Hell Hath No Curry (7 page)

“Just think, Freni,” I said meanly, “if she moves in here with me, you’ll have her
and
Barbara.”

“Ach!”

“Ach, indeed. I think you’ll soon find that your daughter-in-law is a picnic compared to Ida Rosen.”

“A picnic with low-salt food, yah?”

We laughed.

“Magdalena, I think maybe your
maam
would have been proud of you. But not so proud that it is a sin, yah?”

“Thank you, Freni.” I walked back to where she was standing and, bending at the waist, kissed the top of her head, just in front of her prayer bonnet. Her ears still smelled of yeast dough.

“Ach,” Freni squawked. Such overt displays of sentiment are practically unheard of in our culture, and limited to Baptists and Presbyterians, who appear to be prone to excess of all kinds. It is a little known fact that nearly seventy-eight percent of all Amish, and probably sixty-three percent of all Mennonites, lack the demonstrative gene. (Then again, since 61.2 percent of all facts are mostly made up, this statistic may be somewhat inaccurate.)

At any rate, I kissed her again.

Once in my suite, I headed straight for Big Bertha. Friends may come and go, but the pleasures of a thirty-two-jet whirlpool bath are forever. Yes, it is a sin to bathe in the middle of the day, but I was a fallen woman. Just ask any proper matron in Hernia what she thought of Magdalena Yoder’s morals. The answer, thanks to 52 Tamar

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Aaron Miller, would not be pretty. Having succumbed to the pleasures of the flesh with a pseudo-husband, what more did I have to lose by releasing tension with thirty-two swivel heads?

I poured a lavish amount of gardenia-scented bubble bath into the tub and let the froth grow until the surface of the pool was covered with a meringue of bubbles two feet high. I was about to step into this earthly slice of heaven when the telephone beside my bed rang. This is my private line, and besides family, only a select few have access to me through it: Babs, Mel, Charlize, Katie, Oprah, Ben—you get the picture.

I eschew caller ID. If the Good Lord had wanted us to know who was calling, he would have made us all mind readers.

“Hello?” I said in my pleasant voice.

“Ma’am, we have reports that basements in your area have been flooding. We here at Squanderyore Savings can come out and give you a free damage assessment, and if your house qualifies, we can put on a complete waterproof seal for only six easy payments of ninety-nine ninety-nine. May I schedule a visit from one of our water-damage experts?”

I sighed. “I’m afraid my house won’t qualify. I’ve been nag-ging it to study for the last twelve years, and all it ever does is make excuses. I’ve even resorted to threats. ‘If you don’t get good grades, you’re not going to have a lock on Yale,’ I tell it. ‘And what if you can’t get into any college? What are you going to do then? Live in a trailer park? Or worse yet, live on the street as a tent?’ And wouldn’t you know, my house doesn’t even have the decency to answer.”

“Excuse me, ma’am? Are you all right?”

“Fine as frog’s hair—which is pretty ding-dang fine. Most folks don’t even know frogs have hair; that’s how fine it is. While we’re on the subject of amphibians, why would anyone in their right mind fall in love with a big blue frog? That’s almost as bad as falling in love with a muskrat—not that I’ve done that, mind you. Aaron was only a rat. But
muskrat
love? What’s up with that?

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53

Have you ever smelled a muskrat up close? There’s a reason for the
musk
part of their name. The
rat
part too.”

“Ma’am, I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to go now.”

“Oh, no you don’t. You called me on my private line, so you’re just going to have to hear me out. Are you married?”

“Uh—I just got engaged.” The caller was a man, but the excitement in his voice was almost palpable.

“Where’s the honeymoon going to be?”

“That’s just it. My fiancée is planning the wedding, but I’m supposed to plan the honeymoon. I thought the bride was supposed to plan everything.”

“Would you like me to help you?”

“Nah—okay, I’ll bite. How?”

“Well, I know this charming little inn down in Amish country, in the mountains of southern Pennsylvania. The ambience is supposed to be out of this world. Sometimes movie companies even go there to shoot.”

“Yeah? Who am I kidding, I could never afford a place like that.”

“Don’t be so negative. I know the owner quite well, and I’m pretty sure I could talk her into arranging a special price for you.

It’s not going to be cheap, but then quality never is, is it?”

“I guess not. How much will it be for three nights?”

“With or without ALPO?”

“Excuse me?”

“That stands for Amish Lifestyle Plan Option. For just fifty measly bucks more a day you get the privilege of living like a real Amish person. By that I mean you get to make up your own room, feed the chickens, milk the cows. You know, all that fun stuff.”

“Cool! But how much?”

“Just a minute, let me calculate.” I made pinging noises with my mouth. “Well, well, well, what a coincidence; you’re never going to believe this, but it comes out to exactly ninety-nine ninety-nine times six easy payments.”

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“Fantastic! How do I sign up?”

I took a credit card number before heading back to the warm, welcoming spigots of Big Bertha. I settled into the lather with a groan of sinful pleasure, and that’s when the Devil grabbed me by a foot, and pulled me under. I mean that literally.

9

There is nothing more frightening than Satan trying to drown you in an oversized whirlpool tub. I fought back mightily, tooth and toenail. I bit, I slapped, I scratched—all things a proper pacifist would never dream of doing. But if, indeed, all things are fair in love and war, then surely they are fair in mano a mano combat with the Prince of Darkness.

I wasn’t surprised that the Devil had chosen to attack me physically while in a corporeal form; I’ve been a wicked woman.

What surprised me is that the His Evilness had taken the form of a woman.

“Stop it, Mags,” she shrieked when it was clear I had finally bested her.

The fact that the Devil was using my sister’s voice was uncon-scionable. Of course, the Devil doesn’t have a conscious, and can’t really be bested by a mere mortal, but I had soap on the brain.

While my thoughts struggled to keep up with me, I gave Lucifer another good whack, this time with a Lifebuoy bar.

“Ouch! That hurt, darn you.”

“
Susannah?
Is that really you?”

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“No, I’m somebody else. Of course it’s me. You’re really weird, Mags, you know that?”

“The pot calling the kettle,” I said, glowering at the only other human being to form in my mother’s womb, and then not until a full eleven years since I’d called that uterus home. “What in tar-nation are you doing in Big—bathtub? You weren’t in it when I filled it.”

“I spoke to you when I came into your bedroom, but you were on the phone and didn’t hear me. I guess you didn’t see me either.

So when I came in here to use the toilet, and saw those bubbles—

well, you can’t blame a girl for not wanting to see them go to waste. And it’s not like I have a setup like this at home.”

“So you sampled my bubbles. Now, get out. Please.”

“Why can’t I stay? We used to take baths together all the time when we were little.”

“We were never little together; I was thirteen, and you were two. The only reason I bathed with you is because Mama forced me to, in order to save water. Then came the notorious day of the floater—never mind. Just am-scray.”

“Fine, if that’s the way you’re going to be. Kicking a poor widder woman out into the cold.”

“You’re not a poor widder woman. I give you an allowance large enough to support a small kingdom, and your husband is not dead. He’s a cold-blooded killer who will spend the rest of his days behind bars.”

Susannah stood, the bubbles sliding in gentle avalanches.

“You don’t have to be so mean. I didn’t know Melvin was a killer when I married him.”

“Yes, but everyone told you he was a—” I clapped a soapy hand across my mouth. There was nothing to be gained by reminding my sister that she had chosen to spend the rest of her life with a loser. Anyway, I had done the same thing. The only difference was that my loser has yet to kill anyone. Of course I’d married an extremely handsome man, not a giant praying man-HELL HATH NO CURRY

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tis. And furthermore, everyone in Hernia had thought the world of Aaron Miller, whereas only Zelda Root, my half sister, and her merry band of Melvinites thought well of Melvin. Even his mother didn’t have such a hot opinion of him.

Susannah reached for one of my large, fluffy towels. They are one of the few luxuries I indulge in. (I thoughtfully provide my guests with the rough, cheap variety; yet another way for them to exfoliate.)

“You’re right,” she said.

“
Excuse
me?”

“I was an idiot. A fool. What am I going to do, Mags? No one in their right mind would marry me now.”

“That’s because you’re still married.”

“Besides that. You know what I mean.”

“There is no ’besides that.’ Don’t you think that divorcing the murdering mantis would be a place to start?”

“I thought you were against divorce.”

“I am—in theory. In practice, sometimes it’s the only option.

That said, I do think divorce is way overrated. Believe me, dear, it’s not gay marriage that is going to ruin the institution; it’s divorce, and contributing to that, the ease with which one can get married in this country. Consider the fact that one has to be tested in order to get a driver’s license, but not to get a husband license.

Believe me, husbands are a lot harder to handle than cars.”

“You’re preaching to the choir, Mags. I agree with everything you say.”

“You
do
?”

She nodded, flinging clusters of bubbles dangerously near my eyes. “Like I said, I’m a fool. Because of that, I’m ruined.”

There is nothing more heartbreaking than having a worthy opponent capitulate because of a broken heart. I wanted to hug Susannah, but we can barely do that while wearing clothes. I would try to compensate with a platitude.

“Just think of poor Priscilla Livingood. Now, there is a woman 58 Tamar

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who won’t be able to hold her head high in Hernia much longer.

She was engaged to the male version of a slut—wait just one ding-dang minute. How come there isn’t a word for the male version of a slut?”

“There’s
lothario
.”

Frankly, I was surprised Susannah knew the word. “Nope.

Lothario
doesn’t have the same moral connotation. Now, where was I?”

“You’d just called Cornelius a slut. You must have found out about Thelma Unruh.”

“Huh?”

“I told Thelma she was kidding herself, but you know those Unruhs; they’re more hardheaded than us Yoders.”

Never complain, never explain, a wise woman once said. And really, when it came to push versus shove, what did it really matter how much I knew, versus how much I was about to know?

Withholding information isn’t exactly a lie, is it?

“Poor, poor, Thelma,” I said,

“She’s a natural blonde, you know. You’ve got to watch those natural blondes; they’re sharper than you think. It’s the brunettes who dye their hair and try to pass themselves off as blond—

they’re the ones missing a few marbles. Like, please, who do they think they’re kidding with those dark roots and sallow complex-ions? Besides, their boyfriends will find out soon enough, when the cups don’t match the saucers.”

“What does dying one’s hair have to do with dishes?”

My sister rolled her eyes. “The drapes won’t match the rug.”

My brain is dense, not impermeable. “Susannah! How crude.”

“I’m not being crude, merely stating a fact. Anyway, like I said, it’s the natural blondes you have to look out for. Cool as cucumbers, some of them. I told Thelma she was too smart to be messing around with Cornelius, but do you know what she told me?”

“Spit it out!” I said, spitting out soapy water.

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“She told me she didn’t care that Cornelius was engaged to Priscilla, because she had a surefire plan to bust them apart. I asked her what, but she wouldn’t say. She said that in the meantime it was kind of fun to be the other woman and sneak around.

So I asked her if she at least cared if what she was doing hurt Priscilla.”

“And?”

“She said that it was Priscilla’s fault, not hers. If Priscilla was too stupid to hang on to her man, she deserved what she got.”

A shiver ran up my warm, sudsy spine. “Who knew Thelma could be so cold?”

“You’ve got to be kidding, Mags. That woman is a conniving skank. I wouldn’t trust her with yesterday’s garbage. Like I said, it’s the natural blonde in her.”

Both Susannah and I missed being blond by a hair. We share the same light brown color that is as close to dark blond as one can get without crossing the line from mousy to dishwater. Just a couple of highlights would put me over the great divide, while robbing me of at least twenty IQ points. Susannah has gone the other way, dying her hair an impossible shade of auburn that has strong purple undertones.

“I didn’t realize you knew Thelma so well,” I said, reaching for a towel. I wrapped it tightly around me as I stood, so that Susannah couldn’t even peek at my birthday suit, had she been so inclined. It’s not that I was ashamed or bashful; I didn’t want her to be envious of the bounteous booty—I mean, beauty—the Good Lord had bestowed upon me—just in case she hadn’t already noticed it.

Susannah didn’t question the towel. “Thelma and I are the same age, Mags. We were in school together, all the way through twelfth grade.”

“I don’t remember that.”

“Jeez, are you losing your memory? She came to practically all my sleepovers.”

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