The Crepes of Wrath (20 page)

The phone on the corner obviously worked. When I got there, Catherine Gingrich was giving her married daughter over in Lancaster County canning instructions. This is worse than carrying coals to Newcastle, if you ask me, since every Amish girl over six knows how to put up preserves. But Catherine is a compulsive talker, and had only recently discovered that the telephone expanded her audience. This was, of course, somewhat of a relief for her husband—until she talked him into the poorhouse—but was surely bad news for the daughter, who had no doubt moved away to escape the constant verbiage.

I could have interrupted Catherine, but I didn’t want to have my ear bent for half an hour, during which time someone else would probably have come along to use the phone anyway. Besides, Freni does all my canning. Preferring to walk rather than to listen, I steered clear of that corner and hoofed it all the way back to the PennDutch. By the time I got there, my dogs were barking so loud I could barely hear myself think. Hertzler Road always has
some
traffic, but that morning it had none. Halfway home I was so desperate for a lift I would gladly have accepted a ride from Lodema Shrock.

There was no way, in my weakened condition, I was going to hoist myself back into my bedroom, so I reluctantly tried the kitchen door. Just in the nick of time I heard Freni’s voice. That she was back at work didn’t surprise me in the least. What surprised me was the patience in her voice as she tried to explain to Keith Bunch that meat-flavored ice cream was just not doable.

“But can’t you put some ground beef in the cylinder along with the cream and sugar?”

“Ach, it is Magdalena’s freezer. She will—how does one say in English—blow her stack if I do this thing.”

“You’ve got that right,” I muttered as I slunk around to the front door.

It is a sad state of affairs when a grown woman has to sneak into her own house, but believe me, it beats having to sneak out. Not that I’ve done much of the latter, mind you. I was always an obedient child, dare I say “perfect” even. It was Susannah who went to bed fully dressed and then, because Papa had the windows nailed shut, learned to pick the front door lock with a twisted coat hanger.

At any rate, there was nobody in the lobby or the parlor, and I was able to make it to my room unnoticed. The first thing I did when I reached my sanctuary was dig into my stash of Three Musketeers, which I keep in my top drawer under some clean unmentionables. (Lest you find it odd that I hide candy in my bedroom, let me explain that my guests have been known to rifle the pantry and kitchen cupboards for midnight snacks.) Since I always find one of these fluffy, not stuffy bars a great pick-me-up, I ate two. That gave me the strength to stagger into the bathroom and fill the tub with hot water and plenty of bubble bath.

Susannah gave me the bottle of bath salts for Christmas. It’s called
Midnight Pleasures,
and much to my surprise, I took an immediate liking to it. Its not so subtle fragrance is not something I would want detected on me
in church. In fact, Lodema Schrock would have conniptions if she got a whiff of it. Still, I imagine something akin to this scent was worn by
the
Mary Magdalene, after whom I am ultimately named, and bathing in these sensuous suds always makes me feel womanly.

Mama used to say it was a sin to loll about in a tub during daylight hours, but then again she never staked out drug-using Amish teenagers, or walked down from Stucky Ridge. For Mama, one bath a week, on Saturday night, sufficed. Heaven forfend you should enjoy it. So in memory of Mama I turned the spigot open all the way to create the maximum number of bubbles, and stepped in with a defiant grin.

I lolled until the water got cold, refilled the tub, and lolled again until I was as wrinkled as a sunbathing California chain smoker. Then just to be really wicked I got a third candy bar and ate it in the tub. That, unfortunately, was not such a good idea because the suds on my hands gave the chocolate a funny taste. Still, there is nothing like frolicking in the froth to fill one with felicity. Which is not to say I only had fun in the tub; I did some serious thinking too. In fact, some of my best thinking is done while immersed up to the neck, which leads me to the following conclusion: a woman should be President.

After all, it is we women who take the long therapeutic soaks in the bathtub, while most men prefer a shower. And where, pray tell, do men spend most of their bathroom time? So whom would you rather have for President, an introspective prune like myself, or some man who made his decisions of state while sitting on the pot? Enough said.

I was debating on whether my skin could tolerate yet another water change when the door to my inner sanctum was flung open unceremoniously. Apparently in my fatigue I had forgotten to lock the doors behind me.

“I quit!” Freni said without a preamble.

Refreshed as I was, I could afford to smile
benevolently. “I know, dear. You made that quite clear, yesterday.”

“Yah, maybe, but this morning I un-quit.”

“Whatever. Now be a dear and close the door. There is a definite draft coming all the way from the hallway.”

“Yah, I will close the door. But this will be the last time.”

My sigh pushed a flotilla of bubbles halfway across the tub. “There, there, I’m sure that whatever it is, we can work through it. Anyway, I was just thinking it was about time to give you a raise.”

“Ach, I do not—” Freni’s dark eyes glittered behind the thick lenses as my words sank in. “A raise. This means more money, yah?”

“Absolutely.”

“How much is this raise?”

“You name it,” I said blithely. I mean, how much money could an elderly Amish woman possibly want?

“Double my salary,” Freni said without a moment’s hesitation.

I sat up abruptly, losing some of my sudsy cover. Fortunately, since I don’t have much to hide, the few remaining bubbles sufficed. Besides, Freni practically raised me.

“What?”

“You heard me, Magdalena. I want twice what you pay me now.”

I slapped my forehead as the truth dawned on me, getting soapy water in my eyes. “Oh, I get it now! You want the money to bribe Barbara.”

Beady eyes blinked. “Barbara?”

“Don’t play innocent with me, dear. You know very well whom I mean.”

“Ach, is it a sin to build your daughter-in-law her own house?”

“Her
own
house? You mean a separate house?” Like most Amish families, the Hostetler household consists of several generations living together. In most cases,
upon reaching retirement age, the oldest generation relinquishes the main house to a married son or daughter and moves into especially built quarters adjacent to or nearby the main dwelling. This little apartment is called the Grossdawdy house, or grandfather house. There the retirees live the remainder of their lives, still independent, but close to the bosom of their loving families. In this case, however, it appeared as if Freni intended to fly in the face of tradition and reverse the order. Even worse, Barbara would be banished by herself to the grossdaddy house, and Freni would live happily ever after with her husband Mose, their son Jonathan, and the adorable triplets.

Freni hung her head which, because of her stubby neck, wasn’t very far. “She could visit the babies whenever she wants.” She thought a second. “Once a week should be plenty, yah?”

“For shame,” I said, and then scooted back down into the water. The air in the room was considerably cooler than my bath, and Shasta and Everest, as I mockingly call my female embellishments, were gaining elevation. “Freni, if you don’t watch it, one of these days Barbara is going to pack the children and move back to her people in Iowa. If that happens, I wouldn’t be surprised if Jonathan went with her.”

Freni gasped. “Ach! Such a thing could never happen!” She gulped for air. “Could it?” she asked, in a much weaker voice.

“You bet your bippy, dear. Where do you think Jonathan would rather live? With his wife and children, or with his—now how do I say this kindly—controlling mother?”

Freni turned the color of her own candied apples. “But the Bible tells the son to honor his mama, yah?”

Thank heaven for my strict Mennonite upbringing and all the scripture verses I’d been forced to memorize as a girl. I repeated for Freni the passage I’d quoted to the Hamptons in my inadvertently inebriated state. You
know, the one about a son leaving his parents to cleave unto his wife.

The red left Freni’s face as she muttered something so shocking that to this day I still can’t believe my ears. If I heard correctly—and I pray that I didn’t—she intimated that the Good Lord was no expert on marriage, having never been married Himself. And He certainly wasn’t, according to Freni’s tongue, an expert on daughters-in-law.

I cringed, fully expecting Freni to be struck by lightning, or at the very least turned into a pillar of salt. Since I was sitting in a tub full of water just inches away from the sinner, I wished for the salt. After all, it wasn’t me who had blasphemed, so why should I get electrocuted? Besides, we get a lot of snow here in Hernia, and good rock salt for the driveway doesn’t come cheap.

Okay, I must confess that when nothing happened to Freni, I felt a trifle disappointed. I didn’t want her to get hurt, mind you, but you have to admit that her salinization would have been an exciting thing to observe. It certainly would have given Lodema Schrock something to talk about for a while.

“Count yourself lucky,” I warned her as I wagged a long slender finger. “You could have been fried to a crisp or turned into salt.”

Freni nodded. “Yah, but the raise, you will still give it?”

“I most certainly will
not
. Instead, I will buy a heifer for each of your grandchildren, and will pasture them here if you like. By the time the triplets get married, they’ll have their own little herds going. But in the meantime, you get back to work.”

My cook loves her grandchildren as much as she despises their mother. The idea that each of them would someday have their own dairy herd pleased her to no end. Her face lit up like a Coleman lantern and she scurried from the room before her tongue had a chance to undermine my generosity.

“Shut the door!” I yelled.

I don’t think Freni even heard me.

I had just pulled the plug—with my toes, of course—when Darlene Townsend bounded into my tiny bathroom like a Great Dane on steroids. I couldn’t help but shriek in alarm.

“Oh, don’t mind me,” the big gal said, and sat on the edge of the tub just as naturally as if I’d offered her a seat in the parlor. “I’m a gym teacher, remember? I’ve seen it all.”

I thrashed at the water frantically to create a few new suds. “Get out!”

“Don’t tell me you’re embarrassed, Miss Yoder.”

“I said, ‘get out’!” The water was draining rapidly and I was forced to lie flat on my back to stay covered.

She didn’t budge. “You really have no reason to feel that way, if that’s the case. The human body is a thing of beauty.”

I briefly entertained the idea that my body was beautiful.
Briefly.
I may as well have imagined that I liked calf’s liver and mashed turnips.

“You sound like Gingko Murray,” I said as I placed my hands over strategic areas.

“Please, Miss Yoder! That woman gives me the creeps.”

“She may be an egg shy of an omelet, dear, but she has yet to invade my bathroom.”

Darlene seemed to have selective hearing. “She’s a crackpot, all right. L.A. will do it to you. I have a friend who spent six months out there and—”

“I don’t mean to be rude, Miss Townsend, but if you don’t leave by the count of three, I’m going to splash you.
One
—”

“I saw Betty Quiring,” Darlene said quickly.

“What?”

“You know, Hernia’s physical education teacher. You said she likes to pull ears.”

“That’s true.
Two.
”

“But I pulled her ears instead.”

“Look away!” I barked. I grabbed my towel on the rack beside me and yanked it into the tub. “Now, dear, you did
what
?”

“I pulled her ears. I went over to see her, like I said I would, and she was really very nice at first. She invited me in. Even served me a glass of cranberry juice.”

“Get to the point, dear.”