A Carol for a Corpse

by Claudia Bishop

  Quill let the silence drag on. Then she said, “We keep birch logs in the baskets by the fireplaces. If you’d like to get a fire going, I’ll send someone up to get it started.”

  Lydia covered her eyes with one hand and sighed deeply.

  “I’ll let you freshen up a bit, shall I? And ring downstairs if you’d like anything.” Quill straightened the vase of fresh roses Doreen had placed on the coffee table and looked around the room once more to make sure that everything was in place.

  “Quill?” Lydia said.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m sorry.” Her voice was dry. “I used to be nice. It’s just . . . you don’t know what it’s like.”

  Quill couldn’t find anything to say to this. She headed out the door.

  Dina sat in her accustomed place behind the waist-high reception desk, absorbed in a textbook. She looked up as Quill came down the stairs. “There you are.”

  “Here I am,” Quill agreed. “Here are the two of us, as a matter of fact. Where is everybody else?”

  Dina marked her place in the text with a yellow sticky note and closed it. “Mr. Fred Sims checked in just before Mr. and Mrs. Kingsfield got here and just after the Good Taste crew checked in. Quill?”

  “I’m right here.”

  “The director is the single most handsome guy I have ever seen in this life. He is hot.”

  “Okay,” Quill said agreeably. “Has he ousted Davy Kiddermeister in your affections?”

  “I am not kidding. And no one ever said Davy was hot. I mean, he’s hot, but not in a good-looking way.”

  “Dina!”

  “Anyway, this Fred Sims is not hot. Not by a long shot. So, where was I?”

  “Planet Dina?” Quill suggested.

  “Mr. Kingsfield bombed on out of here to check out the cross-country skiing. The production crew checked in before them because the Kingsfields sent them on by train. This was because of all the equipment. They hauled all this stuff in just after you went into the Chamber meeting.”

  “I suppose I should go and welcome them.” Quill sat down on the leather couch. Mike kept the fireplaces in the public rooms alight in the wintertime, and she frowned into the flames.

  “You could, I suppose,” Dina said cautiously, “but they were fussing about getting the shoot ready so they might be pretty busy. On the other hand, you have to see this guy Ajit to believe it.”

  “The shoot,” Quill said. “I’d forgotten about the shoot.”

  “You know, the Good Taste cable show. When you had the staff meeting about all the changes that were going to happen, you said we were leasing out the Inn as a set for L’Aperitif’s new TV series. Well, you said it might happen if you and Meg and Kingsfield Enterprises came to an agreement. And the crew’s fussing around trying to find a place to set up.”

  “Right.” Quill sighed. “I guess I shoved all that to the back of my mind. I suppose that’s why Lydia thought she could complain about . . . Dina? Do you think our Christmas decorations are hokey?”

  “Hokey?”

  “Outdated, passé, and corny? You don’t think, for example, that we should throw out all the pine trees and my little decorated houses and animals and put up single strands of pure white light?”

  “There’s single strands of pure white light all around Peterson’s used car lot,” Dina said. “So you can see all the used cars if you decide to buy one at night, I guess. And in operating rooms, so you can see the guts of people that are getting operated on. But if you ask me, and,” she said, pushing her glasses up her nose, “you just did, I think our Christmas decorations are fabulous.”

  “So do I.” Quill jumped to her feet. “So I’ll go find the crew and tell them how glad I am that Loathsome Lydia has decided to lease the Inn for her show. And that if they touch one of my handmade ornaments, they’ll die! Where are they, by the way?” She froze, as a sudden, horrible thought stuck her. “Not in Meg’s kitchen?”

  “Good Taste is a cooking show. So yeah, they’re in the kitchen.”

  “Yikes.” Quill grabbed her hair and tugged at it. “Why didn’t you say something? How long have they been in there? Has Meg thrown anyone out?”

  “I haven’t heard any explosions,” Dina said. “Yet. Don’t look so worried.”

  “I’m not worried.” Quill wondered why it was so annoying to have someone tell you that you looked worried, especially when you were.

  She forced herself to walk calmly through the dining room and not run madly off in all directions. Maybe Meg wasn’t smacking innocent heads with her eight-inch sauté pan. Maybe pigs could fly.

  She even paused and smiled at the few remaining diners. Four of the thirty tables were filled with late lunchers lingering over coffee, and in the case of one elderly couple, a couple of brandies. She checked, as a good, responsible innkeeper should, the readiness of the dining room to receive more guests, just in case business picked up. The unoccupied tables had been cleared, then reset with clean cutlery, glasses, and linens. And with the last of the Christmas decorations up the day before, she had to admit the room looked wonderful. She rotated the color of the tablecloths according to the time of year—and, she admitted to herself, her own particular mood. This Christmas, she’d decided on a heavy cream, with an underskirt of taffeta striped in green. Each centerpiece featured sprays of holly in a low crystal lotus bowl. Three slender green tapers were nestled in the middle. The tree in the corner adjacent to the wine cabinet filled the room with the welcome scent of pine. Outside the long windows facing the gorge, a feathery snow was falling. Quill looked at the room with an objective eye and thought: Lydia Kingsfield is nuts. The room is warm and happy. She’s an idiot. And I didn’t even like her in high school.

  A crash and a shriek from beyond the double doors to the kitchen jerked her attention to the present. The Good Taste crew had found Meg. Or perhaps it was the other way round. Quill stiffened her spine, walked into the kitchen, and found Meg collapsed in the arms of the most gorgeous male Quill had even seen, both of them bent over with laughter.

  “Hey, Meg.”

  “Hey to you, too.” Meg straightened up, gave the gorgeous male a kiss on the cheek, and bushed herself off. “Have you met Ajit? Ajit, this is my sister, Quill.”

  Quill extended her hand. “Welcome to the Inn at Hemlock Falls.”

  “I’m Ajit Hadad.” He was tall and superbly conditioned, and he moved like a dancer. He wore his black hair a little long, and it sprang back from his classic features like birds’ wings. Dina was right. He was gorgeous. Too gorgeous to paint, as a matter of fact. Quill preferred more irony in her work. “I’m Lydia’s director. And it’s an honor to meet you, Ms. Quilliam. I’m a devoted admirer of your work, especially your acrylics. As for what you’ve done with this wonderful old place.” He gestured widely. “It’s magnificent!”

  Quill blushed and lapsed into confusion.

  “She doesn’t know what to say when people talk about her painting,” Meg said kindly. “Or when she gets compliments about the Inn. But she’s glad you like it. Bernie and Benny like it, too, Quill. It was the first thing they asked about when they came into my kitchen.”

  A short man in his midthirties—who reminded Quill of the ’60s movie star Albert Finney—a very tired Albert Finney—gave Quill a beaming smile. “I’m Benny Pitt. Set design. And I have to tell you I just love what you’ve done with the place, too. It’s classic Victoriana. Never goes out of style. And this is my partner in life, Bernie Armisted.”

  “Fabulous,” the man next to Benny agreed. “I’m Bernie Armisted who would be Bernie Pitt, if there were any justice in the state of New York, which there is not. Costumes. We’re the two Bs. You can tell us apart because I’m the better-looking one.” He was slim, rangy, with tousled dark hair and day-old stubble on his chin.

  “Actually,” Quill said, “You’re both . . . um . . . ”

  “Gorgeous,” Meg said cheerfully. “Loathsome Lydia hasn’t changed a bit. She still doesn’t like keep
ing company with plain old ordinary human beings. Everything around her has to be beautiful. The diva with the cheekbones and the cornrow braids over there is LaToya Franklin.”

  “She looks like Naomi Campbell, doesn’t she?” Benny said. “Only much better-natured, thank God.”

  “Just call me the Assistant,” LaToya said with a soft smile. She wasn’t as tall as the supermodel, but she had the same kind of slim, imperial elegance. “I’m Ajit’s assistant. And Lydia’s assistant. Not to mention the Bs and Zeke, too. The assistant qua assistant, that’s me.”

  “Oh!” Quill said, remembering. “You were on Zeke’s television show last year.”

  “That’s right. I won the big corporate job over all those fierce competitors.”

  “This job?” Quill asked, then immediately regretted the surprised emphasis on the adjective. Assistant on a cable TV show didn’t seem like a big corporate job. Perhaps things had changed since she’d moved away from New York. To this backwater, as Lydia called it. “Backwater my foot!” Quill said aloud, to general bewilderment.

  “Of course not this job,” Bernie said, as though explaining things to a small child. “You notice Zeke never announces for how long the winners keep that big, fat paycheck and the corner office? You worked there for how long, sweetie? A month? Longer than any one of the others. She had to leave to make room for the next one. Zeke doesn’t talk about that on TV.”

  LaToya spread her hands in a “that’s life” gesture. “And she was good at what she did there,” Benny went on with wry indignation. “She’s good at everything she does. We’re lucky to have her here.”

  LaToya rolled her eyes. “And to think how my mamma sacrificed to get me that Harvard MBA. But I love you both, darlings. I’d love you, too, Ajit, if you weren’t better looking than I am. And the job’s not so bad, Quill. At least I’m in television. I’ve got to start somewhere.”

  Meg clapped her hands together, “And these, as I started to tell you guys before my sister waltzed in and interrupted me, are the members of my crew.”

  Quill sat in her accustomed chair by the fireplace, and, with some bemusement at the dramatic change in her sister’s attitude, watched Meg introduce the kitchen staff. The reason for her sister’s good humor became clearer after the introductions were over, and everyone had found a place to lean, stand, or sit.

  “Ajit,” Meg announced, “is going to remodel my kitchen. For free!”

  Quill opened her mouth and closed it again. Then she bent over and looked at the color of her sister’s socks, that excellent barometer of her sister’s moods. The socks were sort of a blushy pink. Like a newborn. A color receptive to new experiences. Then she said, “You don’t mind changing the kitchen?”

  “Mind? You’ve got to be kidding me. This kitchen’s driving me crazy.”

  “But, Meg, you did the layout yourself when we bought the Inn. I thought you loved the kitchen!”

  “So I did. More than ten years ago. Up until then, I’d cooked in other people’s kitchens. It’s different when you’re in charge. For example, the stove”—she pointed at the ten-burner Aga by the kitchen doors—“should be right where the prep table is.”

  “We’ve got a dual-fuel Garland on a truck headed this way even as we speak,” Benny said. “And we’re going to surround it with two prep sinks and acres of countertop. Then we’ll be able to rip out the wall ovens between those windows and put in a bread hearth.”

  “A bread hearth!” Meg said. She ran her hands through her short dark hair, making it stand up like a porcupine’s quills. “I always wanted a bread hearth.”

  “This is the first I’ve heard of it,” Quill said.

  “I didn’t want to upset you when I knew we couldn’t afford it,” Meg said with a noble air. “Do you have any idea how that’s going to affect the baking? There’ll be a line down Route 15, begging for the peasant breads.”

  “And with the stove in the middle of the kitchen, we’ll have room for the elves,” Benny said. “The bread hearth’s going to give us a perfect backdrop.”

  Quill closed her eyes and opened them again. “The elves?”

  “Just for the holiday show, sweetie,” Bernie said. “We don’t like to encourage Herself to take things too seriously.”

  “Herself?”

  “Pssht!” Benny poked Bernie in the ribs. “They were best friends in high school,” he hissed.

  “No, we weren’t,” Meg said. “Lydia was a cheerleader. Lydia was cool. We hated Lydia’s guts.”

  “Meg!” Quill, exasperated, began to rock furiously back and forth.

  “Okay. We didn’t hate her guts,” Meg said. “We didn’t even know her all that well. It’s now that I hate her guts.”

  “She’s rich, she’s gorgeous, she’s the editor of one of the most successful magazines in America, and she’s in love with her successful husband,” LaToya murmured. “What’s not to hate?”

  “It’s not that,” Meg said sunnily. “If somebody’s going to be rich, gorgeous, and successful and it’s not you, why not somebody you know and like? Nope. I hate Lydia’s guts because she’s a snob. She’s got lousy taste. And she’s a bully. Other than that I can’t think of a thing wrong with her.”

  “She’s been in your kitchen recently.” Quill guessed.

  “She was in this very kitchen before she even got checked in,” Meg said in an agreeable tone. “And I escorted her right out of this kitchen this morning.” She gave her eight-inch sauté pan an affectionate pat.

  “Let me guess. She said the kitchen design was so over, she couldn’t believe it.”

  “She did,” Meg agreed cordially.

  “But you’re totally fine with Benny and Bernie remodeling it?”

  “They love it the way it is right now,” Meg said earnestly. “But they did think it’d be more efficient if we moved things around. And once we got talking about how much ground I cover during the day, I told them we needed a change.”

  Benny gave Quill a tremendous wink. Quill decided the two of them needed to sit down for a nice long talk. Anyone that could handle her volatile sister in the course of a single morning had a magic Quill wanted to borrow.

  “So Meggie ran into the Wicked Witch of the gourmet trade a little sooner than expected,” Benny said. “Which makes it easier on us, because Meg knows what she’s dealing with right off the bat and we don’t have to make like little hypocrites and pretend we like the . . . witch.”

  Quill found herself feeling sorry for Lydia. “And the elves?” she said, hoping the change in topic would give Lydia’s reputation a rest.

  “The elves,” Ajit said. “Yes. We were hoping that you could give us a hand with that, Quill.”

  “You were?”

  “Lydia is going to have help in the kitchen when she cooks, of course. This is a professional cooking show, and we’ll have a complement of sous-chefs and dishwashers on the show on a regular basis. Bernie’s going to see to it that the actors are well choreographed. But we haven’t had time to cast it, you see. And we want to get as much background work done here as possible. So we’re short one elf.”

  “One elf,” Quill said. “But he or she won’t be the same person in subsequent shows.”

  “Not to worry.” Benny swept to the prep table. With one hand, he held aloft a red jerkin with a green pointed collar and a black belt. With the other, he held up an elaborate belled hat with a point that came low over the nose. “Ta-dah! And the makeup’s not to be believed, clown white with rouged cheeks and cute little Rudolph noses.”

  Quill decided, suddenly, that she needed a nap. Things were very confusing. “I suppose,” she said after a moment, “I could call the high school and see if the cheerleading squad is available.”

  “Phuut!” Meg said. “We’ve got real kitchen assistants right here. Let’s make one of them the elf.”

  Quill looked at the five members of the kitchen staff that had been on the lunch rota when Ajit and company had descended on the kitchen. She raised her ey
ebrows interrogatively. “What do you all think about that?”

  “It’d be a hoot,” Elizabeth Chou said. “I’m a sous-chef, by the way, Ajit. So if Lydia needs anything sautéed, I’m your woman.”

  “And I can cut up a chicken in ten seconds flat,” Mikhail Sulaiman said eagerly. “But only if the elf’s nonsectarian.”

  Peter Hairston, their sommelier, pulled a face, rolled his eyes, and responded reluctantly. “Sure. Fine. I’m in, if you can’t find anyone else.”

  “I’d be privileged,” Kathleen Kiddermeister said. Her face glowed. Her job as head of the waitstaff didn’t offer many opportunities like this one. “Wait till my kids hear about this!”

  “And how about our pot girl?” Bernie said brightly.

  “What about you, Melissa?” Quill said kindly. “You haven’t been with us very long, but I think you’d enjoy it.”

  “I don’t know,” Melissa said. “I don’t think I should.”

  “It’ll be fun,” Elizabeth said, “and goodness knows we can all use a little of that.”

  “It isn’t a job requirement, Melissa,” Quill said, “So please don’t feel you have to.”

  “We’d be all made-up?” Melissa said. “And dressed in those cute costumes?” Timidly, she reached forward and gave the belled hat a little shake. The chimes rang cheerfully through the kitchen.

  Ajit clapped his hands. “Good. I choose Melissa. And that has to be a record time for recruiting an elf. Okay, everyone, we’ve got a ton of work to get through in the next four days. I want to begin to lay tape tomorrow, so let’s not waste any time.”

  “An excellent policy,” Albert McWhirter said as he came through the doors from the dining room. “Miss Quilliam? It’s past one o’clock. You are late for our meeting.”

  Quill leaped to her feet. “Mr. McWhirter, so it is. I’m so sorry.”

  “Now, elves,” Quill heard Benny say as she followed McWhirter back into the dining room, “I want everyone to line up to get measured tout de suite. Elizabeth? Peter? And Melissa. Now, where did Melissa get to?”

  CHAPTER 5