For Jim Qwilleran, veteran journalist, it was one of the most appalling moments of his career. Years before, as a war correspondent, he had been strafed on the beaches; as a crime reporter he had been a target of the Mob. Now he was writing restaurant reviews for a midwestern newspaper, the Daily Fluxion, and he was not prepared for the shocking situation at the Press Club.

The day had started well enough. He had eaten a good breakfast at his boarding house: a wedge of honeydew melon, an omelette fines herbes with sautéed chicken livers, cheese popovers, and three cups of coffee. He planned to lunch with his old friend Arch Riker at the Press Club, their favorite haunt.

At twelve noon Qwilleran bounded up the steps of the grimy limestone fortress that had once been the county jail but now dispensed food and drink to the working press. As he approached the ancient nail-studded portal, he sensed that something was wrong. He smelled fresh varnish! His sharp ear detected that the massive door no longer creaked on its hinges! He stepped into the lobby and gasped. The murky, smoky ambience that he loved so well was now all freshness and sparkle.

Qwilleran was aware that the Press Club had been closed for two weeks for something called annual housekeeping, but no one had hinted at this metamorphosis. It had happened while he had been out of town on assignment.

His luxuriant pepper-and-salt moustache was rampant with rage, and he pounded it into submission with his fist. Instead of the old paneled walls, black with numberless coats of cheap varnish, the lobby was wallpapered with something resembling his grandmother's tablecloths. Instead of the scarred plank floor rippled with a century of wear, there was wall-to-wall carpet over thick rug padding. Instead of fluorescent tubes glaring on the domed ceiling, there was a chandelier of polished brass. Even the familiar mustiness was missing, replaced by a chemical smell of newness.

Gulping down his shock and dismay, the newsman dashed into the bar, where he always lunched in a far dark corner. There he found more of the same: creamy walls, soft lighting, hanging baskets of plastic plants, and mirrors. Mirrors! Qwilleran shuddered.

Arch Riker, his editor at the Daily Fluxion, was sitting at the usual table with his usual glass of Scotch, but the scarred wooden table had been sanded and varnished, and there were white paper placemats with scalloped edges. The waitress was there promptly with Qwilleran's usual glass of tomato juice, but she was not wearing her usual skimpy white uniform with frilly handkerchief in the breast pocket. All the waitresses were now dressed as French maids in chic black outfits with white aprons and ruffled caps.

"Arch! What happened?" Qwilleran demanded. "I don't believe what I'm seeing!" He lowered his substantial bulk into a chair and groaned.

"Well, the club has lots of women members now," Riker explained calmly, "and they got themselves appointed to the housekeeping committee so they could clean the place up. It's called reversible renovation. Next year's housekeeping committee can rip out the wallpaper and carpet and go back to the original filth and decrepitude...."

"You sound as if you like it. Traitor!"

"We have to swing with the times," Riker said with the bored equanimity of an editor who has seen it all. "Look at the menu and decide what you want to eat. I've got a meeting at one-thirty. I'm going to order the lamb curry."

"I've lost my appetite," Qwilleran said, his disgruntled expression accentuated by the downcurve of his moustache. He waved an arm at the surrounding scene. "The place has lost all its character. It even smells phony." He raised his nose and sniffed. "Synthetic! Probably carcinogenic!"

"You're getting to have a nose like a bloodhound, Qwill. No one else has complained about the smell."

"And another thing," Qwilleran said with belligerence. "I don't like what's happening at the Fluxion either."

"What do you mean?"

"First they assigned all those women to the copy desk in the City Room and switched all those men to the Women's Department. Then they gave us unisex restrooms. Then they moved in all those new desks in green and orange and blue. It looks like a circus! They they took away my typewriter and gave me a video display terminal that gives me a headache."

Riker said in his soothing tone: "You never forgot those old movies, Qwill. You still want reporters to type with their hats on and poke the keys with two fingers."

Qwilleran slumped in his chair. "Look here, Arch. I've been trying to make up my mind about something, and now I've made a decision. I've got three weeks of vacation coming and two weeks of comp time. I want to add some leave-of-absence and go away for three months."

"You've gotta be kidding."

"I'm tired of writing flattering hogwash about restaurants that advertise in the Fluxion. I want to go up north and get away from city hype and city pollution and city noise and city crime."

"Are you all right, Qwill?" Riker asked with alarm. "You're not sick or something, are you?"

"Is it abnormal to want to breathe a little fresh air?"

"It'll kill you! You're a city boy, Qwill. So am I. We were both brought up on carbon monoxide and smoke and all that dirt that blows around Chicago. I'm your oldest friend, and I say: Don't do it! You're just getting on your feet financially, and..." (he lowered his voice) "Percy is thinking about a great new assignment for you."

Qwilleran grunted. He knew all about the managing editor's great new assignments. Four of them had come his way in the last few years, and every one of them was an insult to a former war correspondent and prize-winning crime reporter. "What is it this time?" he mumbled. "Obituaries? Household hints?"

Riker smiled smugly before saying in a whisper: "Investigative reporting! You can call your own shots. Expose political graft, corporate fraud, environmental violations, government spending, anything you dig up."

Qwilleran touched his moustache gingerly and stared across the table at his editor. Investigative reporting was something he had wanted to do long before it became the media rage. Yet his sensitive upper lip -- the source of his best hunches -- was sending him signals. "Maybe next fall. Right now I want to spend the summer where people don't lock their doors or take the car keys out of the ignition."

"The job may not be open next fall. We've found out the Morning Rampage is hunting for an investigative reporter, and Percy wants to beat them to the gun. You know how he is. You're taking a big gamble if you're not here to grab it when it's offered to you."

The waitress returned to serve Riker another Scotch and take their lunch order. "You're looking thin," she said to Qwilleran. "What'll you have? Half-pound burger with fries, double malt, and apple pie?"

He threw her a grouchy look. "I'm not hungry."

"Order a TLT," she suggested. "You can eat the lettuce and tomato and take the turkey home to Koko. I'll bring you a doggie bag."

Qwilleran's Siamese cat was a celebrity at the Press Club. Koko's portrait hung in the lobby along with Pulitzer Prize winners, and he was probably the only cat in the history of journalism who had his own press card signed by the chief of police. Although Qwilleran's suspicious nature and inquisitive mind had brought a few criminals to justice, it was commonly understood at the Press Club that the brains behind his success belonged to a feline of outstanding intelligence and sensory perception. Koko always seemed to sniff or scratch in the right place at the right time.

The two newsmen applied themselves to the lamb curry and the turkey sandwich in silence, indicating deep thought. Finally Riker asked: "Where would you go if you took the summer off?"

"I'd take a little place on the lake, about four hundred miles north. Near Mooseville."

"That far away? What would you do with the cats?"

"Take them along."

"You don't have a car. And there are no taxis in the north woods."

"I could put a downpayment on a car -- a used car, of course."

"Of course," said Riker, knowing his friend's reputation for thriftiness. "And I suppose the feline genius will get a driver's license."

"Koko? I wouldn't be surprised. He's getting interested in pushbuttons, knobs, dials, levers -- anything mechanical."

"But what would you do, Qwill, in a place like Mooseville? You don't fish. You don't sail. The lake up there is too cold for swimming. It's frozen ice in winter and melted ice in summer."

"Don't worry, Arch. I've got plans. I've got a great idea for a book. I'd like to try writing a novel -- with lots of sex and violence. All the good stuff."

Riker could only stare and search his mind for more objections. "It would cost you a bundle. Do you realize the rent they're getting for summer cottages?"

"Actually," Qwilleran said with a note of triumph, "it won't cost me a cent. I've got an old aunt up there, and she has a cabin I can use."

"You never told me about any old aunt."

"She's not really a relative. She was a friend of my mother's, and I called her Aunt Fanny when I was a kid. We lost touch, but she saw my byline in the Fluxion and wrote to me. We've been corresponding ever since.... Speaking of bylines, my name was spelled wrong in yesterday's paper."

"I know, I know," Riker said. "We have a new copy editor, and no one told her about that ridiculous W. We caught it in the second edition."

The waitress brought the coffee -- a brew as black as the sooty varnish concealed by the new wallpaper -- and Riker studied his cup in search of clues to Qwilleran's aberrant behavior. "How about your friend? The one who eats health foods. What does she think about your sudden insanity?"

"Rosemary? She's in favor of fresh air, exercise, all that jazz."

"You haven't been smoking your pipe lately. Is that her idea?"

"Are you implying I never have any ideas of my own? What happened, I realized how much trouble it is to buy tobacco, fill a pipe, tamp it, light it, relight it two or three times, knock out the ashes, empty the ashtray, clean the pipe..."

"You're getting old," Riker said.

After lunch the restaurant reviewer went back to his olive-green desk with matching telephone and VDT, and the feature editor attended the meeting of assistant editors, sub-editors, group editors, divisional editors, managing editors, and executive editors.

Qwilleran was pleased that his announcement had jarred Riker's professional cool. Admittedly the editor's questions had dented his resolve. How would he react to three months of the simple life after a lifetime of urban chaos? It was true he planned to do some writing during the summer, but how many hours a day can one sit at a typewriter? There would be no lunches at the Press Club, no telephone calls, no evenings with friends, no gourmet dinners, no big league ballgames, no Rosemary.

Nevertheless, he needed a change. He was disenchanted with the Fluxion, and the offer of a lakeside hideaway for the entire season appealed to his thrifty nature.

On the other hand, Aunt Fanny had mentioned nothing about comforts and conveniences. Qwilleran liked an extra-long bed, deep lounge chairs, good reading lamps, a decent refrigerator, plenty of hot water, and trouble-free plumbing. He would undoubtedly miss the amenities of Maus Haus, the glamorous boarding house where he occupied a luxury apartment. He would miss the Robert Maus standard of elegant dining and the camaraderie of the other tenants, especially Rosemary.

The green telephone on his desk buzzed, and he answered it absent-mindedly.

"Qwill, have you heard the news?" It was Rosemary's velvet voice, but it had the high pitch of alarm.

Copyright © 1987 by Lilian Jackson Braun