Puddin' on the Blitz

by Tamar Myers

  Alison jumped to feet. ‘That’s OK, Mom.’ She turned to face Gordon Gaiters. ‘When I actually was a little girl, I was very shy. I used to think that if I couldn’t see someone, then that person couldn’t see me. So I used to do this.’

  Alison yanked her skirt as high as it would go, which was over her head, and which subsequently exposed not only London and France, but possibly even Scotland and the New Hebrides. The naughty maneuver was over almost before it began; that’s how fast her skirt came down. If the soft snicker that escaped Sarah Conway’s lips was the only response to Alison’s prank, then I might have thought that my eyes had literally deceived me. But there was corroborating testimony.

  ‘Shame on you, little girl,’ Gordon Gaiters said, wagging an arthritic finger inches from Alison’s nose. ‘That’s how harlots get started.’

  Alison snorted. ‘By getting pushed to the ground by old ladies?’

  ‘No,’ Gordon Gaiters said. ‘Harlots get started by acting like heathens. Is that what you are? A little heathen?’

  I watched in escalating horror, and mounting pride, as my daughter stood up to a bully many times her age. ‘Maybe I am a heathen,’ she said, ‘but I sure ain’t no Mennonite, nor no Amish neither, because I don’t wanna turn the other cheek, just because some man in the olden days says that I hafta. I used ta say that I was Jewish like my dad is, but now that I been reading them Harry Potter books, I’ve been thinking about maybe becoming a witch.’

  I gasped.

  ‘Get behind me, Satan,’ my guests said in unison.

  ‘Don’t get me wrong,’ Alison said calmly. ‘I wouldn’t be one of them bad kinda witches. I wouldn’t be no black witch. And just so ya know, that ain’t no racist thing. Black witches just mean they are the kind that practice black magic, you know, the kind that puts curses on people and the like. I’d be what they call a white witch; I’d do just good spells. Good luck type stuff.’

  ‘Get behind me Satan,’ I said to my daughter. Any kind of witch was expressly forbidden in the Bible. In fact, witches were to be stoned to death. I’m fairly certain that commandment was the origin of the infamous Salem Witch Trials.

  ‘Hey,’ Alison said brightly, ‘how about I take ya guys up ta your rooms? Mom’s giving ya the entire upstairs floor. She’s even kicking me outta my room and putting me down in the nursery with my baby brother. I’ll even carry your luggage for ya, if ya want. Course ya gotta tip, just like if I was really a bona fide porter in a swanky-dank hotel, not that this ain’t. Ya get my drift?’

  Perhaps somewhat misguided, but goodhearted to the core, my sweet daughter headed around to the rear of the car to fetch my guests’ luggage. Just how on earth she planned to accomplish this task with a scraped and bloody palm, still with bits of asphalt embedded in it, was beyond me. The odds were that Alison hadn’t given her injured hand another moment’s thought, and wouldn’t again, until its nerve endings were pressed against a hard surface.

  ‘No, don’t!’ Sarah Conway trotted after Alison on ridiculously high heels. Who wears heels to stay on a farm, I ask?

  ‘You heard the lady,’ Gordon Gaiters said. ‘We don’t want you touching our suitcases.’

  ‘Why?’ I demanded. ‘Is that because she’s a heathen?’

  ‘Miss Yoder, I can’t believe you would ask me that.’

  ‘Then is it because her father is Jewish? Are you anti-Semitic?’

  FIFTEEN

  Gordon Gaiters appeared to be genuinely taken aback. ‘Miss Yoder, have you forgotten that both Mary and Joseph were Jewish?’

  ‘Indeed, I have not. Then what is so all-fired ding-dong-dang important that my daughter not touch your ding-dong-dang luggage? And while I’m sorry for my French, I’ll have you know that those swear words are as bad as any that have ever exited my potty mouth.’

  Gordon Gaiters sighed heavily. ‘OK, if you must know – oh heck, you’re going to find out shortly anyway, so I might as well tell you now. My suitcases are albino ostrich skin, and Miss Conway’s are even rarer natural pink ostrich skin. Both sets are brand new and are – uh – rather pricey. But you know what they say: you get what you pay for.

  ‘And I’ll have you know that I do swear from time to time. My mama – she was a simple woman, may she rest in peace – used to say that cussing, as she called it, was God’s way of letting us get the Devil out. According to her, Jesus lives in our hearts, but Satan lives in our brains, where he stockpiles wicked thoughts. A good cussing session helps clear the mind of that, just like a productive cough clears the throat of phlegm. Perhaps you should meditate on my mama’s wisdom, Mrs Yoder, because frankly, your curse words aren’t worth a Hoover Dam.’

  ‘I certainly shall,’ I said. ‘And I appreciate your equivocation, as I am but a spiritual infant, especially when compared to such an august presence as yourself.’ Clearly it was the Devil who made me say such a rude thing to a coveted guest, and who but the Devil caused me to roll my faded blue peepers, albeit with my face turned discreetly away?

  If he’d caught on to my shameful performance, the elderly gent did not let on. ‘By the way,’ he said, ‘perhaps you could clear something up for me.’

  ‘Absolutely. Just don’t ask me my shoe size.’

  Gordon Gaiters had a smoker’s laugh. ‘Why would I ask your shoe size? Even Noah’s Ark wasn’t quite that large.’

  ‘That was mean.’

  ‘Oh, I was merely having fun. Come on, admit it: they are exceptionally big, right. Remember that nursery rhyme about the old woman who lived in a shoe, and had so many children, that she didn’t know what to do? Well, she really could have lived in one of yours. Maybe even rented out the extra space for conventions.’

  ‘Was that a kind thing to say?’ I said, even as I was not thinking very kind thoughts. If the editor’s mama was right, then before this visit was over, Gabe was going to have to teach me some New York swear words, so that I could release some of the pent-up Devil pressure I could feel building in my brain.

  But before Gordon Gaiters could apologize, along came Sarah Conway, teetering on her spikey heels, and weighed down by the weight of two enormous suitcases. Within breathing distance stumbled my clumsy and vociferous daughter, running her mouth off at a mile a minute.

  ‘Why don’t them things have wheels on them? Ya never did say.’

  ‘Because wheels would compromise their beauty,’ Sarah Conway said. However, each word was delivered after a gasp for air.

  ‘If ya want my opinion, that’s just stupid,’ Alison said.

  ‘No more stupid than you people not providing a luggage trolley for your guests,’ Sarah Conway snapped.

  ‘Touchy, touchy,’ Alison, although I’m sure she meant touché. It’s one of those words that ignorant Americans, like myself, occasionally read, and having never heard them spoken, haven’t a clue as to how they are pronounced.

  ‘Well, dear,’ I said, in an attempt to defuse the situation, ‘we at The PennDutch Inn believe in offering our guests unlimited opportunities to lean into the traditional Amish lifestyle. A.L.P.O., we call it. It stands for Amish Lifestyle Plan Option.’

  ‘It’s also the name of a popular dog food,’ Sarah Conway said.

  ‘Yeah?’ Alison said. ‘Mom, ya hear that?’

  What a loyal child. She’d actually heard that dozens of times, and always pretended that each time was the first. Since she was only acting, and her game hurt no one, then surely it was overreaching to label that behaviour as a lie. Even a white lie.

  ‘Anyway,’ I said, getting right back to business, ‘I will be charging you an extra fifty dollars for the privilege of toting in your bags. It’s a bargain, really at twenty-five dollars for each bag.’

  When an eighty-year-old man snickers, it is a frightening sound. When a sixty-year-old woman, who still possesses most of her teeth, gnashes them, it is equally as unnerving. Veins protruded on Sarah Conway’s temples and forehead where previously only wrinkles had been present. Even more interesting was the fact
that her rather small dewlap morphed into so many cords that her neck resembled the trunk of a bonsai banyan tree. I assumed that these obvious signs of stress were the result of her desire to set down the ridiculously expensive suitcases.

  ‘This is highway robbery,’ she finally managed to say as she continued to teeter up the walk to my front steps.

  Her intense agitation only served to gladden the heart of my heathen daughter. ‘Hey lady, I see them little holes in the leather where the ostrich feathers was. Did them ostriches scream in pain when they was yanked out? ’Cause I’m telling ya, if you was ta pull out some of my hair, I would be screaming bloody murder.’

  Alison threw back her head and emitted a scream that instantly set Eldon Krebiel’s bloodhound to braying. Eldon’s farm backs up to mine. In addition to Maisey, his bloodhound, he owns six beagles and two plough mules, Lilibet and Guadalupe, all of which got caught up in a choir of somewhat discordant voices.

  ‘I surrender, you little witch,’ Sarah Conway shouted. She kicked off her sinfully tall, high-heeled shoes and lurched the final distance to the veranda. Upon encountering the steps, she grunted like a discus thrower, and with a mighty lunge, managed to get both suitcases to rest simultaneously up to the next level. Unfortunately, this meant that the albino and pink skin valises had to briefly rest on a wooden surface. At least it wasn’t black, crumbly asphalt. At any rate, after repeating that remarkable action three times, Sarah Conway managed to reach the front door, which Alison so graciously opened for her.

  ‘Here you go, madam,’ my daughter said. ‘If ya wanna, ya can muck out the barn, for the low fare of only two hundred dollars a day. Feeding them cows is just fifty dollars a day, but if ya wanna milk them, and we only got two of them cows – Betsy and Flora Bell – ya gotta pay twenty bucks a teat. Ya guys know what a teat is?’

  ‘Just shut up, kid,’ Sarah Conway said. ‘I can’t stand it anymore.’

  ‘Now was that kind?’ I said.

  Gordon Gaiters grabbed my elbow with his gnarled fingers as we ascended the stairs behind Alison and Sarah Conway. I couldn’t tell if he did so because he needed to be physically supported, or because he wanted to restrain me. Perhaps he thought I might assault his assistant for an excessively strong rebuke of my child. If that was the case, then Gordon Gaiters did not understand my people. My great-grandmother, six generations back, was scalped by the Delaware Indians because her husband Jacob Hochstetler would not pick up his hunting gun and defend her.

  Gordon Gaiters let go of my arm when we reached the door. ‘Go ahead, madam,’ he said, with mock gallantry. ‘Or is it mademoiselle?’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘That’s what I was attempting to ask you when I said I wanted you to clear something up for me, but then I made that wisecrack about your foot size.’

  ‘So ask.’

  ‘Which moniker do you prefer? I understand that your husband is a Jew by the name of Rosen, but at your delightful restaurant today, your staff either referred to yourself as Mags, or Miss Yoder.’

  I gasped. ‘What? I was hoping that tomorrow would be your first time. I wanted to see your reaction when you took your first bite of one of our sublime creations, made especially for you by the deft hand of our much-lauded pastry chef, Barbara Hostetler.’

  ‘Don’t worry, uh – whatever your name is. I plan to go back tomorrow.’

  ‘Really? You liked it that much?’

  ‘Now, did I say that?’

  ‘Well, what did you mean then?’ I was beginning to sound like a fire engine with a malfunctioning siren.

  ‘Give him a break,’ Sarah Conway snapped. ‘Can’t you see that he’s tired?’

  ‘Yoder was my maiden name, and I kept it when I met Dr Rosen,’ I said, thinking I might never have another chance the way the conversation was going. ‘Mags is only for people who know me very, very well. If you were to call me that, I suppose it would be akin to me calling you Gordy.’

  ‘Understood. When is dinner?’

  ‘Just as soon as your Sherpa totes your bags up our impossibly steep stairs to your rooms. Alison can give you the full tour. On the way up she can tell you all about how that poor Japanese girl – oh, never mind that. I had to remove the elevator in order to get the stench out, and of course that wasn’t enough. One never gets the smell of a corpse out of particle board, does one?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know,’ Gordon Gaiters said somewhat frostily.

  ‘Well, let me assure that is the case. We had to rip out all the particle board. But as you can see, I had this lovely little alcove panelled with oak all the way up to the ceiling of the second floor – or, if one was British, then I guess that would make it only the “first” floor. At any rate, please note the simple wooden bench where, I suggest, a man of your advanced age might wish to regroup his strength before ascending my infamously tortuous stairs.’

  He snorted. ‘You’re full of prunes.’

  I was so taken aback that I had to make use of the simple wooden bench myself. My mother used that same expression all the time on me. Being the dimwit that I am, I never understood its meaning, until my doctor husband reminded me of the connection between a belly full of prunes, and what normally comes after.

  ‘That was very rude of you,’ I finally said.

  ‘Not really,’ Gordon Gaiters said. ‘I believe that in one’s eighth decade of life, one should be able to speak one’s mind. That’s all.’

  ‘Perhaps. But why be unkind?’

  ‘Miss Yoder, why should that be any concern of yours? Besides, from what I understand, you are famous for having a tongue that can slice through Swiss cheese.’

  I hopped to my feet, ready to defend my honour. ‘Who told you that? Was it my best friend Agnes? I’m telling you, that woman is skating on thin ice, and she has been for some time. Was it one of the kitchen staff who tattled? Or one of the waitresses? By the way, those waitresses are not who they seem; they are actually sex-starved, religious extremists who belong to a godless cult headed by my mother-in-law. Yes, I know, being a godless religious extremist is an oxymoron, but these ladies are morons at the very least, and I wouldn’t put it past them to be high on the drug OxyContin.’

  As I was speaking Gordon Gaiters was continually backing away, until he was pressed against the bannister of my wicked stairs. ‘Whew,’ he said, ‘you spit when you get excited. Nonetheless, I have always enjoyed the company of a passionate woman.’

  ‘Come again?’

  ‘You heard me. Is your husband here?’

  That’s when the Devil spoke loudly into my left ear. It’s always the left one. I’d already regretted inviting the man and his assistant to The PennDutch Inn, so with a little help from the man in red with the horns and pitchfork, I was going to make short shrift of this visit. Of course, I don’t literally envision the Devil quite that way, and I wasn’t eliciting his help, but I did nothing to question the source of my diabolical plan either.

  ‘Dr Rosen is out running errands, dear. Do you have something in mind?’ I attempted to waggle my sparse mousey-brown eyebrows in what I hoped was a seductive manner. When I first tried that trick on Gabe, he thought I might be experiencing a stroke.

  ‘Well then,’ Gordon Gaiters said, ‘we might have enough time.’

  I shamefully prayed that Gabe might dawdle at Amish Sinsations where he’d been sent to pick up tonight’s dinner. And why not, I ask? Neither Thelma Bontrager, The PennDutch Inn’s new cook, nor I, can whip up a meal anywhere near as good as Barbara Hostetler can. But in regard to my shameful shenanigans, rest assured that they were a trap.

  ‘Shall we retire to the master bedroom then?’ I said.

  He had the temerity to stare into my faded blue eyes without blinking once. ‘I don’t see why we can’t do it here.’

  ‘Here?’

  ‘Right next to that little bench would be perfect.’

  ‘On the hard floor?’

  ‘Come on, Miss Yoder, don’t tell me that Mennonites are too proud to
do it on the floor. I thought humility was your thing. I do it on the floor all the time with Miss Conway. In fact, give her a shout with your loud, country voice, because I know that she’s been looking forward to doing it with you.’

  I was so flabbergasted, so gobsmacked, so flummoxed, so – well, you name it – by his statements that I just stood there, as rigid and mute as Lot’s wife, after God turned her into a pillar of salt.

  ‘That’s settled then,’ he said. ‘The three of us will do it right here. Shall we ask your daughter to join us as well? I know that Miss Conway would really like that. Your daughter can always watch, if she doesn’t participate directly.’

  In retrospect, I was probably not justified in slapping the editor of A Woman’s Place. More accurately, I walloped him. In doing so, I dishonoured five hundred years of pacifist ancestors, some of whom were tortured and died for their faith. And I most certainly should not have threatened Gordon Gaiters.

  ‘I’m going to kill you both!’ I screamed. Of course, I didn’t mean it. It was hyperbole. They were words from a hysterical mother who had just heard an octogenarian suggest a threesome with her fourteen-year-old daughter. Honestly, I am unwilling to let Gabe set mousetraps in the attic.

  Gordon Gaiters was already leaning back against the banister post, so he couldn’t very well escape altogether. However, he didn’t seem as if he felt the need to escape.

  ‘Why would you want to kill me for suggesting that your daughter pray with us?’ he said calmly. ‘I was quite serious about that. I’m not like that pastor in South Carolina who believed that God doesn’t hear the prayers of Jewish people. If that was the case, we wouldn’t have King David and his beautiful psalms, for starters.’

  ‘Uh – I – you really were talking about prayer?’

  ‘What else could I have been speaking about?’ He removed his wire-rimmed glasses, fogged them up with his breath, and began studiously cleaning them on a shirttail that he’d just untucked.

  I was too ashamed to answer. While I cast about in my pitiful brain for an answer that would sound less spiritually incriminating than what I’d been thinking, I cast glances around the lobby of my inn. Imagine my horror when I beheld Alison and the acid-tongued Sarah Conway frozen on the stairway just steps above Gordon Gaiters’ head, as well as my beloved Babester, standing in the doorway that led in from the dining room.