"Mama wants me to perform for him," said Sherri.
"Then perform away," I advised. "He can hear you in there, and besides, he'll be out in a second."
"Hit it, then," barked Norah.
Sherri put her hands on her hips and began gyrating, right then and there, in the middle of my lobby. "Like a virgin!" she sang out.
"Not hardly," I said.
Sherri performed a few more bars and then stopped in mid-gyre. "Where is he?" she whined. "Why isn't he coming out?"
"Go get him," said Norah crossly to me.
I decided to humor her. Mose Hostetler is my seventy-four-year-old Amish friend and neighbor. He and his wife, Freni, both work for me at the Penn- Dutch, she as my cook, he as my handyman and milker of cows. Both Mose and Freni are related to me in more ways than Julia Child can prepare chicken. They are, of course, related to each other. The bloodlines of most Amish, and those Mennonites descended from them, are so tangled and intertwined that most of us are our own cousins. This enables me to attend a family reunion when I am, in fact, the only one present.
"Mose, you have a couple of visitors," I said, trying to keep a straight face. "They want to see you in the lobby."
"English?" asked Mose innocently. He meant anyone who was not Amish."
"Very," I said. "Two female visitors."
"Freni, who had been scrubbing grease off the back of the stove, straightened and stared our way. Mose is about as likely to have an affair as he is to run for president, but Freni keeps a close eye on him anyway.
"What do the English want?" asked Mose. He is as shy as his wife is not.
"Just hurry up and go out there," I urged. "They're I demanding to see you."
Mose tucked his thumbs nervously under his suspenders and, with me leading the way and Freni bringing up a very ample rear, we plodded out into the lobby.
"Hit it!" cried Norah again.
Obediently Sherri began to gyrate and wail. I'd once seen a cat go through the exact same motions and make pretty much the same sounds. Of course, it had been hit in the midsection by our barn door.
"God in heaven!" cried Mose, who turned and fled before the blush could spread across his cheeks.
"Sodom and Gomorrah!" gasped Freni. She started to follow her husband back to the kitchen, but just like Lot's wife, turned to take another look.
"That wasn't the director!" screamed Norah. "That was just an Amishman!"
"And he's my man," Freni screamed back. Fondly, I shoved Freni back into the kitchen. "What director are you talking about, Norah? You said you wanted to see the man in the kitchen."
"Don't give me that, Magdalena!" she snapped. "The one who was here this morning. Where is he? Where have you hidden him?"
I smiled patiently. "That wasn't a director, dear. That was an advance man."
"A what?"
"An advance man. Like a scout. He was just leasing the inn in advance. They're not going to start shooting the movie for another six weeks."
"Are you sure?" Although it was a question, there was a hint of a threat woven in there somewhere. As Hernia's premier gossip, Norah Hall wields a great deal of local power.
"Of course I'm sure," I said smoothly. "And when the producer does show up, you'll be the first on my list to call. Although why, I can't for the life of me figure out. The movie is going to be about the murders that happened here last year, and nobody involved was under twenty-one."
"Sherri is quite advanced for her age," said Norah hotly. "Sherri, stick out your chest for Miss Yoder."
Sherri stuck out her pudgy but otherwise undeveloped chest, and the gold foil cones bobbled in response.
"Nobody involved in those murders dressed even remotely like that," I felt compelled to point out. "And as far as I know, none of us sang either."
"Ha! Just like I thought. You are so na‹ve," said Norah. "When you go to auditions, you have to maximize your opportunities."
"Uh-huh."
Norah shook her head in disgust. "You still don't get it, do you? Maybe the director won't want Sherri to act in this dumb movie, but if he sees what she's capable of, he could keep her in mind for future possibilities.'"
"Why, you should be ashamed, Norah Hall," I said with genuine concern.
Norah stared at me. I once saw that look on one of our cow's faces, when Mose forgot to turn off the milking machine. "You idiot, Yoder! Come on, Sherri, let's get out of here!"
"Bundle up, dear," I urged the ingenue. Summer chest colds are no picnic.
The two English left amid a slamming of doors and a muttering of words I wouldn't even contemplate repeating. As for me, I simply settled in my favorite rocking chair, across from the check-in desk, and put my mind to work on how to tell some of the country's richest and most influential people that their reservations were being canceled, beginning four weeks from now.
I had just decided to be shy with Sly and a bit of a grump with Trump, when my sister, Susannah, came billowing into the lobby. Susannah always billows when she moves. She wears enough fabric to clothe a small third-world country, and she wears it tossed and draped about her in no apparent design. On a windy day Susannah takes two steps backward for every step forward.
When she spotted me sitting there, minding my own business, Susannah swirled to a sudden stop. "How dare you ruin my life, Mags?" she accused.
I looked up calmly from my reservations list. "What did I do this time?"
Susannah stomped one of her slender but rather I long feet. This act was accompanied by the emission f of a sharp, high-pitched bark. Of course, it wasn't Susannah who barked, but her pitiful excuse for a pooch, Shnookums. I love dogs, but Susannah's dog doesn't deserve the name. For one thing, it is smaller than a teacup. Ninety percent of it is bulging, nervous eyes, and the other ten percent is voice box. And somewhere in those figures you have to allow room for the world's most active sphincter muscle. Susannah carries this yipping, shivering, twelve-ounce creature everywhere she goes, and conceals it in those swirling, billowing clothes. Of course, that isn't hard-Susannah could conceal a Great Dane in her outfits. Shnookums generally gets to ride in one of Susannah's half-empty bra cups, however. That is something a Great Dane could never do. Susannah has often threatened to get a second little rat dog to ride in her other cup, to balance the load. Personally, I think an apple or an orange would make a lot more sense.
Susannah stamped her foot a second time, and Shnookums yelped again. "It isn't fair!" my sister cried. "The whole town found out about this movie deal before I did. And I'm your flesh and blood!"
"Don't remind me," I said sweetly. "And just where were you when the whole town was finding out?"
"I had to go to Pittsburgh, Mags. For a job interview."
That was certainly news to me. Susannah doesn't have her own car, and we don't subscribe to the Pittsburgh papers. "What job? And how did you get there?"
"It's a modeling job. A real modeling job." Mama would have been proud of me. I didn't laugh.
Never mind that Susannah has a body like a punctured air mattress, and is on the shady side of thirty - so shady that even mushrooms don't grow there. "Well, did you get the job?" I asked charitably.
Susannah rolled her eyes so far back into her head that if she had a brain she could have seen it. "You're so provincial, Mags. These things take time. They have to study my portfolio. And then there are callbacks and things."
I nodded sympathetically. I knew she hadn't gotten the job. "Who took you into Pittsburgh?" I asked dangerously.
"Melvin Stoltzfus," Susannah said. She said it as a challenge, and I accepted it as such.
Melvin Stoltzfus has been Susannah's boyfriend for almost a year now. Rumor has it that Melvin was kicked in the head as a teenager while trying to milk a bull. Of course both Melvin and Susannah deny this, but the truth remains that Melvin is so stupid, he once mailed a gallon of ice cream, by parcel post, to his favorite aunt, who lives in Harrisburg.
Mama and Papa would never have approved of Melvin Stoltzfus, but they're dead now. They died needlessly in a mishmash of sneakers and pasteurized milk when the car they were driving was squashed between two trucks in the Allegheny Tunnel on the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
At least my parents, in their wisdom, had seen to it that the farm was left in my name until such time as I deemed Susannah responsible. This, in effect, made me Susannah's caretaker. It is a position that I hate almost as much as Susannah does. But my sister is a long way from being a responsible adult, and I will not capitulate and throwaway my inheritance just to get her off my back. I do recognize, however, that there is very little I can do to speed up her maturation. And in all honesty, I must say that as much as I disapprove of Melvin, I have to admit that Susannah seems faithful to him, which in this day of AIDS is a step in the right direction.
"Well, at least Melvin found his way back to Hernia," I said. It wasn't meant as a criticism. Melvin once took a wrong turn in Bedford and ended up in Albany, New York. I know that none of us is perfect, but you would expect more from the man who is Hernia's chief of police.
"Forget Melvin!" snapped Susannah.
"Gladly."
"I mean, why didn't you tell me a famous Hollywood director was going to be here holding auditions?"
"You must have talked to Norah before she dragged little Sherri down here. Susannah dear, there was no big Hollywood director here today. The only man from Hollywood here today was an advance man, a location scout. The rest of the team won't even arrive for another four weeks."
"You told Norah six!"
You see what I mean about Norah Hall? Even after she'd been here, and found only an Amishman, she persisted in spreading rumors about some big-shot director. Now, rumors can often be good for business, but the kind of phone calls this rumor generated didn't add as much as a penny to my pocket. Even as Susannah was standing there, the most annoying of the calls came in.
"Hello, PennDutch," I said somewhat irritably.
"Magdalena, is that you?"
It sounded a little like Bette Midler, but then again, I couldn't be sure. "That depends. Who are you?"
"This is Martha. You know, Martha Sims, Pastor Sims's wife."
"Then this isn't Magdalena," I said, and hung up. Martha Sims has the intelligence of a goldfish, and the personality to match. Since Hernia is such a small town, I know virtually everyone in it, but I would know Martha under any circumstance, because it was her husband, Orlando Sims, who tied the knot between Susannah and her ex-husband. The Simses are Presbyterian, and I have nothing against that, except that it was Susannah marrying a Presbyterian, and then divorcing one, that started my sister on a long and twisted road away from the traditions of her forefathers. Of course, there may have been other factors involved.
The phone rang again almost the second I hung it up. "This is the PennDutch," I said as mechanically as I could. "I cannot take your call now because I'm on the - "
"Magdalena, that is you. Don't hang up now, Magdalena. It wasn't Orlando's fault that your sister's marriage broke up. Listen, dear, about that producer you've got out there, may I speak to him?"
"It's the director you want to speak to, not the producer," I said, "only this one is not a director, but a location scout, and besides which, he isn't even here."
Now, that should have made sense to your average human being, but like I told you, Martha Sims can only look forward to being average. "When will the producer be back?" she asked.
"A week from Monday, at two forty-five p.m.," I said helpfully.
"Thanks," said Martha sincerely. "Please tell him that I called, and that I'll be back in touch with him then."
"Will do." I hung up the phone.
Fifteen phone calls later I unplugged the thing and staggered off to bed. If I'd had any sense at all, I'd have used the phone one more time and called Bugsy to cancel our arrangement. But it was from Melvin Stoltzfus's paper I had copied that one time I cheated in grammar school. What more can I say?
-3-
Four weeks later to the day, Bugsy showed back up on my doorstep.
"Yes? What is it?" I inquired.
"It's me, Yoder, Bugsy. You know, Steven Freeman."
I stared hard at the man. Actually, there were three men: one who could possibly have been Bugsy; one who was very tall despite a pronounced stoop; and a short one who was so hairy that he undoubtedly plugged the shower drain with one usage. The guy who vaguely resembled Bugsy did have a whitehead on his nose, but it was now on the other side. None of the men was wearing a gray, shiny suit.
"Do you have any ID?"
