“Traffic patterns. Folks will pay attention to the speechifying, and then we’ll get them moving in the right directions so they can do their signing.”
“What’s the weight doing on the platform?” I asked, pointing to the heavy metal doughnut that was sitting on a stool on the corner of the podium.
“Demonstration purposes. Since we’re going to have the VIPs sign their strips today, Nadia thought it would be a good idea to show them how it will look. We’ll turn the weight around, like this, and show folks a sample of the finished project.”
I walked over to the podium and looked at the back of the weight. Metallic strips with names were glued in rows.
“Turn it,” Fred said.
I put my hand on the top of the weight and let it twist. It took a little force, but it did turn around. “This is terrific,” I said.
“Yeah, well, the final product will look a lot better, but this will give folks an idea.”
“I’m so glad that you figured out the best way to get these weights signed. Soldering the metal strips is a great solution.”
Fred shrugged his shoulders. Different-sized donations got different-sized signing plates. We were going to use Sharpies to do the signing and then shellac them before attaching them to the weights. But then we decided that etching would feel more official, so we added the Dremel step. There was something about using a tool that made folks feel like they got their money’s worth.
Fred turned the weight back around, away from the audience.
“What time are folks starting to show up?” he asked.
“We’re going to meet out back at eleven thirty to have some pictures taken. The doors to the auditorium are going to open around then, so that folks can come in and wander around a bit. Would you mind—”
“Nadia’s asked me to keep an eye out in here, answer questions. Pat Reed too.”
“I want to get a picture of you—” I said.
“There’ll be plenty of time for pictures. Nadia’s got a team of folks taking pictures, doing that social media thing. Besides, I don’t want to run into Her Majesty Kim Gray if I can help it.”
“From the sounds of it, she won’t be around for too long. I hope she makes it here in time for the press photos.”
“Can’t imagine she’ll want to miss those.”
“Neither can I. Hope seeing her will be . . . all right.”
Fred shrugged his shoulders. “Small town. We’re bound to run into each other.” Fred walked over and adjusted the black drape, then turned back to me. “Ruth, I’ve never thanked you for taking me on this winter.”
“Fred, you—”
“Let me say this. I know Pat put you up to it, but you didn’t have to do it. I’ve done pretty well in my business, but Patty’s illness, well, it wiped us out. When she died, I stopped paying attention to the business and paid more attention to feeling sorry for myself. And drinking. Guys who worked with me, they tried to cover for me, but I wasn’t up to par. That doesn’t mean Queen Gray had any business firing me. None. You folks helped me get back on my feet and gave Freddie a job to help out with the bills. I appreciate it. And uh, yep. That’s that.”
“You’re welcome,” I said. I wasn’t tempted to give Fred a hug or say any more about it. If you looked up cranky Yankee in the dictionary, Fred’s picture would be there as an illustration.
“I hear the selectmen are trying to get rid of her,” Fred said, completely moving past the emotional speech he had just given.
“Think they’ll be successful?” I asked.
“I think Kim Gray will get hers, one way or the other. That’s what I think.”
chapter 8
“We can’t wait any longer,” Nadia said. It wasn’t a question. I looked at the clock on the wall in the Town Hall. The press photographers had pushed us to start taking photos on the portico as close to eleven thirty as possible so they could reset up in the Town Hall. We’d agreed, and were done by ten of. We moved inside the Town Hall to mix and mingle. Ben had suggested that folks move along to signing their metal strips, which they had done after a bit of demonstration from me and Pat on how to use the tools properly. Activity was beginning to wane a bit. We needed to make our speeches, and soon.
“Still no sign of Kim?” I said.
“No visual sighting. No text. No e-mail. No phone call. Not to you, or me, or Nancy, or Jimmy Murphy. No one. We’re getting behind, and people are getting bored.”
I looked around the crowd and saw Pat and Nancy talking to each other. Or she was talking and gesturing wildly, even by Nancy Reed standards. Nancy had run out right after the press photos were done, and I hadn’t seen her since. Fred was over by the display of the clock parts, talking to Freddie. I noticed he’d changed his shirt and put on a tie. Jason Scott was helping Flo at the food table, and Ada and Mac were handing out drinks. Ben was walking around with a camera, taking pictures. He caught my eye and winked at me.
“We have to start the speeches,” Nadia said.
“Where’s Jack?” I asked, imagining a baby-crying fest breaking out in the middle of the speeches.
“Caroline’s giving him a bottle. She’s back at the Cog & Sprocket, so they could have some quiet time. Not sure who needed it more, Caroline or Jack.”
“Okay, let’s start. Of course, Kim was supposed to give the opening remarks. Maybe Jimmy will—”
“You’re doing it.”
“Nadia, I can’t. We talked about this. I was supposed to stand on the podium while Ben talked about the Clock Tower Committee after Kim introduced him.”
“Well, guess what? It’s showtime, and you’re the show. Go. Just go. I need to get everyone synced and make sure they’re recording this.”
I walked up to the podium and stood behind the lectern. I motioned to Ben, and he joined me. The members of the Board of Selectmen filed up as well. I surveyed the crowd once more, but still no Kim. Beckett Green was over by the model of the clock tower, talking to Zane Phillips, gesturing at the model of my grandmother he’d put on display beside it. I noticed Jeff Paisley standing in the back beside Moira, who smiled and waved. Caroline came in, carrying Jack, right before I started my speech. I smiled at her, glad she wasn’t going to miss this. Ada walked over and took her sleeping son.
“Hello, folks,” I said, and then jumped back a bit at the echo of the microphone. “I’m Ruth Clagan, and I own the Cog & Sprocket.” Everyone applauded, which was nice but also unnerving. “Thank you for being here to help us launch the clock tower project. Are you having fun? Has everyone signed something?” Some cheers erupted, and there was more applause. “This is a community effort, and I am thrilled that three of the members of the Board of Selectmen—Jimmy Murphy, Nancy Reed, Harriet Wimsey—are here. I’m also grateful to our friends at the Corner Market and the Sleeping Latte for providing refreshments. You all noticed the gardens as you came in. We were CONGAed, and glad of it.” A smattering of laughs went throughout the crowd, and I noticed a lot of the community gardening volunteers. “There will be time for more thanks later, but right now I’d like to introduce you to the chair of the Clock Tower Committee, Ben Clover.”
I stepped back to make room for Ben at the lectern, and then I got in line with Jimmy, Nancy, and Harriet. Lots of applause greeted Ben, but he waved it off.
“I’m sorry that Kim Gray is missing this party,” he said with a charming ease that belied the sting of his statement. Her absence may have gone unnoticed before he said it, but not anymore. “Now, I know that Ruth thinks that the real party will be the day we wind the clock, a couple of weeks from now. But I think today is the day we celebrate. Three years ago Grover Winter and Thom Clagan formed this committee to help realize Thom’s dream of rebuilding the clock tower. It was a committee of two. Right after I moved to town, they signed me up to join them. How could I not? Grover had the charm and Thom had the passion. It was impo
ssible to say no to the two of them together.
“Last year we lost them both, and I thought the dream had died with them. But I hadn’t met Ruth yet. Ruth has Grover’s charm, and Thom’s passion. Even though the current committee has only been working together for a few months, with Ruth’s vision, we’re going to make this happen. Imagine that, folks. By the end of June we’ll be able to look up and see what time it is in the center of town. Next December we’ll be ringing in the New Year with a clock tower show.
“Today you are all here to sign your name to the strips of metal that are going to be attached to the clock weights that keep the machine running. Now, I’ve been told by a reliable source that we can add as many weights as we want to, so keep on signing, and send your friends down. Over there, you can see the display model of the clock that is going up in the tower, and Pat and Zane can talk you through how it works. The bell is out back, ready to go up into the tower on Monday. But the parts are just parts without the artists who put them together. So let’s give a big thank-you to Ruth Clagan, Pat Reed, Caroline Adler, Zane Phillips, and Fred Hamilton. Without these folks none of this would be happening. I’m going to ask everyone to come up to take a bow.”
Pat walked over and took Caroline’s hand, guiding her to the front of the room. Zane came from a different direction, and Fred left his post to come to the front of the room. I stepped off the podium to stand with them, because that’s where I belonged. With them. I put my arm around Caroline, and she put her arm around my waist.
“Now, before we finish up for the day, there are three more pieces of business. First order of business: I’d like a voice vote on the following, that we start calling this the Clagan Clock Tower. All in favor, say ‘aye.’”
“Aye!” the room thundered. I started to wipe the tears away, but I couldn’t keep up with them, so I stopped. The Clagan Clock Tower. G.T. would have hated it—too showy for an old New Englander—but I was secretly thrilled. And grateful for waterproof mascara.
“Second order of business: I’d like everyone to take a look at the image of Mae Clagan that Zane Phillips has carved. She’s a prototype of one of the figures that will be dancing in December. The final sculptures will be six times this size. We’ll reveal the other figures at the Winding Ceremony in a few weeks. Just a reminder that Beckett Green donated enough money to choose what one of the figures will be. There may be other opportunities for you to bid on figures, so stay tuned.
“Third and final order of business: the carillon dreams of Zane Phillips. We’ve got the hour bell outside for all of you to see. But Zane wanted to have you listen to the carillon that could play when the figures come out to dance. He’s offered to do a demonstration if you’re interested.”
Zane would never stop wanting a separate set of chimes for the figures to dance to, rather than dancing to the methodical, muddled chime of the solo, lopsided bell. For now, the plan was for the bell to activate the figures to come out and dance at the same time as the clock struck. They’d be activated by the clock, but they wouldn’t differentiate the time by doing anything special. Every hour would have the same dance. No one was happy about the lack of chimes, but I’d been the least unhappy. Maybe it was because I lived across from the tower.
“Pat, maybe you can explain what we are going to hear?” Ben said.
Pat walked up to the lectern, carrying his phone.
“Thinking about what bells sound like, and how they operate, has been quite the learning curve for me,” Pat said. “The Clagans are clock people. They like gears and cogs and winding. I’ve learned a lot from them over the years. But clock tower bells? I had no idea how complicated that conversation could be. Here’s one example of a carillon in Europe.” Pat hit a button on his phone. A cacophony of bells sounded, playing a piece of classical music I couldn’t place.
“We don’t want anything fancy like that for our clock,” Pat said.
“Good thing,” someone said. “That’s a lot of noise for Orchard.”
“Yup. We need a little more of an Orchard sound.” Folks laughed. “There are a lot of options in the bell world. We could have gone for electronic bells, but where’s the fun with that? For now, we’ve just got the one bell. But Zane is pricing a carillon to be installed at a later time. Today, for a special treat, he’s asked the Marytown Handbell Society to give us a short demonstration. They’ve just arrived and will be performing soon.”
“Would electronic chimes be cheaper?” Beckett Green asked the question from across the room. The question he knew the answer to, since he’d been in the room with us as we talked this through.
I walked up to the podium. “No, not necessarily cheaper.”
“But they would be more versatile—is that correct?”
“Yes. We could change the tunes.”
“And the volume?”
“No, not the volume. That is something we’ll need to discuss when that phase of the project is ready to start.”
“Can’t bells be played by people instead of by the clocks?” someone else asked.
“There are some that can be played manually. That may be an interim solution for special occasions. We don’t have a budget for someone to live in the clock tower and ring the chimes every hour.” The audience laughed, and Pat looked down at his phone. He stepped up to the mic.
“It appears to be showtime,” he said. Sure enough, the handbell choir came in, eight people in all. They lined up near the front door and rang their handbells. They played a lovely waltz, one of my favorites. Nadia held up her phone, and I noticed a few other people filming it. The queen of social media would never let a moment like this pass.
As soon as it began, it was done. The crowd cheered. I exhaled, happy that this surprise twist didn’t end the day with a thud. Zane certainly kept me on my toes. I got off the podium and walked over to the choir to thank them. “Happy to do it,” the choir director said. “Sorry we can’t stay, but we are on our way to another event. When Zane asked us to come, we couldn’t refuse.”
“How did Zane find you?”
“He’s one of our biggest fans,” she said.
Of course he is, I thought. I made my way toward the food stations, saying hello to as many people as I could. The day couldn’t have gone any better.
I walked around to the signing stations, answering questions about the clock parts, posing for pictures. Who ever thought people would be so excited about using a Dremel to barely etch their name on a place no one would ever see it? The town of Orchard had caught clock tower fever, and I was thrilled.
“Hi, everyone. Could I have your attention?” Jimmy Murphy was on the podium, using the microphone. “I hate to rush you, but tonight is the Orchard Glee Club concert, and we promised we’d have the room cleared by midafternoon so they could set up. We won’t leave until everyone has signed. Don’t worry. But I wanted to let you know that we’re on the clock.” People laughed at his terrible pun. Nadia walked over, and he leaned down so she could whisper in his ear.
“Folks, just a reminder. Pictures from today will be on the Cog & Sprocket site this weekend. Nadia wants you to tap—is it tap photos?”
Nadia took the microphone, but didn’t go up on the platform. “Hi. I work over at the Cog & Sprocket. Make sure you tag us if you share your photos. Thanks so much for coming by today and for helping us get the word out. Remember to use the #AllGearedUp.”
There was a final rush, but within twenty minutes, right before three o’clock, the room was clear, except for members of the Board of Selectmen and the volunteers who had helped us pull today off. I looked around and clapped. Ben joined me, and everyone else soon joined in. Nadia came over to me and gave me a big hug, which I returned.
“Thank you all so much!” I shouted. “Now, we do need to get this place cleared out. But why don’t we move things out to the back portico and raise a toast to ourselves before the VIP reception starts at
five? Or is it too early to start drinking?”
“It’s five o’clock somewhere,” Jimmy said. Everyone laughed, and then Pat and Fred each went to one end of a table and prepared to take it outside.
“Need help?” Ben asked.
“That would be great, Ben,” Pat said, stepping away from his end of the table. “We’re going to lock the tables in the side room laid out like they are, so we can keep track of what goes where. Fred and I have a system. If you’ll help him move the tables, I’ll go out back and grab a dolly for the clock weights.”
I realized how hungry I was, and I looked around for some food. As if she read my mind, Nancy pulled out a tray of pastries and lifted off the plastic wrap.
“I saved some food for all of you,” she said, offering the tray around and smiling knowingly. “There’s more back at the Sleeping Latte.”
“Maybe we should move the VIP party to the Cog & Sprocket?” I said. “It’s tight timing with the concert.”
“We can keep the events separate,” Nancy said. “Besides, there’s all that clock stuff Pat’s been putting around the portico.”
“Right, I forgot about that,” I said. Pat and Zane had been creating some demonstration pieces for the VIP reception so folks could get a sense of how the clock would work. The display included a stand that we hung the bell on, so folks could hear how it would sound.
“Anyway, we’ve got time to take a breath. They need to set up the stage and get the chairs loaded back in. Here, eat something,” Nancy gestured to a tray of desserts. “I’m going to bring Caroline a couple of cookies to tide her over.” Nancy opened up a napkin and put a few cookies in it. She made her way across the room to where Caroline was seated.
Just as I was about to reach for a particularly sugary-looking cherry tart, Pat rushed into the room.
“Where’s Jeff?” he asked me—his face white and his eyes wide.
“Jeff? Probably with Moira. Why?”
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