As the World Churns (32 page)

    “Really, dear,” I said to my mother-in-law, “is that the same mouth with which you used to sing lullabies to your son?”

    
“Vhat?
You tink I have another?”

    “You could have warned us,” Agnes panted. “Magdalena,” Wanda snarled, “
if
you’d peed back at the Sausage Barn, you wouldn’t have to go so bad now.”

    “Ladies,” I said, “if you’re capable of it, turn your heads and look back up the highway about a hundred yards. Tell me what you see.”

    
“
Oy vey!
I can’t turn my head.”

    “Ida, darling,” I said with utmost patience, “perhaps it would help if you unbuckled your seat belt.”

    “I can’t turn my head either,” Agnes said. “Do you think I have whiplash?”

    With the help of the Good Lord, I avoided stating the obvious: Agnes was incapable of swiveling her noggin for the same reason she couldn’t touch her toes.

    “Wanda, what do you see?”

    
“Darkness.
The highway.
Maybe some trees.”

    “Look further to the left.”

    “It’s a truck-with a trailer!”

    “Bingo.”

    
“Gabeleh!”
In the blink of an eye, Ida had released her seat belt and was crawling over Agnes’s lap.

    I pushed the child safety lock button. “Oh no you don’t, missy. Not until we have a plan.”

    
“Plan, shman.
My only son is in there.”

    “So is my only husband, and I say wait.”

    
“Yah?
Vell, who cares about your husband?”

    “Your son and my husband are the same person, you- you-dummkopf.”

    “You see how dis von talks to me?”

    
“Catfight!”
Wanda suddenly sounded happy.

    
“Vhere?
I dunt see any cats.”

    “Fie on the felines,” I bellowed. “There may be human lives at stake here.”

    The women were silent for all of two seconds. It was Agnes who spoke first.

    “Get on your cell, Magdalena, and call for help.”

    That’s exactly what I attempted to do, even though I already knew that we were out of range. That particular corner of the commonwealth is so remote that even Daylight Savings Time doesn’t arrive until an hour later. Of course, the ladies had to try their own cellular phones, and with each confirmed lack of success, the panic level rose, like the waters of Slave Creek during the spring thaw. Something had to be done before the more volatile ones, like Ida, flipped their lids.

    “Don’t worry, ladies,” I said, “I have an idea.”

    “Dis better be
gut
,” Ida said. “It vas your idea dat got us here in the first place!”

    “And to think,” Wanda said, “I could be back at the Sausage Barn watching
Jeopardy
.”

    “Listen to Magdalena,” Agnes said sharply. “The woman is a genius at getting out of impossible situations. Why, once she even brought down a giantess by using her bra as a weapon.”

    “Oy, such an imagination dis von has.”

    “She’s telling the truth,” I said. “I used my Maidenform as a sling. One well-placed
stone,
and that giantess was down on her knees. Just like David slew Goliath, only I didn’t kill the giantess, and I certainly didn’t cut off her head.”

    I could feel Ida’s eyes roll in the dark. “
Nu,
so now you are David?
Somehow I dunt tink so.”

    “I may not be David,” I said, “but despite all this yammering, I’ve come up with a plan. Does anyone want to hear it?”

    “I do,” Agnes said.

    “So do
I
,” Wanda said.

    I had to swallow my surprise before speaking again.

    
Ingredients:

    
2 cups of strawberries

    
4 oz (100 g) sugar

    
3 egg yolks (beaten)

    
1/2 pint (250 ml) milk

    
1/4 teaspoon salt

    
1 pint (500 ml) double/heavy cream

    
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

    Take the strawberries, and mash them in with half the sugar in a bowl. Place in the refrigerator whilst making the rest of the recipe. In a separate saucepan, mix the egg yolks with the milk, salt, and the remaining sugar. Place over a medium heat
just
to boiling point, stirring all the time.
Do not let it boil
.

    Transfer the mixture into a chilled bowl to cool. When cool, place in the refrigerator for up to three hours, remembering to stir the mixture from time to time. When cool, stir into the mixture the cream and vanilla extract and then blend in the strawberry-sugar mixture.

    Transfer the complete mixture into an ice cream maker, and follow the manufacturer’s instructions.

    My plan was simple: Agnes would stay with Ida, while Wanda and I reconnoitered the pickup and trailer. I chose to have my nemesis accompany me because she was in better physical shape than the other two, and frankly, because she hated me so much; if I were to die, Wanda would have the most to lose. I mean, with me gone, who could she possibly loathe so deeply?
Absolutely no one.
All the joy would drain from her life, and she’d be just another miserable, middle-aged woman with posters tacked to the walls of her office. Therefore, it was in her best interest to see that I survived whatever it was that lay ahead.

    At any rate, we weren’t more than ten feet from the car when we noticed-simultaneously, I might add-a flicker of light deep in the woods. I was the first to react.

    “Look,” I whispered.
“A light.”

    “Jinx, you owe me a Coke.”

    
“Diet or regular?
Caffeine or no?
Lime flavored or cherry?
Really dear, you need to be more specific.”

    “You see how difficult you are?”

    If you can’t beat them-even after sticking a hot dog down her bun-you might as well join them. “Indeed, I do. I am an evil woman, the great-great-grandspawn of Attila the Hun. In fact, if I wasn’t a Mennonite, I’d become an Anglican, just so I could call myself a Despicopalian.”

    “Now you’re just mocking me.”

    “Not just now. Hey, look, the light is really a fire!”

    “Are those people I see, or deer?”

    
“People.
But they’re all in silhouette. Anyway, we’re too far away to make out their faces. Still, we better keep our voices down.”

    “Who said you could tell me what to do?”

    “Scream and shout then, for all I care. What’s the worst that can happen? Maybe they have a gun; maybe they’ll shoot. I could get hit and die. Then whom will you hate? While you’re trying to find a replacement Magdalena, I’ll be flip-flopping about Heaven learning how to fly. I might even try rollerblading on those golden streets.”

    “Okay, you win. But you have to shut up as well.”

    
“Agreed.”

    “And no fair dying until I tell you so.”

    
“Yes, ma’am.”

    We crept along in silence-well, relative silence. I’d read
The Deerslayer
as a girl, and one of the things that I’d always remembered about that book was the description of Indians moving silently through the woods-so silently, in fact, that nary a twig snapped. By comparison, Wanda and I
were
a pair of pregnant rhinos. Nevertheless, when Wanda next spoke, even though it was in a whisper, I nearly jumped out of my brogans.

    
“But if you do kick the bucket,” she said, “and assuming that Heaven even allows rollerblading-there are liability issues, you know-reserve a pair of skates for me.
I wear size eight triple-A. You wouldn’t believe what a burden it is to have such narrow feet.”

    
“Issues?”
I hissed irritably. “Who would sue God?”

    
“Plenty of people.
After all, He is very rich. America is the most litigious society on earth, Magdalena. You ought to know that, seeing as how a woman fell down your impossibly steep stairs. As I recall, she died-didn’t she?”

    “Yes, but folks can’t get hurt in Heaven.”

    “Maybe not, but I bet they still make you sign a waiver.”

    “Listen! I think that’s my beloved’s voice.”

    “Don’t be stupid, Magdalena. The Lord doesn’t mind if we joke about-”

    
“My
husband’s
voice.”

    We listened; sure enough, it was the Babester. He sounded tired.
Also extremely sad.

    “By all means kill me,” he said, “but let the child go.”

    “I’m not a child!”

    “The kid’s got spunk,” a familiar male voice said.

    “
Which means that if we let her go, she’ll turn us in.
A normal kid you can threaten, but not this brat.”

    “Hey! I ain’t
no
brat.”

    “You are so.”

    
“Ain’t!”

    “You are. Now shut up, before I make you.”

    “Go ahead and try, you old witch.”

    “Now you’re asking for it. How does a pair of cement boots sound? After I get you fitted, I’ll toss you into a farm pond. Or better yet, I’ll find a swimming pool and make you walk the diving board, like pirates make their captives walk the plank. Of course, with your cement boots on, you’ll be hopping the plank, not walking.”

    She laughed cruelly. Suddenly I knew her identity-Plain Jane! I almost said the words aloud. Just wait until I got my mitts on that disagreeable woman; I’d think of something very un-Mennonite-possibly even Methodist-to do to her.
The nerve of that woman, threatening my pseudo-offspring, my demi-daugh-ter.
And how dare the two of them threaten the Babester?

    Wanda and I crawled on our bellies until we were so close to the campfire that we could feel its heat. I could scarcely believe what mine eyes beheld: my loved ones were trussed up like turkeys, their hands and feet bound with plastic clothesline. It was only by calling upon all my willpower, and of course, the help of the
Lord, that
I was able to refrain from charging at the Pearlmutters right then and there. It was Wanda, bless her hating heart, who insisted that we retreat and sort things out a bit first. Who knew it was possible for a person you’d like to pinch to actually help out in a pinch?

    “I’ve come up with a new plan,” I said to Wanda.

    “Does it involve knocking the stuffing out of that witch?” Unlike Alison, Wanda used the B-word.

    “You bet your bippy,” I said, trumping her with two B-words of my own.