by Tamar Myers
“Do you mean,” she said “that it is possible to have sex while standing up? I thought that was only a myth.”
“A myth? Where does one hear such myths?”
“Well, if you must know, at my VALID meetings.”
Agnes belongs to a support group of like-minded spinsters who call themselves the Virgin Awesome Ladies of Impeccable Demeanor. However, since I am her very best friend in the entire world, I have been known to tease her, and may have even hinted that the acronym stood for Vapid Avaricious Lounge-lizards of Intense Desire.
I sighed. “Yes—theoretically it is possible to have sex in a standing position, not that I’m speaking from personal experience, you understand. But trust me, don’t believe those stories about honeymooners swinging from chandeliers. A moving target is indeed hard to hit, and when the bough breaks—well, in this case, the chandelier chain—down will come Magda—I mean baby, crystals and all.”
“You didn’t!”
It was time to change subjects. “Do you want to hear about my dancing or not?”
“Yeah, sure.”
I knew she didn’t believe me, but it was true. And although it may seem very strange to some people that I should take the time to share such a shocking, and personal, experience whilst sniffing around in another Yoder’s bush, this was one sin I had yet to come to grips with, and I needed to get it off my bony chest.
“Remember Alice Gillespie’s sweet sixteen party?”
“Of course, I do. Even we liberal Mennonites didn’t have those back then, but Alice was a Methodist; they got to do everything.”
“Did you go?”
“You bet. The Gillespies rented the Holderman barn and fixed it up to look like the high school gym. Then they brought in this rock band from Pittsburgh, and—Oh, wait a minute. You being an Old Order Mennonite—you didn’t go, did you?”
I let the Devil take over and gave her a wicked grin as I recalled my shameful behavior that night. “That’s what you think. I told my parents I was going to an all- night Bible study over in Summerville with Judy Bontrager, except that I didn’t. You see, Judy had just gotten her license. Anyway, we went to the party as well, only we hung out by the henhouse with the rest of the kids who wanted to come, but who weren’t supposed to be there.”
“You didn’t!” I heard admiration in Agnes’s voice like I’d never heard before.
“There must have been fifteen or twenty of us by the henhouse—hiding in the shadows, like we are here. But we could still hear the music. Nice and loud too, because we were downwind from the barn. At any rate, at first we just stood around and mostly talked about how cool it was that we had all sneaked away from our parents, but then Marlene Jacobs began moving to the beat, and the next thing you knew we were all twisting the night away.”
“You weren’t!”
“But I was,” I whispered. “I even shimmied and shook. My nimble young body did gyre and gimble in the wabe.”
“No way!”
“Way,” I said, even now electrified by thought of all that pulsating energy flowing through and not going to waste. “And the momwraths outgabe,” I added.
“Uh—I think now you’ve lost me.”
“You may not be the only one. But do you at least believe me?”
“Yes, and I hate you.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Magdalena, you have everything. You have a handsome husband, you have a child, you know what it’s like to swing from a chandelier, and now I find out that you’ve even danced. I don’t know why you even bother to be friends with me. Face it: we have nothing in common.”
“Don’t be silly, dear, of course we do; we’re both fond of moi.”
“I can’t believe you said that.”
“I was only trying to be fun—will you look at that!”
We’d been keeping watch on a living room, or perhaps a den, but it had suddenly sprung to life as Pernicious Yoder III entered, followed by a young woman. It took me a moment to recognize Amy, the young teller, because this evening she was dressed casually in jeans and an Obama ’08 sweatshirt. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail that rode much too high—Okay, I didn’t recognize her at all until I heard her name spoken.
“Thanks for coming, Miss Neubrander,” Pernicious said. “I know this is highly irregular, and just so you don’t feel too uncomfortable, I want you to know that Mrs. Yoder is in her bedroom watching television.”
“Yes, sir.”
Pernicious gestured for her to sit, which she did, perching like a bird on the edge of a red- and-green-checked wingback chair. He, however, remained standing. He who looms has the most power, I mused.
“I suppose you’re worried,” he said, “that I might have some bad news for you. Especially given this economy—Fanny Mae, Freddy Mac—they sound like the Bobbsey Twins, heh, heh. Of course you’re too young to remember those books—so am I, as a matter of fact, but I found a box of them in the attic at my grandparents’ lake house when I was a boy. Forgive me. The older I get, the more I tend to ramble.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I hissed under my breath. “That man’s no older than I am.”
“So old?” Agnes said, absolutely deadpan.
I elbowed her—gently, of course. “Shhh.”
“The thing is,” Pernicious continued to prattle, “I’ve come to regard you as a very valuable employee. Very valuable, indeed.”
Amy smiled, but she didn’t look happy. “Thank you, sir. I try my best.”
“Yes, well, we at First Farmer’s Bank like to reward our valuable employees, to let them know just how much we appreciate them. Therefore, it is my pleasure to inform you that you are being offered a promotion. Your new title will be Chief Assistant Clerk in Training and it comes with a salary increase of six percent.”
Amy gasped softly, touching her bosom with her right hand.
“But, of course, Miss Neubrander, with a new pay grade come new responsibilities. You realize that, don’t you?” Pernicious paused and peered at Amy like a heron about to pounce on a fish.
“Yes, sir. Uh—what sort of duties, sir? I am a Christian, you know.”
Pernicious, who in my book is a wicked man, snickered. “It’s not what you think, young lady. I told you that Mrs. Yoder is in the next room watching her favorite mind-numbing shows. American Idol—ha! What a load of crap. Those kids can’t sing a note, if you ask me. Do you sing, Amy?”
“I’m in the church choir, sir—if that counts.”
“Indeed, it does! Sing something for me, Amy.”
“Here? Now?” The poor child looked like she was about to be executed, and had been asked to choose between hanging and lethal injection.
“No, a century from now on the moon. Of course here and now! Come on, let me hear something. Anything—one of your favorite hymns. Okay, I’ll give you a minute to think about it. In the meantime, I have another favor to ask you.”
Amy squirmed, pushing her way to the rear of the wingback. “Yes, sir.”
“Don’t look so scared, Amy. All I’m asking is that, from here on out, any comments you make—to anyone—concerning the—uh—unfortunate event be cleared by me first.”
I couldn’t believe my ears! The unfortunate event had almost gotten the poor girl killed. Why on earth would Pernicious put a gag order on something that was a matter of public record anyway?
The answer had to lie in inbreeding. When we become our own cousins, there is a danger that our thinking will become muddled, especially as we age, which Pernicious, by his own admission, felt he was doing. Shortly after her fiftieth birthday Cousin Feodora Yoder became convinced she was married to her toaster oven. It was a harmless delusion until she took it to bed, where it shorted out, causing second- degree burns on parts of her body that even the Good Lord hadn’t seen.
But Amy was nodding like one of those toy dogs folks used to put in the rear windows of their cars. “Yes, sir. I understand, sir.”
“Good. Then we have a deal.” Perni
cious bent stiffly to give her a quick pat on the knee. “Now sing, Amy.”
“Well—”
“Why don’t you stand, first—like you’re in choir practice?”
“All right.” Amy appeared to struggle to her feet, but once up, she puffed out her diaphragm, threw back her head, and belted out the most awesome, spine-tingling version of “How Great Thou Art” that I have ever heard. I could tell that Pernicious was impressed, but I’m sure that angels in Heaven were as well; in fact, quite possibly they were a mite jealous.
Amy’s voice was glorious. There is no other way to describe it—okay, maybe it was a bit like Streisand on steroids. So inspired was I, so uplifted spiritually, that I forgot who and where I was and gave myself over to the moment. That is to say, I stood up and sang along with her.
Unfortunately, it’s been said that my voice is reminiscent of a female donkey in heat, and if it doesn’t attract any handsome burros, it at least sets dogs to barking as far as a mile away. That night was no different than any other, which meant I may have hit a few sour notes. Perhaps I hit only sour notes and at an unearthly, earsplitting pitch—but just perhaps.
What matters is that when Pernicious Yoder III glanced out the picture window and saw yours truly violating his bush, he was not a happy man.
13
For a hoochie mama, Dorothy made a great getaway driver. Or maybe it was precisely because she had so much experience fleeing from irate wives. At any rate, when she spied the two of us running to beat the band, arms and legs flailing, and one of us puffing like the Little Engine That Could, our town’s legendary harlot hopped into the driver’s seat and revved up the engine. The second the door slammed shut on Agnes’s prodigious posterior, Dorothy stomped on the accelerator and we shot down the face of Evitts Mountain like an out-of-control carnival ride. Although I’ve no way to prove it, if I was a wagering woman (’tis a sin to do so), I’d lay money on the fact that we skipped a few hairpin curves, traveling as we did in a more or less straight line.
Nevertheless, if Pernicious Yoder III was following us, with Dorothy at the wheel, he was plumb out of luck. Not only did she know her way around Bedford, but she knew every nook and cranny. In one particularly dark and ominous cranny, she finally stopped.
“Okay, now what?”
“I think I peed my pants,” Agnes said.
“Oh Agnes, you didn’t,” I wailed, past caring what others thought of my distressed vocalizations.
“Was that fun, or what?” Dorothy said.
“You enjoyed that?” I said.
“Heck, yeah. I haven’t had so much fun since Sam and I were kids, and I used to drive getaway for him when he’d paint the overpass.”
“That was Sam? My cousin Sam of grocery-store infamy?”
“Why do you think the other kids called him ‘Cop’? It stood for ‘Champion Overpass Painter.’ ”
“But what he painted was mostly love messages to me!”
“Yeah, well, I couldn’t control everything he did—although I did try my level best. That’s why I had to finally marry him. But even that couldn’t stop him from thinking of you; he’d call your name out at that critical moment.”
“What moment would that be?” Agnes said.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” I said.
“Oh shut up, Magdalena,” Dorothy said. “It’s you who makes me sick. As long as I’ve known you—which is my entire life—you’ve played the part of the hapless victim. First you thought you were too tall, too skinny, too ugly, yet all the while you really were the most beautiful girl this five- horse town—and I mean that literally—has ever seen. You could have gotten any boy you wanted, but oh no, you thought you were too good for any locals.”
“What?”
“It’s true, Magdalena,” Agnes said. “In high school all the boys were throwing themselves at you just like the skinny girls threw their Twinkies and Hostess fruit pies at me.”
“Well, I wasn’t even allowed to group date until I was sixteen, so there.”
“Then what did you do?” Dorothy said.
“Well, you have to admit, most of the Hernia boys were rather—”
“There you go,” she snapped, “dismissing the locals as beneath you.”
“Although she did end up marrying one,” Agnes said. “I mean, Aaron Miller counts, because even though he moved away for a long time, he was born and raised here.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“For nothing,” Dorothy said, “because he just proves my point. Aaron Miller just happens to be the most handsome man to walk the face of the earth. And who did he pick to commit adultery with?”
“Whom!” I screamed. “And that was only pseudo-adultery, given the fact that one party”—that would be I—“was as innocent as a wide-stanced senator.”
Dorothy snorted. “If you say so. But, Magdalena, as you well know, Aaron Miller is a bit like a five-dollar present that’s been wrapped in ten-dollar paper and topped with a twenty-dollar bow. To say that he’s short on charm would be putting it kindly.”
I may be as dense as balsa wood, but a lot more gets through than folks give me credit for. “Wait just one Mennonite minute. Are you saying that you and Aaron—well, you know? Now that would be adultery.”
“Yes, that’s what exactly what I’m saying. Last month when I flew to Minnesota to see my sister, I purposely looked up Aaron—just to see if he was still looking so hot—and you know what? He was an absolute stud muffin! Well, one thing led to another and we burned a hole in that mattress, I’m telling you.”
“If you don’t mind me saying so,” Agnes said, “smoking in bed is very dangerous.”
“We weren’t smoking cigarettes,” Dorothy said with a surprising amount of patience. “We were, however, extremely active. By the way, Magdalena, your ex-pseudo-husband and what’s her name were already separated and headed for divorce court. I may be an out-of-control nymphomaniac, but I’m no home wrecker.”IT
“And I’m still a virgin,” Agnes sobbed.
“There, there,” I said and, reaching into the backseat, patted one of her knees. “Maybe you and Dorothy can average your scores—help bring her down below a hundred.”
“Very funny,” Dorothy said, but she didn’t deny it. “What do we do now?”
“We drive over to Amy’s house and put the screws to her.”
“The screws?”
“It’s a slight exaggeration,” Agnes said. “The screws Magdalena uses fit into table-mounted brackets so that method can only be done at her house. On the road—like this—she prefers to use flaming slivers of bamboo inserted under the fingernails.”
“Oh cool,” Dorothy said.
Amy lived in a third- floor walkup apartment in what might euphemistically be referred to as a working-class neighborhood. The stairwell smelled predominantly of cabbage, with just a trace of urine. It was a heady but familiar bouquet, for I had interviewed many suspects in her circumstances while working previous cases.
Apparently the girl had just beaten us home, because she was still wearing her coat when she answered the door. I saw the hesitation in her eyes before she tried to slam it shut. Not only was this an invitation for me to stay, but it gave me an opportunity to slip one of my slender size elevens in the open space, making it impossible for her to close the door all the way.
She sighed and rolled her robin’s egg blue eyes. “You might as well come in, Magdalena. Lord only knows, if I don’t let you, you’d camp out there all night. You’d probably even light a fire and roast marshmallows.”
“And weenies. I enjoy grilling weenies—just like I do grilling people. I grill them until they split open at the seams and threaten to fall into the flames.”
“I didn’t know weenies had seams.”
“Hmm. Well, in any case, here I am as big as life and twice as ugly. Good call, though.”
“Some choice. And you may as well let Agnes in, as well as the Whore of Hernia.”
I put my hands on
my hips. “Whore of Hernia? Now that’s rude! I’ll have you know she’s our resident harlot, not whore. You don’t take money for sexual favors, do you, Dorothy?”
The principal woman under discussion pushed me aside. “That all depends,” she said in a disgustingly throaty voice. She looked Amy up and down. “What did you have in mind, sister?”
“Ooh,” Agnes said, “I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Cool it,” I snapped to Dorothy. I gave Agnes the “settle down” sign with my hands. “Ladies, I’m here to discuss the day of the attempted bank robbery, not to pimp out my grocer’s wife.”
Amy laughed nervously. “Magdalena, no Mennonite I know would use such language—not even an ex-Mennonite. Are you sure you’re not a fraud?”
I held out my wrist. “Prick me, if you will, and see my Mennonite blood. And just two generations ago it was Amish. But all that’s beside the point. We’re here because we saw you with Pernicious Yoder III. We heard you, in fact. The two of you were striking a deal.”
Amy turned the color of congealed bacon fat. “You were spying on me!”
“Indeed, as is my duty.”
“He’s my boss. I work for him, remember? It’s my duty to do what he says.”
“Even if you know it’s wrong?”
She peeled off her coat and threw it over the back of a sagging and somewhat hideous red-and-green-plaid armchair. Then she yanked off her shoes and tossed them toward an open doorway. The polite, neat, young cashier that I had been so fond of in the past was gone, replaced by a slovenly young thing who lacked principles.
“Look, Miss Yoder, I didn’t invite you here, and I certainly don’t want to hear you lecture. Either you leave on your own accord now, or I’m going to have to call the police.”
“The police?” Agnes began wringing her hands like she was trying to extract water. “Magdalena, we have to go.”
“Oh, give it a rest,” Dorothy said impatiently. She unbuttoned the top button of her blouse and set to work on shortening her bra straps. “Up you go, girls—Nancy, Louise. If calling the police is what she wants, you two need to be ready to greet them.”
