“Reader participation is the name of the game. They love it!”
“Who’s paying for all the pencils you’re giving away?”
“You can take it out of my meager salary.”
Wednesday, September 2 – ‘Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched.’
The weekly luncheon of the Pickax Boosters Club was held at the community hall, with committees reporting on the progress of the Mark Twain Festival, scheduled for October. There would be a parade, a square dance, contests, lectures, and more. The so-called presidential suite in the hotel (third floor front) would be renamed the Mark Twain suite. Efforts to name a street after him had received a chilly reaction from residents, who complained that a change in street names resulted only in confusion and expense to property owners. Qwilleran attended and ate his soup and sandwich but refrained from volunteering for anything.
Thursday, September 3 – ‘Every dog has his day.’
For the Siamese the big event was the arrival of a truck delivering new stools for the snack bar. The old ones were as comfortable as a milking stool, yet casual visitors chose to sit there instead of sinking into the deep-cushioned lounge chairs. The new stools were more hospitable. They had backs; they swiveled; their seats were thickly upholstered. The four old stools without backs would go to the thrift shop to be sold for charity.
As soon as the deliveryman had left, Koko and Yum Yum came out from nowhere to inspect the new furniture. Two noses covered every inch of the wooden legs and backs; then they curled up on two upholstered seats and went to sleep.
Fran Brodie had ordered them. She was second-in-command at Amanda’s interior design studio. She was also the daughter of the police chief and one of the most glamorous young women in town. And this Friday she would be giving Qwilleran a personally conducted tour of the refurbished hotel.
Friday, September 4 – ‘A short horse is soon curried.’
Qwilleran fed the cats, changed the water in their drinking bowl, policed their commode, brushed their coats, and gave them instructions for the day: “Don’t forget to wash behind your ears. Drink plenty of water; it’s good for you. Be nice to each other.”
They looked at him blankly and waited for him to leave so they could enjoy a nap on the new bar stools.
For his own breakfast he thawed a roll and took it to his studio on the first balcony, along with a mug of extra-strength coffee brewed in his automated coffeemaker. There he finished his Friday column, a tongue-in-cheek dissertation on the advantages and disadvantages of indoor plumbing. Only Qwilleran could write a thousand words on a subject of such delicacy and make it entertaining – as well as educational – without being scatological.
He handed in his copy to a skeptical managing editor, bantered with the crew in the cityroom, grabbed a burger at Lois’s Luncheonette, and browsed among the preowned books in the dusty secondhand bookstore. Still he arrived early at the hotel for his appointment with the designer.
After the bombing of the historic building, the Klingenschoen Foundation had purchased it from the Limburger estate, and Qwilleran had insisted that a local designer be commissioned to do the interior. Now, while waiting for Fran Brodie, he stood on the sidewalk across the street and conternplated the scene. The three blocks of downtown Main Street reflected an era when the county’s quarries were going full blast. Buildings and pavement were made of stone – a bleak prospect until the city’s recent beautification effort. Now the chipped flagstone pavements were replaced with brick. Young trees were planted close to the curb. Brick planter boxes were filled with petunias, tended by volunteers.
In the middle of the block stood the three-story cube of granite that had long been the city’s only hotel and most disgraceful eyesore. It had a long history: built in the 1870s… gutted by fire in the 1920s and cheaply rebuilt… known as an overnight lodging that was gloomy but clean!
“It was so clean,” said the natives, “that the porcelain was scrubbed off the bathtubs!”
After being bombed by a psychopath from Down Below, it required a year to rebuild, refurnish and rename. Already two national magazines were interested in photographing the interior.
Windows that had previously stared balefully on Main Street were now flanked by wooden shutters painted in the theme color of rust. The entrance was more inviting than before; a broad flight of stone steps led up to double doors of beveled wood and etched glass. And across the facade were stainless steel letters mounted directly on the stone. They spelled:
T H E M A C K I N T O S H I N N
