by Tamar Myers
It was touching to see my baby sister stand by her man, but what she didn’t get was the fact that no one with a lick of sense took Melvin Stoltzfus seriously. If something strange got in the district’s water and caused the people to vote my brother-in-law into office, I would have to leave the country. Perhaps Alec Baldwin or Kim Basinger would take me in.
With a sinking heart, I realized there was no point in trying to dissuade Susannah of the notion that Melvin was truly a viable candidate. The only thing I could do was to respect the fact that she loved and believed in my nemesis. What really mattered was that we maintained our close bond as sisters.
“I’ll apologize to Melvin next time I see him, dear.
And if you really insist, I’ll issue a statement to a reputable paper retracting that love child bit, although frankly, it could backfire. Folks tend to remember key words, rather than the truth.” I reached into my purse, which is a plain brown leather bag, like the Good Lord intended us to have, and pulled out my checkbook. “I’d say five thousand dollars’ worth of positive ads will go a long way to taking folks’ minds off that silly little prank of mine, wouldn’t you?”
“Oh, Mags—”
“Okay, you drive a hard bargain. I’ll make it ten, but not a penny more.”
Susannah squealed like a pig that had been hugged too hard—not that I’ve done a whole lot of that, mind you—and threw herself into my arms. The woman is every bit as skinny as me, so it wasn’t her weight that knocked me over, but the shock of such intimate contact. She lost her balance as well, and whereas I landed on my back, she landed on my front. Shnookums, the pitiful pooch she carries in her bra, was squished between us like the filling between two halves of an Oreo. Unlike Mama and Papa, who had the decency to die when squished between the milk tanker and the semi-trailer filled with state-of-the-art running shoes, the mangy mutt was merely enraged.
The minuscule monster weighs all of two pounds—one of which is sphincter muscle; the other, teeth. Both ends got right down to work, and I felt like I was under attack from a sulfur-belching piranha. Were it not for my sturdy Christian underwear, my meager bosom would have been as endangered as the polyester bushes of Madagascar.
“Help! Help!”
Fortunately Susannah has quick reflexes, especially if the situation involves her little precious. She rolled off to one side and, after ascertaining that the hound from Hades was essentially unharmed, burst into laughter.
“I fail to see what’s so funny,” I sniffed.
“You, Mags. If someone even gets close to touching you, you go bonkers. I pity Gabe on your wedding night.”
I leaped to my feet. “That will not be a problem.”
“Are you sure? Because if there’s anything you need to know—”
“There isn’t.” I couldn’t believe I was having this conversation with anyone, much less a flesh and blood relative. Mama had not been alive when I’d married Aaron, which, come to think of it, was just as well. When I reached puberty and thought I was bleeding to death, she muttered something about a monthly seed that needed to be fertilized, or else the body rejected it. That was it, no mention of either birds or bees. Just seeds—none of which I ever found. No telling what she would have had to say about the deed itself
Susannah struggled to her feet. Fifteen feet of filmy fabric is hard to navigate. “Sis, you’re not mad, are you?”
“I still plan to donate the ten grand to his campaign, if that’s what you mean. But I do want something a little extra in return.” The truth is, I was only now getting around to the purpose of my visit.
“What do you want, Mags?”
“I want you to talk some sense into that husband of yours. He’s arrested an innocent man. You talk about bad publicity—if Mr. Yetinsky sues for false arrest, Melvin’s going to have a hard time getting a job cleaning public rest rooms.”
“They can do that? Sue for false arrest, I mean?”
“If he had no grounds, and he knew it. Susannah, your dear sweet hubby just wants to make an arrest. He’s not even thinking. Last night he called and said he was organizing a posse to track down Bigfoot.”
“But he didn’t, did he?”
“That’s because I talked him out of it. Susannah, you have got to talk him into releasing Mr. Yetinsky. The man is grieving, for crying out loud.”
“Mags, you know how Melvin can be.”
“Indeed, I do. The man’s a—” I put a cork in it. My baby sister looked like she was about to cry. As hard as this may be to believe, I have never, in all her thirty-six years, seen her shed tears. Even as a baby, she screamed for her bottle, but she never cried. “Susannah, is something wrong?”
She nodded as a single tear etched a channel through her makeup.
22
“Susannah, what is it?” I would have taken her into my arms, despite my inbred inhibitions, but I remembered the mutt in her Maidenform.
“He doesn’t love me anymore.” It came out as a wail, which was unfortunate, because the cur took up her cry of anguish. I don’t know what key they were aiming for, but they both missed. Within seconds dogs around the neighborhood were howling, and even one car alarm responded.
I waited patiently until the din had abated enough that I could hear myself speak. “What do you mean he doesn’t love you? That arthropod—I mean, man—worships the ground you walk on.”
“Not anymore. All he thinks about now is this stupid campaign. It’s gotten to the point where sometimes I find myself hoping he loses.”
“Nonsense. You want to be a congressman’s wife. You were even making plans to redecorate the White House someday, right?”
“I was, but not anymore. I just want my dear sweet hubby to be the man I married.”
“Have you shared that with him?”
“Mags, you know I can’t do that. Melvin is so sensitive.”
“Like a stone,” I muttered. It wasn’t meant to be heard.
“He really is, Mags. He suffers from low self-esteem.” I prayed that the Good Lord would send an angel to keep my mouth shut, just like He did for Daniel in the lions’ den. The danger here wasn’t from big cats, but from big feet. Mine.
“Would you mind explaining?” I said, choosing each word carefully.
“It’s all Elvina’s fault.”
“His mother?”
“His whole life she’s never done anything but criticize him. He was never smart enough, never good enough—she even criticized the way he looked, which is totally unfair. My cutesy-wutesy pudding pie can’t help it that he looks just like his daddy.”
I had to think about that. I guess there was a vague resemblance, although I barely remember Orlando Stoltzfus. The man died the year Melvin was born. The official story is that he suffered a heart attack at the dinner table, but I’ve heard from more than one source that he drowned, facedown, in a bowl of vegetable soup, having fallen asleep during one of Elvina’s interminable lectures. In fact, I heard this story from Freni, who just happens to be best friends with the woman.
“Elvina would be hard to five with,” I conceded. “You know that story about my Melkins being kicked in the head by a bull?”
“The one he tried to milk?”
“She started that.”
“His own mother?”
“The ice cream story too.”
“Yes, in which he sent a gallon of ice cream by UPS to his favorite aunt.”
“It wasn’t UPS; it was Priority Mail. Besides it was wintertime, not summer like she says. Not all of it melted.”
I shoved several bolts of cloth off the nearest chair and threw my lanky frame into it. Feeling sorry for the mantis was going to take some getting used to. Kind of like feeling sorry for the flu virus.
“What can I do to help, Susannah? Besides lay off him—not that I pick on him first, mind you.”
“Make him lose.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“The election. Instead of donating the money to his campaign, donate it t
o his opponent—Mrs. What’s-Her-Name from Bedford.”
At one point the Reverend Richard Nixon had planned to run for the vacant seat, but was talked out of it by his congregation. I’d planned to vote for the Lincoln look-alike and was initially disappointed. The woman from Bedford, however, really seemed to have her act together.
“Hornsby,” I said. “Gloria Hornsby. Surely you know her name.”
“Yeah, but I promised never to say it in this house. Give the money to her.”
“But just a minute ago you threw yourself into my arms when I offered you ten grand. And I have the scars to prove it.” Although Shnookums’s teeth had failed to penetrate my sturdy Christian underwear, there were undoubtedly emotional scars inflicted.
“That was an act, Mags. That’s what you expected me to do, not what I really felt.”
“So you really want me to sabotage your pudding pie’s election?”
She nodded vigorously. “Would you?”
“But what would that do to his self-esteem?”
My poor sister looked like she’d been asked to choose between a poor-grade chocolate cone and a premium vanilla. “Mags, I don’t ever want to say anything bad about my sweetiekins, but I—well, I... it’s possible he wouldn’t make such a good congressman. On account of his low self-esteem and all.”
“Gotcha. In that case, Susannah, I’d be happy to bring your hubby down—in a manner of speaking. But I suppose you meant it when you said you didn’t have the power to convince Melvin to take it easy on Mr. Yetinsky.”
“Sorry, Mags.”
“That’s okay. So far I haven’t been banned from the jailhouse, so I think I’ll pop over there and see what I can learn.”
Susannah was no longer listening. She hummed to herself as she gathered the bolts to return to Material Girl. At least her life was going to soon be back on track.
I am intimately familiar with Hernia’s jail, having once spent a night there myself I had done nothing to break the law, I assure you. The only crime I’d committed was to open my big mouth one time too many. Perhaps it was because I’d been unjustly incarcerated by the mantis that I felt so strongly about Ivan Yetinsky’s arrest. And the man was innocent—I just knew it. I knew it from the top of my bun to the tips of my stocking-clad toes.
Zelda, of course, was convinced otherwise. When not helping Melvin issue citations (mostly to folks who park their cars an inch too far from the curb), Zelda answers the phone, shuffles papers, and tends to the jail—which is almost always empty. The only other thing of note the woman does is worship my sister’s husband. I mean that literally.
Don’t ask me how I know, but she has a shrine to him in a closet in her home, complete with altar and candles. Melvin’s sidekick believes that if she is faithful in her devotion, someday he will leave my sister and find his way into the policewoman’s stubby arms. This is about as likely to happen as a woman becoming President, but one can always hope. Not that I wish my baby sister any heartbreak, mind you, but there has got to be somebody better out there. At any rate, Zelda adores Melvin to the point she no longer thinks for herself.
“Good morning, Zelda,” I said cheerfully, as if greeting her for the first time that day. False cheer, by the way, is not forbidden by the Bible.
“It’s you,” she said, and went back to her task, which at the moment was a crossword puzzle.
I waved my new rock collection between her and the newspaper. The light from the monstrous sapphire and its diamond attendants sent rainbows dancing across the page. She swatted at the prisms a couple of times before realizing their source.
“That’s very nice, Magdalena.”
“That’s all you’ve got to say about the biggest, most knockout ring you’ve ever laid your eyes on?”
“Garish comes to mind.”
“I beg your pardon!”
“Well, that is the answer to number eleven across.”
“Do you really think it is—garish, I mean?” I can’t believe I was asking this question of a woman who applied her makeup with a trowel and cut her hair with pinking shears.
“Duh. Magdalena, what do you think people are going to say when they look at your prayer cap and then down at your ring? No one’s going to take you seriously, that’s what.”
“You’re calling the kettle black,” I wailed. Apparently pots don’t have ears. “What’s a six-letter word for a musical instrument?”
“Henway.”
“What’s a henway?”
“About three pounds—four if it’s really plump.” Zelda was not amused. “Anyway it starts with the letter v.”
“Try violin.”
“Yeah, that’s it. Thanks. Now what’s an eight- letter—”
I can shift gears faster than a cross-country cyclist. “How’s the prisoner doing?”
Zelda put puzzle and pencil down. “Magdalena, I hope you’re not planning to give me a hard time.”
“Moi?”
“Melvin’s gone into Bedford on official business, and I’m in charge. He left me strict orders not to let you see the suspect.”
“But did he say I couldn’t talk to him?”
“That’s the kind of trouble I mean.”
“But you see, dear, talking and seeing are not the same thing. I’ll even let you put a hood over my head, if you like—just as long as it doesn’t come to a white point on top. Then when I’m through speaking with Mr. Yetinsky, I thought you and I could have ourselves a nice little chat. I just came from Susannah’s, you see, and I learned the most interesting thing.”
Zelda blinked. With an ounce of eye shadow on each lid, it is not a quick process.
“What sort of interesting thing?”
“I’m afraid the details will have to wait until after my chat with the prisoner.”
“Does it have to do with Melvin?”
“Doesn’t everything involving Susannah have to do with Melvin?”
“Hmm.” I might have been able to hear the wheels turn in Zelda’s head, had it not been for all that muffling makeup. “I don’t have a hood, Magdalena, but I can blindfold you, if that’s all right.”
“Blindfold away!”
Zelda began looking in her desk, presumably for a blindfold, but stopped midway through the second drawer. “What if you just promise not to tell Melvin you were here and I lead you into the cell area backwards. You have to also promise not to turn around in there.”
“Consider it done.”
The top-heavy woman sighed as she stood. She wasn’t happy, but she’d get over it. In the meantime, justice once again stood a chance of being served and, in a weird way, thanks to my bothersome brother-in-law.
There is no point in talking to a silent man if you have to keep your back turned. Yes, I’d made a bargain with Zelda, but that’s just it—a bargain has two sides, doesn’t it? If I didn’t get a peep out of Ivan, then Zelda wasn’t going to hear what I had to say about Melvin. She surely wasn’t going to like that. And anyway, she’d used the word “promise,” not me. So you see, I had no choice but to turn around.
Ivan Yetinsky’s body language may as well have been Greek. He was sitting with his legs open, his arms crossed, and his head down. I tried not to look past the pillars of decency that were his knees.
“You look good in stripes, dear.” For the record, Melvin insists that his prisoners wear black-and-white-striped uniforms.
“You think so?”
I was shocked, but of course pleased, that I had gotten a response. “Definitely. Because they’re horizontal, those stripes make your shoulders look so broad.” They make my shoulders look broad as well, which is one of the reasons I’ve resolved not to end up in the pokey again.
“And my waist?”
Who knew the man had a vain streak? He wasn’t exactly hanging his head; he was studying his middle.
“I could put my thumb and index finger around it, dear.”
He looked at me and smiled. “It’s a terrible thing to lose a friend—two friends.
But to look bad too, well—that was more than I could bear.”
It is possible to gasp with one’s lips only slightly parted. I learned this trick at church. In fact, I learned it from Lodema and her friends. They emit ventriloquist-style gasps every time someone shows up at church wearing inappropriate attire (in their opinion) or, the Good Lord forbid, a truly serious sinner darkens the door. The sanctuary was sucked empty of oxygen the first Sunday after word got out that I was an inadvertent bigamist.
“I don’t see how a man like you could ever look bad,” I said, remembering to move my lips.
“Believe it or not, it’s happened. I had a particularly bad day in 1982.”
I was more than a bit taken aback. I’d pegged Ivan Yetinsky for the strong, silent type. But garrulous and vain? Who knew? Perhaps I’d been wrong about him altogether.
“Mr. Yetinsky—”
“Please, Ivan.”
“Ivan, then. This morning you looked so sad holding Miss Thrope. I mean—your wife.”
“She wasn’t my wife.”
“You lied?”
“Yes, but she was my best friend.”
I prayed for guidance. I had a lot better chance of having that one answered than a prayer for a silent tongue. Even if my lingua was to be severed surgically, it would continue to babble.
“Well, I’m glad she wasn’t your wife, because it was my understanding that Miss Thrope and the colonel were—uh—intimately involved.”
“There is no need to mince words, Miss Yoder. They were lovers.”
“And you were okay with that?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” He laughed then. It came out as a loud bark, and fearing that it would get Zelda’s attention, I quickly turned my back on the man.
“What’s so funny?” If I learned that my boyfriend was doing the mattress mambo with some bimbo, I’d be livid.
“Miss Yoder, like I just said. Anne and I were friends. Best friends, yes, but that’s all.”
“That’s what they all say.”
“Are they all gay?”
I whirled. Let Zelda walk in; I’d deal with those consequences later.
