Thou Shalt Not Grill

by Tamar Myers

  “Yeah.” He seemed actually eager for the change of custom.

  I nodded my head, and he nodded his head. But he didn’t stop. He nodded faster and faster until his noggin was vibrating like the paint mixer at the Home Depot over in Bedford. Then—and if swearing wasn’t against my religion, I’d swear this was true—his head spun all the way around, as if it weren’t even attached at the neck. So bizarre was the sight that both Octavia and Augusta gasped like drowning turkeys—I’ve heard a few of those, by the way. Even Buist was shocked into silence, but Capers, bless her genteel heart, almost gagged. Apparently Chuck and Bibi Norton were used to such sights down on the farm, because they barely blinked.

  Stanley Dalrumple, the youthful chauffeur, scowled behind his wire-rimmed glasses. “The guy’s a show-off,” he said as Buzzy Porter’s head shimmied to a stop.

  Buist found his tongue. “It was just an illusion. The human body is not capable of such movement.”

  “Linda Blair did it in the Exorcist,” Augusta ventured.

  “That was a movie,” Octavia snapped. She licked her lips, which, although painted, were as dry as cornflakes. “Did you know they wanted me to play her part?”

  Augusta snorted. “Nonsense. Linda Blair was a teenager and you were—”

  Octavia had changed to a forest green satin gown. She was hatless and therefore without a veil. Her dark eyes bored into her assistant.

  “Too good for the part,” Augusta said, finishing her sentence.

  I glanced at my trusty Timex. “Dinner is now served. Our one remaining guest will just have to fend for himself when he arrives. The rest of you will find place cards at your assigned spots. Of course, none of us will begin eating until after grace has been said.” I glared at Buzzy. “And you, young man, will behave yourself. Is that clear?”

  “As clear as your best crystal,” he said with a smirk.

  Since I don’t own any crystal, I found that to be a strangely foreboding remark.

  4

  My cook is also my kinswoman. Although she is eighteen years my senior, a cursory glance at our tangled family tree could produce the conclusion that she is my very much older, identical twin sister. Never mind that we look nothing alike. While I am tall and skinny enough to be a cell phone tower, dear Freni Hostetler is short and squat. She wears glasses, not to mention the fact that as an Amish woman, she dresses in distinct garb. Although my modest dresses and white organza cap set me apart from most of our tourists, I am clearly not of her faith.

  The word Mennonite is derived from the name of a Roman Catholic priest, Menno Simons, who became a fervent supporter of the Anabaptist movement and formally left the Church in 1536. The Amish are named after Jacob Amman, who believed the Mennonites were too liberal, especially in regards to the doctrine of shunning unrepentant members. Amish who leave their church will often, but not necessarily, end up as Mennonites. This is what happened in my family two generations back.

  Freni’s interpretation of scripture is, in a word, more strict than mine. She refuses to work on Sundays, and I respect that. As a consequence, our dinner that night had all been prepared the day before. It was not, however, a repast to be sneezed at.

  My massive dining-room table groaned under the weight of food: platters of cold roast beef and smoked ham, bowls of chicken salad, tuna salad, potato salad, three-bean salad, green pea salad, and tossed salad, deviled eggs, chunky apple sauce, com relish, pickled beets, pickled cauliflower, watermelon rind pickles, dill pickles and sweet pickles, and homemade bread. In the kitchen waited two shoofly pies, an apple pie, a custard pie, and a chocolate cake with fudge icing. Except for the tuna, none of the victuals came from a can. Any guest who went hungry was too picky for his or her own good.

  When I threw open the pocket doors that opened to my dining room, Chuck and Bibi Norton’s sun-faded eyes lit up at the sight of my bountiful table. “My, my,” Bibi said, “someone has certainly gone to a lot of trouble.”

  “It all looks absolutely delicious,” Capers said.

  Everyone else nodded, including Buzzy. “Looks just like the salad bar at Shoney’s,” he said. I think he meant it as a compliment.

  There was a bit of milling about as the guests found their seats. The handsome and mannerly Buist was seated on my right. Stanley Dalrumple had the honor of sitting on my left. Bibi’s place was next to Buist and across from Augusta Miller. Chuck, alias “Father” Norton, was on her left. Buzzy was to sit on Bibi’s right, and Alison had whined her way to Buzzy’s right, which put her on Capers’s left. The end of the table was reserved for the declining diva.

  As for the missing guest—I still didn’t know if it was male or female—he or she would sit across from Alison on Chuck’s left. If the mystery diner didn’t show up before the food was gone, he or she was just plain out of luck.

  At any rate, Buist, ever the Southern gentleman, pulled out my chair for me. To my amazement everyone waited until I was seated before following suit. My point is, I was safely ensconced in my seat when the puerile prank was pulled. I am merely an opinionated woman, not crude, so I shall not describe the noise I heard in detail. Suffice it to say, it was as if one of my guests had already consumed an entire bowl of three-bean salad. By the look of surprise on Augusta Miller’s face, followed by one of utter mortification, my guess is that Buzzy had left a whoopee cushion on her chair.

  Of course, Alison howled. Her high-pitched yips would have summoned dogs from three counties if I hadn’t given her the business. She shut up immediately, but reserved the right to glower back at me.

  The second Alison shushed, Chuck Norton scraped his chair on the floor. I wouldn’t have thought a sturdy, beef-fed farmer like Chuck could think so fast—I certainly couldn’t.

  “Miss Yoder,” he said, louder than normal conversation would require, “if you put some little rubber tips on these chair legs, they wouldn’t make this noise. Save them from getting worn, too.”

  I smiled. “Really? Well, I’ll have to look into that.” Alison fought to stifle a giggle, while both Buzzy and young Stanley grinned behind their napkins like foolish schoolboys. “Mr. Porter, dear,” I said, without missing a beat, “would you like to say grace?”

  The grin widened. “Excuse me?”

  “Thank the Good Lord for providing us with this food. And for making it so available to us, that we don’t have to drive all the way into Pittsburgh in search of a Shoney’s.”

  “Can do,” he said, which was not the answer I was expecting.

  He started to say something else—perhaps he even began his prayer—but I interrupted him. The Good Lord expects us to pray with our eyes tightly closed and our hands folded. Not like the Episcopalians. I know for a fact that at least one of them prays with her eyes wide open. The Lord also expects us to offer prayers, the length of which are in direct proportion to the time it took to prepare the food. The minimum requirement is that the blessing be long enough to allow hot food to become cold and cold food to warm up to room temperature. Anything shorter than that smacks of ingratitude.

  When I was sure everyone had their eyes tightly closed and their hands folded, I ordered Buzzy to begin. However, to enforce the Lord’s rules, I kept my peepers open. Just as Buzzy began his second attempt, I saw Octavia and Augusta exchange glances. Since both women were emitting icy stares, I felt confident that Buzzy’s prayer, no matter how interminable, would not con-tribute to our food spoiling. Still, I had no choice but to clear my throat and force the women to behave.

  “Go ahead now, dear,” I said to Buzzy, when the women were under control.

  Eyes tightly closed, he smiled. “Rub-a-dub-dub. Thanks for the grub. Yay, God!”

  All eyes flew open, all mouths as well. Stanley Dalrumple snickered, but Alison had lived with me long enough to be properly shocked. If not, she faked it well.

  “Mr. Porter,” I said sharply, “what kind of prayer was that?”

  “The kind we used to say in college.”

  “Was this a
school for heathens?”

  Stanley snickered again.

  “Mr. Porter, I asked you a question.”

  “It was a state school,” Buzzy mumbled.

  “Why am I not surprised?” It was a rhetorical question, meant to buy time while I considered my options. What if the prankster’s prayer hadn’t taken, like a vaccine gone bad? In that case we would be eating unblessed food. Yes, I know, folks do it all the time, but look at the state the world is in.

  On the other hand, I couldn’t very well ask the man to pray again, because that would be like second-guessing the Good Lord. In the end I decided to leave the problem in God’s capable hands, but just to let the Lord know I didn’t approve of Buzzy’s irreverence, I sighed loudly. Meanwhile my guests waited with their forks poised.

  “Dig in,” I finally said. “Bon appetit!”

  They dug, some much deeper than others. In fact, the way Chuck Norton helped himself to the meat platter, I was afraid I might have to run out and kill the fatted calf I mean that literally.

  But poor Chuck had taken only one bite of ham when his face turned the color of a good pickled beet and his eyes began to bulge. “Brrrgh,” he said, his mouth quite full.

  “What was that, dear?”

  “Auugh.”

  Bibi sprung to life. “Father is choking! Please, somebody, do something.”

  My heart pounded. “Does anyone know the Heimlich Maneuver?”

  The rest of my guests shook their heads in horrified amazement as Chuck tried futilely to dislodge the ham. Thank heavens I had read enough books to have a basic understanding of what needed to be done. There are perhaps better teachers than fear, but no better motivators. Fearing that Chuck might actually choke on my ham and die—not to mention a potential lawsuit filed by his devoted wife, Bibi—I flew into action.

  I may be tall, but I’m scrawny. Still, I had enough adrenaline coursing through my veins to hoist an elephant and fling it over my shoulder. I yanked the farmer out of his chair and squeezed his middle like I was a python and he was my dinner. Of course, I did it a lot faster than a real python would. The upshot was that Chuck’s dinner shot across the room, barely missing Octavia’s head, and landed on the floor with a splat.

  Chuck gasped a few times, as he fought for words. “Why, that’s not ham at all. That’s rubber.”

  So much for gratitude. “Mr. Norton, I assure you that this establishment serves only the finest cuts of meat.”

  “No!” He coughed. “I don’t mean that it’s tough—it’s rubber.”

  I raced over to the regurgitated repast and prodded it gingerly with the toe of my brogan. It had the same texture as my shower mat.

  “Buzzy Porter!” I bellowed.

  The wise guy winced. “He was supposed to chew it— not inhale it.”

  “That’s beside the point.” I gestured to Chuck Norton. “Do you wish to press some sort of charges?”

  “Well, I—are you a police officer, Miss Yoder?”

  “Gracious no. But the Chief of Police is my brother- in-law.” There was no need to tell him that my sister’s husband and I get along as well as children and bathwater.

  “I’m sorry,” Buzzy blurted. “Like I said, he wasn’t supposed to swallow it.”

  I nodded to Chuck. “It’s your call, dear.”

  Bibi Norton looked anything but dowdy when she was angry. “Let’s do it, Father.”

  Buzzy blanched. “Hey, wait. Maybe we can make some kind of a deal.”

  “You could have died,” Bibi reminded her husband. Buzzy turned to me. “Please, Miss Yoder.”

  I have a kind heart, but I’m about as sentimental as a Chinese snakefish. There was, however, something in the young man’s voice that made me believe him. This time.

  “Okay, let’s say we cut you a deal. You’d have to stick to it, or suffer the consequences.”

  “Sure, anything.”

  Bibi’s faded eyes grew bright with emotion. “But we didn’t agree to a deal.”

  I gave her a patient smile. “If your husband presses charges, Buzzy here could end up in the slammer. But it would probably be for only a few days—maybe just overnight, or until someone bails him out. In the meantime, who knows what little gags he has already laid in place. It’s more than likely he has already short-sheeted your beds. There could be spiders in your showers, water balloons above your doors—this young man is capable of anything.”

  “Miss Yoder, are you suggesting we just let him go? My husband could have died.”

  “No, I’m not suggesting that—although I might suggest your husband cut his food into bite-size pieces and chew first. Now, where was I?”

  “You were about to cut a deal with this hooligan,” Octavia Cabot-Dodge said. Since grace, she had opened and folded her napkin eight times.

  “Ah yes. I suggest that we require young Buzzy here confess to everything he has done, in exchange for immunity. Because I assure you, there are things we don’t know about that will rear their ugly heads. Then we give him exactly half an hour to undo his dastardly deeds.”

  “And if he doesn’t?” Plain Bibi Norton was out for blood. Seeing as how I didn’t have an electric chair at my disposal, perhaps I could let her throw my toaster in Buzzy’s bathwater.

  “Then it’s back to plan A. We call the cops.”

  “Man, that’s not fair,” Alison said. She stamped a foot under the table.

  I swallowed back my irritation. “It’s quite fair. It’s all up to Buzzy, isn’t it?”

  Everyone nodded except for Alison, Stanley, and Buzzy.

  “Mene, mene, tekel, parsin,” I said.

  They stared at me like I was missing grain in my silo, prompting Alison to come to my defense. “That’s Pennsylvania Dutch, ya know.”

  I thanked her with a smile. “Actually, it’s Babylonian. It’s from the Bible. It’s the handwriting on the wall.” I mustered a stern look for Buzzy. “The writing is for you, dear. You have exactly one hour.”

  Buzzy didn’t even excuse himself from the table. He just got up and slunk from the room. I would like to say that the rest of the meal was enjoyable, despite Alison’s accusing stares. Alas, that is not the case. Augusta and the diva conducted their own ocular warfare, while Chuck continued to inhale his food without chewing. Stanley smirked his way through dessert. Had it not been for a smattering of pleasant conversation between myself and the cultured Capers, we might well have resembled your typical American family.

  As for Buist—he jumped to the top of my short list the second time his foot made contact with mine. The first time he did it, I passed it off as an innocent mistake. I have long legs, and given the size of my tootsies, you can be sure that I have, at times, strayed into someone else’s territory. But this was no accidental touching. Buist Littleton’s foot was pressed firmly up against mine, and whenever I moved mine, his followed.

  Perhaps then you can understand why a confirmed pacifist would slide her fork under the protective cover of the tablecloth and give him a gentle jab. Unfortunately, the Southern gentleman’s only response was a grin. Well, a gal’s gotta do what a gal’s gotta do, so I made like I was testing one of Freni’s roasts for doneness.

  Buist gasped and his eyes glazed over, but this time he moved his foot. The rest of the guests were too caught up in their own scenarios to notice our little drama—except for Capers.

  “Darling,” she drawled, “remember the vacation we took to Aruba?”

  Buist paled as the glaze left his eyes. “Yes, of course, sugar.”

  “Keep remembering, darling.” The ice in her voice could have cooled a Charleston summer.

  For a moment neither of them spoke. “Aruba?” I prodded. “I have always wanted to go to Aruba. Please, tell me more.”

  “It’s a lovely island,” Capers said, and then cleverly put a piece of shoofly pie in her mouth.

  Dinner was essentially over. Before I excused the guests I invited them to help me clear the dishes and, should they be feeling stressed,
contribute a few stitches to a quilt I keep stretched across a frame in a comer of the room. The quilt is generally a big hit with guests, and it is a win-win situation, because the subsequent sale of their handiwork adds coins to my coffers. This particular evening there were no takers for either task.

  Theoretically I could have forced the A.L.P.O. guests to help me with the dishes, but I was suddenly in the mood for solitude. I let the guests drift off to the parlor, where they waited out the appointed hour, while I labored and contemplated a new wrinkle in my life.

  5

  John and Sharon Wilkerson’s Grilled Grouper

  1 ½ teaspoons sugar

  4 teaspoons salt

  2 teaspoons pepper

  ½ cup red-wine vinegar

  2 tablespoons fresh squeezed lemon juice

  4 grouper steaks or 2 large grouper fillets

  1 cup olive oil

  2 tablespoons minced onion

  3 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese

  1½ teaspoons dried basil leaves

  1½ teaspoons dry mustard

  1½ teaspoons dried oregano leaves

  Combine first nine ingredients in a blender and process for 30 seconds. Add vinegar and lemon juice; process for an additional 30 seconds. Transfer sauce to a large bowl.

  Dip fish into sauce to generously cover. Grill fish over hot coals 10 minutes on each side or until fish flakes easily when tested with a fork. Baste frequently with prepared sauce.

  Remove fish to a warm serving platter and serve immediately.

  SERVES 4 TO 6

  6

  Actually, the new wrinkle in my life was a face full of wrinkles. Gabriel Rosen, my gorgeous hunk of a fiance, had surprised me on my birthday by announcing that his mother would be living with us—after the wedding, of course. For the record, I don’t do the horizontal hootchy-kootchy unless I’m hitched. And please, no reminders that I was an inadvertent adulteress by virtue of unwittingly marrying a bigamist. That was then, and this is now, as Alison is fond of saying. Besides, Aaron, snake that he was, talked me into doing far worse things than the mattress mambo. Once we even danced— standing up!