally, but close enough. I let her push the buggy (what we call shopping carts up this way) while I walked a few respectable, but wary paces ahead. The last thing I needed was to have the buggy sever the tendon to my hell.
"Do you have a last name?" I asked pleasantly.
"Davis. I'm supposed to be some kinda relation to Jefferson Davis."
"The Jefferson Davis? President of the Confederate States of America?"
She looked at me in surprise. "You know that kind of stuff?"
"I paid attention in school, dear."
"School! What a waste."
We were supposed to be looking for cooking sherry, something which made me extremely uncomfortable. We Mennonites do not drink alcoholic beverages of any kind. Even our communion drink is grape juice, sipped from thimble-size glasses. I know, the Bible says that Jesus turned the water into wine, but it doesn't mean he didn't go one step further and turn the wine into vinegar.
I studied the shelf of flavored oils and cooking sherries. The sherries were, by necessity, watered down. Thank heavens one can't buy full-strength drinking spirits in Pennsylvania supermarkets. One has to go to a state-run store for that. Still, there was the distinct possibility that generations of teetotaling ancestors would simultaneously turn over in their graves, sending the bottles of sherries crashing down on us.
"Are you sure we can't use Welch's?"
She blew an enormous bubble, and then deftly popped it, without splattering any of it on her lips, like Susannah usually does.
"You don't know anything about cooking do you?" she asked. "The alcohol burns off. It's only the flavor that's left."
"Then grape juice will do just fine," I said.
"Art said it has to be dry."
"Dry, shmy!" I lunged for the offending bottle, grabbed it between my thumb and forefinger, and practically flung it into the buggy. When nothing untoward happened, I breathed a huge sigh of relief.
Carlie laughed. "You're funny, ya know? But I wouldn'ta minded so much having a mama like you. Your daughter's lucky."
"I don't have a daughter, dear."
"Yes, you do. That tall, skinny woman, who looks kinda like you, only she wears bedsheets instead of clothes."
"Susannah? She's my sister, you little... " I bit my tongue. Carlie, at least, was young enough to be my daughter, and what kind of a mother replacement would I be if I resorted to four-letter words? No, I would save brat for the next time Susannah really made me angry.
"No kidding? She's your sister? Geez, she must be a lot older than I thought."
"Perhaps I'm a lot younger."
"Hunh?"
"Never mind. What else is on the list?" although we were buying some of the nonperishables, this was basically a reconnaissance trip. The order in which the contestants would cook had yet to be established.
"Monkfish."
"You're pretty funny yourself, dear. Now tell me what it really says. I have better things to do than to risk the backs of my heels while I listen to stand-up comedy."
"You didn't have to come, ya know? I coulda done this by myself."
I turned. "You mean it really says that?"
She thrust the paper at me. It had been folded and refolded so many times that the ink had worn off the creases. It was more a case of connect the dots than actually reading the words. It may well have been monkfish, or money dish, or even monkey kiss.
"He says if you can't get that, then get red snapper."
"What size can does it say?"
Carlie snorted. "You really crack me up!"
I decided to take that as a compliment and headed toward the seafood section. There are stores in Pittsburgh with veritable glaciers piled high with marine produce, but Pat's I.G.A. does not even pretend to compete with those. In recent years, however, Pat has made a conscientious effort to cater to the tastes of urban refugees to Bedford from The Big Apple, The Crazy Orange, and points in between.
The man means well, but he is still in need of a little tutelage. The one live lobster Pat obtained, he kept in his son's freshwater guppy aquarium, where it promptly turned slime green and died. The next day Pat offered complimentary lobster salad on saltine crackers to his customers. I am happy to report that everyone survived.
"You seem to know something about cooking," I said. I truly meant it as a compliment.
"Yeah? Well, I learned it from Art. I wouldn't be nowhere, if it weren't for him."
"You mentioned your mother before. What about her/"
"What about her?"
"What I mean is, what do your parents think about - "
"Me living with a black man?"
"With any man," I said. "You're only eighteen. And you two aren't married, are you?"
"Who says I'm sleeping with Art?"
I stopped, and was nearly crippled by the buggy. Okay, so my cries of pain drew a small crowd, but I wasn't trying to attract attention, no matter what Pat claims. I most certainly did not intend to knock over a stack of canned peas taller than the Tower of Babel, and I refuse to pay for the dented cans. Grocery store owners who do not want to have merchandise rolling every which way but Sunday should not set up displays in the aisles. Who knows when the next Carlie is going to come along.
"Do you know what the Bible says about fornication, dear?"
Normally I would not take the liberty of speaking like that to a guest, but she was a mere child, and had expressed a preference for me over her birth mother.
"Ha! Just shows you how much you know. It ain't none of your business, but Art is gay!"
"Oh."
"So I suppose now you're going to preach to me about what the Bible has to say about that."
I told her everything Jesus had to say on the subject, which was nothing.
-10-
MARILYN MITCHELL'S TORTILLA CAKE SURPISE
1 package 8-inch flour tortillas
1 15 " oz. can black beans
_ cup chopped onion
_ cup red and yellow pepper, chopped
_ lb. sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
8 chicken tenderloins
taco seasoning to taste
2 16 oz. jars salsa
sour cream
Cook black beans, onions, peppers, and taco seasoning (to taste) in an uncovered sauce pan until most of the liquid has evaporated. Meanwhile, sprinkle chicken tenders with taco seasoning and saut‚ in a little oil until lightly brown and cooked through. To assemble the cake place one flour tortilla on a greased pie plate and spread with half of the bean mixture. Sprinkle with cheese. Place another tortilla on top and arrange four chicken tenders on it. Sprinkle with salsa. Repeat the process. Place one last tortilla on top and sprinkle with salsa and remaining cheese. Bake for 20 minutes at 350 degrees. Serve with extra salsa and sour cream.
Serves 8 English, or 4 Amish-Mennonites.
-11-
Art was feeling better when we returned. In fact, he and Freni were having a tˆte-…-tˆte over tea when I walked in. I daresay they looked guilty, almost like they'd been enjoying themselves. Freni jumped up and immediately began directing the putting away of perishables. General Schwarzkopf would have been proud of her, the way she marshaled the troops, although I know from personal experience that the general is a far gentler person than my cousin.
Much to my astonishment, no one seemed to mind Freni's barked orders, or chiding clucks, when her instructions weren't followed exactly. By and large, our foray into town had been successful, and there was a festive, anticipatory feeling in the air. The contest was going to begin the next day, and by the end of the week, some lucky soul was going to walk away with one hundred thousand dollars.
I watched wide-eyed from the sidelines as Ms. Holt and Alma Cornwater shared a shelf of my ancient, and already crowded, refrigerator. They reminded me of little girls playing house. One of them even giggled.
It was too much to take when Freni volunteered to cart a load of seldom used pots and utensils down to the cellar so that my guests could have more room to set up their shiny, high-tech equipment. If I believed the kind of stories Derrick Simms prints in the National Intruder, I would have concluded an alien had taken over Freni's body. On the off chance that Derrick and his ilk were on to something, I nabbed Freni when she emerged from the cellar and steered her through the kitchen and into the hallway. Then I closed the kitchen door on the shocking display of merriment.
"Okay, dear, what gives?"
Freni's faded blue eyes registered genuine confusion.
"Why are you being so nice, Freni? You'd rather dance naked at a barn raising than share your kitchen."
"Ach," Freni said, blushing, "how you talk!"
"Well, something's going on, dear. When Mose dropped you off this morning, you were as cranky as a cow that hadn't been milked all day."
