still remembered-- Franz’s bakery, Jack’s grocery store, the tailor shop run by a little hump-backed man they called Hammy, the drug store with the sweet smell of vanilla ice cream sodas-- all were gone except the grocery store, which had been replaced by one of the big chain markets, and the closest drug store was now half a mile away. The dark shell of the old Bijou Theater was still standing, and the Kit Kat Klub, his grandpa’s old hangout, had long since faded into oblivion.
Over the years everything had changed. No wonder Grandpa yearned for the ‘good old days.’ They were simpler, happier days. Ironically, in her own way and for her own stubborn reasons, Grandma couldn’t give up the past any more than could Grandpa.
In another month he would be graduating from the university and finally be able to give all his time to work. He had several interviews set up with various public schools and had no doubt he’d get hired. His grades were about as high as they could go, and he had nothing in his background that could hurt him. With a full-time teaching job he would easily make enough to buy something nice just outside the city. She was a stubborn lady, his grandma. The times in the past few years when he had broached the subject of moving, she had refused to even discuss it. His uncles Jerry and Wilbur and Aunt Shirley had no more luck talking to her than he did. But eventually she would have to accept the inevitable. Sometimes it was really hard to figure out old people.
Then, of course, there was Shelley. They’d been engaged six months and had pretty much agreed to wait awhile after their graduation to get married. They hadn’t really discussed where they would like to live, although it was assumed, at least by her, that they would rent something cheap until they could save enough for a down payment on a house of their own. He had his own ideas, though he wasn’t about to air them yet. Shelley apparently assumed his grandmother would live on her own or move in with one of her children, most likely Aunt Shirley, but that wasn’t something he wanted to happen. He wanted to take her in himself, to do for her what she had done for him when he had no one, when he was essentially an orphan. He didn’t know how he would work it all out, but he would. Somehow. Growing drowsy, he sank back to his pillow and fell into a light sleep. He dreamed:
…a burning ship, his grandpa shouting something from the rail and holding a child in his arms, a little girl whose shadowy face he couldn’t quite make out…..
Chapter 4
At three in the afternoon, a few days later, Gary bounded up the steps to the university library. Once inside, his eyes swept the cavernous room filled with book smells, where neither the librarian nor the handful of people browsing among the shelves seemed to notice him. His eyes lit up when he spotted her at a long table near the ‘mystery’ section, hunched over her texts.
“Hi, Shell,” he whispered, sliding up a chair across from her.
From between a curtain of blond hair that parted when she lifted her head, her face appeared smiling, coyly. Pleasure or displeasure, he couldn’t tell. Her pale eyebrow cocked, she glanced at the clock on the far wall. “Is this two o’clock?”
Displeasure, obviously, but he blustered on, undeterred. “Oh, do I have a story to tell you,” he said, laying his hot hand over hers. “When you hear this you’ll flip.”
“So what has that fertile Walter Mitty imagination cooked up today? Wait, don’t tell me….” She pressed her pencil to her lips, thinking… “You were crossing Bardwell Bridge when you had to stop and talk a would-be suicide from taking the fatal plunge.”
“Shelley, come on--”
“Or was it a heroic effort to capture a bank robber?”
“Shelley--”
“Don’t tell me, you were aiding another poor soul pinned under his car.”
He looked indignant. “That accident really did happen, you know. You saw it written up yourself in the newspaper.”
She smiled at him, indulgently, warmly, forgivingly. “I know,” she said. “I was only teasing. Actually, I’ve been so absorbed working on this dumb term paper I wasn’t paying attention to the time, anyway.” She laid her pencil aside. “So?” she said, flashing a sparkling white smile, “I’m waiting….”
Folding his arms, he sat back with a small pout tightening his lips. “Forget it, it’s okay. You’ll just say I’m making up stories and laugh at me. You’re already starting, I can see it.”
“I won’t laugh, I promise. Go ahead, tell me.”
“You wouldn’t believe it anyway, no.”
“Try me.”
“You’ll say I’m making it all up. No, never mind. I’m sorry I brought it up.”
Sighing, she reached for her pencil. “Well, all right, if--”
He fairly flung himself forward across the table and leaned close to her. “Look at this,” he said, pulling out the harmonica out and laying it in front of her.
She frowned. “You’re taking harmonica lessons?”
“No, for God’s sake, no.”
“You want me to take lessons?”
“Shelley, cut it out, quit joking.”
“Well then, what?”
“I’m trying to tell you,” he said, glancing around and sliding back into his seat. “Listen, you have to believe this.” He raised his right hand and lowered his voice. “I swear it’s the truth and I’m not making it up and I’m not hallucinating and I’m definitely not crazy.” He whispered, “Promise you won’t laugh.”
“Promise,” she said, glancing away and hiding a smirk.
“Okay. This afternoon, just about the time I was on my way over here, a UPS truck pulls up to our house, the driver gets out, comes up to the door and says, ‘Package for Mr. Tyler.’ I sign for it, wondering what it is, and take it inside to my room. I plop on my bed, holding it on my lap, staring at it, and I’m almost afraid to open it because now I remember and have a good idea of what it is, or at least what it’s supposed to be. I must have sat there like that for a good five minutes just looking at it before I worked up the nerve to do it.”
She snickered. “What did you think it was, a bomb?”
“Yeah, right, very funny, sure--although it hit me like one. I said I knew what was in it.”
She glanced at the clock. “I’d like to know, too, someday, and where this story’s going. Are you going to get to the point or is this a new quiz show?”
He tapped the harmonica. “This was it.”
“This?” She pointed a finely manicured finger. “Okay, Gary, what’s going on? What game--”
“Listen, this is what happened….”
Gary proceeded
