Twelve Balmain Street, Abbotsford. This had to be her house—assuming that the one listed R. Bartloch in the directory was the writer who’d given the creative writing master class. The shutters were shut. She could see some fresh junk mail in the letterbox, despite the ADDRESSED MATERIAL ONLY sign. A Tibetan prayer flag, fraying and fading, flapped in the breeze, and a collection of china birds was visible inside on the left-hand front window ledge. A flowerbed alongside the gappy, paling fence sported some alarmingly tall, large-faced sunflowers in full, fake-looking but real, bloom. All these things fitted very neatly into the realm of domestic accessories she imagined would be favored by a pink-haired, witchy-booted, retro-sundressed, shoebox-toting, possible-wish-trouble-causing writer.
Vân Ước was relieved to see that the house looked unoccupied. Wimp that she was, it was the only thing that allowed her to walk up the weed-lined path to the front door and knock. No answer. Phew.
Well, what a pathetic waste of effort—and why bother knocking? It was as though part of her brain really did believe that the old dudes saw everything. Credit where credit’s due: She marched right up to the front door and knocked very firmly/Only because she was sure no one was home/But at least she stopped herself from looking like a random lurking fool—in the event that any of the neighbors were peering from their windows/Of course there were neighbors peering from their windows—what else are neighbors on a quiet street going to be doing at 10 a.m. on a Saturday?/In that case she acquitted herself well, eyes to the front, good posture, minimum street loitering and, by gee, she made a quick getaway/And the big question is, will she front up again next Saturday?/Only time will tell…