The Death of Pie by Tamar Myers

Author:Tamar Myers [Tamar Myers]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Severn House Publishers
Published: 2014-02-12T16:00:00+00:00

TWELVE

My, what a glorious day it was shaping up to be: the strumpet with the trumpet had called me, arguably the homeliest hausfrau in all of Hernia, a ‘husband-stealing hussy.’ If only Mama could have heard Dorothy. Mama would have been shocked – mortified, is how she usually put it – by such sinful talk. But perhaps it might have served Mama right for repeatedly referring to me as ‘a carpenter’s dream,’ on account of my flat-as-a-board chest, or the fact that Mama said that I had a ‘horsey’ face. I feel that the latter statement was cruel; even though on two occasions, upon getting a close-up glimpse of Yours Truly, Amish horses had pulled free from their traces and followed us home.

Yes! It’s true – never in the history of Hernia, Pennsylvania was a girl born who was so unlikely to find a suitor. In fact, my parents – may they rest in peace up on Stucky Ridge – were so convinced that I was doomed to a life of spinsterhood that they left the controlling share of their estate to me. It was this very lack of faith in me that allowed me to preserve the farm and turn it into a thriving bed and breakfast. In the meantime, my pretty sister Susannah – she with the bubbly personality – bubbled herself into all kinds of trouble, including, as I’ve said, into the bonds of unholy matrimony with a homicidal maniac of the mantis persuasion.

So, although Mennonites of my ilk don’t have sex standing up, lest it leads to dancing, and we don’t dance, lest it leads to enjoyable sex, and we seldom skip, because Heaven forefend it should be too enjoyable, late that morning, as I left Sam Yoder’s Corner Market, I found myself skipping with joy. For the record, Hernia is a very pleasant village in which to skip.

The streets are lined with tall maples, oaks and sycamore trees. The wood-framed houses, two-story Victorian with fancy gingerbread trim, sport fresh coats of paint. Most of these historic residences have been kept white in keeping with the times, but here and there a soft yellow, or a robin-egg blue has crept in, and the result, in my opinion, is rather charming. In late summer, against the shady foundations of these lovely homes, one might expect to find billowing hydrangea bushes flanked by masses of ferns. If it were not for the fact that the PennDutch occupied the site of my family’s homestead dating back to 1780, I would move into town in a heartbeat.

Then again, misanthropes, such as me, may not be cut out for village life. As I neared the church parking lot and saw that a small crowd had surrounded my car, my colon started dancing the polka. Since dancing is a sin, and I was in a public place, one can imagine my consternation.

‘Stop it,’ I growled.

My colon growled back.

‘All right, have it your own way,’ I said aloud.

Discovering what a pushover I was that morning, my stomach started in on a samba.

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