Casserole Diplomacy and Other Stories Read online

  “Who d’ye think ye are? Disturbing me in my house with nary a warning? What’s yer talk about lights and bad people? In this place? We’d be lucky if we get a drunk from Bonavista on the highway. What are ye thinking of? Disturbing an old woman with scary talk. Get away from me now. Get back to where ye came from.”

  Mr. Formal looked startled. “It’s simply a public service . . .” Edna glared again. He shot Curly a rueful glance that implied “typical newfie” and pulled a business card smoothly from his coat pocket. “If you hear or see anything out of the ordinary, call right away, although I’m sure you’re right. There is nothing to worry about.” Edna took the card ungraciously.

  “Nothing to worry about?” she snapped. “I’ve got plenty to worry about. No cod. No more summer berries. Storms one day and a drought the next. A pension that gets smaller every month. Everybody leaving like Maberly died and was left out in the sun, stinking. What’s left in this place ’cepting worries and memories, boy? You leave us be with your big city talk of bad people. Everybody here knows where the rotten apples are.” Edna thought she saw Curly’s face turn red as she struggled to shut the door.

  She stood for a moment behind the shut door, her heart pounding against her chest. Edna hadn’t yelled at anyone since she was young. She felt ashamed of herself, screaming at strangers. Screaming at human strangers, to protect the alien ones in her kitchen. She took a deep breath. What’s there to feel bad about, Edna dear? It’ll make a good story to tell the girls tomorrow, and however much they purse their lips, you know every woman there will wish she’d done the same. I won’t tell them about the aliens, though. Don’t think they’d understand that part. She tried not to think about how she didn’t understand her behaviour either. They were aliens in her kitchen after all, strange no matter what names she called them. She was probably betraying all of humanity by closing the door on the suits. She didn’t care. Edna realized the tension she’d been feeling in herself all evening was now gone. She no longer believed the aliens would hurt her. She sighed, knowing they’d be leaving like all the come-from-aways, leaving her to live her days alone. Edna shook her head. As if you’d be going anywhere but the cemetery, she told herself. I’d never leave this place. It’s in me bones.

  Edna looked at the business card Mr. Formal had given her as she listened to a car start up and move away. It was plain white, with only a name and the Government of Canada symbol in the upper left hand corner. She left the card on the side table in the living room as she walked back towards the warmly lit kitchen.

  The aliens looked as if they hadn’t moved since she left. Frozen into positions around the table, it didn’t even feel like they were in the room. Edna made her feet louder as she walked in and settled back into her chair. “Without Jonno to play his fiddle, guess the government has to provide the entertainment too. Don’t ye worry. They were just looking for an escaped criminal.” Edna looked at Glasses. “I told them there were none of those here in Maberly.”

  Glasses smiled gently as the three of them seemed to unfold a little and relax. Auntie Simmons reached over and stroked Edna’s arm, leaving it warm. “Well, I think it’s time for dessert.” Edna went over to the fridge and brought out a pink and frothy angel food cake. “Now this is a Betty Crocker cake mix. I don’t know who she is, exactly . . .”

  After the meal was finished, plates scraped clean and mugs of tea polished off, Edna and the aliens sat contentedly back in the white vinyl chairs. The aliens had coaxed Edna into telling the ingredients for all the recipes as well as the best stores for value. They repeated the occasional word back to her in their funny deep squirrel voices. She showed them the packets of Jell-O and mini marshmallows and the cans of tuna in her pantry. The aliens chittered excitedly. She even broke down and told them the secret ingredients of her tuna casserole. French’s prepared mustard, two egg yolks and pesto sauce that Kate sent up from the city. “Why not? I know you won’t tell anyone in Bonavista.”

  The aliens left after helping her do the dishes. George and Auntie Simmons had washed and dried and put away under her direction while Glasses stood in her pantry and stared at the cans of tuna. As they all stood by the back door, George, Auntie Simmons and Glasses touched Edna’s heart, her hands, their own mouth and their middle. Then they each bowed and said a halting thank you. “Thank you for welcoming. Enjoyed. Not forget. Thank you.” George added, “Tuna. Very fine, very fine,” and winked.

  “You’re welcome,” Edna replied warmly. “You drop by my back door any time you’re hungry.” Edna looked at the aliens. “I guess you won’t be back in Maberly any time soon.”

  They looked back at her with quiet eyes. Edna touched her heart, pressed her hands together and then leaned over into Auntie Simmons and touched her gently on the mouth and on her stomach. Auntie took her hand for a moment and her orange eyes held Edna’s faded blue ones. The aliens went out the back door. Edna shut and locked the door behind them. She pushed aside the yellow curtain but couldn’t see out into the dark.

  Edna threw away the green and brown and grey food in the metal Tupperware left by the aliens. Some was still steaming hot and some refrigerator cold, but it still smelled odd and you never knew. Better safe than sorry. She stacked the containers beside the sink for morning, thoughtfully caressing each smooth finish.

  As she settled into bed, setting her alarm for 5:30 a.m. to cook for the Bonavista Ladies’ Social, Edna thought over her evening. I never thought aliens would be such back door folks. Just like everyday people. Jonno would have liked them. Glad those government folks are too stupid to know which door to use. She wondered where the aliens had come from, even though she hadn’t asked the whole night. It wasn’t any good to ask come-from-aways too many questions. No point in getting involved with people always on their way to somewhere else. But now it would be kind of nice to know which star they were from so she could remember them on clear nights.

  Edna took a long time to fall asleep. When she did sleep, she dreamed she and Glasses were dancing in the middle of the sky to Jonno’s fiddle playing. George was juggling codcakes and Auntie Simmons was knitting a huge peach blanket that swirled around her ankles but didn’t trip her up. She could hear Jonno’s laugh.

  The following month, the Chiladans, from a small planet in a minor solar system humans hadn’t yet identified, landed in New York City. Their graceful craft was unnoticed by all the very expensive equipment maintained for just such an event, and suddenly appeared hovering over Times Square. The Chiladans, well-skilled in diplomacy, immediately declared their peaceful intent and invited the Secretary General of the United Nations and the leaders of the G-7 to dinner aboard the ship as a sign of their good will towards Earth. After a shared meal, the humans could inspect the ship for weapons. After an intense forty-eight hours of crisis conferences, the leaders of Earth agreed.

  Each dignitary was flanked by two security guards as they made their way aboard the sleek grey ship. The aliens in the reception hall were a little surprised by the extra guests, and sent someone to check with the chef.

  Glasses shrugged. Edna had taught them to make plenty. He told the aide not to worry, and sent George for extra plates and utensils. The aliens ushered the leaders of Earth into a large and airy room filled with orange and red plants that appeared to be growing out of metal walls. The chairs and couches, in cool sandstone and clay colours, were low to the ground, and flanked by shelves filled with more brightly coloured and flowering plants. In the centre of the room, beside a large oval table, stood Glasses, the best Chilad chef of off-world cuisine, and Auntie Simmons, the dessert chef. Spread with a large orange and white gingham cloth, the table displayed a feast of potato salad, two kinds of Jell-O salad, pickles and white sliced bread. In the centre was a steaming vision of Edna’s tuna casserole.

  Originally published in On Spec Spring 1997 Vol 9 No 1 #28

  Fiona Heath is now a Unitarian Universalist minister who she speaks, writes and teaches about the intersection between scien
ce and spirit. Casserole Diplomacy was her first published story. She lives in Waterloo, Ontario with her partner and son.

  Jubilee

  Steven Mills

  I’m a Presbyterian Church minister, for what that’s worth. Not a lot these days. Not since the noises in the church basement.

  “Mice,” Mr. Berkowitz said, and bought some traps. He laid them in the corners, and near the back of the fridge in the mint-green kitchen. Mrs. Miller stepped on one, broke two arthritic toes in the snap, and, popping nitro pills like Pez candies, had to be rushed to the hospital.

  Mr. Berkowitz caught no mice, but the noises persisted. The Board of Managers agreed to have a work bee on the Saturday next, the twenty-fifth, to tear the paneling from the basement walls so they could expose those “wretched vermin” to the light of day. And smite them.

  That Sunday worship sported a typically low July attendance, about sixty-five parishioners and a handful of visitors. Unfortunately, my sermon on the Water-to-Wine story in John 2 was a little flat: I could hear the crinkling of candy wrappers begin at the four-minute mark. Usually I can hold the sweet-tooths off for nine or ten minutes, but with this muggy July heat I just didn’t have it in me.

  Right after the Prayers of Thanksgiving and Intercession, toward the end of the service, I paused and stared as bubbles thick as dirty motor oil simmered on the Presbyterian blue carpet. I cleared my throat and announced the final hymn, “Rejoice, O People,” number 299. In that moment the bubbles swirled together and a white lamb slurped up out of the floor. It shook its floppy ears, skipped down the aisle and sprang up onto the pew beside Mrs. Miller.

  Mrs. Donnally fainted into the aisle. People rose from their seats. “It’s a miracle!” Hands waved, palms to heaven. People stepped over Mrs. Donnally to get a better view. “Amen! Hallelujah!” Shouting drowned out the first chords of the hymn.

  The lamb blinked again, then morphed into a woolly behemoth of mucilaginous slime, howling and towering over Mrs. Miller.

  Someone in the choir said, “Holy shit!”

  It reached down, clamped a shaggy limb onto Mrs. Miller’s blue-tinted head, then lifted her right out of the pew, and shook her. Slime spattered the wall. The Board of Managers just had the sanctuary painted a delicate robin’s egg blue the month before.

  Parishioners scrambled to get away—tumbling over the backs of the pews, or scrabbling on all fours underneath the pews. Somebody snatched Mrs. Donnally from the path of the faithful rushing toward the doors.

  The sour-smelling fingers held Mrs. Miller under both sides of her jaw and behind her recently-coiffed head while she hung there, kicking. Stubborn, she dug her hands into the slimy wool and tried to pull herself free.

  Then the creature plopped Mrs. Miller onto her butt-worn pew and shrank back into a lamb. It leapt off the pew and darted up the aisle, melting into the carpet as it ran. Oily smutches rippled to the four corners of the sanctuary.

  Mrs. Miller scraped mucilage out of her hair with her hands.

  I thought I was dreaming. I just kept thinking, Mrs. Miller—good choice! Quite unbecoming of course, but she and I had had our battles, and had settled on a polite, seething truce for the past few years. But I dream about her often. Usually she does not fare well.

  So I figured this was just another one of my tabloid-style dreams. Slime Lamb Attacks Church Elder in House of God. Nothing unusual.

  But no, this actually happened.

  The sanctuary was empty now, except for Mrs. Miller and me.

  She raised her arm, like God in Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine chapel, although I don’t think creating was what she had in mind. She pointed at me. I was barely protected by the pulpit.

  “You!” she hissed. “This is your doing!”

  I’ve come to realize over the years that there are parishioners in every congregation who view the minister as responsible for whatever ills befall the family of God—poor attendance, tight budgets, fallen angel food cakes (“It was a mix, it should not have fallen, would not have fallen if you hadn’t let all that cold air in, Reverend.”). Mrs. Miller was one such bane.

  “Me?” I said.

  “Yes, you. I’ve known all along. The handiwork of the devil.”

  “You don’t even believe in the devil, Mrs. Miller. You told me so yourself.”

  She eased to her feet, back straighter than usual (a little bit of free slime-chiropractic work never hurt anyone, I thought), and stalked out of the sanctuary to meet the approaching wave of sirens.

  I sat down in the chair behind the pulpit.

  I’ve read that God exacts retribution: locusts, floods, plagues. And I admit, Mrs. Miller can indeed be trying. So maybe that’s what this was, godly retribution.

  Or maybe there is a devil. Ha. Maybe he’s looking for recruits—little spindly blue-haired ones.

  Well . . . maybe it was me. Maybe I did let my fear of her get the better of me. If I’d—

  Now just hold on a minute. We’re talking a lamb grew out of the church floor and turned into a slime creature. Yeah right, in my dreams.

  I shrugged to myself. Yikes. What if it were true. I could have toasted Mrs. M. right then and there. (Opportunity knocks, and if you don’t—)

  “Excuse me.” The RCMP officer was standing at the back of the sanctuary, hat in hand. “Can I talk to you?”

  “Yeah, sure,” I said.

  He came forward, extracting a notebook and pen after tucking his hat under his bulging arm. I notice biceps. Mine are kind of weenie. Too many years of books, not enough football. I regret that sometimes, the—

  “Can you tell me what you saw, Father.”

  “Just call me Dave, Officer,” I said. I told him about the lamb.

  He nodded, but he didn’t take any notes.

  I called Mrs. Miller on the phone the next day, even though it was my day off.

  “I had to use beer,” she said, “real beer to get that goo out of my hair. I actually had to go into the liquor store. My word, if anyone saw me. And stink, I’ll probably smell like a barnyard for the rest of my days.”

  And through the phone line I could taste her indignant acrimony. There was a distinctly Mrs. M. taste to the energy, a bitter, aspirin-like flavour. I could tell as clearly as if I were reading her mind that she believed quite sincerely that I had created that lamb to attack her.

  On Tuesday afternoons, I do my hospital visiting. One of my least favourite duties. That smell in hospitals—maybe it’s the cleaner they use, or maybe there’s anaesthetic floating around in the air. Bleah. Makes me nauseous. Even after twenty-nine years of ministry.

  I found Lisa Michaels sitting up in bed, flipping through an issue of Sports Illustrated. The one with the bathing suits.

  Lisa has been depressed ever since her breast cancer diagnosis. The surgeon removed a lump six months ago and gave her a clean bill, but then last week she found another lump. She and her surgeon began discussing the M word. And now here she was, contemplating surgery.

  “Hey, Lisa,” I said.

  “Hi, Dave.” She whipped the magazine across the room. It smacked against the wall and dropped into the garbage can. A perfect shot.

  I went and got a chair, but before I could get my butt into it, Lisa said, “Dave, will you say a prayer for me? I know this is all supposed to be God’s will, and such, but I just don’t want to go through with this. Will you say a prayer? For healing?”

  Jeepers. These are the put-your-money-where-your-mouth-is kind of prayers: let’s see what this God of yours can actually do, choirboy.

  Lisa is a very sincere Christian and a committed churchwoman. But it’s been my experience that God doesn’t seem to have a whole lot to do with cancer—neither giving it nor taking it away. Although a person’s good faith does seem to help keep their immune system strong. It’s not that I don’t believe in miracles. I do. Honest. I’ve just never been party to one. God never seems to want to use me to pull them off.

  “And
do a laying on of hands,” she added.

  I smiled (although it felt more like a grimace), placed my hand on her shoulder and closed my eyes to hunt around for some appropriate words. I felt her fingers curl around mine and she slid my hand down onto the side of her breast, and squeezed. I pretended not to notice. But there was the lump, irregular and hard, about half the size of a golf ball.

  Her terror wailed loud inside my head. I tasted dry wood ash—my mouth seemed filled with it and my body overflowed with a scorching mix of Lisa’s fear and grief and ember-hot rage.

  “Dear God,” I said, stunned. And then the lump was in my hand, a slippery mass of hard tissue.

  She gasped. I gasped. I jerked my hand away. The cancerous lump smacked on the floor and rolled under the next bed.

  Lisa ripped open her gown, groping at her heavy breast.