The Hand that Rocks the Ladle (13 page)

Hernia has seen a lot of urban refugees lately. Our clean air, cheap prices, and uncongested streets are appealing to folks from Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and in Gabriel’s case, even much farther away. To be honest, we locals regard these newcomers with a mixture of awe and contempt. They buy our most expensive houses, or build enormous new ones, but then they wander about in blue jeans, or shorts that barely cover their fannies.

Although Dr. Rosen wears blue jeans, he is not like the rest. And he is not an urban refugee, no matter what he says. It was clear from the moment I met him that Gabe, as I now call him, was running to something, not from something. Gabe came west seeking solitude and a place to begin his new career, that of a writer. One has to admire a man who gave up a three-hundred-thousand-dollar salary at one of the nation’s most prestigious heart clinics to write books. Either that, or mark him off as crazy.

Gabe is not crazy. He is, however, drop-dead gorgeous. Taller than I by at least two inches, he has warm brown eyes and a head of dark curly hair, so thick and beautiful it is all I can do not to reach out and run my hands through it. In fact, I once dreamed that I ran my toes through his locks.

We haven’t exactly been dating, Gabe and I, but we do seem to find the slightest excuse to run across Hertzler Road and borrow this or that, or share some trivial bit of news. Last Sunday he showed up to borrow a cup of lima beans, just as I was sitting down to lunch. Lima beans! Cooked ones yet! Freni stoutly denies having told Gabe that lima beans were on my lunch menu, which they were. Since Freni never lies, well—go figure, as Susannah would say.

I rang the doorbell, and seeing myself reflected in the windowpane, quickly tucked a wisp of hair behind my ear. I wear my mouse-colored hair in a bun, and although I possess several equine features, I am not altogether unattractive.

The door flung open and Gabe stood there in a pair of tight jeans and pale yellow golf shirt. He was barefoot, and in the long summer dusk I could see that he had deeply tanned, slender feet with high arches.

“I came to borrow a cup of lima beans,” I said. Actually, I came to sound Gabe out about joining the staff of Hernia Hospital. That, and to gaze once again upon that heavenly face.

Gabe has a brilliant smile. He is, after all, a man who can afford the finest dental work available.

“Will half a cup of frozen mashed potatoes do?”

“Frozen?”

“I’m afraid it’s a TV dinner tonight. I really can cook, you know, but I got wrapped up in the climax scene.”

“Excuse me?”

He laughed and ushered me inside. “The chase scene. The one in which my protagonist single-handedly fights, in an alley, a gang of five Pakistani drug smugglers who pose as New York cabbies.”

“Ah, so it’s a mystery!” Gabe has been as closemouthed about his book as my faux-husband was about the missing years of his life.

“Yeah, it’s a mystery, all right. I didn’t want to talk about it before because—well, I guess because I’m kind of superstitious. But now that I have just the denouement remaining, it seems safe.”

I settled back in the offered chair, a black, buttery soft Italian leather monster that practically hugged me. Gabe sprawled across a matching sofa. So many cows were giving their lives for furniture these days. “What’s the title of your mystery?”

“Haven’t decided. Did I tell you my protagonist was a seventy-eight-year-old Yiddish-speaking grandmother from the Bronx?”

“No!”

“Well it is. So I was tentatively thinking of The Hand that Rocks the Dreidel I raised an eyebrow.

“A dreidel is like a little top. It’s a children’s game that’s played at Hanukkah.”

“Why a mystery?” I said. And why didn’t he direct me to sit on the couch as well. I wouldn’t have minded a little sprawling in my direction.

“I wanted to jump into writing with both feet, and mysteries are the most demanding form of fiction there is.”

“How so?”

“Literary and mainstream writers can wander all over the board. They can digress until the cows come home—I love that expression now that I’m living in the country. Anyway, a mystery has to have a plot, and everything in the book must somehow advance that plot.”

“Will it have proper punctuation?”

He looked surprised. “Of course.”

“I only say that because I hate books that omit quotation marks. That mountain book left me cold.”

“Yes, but that was a literary novel. Those authors can get away with anything, including murder.”

“What about romance?”

“I'm all for romance,” he said, and winked.

I blushed. I’m sure of that. My face engorged with so much blood that my feet floated off the floor, as light and dry as Freni’s biscuits.

“Care for some wine?” he asked.

“I don’t drink.” I may have said it emphatically. “Nothing?”

“Water, juice, milk, tea, coffee—oh, and cocoa. I really love cocoa.”

“Is this a religious thing?”

I felt my face burn. My feet floated even higher. Gabriel and I had almost nothing in common, I knew that. Maybe that’s what made him so exciting. With Aaron I’d picked a forbidden fruit, but unknowingly. There had been no excitement in that. With Gabriel came a whole new territory of possible sins. The prospect of avoiding them all—or not—made me giddy.

“Wine is an abomination,” I said calmly. “It says so in the Bible.”

“It also says that it gladdens the heart.”

“Maybe in your Bible.”

He smiled. “Maybe we shouldn’t discuss religion. Not just yet. I’ve got some diet cola on hand. How about that? Or is that forbidden too?”

“Of course not.”

“It wasn’t on your list.”

“And neither was rudeness, but you seem to have no problem dispensing that.”

Brown eyes studied my face solemnly. “I’m sorry. I guess I presumed too much.”

“Just what exactly does that mean?”

“Well, I thought a little good-natured banter was okay.”

It was such a trivial thing, his little gibe, yet somehow it was now a pivotal point. Either I got over my defensiveness, or this relationship was going nowhere. Did I tell you that Gabriel Rosen had the longest, darkest eyelashes I had ever seen on a man?

“Banter away!” I cried.

He grinned. “Sorry again. And if I step over the line now and then, call me on it.”

“Will do.”

“So, what do you want to drink? I could make cocoa.”

“It’s July, dear. Do you have any grape juice?” Maybe I couldn’t drink wine, but was it so wrong to pretend?

“Straight up or on the rocks?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Without ice, or with.”

“Oh, I get it. Without. I don’t want to dilute it.” I gave him what I hoped was a mischievous wink. The last time I winked at a man he thought I had a cinder in my eye and offered assistance to remove it. You can be sure I told Deacon Graber to keep his mitts off me. He wasn’t that cute.

“I’ll bring you a double,” he said. “Extra strong.” Then either he winked back, or he had a smoldering log in his left eye.

While Gabe retired to the kitchen, I studied my surroundings. The previous owners, the Millers, had hired a heterosexual interior decorator from Pittsburgh. The result was dreadful. But the place looked pretty good now. If it wasn’t for the pheromones that had been bombarding me like sleet in November, I would have been worried.

I noticed a row of silver-framed photographs on the mantel. From where I sat some of the pictures appeared to be of children. I knew that Gabe wasn’t married—I will never make that mistake again—but he had been at one time. “Long divorced,” he described it. And I knew about a nephew. But I wasn’t sure about children. I may be a tad bossy, but I’m not nosy.

I struggled from the comfortable embrace of the leather armchair and strode to the fireplace. A young man with a bad complexion grimaced at me on the left. No doubt the college-aged nephew. To his right two little girls, one blond, one dark, smiled through a paucity of teeth.

“My nieces,” Gabe said, reading my mind.

I wheeled. I hadn’t heard him return, but he was standing there all right, a pair of long-stemmed goblets in his hands.

“Here.” He handed me a goblet.

“Thanks.” I took the drink.

Gabe read my mind again. “Mine’s grape juice too.”

“You didn’t have to!” I am ashamed to say that I was simultaneously relieved and disappointed.

“Actually, it will do me some good. I stirred a little pectin in mine. It helps with carpal tunnel syndrome.”

“You don’t say.” I’d heard this tunnel syndrome mentioned by a number of my guests over the years, but I must confess, I still didn’t get it. How did car- pooling through a tunnel hurt one’s wrist? That’s a bit self-indulgent if you ask me. What happened to Mama and Papa in the tunnel—squished to death amid milk and jogging shoes—now that was painful. All the grape juice and pectin in the world couldn’t have fixed that.

“Please, sit.” This time Gabriel motioned to the sofa.

My heart pounded in my bony chest. I sat, but not before spilling a smidgen of the purple juice on Gabe’s white carpet. Fortunately I was able to rub it down, deep into fibers, where it was basically out of sight. I prayed Gabe wouldn’t find the stain.

Unfortunately Gabe chose to sit in the chair I’d vacated. He struck a seductive pose, crossing his leg ankle at knee, just as Aaron used to do. I tried not to peek below his calf.

“So, how’s this batch of guests?” he asked.

Torn into three equal parts as I was, guilt, disappointment, and the need to reproduce, it was all I could do to stutter. “W-w-what?”

“You have any Nazis in this group?”

I sighed. Somehow we’d gotten derailed to small talk.

“No, no Nazis—that I know of. Just a pompous professor, one set of giggly English twins, and a wealthy vamp and her boy-toy. Oh, and the nicest Mennonite couple you ever laid eyes on. But enough about me. Tell me more about you.”

Gabriel sipped grape from his goblet. “There isn’t much to tell. Compared to you, I’ve lived a boring life.”

“Nonsense, dear. I’m sure there’s lots I’d like to hear. For instance, do you have any children?” If I was going to stray far enough afield to snag a Jewish divorce, he better not have any hidden commitments.

Gabe grinned. “I assure you that those are my nieces. Besides, they happen to be all grown-up now.”

“You sure? No little babies tucked away in some secret love nest?” I said it laughingly, and it was meant to be a joke.

“Babies?” he asked, looking puzzled.

“Babies!”

As if on cue a baby wailed loudly.

“What’s that?”

Gabe laughed. “That’s not a baby, that’s—”

The baby wailed piteously again, the sound coming from upstairs.

I was on my feet faster than a freshly branded heifer. “Lying’s a sin,” I hissed. “In both our Bibles!”

“But I’m not lying!”

The infant howled miserably.

“Yeah? Well, explain that, buster!”

“That’s easy. That’s—”

I didn’t stay long enough to hear another word. I charged out of there like a bull from a holding pen, and didn’t stop until I’d snorted back to the PennDutch Inn and into the privacy of my room.

* * *

I was still seeing red the next morning. It had been almost a waste of time lying in bed, sleeping as I did in fitful snatches. The still functioning phone in the lobby had rung several times during the evening, but I had steadfastly refused to answer it. I had no vacancies, and I certainly didn’t need any more trouble.

About nine-thirty, as I was preparing for bed, there had been a timid knock at the door. It was Gloria Rediger dutifully informing me that Freni was home again, safe and sound, and Mose was recovering nicely. She’d even swung by Hernia Hospital, and seeing that Barbara and the two male babies were sleeping peacefully, Gloria somehow managed to coax Jonathan to go home as well. I thanked Gloria for her help, although frankly, and this is a terrible thing to say, I was beginning to resent her. Under normal circumstances it would have been me taking care of my loved ones. Instead, thanks to Freni’s phantom namesake, I had a surfeit of stress.

Perhaps you will understand then why I was not amused to see that, despite my early hour of rising, the Moregold twins were already in the kitchen frying sausages and eggs. A tower of toast was already in evidence.

“Where’s Freni?” I demanded.

The twins looked at each other and shrugged.

“Mrs. Hostetler,” I snapped. “The stout, cranky Amish woman whose husband had his appendix removed.”

“Ah, her,” Edwina said as she spooned some grease over a sunny-side up. “Donald and Gloria ran her back into town. But don’t worry, they’ve already had their breakfast.”

“And he was really nice about it,” Daphne said. “Considering I accidentally broke both of his.”

“What?”

“The yolks on Donald’s eggs,” Daphne said. She hung her head in shame. “But Edwina’s good at it, aren’t you, sis?”

“Sunny-side up, or easy over,” Edwina said gaily. “Just tell me your preference. Or if you like, I can make you a nice cheese omelet.”

I grabbed a slice of toast and bolted. Clearly I was not needed in my own inn. Besides, too much cheer before ten has been known to cause nausea.

I took Dead Man’s Curve at a crawl. On the right side of the road, just opposite the Zooks’ driveway, was a simple wooden stake commemorating the grizzly accident. Carved into the wood were the Pennsylvania Dutch words for Gone to Glory. When I was a car length or two safely up the long drive I breathed a sigh of relief.

Ours is a hilly terrain, even mountainous by some folks’ standards. There are many curves, although none as deadly as this, where one can find large mirrors positioned so as to give home owners a view of the road. For what it’s worth, most of the area Amish refuse to use reflecting devices, thinking them too vain. Instead, they opt for playing Dutch roulette every time they enter a highway.

There was no doorbell on the Zook house—they didn’t have electricity—so I rapped loudly with knuckles as large and hard as walnuts. The front door opened a crack.

“
Mir welles nüt
,” a gravelly voice said. We don’t want it.