'Hard luck,' Meg said. 'Now, to get back to this Dr. Bob - '
'My dear!' Tiffany waved both hands distractedly. 'My dear! If you knew what this divorce has done to me! I've been through tornadoes, blizzards, a tidal wave, a volcanic eruption, two hurricanes, a typhoon, and an earthquake that registered seven-point-one on the Richter scale. The divorce was worse. Far worse. If I didn't have this little affair coming up this week, I'd be in a rubber room somewhere. You two are saving my sanity. That's all I can say.' She ran one scarlet-nailed hand through her champagne-colored hair and downed the gin and tonic with the other. 'Verger was a bastard. Just a bastard. He was a bastard when we got engaged, a bastard on the honeymoon, and a super bastard in bed. Bastard, bastard, bastard.' She looked vicious. 'And the world's going to know just how much of a bastard. I've got them all lined up. All the wives of his so-called friends. They're all going to be here for the therapy sessions this week...' She caught Meg's astonished face and said crossly, 'That's right there on the agenda. Right after your cooking classes or whatever. My secretary should have mailed you that weeks ago.'
She probably had. Quill, who hated going through mail, hadn't read anything but the maps, the airline tickets, and the check.
'Anyhow. I've invited the press to sit in-in the interest of getting information to those poor ol' women who can't afford to come, of course...'
'You've invited the press? To therapy sessions?' said Quill.
'And why not?'
For a moment, nobody said anything.
Quill poured herself a cup of tea and sat next to Tiffany on the couch. 'Volcanic eruption?' she asked, just to fill the silence. 'You've been through a volcanic eruption?'
'Hawaii,' Tiffany said. 'A combination fund-raising and site selection trip for my little hospital. I'd planned to build it on the side of Haleakala mountain, with a marvelous view of the Kiluea Iki crater. But it blew up. Barfed lava and whatnot allover the place. You wouldn't have believed it. Red hot molten rock simply poured down the side of that mountain. It hit the ocean and smack-giant sauna. Clouds of steam everywhere. Marvelous, really, but my architect thought it might upset the patients.'
Meg looked at Quill and raised her eyebrows. 'So you decided to place it here, in Palm Beach,' Meg said. 'A hospital for phobics.'
'Well, it's a lot calmer, really. You only get hurricanes a couple of months out of the year.'
Meg's expression was innocently inquiring. 'Any of the patients suffer from hurricane phobia?' She closed her eyes dreamily. 'What would you call somebody who's terrified of hurricanes? An aeoliaphobe?'
'A what?' Quill demanded.
Meg gestured vaguely. 'Winds. Aeolian is Greek for winds.'
'My charity is for women afraid to marry wealth again. I told you that. It's not a phobia, they tell me. I may have told you that. But Dr. Bob straightened me out. It has to do with identity crises and that sort of thing. So Hawaii would have been perfect. I mean - between the ambiance and the beach boys, you can't get much more therapeutic than that. But the volcano worked out for the best. Things like that always do. For instance, I don't know if I could have gotten Meg to come to Hawaii to cook for my fund-raiser. It was hard enough to get you to come to Florida for two weeks.'
Meg sat up straight. 'It's a hospital for whom?'
'Women who've married wealth, gotten divorced, and are afraid to marry for money again,' Tiffany said patiently. 'I can't tell you how many of my dearest friends have gone through simply agonies. Agonies. One of them got a job in publishing rather than marry again.'
'Shaw,' said Meg, with a told-you-so look at Quill. 'Old George Bernard himself. He asked Mrs. Siddons or somebody to go to bed with him for a million pounds and she smiled and said she'd think about it. And then he asked her to sleep with him for twenty pounds and she got indignant and shrieked, 'Sir! What do you think I I am?' And he said 'Madam. We've established what you are. We are just trying to establish the price.' I knew it. Quill? We're here under false pretenses.'
'It wasn't Mrs. Siddons,' said Quill, momentarily! diverted. 'It was Mrs. Patrick Campbell. Mrs. Siddons lived a hundred years earlier.'
'What are you talking about?' Tiffany said crossly. 'We're not talking about hookers, here.'
Meg grinned ominously. Quill was recalled to the task at hand, which was to keep the volatile Meg from annihilating Mrs. Taylor. She got up and fetched Meg a cup of strong tea. Meg took it, drank half in two swallows, and glowered.
'You wouldn't have, would you?' Tiffany persisted.
'Wouldn't have what?' asked Meg.
'Gone to Hawaii to cook for my fund-raiser.'
'I wouldn't have crossed the street for the fund-raiser if I knew what it was for - wealthy women who are afraid to marry wealth again?'
Quill sent a hasty prayer to whatever gods were in charge of Meg's temper. 'What Meg means, Tiffany, is that we're busy most of the year - '
'That's not what I meant,' Meg said doggedly. 'What I meant was that a bunch of rich women who've gotten their big bucks from - '
Quill raised her voice. 'Early November's about the only time we could close the Inn and not lose a ton of money. And a week is the maximum time Meg can spend away from her kitchen without freaking out. So, no. We probably wouldn't have gone to Hawaii. Not if you wanted seven days of celebrity cooking lessons capped by a celebrity-cooked banquet. Between celebrities and jet lag Meg would have had to check into your hospital.'
'It's not for stress. I've told you what it's for. Women who are afraid to take a chance on mar - '
'Phooey,' Meg interrupted rudely.
