A Touch of the Grape

by Claudia Bishop

  "Then what?"

  "Then the money runs out. If something doesn't happen this summer. But that's still not going to solve the long-term problem. You know what the solution there is, don't you?"

  "I am not going to sell. You heard that. I'm not going to sell."

  "You're kidding, right?" Meg's eyes, gray, narrowed, and suspicious, stared at Quill over a pile of petit choux pastry. "More layoffs?"

  Quill, delaying the really bad news, made a stab at humor. "It's a good thing I took that seminar in 'Termination.' The first rule—did I tell you?—is empathize. Tell the employee how much she or he has contributed to the job."

  "How the heck are we going to operate this place with no people?"

  "We'll just have to handle as much as we can by ourselves."

  "Quill, I can't handle three meals a day by myself. I just can't." She ran her hands through her short, dark hair. She was half a head shorter than Quill, brunette, where Quill was red-haired, gray-eyed to Quill's hazel. Quill wondered sometimes if they were truly blood relations, or if she'd been adopted as a child.

  "QUILL!"

  Quill jerked to attention.

  "You're doing it again."

  "Doing what?"

  "Displacing. You always go vague and think about other stuff when the stress level gets too high. It's called displacement. You must have heard of it, you do it all the time. Anyhow, you shouldn't be displacing over layoffs. We've had to lay off people temporarily before. It's worse, whatever's bugging you. So spit it out. Forget the termination formulas, which always sounded too grisly anyhow. What is it?"

  "John's taken a job on Long Island."

  "John quit?"

  "He didn't quit, exactly. He said he started looking for another job about a month ago, when he realized that we wouldn't be able to afford him after the first of July. Actually, we haven't been able to afford him since Christmas. He said."

  "And he's going to work where?"

  "For a bank. The headquarters are on Long Island. So he's going to move."

  Meg punched the pastry with two vicious jabs of her knuckles. I may displace, or whatever the correct verb would be, Quill thought. At least I don't punch defenseless pastry. "I don't believe it."

  Suddenly, Quill was too tired to respond to this with other than a shake of her head. Her feet hurt. She needed a nap. She'd walked for hours in the land surrounding the Gorge, looking for the stupid dog, and all she had to show for it was a blister on her left heel. She'd come back to the Inn just before the dinner hour, hungry and depressed. A quick check of the dining room had depressed her even further. The Crafty Ladies were cheerful and noisy over drinks which seemed to be made of rum and various kinds of juice at table seven; otherwise the place was empty. She'd walked into the kitchen to find Meg, alone, working on desserts, made herself a cup of latte, then sat at the high counter surrounding the center island to give her the news about the current lack of money. The other news—the sell-the-Inn-because-it-will-never-make-it news—could wait for another time.

  Meg stuffed the warm choux into a pastry bag, then reached for the first in the pile of aluminum cookie sheets stacked to the right of her worktable. She grabbed the top one, set it aside with a clatter, grabbed a second, cursed, and slammed the sheet onto the marble pastry board with an exasperated "Tcha!"

  "What do you mean, 'tcha'?"

  "I mean 'goddammit,' that's what I mean. I said 'tcha' instead. I'm too polite to say 'goddammit' when you're under all this stress. And the reason I went 'tcha' is that the cookie sheet hasn't been prepped. You know, buttered and floured. I keep forgetting we laid off Bjarne." She bent over and searched the shelves under the counter, muttering. She reemerged with the flour shaker and cast a wild glance around for the small canister of warm butter the sous-chefs used to prep pans. If, Quill thought, there had been any sous-chefs to prep pans, which there weren't. At least when the chefs were laid off, they simply went back to the Cornell School of Hotel Management—where they all had come from in the first place—and looked for another co-op job. There wasn't going to be any comfortable, reassuring co-op job for Doreen. Or Kathleen Kiddermeister, their waitress. Or for Quill herself, for that matter.

  "I'll get the butter." Quill got up from the stool—a little stiffly because of her long walk—and retrieved a jar of cold butter from the refrigerator. She set it carefully by Meg's elbow and sat down again. Her coffee was getting cold. She wondered what her chances were of getting some soup and several large chunks of Meg's fresh breads when her sister was in this kind of mood.

  "It's not that I mind prepping pans myself," Meg said. She broke off a piece of the butter and rubbed the cookie sheet energetically. "Not a bit. Nossir. I only studied for three years in Paris, in a language I only partly understood, and took another year as an apprentice in that hellhole restaurant in New York just so I could PREP PANS!" She sifted flour over the cookie sheet with a fine disregard for her face, hands, and blue jeans, tossed the sifter aside, then took her twenty-inch stir-fry lid and used it to trace a circle on the floured sheet. "We have to lay off Kathleen, too? 'Cause if we do, forget it. I didn't study that hard, then work my buns off to be a waitress." She grasped the upper part of the pastry bag in her right hand, and, with her left, guided the tip of the bag around the circular guide on the sheet.

  "That's one of the largest cream puffs I've ever seen, Meggie."

  "One of?" Meg looked up with a reluctant grin. "It's going to be the biggest. As a matter of fact, that's what I'm calling it. The Largest Cream Puff in the World au Chocolat. It's for the Crafty Ladies. Sugar and a touch of the grape. Those women love both. Did you come in here by way of the dining room? Did you see how many Hurricane drinks those ladies have had already? If I don't get this pastry out there soon, they aren't going to remember eating it."

  "What's in it?"

  "The usual cream puff stuff. Just a lot more of it."

  "I'm sorry we had to lay off all the sous-chefs."

  "Well, I'm sorry that I told you I'd rather eat a rat than be a waitress. I'll waitress if we need it. I'll scrub my own pans, scrub my own floor, and yours, too. Quill. I refuse to believe that this is anything other than a temporary condition." She slid the cream puff ring into the oven with a slam. "It's this business with John that has me so huffy. I can't believe he's deserted us like this. What a jerk! What kind of loyalty is it, anyway, to just go out and get another job right under our noses?"

  "Slavery went out in 1862."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean that we don't own him. We don't own anyone. I think it's pretty remarkable that he's stuck with us this long. And when you think about it, Meg, he's always put us and his poor sister before his own needs. What kind of job is this for a talented guy with an M.B.A.? He hasn't had a date in ages, since there's no one in Hemlock Falls to date, except maybe Marge Schmidt and she's not all that keen on guys. Plus she's older. Plus she's mean …"

  "Got all the personality of an attack tank," Meg agreed.

  "He hasn't had a steady relationship with a woman in all the time I've known him here. It's more than an hour's drive into Syracuse to the theaters and the clubs and any kind of social life at all …" Quill trailed off. She told herself that it had been a terrible choice for John to make. That he loved the Inn, and the job, as much or more than she did. That he was moving to Long Island out of loyalty to them. "It's not the better pay that's forcing him to take this job, Meg, although it's considerably better. And I don't think it's because they're offering him better opportunities, although he'll have three employees working for him. And it's not because it's a more interesting job, either. I mean, this bank wants a strategic plan for the year 2000. John's going to visit most of the two hundred branches this bank has all over the world. A couple in Australia, if you can believe that."

  "So if it's not all that horribly boring stuff—a lot of money, great travel, and a short train ride away from the greatest city in the known universe, which is to say, New York—why
is he taking this horrible job?" Meg asked. Both eyebrows were raised almost to her hairline. She placed both hands onto the counter, leaned over, and shouted, "I mean to say, QUILL! Earth to QUILL!! If that's not why he's taking the job, what is it?"

  "It's me," Quill said miserably.

  Meg looked at her sharply, then said with a deceptively casual air, "Oh?"

  "I'm a terrible partner. I forgot to write down the amount of a couple of checks …"

  "Again?"

  "And this time, the insurance company canceled our policy."

  "They what?"

  "The check John wrote bounced because he thought there was more in the account. Oh, he's fixed it, as usual, but honestly, Meg. I must drive him crazy."

  "I don't think that's the reason," Meg said thoughtfully.

  And so, Quill thought, Meg knows more than she's letting on.

  She knows John won't stay on in a business that couldn't—according to the numbers at least—make a profit no matter how successful it was. Wrong place, wrong time, wrong state, John had said. Even if you could run a hundred percent occupancy all year round, you still couldn't make expenses, John said.

  Sell the Inn, Quill.

  She'd have all her teeth pulled and then eat glass before she told Meg John's solution.

  "So why do you think he's leaving us?"

  "I don't think he's gone because you're driving him bananas. You drive everyone bananas. He's an M.B.A. A good one. This job never offered the kind of scope he can have with a good company. The reason he stayed in a dead-end job with an improvident partner all these years is the same one he's leaving."

  "It'd be nice if you would try and make some sense, Meg. Given the kind of day I've had, and all."

  Meg unhooked the copper whipping bowl from its place above her head and filled it with heavy cream. She whipped vigorously with her hand beater for a moment, then said casually, "If you ask me, he's stayed because he's in love with you. And he's leaving because he's in love with you."

  "For heaven's sake, Meg!"

  Meg shrugged. "This temporary—and by that I mean I don't care what John says, it's temporary—this business slowdown of ours has forced his hand. If he could afford to take a pay cut he would. Just to stay near—"

  "Shut UP, Meg!"

  "—you, but he can't. Because of his sister." Meg stopped beating, tested the whipped cream with a critical air, then resumed her vigorous whipping. "Another thing is Myles. If you hadn't agreed to marry Myles, John would have taken a second job to make ends meet, rather than leave you. But" —Meg set the copper bowl down with a satisfied thunk!— "there you are."

  "You are a complete and utter idiot."

  "I have a sixth sense about these things."

  Quill was so annoyed, she barely registered the opening and closing of the dining room door. "You have NO sense about anything. You've been a complete and total idiot since you were six years old. No. No. Pardon me. It came much later than that. And I remember the exact precise time." Quill stood up and leaned over the whipped cream. "It was after you read Gone With the Wind. What kind of woman with any pretensions to adulthood takes Scarlett O'Hara as a role model?!"

  Meg flicked a handful of whipped cream in her face. Furious, Quill scooped up the butter (now somewhat liquid in the warmth of the kitchen) and drew her arm back for the best overhand pitch she'd made since the Connecticut Intramural Girls Softball Tournament in her freshman year.

  "Ladies? Am I interrupting?"

  Quill froze, her arm upraised, butter dripping onto her hair. The voice was male, with a smoker's rasp, and quite unfamiliar. She turned to face him. He was just shy of middle-aged. About forty-five, she thought. He wore a pale blue sports coat with gold buttons, gray linen trousers, and a dark blue cotton, button-down, Oxford cloth shirt with white collar and cuffs. She was pretty sure she'd glimpsed a gold chain around his neck. She was very sure about the white patent leather loafers, since they winked in the overhead lights like a streetwalker's eye.

  "May I help you?" she asked coldly.

  "I wish somebody would. Name's Burke. Rocky Burke, owner/president of Burke's Central New York All-inclusive Insurance Agency. The Rocklike Broker for Rocky Times." He gave Quill an appreciative look, beginning at her ankles, traveling up her hips, waist, and breasts, and ending with her nose. "You can call me Rock, Cookie." Then, "I like a feisty woman."

  "Here, sport," Meg said. She tossed Quill a damp towel. "Insurance? You must be part of the broker's dinner booked for this evening."

  "Banquet. Broker's banquet. Little celebration for my five top salesmen this year. Yes, that's what I am. Came a little ahead of time to check on the arrangements and couldn't find a perishing soul out there except a lot of very drunk old biddies in that bay window table. They get all that booze here?"

  "Please don't call them old biddies," Quill said.

  "Golden-agers, then. Whatever. They're sure drunk, though. Like I said, if they're going to drive somewhere, I hope you didn't sell them all that booze."

  "What business is it of yours?" Quill demanded. The butter seemed to have gotten all over her. She dabbed futilely at her hair. "They've had some rum, to be sure, but …"

  "Dramshop Law," Mr. Burke said darkly. "Nasty sidelight to doing business in the great state of New York. See, that's a law which holds you, the bar owners—" He stopped. "You are the Quilliam sisters, aren't'cha? Thought so. The Dramshop Law, or Act, holds you, the bar owners responsible for the amount of liquor served to invitees on the premises. This law …"

  "We've got insurance," Meg said. "Quite a lot of insurance."

  "Actually, we don't," Quill reminded her.

  Mr. Burke addressed an invisible companion. "I know they have no insurance, don't I? And aren't these the ladies who are supposed to sign my binder policy?"

  "Oh! You're that Mr. Burke. I'm sorry there was no one to greet you, sir." Quill tucked her hair behind her ears and took a deep breath.

  "Yeah, well. S'all right. Okay with you, we'll take care of the business tomorrow. Your current policy's good till then, right?"

  "Right."

  "So what I came back here for is about the banquet."

  "Would you like to check on the arrangements for your dinner, I mean banquet? You know already that Meg is one of the finest chefs on the eastern—"

  "That a fact? Nah. Screw the food. All the boys will care about is the booze. And it looks like the booze is okay, from the way those broadies out there are slurping it up. What I wanna know is, what about the entertainment?"

  There was a short silence. Quill looked at Meg. Meg opened her mouth, shut it, then went to the oven to check on the World's Largest Cream Puff.

  "Entertainment," said Quill, just to be certain she'd heard correctly.

  "Yepper. Thing is, I wasn't quite sure what you got here."

  "We have dog duets," Meg said to the World's Largest Cream Puff, "or maybe the Quarreling Quilliams? Whipped cream and warm butter All-Girl Wrestling? Take your pick."

  "Huh?" Mr. Burke said, with a worried geniality that undoubtedly served him well on the claims end of his business.

  "Why don't we go into the Tavern Bar, Mr. Burke? We can discuss the issue there, over—er—some booze." Quill took his arm, and, with the expertise born of years of dealing with guests who were unimaginably rude, unforgettably snide, and ridiculously bellicose, she steered him out of the kitchen across the dining room, and down the short corridor to the Tavern Bar.

  "Very nice place you have here," Mr. Burke offered as she pulled him briskly along. "Very historic."

  "Very," Quill agreed. She tugged him over to the mahogany bar. Here, at least, were customers. Not many, but a few. She signaled Nate the bartender with a lifted forefinger and a smile. The sight of Nate, stolid, dark, reassuring in his familiar stance behind the long mahogany bar, lifted her spirit. She smiled brightly at Rocky Burke, then said, "Um … name your—er—poison, Mr. Burke. Rocky, I mean. On the house."

  "That right? Double V.O
. Gibson on the rocks. And a Kleenex."

  "I beg your pardon?"

  Nate gave the bar in front of them a graceful swipe with his cloth. "He means a pickled onion. Quill. Shall I pour the usual for you?"

  "Thanks, Nate."

  "No problem. By the way, you got some time later, I'd like to talk to you. No rush. No biggie."

  Oh, shit. Quill thought. Another no rush. Another no biggie. Another ex-employee. "Of course," she said. "Anytime. My office is always open."

  Rocky Burke grasped his Gibson with the air of a man coming home. He tested it. Smiled. Said, "A drink this good, may be all the entertainment we need."

  "As a matter of fact, Mr. Burke, we really don't have any entertainment. As such."

  "As such? As such what?"

  "Well, there's the pianist, of course, but he only comes in for special occasions. For example, we had a banquet for a group called the Savoyards. They're from New York City, and they're devotees of Gilbert and Sullivan—"

  "I am the very model of a modern major gen-er-al!" Mr. Burke sang in a creditable baritone. "Sure. I know Art and Bill real well." He winked. "Course, at our little banquets, we kind of change the words to fit, you know. Make it all about insurance."

  "All about insurance?"

  This put Mr. Burke on his dignity. "Of course all about insurance. You know the 'Policeman's Song' from Pirates?'

  "I don't think—"

  "Sure you do. Only we sing. When a broker's not engaged in his employment, (his employment) or maturing his annuity's little plans (little plans). Like that. Or 'Buttercup's Song' from Pinafore. Hurrah for commissions,/ three cheers for commissions/ there's no need at all to decry/ the cash from commissions/ tho' it's quite an omission/ if the insured one refuses to die."

  "Aagh," Quill said and took a long sip of her red wine.

  "So a pianist would be just fine."

  "Really?" Quill brightened. Their pianist was a retired concert artist from Cornell, usually available, and very good. "I'll make the arrangements right away. Of course, there's a fee, quite reasonable, considering."

  Mr. Burke hunched forward in a confiding way. "Tell you what I'm gonna do."