by Tamar Myers
‘Well, well,’ I mumbled, ‘you have certainly abandoned your penny-pinching ways. What’s more, except for those jam jars that some big city designer talked you into buying, instead of installing decent lighting, you have actually exhibited fairly good taste.’
Thank heavens the dear gal wasn’t around to hear my critique. I walked into the dining room and was shocked again. Doc’s painted grey dining room table, which he’d made himself from salvaged lumber, was gone, along with the motley assortment of wobbly chairs that usually surrounded it. In their place was a stunning mahogany showstopper that could seat twelve, and around it, arranged with the precision that one would expect from a footman employed at Buckingham Palace, were Queen Anne-style mahogany chairs. The table surface was as smooth and glossy as a peeled hard-boiled egg – that is, except for a single dust mote. Aha! Dear, sweet Agnes had gone totally bonkers: she’d gone and hired a housekeeper!
But wait, there was more – so much more! The large dining room was literally lined with credenzas and breakfronts and china cabinets. Wherever space permitted the walls were chock-a-block with paintings, two of which were massive. Being the simple-minded country bumpkin that I am, I have no appreciation for anything but representational art. They say that art is in the eye of the beholder, but when this beholder beholds a picture of someone with three eyes, then I say that there is no art to behold. Just my opinion, and I am welcome to it.
But moving right along. I shan’t even begin to describe the treasures contained in the sitting room, except to say that even King Tut would have tutted at the sight of such over-the-top luxuries. Interspersed twixt gasps of admiration and clenched-teeth tuts, I continued to call Agnes’s name, as next I headed for the master bedroom which is still on the ground floor.
When I reached the open door to her bedroom I nearly fainted, for there was Agnes in her king-size, four-poster bed, with the bedclothes pulled up to her chin, and snuggled next to her, also under the covers, was a billy goat. Gruff is not just any billy goat; he is an old goat with a long white beard, long curved horns, and light brown eyes that manage to seem both disconcertingly human and diabolical. It wouldn’t take much to convince me that he was the Devil incarnate.
‘Ach,’ I gasped.
‘Magdalena,’ my best friend cried, as she struggled to clear herself of the weight of the cumbersome bedclothes and get to her tiny feet.
Once upon a time, long, long ago, we primitive colonists made do with items that we called sheets and blankets. The blankets were relatively lightweight, and since we had central heating, one was able to add or subtract a blanket as needed throughout the night. This practice was especially convenient for menopausal women who suffered from hot flashes. Then someone – perhaps a Francophile – decided that blankets were only for horses and that we ignorant yokels must now learn the joys of the ‘duvet’. Now when one travels Stateside and sleeps in a hotel or a motor lodge, one is forced to either sleep under a mattress stuffed between an envelope of sheets, called a duvet (with the thermostat turned down to Arctic temperatures), or sleep without a cover. But I digress.
‘Agnes,’ I hollered happily, exceedingly pleased at her reaction to seeing me. After all, I’d worn a very dark shade of grey to her wedding. That’s what the colour code said on the label, but I preferred to call it ‘light black’ which, in my opinion, is the correct colour to wear when one is in semi-mourning.
Because we are both of Amish-Mennonite stock – although she is of a more liberal branch – we shared as many ancestors as a pond full of koi. The goat, however, was not closely related to either of us. What I’m getting at, is that when we hugged, we commenced to patting each other’s backs half a dozen times as if we were babies who needed burping – that is, until inspiration struck. I actually did burp. On purpose. It was a wee burp, a mini-belch, one might say. However, I most certainly did not intend for the goat to burp in return.
‘Did you hear that?’ Agnes said, clearly delighted. ‘Billy is talking to you!’
‘Billy is disgusting,’ I said. ‘Why on earth do you have a barnyard animal in bed with you?’
‘Oh, Mags, don’t be so judgmental. If other people can have cats and dogs on their beds, why can’t I have a goat? Think of Billy as my comfort animal. Besides, I gave him a bath with puppy shampoo, and I even polished his hooves and his horns with moustache wax.’
Incidentally, Agnes is one of only three people whom I tolerate calling me ‘Mags’. The other two who have permission to truncate my given name are Gabe and my sister Susannah. By the way, the latter is serving a lengthy prison sentence for being an accessory to attempted murder. The victim of this foiled murder plot is none other than me.
I took both of Agnes’s hands in mine and led her all of three feet back to the bed and had us sit. I was about to point out that cats and dogs normally sleep atop their owners’ bedding, when the beast suddenly bleated just as loudly as my smoke alarm.
‘Oh, shut up!’ I said crossly. My comment was directed at the goat, not at Agnes. I had not intended for old Billy to bolt from the bed, leaving his diaper behind, weighed down as it were, beneath the meter-thick duvet.
‘Am I really that whacky, Mags?’ she sobbed, as she attempted to bury her head into my bony shoulder.
‘Absolutely not,’ I said. ‘But we’ve always been a tidy people, and letting farm animals share our beds goes against four hundred years of our inbred family history, probably beginning with Menno Simons and his followers. Then again, I could be wrong; I was wrong in 1965, 1987, and then also in 2003.’
‘What about that time in 1998?’
‘Oh yeah. I’d just as soon forget about that. Anyway, did you ever see your parents display any signs of physical affection?’
She nodded as she smeared the tears across her round cheeks with her arm. ‘Once. Papa tripped on an electrical cord, and when he fell, his lips touched Mama’s.’
It had been a shocking revelation, one that practically made my heart race, but there was no time to revel in sins of the flesh. ‘Agnes, I need your help.’
EIGHT
‘You do?’ Agnes was instantly transformed. She clapped her small but plump hands and bounced up and down on the bed just like Little Jacob does sometimes. ‘Who’s been murdered? Do you have any good clues?’
In all fairness, Agnes has helped me do a little sleuthing in the past; she has been the Dr Watson to my Sherlock Holmes, if you will. Not that I’ve been a drug addict, mind you. She has a good head on her round shoulders. She’s brave, she’s far more techno-savvy than I am, and above all, she’s loyal to a fault.
‘Agnes,’ I said, ‘I’m not here about a murder, or any sort of crime. I’m here to offer you a job.’
I could feel the excitement drain from her like water from a cheap plastic bottle. ‘Mags, as much as I love your kids, I really don’t see myself being their nanny.’
‘That’s good, because watching after them is what their father loves doing most in life.’
‘Oh? What is it then?’ Burble, burble, my bestie was getting excited again.
‘Hold on to your hat, dear – well, at least hold on to this stupid duvet, because you’re not going to believe this. This has to do with the really wacky woman, Wanda Hemphopple—’
‘And you say that with no judgment?’
‘Are you judging me?’
‘Sorry, go on.’
Sometimes it takes a minute or two to stop feeling aggravated when one has just been criticized. Other times it takes longer than that. On this occasion it was expedient to swallow my irritation and move on. Besides, I’ve been told that irritation contains very few calories.
‘Anyway, I am going to reopen her Sausage Barn,’ I said pleasantly.
‘What?’ Agnes said.
‘Hortense came to see me. She brought with her a notarized deed. Wanda has given me sixty percent ownership of the place, and Hortense the other forty percent.’
‘Why, Mags? You know that Wanda is crazy. Stark rav
ing mad. You’re not really considering accepting ownership of The Sausage Barn, are you?’
‘I already have. It’s not for me; it’s for Hortense.’
‘But Mags, that evil Wanda tried to kill both you, and your precious Alison, in that very place.’
‘You think that I’ve forgotten? I still have nightmares about it. But Hortense needs this. She’s working hard to put her life back together after everything that happened, and all the subsequent media attention she’s received. She’s even gotten death threats.’
‘Shut the front door!’ Agnes said.
‘I did,’ I said quite crossly. ‘And for your information, missy, I found it wide open when I arrived.’
Agnes had the temerity to laugh. ‘Calm yourself, Mags. That’s just an expression of astonishment. Death threats, huh? From whom?’
‘We didn’t talk about that, and this is just between you and me, and your sinfully expensive French silk drapes, but I heard about the threats from Police Chief Toy Graham a while back.’
Agnes smirked. ‘Figures. The two of you are as tight as two ticks on a Mexican hairless dog. Now let’s pivot back to The Sausage Barn. Are you and Hortense going to be running the restaurant together?’
‘Absolutely not. Did you realize that Hortense is only nineteen, and will be a college freshman?’
‘Goodness me, I thought for sure she was closer to thirty.’
‘Bingo! I did too. Anyway, the poor girl ran through all her mother’s savings after the murder trial, but she is determined not to let her dream of a college education be ripped from her grasp by a mother who is behind bars for a murder, and two more attempted murder convictions. In order to follow through on her goal, Hortense has asked me to run the restaurant for her while she finishes college. Anyway, I agreed. She said that I could do anything that I want with the place, and I decided that it is going to be an Asian restaurant.’
Agnes clapped her petite, but nonetheless pudgy, hands. ‘Oh goody! I love Asian food. Ramen noodles are my favourite.’
‘Ramen noodles aren’t quite what I had in mind. Listen, the reason that I’m here – besides the fact that I haven’t seen you in a month of Sundays – is that I want you to be the manager.’
‘Get out of town and back! Did you say that you want me to manage it?’
‘Yesiree, and Bob’s your uncle.’ For the record, Agnes really does have an Uncle Bob. Or Robert, at any rate.
‘But why me?’
I did something which would have been unthinkable before I married a touchy-feely New York Jew. I slung a bony arm (one of mine, of course) around Agnes’s shoulders. Given her body shape, and the slippery texture of her nightgown, said arm slid off, and I had to launch it around her shoulder again. This time I stuck a landing, and thus was able to draw her to me in a semi-embrace.
‘I’m choosing you because – with the possible exception of Gabe – you are the brightest person I know.’
She turned to me with enthusiasm, causing my lanky limb to slip yet again. ‘Really?’
‘You bet your bippy. And also, because you have great people skills. Look how you’ve handled those two doddering nude uncles that lived with you until Mother Malaise enticed them into her cult.’
‘Yeah, I guess. But Magdalena, you know that I don’t care much for Hortense after her mother tried to kill you and Alison. I know it’s not her fault, but don’t you think that Hortense and Wanda kind of look alike?’
‘Kind of? Why if Hortense was thirty years older, gained twenty pounds, broke her nose in two places, but didn’t bother to reset it, lost a few teeth, put her hair up in a French twist and forgot to wash it for three decades, she’d be the spitting image of her mother.’
Agnes stared at me opened-mouthed. ‘I can’t tell if you’re being kind, or if you’re being judgmental.’
‘Both. For penance, I’ll work on the latter later, on a lopsided ladder lapping a latte. Now, dear, you needn’t worry about running into Hortense too much. She wants to be a partner in name only. Another thing, when I said it was going to be an Asian restaurant, what I really meant is it’s going to be a pan-Asian restaurant.’ I giggled. ‘Oh, I just made a delightful little pun – pan-Asian. Get it?’
Agnes rolled her very round eyes and groaned, as seemingly everyone does when a good pun is delivered. ‘So,’ she said, ‘have you managed to stir up any good Asian cooks yet?’
I groaned in retaliation, which is what I am wont to do, given that I am six weeks younger than her, and ergo not quite as mature. ‘We’re not going to have an Asian cook. Traditional Chinese, Thai, Indian, what-have-you restaurants are so yesterday’s news. No, this is an original Magdalena Yoder-Rosen concept: Amish-Asian Fusion, only we don’t advertise that part until our guests get in the door. Our sign will simply say Asian Sensations.’
The expression on Agnes’s face reminded me of how Gabe looked when I told him I was pregnant at age forty-nine. ‘Mags, either you’ve finally lost your last marble, gone bonkers, nuts, Loony Tunes, aren’t playing a full deck, etc., etc., or else you might have accidentally hit on another potential winner. It’s definitely unique. As are you.’
‘Thank you,’ I said to Agnes somewhat warily. ‘Anyway, I’ve lined up Freni’s much maligned daughter-in-law, Barbara Hostetler as our chef, but I need to come up with at least three others to work under her in the kitchen. I was thinking of Marigold Flanagan – you know, the woman who pretended to be Hindu for a year because she had a distinctive age spot developing between her eyes, and she wears wreathes of marigolds displayed prominently like in an Indian documentary. She’s not Amish, of course, but her grandmother was. Marigold was raised on traditional Amish cooking.’
I’m quite certain that the sound of Agnes sucking in air between her teeth could be heard all the way down in the State of Maryland, possibly even over in Kerala, India. I braced for her comment. No doubt I had done it again: being politically incorrect with my Hindu comment. But it wasn’t me who had pretended to be someone of another faith. It was Marigold Flanagan.
‘Mags, didn’t I tell you the terrible thing that Barbara Hostetler did to me?’
‘What? Barbara’s a good Christian woman. She’s Amish for heaven’s sake. She doesn’t have a mean bone in her vertically-enhanced body.’
‘Ha!’ Agnes snorted. And here I thought that only horses could snort. ‘Barbara fat-shamed me.’
‘She fat-shamed you? That’s a thing?’
‘Sheesh, sometimes I forget just how out of touch you Conservative Mennonites are. Anyway, you know that Barbara’s an excellent seamstress, as well as a fair-to-middling cook—’
‘She’s an excellent cook!’
‘Don’t interrupt me, Mags. I hate it when you do that.’
‘Touché, toots. See? I’m not so out of touch with your modern type’s lingo, am I?’
Agnes inexplicably rolled her eyes, then jumped right back into her story. ‘I needed a new dress for a wedding at a Mennonite church in Berne, Indiana. It’s hard to find something stylish for girls my size.’ My friend paused for me to nod in agreement, but the truth is Agnes hasn’t been a girl for the better part of half a century. ‘Anyway, their organist, Grace Wulliman, is playing a recital the afternoon prior to that. That church has a massive organ and she is supposed to be a top-notch organist. It’s a shame you Conservative Mennonites don’t allow instrumental music in your churches.’
‘When we get to heaven, I’ll let you plunk my harp for all eternity if you move your tale of woe along,’ I said wearily.
‘Why I never!’ Then she grinned. ‘Really?’
‘Absolutely. I’ll even let you beat my drums and fiddle with my fiddle.’
‘In that case, it went down like this. During the fitting, that woman had the nerve to complain about my figure. Do you want to hear what she said?’
I had no choice but to hear. Even if a flock of angels tried to pull me away, a herd of demons would have tugged me right back to listen to what promised to be a j
uicy, albeit sad, account of the dress-fitting session. Barbara was raised to tell the truth at all times. It was a trait that I found endearing, but it didn’t always go over well with her clients.
‘At first Barbara told me that I was shaped like a glob, and that the dress I envisioned wouldn’t work,’ Agnes said.
‘What is a glob shaped like?’ I said.
‘That’s what I asked. So, then she said it was shaped like the earth, but in a ball form, similar to the one that she saw in her one-room schoolhouse back in Iowa. What she really meant was a globe.’
‘I don’t get it,’ I said. ‘I know that Barbara can be straightforward, but I’ve never known her to be rude. Why would she volunteer such a thing?’
Agnes sighed. ‘Maybe because I wanted a sheath dress made from silk.’
‘Oh.’
‘That’s it? Just “oh?”’
‘Oh – that was indeed untoward of her. So, then what happened?’
‘I called her a giraffe who was so freakishly tall that her head was in the clouds.’
‘You didn’t!’
‘I certainly did. I hate that woman.’
‘You do not,’ I said. ‘You’re just miffed. And F.Y.I., she’s not that tall. Did you know that Princess Diana was five feet ten? Barbara is only four inches taller than that.’
‘First of all,’ Agnes said, still quite steamed, ‘I would never have divorced a studmuffin like Prince Charles. And secondly, does this mean that you’re taking Barbara’s side against me?’
‘Of course not,’ I said, although of course I was. ‘How could you say such a thing? Do you mind telling me now who’s making this lovely frock for you?’
OK, so I fibbed when I said I hadn’t sided with Barbara, but I needed Agnes to manage Asian Sensations, and clearly, she needed a job. From the standpoint of hygiene alone, sharing one’s bed with a quadruped is not a good idea. But cuddling with the beast that snacked on the Bride of Satan, was flirting with demonic possession if you ask me.
