She was dressed in what I’d read was the current rage among college girls on the opposite coast: men’s clothing. Her camel-colored slacks were of soft flannel and her right-buttoning jacket was of forest-green wool, under which I could see a white oxford shirt and boy’s suspenders. Oversized green-and-brown argyle socks bunched around her ankles above a pair of men’s brown moccasins.

Still, there’d be no way you’d mistake her for a boy, even at a distance. She was pretty damn fetching, but she acted as if she didn’t know that. Her wild brown hair, which had obviously been shampooed that very morning, clearly disagreed with her on the topic of where it should fall. Its mass formed a nice backdrop for her bright, expressive features.

She sat herself down at my table. “So thank you for meeting me here, Mr. Sherwood.”

“Call me Ray,” I said.

“Okay then, Ray. I’m really stunned. I mean, writing that note to you was a case of ‘I shot an arrow into the air.’ And here you are.”

I nodded at her wardrobe. “That’s some number.”

She looked down at her clothes and laughed. “I don’t always wear men’s clothing, but I’m not exactly rolling in dough—you fellows don’t realize how good you’ve got it. Women have to pay double or triple what men pay for an outfit, and how many times a week do you think we can wear it?” She toyed with her lapels. “I’m working my way through school, the Department of Music over at Berkeley, and this getup is one quarter the price of something from the Sather Gate Shop. And it makes quite an impression, I think.”

That it did, I told her, and asked how she knew of me.

“Well, I have all of Jack Donovan’s records, the three on Vocalion and the new one on Brunswick . . . ‘Beef Lo Mein,’ ‘Soup du Jour,’ ‘The Music Speaks to Me’ . . . I really love the arrangements. And then I read about you in Art Garnett’s column in Metronome magazine and found out they were all your charts.”

“It was a very short paragraph.”

“But very complimentary. Seeing you here, though, I don’t think the photo did you any justice.”

I was much enjoying the drift of this conversation as the café’s only waiter approached Gail with a look of ennui he’d most likely received on graduation day at the Sorbonne.

“Just a glass of water, but bring me the check,” Gail seemed pleased to say, indicating my coffee and roll. The waiter’s eyes conveyed the overwhelming futility of life, and he departed.

I asked her, “How did you know I’d be at the Claremont?”