Thou Shalt Not Grill

by Tamar Myers

  “Grandma, don’t even start. Jesus was a Jew, you know.”

  “I know that very well. And what I’ve come to tell you is that you should marry this one. Don’t let his mother stand in the way.”

  “But she runs his life. If I marry Gabriel, she’ll not only run my life too—she’ll ruin it.”

  “And if you don’t marry him, will she ruin it then?”

  “So what are you saying? I should make Alison give away the pig?”

  “Don’t worry, child. She’ll give it away on her own account. Pigs and teenage girls weren’t meant to live together.”

  “But, Grandma, that woman is domineering.”

  “So are you, child. Has no one ever told you that?”

  “Of course not. Thist, I may have some strong opinions, but that’s because I know I’m right. Take that time when Gabriel insisted that—”

  But Grandma had vanished. Ghosts do that, you know. They appear and disappear at the most inconvenient times, and usually when I have a lot on my mind. Mama’s ghost does that too. It’s like they have a conspiracy to meddle in my personal affairs.

  After waiting politely a few minutes, just to make sure Grandma wasn’t roaming around the rest of the inn and planning to return, I curled up on the love seat. But sleep was not forthcoming, and after about an hour I gave up on this elixir altogether, dressed, and went in search of the one thing that was sure to see me through the travails of the coming day.

  25

  Grill-Broiled Green Tomatoes

  4 medium or 2 large green tomatoes

  Whole black pepper in a pepper mill

  Salt

  2 tablespoons bacon drippings or extra-virgin olive oil

  Prepare a grill with hardwood coals and light them, or position a rack about 5 inches from the heat source and preheat the oven broiler for at least 15 minutes before you are ready to cook the tomatoes. Cut the tomatoes in half crosswise, lightly sprinkle the cut side with salt, and invert them in a colander set over the sink. Drain them for 30 minutes.

  When the coals are ready or the broiler is very hot, wipe the cut side of the tomatoes dry. Lightly brush them with the drippings or oil, then sprinkle them with several generous grindings of pepper. (If you are using the oven broiler, skip to step 3.) Put tomatoes on the grill cut side down and grill until they are lightly browned, about 6 to 8 minutes. Lightly brush them with more drippings or oil, turn them, and continue grilling until the tomatoes are tender, about 8 minutes more.

  If you are using the oven broiler, put the tomatoes cut side up into a broiling pan fitted with a rack. Position the rack under the broiler within 6 inches of the heat source and place the tomatoes on it. Broil until the cut side is nicely browned, about 8 minutes. Turn them carefully, brush lightly with more drippings or oil, and continue broiling until the tomatoes are tender, about 8 minutes more.

  SERVES 4

  26

  Doc opened the door even before I knocked. I have hard knuckles and he claims he’s too old to refinish wood.

  “Blue heard you again,” he said, reading my mind. “I’m afraid I just got up myself, but if you don’t mind watching, I’ll make you a proper breakfast. If you’re in a real hurry, there’s a box of cereal somewhere around here, if you want to help me find it. Was Belinda’s.” Since Belinda was Doc’s wife, and she’s been dead for over twenty years, I elected to wait. Besides, comfort food was what I’d come for.

  Doc’s idea of comfort that morning was broiled grapefruit halves oozing with melted brown sugar, Spanish omelets, genuine English-style kippers, lemon zest scones, and a large pot of homemade hot chocolate. Ignoring my protestations, he piled the latter high with fresh whipped cream, sprinkled with nutmeg.

  Ever the gentleman, Doc waited until I was satiated before getting down to what he considered business. “So, do we have a dinner date every Saturday night until Christmas?”

  “They’re just dinners, not dates!”

  “Aha! So I was right. Well, how many were there?”

  “Too many. Even the Japanese girl, for crying out loud. And, Doc, if I keep my word, Gabriel is going to be really sore with me. It’s bad enough the way things are.”

  “Problems in paradise?”

  “Problem. In short, it’s Ida, his mother.” Under normal circumstances I would have laughed at my little joke.

  “Ah, the woman you want me to date. Thanks to you, I took a second look at her. She’s a stunner, all right.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “A fine-looking woman.”

  “Very funny, Doc. Tell me another.”

  “I mean it.” His expression told me that he did.

  “But she’s not your type!” An honest Magdalena would share that she was experiencing bizarre feelings of jealously. But Doc was an eighty-six-year-old man for pete’s sake. And I still had a shot at the hunky Gabe. What was there to be jealous of?

  Doc grinned. “But you’re exactly the same. Grant it, you don’t look alike, but when you get to be my age it’s what’s inside a woman that stokes the fire inside a man’s furnace. Sure, we still get turned on by the usual things—”

  “No details, please!”

  His grin widened. “But what you might think is a plain woman when you’re young, can look mighty fine a few decades later if she’s got that certain spark.”

  I knew he meant me. But as much as I love to talk about myself, I had to steer the conversation back to Ida. “Doc, you wouldn’t mind it if I fixed you up with Mrs. Rosen?”

  He didn’t hesitate a second. “I’d like that mighty fine.”

  “But if I do, you have to let me out of my promise to have dinner with you every Saturday night.”

  Doc nodded vigorously.

  “You don’t have to agree so quickly.”

  Doc stopped nodding, but his eyes glittered. “Face it, Magdalena, you really wouldn’t want an old codger like me. So, are you really going to fix me up with the Rosen woman?”

  “If you let me have another scone and a little more hot chocolate. I’m supposed to meet Melvin Stoltzfus in a few minutes for some police work. We’re hiking out to the base of Lovers’ Leap. There’s a cave there that might be important to the investigation. You ever been there, Doc?”

  “Never at the bottom of the leap, only at the top,” he said with a twinkle in his eye. “Been on top many times.”

  “At any rate, this may be my last meal.”

  “Then take a few scones with you. And a thermos full of chocolate.”

  “Thanks, Doc. I will.”

  “How long do you think you’ll be?”

  “I don’t know. That depends on what we find. Shouldn’t take us more than two hours, I’d guess.”

  “Stoltzfus is a nutcase. If I don’t hear from you by noon, Blue and I are coming in after you. Where did you say this trail is?”

  “I didn’t. But it’s behind the Block House. You know, the place with a zillion cats.”

  “Dang people should have been thrown in jail, letting them cats multiply like that. You know, Magdalena, I would have spayed and neutered them for free, but my eyesight is not what it used to be.” He winked. “Except for a pretty woman.”

  I chose to interpret the wink as a compliment directed at me. Or it could have been merely a tick generated by his deteriorating eyesight. Whatever the reason, it was a high note on which to leave.

  Melvin, as usual, was a low note. “Where have you been, Yoder?”

  I glanced at my watch. “It’s seven o’clock on the dot.”

  “It’s eight, Yoder. I’ve been waiting here for half an hour. I was about to come and get you.”

  I grabbed his spindly wrist. “Melvin, dear, Mickey’s thumb is on the seven. Pay no attention to the rest of that big fat glove. And if you’ve been waiting here for half an hour, then by your own cockeyed means of telling time, you’re the one who is late.”

  Melvin can change subjects faster than a teenager. “Your sister is driving me crazy,” he said, aprop
os of nothing.

  “You mean this is the first time?”

  “She can’t decide what to wear to my inauguration.” We started into the woods. “I thought she had decided on fifteen feet of filmy fuchsia fabric. Isn’t that what she always wears to any important occasion?”

  “Until you talked her out of it. ‘Be more conservative,’ you said.”

  “Yes, and I suggested a nice opaque polyester.” “Exactly. But then she got to thinking—”

  “Another first?” I know, that wasn’t nice. And I owed Susannah, especially after what she did for me last night. But sometimes I just can’t stop this tart tongue of mine.

  “No, she’s thought several times before this,” Melvin said. He was dead serious, and there was admiration in his voice. “Anyway, she finally decided that if the mate-rial has to be opaque, she may as well wear body paint instead.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Are you hard of hearing, Yoder? I said paint.”

  “I know what you said, but it didn’t make any sense. What do you mean by ‘instead’?”

  “You serious?”

  “As serious as a hernia at a weight-lifters competition.” I wasn’t speaking from personal experience, mind you. This just seemed like a good metaphor.

  Melvin thrashed on ahead, delighted to be in the position of enlightening me. “It’s kind of a new fad. We get a lot of these pictures over the Internet. Anyway, instead of wearing real clothes, the person wears clothes that are painted on. You know, like a tuxedo, or a swim suit, or whatever.”

  “But over their sturdy Christian underwear, yes?”

  “Over nothing, Yoder. Zip, zilch, nada.”

  “You mean they’re naked?”

  “If you don’t count the paint.”

  The shock of his words was too much for me. Both knees buckled just as surely as if someone had punched them from behind, and I collapsed onto a tangle of blackberry brambles. The second flesh met thorns, I was up again, but my head was spinning like it does when I step off the Tilt-A-Whirl at the county fair. I sat down a few more times—once on Melvin, I believe. Finally I got to the point where I could lean against the fissured bark of a walnut tree while I tried to put a positive spin on things.?

  “But you said she’s still deciding, right?”

  “She’s positive about the paint job. What she’s trying to decide on is a pink outfit, or a yellow one. She’s going to call it a gown designed by Sherwin Williams.”

  I took several deep cleansing breaths. There was no need to get my knickers in a knot over this nonsense. Melvin had as much chance of becoming President as I did at winning the International Patience Championships. And besides, there was always my not-so-secret weapon.

  “Tell Susannah that if she wears anything but fifteen feet of filmy fuchsia, I’m cutting off her credit line at the Material Girl over in Bedford. I’ll be calling all the paint stores too. If I have to, I’ll cut off her allowance altogether.”

  “Gee, thanks, Yoder. I owe you one.”

  Melvin meant it. Between that point and the base of Lovers’ Leap, he led the way. No blackberry bush was too mean for my protector, no sycamore sapling too savage. The stalwart Stoltzfus was unflappable—well, he may have flapped a few times, but after all, mantises do have wings.

  Once we got to the cave, however, Melvin turned into Milquetoast. “Yoder, you have a flashlight. You look in there first.”

  “You have a flashlight too, dear. I think you should have the honor.”

  “Ladies first, Yoder.”

  “All right. All right.” Fear, I have discovered, can make me a mite irritable.

  I got down on all fours, then arching my behind like a puppy begging to play, I lowered my front half until I was leaning on my elbows.

  “You see anything?” Melvin demanded.

  “I haven’t turned on my light,” I snapped. “And if you even think of looking up my skirt—”

  “Gag me with a spoon, Yoder. I’d rather rip out my own fingernails.”

  “Which of these two procedures would you prefer, dear?”

  “Very funny, Yoder. Now turn on the light and tell me what you see.”

  I pushed the switch, but my brain lagged behind the beam of light. It took me forever to focus on what lay in a far corner of the cavern. In fact, I had to crawl all the way in to make sure that my peepers weren’t lying to me. Alas, they weren’t.

  27

  “It’s Buzzy Porter,” I said weakly. I’d backed out of the entrance and was sitting in the damp leaves. Who cared if bugs crawled up my skirt? In the grand scheme of things, what did that matter? They’d soon be crawling in and out of Buzzy until he returned to dust. At least I was assured of my salvation. As for Buzzy, I had no idea where he stood on that issue. For all I knew, by the time the worms played pinochle on his snout, his soul would be dancing with the Devil.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Don’t be such a wuss, and look for yourself.”

  “I’m not a wuss. I need to stay out here and protect you.”

  “Then call for backup.”

  “Zelda?”

  “No, Santa and his reindeer. Of course, Zelda. Tell her to get the Amstutz brothers out here. They can carry Mr. Porter out. Heaven knows, they’ve carried enough deer out of these woods. And, of course, call the hospital and get that ambulance out to the Block House lickety-split.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Yoder. The man is dead. He’s not going anywhere.”

  “Don’t be so sure. He’s already done a fair amount of traveling in this condition. And this time have him taken to the county morgue.”

  “What about the sheriff?”

  “What about him?”

  “Yoder, if the sheriff gets involved—well, you know.” It is possible to be just too tired, too frazzled, to care anymore about the consequences of one’s words. Thist me, I’ve been to that breaking point more than once. I think ‘83 and ‘96 were also watermark years.

  “Enough about this stupid election, Melvin. You’re never going to win, so put aside your pride and do your job for a change.”

  I could have knocked the Mantis over with one of the dead leaves I was sitting on. His mandibles moved mutely, while his entomological brain searched for words—any words.

  Sadly, I didn’t have the patience to wait. “Face it, Melvin, there’s no grain in your silo.”

  “Huh? I don’t have a silo. But Mama does, and it’s plenty full.”

  “Let me try again,” I said kindly. “Your antenna doesn’t pick up all the channels.”

  “That’s because we have cable.”

  “Touch6.Then let me put it this way, your belt doesn’t go through all the loops.”

  “Yes, it does. Susannah looped it for me.”

  I was running out of analogies. “Your dogs aren’t all on the same leash!”

  He shook his head in pity. “We’ve only got the one, Yoder. And you know Susannah carries it around in her bra. As soon as the Amstutz brothers get here, have somebody drive you into Hernia so you can see a shrink. Personally, I recommend Dr. Frawd.”

  To my credit, I kept my cool. “For your information, it’s Freud, not Frawd, and he’s been dead for well over sixty years.”

  “Don’t be an idiot. I see Dr. George Frawd every week.”

  That was jaw-dropping news, but I tried not to let even my teeth show. The Mantis in therapy? Perhaps there was hope for the world. But poor Dr. Frawd. I would definitely put him on my prayer list.

  “Melvin, allow me to be as straightforward as possible. Nobody’s going to vote for you—except maybe Susannah.”

  “Yoder, you’re nuts, you know that?”

  I saw that there was no point in continuing the conversation. What would Jesus do? I wondered. It seemed like he was forever breaking bread and passing it around. I didn’t have any bread with me, of course, but I did have Doc’s scones. And hot chocolate.

  “Melvin, are you hungry?”

  “Starved, Yoder. We
ate all the cornflakes last night for supper. But what’s it to you?”

  Perhaps it sounds callous, eating and drinking, when Buzzy Porter lay moldering in a cave just feet away, but that’s what we did. For the record, that was the first time I ever felt close to my bothersome brother-in-law.

  Sheriff Hobson is a kind and competent man. He took over with grace and skill that amazed me. Melvin remained officially in charge of the case, but from now it would be the sheriff and his deputies that would do the actual work—the detecting if you would. Melvin would still get the credit when the case was solved. If there never was a resolution, my nemesis could blame it on the county. If not exactly a win-win situation, he certainly had nothing to lose.

  Having turned the matter into Hobson’s hands, I headed straight for the PennDutch and Big Bertha. She’s my one vice, now that I have given up sitting on my Kenmore. Big Bertha—that’s her catalog name—is a 125 gallon, 30 jet-spray, whirlpool bathtub.

  I know, a lot of people prefer showers, and 125 gallons is a lot to waste on a single bath, but I think the Good Lord wouldn’t have allowed such a luxury to exist if he didn’t approve of it. After all, this particular tub is practically deep enough for one to be baptized in—although we Mennonites prefer the more sedate method of “pouring.”

  I have only recently acquired this tub, and I had to send all the way to Sin City for it. Fortunately, the Philadelphia vendor was skilled in remodeling, because we had to rip out one of the walls to get the tub in. Susannah says it’s big enough for six people—and not for a religious occasion either. Only a Presbyterian would think of such a thing.

  At any rate, much to my relief, Alison was busy outside playing with her pig, Freni was in the kitchen trying to decide if broccoli was a dairy product since she normally serves it with a cheese sauce, and the guests had all gone to the Blough farm to observe the hay-baling contest. At least for the moment, I was deliciously alone.

  When I slipped into the swirling bubbles late that morning, it felt so good it had to be a sin. I turned the bathroom radio to a gospel channel, just to keep Big Bertha from giving me impure thoughts. As far as I’m concerned, the streets of Heaven don’t need to be paved in gold, just as long as my suite contains a Big Bertha tub. And just for the record, it took only half the jets to make me feel this way.