Her hotel was near the John Hancock Center, with windows that looked out onto the lower levels of the angular bulk of that dark, x-ed tower anchoring the northern end of the Chicago archipelago of skyscrapers. A few more tall buildings stepped their way down from the hundred-some floors of the Hancock, but the bend of the beach, the curve of Lake Shore Drive, and the extent of the Magnificent Mile ran out about there.
The Newberry was a not-unpleasant good walk to the west and north, and this particular hotel was well recommended and familiar by now to her. The view she had this visit was of a mysterious low black building between her window and the Hancock itself, on land that had to be insanely valuable, with darkened windows and few of those, just a story and a half in height.
The front desk staff smiled a "we get asked that" smile, and explained it was a very private and extremely expensive card club, which had over a hundred years of history. "The John Hancock folks wanted it back in the 70s when they were building, and they couldn't find a way to buy it."
From above, as in a plane, you noticed things about a building that just walking by six or seven times (as she must have done on visits before) did not reveal. The relative humility of the quarter-block brick structure, all the more striking among the opulent neighbors, a description that fit her hotel as well.
So many mysteries, all around us, often right in front of us, and we don't see them, and don't even know we don't see them. Houses, card clubs, people. Desk staff and wealthy bridge players. Daughters and students and even the receptionist in the administration building. What was it about her father someone had told her last week, that he had cancer or some lung disorder, was ill, was on hospice? Was that at home, or in a hospital? She hadn't really asked, and now didn't even remember whom she could ask now.
Clair, a friend who was not a friend, but the source of more friendly conversation than most people she talked to in a week or a month. The Newberry, which was a home and not a home. A connection where she didn't quite fit in, but where she knew her place and enjoyed fitting into it. If she truly belonged, if she worked there, would the distancing begin whether she intended it or not?
And this hotel. By definition, a place where one did not belong, and yet you had a room. Until 11 am tomorrow, it was hers, and after that, it was someone else's. She had an absolute right to be here right now, but in another week - no right, or she could have the right for as long as you wish, if she wanted to pay the freight.
If she went to London, even more so there, in whatever hotel would become the place she would try to fit into, and where she would feel her strangeness all the more. "Two countries separated by a common language" -- Mencken? Twain? But British English had a deceptive familiarity all its own, and strangenesses that could snag you by your sleeves like multifloral rose on an Ohio hike.
Even her rooms at St. Fiacre's: they were absolutely hers, and the moment she quit or retired or was fired (or died, she reminded herself), they would be assigned to another. Her place in the world, in this world, or her world as Chief Librarian: she would be replaced quickly. Which is not to say unmourned, but certainly without a pause in the slow but steady stream of guests and visitors. She would be missed, but not for very long.
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