In the Still of the Night

could. Last summer there had been one heartbreaking family living at the town dump. Now there were dozens of people, huddled in ragged clothing, constantly crawling over the refuse for anything that could be eaten or sold.
    And when Lily and Robert went to town, there was a mood of anger and revolution that hadn’t been obvious the previous year. Everybody had thought the Crash of ‘29 was the low point, and the good life was sure to resume. But it kept getting worse. There was even a cell of Communists who met in ill-disguised secrecy in the back room of the town library once a week. The Brewster family had a second cousin who had been in Russia during the Revolution and amazingly survived. The horror stories he told about what anarchy really meant were terrifying.
    But for all that, Lily held out hope. She and Robert no longer lived in a fifth floor walk-up cold-water flat in a dreadful part of the city. Maybe good fortune would come to others in time.
    But not until President Hoover was out of office. Lily knew as well as anyone that he hadn’t personally caused the Crash, but he hadn’t any idea of how to solve the problem either.

Chapter 2

    Lily had included Julian West in her list of potential “celebrities“ with serious reservations. He was highly unlikely to come or even bother to respond, but she wanted so much to meet him and considered a stamp a small price to pay for even the most remote possibility. But he was said to have a new book coming out in the spring and might wish to finally end his reclusive style of life.
    She was giddy with astonishment and pleasure when he accepted the invitation. Even Robert, who wasn’t as devout a reader as his sister, had read and enjoyed most of West’s early books, though he didn’t like the more recent ones, was downright excited.
    “Who shall we invite as the paying guests?“ he asked.
    “I can think of dozens of people who would regard meeting him as a real coup. Addie Jonson, for one.“
    “Your old gym mistress?“ Robert asked, rolling his eyes.
    “No, you’re thinking of Miss Adams, the horrible gym mistress. Addie was the literature teacher at my school. She’s the one who got me reading Julian West’s books in the first place. It would please her enormously to meet him. I don’t know that she can afford it though.“
    “She still has her teaching job, hasn’t she?“
    “Yes, I got a letter from her only last week saying she’d turned down the offer to be headmistress because it would cut into her teaching with trivial nonsense about kitchen help and obnoxious parents.“
    “Lily, we’re doing this to make money,“ Robert reminded her.
    Lily nodded. “I know. And she knows our situation. She’s probably better off than we are, come to think of it. She owns several little houses near the school that she rents out.“
    “Who else comes to mind?“ Robert asked, relieved that the monetary aspect was settled and that Lily, the financial whiz, wasn’t going gaga and sappy.
    “Cecil Hoornart,“ Lily said.
    “Who on earth is that?“
    “He’s reviewer, critic, biographer and professor at Columbia who was a guest speaker at our school when we were reading West. He knows West’s work well and has probably never met him.“
    “A critic? Won’t West storm back to his hideyhole when he learns a critic is among the guests?“
    “I don’t think so. Professor Hoornart loves his books. When we could still afford to take the paper, he always reviewed them very favorably. And I’d like to invite Raymond Cameron and his sister Rachel as well.“
    “Raymond Cameron!“ Robert groaned. “Holy Toledo! I thought you’d gotten over that wet rag a hundred years ago.“
    “He wasn’t a wet rag. He was very smart and I’ve been over him, as you so rudely put it, for a long time. I only thought of him because he was always a reader of current literature. And his sister Rachel is very beautiful and ornamental. You’d like having her here. And I hear they’re still madly rich.”
    Lily thought back to high school when she was friends with Raymond. And in spite of her denial, he was a wet rag. Homely, pimpled, bespectacled and shy. But they had been thrown together when he offered her a ride home to the Brewsters’ Gramercy Park apartment and when the car broke down, they had over an hour to kill before being rescued.
    Raymond had filled the time by talking about books—talking with what Lily thought then and now was wisdom and wit. Being