I’d planned on changing clothes before I got here, clinging to some vague memory of the vanity I used to have when going to parties, but Mrs. de Vries has made me late and I don’t have time. I’m in a mauve wool dress that I inherited from Elsbeth, which fits me well but is such a regretful color that she and I used to call it the Tonsil. Her grandmother had given it to her. Elsbeth was relieved when it was too small and she got to give it away to me. It used to feel like a joke between us, whenever I wore it. Now it feels like a practicality: It’s hard to buy new clothes, so I wear all the ones that fit me, even the ugly ones, even the ones that remind me of better times.
This supper club will be a roomful of boys carrying chewed-up pencils in their pockets—they’re probably studying architecture, like Ollie is—and girls citing philosophers I’ve never heard of. On the rare occasions I run into one of my old friends who did continue on to college, I feel both inferior and dismissive. None of them would survive on their feet if they had to. I’m defensive about everyone in Ollie’s supper club before I even knock on the door.
Ollie peers through the window on the door, and I show him my jar of pickles when he opens it. I meant to bring something better but ran out of time to make anything. Instead I’ve brought the canned goods that a grocer gave me as a secret present this afternoon. Nobody in my family likes them anyway.
Ollie isn’t wearing the jacket and tie I expected. His clothes are even more ragtag than mine are: rolled-up shirtsleeves smudged with graphite as if he’s spent the day at a drafting table.
“Welcome,” he says in a cautious voice that makes me wonder if I’m truly welcome at all.
He waves me into a small, bachelor’s apartment. A sofa and a couple of chairs are clustered on one side of the room, opposite a kitchenette with mismatched cups drying on the countertop. There are only two other people in the room: a boy with full lips and heavy-lidded eyes, and another boy, handsome with wavy hair, who looks like the American film star William Holden. Both of them drink tea, or tea substitute, out of chipped cups.
“The famous supper club,” I say. “And I was concerned I wouldn’t be able to find you in the crowd.”
Ollie is not amused. He holds out both hands for my coat, hanging it on the prong of a swaying coatrack. I don’t know why I’m being tart. He’s doing me a favor. I’m nervous, I think. If he were a new contact I had to impress, I’d be able to wear a better mask, but I can’t un-remind myself of the fact that this is Ollie, who I’ve known for years. “Judith isn’t here,” I notice out loud. “She’s coming, isn’t she?”
“She’s coming.” He has tired eyes, up-all-night-studying eyes. “But you can’t accost her right when she gets through the door. Sit through the regular meeting first. She wasn’t excited about talking with you. The least you can do is show a little restraint and prove you aren’t a complete lunatic.”
“Half a lunatic?”
“Do you promise?”
“I promise,” I say.
“I went out on a limb for you and I don’t want you to embarrass me.”
“Ollie, are you going to introduce me to the other people in the room, or should I sit mutely in the corner and try to refrain from breathing?”
He grimaces, then relents, turning toward the other two boys.
“And Ollie?” I say.
“Yes?”
“Thank you. For inviting me.”
Ollie nods an acknowledgment before leading me the rest of the way to the coffee table. “This is Leo.” He gestures to the one with the full lips first. “He lives here—we’re in his apartment.” Now he turns to the one who looks like William Holden. “And this is Willem, my roommate.” One name I won’t forget, at least. Willem is the Dutch version of William, just like his American movie star doppelg?nger.
Leo drops his cup into the saucer with a clatter, wiping his hand on his pants and banging against the coffee table as he moves to greet me. Willem smoothly kisses both of my cheeks and offers me his place on the sofa, moving to a less comfortable-looking chair. He has a friendly, open face. I bet everyone who meets him thinks they must have met him before.
“You were Bas’s girlfriend, right?” he asks, once I’ve settled in and smoothed my dress over my knees. “I only met him once, but he made me laugh. Ollie says he made everyone laugh.”
“He did make everyone laugh.” Usually I’d be put off by a friend of Ollie’s presuming to know anything about Bas, but Willem’s face is too earnest not to like. “My mother used to say he could charm the hands off a clock.”
“I’m glad to meet you. We’re just expecting two more. Tea?”
I shake my head, declining. “This club is smaller than I thought it would be. Cozy.”
“There are more of us. We try to meet in smaller groups instead of having everyone at once,” Willem explains. “If there’s a raid, we don’t want them to have a way of catching us all. The only time we’ve all ever been in a room together was for our friend Piet’s wedding. Otherwise, it’s small groups. Smaller is better for the work that we do.”
“Work?”
“We do lots of things,” Leo interjects, opening the jar of pickles I set down and fishing one out. “Right now, what we’re trying to figure out—”
“Let’s wait.” Ollie cuts him off from across the room, still posted by the window on the door. “Until Judith and Sanne arrive.”