Mean and Shellfish

by Tamar Myers

  Susannah shrugged. ‘There’s just something really “off” about her. She gives me the creeps. Mags, what’s her story?’

  ‘Her story is exactly that, dear. It’s hers.’

  My sister rolled her eyes. ‘Same old Mags; same old principles.’ Then, without missing a beat, she said, ‘Say, where do you want me to sleep? I prefer one of the en-suite rooms, if it’s all the same to you.’

  ‘What chutzpah!’

  ‘Look at you! Your Yiddish has improved.’

  ‘Susannah, I can’t believe your insolence. Come on, I’m driving you into Bedford, and then I’m going to give you a little traveling money. You can take a bus from there to anywhere your heart desires. Just don’t hitchhike; it’s too dangerous.’

  ‘Aw, sis, I promise to be good. You were like a mother to me after our own mother was killed. Maybe it’s wrong for me to say this, but I love you more than I ever loved her. Pwease, Mags, pwease let me stay.’ Susannah pulled the same pouty face she’s been pulling on me since she was a year old.

  ‘That was cute when you were “widdle”,’ I said. ‘But now you’re middle-aged! Hey, how about a plane ticket to Argentina instead? It will be spring there soon, and they have a history of welcoming criminals.’

  My sister planted her feet about a meter apart and gripped the kitchen island with both hands. ‘You can’t make me leave. When our parents died, they left me half of the farm. Sure, you built the inn, but I can always go and live in the barn. Besides, if you let me stay, I think that I know how you can get back at Miriam in a wholesome, Christian sort of way. Please, Mags. I don’t have anywhere else to go.’

  I tapped one of my boat-size brogans on my oak plank floor. ‘Vengeance is not a Christian sport, dear. On the other hand, I’m only human, which is to say, I’m willing to give your cockamamie idea a listen.’

  Susannah relaxed her stance a skosh. ‘Before he left to stay at his grandmother’s, Little Jacob dragged me in to see his bedroom because, he said, I’m his favourite auntie.’

  ‘Clearly the boy is no judge of character.’

  ‘Anyway,’ Susannah continued, ‘it got me to thinking. Since he won’t be using his room, and since his room is connected to your room … do you see where I’m going with this?’

  ‘You’re leading me on a tour of my own house?’

  ‘No. I’m suggesting that you let me stay in Little Jacob’s room. His car-shaped bed is really cool.’

  ‘Susannah, you’re a pecan pie,’ I said sweetly.

  ‘You mean that I’m “nuts”, don’t you?’

  ‘Let’s put it this way,’ I said. ‘Gabe would go ballistic if I put you in Little Jacob’s room. Miriam was once his favourite cousin, and he is really hoping to reconnect with her.’

  ‘Did you invite her?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s a simple question. From the look on your face, and the fact that she’s sleeping in your bed, I bet that you didn’t even know that she was coming until the last minute.’

  ‘Well, still, Hebrew chapter thirteen, verse two states: “Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some have unwittingly entertained angels.”’

  Susannah howled. At least Fi-Fi wasn’t there to howl along with her.

  ‘I can’t believe how naïve you still are,’ she said. ‘Do you honestly believe there is the slightest chance that the woman sleeping in your bed is an angel? After what she said about you, I’d say that a Tasmanian devil is more like it.’

  ‘What did she say about me?’ I demanded.

  ‘She called you a money-grubbing fake,’ Susannah said with a smirk. ‘She said that it broke her heart to see her poor cousin having to debase himself like a gigolo, dressing up in a cheap Halloween costume, just so his greedy wife could stuff her pockets with more money than she obviously knows what to do with, given that this place is a world-class dump.’

  My ears burned: not with shame but with anger. ‘That can’t be true! Gabe would never put up with anyone saying anything disparaging about me. I mean, was he there when she said that?’

  Susannah winked. ‘Of course not, sis. He was off helping Little Jacob pack an overnight bag for his stay at his grandmother’s.’

  ‘Dump?’ I repeated incredulously. ‘Did she really say that?’

  ‘Oh yeah, sis. And she said that quite frankly you were a “freakishly, frumpy, frowsy, flippant, fraud”.’

  ‘Why, the nerve of that Aussie hussy!’ Everyone knows that alliteration is frowned upon these days, and for her to use a string of “F” words to describe me, in my house, why that just makes me flat-out furious!

  ‘So I say we go for it! I’ll put you in Little Jacob’s room, and I don’t care how much Gabe squawks. Our son’s bedroom, and the master bedroom – which Miriam occupies now – function as a suite, but with only the one shared bathroom. So here’s what you do: be the same old, slovenly Susannah that you used to be. Do you think that you can do that?’

  Susannah wasn’t offended in the least. ‘You mean I can forget to drain the bathtub, dump wet towels and dirty clothes on the floor, smear toothpaste on the mirror and neglect to flush the commode? That kind of thing?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ I said.

  My sister grinned broadly, revealing for the first time the effects of her prison dental care. ‘Awesome,’ she said. ‘Believe me, Mags, I’ve got even more tricks up my sleeve than that.’

  TEN

  It turned out that my husband had some tricks up his sleeve as well. He stayed at his mother’s the rest of the day, but when he returned, he was not alone. His mother was with him.

  ‘Where’s Little Jacob?’ I hissed.

  ‘At my sister’s,’ Gabe said.

  ‘Susannah said you were taking him to his grandmother’s.’

  ‘Nu? She lives with my sister – her daughter – so what’s your point?’

  ‘Yah, nu?’ my mother-in-law said. By then she had climbed out of Gabe’s car and was finding her balance on her short, stumpy legs. The octogenarian is impressively top-heavy with a shockingly small noggin. If Ida Rosen was made of snack food, she’d be a quarter wheel of Gouda cheese standing on point, with pretzel limbs and a raisin for a head.

  I ignored the woman from whose loins my lover sprang, but I couldn’t ignore him for long. When Gabe learned that I’d billeted my criminal sister in the same suite of rooms as a whackadoodle cousin, he was indeed incensed.

  ‘You will pay!’ he said. Actually, he hissed those words without a single ‘S’. Believe me, when a person can hiss without an ‘S’, that means that he, or she, is either the victim of a bad writer, or else they have something nefarious up their polyester blend sleeve.

  I forced a smile. ‘Loosen up, dear. Isn’t that what you’re always telling me? Besides, I think the two women might be good for each other.’

  ‘Good for each other? How?’

  ‘Well, Miriam is undoubtedly suffering from post-traumatic-stress syndrome, and of course, so is Susannah. Maybe they will bond over that, and give each other a measure of comfort and healing.’

  Gabe stared at me. ‘What traumatic stress did your sister ever experience that could compare to having one’s leg eaten as lunch by the world’s largest reptile?’

  I stared back at him. ‘Oh, so you don’t think that having one’s parents squished flatter than a pair of pancakes when you’re just eleven counts? I’ve shared the gruesome details of that story with you more than once, so I’m not going to repeat them. But one of the tabloids got a photo of them and published it, along with the headline: FARMER AND WIFE TURNED INTO FLAPJACKS. What if that had happened to your precious ma, and your pa?’

  A vein on Gabe’s left temple began to twitch. ‘Speaking of Ma,’ he said, ‘I’ve invited her to dinner tonight.’

  ‘B-but, I thought you were going to keep Miriam as a surprise until her big day.’

  ‘I was,’ Gabe said, ‘but plans can change.’

  ‘Indeed, they can,’ I said. ‘Freni is feel
ing a little bit under the weather, so Rebecca drove her home. But I have a feeling that when dear Becca learns that she has to cook for the world’s harshest critic, she might suddenly come down with a health issue of her own. That said, I think that you need to run down to Asian Sinsations and bring back a variety of dishes that will appeal to everyone’s taste buds.’

  ‘OK,’ Gabe said.

  ‘OK? Just like that?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘No fair,’ I wailed. ‘What am I going to do with my unused arguments?’

  ‘Bank them in your memory for next time,’ Gabe said, and kissed me on the end of my nose. ‘Think of them like the Monopoly money that we used to tuck into books back when we played games that lasted all weekend.’

  ‘I never did that,’ I said ruefully. ‘I never got to play games that lasted all weekend. Saturday was for chores, and Sunday was for church. “Idle hands are the Devil’s playground”, and Mama didn’t want the Devil playing with me at all.’

  Gabe bit his lower lip. ‘Oops, my bad. Anyway, you get the picture. And yes, I’d be happy to pick up dinner.’

  When one is in need of a hug, then giving a hug can be the next best thing. Also, if no suitable human being is around, a cow makes a perfectly suitable substitute. Of course, it can’t be just any cow. She needs to have been bottle fed, hand-reared, and touched on a daily basis. Even stroked.

  Miss Milchig and Miss Fleischig are two Jersey cows that fit the bill perfectly. When I was born my father raised Holstein cows here. I have always kept Holsteins as well, until four years ago when I quite suddenly decided that Jersey cows were the most beautiful creatures that the Good Lord ever created – other than my children and thirty-year-old men.

  So, after my tense exchange with my fifty-two-year-old husband, I trudged out into the south pasture where my two cows were standing in the shade of a pin oak, chewing their cuds. I threw my gangly arms around Miss Milchig’s tawny neck, and although she blinked and took a step or two back, she didn’t really resist. After a few minutes I saw to it that Miss Fleischig also received a goodly amount of attention. Who knows how long I might have embraced my bovine friends, had it not been for the many flies one finds around livestock?

  On my way back to the house I reflected on the last few days’ bizarre events. The pair of bodies in the dumpster were, without a doubt, connected to the Billy Goat Gruff Festival. So was the arrival of the one-legged Aussie with her feral dog. As for the odd Texan couple, that was all on me. Texans were known to be cattle people. What were they really doing out here, attending a festival honouring a goat, if they didn’t have ulterior motives? After all, weren’t Texan cattle ranchers supposed to be dead set against other ungulates? At least, that’s how it was on the old westerns on TV, like Bonanza and The Big Valley. Or so I’d heard from my guests who watch TV. At any rate, shame on me for being so tired of inn-keeping that I had gotten lax on checking guests’ backgrounds.

  But now Susannah … how could the state prison system let her out after just five years for aiding and abetting? Surely she hadn’t broken out again, or else the authorities would have called me. In any case, the world didn’t make sense to me anymore.

  When I got back to the house, I was immediately drawn to the sound of loud voices coming from my formal parlour. I’ve deliberately furnished this room with uncomfortable furniture, such as straight back chairs and benches with unpadded seats, so that guests would rather do chores than sit on their derrieres. Perhaps the most comfortable piece of furniture is an ancient rocking chair that has been in the family for generations. Guests usually shy away from the rocker for reasons that they can’t explain, but today was the exception.

  ‘I’ll sit anywhere I darn well please,’ Delphia said, as she tried to skirt around her behemoth of a husband.

  ‘Dang it, dahlin’,’ Tiny drawled, ‘you can’t just sit on an old lady’s lap like she ain’t even there!’

  ‘Well, she ain’t!’ Delphia screamed. ‘You’ve got eyes, don’t you? That chair’s just as empty as your cousin Luanne’s head – bless her heart.’

  ‘That’s a low blow,’ Tiny Hancock said. ‘Cousin Luanne suffered brain damage when a mechanical ride malfunctioned at an amusement park.’

  Delphia turned to address Susannah, who was the only other person in the room at the time. ‘Cousin Luanne Hancock and her husband Jim-Bob had just gotten married that afternoon. The accident happened when they tried to consummate their marriage in the Haunted House. Not the Tunnel of Love, mind you, but the Haunted House. What sane person would even think of that?’

  Susannah giggled. ‘Speaking of haunted, wait until you sit in that chair.’

  ‘I don’t believe in ghosts,’ Delphia said. ‘It’s just a bunch of nonsense. Anyone who believes in ghosts is an utter fool.’

  ‘Boogers,’ Granny Yoder said.

  Susannah laughed. She can hear our great-grandmother but can’t see her. I can do both. Over the years I’ve hosted a handful of guests who have the gift to tune in to one or both of those senses. Chief of Police Toy Graham can do both, and now, apparently, so could Tiny Hancock.

  Just as petite Delphia managed to slip through Tiny’s tree trunk legs, I found my outdoor voice.

  ‘Stop right there, missy!’ I roared. ‘This is a formal parlour, not a gymnasium.’

  Delphia froze in place, but her lips moved. ‘A parlour? Who did the decorating? A lumberjack?’

  I ignored her. ‘Tiny, dear, please describe the occupant of the rocking chair.’

  ‘Sure thing, ma’am,’ he said. He turned to get a gander at Granny. ‘Well, she looks to be a kindly lady of a certain age. She’s wearing black – you know, widow’s weeds – and this carved brooch on her right, uh, you know what I mean. And her hair’s white as snow, and she wears it up in braids like you do. Also, she’s wearing the same kind of white hat, except that hers is bigger, and has strings hanging down on the sides. Will that description do?’

  I smiled. ‘Tiny, that was an excellent description. However, please clarify something. What did you mean by a “lady of a certain age”? How old do you reckon her to be?’

  Tiny rubbed his massive hands together. ‘Now ma’am, it ain’t right to be mentioning a woman’s age, but—’

  ‘She isn’t a woman,’ Susannah chortled. ‘She’s a spook. A ghost.’

  Granny glared at her great-granddaughter. ‘You hush your mouth, girlie, or I’ll haunt you out of this house and right back to that prison where you still belong.’

  ‘Prison, eh,’ Tiny said, looking at Susannah, as if suddenly interested. ‘Yeah, prison. Now, that makes sense. I was wondering about your cool tats.’

  ‘Prison?’ Delphia said. She turned to my sister. ‘What did you do time for?’

  I had to think fast on my globe-size feet. ‘My people have a long history of volunteering,’ I said. ‘Prison ministry is one of them. I am so fortunate to have a sister like Susannah.’

  OK, so I implied that my sister was in prison ministering to the inmates, not doing hard time for aiding and abetting a convicted murderer. Surely a lie by implication is not quite as bad as an out and out lie. Besides, I wasn’t hurting anyone with my ‘almost fib’, was I?

  Unfortunately, Delphia didn’t buy my explanation. ‘You look like an ex-con to me, sister.’ She walked up to Susannah, and even sniffed her. ‘And you smell like one too.’

  ‘It might be me that you smell, girlie,’ Granny said. ‘I haven’t had a bath in thirty-two years.’

  Of course, Delphia couldn’t hear that, but we other three living souls did and laughed. This so irritated Delphia that she strode out of the room on her stout little legs, which had come to remind me of turkey drumsticks, although perhaps a wee bit larger. She did, however, reappear at dinner, along with a double dose of attitude.

  ‘I hope y’all don’t eat “family style” here,’ she said as she found her assigned seat. ‘It’s not that I’m afraid of germs, but I don’t know where everyone’s hands have been.
’

  ‘Oy vey,’ my Jewish mother-in-law said.

  At that moment Rebecca emerged from the kitchen bearing a massive platter which she set in front of Gabe. Mounded around the fifteen-pound pot roast in its centre were potatoes, carrots and onions. Next to come out of the kitchen were a pair of gravy boats, and then baskets of freshly baked bread to go with the home-churned butter. A variety of salads and Amish favourites had been placed on the table ahead of time. To be sure, these included pickled beets and pickled watermelon rinds.

  Despite her reservations about handling dishes that others had touched, Delphia passed her plate up to Gabe for the entrée, and she didn’t seem to mind helping herself to the salads when they were passed around. The one thing that she didn’t do was wait until grace had been said before she dug into her dinner. She’d done the same thing the evening before, but then I’d managed to keep my liver-coloured lips closed in the interest of peace. On this occasion I was just too frazzled to ‘put a sock in it,’ as some have so rudely suggested I do at times.

  ‘Hold your horses, dear,’ I said, but not unkindly. ‘We’re a God-fearing household, so we thank the Good Lord for the fact that we’re not starving to death like those poor children in China. If we forget—’

  ‘Ahem,’ Susannah said. ‘That’s what Mama used to say, like forty years ago. I bet there’s another country now that needs our pity more.’

  I frowned at her for interrupting my spiel of admonishment. ‘I just had a thought, Susannah: why don’t you say grace tonight?’

  ‘Okey, dokey,’ my sister said before closing her eyes and bowing her head reverently. The Hancocks followed suit. Gabe and his mother didn’t bow their heads or close their eyes, since Jews normally pray with their eyes open. I, however, stared at my sister, because I knew exactly what she was up to, thanks to her sassy reply.

  ‘Rub-a-dub dub,’ Susannah practically shouted. ‘Thanks for the grub. Yay, God!’

  ‘A sacrilege, yah?’ Ida said. Who was my mother-in-law to complain? Only four years ago she had been the Mother Superior of a fake convent.