Julia removed her hat. With a swift tug she dislodged one of the feathers—for which she’d no doubt paid a premium to Mademoiselle Reynard in Rue de Phénicie last winter—and laid it in the child’s dirty palm. Christophine could replace it in a trice and otherwise improve the hat while she had her needle handy. The boys whooped and escorted Julia with two-booted hops up the steps to the wide front door, but they scattered when she motioned them to join her inside.
It smelled of lilacs, newsprint, and floor wax. A fistful of languid blooms drooped over the oak counter of the circulation desk. The large room was quiet, bathed in warm light streaming in the tall windows. Some half dozen women were working at small desks behind the counter. She approached and waited. One of the women hobbled forward as if her shoes were too small.
“I wonder if I might speak with a young man who works here,” Julia said in a low voice. “Mr. Logan Lanier?”
The woman glared at her. “He’s working, miss.”
“Yes, I understand. I won’t take but a few minutes of his time.”
“This is no place for that. You can talk to that boy all you want on his own time, honey.”
“Could you at least tell me when he’ll take a break? I’ll wait.” Julia folded her hands on the counter.
“Can’t say.”
An older woman approached. She patted the first woman’s arm. “I’m sorry, miss, but employees are not allowed visitors during their shifts. Too many distractions here as it is.”
Julia offered a sympathetic nod and leaned forward, resting her forearm on the ancient wood. “I’m here from Vanity Fair,” she whispered. “I’m under an awful deadline and really must speak to Mr. Lanier today. I haven’t been able to reach him any other way.”
The woman looked more flustered than stubborn. Julia heard a rustle from the workers seated behind the counter, but when she glanced at them, their eyes dived elsewhere.
“May I simply—” Julia began again when a door at the back clanked open and Logan hurried over. He must have been alerted that someone was asking for him.
“I’ve been here since eleven, Mrs. Crowder,” he said. “I’m due for a break. Or,” he continued, nearly stammering, “I could sort out the retrieval baskets that came in last week. She could talk to me—whatever this is about—while I work down there.”
“I decide when you’re due for a break,” she said. “And what tasks you boys take on.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He had not yet looked at Julia.
“But those baskets have gone unsorted long enough,” the woman conceded. “She can go with you, but make it quick. Answer her questions and get back to work. I want her gone in fifteen minutes. And see me before you leave today.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He turned and signaled for Julia to follow. As they passed through the flotilla of small oak desks, the staff twittered, bosoms bouncing in a hiss of whispers. It was English, of course, but like nothing she’d ever heard. “She yo Sheba, Mistah Logan-berry?” “Dinge got hisself a pinktail.” “Ain’t yo arnchy!” She understood only that the barrage was demeaning.
Julia followed him down a flight of linoleum-covered stairs, bristling at his meek obedience and acceptance of those women’s scorn. He deserved respect, not derision. In silence he led her to a basement room with a cement floor and two small windows, cased in heavy grillwork, high on the wall. He yanked the string hanging from a light bulb in the center of the room, releasing a weak yellow light and a galaxy of dust. Several baskets full of books sat under a table beneath the windows. At last he turned. “What in God’s good name are you doing here?”
His tone startled her. “I’m sorry. I never meant to cause you any trouble. I wouldn’t have bothered you, but it’s important, and I don’t know who else I can ask.”
“Stick with Pablo, Miss Kydd. Do your sightseeing with him.” Logan heaved one of the baskets onto the table and upended it. Miss Kydd, not Julia. He was angry indeed if their fragile start of a friendship meant nothing now.
“Stop that.” Julia reached to break the fall of books. She straightened those that had fallen spine up, their pages buckling open. “You’re angry with me, not them.”
Logan tossed the empty basket beneath the table. He pulled books out of the jumble and began to set them on their fore edges. “You shouldn’t have come here.”
Julia righted the books more carefully and ordered them by the Dewey numbers penned on their spines. Something more was tormenting him. “Why do those women taunt you like that? Don’t they know you write prize-winning poetry?”
Logan swung his jaw in frustration. Footsteps shuffled in the hall. He waited until the stairwell door banged shut. “You have no idea how ridiculous I am to most of the folks up there.” He swung his fist toward the street beyond the narrow windows. “Poetry! Jesus! It will be bad enough explaining you.”
Logan paced across the room and back. When he spoke, the words nearly choked him. “You know what? I can speak three languages, write a damn decent villanelle, and lecture on Shakespeare or Yeats, but in the end I’m still just a sorry-ass buck to those hyenas. And I’d better never forget it. Those women make damn sure I don’t.”
Julia didn’t understand. Logan Lanier was a talented poet and scholar. It pained her to hear anyone, least of all Logan himself, refer to him with derision. In each of their conversations, she’d felt a growing regard for his
