Elmer nodded matter-of-factly. "I told Chet he'd never get a dollar and a half a pound for roofing nails. What about the play, Esther? Rehearsals going okay there?"
Esther West owned the only dress shop (West's Best) in Hemlock Falls. She was director of the re-creation of the Hemlock Falls seventeenth century witch trial, The Trial of Goody Martin, a popular feature of History Days. She frowned and adjusted the bodice of her floral print dress, then patted a stiff auburn curl into place over her ear. "I do believe that the Clarissa's sickening for flu."
A murmur of dismay greeted this statement. "Who's playing Clarissa Martin this year?" asked Quill. "Julie Offenbach, Craig's girl."
"Oh, my." Quill knew her. A wannabe Winona Ryder, Julie spent the summers between high-school semesters waitressing at the Inn. "She'll be crushed."
"You got that right!" hooted Gil Gilmeister. Even Quill, a relative newcomer to Hemlock Falls, knew Gil had been a star quarterback for the high school twenty years before; like Rabbit Angstrom, he'd gone into that quintessential small-town American business-car sales. Unlike his fictional counterpart, he was filled by more Sturm than Angst, with a boisterous enthusiasm for Buicks, Marge Schmidt, and town activities not unrelated to his days on the football field. "Go-o-o-o Clarissa!" he shouted now, thumping a ham-sized fist on the table. "Splat! Splat! Splat!"
The witch trial dramatized the real seventeenth-century , Clarissa's death by pressing. Most pre-Colonial American. villages burned, hanged, or drowned their witches, and Hemlockians were inordinately proud of their ancestors' unique style of execution - Hemlock Falls witches had been pressed to death. Although any large flat surface would have done, Hemlock Falls citizens of bygone days dropped a barn door on the condemned, then piled stones on the door until the victim succumbed to hemorrhaging, suffocation, or a myocardial infarction. Julie, as Clarissa Martin, would be replaced by a hooded dummy at the critical moment, but there was a wonderful bit of histrionics as "Clarissa" was driven off to await her fate. Julie had rehearsed with enormous relish for weeks.
"Doesn't Julie have an understudy or something?" asked Betty Hall. "No?" She jerked her head at her partner. "Marge here. She could do it. She's a real quick study. Memorizes the specials at the diner every night, just like that." She snapped her fingers.
Elmer, perhaps thinking of the size of the barn door required to squash a dummy of Marge-like proportions, not to mention the creation of a new, more elephantine dummy to replace the one traditionally used for years, said sharply, "Budget," which puzzled everyone but Quill, whose thoughts had been running along the same lines but in a much less practical way.
"Marge'd be terrific," said Gil Gilmeister earnestly. Since almost everyone at the table - with the possible exception of Dookie Shuttleworth - knew that Marge and Gil had been a hot item for several years, Gil's support was discounted without any discussion. "Although," Esther whispered to Quill, "if Nadine Gilmeister could get herself out of those Syracuse malls long enough to do right by the poor man so he didn't have to spend his nights over to the diner, maybe more people would listen to him." Elmer rapped the gavel loudly, and Esther jerked to attention.
"What do you want to do then, Esther? Appoint an understudy?"
"It should be somebody stageworthy. Somebody with presence. And good-looking. The execution is the highlight of The Trial of Goody Martin. It's what everyone comes to see." Esther's eyes glinted behind her elaborately designed glasses. "When the actors pile the stones on the barn door, the audience should be moved to enthusiasm as Clarissa's blood spews out. Most years, as you've observed, the tourists join in."
"Well, they'll more likely laugh if fat ol' Marge is supposed to be under there," said Harland Peterson, the president of the farmer's co-op. A large, weatherbeaten man, Harland drove the sledge that carried "Clarissa Martin" from the pavilion stage to the site of the execution. "No offense, Marge," he said, in hasty response to her outraged grunt. "Now, the ducking stool - that's gonna be just fine. That ol' tractor of mine'll lift you into that pond, no problem. But we get a dummy your size under that barn door, it's gonna stick out a mile. What about Quill, there? She'd be great."
Harvey (The Ad Agency That Adds Value!) Bozzel cleared his throat. "I'd have to agree." His tanned cheeks creased in a golf-pro grin. "Try this one on, folks. 'Quill fills the bill.' "
Quill, who so far had managed to avert Harvey's advertising plans for the Inn (No Whine, Just Fine Wine When You Dine!), said feebly, "I don't really think..."
"I'm not sure that Julie's vomiting is going to continue through next week," said Esther thoughtfully, "but you never know. And of course, the costume is black, and just shows everything."
Myles said, "I move to nominate Sarah Quilliam as understudy for Julie Offenbach."
Quill glared at him.
"I second," said Harland Peterson.
"All in favor?" said Elmer, sweeping the assembly with a glance. "Against?" He registered Marge's, Betty's, and Gil's upraised hands without a blink. "Carried. Quill takes Julie's place as Clarissa Martin, if necessary."
Quill experienced a strong desire to bang her head against the solid edge of the banquet table. This was followed by an even stronger desire to bang Myles McHale's head against the banquet table, since he'd started the whole mess in the first place. She took a deep breath and was preparing to argue, when the Hemlock Inn's business manager, John Raintree, appeared at the door to the Banquet Room.
"Yo, John!" said Gil. "Mighty glad to see you. Sorry I missed our meeting last night. I figured you and Tom could handle any stuff that needed to be decided anyways, and I had some things come up at home."
Esther looked significantly at Quill and mouthed, "Nadine!" Then more audibly, "Poor Gil."
"No problem, Gil," said John easily, "but I won't be able m to get the audit to you until next week."
"That's okay with you, innit, Mark?" Gil wiped a handkerchief over his sweaty neck. "It's not gonna hold up the loan or anything?"
Mark Anthony Jefferson, vice-president of the Hemlock Palls Savings and Loan, tightened his lips. "Why don't we discuss this later, Gil? Your partner should be present anyway, and John's on Quill's time, now."
"Oh, I don't mind," said Quill. "John's moonlighting has never interfered with our business." She looked hopefully at him. "Do you need me, John?"
"Yep."
Quill sprang out of her chair with relief. "I'll be right there. Would you all excuse me? Esther, could you take over the minutes? I'd appreciate it."
Quill made her way swiftly into the hall and closed the door behind her. "Just in the nick of time. I was about to be forced into taking Julie Offenbach's star turn. I have no desire to be dunked and squashed in front of two hundred gawking tourists." She frowned at his glum expression. "Any problems?"
John claimed three-quarters Onondaga blood, whose heritage gave him skin the color of a bronze medallion and hair as thickly black as charred toast. He had an erratic, whimsical sense of humor that Quill found very un-Indian. Not, Quill thought, that she knew all that much about Indians, John in particular. He'd been with them less than a year, and for the first time, the Inn was showing a profit. Despite the money he made between his job at the Inn and his small accounting business, John lived modestly, driving an old car, wearing carefully cleaned suits that were years out of date. He refused to touch alcohol, for reasons tacitly understood between them, and never discussed his personal life. He nodded. "Guest complaint. And one of the waitresses called in sick for the three to eleven shift. Doreen's on vacation this week; otherwise she could pinch-hit. So that means we're short two staff for the dinner trade."