In the Still of the Night

husband, children or parents to care for, her financial responsibilities were to herself alone.
    She bought most of her clothes from secondhand stores because she didn’t give a damn about fashion, cropped her curly hair short so she had no hairdressing costs, and served as a dorm mother to earn a little extra and save paying rent to someone else. On school vacations, she stayed in whichever of her properties was vacant.
    She was a tall, rangy, long-striding woman with a voice that was usually pitched to the back row of girls. Lily Brewster had been one of her favorite students because she was bright and worked hard at her studies in spite of not having to be anything after she completed her education but an ornament to society. Lily had developed a schoolgirl crush on Addie—why did so many of the girls do that, silly geese?—which had later developed into a real friendship with only a touch of heroine worship on Lily’s side.
    Addie had visited Lily once at the dreadful tenement and had been appalled at the circumstances to which the young woman and her brother were reduced. Addie had assured her that with her brains and capacity for hard work, things would eventually look up for her, though Addie wasn’t sure it was the truth. Then a year later, she’d gotten a letter from Lily explaining that she and Robert had inherited, in a manner of speaking, a large house, but no money, and would Addie please be so kind as to loan her books. The small town library had such a tiny selection of good fiction and she couldn’t afford to buy any, but would find a way to pay the postage both ways.
    Addie suspected that’s why she had been invited to the house party. The common love of books and all of them that Addie had happily sent along at her own expense. Now she believed her own prediction. Lily would survive, maybe thrive, and Ad-die was happy to spend some of her hoarded money to help Lily and get to meet one of her literary idols.
    She was striding down the main street when the smell of food made her remember her destination. She barged into a small cafe, spotted a waitress and called across the room in her school-mistress voice, “Could you toss together a meat loaf sandwich? Lots of mustard, if you please.”

    * * *

    Cecil Hoornart sat down on one of the railroad benches and fished around in his rucksack for his hiking shoes. He’d gotten off the train one stop before Voorburg early in order to walk the rest of the way. Cecil loved house parties—it gave him so much scope for eating, but as he aged, he was getting a paunch, so he’d taken up hiking rather than cutting down his food and drink intake.
    He wouldn’t have come to this house party, and he most definitely wouldn’t have even considered paying to attend, except that one his longtime ambitions had been to meet Julian West. Cecil had spent three years researching for a biography of the man. It was a challenge, but when he started his first draft, he thought it was going to be his best biography. He’d written to Julian West, even gone to his house once, but had been ignored. The time he steeled himself to knock on the door to West’s house, he hadn’t even gotten to say his name before the unsuitably gruff young thug of a butler said, “Mr. West is not expecting a guest. He’s too busy to see you, whatever you want.”
    Mortifying.
    But maybe not West’s fault. He might not know how rude his staff was. And the butler probably didn’t get around to posting letters. Cecil had written West a great many letters and never gotten a response. He’d have to tell West about it. The author would be glad to know. And even if he wasn’t, he wouldn’t dare offend such an important literary critic who held the power to influence his sales. Authors were always very nice to critics. The more prestigious the venue of the reviews, the nicer they were.
    Cecil took his notebook and pencil from his lightly loaded rucksack and made a note to remind himself to mention the butler. Cecil had sent his luggage ahead to the Voorburg-on-Hudson station. He wouldn’t be seen carrying a suitcase even for a short distance these days. So many suitcase-laden men of middle age were out of work and living in shelters like the Muni or sleeping on the streets where decent people tripped over them. He did not wish to be mistaken for one of them.
    He hoped the luggage had arrived in good order. He had his only full copy of the draft of the biography he was preparing on Julian