The Death of Pie (23 page)

‘Not
that
pond,' I said, ‘but the Big Pond.'

‘She means the “ocean,''' Alison said. ‘Like Atlantis, for instance.'

‘Yes, or another instance,' I said. ‘And on that page would be written
Keep Calm and Carry On
. So in that spirit – which I'm sure we can all agree upon is a very sensible way of conducting business – I shall herewith carry on calmly. Agnes and Doc, the facts of the matter speak for themselves in this case. We have an aged lothario and a libidinous Lolita of uncommon beauty, carrying on what could only be described as a torrid affair, especially when judged by community standards.

‘Then along comes a premenopausal spinster, of extraordinary intelligence, but whose face, alas, can barely launch a dinghy, much less a ship – no hurt intended, dear. The lothario immediately espies the value that the homely woman offers him over the two-bit trollop who lolls about in his bed, and he fiercely desires to be twain with the brain – but lo, he cannot, lest he be blackmailed.'

‘
Blackmailed!
' Alison said. ‘Cool. Hey, Mom, what exactly does that mean?'

‘Well, dear, when you blackmail someone, you make them pay you in exchange for you not telling one of their secrets.'

‘Ah, I get it. Just like at camp when Tracy snuck in two hours after curfew and I made her pay me fifty bucks for not telling.'

‘Alison,' I said, ‘I am ashamed of you; I would have asked for a hundred bucks and then settled for seventy-five.' I knew, by the way, that she was kidding. My daughter always tugs absentmindedly on her left earlobe while she's trying to pull my leg.

‘Huh?' Three people looked in danger of having their eyes pop out.

‘Hey,' I said, ‘what is that old saying? Shoot for the moon, and if you miss, at least you stand a good chance of hitting a star. Right? Fifty bucks was way too low. But back to you, Doc. You didn't want Hernia to find out that you'd been dating the likes of that worldly floozy, and she was threatening to tell. For some incomprehensible reason, women find you attractive. Even
physically
attractive.

‘I know what you're thinking: who am I, Magdalena Portulacca Yoder Rosen, that I should judge that? Fair enough. Just look at me. Agnes might be pressed hard to launch a dinghy with her face, but I could bring a hot air balloon down just by smiling at it. On the last day of October when I flew down to Tampa to visit my cousin Bertha, airport security told me to remove my Halloween mask. My point is that I'm no looker, and neither are you, but women sure do find you attractive.

‘So, instead of giving me grief, it would be in your own best interest if the two of you stepped up to the plate and helped me find the real killer. The
real
killer, Agnes – not you. Get it? Because I don't think that it's you.'

‘Harrumph,' Doc said, and rubbed a gnarled, liver-spotted hand over a sparse scalp. ‘What about me? Do you feel as strongly about my innocence as you do your girlfriend's?'

Alison, bless her heart, had had enough of Uncle Doc for the day. ‘Oh, Uncle Doc,' she said, affecting a light tone, ‘put a sock in it.'

‘
Ach du heimer
,' I squawked, reverting to my ancestral Pennsylvania Dutch. It's a meaningless phrase invoking a hammer, but I wouldn't be surprised if it substituted for something more sinister. Nonetheless, it's a handy thing to say when all else fails.

‘Going all “Dutchy” on me, are you now?' Doc demanded. He's a good man, a kind man, but I'd never seen him so angry. Then again, Doc wasn't used to hormonal teenage girls – well, except for the ones he's dated.

I looked at my watch. It was a simple analogue watch: the same Timex I'd been given as a baptismal present when I was twelve years old, nigh on to thirty-seven years ago. We Mennonites, and our close relations, the Amish, are Anabaptists. So are the Baptists, of course. This means that, unlike Anglicans and Roman Catholics, we do not baptize infants, who haven't the slightest idea what is happening to them; we only baptize people who have made a conscious decision to accept Jesus into their hearts. To baptize a squalling baby who is still incapable of caring one whit about her salvation is absolutely ludicrous – not that I'm judging, mind you. That is merely common sense; any thinking person can come to that conclusion.

I tapped my trusted Timex. ‘My how time flies,' I said, ‘even when you're not having fun.'

Agnes grunted. ‘You can say that again.'

‘Are you kidding?' Alison said. ‘I had the best time ever; watching the two of you squirm was even better than camp. An ancient man like Uncle Doc and a fluffy woman like you doing the nasty, and trying ta cover it up like ya didn't do nothing. And ya getting so jealous of that gorgeous writer that ya turn green around the grills – ya can't make this stuff up, I'm telling ya.'

They say that when the going gets tough, the tough get going. That is supposed to mean that tough people then ‘step up to the plate,' as it were. They get the job done. Sometimes, however, tough people can simply be tired and literally just get going. That is what I did.

I grabbed Alison by the wrist and in a not too unpleasant voice I said our goodbyes in a number of salutations I'd picked up through my business as an innkeeper. ‘
Sayonara,
baby;
adios
;
hasta la vista
;
ciao
;
shalom
; see ya later, alligator; after awhile, crocodile; over and out.'

I
f you ask me the only way to decompress – at least when you have a minor in tow – is to put sugar in your mouth. I base this philosophy on firsthand observation: to wit I have never seen a crabby butterfly, or an out-of-sorts hummingbird, and both butterflies and hummingbirds spend their days sucking sweet nectar out of flowers. One can be sure that both of these creatures were under a goodly amount of stress until their current incarnation, the butterfly having begun as a caterpillar, and the hummingbird as an egg the size of a jelly bean. There is, to be sure, a mountain of evidence that proves that sugar leads to all kinds of disease and disastrous consequences but, as a short-term solution, it is God's gift to the human tongue.

That said, when we pulled up to the police station, which is directly across from Yoder's Corner Market, and Alison begged to go get a ‘nosh,' I shocked the poor child by instantly agreeing.

‘No way!'

‘Way,' I said.

‘But like, you're kidding, right?' she said.

‘I'm dead serious,' I said. ‘Just not deadly. But whatever you're getting, get me one too. I'm hungry as well.'

‘Yeah, but Mom, what if ya don't like what I choose – ya know, what with your old lady taste buds and all.'

‘Surprise me, dear. My old lady taste buds will just have to stretch.'

‘Yeah? Well, don't let them stretch too much, Mom. I weren't gonna say anything about this on my own, see, but now that you bring it up: ya show a lot of them gums when ya smile.'

I clasped my hands together in mock joy. ‘I
do
? Oh, happy day!'

‘Mom, that ain't a good thing,' Alison said warily.

‘You're right, dear; it's a wonderful thing,' I said.

Alison leaned as far away from me as she could. ‘Mom, ya ain't sick, are ya? Because ya sure ain't acting right.'

‘I'm quite all right, dear,' I said with a wide, gum-baring grin. ‘I assure you that I am. It is my firm conviction that excessive gumminess is a sure sign that one has noble blood in their veins. You see, there has always been a rumour in our family that we are descendants of the male offspring of a Swiss count. He was kidnapped by the family maid who then fled with the child to America. Now, thanks to you, and your keen powers of observation, we may be another step closer to proving it.'

‘No way! Ya mean I'm cousins with that to-die-for cute Prince Harry, and that I can't marry him after all on account of your stupid gums?'

I smiled so wide that I proved that I was related to all of Europe's aristocracy, including some who had been dead for three hundred years. ‘No, you silly billy,' I said with great affection. ‘Like I said, the kidnapping was just a rumour, and the gum thing is just something I tell myself in order to keep from feeling depressed every time I look in a mirror.'

Then my bundle of sticky hormones leaned in quickly and gave me a peck on the cheek before scooting out on the passenger side. ‘At least ya have a chin, Mom,' she called over her shoulder, as she headed over to the market to buy my mystery treat.

Until that morning I had never seen an angel, a Martian or a pornographic video. When I stepped into the police station and saw all three of the items on that list, my brain had trouble filing the information. I can only imagine that the feeling I had was similar to what the inhabitants of the Caribbean Islands felt when they saw the first Spanish ships sail into view back in 1492 – no rhyme intended. I make no bones about the fact that mine are a homely bag of bones, but it would be a sin to downplay the exceptionally high intelligence quotient with which the Good Lord has blessed me. It was precisely because my neurons were already performing at an already elevated level that this sudden surge of powerful, yet evil and extraneous information was able to produce such a massive misfiring.

Unannounced, I'd entered the cosy little police station that is Hernia's, hoping to find Chief Toy at his desk – his car was parked outside – when lo and behold – I discovered him
and
Wanda Hemphopple watching a television program in the middle of the day! Since neither of them are Mennonites, and it was close to lunchtime, it might have been excusable if they had been watching something educational like
National Geographic
, or perhaps reruns of
The Beverly Hillbillies.
These two shows are, I believe, an invaluable study of the cultural differences to be found in America.

However, it was not something wholesome that I saw on the television set that I had so generously donated to the police department of my village. Instead, what I saw was two women doing that very thing that I have tried so hard not to condemn. That act of physical, and perhaps emotional, connection about which Jesus had nothing to say, although he criticised divorce in the strongest of terms. Don't get me wrong, I still believe that folks have the right to love whom they please, just not on my television, and not in public where my daughter can walk in and see it.

I felt lightheaded. I was nauseated. My legs had turned into thin rubber strips, unable to support a fraction of my weight. Time crawled. I was viewing everything on the television set in intense colors and in what seemed to be lurid slow motion.

‘I'm going down,' I hollered. ‘Someone catch me!' But as in any nightmare, my lips didn't move and I couldn't produce a sound. More importantly, neither Toy nor Wanda moved a muscle to help me. They didn't even bother to glance away from the filth that they were watching on the idiot box.

‘Timber!' I cried as my five-foot-ten-inch frame toppled forward. Quite fortunately – or unfortunately – as I was standing directly behind Wanda Hemphopple, my prominent, pointed proboscis probed her pathogen-filled beehive on my way down. While I should be thankful, because her nasty, vermin-filled hairdo broke my fall, the screeches she emitted almost broke my eardrums.

Toy wisely, and quietly, switched off the television.

Eventually Wanda settled down enough to speak – or perhaps I should say squeak. ‘You clumsy oaf ! Look what you did! You've ruined years and years of lacquering. Next time you should watch where it is that you're going to faint!'

I made a mental note of her request, even as I gazed upon the current devastation. With her beehive undone, Wanda's hair hung in greasy knotted ropes. Some of the ropes were so long that they rested on the floor. What took the cake was that that act of undoing the ‘do,' had released a small avalanche of various comestibles and other impossible to explain items. A partial inventory from off of the back of Wanda's noggin would include: a blackened, shrivelled strip of banana peel; two fuzz-covered wintergreen mints; three blue and white swirled glass marbles; four unsalted peanuts; six mega-jackpot lottery tickets; and seven cotton swabs.

I glared at her with righteous wrath. Glaring is an art not much practiced in the Mennonite and Amish Churches. I had to study it on holiday when I visited my friend Abigail Timberlake who lives in Charleston, South Carolina. Abby took me with her to visit a ‘Bible beaters' church – her words, not mine. There, the very devout minister smacked his Bible every time he wanted to emphasize a point, and since his sermon dragged on for nearly an hour and covered every sin I'd ever heard of – and a few I had to look up – that poor Bible got severely beaten. I whispered to Abby that, if the Holy Scriptures had been a baby and not a book, I would have called the child protective services within the first five minutes of his sermon.

At least my look of righteous wrath was not wasted on my audience. Wanda immediately shut up, although it is possible that she was stunned into silence rather than intimidated. Toy, on the other hand, had been raised in the South, and he obviously recognized the look for what it was; I could see him cringe.

‘It was her idea,' he said without missing a beat.

‘Did Eve give you an apple as well?' I said.

‘What?' he said.

‘She means that your first impulse was to blame it on a woman,' Wanda said.

‘Uh – sorry about that,' Toy said, remembering his Southern manners. ‘I wasn't thinking. I'm equally to blame, of course. I was the one who suggested that you stay and eat the delicious lunch that you prepared for me.'

It was only then that I began to see beyond the television set, and beyond the potential pestilence that had been unleashed when I had pitched headfirst into the hair from Hades – pardon my French. Toy's desk was piled knee-high with dishes, glasses, pots, pans and even a small vase of semi-wilted flowers. The desk, by the way, was a sturdy little wooden thing that I had purchased lovingly with my own funds from IKEA.