Jazz settled in and even made friends with a few more people who lived on our block, although he shied away from getting to know the dogs two of them owned. Thanks to him, I got to know the people as well, on a very casual basis. At least now I wasn’t that recluse who never left his house, as one of the women commented to Jazz, obviously knowing I’d overhear. It led to my explaining being a recluse was almost de rigueur for a writer. Of course she wanted to know what I wrote. Thankfully, as far as I was concerned, she wasn’t into “those kind of books with murders and mayhem” so I doubted she’d tell her neighbors there was a “famous” author living on the block.
In point of fact, I wasn’t that reclusive. I visited a few of clubs in town on a casual basis, primarily to relax after a stressfu
