FRITZ

People joked that I had married both the Vondorfman brothers. And in many ways, I had. Taciturn Earl, the man I walked down the aisle with and dear Fritz, his brother, bubbling with a joy of life that was infectious. Earl, who could look me straight in the eye and Fritz who towered above us both. Earl, the love of my life and Fritz who was just down the hall, in his boyhood room, even on our wedding night.

It had been a good spring, with plenty of leeks, asparagus and spinach to sell in the neighboring towns. Most of the time, Earl was in charge of the cows and Fritz helped me tend to the crops. We’d spend hours together hunched over, laughing, while pulling out bits of gossip from one another as we pulled the weeds from the dirt.

Tonight was going to be special. I was hosting a Tupperware party. The first in our area.

Eva Taft was the dealer, but I was the Hostess, as Eva’s font room wasn’t big enough to host a flea circus. So, Fritz and I had read up on our obligations, cleaned and mopped the parlor and felt well prepared for what was to come. I would be damned if those newfangled “suburban” women would outdo us.

The party was to begin at six, so I gave Earl a quarter and sent him off to the movies.

Eva arrived at 5:30 to set up her wares. Fritz, dressed in his finest Sunday go to meeting outfit, took immediate charge and helped her set up her mountains of plastic into a veritable wonderland of form and function! And later on, he helped organize the games and got everyone involved as only Fritz could. Pauline claimed she had never laughed so hard in her life. She ended up buying at over 20 pieces! I bought eleven and Fritz bought six, though for the life of me, I could never figure out what he was going to do with them.

All of the 11 women that night, including my mother, accepted the fact that Fritz would be the only man there. It never occurred to any of us that he wouldn’t be there. It just seemed as natural as hay in the loft. I’m not so naïve to think that there wasn’t some talk in town about Fritz, but never to his face as you would need a stepladder to talk to his face. And never around one of his friends, which meant if you had anything bad to say about Fritz, you would have been talking to yourself.

It’s been almost 40 years since that first Tupperware party. 40 years of the sometimes maddeningly repetitious life on a farm. 40 years of plowing, planting and eventually putting those two wonderful men into the ground. But after all those years I can still see the smile on Fritz’s face, as he gathered his plastic bounty and friends about him and bid us all goodnight.