"You gonna take one percent outta my paycheck to fee-nance your next campaign?" roared a familiar foghorn voice. "Outta that paycheck you just tole us should go to some outta work man?!"
"Doreen!" said Quill.
"Finance," Claire McIntosh said in a nasal Long Is- land accent. "It's FI-nance. Not fee-nance. Huh!"
Doreen rose furiously from her seat, bristling, skinny neck thrust out. "I got just as much right to work as anyone else."
"Hoo!" said Nora, clearly delighted. "Quill! You don't think he pulled that conservative bullshit about women staying home to take care of their men with this group, do you? Santini Screws Up Again!" She dug a notebook out of her purse and began to scribble.
"Or maybe you could send me somma that there federal housing money that built your fancy home in Westchester!" Doreen, gray hair frizzed to a righteous height, pitched a spoon after the fork. This piece of silverware struck Santini's right arm and bounced into Claire McIntosh's lap.
"Eeew," she said. Quill turned to Dina, eyebrows raised. "How did this start, anyhow?"
"He asked for questions from the floor, or something. Doreen asked about that business of his appearing as a character witness for the Mafia - sorry - alleged Mafia guy," Dina said in an undertone. "Then she went on about how he let his own brother use his name in that deal with the Pentagon, and that Santini should be ashamed of himself, and then Claire McIntosh said Doreen should stay home and take care of her family instead of taking up a paycheck that should go to one of the unemployed male heads of households inflicted on us by our Democratic president, then Senator Santini sort of smirked and said, 'Power to the little woman,' or something like that, then Doreen said her political movement - Doreen's, I mean - "
"Doreen's into politics?" said Quill. She swallowed twice. Doreen's transient fancies had always involved the entrepreneurial before this. "She's into politics when we've got a senator's wedding here in four days?"
"Ex-senator," Dina said. "And it's not just Doreen; basically he's insulted all the ladies in H. O. W. WINDBAG!" she roared suddenly.
"Dina, for heaven's sake!"
"Greedy guts, AI!" shrieked Miriam Doncaster, Hemlock Falls' blue-eyed blond librarian.
"Get yer snout outta the public trough, AI!" shouted Marge Schmidt. (Hemlock Hometown Diner. Fine Food! and Fast!)
"Yaaaahhh, AI!" chorused various members of the Hemlock Organization of Women.
"Ladies, ladies, ladies." (ex) Senator Santini's rather watery blue eyes gleamed angrily behind thick-lensed spectacles. Quill had met him several times over the course of his stay at the Inn. It was a curious fact that although he sent his shirts out to be laundered every day (valet service courtesy of the Inn at Hemlock Falls) his shirts always looked as though they had been slept in. "If you'll bear with me just a moment, I'd like to point out that not once, I tell you not once, have I been convicted of any of these alleged crimes."
"They aren't alleged crimes," Dina shouted indignantly. "They ARE crimes."
"Dina!" Quill whispered. "Hush! Let's give everyone a chance to quiet down."
"Not once have I even been indicted for a crime..."
"It's a fine state of affairs," Miriam Doncaster said tartly, "when the best that can be said of a politician is that he hasn't been indicted."
A chorus of rumbles from the assembled women suggested a fresh outbreak of cutlery casting was imminent.
"What are you going to do?" Dina hissed. "He'll be pitching stuff back at 'em in a minute. The way he did at that press conference in Queens when he conceded the Senate race."
"Is John in yet?" Quill asked in a cowardly way.
"Not till eleven or so. He drove Mrs. McIntosh to the florists in Ithaca to check on the roses for the reception. LOBBYIST!" she screamed suddenly.
"Senators can't be lobbyists," Quill said, exasperated. "It's illegal."
"There you are," Dina said mysteriously. Quill cleared her throat and, holding her hands up, wound her way through the tables to the mahogany sideboard where Senator Santini had fled, rather like Robert De Niro at bay in Frankenstein. He was gesturing forcefully at Nora Cahill, his voice an angry mutter.
"Marge. Adela." She nodded to Marge Schmidt and Adela Henry, president and vice president of the Hem- lock Organization for Women. "How are you guys this morning?"
"Just fine, till this bozo started in on disintegration of the American family," snorted Marge. Her keen little eyes, buried in an impressive amount of muscular fat, bored in on Santini. "Seemed to think it was wimmin's fault."
"I'm certain you misunderstood, Mrs.... ah" - Santini ducked forward to glimpse at Marge's name tag - "Schmidt. If any of you ladies took any offense at what was simply meant to be a joke - "
"It's Miss," Marge said shortly, "and I take offense where offense was meant." She rose to her feet, a truculent bulldozer, and gave Quill a friendly punch in the arm. "Good food, as usual. Tell Meg I like the idea of saffron in the scrambled eggs. Ladies, let's beat it."
There was a general scraping of chairs. Adela Henry (who up until the disastrous elections of November 8 had been more widely known as Mrs. Mayor) nodded graciously to Quill. "Have you made a decision about joining our organization, Quill?"
"Innkeepers," Quill said firmly, "should be apolitical."
"It is not possible to be apolitical in these times," Adela said darkly. "A woman has to stand for something."
"Right on," said Doreen, veering in their direction. "Power to the oppressed."
"Amen," said Mrs. Dookie Shuttleworth, the minister's wife.
Adela elevated her chin to a DeGaullean height. "Those who are not with us, must be against us. We will expect you, Quill, at the next meeting."
"Can't we just have the Chamber of Commerce back?" Quill said plaintively. "I enjoyed the Chamber meetings. I liked the Chamber meetings. The Chamber meetings accomplished a lot of good. Things like Clean It Up! week, and Hemlock History Days, and the boutique mall where our restaurant..." She trailed off. Each of these events, in one way or another, had ended in some degree of disaster. "Urn," said Quill. She thought a moment. "Did I tell you I checked the Innkeeper's Code of Laws?"
"You did not. I was not aware there was any such institutionalization of innkeeping behaviors."
There would be by nightfall if she had a few minutes with her computer and printer. Quill gestured vaguely. "The code bars me from any political affiliation. Sort of like judges, you know." She gave Doreen a meaningful stare. "It bars housekeepers, too."
Doreen made a noise like "T'uh!"
"I see." Adela regarded Al Santini, who was shaking hands with as many departing H. O. W. members as would allow it, with disapproval. "We've determined, as you may know, that the fourth Thursday of every month shall be the official H. O. W. meeting date. That's the day after tomorrow, assuming that the conference room here will be free at that time. The Innkeeper's Code cannot possibly bar political meetings of ordinary citizens."
Quill tried to concentrate. There was something about that date... She shook her head. "I'll have to check the calendar. I think it will be okay, but I'm not altogether certain."