I didn't have a cup of hot chocolate to offer young Aaron Miller, but I did have a free right hand, which I extended. "Yeah, bye."
Foolishly, the man took it. The second we made contact, I squeezed hard and pulled. I teetered back a few steps myself, and nearly went back down the bank again, but nearly doesn't count. What does count is that Aaron Miller, Jr., was reunited with the Mississippi catfish he seemed so taken with.
I didn't even turn around, although I knew that I was being watched as I made my way back across the pasture, adroitly dodging cow pies. As I walked, I tried to concentrate on the beef salad Freni was going to make for lunch.
-25-
FRENI HOSTETLER'S VERSION OF BEEF YUM YAI
(Thai cold beef salad)
Makes 6 servings
1 pound of thinly sliced roast beef
2 medium cucumbers
3 bunches green onions
Juice of three limes
1 tablespoon lemon zest
1 tablespoon fish sauce
" teaspoon salt
Lettuce leaves
Cut the roast beef into half-inch-wide strips. Peel and slice the cucumbers, then cut cucumber slices in half. Chop the green onions. Assemble the first seven ingredients and mix well just before serving. Serve on a bed of lettuce leaves. (Freni served fresh hot loaves of homemade bread as the accompaniment.)
-26-
Martha Sims was hired as Heather's replacement, and I must confess that it was I who twisted Arthur's arm. Martha made a lousy hairdresser, but she was a font of information. While she fiddled and faddled with my damp mop, using the most foul-smelling of hair sprays, she babbled endlessly about everyone and everything. I would like to say that I am above such gossip, but after all, Martha is a minister's wife, and therefore privy to everything worth mentioning that goes on in Hernia.
"You're not having an affair with Doc Shafer?" I asked innocently. That would have explained the rapidity with which Doc got his news.
Martha tugged sadistically hard at a lock of my baby-fine hair. If I didn't learn to censure myself, and soon, I would be as bald as my great-uncle Ernie. Susannah used to check her makeup in the reflection of his dome. "No, I am not having an affair with that old geezer," snapped Martha, "but I know who is having an affair." She paused needlessly to build the suspense.
"Do tell," I begged.
"You have to guess."
"Kay Weinstein?"
"Ha! Not even close. Guess again."
"Marietta Burgess?"
"That was last month. Guess again."
"Sharon Hadley?"
"Three years ago, and it was a pitiful excuse for an affair, if you ask me. Her husband didn't even threaten to leave her when he found out. Keep guessing."
"I can't guess," I wailed.
"I'll tell you, then," said Martha through a mouth full of hairpins. I knew that she would, but in her own good time. Either that or she'd self-combust. I am firmly convinced that all those stories of spontaneous combustion you read in the pulp magazines are true, just inaccurately reported. Behind every one of those gals going up in flames was a juicy bit of gossip that never found an audience.
Apparently Martha liked to live dangerously. Five minutes.later she still hadn't told me. I was beginning to imagine that I smelled smoke. "I'm still waiting," I nudged.
"For what? I already sprayed the back once. Now I have to let it set for a few minutes."
"Not that. I'm waiting to find out who is having an affair. Of course, by now it could well be over."
"Oh, that," said Martha casually. "Well, if you simply must know, it's none other than that snooty priss, Norah Hall."
"Norah Hall? Is that all? I've known about her for ages." Okay, so it was only a few days, but sitting on that kind of information for a few days can seem like ages.
"You have? How?" She started spraying again, this time the front.
"I caught her in action, you might say."
"Magdalena Yoder, how you talk! But that means you know who the man is!"
"I don't have a clue." Trust me, it was a harmless lie. I don't believe in passing on gossip, although I am not above confirming things now and then. Had Martha asked me if Norah's paramour was named Garth, that would be a different story. But she hadn't, and anyway I didn't have a last name, did I?
Martha was disappointed enough in my answer to direct the hair spray perilously close to my eyes, but not so upset as to clam up altogether. "Well, she may not look it, but she's a dangerous woman," I thought I heard her say.
"What?"
"Norah Hall, that's what. I said she's a dangerous woman."
This interested me. "How so?"
Martha put the non-aerosol bottle down and leaned in closer. "She spent time in an insane asylum, you know."
"I didn't know. Are you sure?"
"Positive. And do you know what for?"
"No. What for?"
"Intense clinical depression. Something like that. Tried to murder her own baby."
"What baby?" To my knowledge, Norah had only the cone-bobbing Sherri.
"Sherri's not her first one. She had another baby before Sherri. And where is it now, I ask you?"
"Martha, are you sure you've got this right?" Fortunately, the spray bottle was now empty and emitted only harmless puffs of air. "The woman was as crazy as a loon. I wouldn't be surprised if having her daughter fired from the movie has tipped her over the edge again."
"I see." Frankly, I didn't. Norah Hall was a pushy, and sometimes rude woman, but she didn't strike me as being crazy. Not any crazier than the rest of us, at any rate.
I felt a hand clamp down on my shoulder. Of course I jumped in my chair, banging into Martha, and causing the hair spray container to fly across the barn. While Martha went scrambling after it, I confronted the interloper.
"Sneak up on me again and die, buster."
Steven snickered with sadistic satisfaction. "The old man wants to see you in five. They're ready to shoot."
"So am I. Now, am-scray."
Steven sauntered off, full of himself, now that he was assistant director. As I watched him go, it suddenly occurred to me that it could well have been him, dressed as Susannah, whom Mose saw enter the barn on at least one of the three occasions. After all, they were about the same height and weight. And if it weren't for the bulk Shnookums provided, there would be very little difference in their shapes. Camouflage that tall, thin frame with enough cloth to dress a third-world country, and how was a seventy-four-year-old man to tell the difference from across a pasture? My new theory seemed worthy of serious investigation. I would talk to Doc about it first chance I got.
"Feeling all right?" Martha had returned with the hair spray, but instead of throwing it in the trash, she tucked it in her purse. I can't say I blamed her. When I properly cleaned, they make excellent plant misters. In this troubled economy of ours, it pays to be frugal. Although the Presbyterians pay their minister more than we do ours, it can't be all that much.
"I'm feeling fine," I said. "In fact, you might say especially fine." Nailing Steven meant exonerating Susannah. Blood is thicker than water, even bad blood.
"Feeling a little light-headed, then?"
"Unh." Susannah has taught me well the art of non- committal grunting. Between my luck and Martha's mouth, Steven could be halfway to Patagonia if I didn't put a lid on it.
That night had been designated party night, which, if you ask me, made it no different from any other night as far as the movie people were concerned. But anyway, according to Arthur, the shooting went extremely well that day, and so he wrapped up early-about five. An hour later the cast and crew left for Bedford, taking Susannah with them. Freni and Mose had already departed, having been told earlier that dinner was not necessary that evening. Presumably the Reels and Runs gang were planning to eat their supper at Ed's, but what they planned to do afterward, I didn't want to know, and probably wouldn't have been told if I'd asked. However, if Hernia were hit by an earthquake that night, I would know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it was Mama, spin-digging in her grave again. If Mama had had half as much exercise alive as she was getting dead, she wouldn't have left me that closet full of size twenty-four-and-a-half dresses.
I was just locking up the inn on my way over to see Doc when I got my second scare of the day. It was Aaron Miller who, despite the fact that the nearest tree was a good fifty feet away, managed to somehow pop up out of nowhere. This time he ducked.
"Lead with your right, but remember to keep that left up there to protect your face," he said smugly.
I prayed the blood would drain quickly from my face. "Polite people don't sneak up on you."
Aaron laughed too easily - his perfect white teeth were always on display. "I didn't sneak up on you. I just hopped over the fence and walked up the drive. Anyway, I'm Aaron Miller, and I'm here to see Miss Yoder."
"I know who you are," I said recklessly. "Which Miss Yoder do you want to see?"
"Why, Susannah, of course."
I would have pushed him off the porch, but it was my property, and I didn't want to get sued. "Susannah Yoder is not home at the moment," I said evenly.
"Would you like to leave a message?"
Aaron shook his handsome head. "Nope. In that case, I'd like to speak to her older sister. Jennifer, I think it is."
I would have pushed then, but he had grabbed the railing with his right hand. "Jennifer Yoder is dead," I said solemnly. "She was flailed to death by a combine and - "
"And made into breakfast cereal?"
I pushed anyway, but he pushed right back. He must have caught a fever from his dunk in the pond, because his hands, when they touched me, were burning hot. I let go, and stepped back to protect myself from disease.
"Don't stop now," he chortled. "That was rather fun."
"You are the rudest man I ever met," I calmly informed him.
His feelings didn't seem at all hurt. "Let's see, it's Magdalena, if I remember correctly."
"And what if it is?"
"Nothing much. I just thought I'd repay your visit. Us being neighbors and all."
"That's where you're mistaken. You and I aren't neighbors. It's your father who is my neighbor, and he is welcome anytime."
"But, of course, he can't come over because of his fractured hip."
"I visit him fairly regularly, if you must know. Although now I think I'll wait until you're gone."
"Suit yourself, but Pop won't like that, because I'm, not going anywhere."
"What did you say?"
Aaron hoisted himself up on the guardrail and sat there, just as cocky as a teenage boy. I should have waited to push him. "I said that I'm not going anywhere. If I was to give you the lengthy version, I would say something about me moving back in with Pop on a permanent basis. No matter what the version though, we are neighbors now. You and I, Magdalena."
"Reels and Runs Productions did offer to buy the PennDutch," I said, thinking aloud. "Susannah and I could move to Lancaster County and open up a new place. Hey, why stop at owning an inn? Why not combine it with a theme park? We could call it Amishworld - or has that been done? Or maybe we should start on a smaller scale. Just a three-story cinema depicting Amish life. That's it! Yoderama. How does that strike you?"
That was when Aaron Miller, son of my dear, old, sweet neighbor, jumped off the railing, and before I could as much as protest, grabbed me and kissed me. On the mouth!
"Well, I never!" I gasped as I pulled away. Truer words were never spoken.
"I had to do something to make you shut up," said Aaron, who, despite his explanation, did not seem at all embarrassed by his actions. He had already jumped back on the railing and was grinning down at me like the Cheshire cat.
I preserved my dignity, or what I had left of it, by walking as quickly and sedately as I could to my car. It wasn't until I had turned the bend in the road that I allowed even my hands to shake - which they did, but just a little. Overall, I was really quite fine, I assure you. It was only my lips that gave me trouble. All the way to Doc's they burned just as surely as if I'd kissed a hot stove.
-27-
"Are you sure you don't want any more shepherd's pie?" asked Doc.
I shook my head. Doc is a thumbs-up cook, but I had hardly eaten a bite. Usually the two of us can pack away enough food to feed three third-world countries, or the frequenters of one average-size salad bar, take your pick. But I had a terrible lump or something in my stomach that night, and was already beginning to accept it as part of my future. With extreme good luck, the.lump would turn out to be a benign tumor that would elicit a lot of sympathy and give me a good excuse to sequester myself for a very long time. If, on the other hand, it turned out to be malignant, and inoperable, I would die an agonizing death, which would still elicit sympathy, and ultimately offer privacy of its own sort. Only for a second did I entertain the thought that my abdominal discomfort was caused by a very sudden pregnancy. Despite what Mama told me, I know now that one cannot get pregnant by kissing.