It was an awkward time. I’d told Sam to call if there was anything I could do. He didn’t call. That grated, I suppose, but I was glad. The skylight tired me out. The scratched phone outside my door rang constantly for a girl who’d just moved into the room at the end of the hall. Finally, for a little excitement, I spent a morning sitting in Mr. Greenyas’s shop with my stocking feet on a bench. He told me about his boring professional hockey career while he put new soles and heels on my black suede boots. I came out a quarter of an inch taller and full of ideas of my educational grandeur. I decided to give myself a treat and walked by Rose’s, the only delicatessen in town. It was a very lush place. Shiny chrome everywhere, in contrast to the matte upholstery booths. I stood in front of the window admiring the cake wagon and the roast beef and the scrawny lady in the black uniform on the other side of the window, her arms loaded with plates. They made a five-layer club sandwich there, and if you were a friend of the Roses you could order a genuine bagel flown out, frozen, from New York. During the lunch hour the more worldly members of the Junior Chamber could be seen at Rose’s. In their dark suits showing their young paunches, they tilted toward each other with friendship, and for plates of knockwurst and sauerkraut. The gleam of their thick-framed spectacles and the occasional flash of a bright white sock cuff peeking out of a polished leather shoe gave the place an intensely stately feeling. There were never many women; the food was too fattening. I stood outside and watched the dark heads of men deciding between marble fudge cake and apple crumble, while they discussed the sale of a mountain of silent fir trees.