I pretended to glare. "Just as soon as I make the calls. But tell me, Freni, what is a - us - elderly Amish woman, who lives with her son and daughter-in-law, going to do with one hundred thousand dollars?"
"Ach, Magdalena, some things are personal!"
"I haven't made those calls yet, dear. Besides Bill and Hillary - and of course their usual entourage - I have a rock star booked."
"Pat Boone?" The woman knows nothing about music, but she and Pat enjoy praying together.
"Not Pat. Someone of indeterminate age and gender called Roach Clip. I heard he - or was it she -flashed the audience at Madison Square Garden last week. Even after the flashing, folks weren't quite sure."
Unlike me, the poor woman is clueless when it comes to modern-day lingo. "What does this flashing mean, Magdalena?"
"To take off your clothes in public."
Freni froze.
"But, like you said, you have been very supportive of me in my time of need, so I really do owe you. If you'll just tell me - "
"Ach! All right, already!" She turned away and mumbled something that an elephant with a hearing aid would have had trouble deciphering.
"I can't hear you, dear."
"I said, `It's for Barbara.' "
"Barbara? Your daughter-in-law?"
"Yah."
"But you don't even like her, Freni. In fact, you despise the woman."
"Ach, that's not true. The Bible tells us to love our enemies, and I do my best, Magdalena. Think of this money as love."
Perhaps I snorted. "She's not your enemy. Her only crime is that she married your son."
She glanced at me and hung her head. "I thought maybe if I gave her the money she would go home."
"But she is - "
"I mean back to Kansas."
I furiously jiggled both ears. "You're trying to buy off your daughter-in-law? You want to pay her to leave your son?"
She looked up. "Ach! You always had such a harsh way with words, Magdalena. If the money makes her happy, what's the harm?"
"And what about your son, Jonathan? If Barbara leaves him, it will break his heart. They've been married twenty years, and he still adores her."
She looked stricken, as I suppose only a mother can look. But it was a fleeting look, an emotional flash, if you will.
"Okay," I said, satisfied. "I'll make the calls."
Freni remained rooted to her spot. A stout, but very short oak.
"Yes?"
I asked, with admirable patience.
"there's one more thing, Magdalena."
"Oh, I get it. You have to pay a huge fee to enter this contest, and you want to borrow a bundle."
"Ach, a bundle!"
I didn't bother to find out what she presumed. "Money. You want a loan, right?"
She shook her head vigorously. "It doesn't cost a thing... except, well, the guests will be arriving on a Sunday."
"This Sunday?"
"Ach, no, in November, like I said."
"So?" Guests often arrived on Sunday, but after church.
"They're coming from all over, Magdalena, and they're providing their own transportation. Mr. Anderson said they could arrive anytime."
I thought about that while Freni beat a nervous staccato on the floor with one of her brogans. Doing business on a Sunday morning was a sin, pure and simple, but this wasn't strictly business. Sure, some money would be changing hands, but that could all be done later. Besides, it was a contest to see who was the most talented cook, and doesn't the Bible say we should use the talents the good Lord has given us?
November came right on schedule that year, and I really had to scramble to get the inn ready for Freni's contest. It wasn't just a simple matter of letting a few people use my stove for a day. This was a much bigger deal than either Freni or the brochure let on. The winner of the East Coast Delicacies Cook-off, as it was now being called, would not only receive one hundred thousand dollars, but their winning recipe would be marketed by the company up and down the East Coast. To do this successfully required attention from the media. Neither Freni nor Mr. Anderson, with whom I had had several conversations by now, bothered to mention that last detail.
It is no secret that I loathe the press. I truly strive to live up to the Christian ideal, but some of those folks who claim to have ink in their veins have pulp for brains. Dealing with celebrities as I do, I know whereof I speak. You wouldn't believe some of the things they've said about me.
Well, maybe you might. So, just for the record, I am not pregnant with Michael Jackson's baby, nor am I Michael Jackson. I have never had an affair with Ellen Degeneres, nor am I ever likely to. I have never weighted over a thousand pounds. I was not discovered, as a child, clinging to the breast of an albino gorilla in Tanzania. I never, to my knowledge, gave birth to Cabbage Boy, and I am not Bill Gates's mother.
Perhaps now you'll understand why I was not exceptionally warm to the press when they began to trickle into Hernia. But I most assuredly did not chase them off my property with a pitchfork. Been there and done that, as the young folks say, but that's a different story. This time I used a good old-fashioned push broom.
My point is, I was not in an especially merry mood when the old green Buick rolled up my long gravel driveway. And, in my defense, the dented car looked just like the one driven by Derrick Simms from the National Intruder, and it was six-thirty in the morning, for crying out loud. Even though we are a farm community, and therefore early risers, none of us would dream of visiting our neighbor until after morning chores, and guests who can afford my prices wouldn't be caught dead in a vehicle that ugly. But the leech-licking vermin who prey on the rich and famous drive the most hideous cars imaginable, and they never even go to bed. That may sound like a harsh judgment coming from a good Mennonite woman but a fact is a fact.
It wasn't Derrick, however, but a woman - a co-worker no doubt - who emerged from the battered Buick. Not that it mattered though, because I am just as capable of giving a woman a piece of my mind as I am a man. Although, frankly, I prefer sharing my mind with the needier sex.
"This is private property," I yelled, brandishing my trusty broom. Since I was still in my bathrobe and slippers I was reluctant to leave the porch. Besides, the porch's height gives me a certain tactical advantage.
The woman, who was bundled in a brightly colored blanket coat, stepped slowly from her car and regarded me calmly.
I waved the broom menacingly. "Get back in that rattletrap, sister, and keep driving."
"Is this the PennDutch Inn?" she called. It was a stupid question because there is a discreet sign at the end of the drive.
"No comment!"
She had the nerve to advance. "I'm looking for the PennDutch Inn."
"Keep looking."
"But the sign says - "
"If you saw the sign, why did you ask?"
The woman continued to approach. "I'm here for the cooking contest. But there's only one other car here. It's not what I expected."
My heart pounded. "Are you one of the judges?"
"Me?" She laughed, and reaching into a shabby brown purse with a leather fringe, extracted an official-looking invitation. "No, I'm one of the contestants. Alma Cornwater, but just call me Alma."
She was within spitting distance now (not that I would, mind you), and I studied her closely. For starters, I figured her to be about m y age. She was much shorter than I, approaching even the petite range, but she was a good fifteen pounds overweight. Her broad face was all but obscured by oversized glasses with thick lenses. She wore her thick dark hair, which was streaked with gray, pulled back in a bun. Faded blue jeans peeked from beneath the long blanket coat. From what little I could see of her, she was either very tanned or - to put it frankly - of an ethnic persuasion uncommon in Hernia. Simply put, she was not lily white.
I was delighted. `Magdalena Yoder," I said, extending my hand. "I'm the owner of the PennDutch. I wasn't expecting the contestants to arrive until much later."
Alma nodded. "I drove up, but I wasn't sure how long it would take."
"Where did you drive from?" I asked politely.
"Cherokee, North Carolina."
"You drove all night?"
She shrugged. "I didn't have any choice, really. I didn't get off work until almost seven last night."
"You poor dear."
"Oh, it wasn't that bad. I napped for a few minutes at the roadside rests."
"I have an nice soft bed waiting for you, dear. And since you're the first to arrive, you can have your choice."
"That would be great, thanks." She glanced around. "Actually, I'm sort of on an adrenaline high. There wouldn't be anyplace around here to get a bite to eat, would there?"
We talked over stacks of Freni's pancakes and homemade cocoa. The latter had full-size marshmallows floating in it, not those itty-bitty good-for-nothing things the mixes provide. You can rest assured the maple syrup was pure, and the butter real.
"I live on the reservation," Alma said.
"How interesting," I said.
Freni looked at me. "What reservation are we talking about?" Her knowledge of the world is pretty much limited to a day's drive in a buggy.
":Cherokee Reservation," Alma said between bites. "I'm a Native American."
"So am I," Freni said.
Alma did a quick appraisal. "Which tribe?"
Freni shrugged.
Alma smiled. "Then how can you say you're a Native American?"
"Because I was born here," Freni said.
"That doesn't make you a Native American."
Freni frowned. "Why not? I have to be a native from somewhere, and I was born in America."
"Where are your people from?"
Freni pointed to the window with her fork. "See those woods? On the other side of the woods."
Alma shook her head. "Not your parents, your people. Where did your ancestors come from?"
Freni pointed again. "There. Just like I said. My grandparents were born there, and so were their parents, all the way back to 1738."
"Ah," said Alma, "but before 1738?"
"Switzerland," Freni mumbled.
"Switzerland!" alma said triumphantly. "So you're Swiss."
"But not Native!"
"Just as native as you. Your people came from somewhere originally too."
"Yes, but thousands of years ago," Alma said, "not hundreds."
"Ach," Freni said, "it's all relative."
"I'm afraid she's not politically correct," I explained to Alma.
Freni's fork found my elbow. "Tell her about the Indians, Magdalena."
I swallowed. "Well... "
"Magdalena and I are cousins," Freni said, and looked to me for confirmation.
"Not first cousins," I hastened to say, "but cousins of a sort. Our family trees are so intertwined, they form an impenetrable thicket. Anyway, three of our ancestors were captured by the Delaware Indians in 1750, and the two youngest, just boys, were formally adopted into the tribe."
Freni poked me again. "Go on."
"When they were released years later, they had forgotten their mother tongue and spoke only Delaware. In fact, they kept in touch with their adopted families until the day they died."
Alma smiled and turned to Freni. "Ah, so then you're Delaware."
"Yah?"
She nodded. "You're my sister."
Freni beamed. From that moment on, Alma could do no wrong in Freni's eyes.
I will admit that I was beginning to like Alma, as well. But experience - especially my recent experience with you-know-who - had taught me never to trust someone further than you could throw them. Like I said, Alma was on the chunky side.
-3-
I had just come downstairs from showing Alma to her room when my sister Susannah floated through the front door, trailing enough filmy fabric to clothe a small third world country. That is only a slight exaggeration. My baby sister eschews ready-made clothes, choosing instead to drape herself in yards of material straight off the bolt. While my tongue is still tainted from tattling, allow me to state that Susannah started wearing mascara about ten years ago, and while she adds to the clumps on a daily basis, I am not sure she has ever removed as much as a single layer. She claims to get fan mail from Tammy Faye.
Please understand that I love my baby sister dearly, but it is impossible to accurately describe her without sounding unkind. The three most benign words I can think of are: slatternly, slovenly, and slothful. Even Mama and Papa recognized her shortcomings, and when they left the farm in my name. It is to remain solely in my name until Susannah proves that she can behave as a responsible adult. My name is still the only one on the deed.
