Quill, uncertain, nodded in lieu of doing anything else.
"You don't get it, do you?" He leaned forward and mentioned a Supreme Court Justice noted for his aggressive - and mean-spirited - decisions on Affirmative Action, a congressman who'd been indicted - but not convicted - twice for money laundering scams, and two names even Quill recognized as having been involved with illegal gambling activities.
"Senator," warned Ed.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. So. We're giving these guys the best, right? Sirloin. Baked potato with all the trimmings, lotta good whisky, the works. But we don't want this Cahill broadie to give them the works, you catch my meaning?"
"Yes," said Quill. "But I'm not sure what I can do about it."
"She wouldn't do a thing about Tutti, either, AI," Claire complained.
"Your gramma's still coming? Shit!" Santini sat back with a shake of his head. "That's not till tomorrow, right? So we worry about it tomorrow. Hey!" He snapped his fingers. "That's from some book, right? Now, Quill. What are you going to do about Cahill? I figure it's your problem, see what I mean? She's a guest here, got that? And you're in charge of the guests."
"Could Claire take her to the shower at the Marriott Thursday night?"
"A - al!" said Claire. "It's my very closest friends at this shower!"
"It could work," said Ed. "Yes, Senator, it could work. You could give her an exclusive, Claire, couldn't you? Your father's notor - I mean well-known for avoiding interviews with the press. You could give her some safe inside dope, like where you and the senator will make your home, the place you're going to buy in Georgetown. Those sorts of things."
"Part of the political life, baby," Santini offered.
"All right. But I'm going to want something very, very nice to make up for this, AI. I'm warning you."
"S'all right. You get your nice little butt in gear, dear. Catch Cahill before she starts sniffing around about the party and nail her down. Quill, dolly, good work. You ever think about getting into the game, you let me know."
"Game?" asked Quill.
"Politics, baby. Politics. It's the only game there is."
"And that was it?" Meg exclaimed, much later, when they were sitting in Quill's room discussing her shortened lunch. "Myles didn't say, 'Let's keep in touch,' or better yet, 'You'll always have a special place in my heart'? 'It's awkward'? 'You're beautiful'? And 'She has presence'? That was it?! And you went straight from that to loathsome AI?"
"Well, sure there was the keep-in-touch speech, and the never-forget-you speech. But I think, Meg, he was relieved. I think I'm too complicated, or too independent. Or too - I don't know."
"You poor thing," Meg said with deep affection. "How do you feel?"
"Chagrined."
"Because of all the rehearsing," Meg said shrewdly. "You should know by now, Quillie, never rehearse. Other than chagrined, how do you feel?"
Quill swirled the last of her wine in her glass. "I think my heart's broken."
Meg shook her head, jumped off the sofa, and marched to the small kitchenette where they sometimes prepared meals. She didn't have a kitchen in her rooms, which were one floor down from Quill's. The last thing Meg wanted to see at night, she'd told Quill and Doreen, was a stove or a refrigerator.
"No paper towels?"
Quill wiped her cheek with her hand. "Cloth ones."
"Here." Meg tossed her a dishtowel. "Are you sorry you broke it off with him?"
"He broke it off with me!"
"Do you want to make up?"
Quill shook her head.
Meg sat down next to her and announced, "This is absolutely the last pat of the day," and rubbed her back.
Quill cried, Meg patted her back, and then the room was quiet. They sat on the cream sofa in front of her French doors, feet propped on the oak chest Quill used as a coffee table. Quill drank another glass of the cabernet. Outside the French doors, the snow knocked against the window like a soft white cat trying to get in.
Quill's easel stood in the comer, half-hidden by the tea-stained drapes. A half-finished charcoal sketch - Doreen, laughing with a cup of coffee in one hand. Quill looked at it and felt the familiar clench of muscles in her right hand.
"Meg. Remember that taxi driver?" she said suddenly.
"The one that picked us up at the train station ten years ago? The day we arrived in New York? Me off to Paris, to learn to cook, you off to paint great things?" She laughed. " 'The great thing about dis job, goils? Ya never know where it's gonna take ya.' " She smiled. "And he took us for a ride, all right. That was the wildest taxi ride I've ever been on before or since. To this day, I don't know why he didn't get a ticket."
Quill sat bolt upright. "Traffic court!"
"He didn't take us to traffic court. He took us to that cool little apartment in SoHo. Actually, it wasn't all that little..."
"I have to be in traffic court tomorrow morning. Nine o'clock. And you have to come with me."
"Why do I have to come with you?" Meg demanded indignantly. "I'm not the one who got a speeding ticket."
"I didn't get a ticket. Dave Kiddermeister stopped me and told me I was going a little fast past the school. But he didn't give me a ticket."
"How much over the limit were you?"
"I don't know. He didn't write me a ticket," Quill said patiently. "It's some screwup. Howie Murchison's going to represent me."
"Howie? Over a speeding ticket you didn't get?"
"Well, there's this thing called a bench warrant or whatever."
"Quill." Meg's voice was ominous. "You know exactly what a bench warrant is. You used to get them all the time."
"I swear to God, Meg. I've reformed. No speeding. No unpaid parking tickets, Honest."
"If they pulled your driving record from New York City, you could be in big trouble."
"It's been years," said Quill, "and if I have to tell you one more time that I didn't get a ticket, I'm going to scream. I talked with Howie on the phone today and he said just to be safe I should bring a witness."
"A witness to what?!"
"My general honesty, I guess. I mean, what if Dave says he gave me a ticket? He won't. Or he shouldn't. It'll take two minutes, Meg."
"Not necessarily," Meg said darkly. "And if they want me to witness what kind of driver you are, you're in big, big trouble. And anyway, what can I say? That I've never witnessed you getting a ticket?! That's bull. I've seen you get parking tickets, speeding tickets, every kind of ticket."
"Howie just said to bring you so you can testify as to my probity."
Meg shrieked, "I'm your sister. They aren't going to believe a word I say."
"Well, you have to come anyhow."
"Well. Okay. Since you've got a broken heart. But you better get over this broken heart fast." She grinned suddenly. "Howie's divorced. And I think he's pretty neat."
"The last thing I want is to jump into any kind of relationship with anybody. I'm going to be an aunt. A professional aunt."
"A professional aunt?"
"Yep. You're going to marry Andy Bishop sometime next year and have zillions of children, and I'll sit and rock them to sleep and look melancholy, and everyone will wonder about my tragic past." She started to hum a version of "Melancholy Baby" that was so repellent Meg threw a pillow at her and stomped off to bed.
Quill slept and dreamed of empty canvases, stacked in abandoned warehouses.
-4-
Meg threw back her head and caroled, "Top of the world, Ma!" Then conversationally, `You're going to get sent up the river. To the big house. Yep, you're looking at hard time."
"Oh, shut up." Quill twitched the modestly tied scarf at her throat. She wasn't sure about the scarf; her hair was red and the scarf was a brilliant gold and teal. She felt tired, after yesterday's confrontation with Myles. She felt conspicuous. She didn't know if her anxiety was over the way she looked or the fact that she was in the Tompkins County Courthouse waiting to be arraigned for a nonexistent traffic ticket. She'd never actually
been in the Tompkins County Courtroom before. She wasn't surprised at how intimidating high ceilings, butternut paneling, and the musty smell ordinarily common to attic closets could be. "Other voices, other rooms," she said obscurely. Then, "It's only a traffic ticket. And it's my first traffic ticket... "
Meg, startled out of her Cagney imitation, went "Phuut!" which in turn startled Howie Murchison, who'd been sitting quietly next to them.
"In Tompkins County,' Quill amended. "And that means it's my first for seven years at least. And they take them off your what-do-you-call-it after three years anyway."
"Your MV104," Howie said with a faintly surprised look. "You've had priors, Quill? In some cases the court can pull your records all the way to the beginning. They don't dump old information. It just doesn't relate to most of the within-eighteen-months laws, so it isn't listed on current requests. You didn't tell me you had priors."
"She didn't, huh," said Meg. Her gray eyes, clear and limpid, met Howie's wary gaze head-on.
Quill pulled at the scarf around her throat again. "This darn thing is stifling me."
"I must say that suit and little bow don't become you," Howie said thoughtfully. "No offense, Quill,
but I'm used to seeing you more - how should I put it? - loosely dressed."
"Loosely?" Quill demanded, slightly affronted.
"Casually," Meg supplied. "You mean casually dressed, Howie."
"You said to dress discreetly, Howie." Quill stuck her thumbs in the waistband of her tailored wool skirt and jerked at the material. "I don't understand why the heck this thing is so constricting. I haven't gained any weight since the last time I wore this."
"You wore that suit to interview for the graphics job at Eastman Kodak company," said Meg. "Which means you last wore that suit when you were nineteen. Which makes it a B.T. suit.Ha! That's why you're wearing it. For luck."
"B.T.?" said Howie.
Quill jerked the skirt over her knees and glared a warning at Meg.
"B.T.?" Howie repeated. "What's B.T.?"
"You haven't gained weight," Meg added. "It's just that a person sort of settles around the middles, Quill, after fifteen years. Or is it seventeen?" She counted on her fingers, her lips moving. `Nope, fifteen. You're thirty-four."
"Before Taxes?" Howie said, and sighed. "I don't get it. But then, I never get half of what you girls are talking about anyway."
"Girls?" asked Meg, eyebrows raised.
Quill wriggled her shoulders against the high-backed seat and slid down so that she couldn't see over the top of the bench in front of her. "Howie, is this going to be over soon? I've got so much stuff to do back at the Inn that I haven't even opened my mail for a week. Which is why I'm here in the first place."
He peered at her over his wire-rimmed glasses. In his late forties, Howie, had settled into a comfortable, slightly paunchy middle age that Quill found very appealing. His well-cut Harris tweed sports coat was worn at the cuffs, the knot of his striped tie was skewed to leave his shirt collar loose, and his black wing tips had been resoled at least twice, not, Quill knew, because he couldn't afford another pair, but because he didn't want to break in new shoes. Like Myles (now on his way to London, with that perfect-looking woman!), Howie had his own kind of stubborn integrity. "hard to say. I haven't been up before Justice Bristol yet. As you know, I'm accustomed to being on the other side of the bench."
"Well, I voted for you, Howie," said Meg, with an emphasis that seemed to imply Quill hadn't.
"Of course you did. So did John. So did Doreen and Axminster. So did Marge Schmidt. Why are you acting like I didn't vote for Howie?"
"You're the one that's acting as though I didn't vote for Howie."
"I am NOT. Howie was a great town justice. And he's Hemlock Falls' best lawyer."
"I'm Hemlock Falls' only lawyer," Howie pointed out dryly.
"Whatever." Meg's cheeks were still pink from the cold outside; she rubbed them vigorously and made them even pinker. "The thing is, Howie, with everyone so made at the President and the governor, all the incumbents in all the elections in New York State got kicked out six weeks ago. Myles isn't sheriff anymore. You're not town justice anymore. And it's not your fault. It's not Myles's fault. It's nobody's fault. It's democracy. It's the voice of the people. Just read the newspapers. Of course," Meg continued sunnily, "the other fact is that you sentenced the mayor and the Reverend Mr. Shuttleworth and practically the whole male side of the Chamber of Commerce to three months of community service for public rowdiness. That may have had some... "
Quill, was exasperated, poked Meg into silence. Hemlock Falls tended to lag behind fashionable trends, but eventually caught up to such contemporary issues as male emancipation. S. O. A. P's first meeting, in the back room of the Croh Bar on Main Street, had ended in a public display which violated town ordinance 2.654 (prohibiting total nudity and drunkenness in public) and 4.726 (vandalism). Outraged citizens unsympathetic to the Men's Movement (Adela Henry and the members of H. O. W. mostly) had demanded their pound of flesh. Howie had reluctantly bowed to the legal demands of the aggressive plaintiff's attorney Mrs. Henry imported from Syracuse just for the occasion, and sentenced S. O. A. P. members to several weekends of highway cleanup. Reprisals had been effected at the polls in November.
Meg tapped her fingers against the wooden bench and ruffled her short dark hair. "Is this Bristol ever going to show up? You said it'd take a few minutes. It's been more like an hour. We're booked for the holidays and the rest of the McIntosh family is coming in this afternoon and I've got to get back." She looked at her watch, scowled, and rose to her feet. "As a matter of fact, I should be at the Aga right now."
"You can't leave. You're my witness." Quill shoved her back into her seat.
"Quill, it's just a lousy ticket. I wasn't even there. You just want me here as a character witness, and Howie doesn't even think I need to be here, do you, Howie?"
"I'd like it. Just as a backup."
"And besides, you always get tickets. There's not a thing I can do about it. There's never been anything I could do about it." Meg began to edge her way out.
Howie stirred uneasily. "Maybe you ought to hang on a little while longer, Meg. This won't take long. It's a matter of routine. We'll plead Quill guilty, have her throw herself on the mercy of the court to get the fine down, and that will be the end of it."
"I didn't get a ticket," Quill said. "I told you. It's a frame. Meg? Where are you going?"
Meg paused at the end of the row. "Honestly, Quill, I'm busy. Mrs. Whosis is coming in this afternoon to begin planning the food for the reception and I told her I'd have some samples."
"Mrs. McIntosh," said Quill. "It's not Mrs. Whosis, it's Mrs. McIntosh. For the Santini wedding," she explained to Howie. "He's already here."
Howie nodded. "I've heard."
"Have you met him?"
"Mm-hmmm."
Meg jiggled impatiently. "right. I'm suggesting pork tenderloin in persimmon sauce. If Santini wants pasta, I'll black his little eye."
Quill, still feeling pitiful, gave her a woebegone look. Meg edged back along the bench and hugged her.
"You'll be fine. Howie, tell her she'll be fine."
"As long as there aren't any surprises, yes, Quill, you should be fine. You're sure about no priors?"
Quill made a face in the direction of the judge's bench. She had a sudden, passionate regret that Myles was out of her life. Then, just as passionately, she decided she could save herself.
"So, there." Meg avoided her sister's eye, edged her way along the wall to the aisle, waved, and jogged toward the back doors, looking both innocent and ingenuous in her wool leggings, scarlet knitted cap, and droopy scarf.
Quill sat back, unknotted the silk scarf at her neck, and retied it.
The courtroom was as cavernous as a church, and as sparsely populated. The jury box and the judge's bench were segregated from the spectator pews by low spindled railings. The prosecutor's desk, Howie had told her, wa
s typically to the left in front of the raised judge's dais, the defense to the right. The desks resembled library tables; long, broad, and made of a hardwood stained an ugly coffee color. The whole arrangement was stark, putting Quill in mind of some strict and unforgiving religious sect.
Pictures of the incumbent President and the governor of the state of New York flanked an American flag on the front wall. Quill wondered where pictures of the new governor would come from in January when the new governor took office and what would happen to the old ones. Were former gubernatorial pictures destroyed thoroughly and with precision, like worn-out money sent back to the mint? Or did cartons and cartons of them get returned to the loser, who was probably in a severely depressed state to begin with and shouldn't have to deal with fading portraits of a vanished career? Quill had liked this governor, who'd forgone a presidential campaign because he didn't want a greedy, self-aggrandizing media poking around his family any more than they had already. As far as Quill was concerned, at least at this specific minute, a person's private history should remain private history.
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