Gluten for Punishment

by Nancy J. Parra

  Tasha rubbed my arm. “You’ll be the talk of the town.”

  “I can’t believe George Meister said I was anti-Christian for not cooking with wheat.”

  “He was upset. He thought you were robbing him of his family business.”

  “How?” I rested my elbow on the counter and my cheek on my fist. “Wheat is everywhere.” I waved my hand.

  “Including on your front stoop.” Tasha grabbed the broom with a laugh.

  I looked at the clock and sighed. “Get out of here. I can clean up on my own.” It was nearly lunchtime and Tasha had her own cleaning and straightening to do at her B&B before she got Kip from school. She handed me the broom and headed for the door as I asked, “Do you need a ride?”

  “Nope, I’m good. The walk will clear my head and make up for the cookies I ate.”

  “Hey, don’t forget to take the box of cookies I fixed for Kip.”

  “Oh, right.” She went back and rummaged around in the kitchen before pulling out the box. “Got it. Thanks! He loves your cookies.”

  We hugged and, as Tasha took off, I went out and sighed at the mess in front of my store. The brick building had round spots of white where the bags or balloons or whatever had first hit. The windows were coated in a fine dust. I frowned. There was nothing for it but to get an allergy mask and get to work.

  CHAPTER 3

  It took five separate washings with vinegar and water and two kinds of shampoo before my hair was clean of the gluten-filled glue. After using a deep conditioner, I rolled my hair in a towel, then heated a tub full of bubbles, poured a glass of red wine, and grabbed a copy of the Oiltop Times. The paper had gone to print after that day’s ceremony so the ribbon-cutting story could be included. The paper had certainly got more news than it had bargained for.

  The water was heaven. The wine, soothing. A picture of me and the highest-ranking members of the chamber of commerce covered in flour splashed across the front page, top of the fold, bigger than life.

  “They say any publicity is good publicity,” I muttered and took another sip of the wine. The story was interesting. Better yet, the name of the bakery had been used more than once.

  Lois Striker was quoted. “It’s such a shame to ruin a lovely ribbon cutting with a horrible prank.”

  Candy had covered the concerns of George and others about how the gluten-free trend put wheat farmers out of work. I shook my head and swallowed more wine. It was just nuts. Francy Bledsoe, president of the country club women’s committee, suggested someone should open a “real” bakery across the street.

  Thanks, Francy.

  Interestingly enough, no one knew who threw the flour. Someone near the back said they thought they’d heard running. When they glanced over, they saw two people jogging around the corner but didn’t know if they had anything to do with the vandalism or not. Everyone had simply stood and watched. Kind of like hanging around a bad accident, they were more curious to see the result than to prevent it from happening.

  The phone rang and I glanced at the door. My brother Tim bunked in the bedroom down the hall. The phone kept ringing.

  “Tim, get the phone, will you?” I called. There was no answer, of course. Tim was either ignoring the phone, although I had no idea how, or he was out. I sighed long and hard and waited for the ringing to stop. It did. Whoever it was could leave a message on the machine. Right?

  Wrong.

  The ringing started back up again. Of course, whoever it was wasn’t going to let up. I climbed out of the tub and wrapped myself in a towel and got to the hall phone in time for it to stop. Crap. I dripped my way back to the bath, which was now lukewarm at best.

  Pulling the stopper of the claw-foot tub, I watched with no little sadness as the bubbles disappeared down the drain. It was another five minutes of rinsing before my hair was soft and free of conditioner. The wine was gone. With the paper crumpled up on the bathroom floor, I felt better.

  I shrugged into my fluffy robe, opened the door to the hall, and gave a short yelp of fright. Standing there was a short, round figure in men’s dress pants and shirt. Orange-red hair stuck out from under a fedora.

  “You were in the bathtub.” My grandma Ruth pursed her lips. Her sparkling blue gaze took in my wet hair and robe. “Good. After reading the article, I feared you might be all alone and sick. When you didn’t answer the house phone or your cell phone, I had your sister Joan keep calling until Bill and I could get over here.”

  Grandma Ruth Panken Nathers was the granddaughter of Richard and Lillian Panken, founders of Oiltop College. The pair had come to the wilds of Kansas as missionaries to start a college in the middle of the prairie. Grandma’s dad, Charles, my great-grandfather, met her mom, another redhead, at a state college in Colorado. The two made a fetching pair, and it was rumored all the fun went out of the union when Grandma came along and they had to get married.

  Grandma Ruth was a spunky sort. She lived through her parents’ disputes, the loss of all their wealth in the 1920s stock market debacle, and soldiered on, marrying a car salesman from Wichita. When her husband, Irving, asked for a divorce after thirty years so he could marry his mistress, she gave it to him. She and four of her eight kids moved back to Oiltop, where she went back to college. She got her degree in journalism and became Oiltop’s first female reporter. They retired her at seventy-five, after which she took the Mensa test and became a lifetime member of the group where IQ score was a badge of honor.

  Grandma never remarried. As a middle-aged single mom, she’d proudly earned her way into Oiltop’s society, not caring a lick about how much she shocked the country club set. In fact, I suspected she liked shocking people with her outrageousness.

  Some would call her a character. I must admit she certainly added color to my life.

  “Good gracious, Grandma Ruth! You scared the wits out of me.”

  “You really should keep your doors locked,” Grandma admonished, her voice rough from her three-pack-a-day smoking habit. How she could afford to smoke that much on her fixed income I had no idea. “Did you talk to your sister Rosa?”

  “No.” I shrugged. “The phone stopped ringing before I could pick up.”

  “Hmmph, the girl never did listen. Well, since you appear to be okay, what do you have for dessert?”

  “Is Bill downstairs?” Bill was Grandma Ruth’s longtime male companion. Sometime in my childhood, Bill had latched onto Grandma and she’d found him interesting enough to keep him around.

  “Bill’s waitin’ in the den. He lit a fire in the fireplace. Hope it’s all right.”

  “Let me get dressed.” I wrapped my robe around me tighter. “There’s pumpkin bread, apple coffee cake, and peach pie. You make the coffee and I’ll be down to serve.”

  “Will do, kiddo.” Grandma Ruth waved. “I’ll have a small smoke break while you get dressed. Thank God your father had the good sense to install an elevator. Three floors of stairs are hard on an old woman’s knees.”

  By the time I put on a tee shirt and pajama pants and got downstairs, my hair had frizzed. I passed the den to find Bill sitting next to the fireplace. Grandma came in, flung her fedora on the hat rack, and mussed her short, carrot-orange hair. At the age of ninety, she was proud to still have mostly red hair, even if the parts of it that framed her large, square face were white.

  “Grandma, you smell like a honky-tonk.” I waved my hand through the air to dissipate the scent.

  “I see you left the butt can full of sand on the porch next to the swing. Just like your mother . . .” She settled down on the two-man settee next to Bill.

  “Secondhand smoke kills,” I tossed out into the air. It was an old argument. Grandma Ruth had taken up smoking on the advice of a doctor in the early 1940s. They’d told her it would help her lose weight. I shook my head at the thought. Grandma was two hundred pounds soaking wet, maybe more, and addicted to her beloved cancer sticks.

  She laughed, thick and dark until she coughed. “At my age, everything kills, kidd
o. Need any help getting that dessert out here before I get any older?”

  “I’ve got it,” I called on my way to the kitchen. “Hi, Bill.” I admit, the greeting was an afterthought, but my mama had taught me to be polite.

  “Hey, Toni,” Bill called. The man had a deep voice, which could carry nearly as far as Grandma Ruth’s. Note, I said nearly as far. Grandma Ruth could yodel and was known for bringing the kids running from all corners of town once she started. She swore it was because they knew supper was ready.

  Grandma considered opening a can of soup to be supper. She usually did it with her nose in a book. She did a lot of things with her nose in a book.

  As for the kids coming running to eat whatever mystery thing Grandma had cooked up, I think they really just wanted to get home to make her stop yodeling before the neighbors called the police. Either way, it had been effective.

  Grandma Ruth and Bill discussed the article in the paper. Grandma had bought several copies as family keepsakes. Meanwhile, I brought in two trays: one with pumpkin bread, coffee cake, and pie; the other with coffee, cups, and creamer. I had learned early how to serve with both hands full.

  “It says no one saw anything,” Bill pointed out and helped himself to the food I placed on the small table in front of them. You know, I might like Bill a bit better if he at least said thank you once in a while instead of acting as if I was supposed to wait on him hand and foot. It might be his age that led him to believe all women were there to see to his every comfort, but that didn’t mean I had to like it. In my book he was a bit of a freeloader. I wouldn’t tell Grandma this, of course. It would hurt her feelings. She actually liked Bill.

  I curled up in the velvet-covered, wing-backed chair next to the fireplace. Mom had thought it would be fun to decorate the den in the Victorian manner with a 1970s twist. It sort of looked like a bordello on dope.

  “It quotes the chief directly, ‘No one saw a thing.’” Bill pushed his finger into his copy of the paper, crumpling it onto the tabletop.

  “I don’t believe it for a minute.” Grandma Ruth picked up a slice of coffee cake and took a bite. “Yum, good job, kiddo.” She licked her fingers then lifted the crumbs, which landed on her ample bosom, with her wet fingertip and popped them in her mouth.

  “I believe it. Everyone was watching the ribbon cutting,” Bill pointed out. “Whoever tossed the flour bombs was behind the crowd.”

  “There were two bombs thrown,” I pointed out as I sipped my coffee. “Seems like someone would have turned around after the first one hit.”

  “Have you seen the photo?” Grandma Ruth asked as she reached for the pumpkin bread. “Seriously. I would have been too busy laughing my fanny off at the sight of Pete Hamm covered in flour to notice another bomb coming or even who threw it.”

  “Laughing?” I drew my eyebrows together.

  “Sure, this is a classic Charlie Chaplin prank.” Grandma smiled like the Cheshire cat. “Did you look at the expression on your faces?”

  I winced as she pushed the paper toward me. In the photo, my eyes were wide and dark against the white of my face and my mouth was in the shape of an O. Great. I looked like a deranged mime ready to go into battle with an oversized pair of scissors.

  “It’s a great picture,” Bill had the audacity to say as he leaned back against the red brocade settee.

  “Mike told me the story was so good that they had to print a third edition of the paper,” Grandma added. Mike was a friend of Grandma and the editor of the Oiltop Times. She winked at me. “He also said to thank you for the boost in sales.”

  “I didn’t have anything to do with that.” I waved my hand at the offending shot. “The last thing I care about is selling papers.”

  “It’s a great story,” Bill said. “If interesting things happened more often in Oiltop, the paper would be making money instead of losing it.” The man balanced a full plate of pastries on one fat knee, a mug of coffee on the other. He had stuffed a napkin in his shirtfront and currently carried an entire piece of peach pie toward his mouth using his bare hand. I swear I had silverware on the tray next to the plates.

  His bushy white eyebrows wiggled above his bulbous nose and sparkling green eyes. His bald head shone in the light of the beaded shade beside him as he, too, licked his fingers.

  My gaze was drawn back to the paper and the full color photo. I sighed. “I suppose someone in the family is blowing this picture up to couch size as we speak to use as a prop in the next family reunion.”

  “Wouldn’t surprise me none,” Grandma Ruth said. “We do love our practical jokes.”

  A terrible thought occurred to me. “You don’t think someone in the family . . .”

  “Oh, no, no.” Grandma reached over and patted my knee. “Of course not, we’re all proud of you. Besides, we know how sick gluten makes you. A stunt like that could put you in bed for days.”

  “Did you call Doctor Proctor?” Bill asked.

  Doc Proctor had been the family physician since I was born and was currently approaching seventy years old himself. I kept my shudder to myself. “I’m fine, I promise. It’s not like they could do anything. They don’t have shots for gluten allergies.”

  “Great, you could die in your sleep.” Grandma frowned. The freckles on her face formed a dark pattern when she got upset.

  “Anyone could die in her sleep,” I pointed out. “I’ll be miserable for a while, but as long as I’m careful I’ll get better.”

  “Maybe I should spend the night.” Grandma’s blue eyes danced. “Make sure you’re okay. I could bring you tea and tummy medicine.”

  I love my grandma, but she could raise the roof with her snoring. Besides, she had no idea how to make tea and I had to get up early to start baking. I needed sleep. “I’ll be fine. I promise.” I made a point of looking at the grandfather clock in the corner. It was nearly eleven. “Really, guys, I have to go to bed. Four A.M. comes early.”

  “Wait, do you think this was an attempt to harm our little girl?” Bill asked, completely ignoring my strong hint to get lost. He stacked more slices of pumpkin bread on his plate. “I mean, lots of people know about her disease.” He turned his laser green gaze on me. “Did you tell the chief this could harm your health?”

  “He agreed it was a simple prank,” I said impatiently.

  “It won’t be a simple prank if you end up in the hospital.” Grandma Ruth nodded. She went into a coughing fit and Bill thwacked her on the back a couple of times. She recovered and choked out, “Thanks.”

  “You’re most welcome.” Bill went back to scarfing dessert.

  I tilted my head. “Grandma, why weren’t you at the ribbon cutting this morning?” I raised an eyebrow. Not that anyone could tell. Unlike Grandma, my hair was light enough you could barely see the red. Mostly it left a curly, frizzy mass of red-gold like a halo around my head. And my eyebrows had to be drawn in when I put on makeup. Grandma Ruth used to call me “the Golden Gollywog.”

  “Grandma?”

  She hung her head slightly and played with the paper. “I had a Scrabble match.”

  “She’s in the state semifinals,” Bill said proudly.

  “Grandma, it was my grand opening. You knew I needed all the help I could get. It’s what a big family’s for. . . .”

  Grandma put down her plate and coffee mug. She took a moment to scratch her chin. Her nails against the five o’clock shadow sounded like sandpaper. For as long as I could remember, Grandma Ruth shaved her chin with an electric razor and cackled the whole time. With a happy glint in her eye, she would tell us kids that she bet we’d never seen that before.

  I sighed internally. “What?”

  “You know I love you, kiddo, right?”

  Okay, I’d Play along. “Yes, I know you love me.”

  “And you know I’ll always be there for you . . .”

  “Grandma—”

  “She hates Lois Striker with a passion,” Bill interjected. He drained his coffee cup and set the empty d
ishes on the now empty trays. “Everybody knows it.”

  “The woman is a nosy busybody.” Grandma stood, brushing the crumbs off her and onto the floor. “And worse, she spits.”

  “Oh, Grandma, you should have brought Bill to run interference for you.”

  “I had a rush job come in this morning.” Bill stood and got Grandma’s hat for her. “Avery Stuart’s favorite cat died last night. He needed her stuffed for the memorial at the senior center on Friday. Which reminds me, I gave him your number. There are a lot of us old farts with special dietary needs.” Bill patted his wide stomach. “Your gluten-free desserts would really help with the mourning process.”

  “Sure.” I got up. Bill was a taxidermist. He and Grandma Ruth had met in art class in the early 1980s. In her mind, he was a sculptor who used skin and bones to create his vision. The thought made me shudder, but I suppressed it and plastered a wide smile on my face. “I’ll make a note to send Avery a sympathy card.”

  I walked them to the front door.

  “Want to know the best part?” Bill’s eyes twinkled.

  I kept my best poker face on. “Sure?”

  “The cat was completely black with green eyes. It’ll be perfect for the center’s Halloween party at the end of the month. Avery picked the high-backed hissing pose. He said it most reminded him of her.”

  I swallowed and tried to think of something to say, but my mind had gone blank.

  “I tell you what, kiddo.” Grandma patted me on the arm as they stepped onto the porch. “I’ll get a list of everyone who was at your coffee from Pete. He owes me. Then Bill and I’ll see what we can find out. Seniors stick together. Maybe they’ll tell us something they wouldn’t tell Chief Blaylock.”

  “Hey, Ruthie, you can write a blog on this,” Bill said. “I’m sure it’ll get people talking. You know how much they loved your column before Smith retired you.”

  Grandma lit a cigarette, held it in one hand, and smacked Bill on the arm with the other. “You are one smooth talker, my friend.”

  “That’s what you like about me.” Bill held out his arm and Grandma put hers through his.