Animal Appetite

couldn’t believe that Professor Foley had forgotten his gracious invitation.
    To avoid trampling the lovingly winterized flower beds or shoving my way through the shrubbery to get to the back door, I returned to the sidewalk and made my way down a narrow gravel driveway that led to a two-car garage and the rear of the house. Lights were on in what I guessed was the kitchen, but when I rang the bell at the back door, no one answered. Reluctant to conclude that Professor Foley had stood me up, I fished for ways to excuse him. I was a stranger in the world of those who routinely took tea: To habitual sippers, four o’clock might be universally understood to mean four-thirty or even five. Perhaps Professor Foley intended to serve a real English tea and was now hurrying home from one of the fancy shops on Huron Avenue where he’d bought fresh scones, little cakes, and out-of-season giant strawberries to be served with Devon cream. If so, I didn’t want to be caught lurking around his back door.
    Returning to the front of the house, I felt obliged to explain my presence there to onlookers who were, in fact, nonexistent. I again rang the bell, listened to the chimes, and pounded the lion’s head door knocker. Eager, I suppose, to set something right, I put the overturned pot of mums back on its base by the door. At four thirty-five, I came to my senses. The mail might not have arrived until the afternoon, but the newspapers had been delivered in the early morning. Professor Foley was elderly, but he’d shown no sign whatsoever of forgetfulness and every sign of gentlemanly manners. And, no, my own memory wasn’t slipping, either. I’d been invited for four o’clock on Friday. If Professor Foley wasn’t here to welcome me, something was wrong.
    In my own immediate neighborhood or another like it, I’d have marched up to one of the nearby houses to ask whether anyone had seen my inexplicably absent host. Here, I hesitated, mainly, I guess, because I was afraid that any of the grand doors to these imposing arks might be opened by a uniformed maid. It’s not that I’m exactly phobic about maids. I’m just not used to them, and on the rare occasions when I encounter them, they make me nervous. There’s something about maids that seems so... judgmental. Before I open my mouth, I always feel as if I’d already said the wrong thing. But maybe I confuse them with nuns. All that black and white. Anyway, steeling myself against the fearsome prospect of encountering a maid, or maybe just a neighbor who’d make me feel small, I went to the house closest to Professor Foley’s—not, I might mention, Governor Weld’s—and boldly rang the bell. The person who promptly came to the door was a plump, apple-cheeked woman with thick brown hair piled in a loose knot on her head. She wore a brown wool skirt and what I thought was called a “twin set,” a cardigan over a pullover, in the medium brown of her skirt and hair. That’s a cardigan sweater, of course, not a Welsh corgi; there was no sign of the comforting presence of any kind of dog. Faltering only a little, I introduced myself and stated my dilemma. “The mail is in the mail slot,” I went on to explain. “The newspapers haven’t been taken in. I couldn’t help worrying. But maybe Professor Foley just forgot. I wondered whether anyone had seen him today. Or maybe he’s gone away?”
    The woman shook her head and frowned. “No, he’d have told me. I have a key. Let me get it and grab a jacket, and we’ll run over.”
    A few minutes later, after dutifully ringing the bell by the front door and waiting while no one answered, she inserted the key in the lock and opened the door. “He has an alarm system,” she informed me, flicking on the lights and stepping over the pile of mail that had fallen from the slot, “but it’s never turned on.” Even so, as I followed her, she opened the front-hall closet and examined the digital display on a little plastic box.
    “George!” she called out. “George? It’s Lydia! George? Are you all right?” Ignoring me, she swiftly moved to a huge dining room with a fireplace at one end, an immense sideboard laden with china platters and tureens, and a mahogany dinner table with twelve chairs neatly grouped around it, and not crowded in, either. At the head of the table, one place was set. A solitary lace place mat held a flower-painted plate, polished silverware, and a wineglass. In front of it stood a small book