“Last week, I saw a sign in the Claremont’s lobby saying that Jack Donovan’s orchestra would be appearing in the ballroom. I asked if they knew where your band would be staying and they said, ‘On the premises.’ So yesterday afternoon, I went back and left my note for you.”

She didn’t really look or act much like part of the hotel’s crowd, which tended toward the society set. “What were you doing at the Claremont?”

She laughed again. “Drinking free booze.” I raised my eyebrows and she advised, “It’s a long story.”

I shrugged. “It’s a long day.”

The waiter returned, set down a glass of water and the check for Gail, and departed with a twitch of despair.

She began, “Well, at the end of Prohibition, some killjoys at the university pushed through a local ordinance saying you couldn’t operate a bar within one mile of the Berkeley campus. As if there wasn’t plenty of hooch in all the dorms! Of course, this killed the Claremont, which is right along the border. But as it happens, I do a little cross-country running for Cal Berkeley. I can do a mile in under seven minutes.”

“Pretty good.”

“Well, thanks. So one day, for fun, I decide to run to the Claremont’s gates and it takes me nine minutes. Even accounting for the uphill grade at the very end, I mean, nine minutes to run one mile? I have a friend who’s studying engineering. I had him do a survey and it turns out the Claremont is more than a mile away from the very closest border of the campus. I went to the hotel’s manager with this information, he got it confirmed, and so you’re looking at the reason the Claremont can now serve liquor.” The Reason did a little “voilà” with her arms. “As a thank-you, I get free drinks at the Terrace Lounge for the rest of my life. I’ll probably drink myself to death and get shortchanged.”

(The whole thing sounded very made up, but the bartender at the Terrace Lounge later confirmed to me that this was indeed the case, except for the part about her drinking herself to death.)

I asked about her business proposal.

Gail’s index finger played around in her glass of water. “You’re a jazz musician and a jazz arranger, but you have a classical background. Juilliard, right?” Technically, I’d attended the Institute of Musical Arts before it had merged with its rival, but it was the custom to refer to our alma mater as Juilliard. Gail continued: “Okay, well, I’m a composer, or studying to be. I’m pretty wild. I mean, modern. Schoenberg, Stravinsky, they’re like Kay Kyser compared to the stuff I write. Anyway, the Pavilions of the Pacific part of the fair, that’s right behind us—”