Operation Bonnet Page 10

  The shorter girl called over from the table, where she was folding napkins. “Nellie Monroe, I am Elizabeth Schrock.”

  “My only daughter,” Sarah said. “Five boys and one girl, thanks be to God. All blessings but not many girls, so Katie works for us to help feed and clean after all the men.”

  “Girls!” Granny shuffled into the room, probably on her way back from pulling out the toenails of children. “Idle hands are the Devil’s playthings!” She watched the women get back to their work and tilted her chin at me. “Nellie Monroe, you look tired.”

  “I do?” I slapped my cheeks for a bit of color, a trick I’d learned from watching my mother before she opened the door to guests. “That better?”

  I heard Elizabeth giggle into her linens, but Mary brushed past me. “Follow.” She walked quickly toward the kitchen table. “You have no reason to be tired. Sit down. When did you rise from your bed this morning?”

  I took a careful posture on a kitchen chair. “Me? Um, not long ago, actually. We had a late night at my job last night and—”

  “The hour.”

  The woman could use a lesson or two in finesse. “About eleven.”

  She threw back her head far enough for me to glimpse her uvula. “Eleven o’clock! Now ask me when I rose.”

  “Grandmother Mary Shrock, when did you rise?” I tried to sound inquisitive, but this was not my favorite way to communicate, having my lines read for me by a prompter.

  “Four a.m. Each day, every day, each and every person in the Schrock family. I have been working seven and one-half hours at the time you open these pretty eyelashes.” She poked the air near my head with one bony finger, snapping my gaze from Katie.

  “Thank you,” I said, but not before dodging to the right.

  She narrowed her eyes. Beady eyes, by the way. “Why do you thank me?”

  “You said I had pretty eyelashes. That’s the nicest thing you’ve said to me.”

  “Pah,” she said and wrinkled her nose. “You are lazy. How is that? ‘Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.’”

  “One of my very favorite Bible verses,” I said. I smiled sweetly, counting the wrinkles on her cheeks in order not to lose sight of my gentler side. I was within spitting distance of the Katie Lapp, the goal of this entire project, but I had to bide my time before getting the information I needed from her. Granny was clearly the gatekeeper in this kitchen, and if I had to pretend I understood Ecclesiastes, then darn it, I would.

  “Chop like this.” Granny Mary took a knife that looked like it had been hewn from stone and pierced the outside layer of an innocent onion. She made a set of clean cuts once, then twice for a medium dice. Sniffing she handed me the knife. “You will not be very good at the first attempt. I have done this thousands of times in my life.”

  Sarah rummaged in a drawer and produced a newer-looking knife, which she held up. “Grandmother, this knife might be better for learning.”

  Mary threw an unimpressed glance over her shoulder. “My knife is fine. Work is good for all people, especially the lazy English.” At this, she smiled, revealing a row of teeth that looked like they’d been shot in with a gun. When she saw me checking them out, she recovered quickly and clamped her thin lips shut once more. “Chop.”

  I took the next onion and peeled it slowly, acting dumbfounded that there were so many fascinating, eye-stinging layers. In general, I avoid looking dumbfounded and had no business trying to do so. Sure enough, after the second onion, I got distracted by Katie’s conversation with Elizabeth. I leaned forward a bit in my chair, trying to make out their words, when Granny rapped the table sharply with her knuckles.

  “What are you doing, Nellie Monroe? Do not waste food while you do not pay attention.”

  I looked down at the cutting board. I’d cut a thin slice off the side of the onion, contrary to the Mary Schrock Food Preparation Rules governing the universe. I sighed. Dumb wasn’t going to work. “I like to cut them like this.” I turned the onion onto its cut side, forming a good anchor for me to cut vertical incisions from top to bottom. In a swift motion, I cut another set of stripes horizontally and then finished with a neat dice, tossing the prickly head into the rubbish bowl at Granny Mary’s elbow.

  I took a moment to raise my eyes, fearful she would banish me back to my wayward people. Perhaps this was unforgivable, this assertion of a new idea. I mean, the woman had never used a hair dryer, so newfangled ideas on how to cut onions might be a bit off-putting.

  When I finally looked up, her beady eyes were twinkling.

  “Gut,” she said. “You are lazy, but you are not stupid. This I like.” She shoved a heaping bowl of onions to my side of the table. “When we finish these, we move to bread.” Then, over her shoulder, she said something in rapid-fire Pennsylvania Dutch, which educed a round of laughter from the other women in the room.

  Katie saw me frown. She called over to me in translation. “She says you are peacock, but a peacock is better than a pale mule from the university. Only she used a stronger word that I cannot repeat in English.” They all laughed again, and I held out my hand to Grandmother Mary.

  She shook it, mirth spilling out of her eyes. “Welcome, Nellie Monroe.”

  I grinned. An Amish potty mouth. Man, I loved my job.

  I pushed the cart, and Nona held the list.

  “Nectarines,” she said. “They’re next.” She held a pen poised above a yellow legal pad.

  Mother and Pop had left for another tour of pleasure, this time to the Pacific Northwest for a smattering of golf tournaments and charity benefits. Nona and I had sat in the living room, watching the two of them fly back and forth through the house, packing everything from a faux fur stole for chilly nights (Mother) to a compass and camel pack in case the weather permitted a hike (Pop). Nona and I had happily munched on a bowl of popcorn, feeling it worthy of the cinematic entertainment offered right in our own home.

  After the packing mayhem culminated in a histrionic good-bye—complete with Mother waving a hanky out the window of their departing Jaguar—I turned to Nona, who wore a bemused smile.

  “Back to normal,” I said, linking my arm through hers.

  “Not to sound impudent, but thank goodness they’re gone. It’s like a long babysitting session when they come back, don’t you think?”

  I chuckled. “Only they’re getting a bit wrinkled, so not as cute as babies. And Mother has sprouted a whole new crop of sun spots.”

  Nona gasped. “Never tell her that, Nellie. You know she’d be devastated. And your poor father would be on ice-pack duty for another round of tucking and nipping.”

  Despite my discouraging words about it, Nona watched cable sometimes when I was at work. I’d been able to cut her off from prime time’s The Bachelor and Hot or Not? but my hands were tied when I left for the day. She referred to plastic surgeons on TLC by their first names: “Ted” disliked cutting right after working out, while “Margaret” hated men, particularly skinny men who came to her for calf implants.

  After the farewell for Mother and Pop, we walked to the kitchen to prepare a grocery list to replenish our empty pantry. Nona wrote the list while I paged through cookbooks that would take advantage of summer produce. We were particularly excited about a recipe for grilled pork chops with blue cheese, fresh basil, and toasted pine nuts. As we shivered in the refrigerated air of TasteWay, Nona picked out ripe nectarines to grill and drizzle with honey.

  “Hello, Mrs. Byrne.” I was thinking of honey and its syrupy sweetness when Misty Warren-Pitz’s voice greeted Nona in just such a tone, only grosser.

  Nona turned. “Why, Misty. How lovely to see you.” She smiled because Nona always smiles at those less fortunate.

  “How are you?” Misty patted Nona’s hand. “Everything going all right?” She cocked her head and a healthy application of purple eye shadow
. “I heard somebody couldn’t remember where she parked her car in our lot again the other day. You must be feeling different than usual.”

  “Boy, isn’t that the kiss of death?” I was speaking too loudly. “Feels like just yesterday, doesn’t it, Misty, when we were in junior high together, and you were torturing me for having the different kind of everything? Something about those unusual types that makes them such convenient targets.”

  “Nellie, honey,” Nona said softly. “Bygones.”

  I stood with one hand on the cart, the other on my hip, feeling not one bit of joy in taking the low road. But I hadn’t liked Misty’s whiny implications, trying to coax from Nona some confession to pad any town rumors. I’d play Insult Volley with Misty Pitz if it meant Nona’s privacy remained hers until the end.

  Misty rolled her eyes. “No kidding, Mrs. Byrne. Honestly,” she said, shaking her blonde mane that—now that my eye was trained—could use a touch-up on the roots. “When will you let that go, Nellie? We’re grown women now.”

  I resisted the urge to ask just how her own growth was coming along but couldn’t help glancing at her abdomen.

  She noticed, and her face fell. “Gotta run, ladies. Great to see you both.” She clipped off through the root vegetables, and Nona shook her head after the girl.

  “I wouldn’t trust that child farther than I could toss her,” she said, “but you should still be nice, Nellie. Seven times seventy we forgive, you know.”

  “That makes four hundred and ninety, and I’m pretty sure I passed that milestone by sixth grade.”

  We walked slowly toward the bakery section. “I remember,” Nona said, “when you used to come home crying every day after school.”

  I swallowed and picked up a loaf of sourdough.

  “No one understood you, you’d say.” Nona checked the bread off her list. “That wasn’t quite true because I know you had Matt, for one. And me. And your mother and father.”

  I looked at her.

  She giggled. “Okay, at least Matt and me.”

  I picked through the cheeses, muttering to myself about Gruyère, chèvre, Pecorino Romano, all in very poor French and Italian accents. I don’t come to the grocery store to relive junior high, I thought. In Cleveland, I’d bet no one from junior high even surfaced in quotidian moments. Quotidian, from the Latin quotidianus for daily, mundane. Junior high was best lived once or never. If I ever had children, a rite of passage that wasn’t high on the list, I’d homeschool during junior high. That way, when they were shopping for zucchini and instead got a postcard from 1992—

  “Oh, no.” Nona’s voice was small and scared.

  I looked up from my burrowing. She stood in the middle of the aisle, her face etched with fear.

  I dropped a wedge of cheese and hurried to her. “Nona,” I said softly, forcing her to find my eyes with hers. “Nona, it’s all right. I’m right here. It’s Nellie. You’re here. With me. We’re getting groceries.”

  She watched my face.

  I tried again. “You’re in the supermarket with me. Nellie.” I felt like sand had covered my throat.

  After a moment, the fear receded behind specks of courage in her eyes. “TasteWay. Grilled pork chops and nectarines.”

  “That’s right,” I said. I gathered her small shoulders into a hug and blinked back any tears that threatened. Over Nona’s shoulder, I saw Misty watching us. I steered Nona toward the front of the store.

  “I don’t really feel like grilling, do you?” I said. “What about take-out Chinese? We could stop at Happy Dragon on our way home.”

  “Oh, I love Happy Dragon,” Nona said. We walked through the double doors. “I can’t wait to read my fortune.”

  A warm wind pushed into us, making a loose and flying tangle of our hair, red and white, gripping each other at least for the moment.

  14

  Sincerely Yours

  “Grass always looks softer than it feels.” Matt slouched his torso toward the street, arms propped on his knees.

  “You have your grumpy face on,” I said around a bite of funnel cake. “The Fourth of July is a day of national joy, Matt.”

  He grunted and shifted position on the curb.

  “You can throw on the grumpy face for Groundhog Day because it’s built around the actions of vermin. Or Valentine’s Day because it’s capitalism-meets-Kenny-G, which is immoral.” I blotted the corners of my mouth with a napkin. “But not July Fourth. Grumpiness on July Fourth is un-American.”

  He rolled his eyes, but I could see a smile forming against his will.

  “Plus, we haven’t seen each other all week, and you need to catch me up on your life.”

  The parade had started down by Bank of the Heartland and we could hear sounds of the Casper Senior High marching band as they rounded the corner a block down from us. We stood as the color guard passed, four men dressed in blues and carrying flags. Though cognitively I knew it to be impossible, I wondered if one of the men had fought in the Civil War, he was so stooped and ancient. I wanted to take his flag and carry it for him, but Matt assured me this would be a breach of military etiquette.

  “Let him be a man,” he said, and I thought I heard a note of snark in there.

  I pulled a face. “I just want to help him. When I’m four thousand years old and carrying a flag for three miles in a parade route, I hope someone will come and help me carry it. Or would that not let me ‘be a woman’?” I drew curt quotation marks with my fingers.

  He shrugged. “No need for attitude, Lady of Liberty. I’m just saying the guy deserves a break. Guys, in fact, deserve a break.”

  I took a deep draw of strawberry smoothie and handed it to Matt. “Guys need a break,” I repeated, watching a gaggle of Future Farmers of America pass in matching T-shirts and well-worn boots, throwing candy to the little kids along the route. “Yes, you’re probably right. After years of repression and injustice, if there’s one thing all white men need, it’s a break.”

  “Dude!” he erupted. “Are you ever able to take anything seriously?” He turned to me and stared.

  I cleared my throat, jerking my head to the people around us who had begun to follow our verbal sparring. “Sorry,” I muttered. “I didn’t know you felt so strongly about it.” I slumped into my smoothie, which Matt had set down with a thud on the cement between us.

  We didn’t speak through the band’s labored rendition of “Louie, Louie,” the German Preservation League’s wagon filled with plump blond people in lederhosen, or the parade marshal’s car driven by Mrs. Potts, my fourth grade teacher, and her husband. Mrs. Potts saw me from the car and started waving at a frenetic pace.

  I waved back and caught a full-sized Butterfinger.

  She winked and yelled, “Only for my favorite students!”

  I broke off half and gave it to Matt.

  “Thanks,” he said. “Sorry I blew up at you. I do think guys deserve a break from all you women,” he said, scowling. He took a big bite of the Butterfinger and chewed as he thought. “But mostly I think I’m sick of work. Don has been cutting everyone’s hours, and we’re only halfway through the summer. I’ve made enough for books and part of the first semester, but that’s it.”

  Matt was one of six DuPage children, fifth in the birth order. This meant a lot of things that I envied, like camping in the backyard with more company than two Cabbage Patch dolls, holiday dinners where people competed to be heard, and enough people to play Capture the Flag in the woods behind their house without even having to call in reinforcements. It also meant, however, that everyone was on his or her own when it came to higher education. Matt’s mom had passed away when he was a toddler, and his dad was the nicest man around. He wanted his kids to do well, but on a bookkeeper’s salary, he had to cut the strings at eighteen.

  “Why is Don dropping your
hours? Is the Shack not pulling in the techies like it used to?”

  We waved at a float sponsored by Riverside Electric. It was built to look like a dinosaur, though it looked more like a dehydrated purple frog with a tail. All along the hackneyed papier-mâché, employees had perched their sticky-mouthed children, none of whom was even interested in consuming candy anymore.

  “Best Buy takes too much of our business,” he said. “And online shopping. People in town can go lots of places now for what used to be available only at our store.” He reached for my smoothie and glanced at me. “Nice hair, by the way.”

  “Shut up.” I tucked a strand behind my ear. It had looked so easy when Bette had styled it in the shop, but I’d already had to call her once from my bathroom when I got halfway through blow-drying and it looked like I hadn’t read the little warning about mixing electricity and water.

  “Seriously. I like it.”

  I narrowed my eyes at Matt and was shocked to see him blushing. I punched him in the shoulder a little too hard.

  “That was a compliment, you freak,” he said, rubbing the welt. “Most girls would say thank you.”

  “Well, there’s your problem.” I cracked my knuckles. “I’m not most girls.”

  I could feel Matt revving up for a zinger of a comeback but was saved when the Casper Golf and Country Club tractor rolled into view. “That’s Amos and Tank,” I said and stood up to wave.

  Matt pulled himself up to stand next to me. He brushed dirt off his rear and said, “I didn’t know Tank owned a tractor.”

  “Just bought it,” I said, still waving. “Said Amos made him want to reconnect to our agrarian past.”

  Matt turned his head to look at my profile. “Tank does not know the word agrarian.”

  “True enough. I think his actual words were ‘’Bout time I got my HANDS on some MANURE!’”

  Matt nodded. “That’s what I thought.” He made his index finger and thumb into a circle and let loose a whistle. Amos and Tank found us in the crowd, and Tank honked the tractor’s horn, which sounded like a plane crash, only louder.