"Oh, don't be so fussy, Magdalena," said Martha as if reading my mind. "I simply opened your milk for you. I didn't poison it."
"Ha-ha," I said obligingly. "Actually, I'm not that thirsty after all. Why don't you drink the milk while I eat my supper? If these lima beans get any colder, we can use them to seed clouds."
Martha seemed agitated by my remark. Perhaps she was fond of cold lima beans. "But you must drink your milk, Magdalena. It has calcium in it. A woman in your condition needs her calcium."
I almost choked on an ice cold bean. I pushed the lethal legumes aside. "Martha dear, I am not pregnant, contrary to any rumors that might be circulating around Hernia at the moment."
"Oh, I believe you," Martha hastened to assure me. "Besides, I refuse to listen to those nasty rumors. What I meant was that your body needs extra calcium now because of your fall into the pit. You know, your bones were all jarred up. That sort of thing."
It was becoming clear just how much of a basket case Martha really was. "My bones are not all jarred up," I explained patiently. "I didn't fall into the pit, Martha, I climbed down into it."
Martha looked strangely disappointed. "Well, anyway, women our age should drink as much milk as they can, while they can. Osteoporosis is just around the corner."
That did it. Mama may have gotten away with making me drink my milk, but Martha Sims was not my mama. Like the defiant little girl I wish I'd been, I picked up the open carton and started to dribble it over my lima beans.
You would have thought I'd threatened Martha's very life. The next thing I knew, she reached into her purse and whipped out a gun. A tiny gun, smaller than most toy pistols, granted, but a real gun nonetheless. "Drink it!" she ordered.
Mama had never needed to go that far. "Okay, okay," I said. "I'll drink the stuff. But only if you join me. You can even have first sip." I may be slow, but something was definitely rotten in Denmark, and at the moment Martha looked Danish to me.
"Drink it now!"
I slowly raised the carton to my lips. But before partaking of the much-discussed liquid, I stalled one last time. "Have you ever considered taking up a hobby, Martha? I hear ceramics is fun. Or how about volunteer work?" God forbid she should volunteer as a candy-striper.
Martha was not amused. "Drink!"
I pretended to drink, just as I had with Mama. Of course, sooner or later Mama always caught on, as would Martha. Sipping and swallowing is easy to fake, but an empty milk carton is not. Still, I was at least postponing the inevitable.
"It's your fault, Magdalena." Martha sounded close to tears.
I pretended to swallow a gulp, and even wiped my mouth on my sleeve. "How is that?"
"If it weren't for you, the movie company wouldn't have come to town. That's where it all started."
I tried to look sympathetic. "They are a horrible bunch, aren't they?"
Martha shook her head, which made the diminutive pistol shake even more. "You still don't understand, do you? My whole life I wanted to be somebody."
"You are somebody, dear. You are a very special person." Prudently, I omitted the word "loon" from my sentence.
Martha wanted more from me. "No, no, you don't understand. I didn't want to be just anybody. I wanted: to be an actress, like my grandmother."
"The Cassandra Hicks?" Thank the good Lord for an ironclad memory.
"Exactly. But I couldn't, you see. Not after I married Orlando. And especially not after we moved to Hernia. Ministers' wives in Hernia do not pursue acting careers."
"But you are a Presbyterian," I pointed out. I was no expert on Presbyterians, but I did know they were permitted to do gobs of things we Mennonites hadn't.I even heard of.
"But I'm still a minister's wife!?' Martha practically shrieked. "I have to set an example."
I mimed another sip. "You're a snappy dresser," I said quite honestly. "Your shoes and purse always match beautifully."
Martha was not appeased. "That isn't the point, you Idiot. The point is that I had managed to put aside my dreams, hard as it was, and then you had to go and open Pandora's box by inviting that movie company to town."
If loose lips sink ships, then mine could sink a navy. "I didn't invite them. They came on their own. I simply gave them permission to film at the PennDutch."
"And they made you the star!" There was genuine pain in her voice, and surprisingly, I could understand it. In eighth grade Mrs. Oberlin ran a writing contest, with first prize being a trip to Pittsburgh to meet a real live, professional writer. I had wanted to win that contest more than anything in my life, before or since. And I had written a good story, I knew it. It may even have been a great story. But it was Billy Pascoe who won first place with a story he wrote about baseball. Baseball! And instead of taking him to meet the writer, Miss Oberlin took him to a Pirates game! That was my first real taste of just how unfair life can be.
"I understand," I said.
"Understand!" Martha shrieked. "You understand? How can you understand? I had a part at first, you know. It wasn't much of a part, but it was a part. And it wasn't that bad a part. I mean, I could have done it, and Orlando could have kept his job. But then that Don Manley, that slimy, evil snake from hell, ruined it all for me."
"He was an awful man," I agreed tactfully.
"He was the devil incarnate! You won't believe what he asked me to do in that movie."
"I believe it," I said quickly. If it was too much for a Presbyterian to take, I surely didn't want to hear it.
"He deserved to die, Magdalena. God wanted him to die. So it wasn't my fault, you know."
"We all have to die sometime," I offered.
"But why does mankind sometimes interfere with what God ordains?" The arm holding the gun began to sag encouragingly.
"Beats me." The arm snapped back into position. "But it was you, Magdalena, who interfered."
"Me?"
"It was you who snooped and probed, and then eventually found the instrument of divine justice."
"Me?" I think I said again, although that might have been just an echo. Stress was beginning to alter reality, even for me.
"Don't play dumb, Magdalena. You came out to my house with all your questions. You knew what had happened, but you tried to play games with me."
"I knew nothing," I said honestly.
"Of course it didn't take a genius to figure it out, since Susannah and that DarIa woman share my build. But dressing up like them that morning was pretty clever, if I may say so myself."
"You certainly may," I said encouragingly.
Martha smiled, revealing white, even teeth. She might have made a pretty actress at that. "I took advantage of the remnant sale at Fabric World in Bedford. And I didn't even have to sew a stitch, not with the way those two dress. Like mummies coming unraveled."
"Absolutely disgraceful," I agreed.
"I had Mose fooled, I can tell you that."
"Mose maybe, but not Matilda," I said foolishly.
"What?"
"Nothing, dear. You were telling me about your clever masquerade."
"Yes, I was. Tell me, Magdalena, how did you figure out I was hiding in your henhouse that day?"
It was definitely time for me to change the bulb in my brain. So it had been Martha's grocery list I'd found! "Sam's parsley is the pits," I informed her. "If you want fresh parsley, we have oodles out by the back door."
Martha didn't seem grateful for my offer. "You have something of the devil in you too, don't you, Magdalena? That lunch I made for you should have made you very sick. Sick enough to give up acting, at any rate, and give me the break I deserve."
I swallowed reflexively. Fortunately my mouth was empty. "Your lunch was delicious, Martha."
"So you kept your acting job, Magdalena, but you weren't content with that. Oh, no, you had to go looking for the pitchfork. What were you trying to do, Magdalena, destroy me altogether?"
I shook my head. I wasn't about to say anything further, on the grounds it would incriminate me.
"I certainly threw Melvin off by hiding the second pitchfork in the woods, Magdalena. That should have thrown you off too."
Martha was definitely off. So far off that she must have left the deep end behind years ago. Perhaps it was a case of the bends that was affecting her brain. Wisely, I said nothing.
My silence did nothing to placate her. "But now it is my turn to destroy you, Magdalena. Say good-bye, Magdalena. Then say hello to the devil and Don Manley. Or is it the same thing?" She laughed maniacally.
I tried to act calm, like that time the year before when a man named Billy Dee held a knife to my throat. "You don't want to kill me, Martha. You don't want to kill me because you'll never get away with it. Someone will hear the gun, and even if they don't, Nurse Dudley knew you were coming in here. Getting shot with a gun in a hospital is not a natural way to die. They'll put two and two together, Martha."
Martha had the nerve to smile. "You always did talk too much, Magdalena. But it's time to stop talking now. Which side of the head do you prefer?"
"What?"
"Or would you rather it was between the eyes?"
"You're crazy!" I know that was a stupid thing to say, but I couldn't help myself.
"You can comb your hair first if you like, but make it snappy. Orlando expects his dinner on the table at six."
Martha was acting like the photographer at Kmart, only it wasn't photos she was planning to shoot. It was all so bizarre that it was laughable. I mean, literally. I laughed. If one is going to die, one may as well die laughing.
"So what's so funny in here?" The door to my room had swung open and Heather was standing in the doorway in her gown and robe. I'd quite forgotten that she had had a baby.
"Shut it!" hissed Martha. Presumably she meant the door.
But Martha's back was to Heather, and Heather could neither hear her nor see the tiny gun. She advanced nonchalantly toward us. "You guys hear the one about the priest, the rabbi, and the minister who get stuck together in an elevator for three days?"
"Do tell," I said. Martha, as crazy as she was, had no choice but to slip the pistol back into her purse. She even cooperated by turning halfway around, so she could keep an eye on Heather as well.
"Well, the three of them get stuck, you see," said Heather happily, "without any food or water, and - "
As Heather told the joke, I slipped my hand over the side of the bed and pressed the call button. Given Nurse Dudley's temperament, help would be forthcoming in an hour or two. Just to be on the safe side, I grabbed the pitcher of water beside my bed and swung it upside Martha's head. It connected, and Martha, who hadn't even had a chance to comb her hair first, fell backward into my supper tray, spilling lima beans allover the bed and floor. Regrettably, I never did hear the punch line to Heather's joke.
-34-
"All's well that ends well," said Doc Shafer, glaring at Aaron Miller.
"Some things are far from over," said Aaron, winking at me.
Doc drew himself up to his full height, which, at age eighty-three, was undoubtedly a good six inches shorter than it once was. "Some things are best left to the experts, son."
Aaron stretched, just enough to flatten his tummy and extend his chest an inch or two. "A wise man knows when it's time to retire, my pop always says."
"Care for a celery stick stuffed with cream cheese?"
I shoved the plate under both their noses, but I may as well have been invisible at that point. Strangely, the object of their desire was no longer central to their argument.
"Retire?" bellowed Doc. "I could whip your butt any day!"
"Care to step outside, old man?" Aaron was grinning, and I'm sure he didn't mean it. Still, it was rude of him to egg Doc on that way.
"Think I'm bluffing, do you?" Doc had begun to jump around like a barefoot kid on a hot pavement, and was swinging his arms in tight little circles.
"Say, what's going on here anyway?" demanded Susannah. She had just come on the scene and the yards of fabric she trailed had yet to settle into swirls.
"I think these two are fighting over me," I said in all humility.
"Dream on, Sis," laughed Susannah.
" 'Fraid she's right," panted Doc.
Turning her back on old Doc, Susannah started bat- ting her false eyelashes at Aaron Miller. "Now, what's really going on?"
Aaron didn't even look at her.
"Care to walk me over to the food table?" my sister persisted shamelessly.
