The Death of Pie by Tamar Myers Read Free Book Online Page A

dey make business like chocolate sprinkle? You know dis ting, Magdalena? So vhen Sister Distemper put dis sprinkle on zee cake zat I bring over for my Gabeleh’s birzday—’
    â€˜Stop!’ I shouted. ‘That cake was delicious.’
    Her oversized face regained some color as she nodded her head vigorously. ‘Yah, like see cupcakes zat vee donated to zee school bake sale, no?’
    â€˜No!’
    â€˜Vaht you mean “no? ” You dun’t remember?’
    â€˜Of course, you ninny – I mean, you nunny. Can I please come in, so that I can get to the purpose of my visit?’
    â€˜Yah, sure. But first you tell me, did you see zat beautiful chocolate pie zat Sister Distemper enter in zee pie contest last veek? Such an artist, zat von!’
    â€˜Pie, schmie,’ I said and swept past her. Then with all the authority bestowed upon me vis-à-vis the status of a pretend police woman, a counterfeit cop and an invertebrate investigator (I have been called spineless, mind you), I pushed through a pair of sagging wrought-iron gates and up the steps of the two-hundred-year-old wooden farmhouse.
    There was no point in ringing the bell, as it had not been working for a dozen years. Knocking soon proved futile as well, so with Mother Superior, aka Mother Malaise, aka Ida Rosen, aka the Great Horned Owl, flapping at my rear, I merely opened the door and stepped into the empty main room. The farmhouse, otherwise known as the convent, had been added on to by the cult in a higgledy-piggledy fashion. Sister Disheartened, who had once been an architect, had eventually succeeded in connecting several outbuildings with the main house. It had been Mother Superior’s desire to have a space where apathetic postulates could wander listlessly about, contemplate their pupiks (Yiddish for navels), and perhaps occasionally even pray. The end result was a large courtyard with a whitewashed tractor tyre as its centerpiece. The tyre had originally been intended as a flower bed, but since no one had the energy or the inclination to plant real flowers, I’d taken it upon myself to stick some rather lovely silk flowers in it when I changed the old silk flowers from my parents’ graves last spring and replaced them with new ones.
    Mother Superior, aka Mother Malaise, aka Ida Rosen, aka the mother-in-law not from Heaven soon caught up with me, and since the weather was pleasant we sat outside in the courtyard on a pair of rickety wooden folding chairs. I had a perfect view of the white tyre, and I was pleased to see that the good sisters had also lacked the oomph to remove the price tag on the bouquet from Mama’s grave. I usually remove Papa’s price tag, but Mama was so tight when it came to money that she could pinch a penny so that not only could it scream, it could sing a Lady Gaga song – in four-part harmony, no less. Once, when I was thirteen, and I needed fifty cents so I could buy you-know-what in an emergency situation from that dispenser in the girls’ lavatory at school, she refused to let me have it; I had to sit on my book bag all the way home. So now I leave the tag on Mama’s bouquet just to make her spin a couple of times. Besides, given all the electricity that she generates, I see it as a way to reduce my carbon footprint – maybe even that of my entire family.
    At any rate, no sooner had my bony butt hit the seat of that rickety chair than Ida was all over me like butter on popcorn. ‘Now vee talk,’ she said.
    â€˜Yes, now you will talk. Ida, it is no secret that you found Ramat Sreym’s depiction of you in her book to be insulting.’
    The massive head recoiled. ‘Vhat? Are you meshuggeneh? Zat voman vas a terrific vriter. Von of zee best, eef you ask me – like Tolstoy or Pushkin, mebbe.’
    â€˜Uh—’
    â€˜Vhat? You never hear of deez men?’
    â€˜Yes, I hear of deez men – I mean, these men. Look, Ida, you