Welcome to Temptation (3 page)

"There was an accident." Virginia plopped herself down in her chair, looking like a wad of bubblegum with big hair. "Hello, baby," she said to Rachel, reaching across to pat her daughter's hand. "This car came out of nowhere and
didn't stop
. Two women, a snippy little redhead, Stephen says, and a nice brunette who was sweet to me. Curly hair. Low-class. They're staying at the Whipple farm. And they're making a
movie
..."

Phin watched Liz draw back, probably because "low-class" was such a low-class thing to say. "I'll never understand why Stephen married one of his counter clerks," he'd heard her tell his father once. "His mother must be revolving in her grave."

"Enough," Stephen said now. "We've held up this meeting by coming late, let's not waste more time with gossip."

"Are you all right?" Liz asked, and Virginia nodded.

"Wait a minute, they're making a movie?" Hildy said, and Virginia transferred her nod to her.

"The water tower is on the table," Phin said, deep-sixing his own interest in the news so he could get the meeting over with. If somebody really was making a movie, the whole town would have the details by nightfall anyway. "Stephen, you put it on the agenda."

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"I certainly did." Stephen collected himself. "That water tower is a disgrace."

"Well, white looks so drab a few weeks after we paint it—" Hildy began.

"I have an appointment at four-thirty at the Whipple farm, and a rehearsal at six," Frank told Phin under his breath as Hildy elaborated on the "drab" problem. "
Carousel
. I'm the lead." Phin nodded as he spoke, trying not to picture forty-two-year-old Frank walking through a storm with his head held high.

"—and so I thought it would look better in peach," Hildy finished. Stephen said, "Hell, Hildy, it's not your laundry. It's a water tower, it's supposed to be white – all water towers are white."

Hildy sniffed. "The water tower in Groveport is blue."

"Well, my God,
Groveport
." Keeping one eye on the four constituents in the front row, Stephen turned back to Phin. "A competent,
concerned
mayor would do his
civic duty
here. We have
family values
to protect."

Here we go again, Phin thought. There had been a time when Stephen's blatant pandering had enraged him, but after nine mind-numbing years as mayor, nothing made him lose his temper anymore. He let Stephen wind down, and then he said, "Hildy, I agree that only people with dirty minds would think it looks like anything but a water tower, but there appear to be a lot of people with dirty minds. We're going to have an accident any day now, what with all the people pulling off the highway with their Polaroids. It's a safety issue." Phin tried to look sympathetically into Hildy's eyes. Hildy looked at him as if he were a Republican.

"This is a disgrace," Stephen said, playing to the front row again. "You call this leadership?"

"I've got an appointment and then rehearsal," Frank announced. "I'm playing Billy Bigelow.
Carousel
. I can't be late."

For this I spent six years in college, Phin thought. "Let's vote."

"You gotta have a motion," Rachel said, still bent over her pad.

"I move we repaint the water tower back to the old red-and-white we always had," Stephen said.

"School colors. That's what it should have been all—"

Phin sighed. "Just move we repaint the water tower, Stephen."

"I move we repaint the water tower red and white," Stephen said.

"I second," Virginia said from beside him, pleased with herself. The vote went three to three, with Stephen, Virginia, and Liz voting for the new paint job, and Hildy, Ed, and Frank—"I'm putting a sign out there for the theater, good advertising"— voting to keep the peach.

"Did you ever think about being anything but a yes-woman?" Hildy snapped at Virginia, who
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straightened and fussed with her jacket.

" Virginia votes with her conscience, Hildy," Stephen said.

"The motion is tied," Rachel said over Hildy's snort. "The vote goes to the mayor. Tucker."

"Yes," Phin said. "Sorry, Hildy."

"Motion passes,four to three," Rachel said, and Hildy smacked her notebook down on the table, and said, "So now I have to do this all over again."

"Just tell the Coreys to charge the new paint at Stephen's," Phin told her. "They know what to do."

"Funny how Garvey's Hardware is getting twice as much business because of this." Hildy sat back and crossed her arms. "Clear conflict of interest, if you ask me. He shouldn't have been voting."

"That's a good point," Frank said, visibly struck by the argument. Whenever Frank had a thought, it was visible. "Why didn't you refuse to sell her the peach paint?" he asked Stephen.

"I sold Hildy the paint," Rachel said as her father began to sputter with indignation. "It was, like, all my fault."

Five different council members fell all over themselves telling Rachel it certainly wasn't her fault, while Ed sat silent and smiling at her, and Phin marveled at the way big blue eyes and taffy-blonde hair could snow the hell out of people.

"Well, it doesn't matter now anyway," Rachel said. "I got the vote recorded."

"If there's no new business—" Phin began, but Stephen said, "Wait. We need to talk about this movie."

"Well, Stephen, I
tried
to talk about it—" Virginia began, and Stephen spoke over her.

"Not gossip. We need to consider the impact on the town. The pitfalls." He looked slyly at Phin from the corner of his eyes, and Phin thought,
What are you up to now?
"The
dangers
," Stephen went on.

"We're a town that believes in
family values
, and after all, you remember Clea." Phin definitely remembered Clea. The last time he'd seen her in the flesh, he'd been twelve and she'd leaned over to give him the money on his paper route. He'd looked down her blouse and fallen off his bike and ended up with nine stitches in his chin, but it had been worth it. He was fairly sure she'd jump-started his puberty.

"I don't see any dangers." Frank stood up to go. "And I have to leave. I'm late."

"Sit down," Stephen said. "Some of us think of other things besides
acting
." He sent a dismissive glance at Phin. "Or playing pool."

"Yeah, like painting the water tower twice to double your profit," Frank said.

"There is that," Hildy said.

"Could you forget that so we can speak to the
issues
?" Stephen said.
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"I think that making double your profit at the expense of the taxpayers is an issue," Frank said.

"Oh, for heaven's sake, I'll
give
you the damn paint!" Stephen said, and Phin said, "Thank you, Stephen, we accept. Now if there's nothing else—"

"This
movie
." Stephen put his hands on the table. "Clea made that one movie, remember? We don't want that kind of movie made here."

"
Always Tomorrow
." Virginia nodded. "But I really think the nudity in that was for artistic purposes, and it wasn't very much. And she died in the end so she was punished." Phin spared a brief thought as to what it must be like to be married to Virginia if she thought nudity was punishable by death, but then Stephen caught his attention again.

"No, not
Always Tomorrow
," Stephen was saying, and Frank said, "Oh," and sat down again. Virginia looked mystified; Rachel looked intrigued; Liz and Hildy looked at the ceiling; and Phin remembered
Coming Clean
, a plotless, straight-to-video movie set in a car wash that Clea undoubtedly did not have on her résumé since she'd been billed as "Candy Suds." He didn't know how Stephen had gotten hold of it, Phin had only seen it because Ed had it in his extensive pornography collection.

"Stephen, I doubt she's shooting porn here," Phin said, and Rachel said, "Clea Whipple made a dirty movie? Fabulous."

Stephen nodded. "There. See? That's what I'm talking about. Family values. We let Clea make this kind of movie here, and our children will think it's all right because we approved of it. And those women with the camera looked loose."

Excellent, Phin thought. At last, some good news.

His mother shot him a sharp look.

"We should have a policy on this," Stephen went on. "We won't give a filming permit to anyone unless they sign a no-nudity clause."

"How many movies do you think Temptation is going to get?" Phin said, but Frank said, "Hey, it could happen. Although, with a no-nudity clause—" He shook his head. "That's too strict, Stephen. We don't want to stifle the film industry here."

Stephen zeroed in on Phin. "Responsible leadership demands responsible legislation. It's our civic duty—"

The problem, Phin thought – not for the first time, as Stephen ranted on – wasn't that Stephen was a fathead and Virginia was a gossip, it was that Stephen was a driven fathead with a large conservative following, and Virginia talked to everybody. Phin could hear her now: "Well, of course Phin's a lovely boy, but he was actually for pornography, can you imagine?" Yeah, that would get cut the votes in November.

On the other hand, there were some things that Phin was willing to fight for. "I'm against censorship, Stephen," he said, interrupting the older man in mid-tirade. "It comes with owning a bookstore. No
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banned books."

"How about a pornography clause?" Virginia said. "

"That's not nudity, and it's not censorship because pornography is bad. We have to protect our children." She gave Rachel her usual obsessively loving smile, including Phin in it, too, as her future son-in-law.
Such a nice couple
, her smile said.
What lovely grandchildren they'll give me. And
they'll live right next door.

Phin's answering smile said,
Not a chance in hell
, while Rachel gazed at Justice and Mercy, pretending she'd never heard of pornography or sex, or Phin, for that matter.

Phin said, "And how would we define 'pornography'?"

"Everybody knows pornography when they see it," Stephen said.

"There's some difference of opinion on that," Phin said. "I don't think we should make law on

'Everybody knows.'"

"Stephen may be right," Liz said, and Phin thought
, Oh, hell, Mom, shut up
. "We have an obligation to the citizens of Temptation." She cast a calculating look at the four citizens in the audience, undoubtedly sizing up the situation in terms of getting her son reelected in November. "We could pass a no-pornography ordinance, and stipulate that 'pornography' is to be defined by the council."

"I think that's unconstitutional," Phin said. "You can't make a law that gets defined later. People have to know what they're breaking."

"It's not a law," Stephen said. "It's an ordinance. I move that Temptation adopt an antipornography ordinance."

"No," Phin said. "I'm not going to have you going through the bookstore and throwing out
Lady
Chatterley
."

"I move that Temptation adopt an antipornographic
movie
ordinance," Virginia said, and Stephen said,

"I second it."

Phin looked at his council and thought,
Why do I put up with this?
It was a stupid ordinance, and probably unconstitutional, and definitely a waste of time. On the other hand, talking the council out of it would take another hour which would cut into the semiregular late-afternoon pool game he played with Temptation's police chief. And, since it was highly unlikely that anybody but Clea Whipple would ever want to make a movie in Temptation, and, in fact, highly unlikely that Clea Whipple
did
want to make a movie in Temptation, he'd be fighting for a principle that was never going to be tested. "Call the roll, Rachel."

The vote went four in favor of establishing the ordinance, to two against, with Frank voting no to defend the infant Temptation film industry and Ed dissenting without comment. Hildy should have voted against it as an anticensorship English teacher, but the look she shot Phin as she voted made it clear that this was payback time.

Stephen said, "I'll draft the ordinance tonight and we'll call a special meeting to pass it."
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"No, we won't," Phin said. "We'll vote on it next Wednesday, same time, same place. And now, if there are no objections, I move we close this meeting."

"Second." Frank stood up to go. "And by the way, Stephen, we voted to buy the fancy streetlights while you were gone."

"You what?" Stephen's roar was outraged.

"You're late for your appointment, Frank." Phin stood up. "This meeting is dismissed." When Stephen drew breath to protest, he added, "Everybody
leave
."

Rachel snickered and closed her notebook.

"We shouldn't wait on the ordinance," Stephen said, as the others left, and Phin said, "Sure we should. Legislate in haste, repent at leisure. Next week is fine."

"Well, then, we're going to reconsider those streetlights next week, too." Stephen shook his head, clearly disgusted with the state of politics in Temptation.

Phin smiled at Rachel as he headed for the door. "Thank you, Rachel, for taking the blame for the paint. That was very noble."

Rachel grinned at him, and Phin saw his mother waiting for him by the door, relaxing into a half-smile as she watched the future daughter-in-law of her choice. Fat chance, he wanted to tell her, but that was another argument he didn't want to have. He'd already told his mother that it was out of the question –

Rachel said "like" a lot, she didn't read, and she played lousy pool – but Liz Tucker hadn't gotten to be First Lady of Temptation by taking "no" for an answer.

"Wait a moment," she said to her son now as he went past her, and he shook his head.

"Can't stay. I'll talk to you at dinner." He escaped into the marble hall only to find himself waylaid by Ed Yarnell, who looked at him with naked contempt.

"Interesting council meeting you missed just now, Phineas," Ed said. "You just sit there stating into space with your thumb up your butt while Stephen rams through a censorship law."