Just Plain Pickled to Death (3 page)

“Don’t all your aunties have children? And aren’t they coming as well?”

Aaron laughed heartily. “Of course they have children, but they’re all grown now and have children of their own. Anyway, don’t worry about that, because my cousins are too busy being moms and dads to come to a funeral and a wedding. I guess the good news is that they’ve all chosen the wedding.”

That would have been good news, had I any sauerkraut to serve. “Well, what about the uncles? Are they coming for the funeral?”

“Yes, to the man. I hope you don’t mind, honey, but I told them it would be all right to stay here. At the inn.”

My Pooky Bear had just handed me a two-edged sword. It was the first time he had ever called me honey, and I wanted to leap for joy. Maybe even click my heels together and then leap again. But I didn’t want company!

It had been no easy feat clearing the PennDutch Inn for my wedding. Bill and Hillary had been very polite about it, but I had to give the bum’s rush to you-know-who. And as for the Hollywood crowd, if that woman ever slaps me again, I’m calling the cops.

My point is, it was at great sacrifice to my wallet that I had opened up the full calendar week leading up to my wedding. I needed that time. That was time meant for me to prepare myself, both physically and psychologically, for my impending nuptials.

Believe me, it is no easy thing, getting married— even to someone as drop-dead gorgeous as Aaron. And I don’t mean all the food preparations and such. Or the horrendous experience of trying to find a dress that is perfect. I’m talking about the institution itself, the irrevocable tying together of two human beings via the bonds of matrimony. It was especially difficult at age forty-four.

Sex would be too, I imagined. Of course I was a virgin. And no, I don’t count that one time I accidentally sat on the washing machine during the spin cycle. My point is, I had a lot to think about, and the Beeftrust and their husbands were not on my schedule.

I smiled coyly at my Pooky Bear. “Can’t your aunties stay at your house, dear? I mean, they are your father’s sisters.”

“Papa hasn’t been feeling all that well, as you know, and anyway, you know how it is with two bachelors. The place is a mess.”

I smiled. It is much easier being patient with Aaron than with Melvin, but nonetheless, it isn’t always a piece of cake.

“Well, dear, your aunties were going to stay in motels for the wedding—what’s a few extra days going to hurt? And isn’t one of them so rich she just took a month-long cruise?”

Even before he opened his mouth, I realized I shouldn’t have said it. Some people think of motels as being cold, impersonal places, and, alas, my Pooky Bear was one of them.

“These are my aunties, honey. I can’t do that to them.”

Well, he had just done it to me again. Slipped me the “honey” word when the going got tough.

“In that case, I’d be tickled to death to have them here,” my lips said of their own volition.

As Julius Caesar might have said, let the games begin.

Chapter Three

Aunt Veronica Gerber arrived later that same evening. She lives in Fox Chapel, a suburban community to the northeast of Pittsburgh, about a two-hour drive from here. Rumor has it that the maids in Fox Chapel have their own maids, and the Rolls-Royce that rolled up did nothing to dispel such idle gossip.

I hate to be cruel, but her nose was by far the first thing through the door. The rest of her followed presently, encased in a full-length mink coat. Given the fact that it was a warm spring evening, even the minks were sweating.

“Welcome!” I cried. I tried flinging my arms around her, like Aaron had done, but Aunt Veronica would have none of that from me.

“You would think the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation would do a better job of marking these back roads. We’ve been driving in circles for hours.”

I stifled my impulse to remind her that she’d grown up here and should know these roads as well as she knows the spider veins on her nose.

“Have you eaten supper yet?” I asked graciously.

She stared down that long spidery nose at me.

“Goodness, child, you couldn’t possibly expect us to be interested in food at a time like this.”

I peered around the dead minks, looking for the other half of “we” and “us.” Sure enough, she did have someone with her, a pudgy man, short (compared to her), who had silver hair and silver-rimmed glasses. Except for the Armani suit and five-hundred- dollar tie he was wearing, he would have blended in with any crowd of men in his age group. That is, if you didn’t look too closely at the eyes behind the silver glasses: they were mere slits. I’d seen newborn kittens with larger pupils.

“Your chauffeur?” I asked politely.

“My husband, Rudy,” she snapped.

“Uncle Rudy!” I extended my hand.

The slits closed, and then opened. Then ignoring my hand, he flung his arms around me and clasped me in the tightest embrace I have ever known. The sharp rims of his glasses dug into my bosom, meager as it is.

“Prepared to die, buster?” I mumbled over the top of his head.

He released me and began fiddling with that expensive tie.

“An apology would be nice,” I said pleasantly.

“Magdalena!” Aaron said sharply.

For my Pooky Bear’s sake I forced back my anger and with the utmost dignity led the way to the parlor. After we had settled them into the most comfortable chairs, Aaron and I attempted a few minutes of consoling conversation. Uncle Rudy said virtually nothing. Aunt Veronica, however, took every opportunity to preempt us with her acquired Fox Chapel accent.

Finally she just stood up. “Well, I don’t know about younz’s, but my feet are killing me, and I need to get to bed.”

I glanced down to see the tiniest feet imaginable on a six-foot-plus woman. In their miniature black leather pumps they were like little round hooves. Tipping her over would be easier than tipping a sleeping cow. Not that I’ve done much of the latter, mind you.

“Right this way,” I said graciously. I began leading the way up the quaint, winding stairs that my inn is so famous for.

“Not on your life, child!”

I looked down to see that although Rudy and Aaron were behind me, Veronica hadn’t budged.

“There are back stairs,” I called kindly. “But it’s a fire escape, perhaps a mite too steep.”

“The thing you’re on is steeper than Jacob’s ladder,” she snapped. “Don’t you have a room down here?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Pssst,” said Aaron through gleaming teeth.

I ignored him.

“What’s this room back here that says Private on the door?”

“That’s the storeroom,” I said quickly. It was in fact a lie, and I would have been very ashamed of myself, except that in this case the lie really was told for a good cause. My bedroom, the only one downstairs, was filled with my wedding things. There was no use in getting her hopes up only to have them dashed.

Aunt Veronica must have picked up some terrible manners in Fox Chapel. My room wasn’t locked, and so she barged right on in. I squeezed past Rudy and Aaron, but before I could reach the bottom of the stairs she had emerged with a triumphant smile on her face.

“I’ll take this room,” she announced.

“Over my dead body.” I said it as calmly and lady-like as I could under the circumstances.

“Magdalena, please,” Aaron whispered. “She is the oldest of the aunties.”

“I don’t care if she’s Methuselah in drag,” I said. “I’m not giving up my room.”

“Sweetie, are you just going to stand there and let her talk to me that way?”

For a minute I thought she was talking to her husband, Rudy, but the woman was smarter than that. No doubt she had been the “sugar-auntie” of Aaron’s childhood. The strings she was pulling were attached to memories of lollipops.

“Mags?”

I looked into Aaron’s incredibly blue eyes and felt my resolve melting. If my Pooky Bear really wanted me to sacrifice not only my inn but my very room to the Beeftrust, so be it.

I took a deep breath. “Well—”

“Get on in here, Rudy, and give Big Mama a hand. There’s junk spread all over this bed.”

That did it. That hiked my hackles. The so-called junk was my bridal veil and an assortment of dried flowers from Mama’s bouquet when she married Papa. I had been painstakingly sewing some of the flowers into the net of my veil when Freni opened the barrel.

“Step into my room again and you won’t have a hoof left to stand on,” I said sweetly. “Your room is upstairs, the last one on the left. If you look hard you may find a clean towel in the linen closet at the end of the hall. I was planning to wash the sheets tomorrow. I wasn’t expecting guests, you know.”

Aaron should have seen things my way, because I was, after all, his honey. His soon-to-be wife. I guess at that point, blood was still thicker than water, and Aunt Veronica shared more blood with him than I did. At any rate, he didn’t say another word to me the rest of the evening. In fact, as soon as he had washed and dried the sheets for his precious auntie, he was out of there. I didn’t see or hear from him until the next morning.

I was sound asleep dreaming that Aaron and I had reconciled and had just dived (with our clothes on!) into Miller’s Pond, across the road from the PennDutch Inn, when the real-life PennDutch Inn got hit by a tornado. At least that’s what it sounded like. Tornadoes, I’m told, sound like trains, and that’s exactly what I heard as I swam up through the dream-thick waters of the pond and broke the surface of consciousness.

“Hit the cellar!” I yelled, rolling out of bed.

It appeared to be too late to take cover. The inn was shaking violently. At this point it was every woman for herself. You understand, of course, and I’m sure you would have rolled right under that bed the same as I did.

This tornado, however, possessed human lungs, and as full consciousness returned, I realized its vortex was located just outside the front door. The thing didn’t quit howling until I’d let it in.

“Well, it’s about time!”

My gaze wandered up and up until, just below the lowest cloud strata, it encountered a vaguely familiar visage. Despite Aaron’s claims, she does not look like me. If indeed she ever did, then something terrible has happened to one of us.

Besides the fact that she is half a foot taller than I, and a good hundred pounds heavier, the woman has no neck. Zilch. Her smallish head sits directly on quarterback shoulders. At least I could wear a necklace, if I so desired. Maybe not a five-strand pearl collar, like Princess Di, but something. Perhaps the good Lord was being kind when he neglected to give Auntie Leah a neck; as it is, she passes through two climate zones.

“Aunt Leah! Come in,” I said graciously.

The train hurtled into the lobby, nearly knocking me over. It was followed a few seconds later by the cutest little caboose.

“Uncle Solomon?”

I offered him my hand, which he took in both of his. I don’t mean to be rude, but I’ve seen corn kernels almost as long as his fingers. The man was also bald as a cue ball and barely taller than a cue stick. Like Uncle Rudy, he wore a suit and a tie. Clearly it was a marriage made in heaven. Mere mortals could never have gotten them together.

“That’s just terrible about our little Sarah,” Auntie Leah boomed. “Do the police have any suspects?”

I shook my head, carefully avoiding eye contact with Aaron. “After all, the trail is twenty years old.”

Uncle Solomon rubbed a pudgy little hand over his shiny dome. “I read the most interesting thing in the paper recently,” he said. He spoke rapidly, as if he was afraid of being interrupted. “It happened in France. Someone found a body—a murder victim— in a cave high up in the Pyrenees. Apparently it was quite cold in the cave, and the body had been there for many years. It was perfectly preserved. The autopsy even revealed what the victim had eaten for breakfast and—”

“Speaking of breakfast,” Auntie Leah bellowed, “what is for breakfast?”

“Breakfast?”

“Eggs and bacon would be nice,” Uncle Solomon muttered. “And cinnamon toast. I love cinnamon toast.”

Auntie Leah scowled at her husband. “The motel we stayed at just offered Continental breakfasts. It’s no wonder the Europeans are so puny. English muffins and croissants—imagine that!”

“I hadn’t thought about breakfast,” I said calmly. “I’m not really open for business, you know. But there’s some cereal boxes in the kitchen cupboard next to the refrigerator. You’re welcome to help yourselves.”

“Cereal?” Leah barked. “You want us to eat cereal? Why, I never! In my day we served our company real meals—ham, bacon, sausage, eggs, pancakes, waffles, fried potatoes. You name it. I got up before dawn to put my best foot forward.”

I glanced down at her feet. Thankfully, they were of normal size, and she wouldn’t be demanding my bed.

“Be my guest, dear. The kitchen is that way. For your information, I like my eggs poached, and my bacon with a little play left in it. Before you start you might want to run upstairs to room six to see what Auntie Veronica and Uncle Rudy want.”

“Veronica is here?”

“You don’t think the Rolls-Royce is mine, do you, dear?” I could be persuaded to like this woman.