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INVITATION ACCEPTED
Bruce J. Berger
Adel awakes to a quiet apartment, still not used to being
alone. She misses her Dad’s usual clatter of teapot and
cups and kitchen chairs being pulled out, sounds that
usually signaled to her the start of another day. Now, with
her Dad no longer around, there is no reason to get out of
bed, no Dad to hug goodbye as he leaves to catch the trolley
downtown, no breakfast dishes to clean up. She wants to
pull the covers back over her head, but then starts hearing
voices again. Or hearing one voice. It reminds her of
something or someone, but she cannot put her finger on it.
A man’s voice telling her to go to her front door. The
voice is excited for some reason. The voice says it is
important that she goes to her door.
She has not heard voices for a while. She has religiously
tried to continue with her medicine, once Nick got her
started again after the funeral. Yet, here again, a voice
is bothering her. There is no one in her room, and she is
pretty sure there is no one in her apartment. She sits up,
grabs her robe off the chair and wraps it around herself as
she goes to her front door.
Adel sees with no surprise that a white envelope had been
pushed under her doorway. Her name has been printed on its
front and nothing else. Someone is sending her a note. As
she reaches down to pick up the envelope, her mind flashes
back to a note she had received once in high school, from a
friend. She hasn’t thought of that note since shortly after
she received it. What was that? Ten years before? Now
another note. She tears open the envelope and sees a
message, written in ink in careful penmanship.
“Dear Adel, Last time we met, you said you might talk to me
again if I asked you properly and you told me to figure out
how to do that. So, I’m asking you if you will talk to me
for a few minutes. If you are ok with that, then I will
come knocking on your door at 11. If you don’t want me to
do that, then just rip up this letter and throw it away and
I won’t ever again walk into your life. If you say yes,
actually say “yes” out loud, I will come, and then you can
throw me out any time and I won’t argue with you. Bruce.”
Adel sits on the sofa she used to share with her Dad, on
which they would listen to the Dodgers’ radio broadcasts,
and reads. She is confused by the letter until she sees the
name “Bruce,” then rereads it carefully. She had had a
scary dream once and in her dream there was an older man
named “Bruce” who insisted that she wasn’t real and that he
had made her up as part of a story. In her dream, the man
wanted to ask her questions and wouldn’t let her wake up
until she complied. But how could anyone else but her have
known about that dream? She had never told her Dad, the
therapy group, Norm, or even Dr. Lack. She had mentioned it
once to Nick, but never told him all the details. Or had
she? Had he hypnotized her and gotten the details like
that? She didn’t think so. Her therapy sessions with Nick
had ended almost as quickly as they had begun and she knew
he had not hypnotized her. What then? Was someone tying to
play a cruel joke on her somehow.
She looks over at the clock and sees that it is 10:15. She
has half a mind to rip up the letter, but then thinks that
she will never know the truth if she does so. Besides, she
feels lonely and wonders if company might help cheer her
up. She does not stop to consider how the note’s author
would know whether she rips it up or says “yes.”
“Yes.”
Adel then goes about her normal morning activities, gets
dressed for work, and pours herself a bowl of Rice Krispies.
She is just sitting down to eat, when, at exactly 11, she
hears knocking on her door. The knocking startles her. She
has forgotten about the note.
“Who is it?”
“It’s who you were expecting. Bruce.”
Adel thinks to herself that the knocking and the voice must
be hallucinations. Her heart starts to beat a bit faster.
She swallows her morning dose of Thorazine, expecting the
hallucinations to end instantly. Yet, there is more
knocking, slightly louder.
“Adel. You did say ‘yes,’ right? Did you change your mind?
If so, just tell me, and I will disappear.”
This cannot be happening, she thinks. She creeps towards the
door, reaching out her hand for the doorknob, almost afraid
to touch it. Perhaps it is wired to the electricity in her
apartment. Maybe she will be shocked or even electrocuted.
She wonders if she is dreaming, pinches herself to see if
she wakes up, but, no, it doesn’t feel like a dream. She is
awake, she has washed, dressed, and is about to eat her
breakfast. She is real and she isn’t asleep.
“Who are you?”
“Bruce, I told you. I pushed the note under your door an
hour ago. You said ‘yes.’”
Adel opens the door halfway and peers out at an older man
standing before her. Maybe he is about as old as her Dad
had been when he died. She recognizes him instantly as the
man from her dream.
“May I come in?”
He seems harmless, an inconsequential guy sporting a graying
mustache, with a pleasant but worried looking face. He
needs a haircut, and he looks like he needs sleep as well.
Adel opens the door farther and motions him inside.
“Thank you.”
The man looks around with keen interest at Adel’s apartment,
almost as if he had never entered a young woman’s apartment
by himself in his entire life.
“Do you want to sit down?” She knows she must be polite to
her guests.
“Oh yes, thank you. May I sit on the sofa?”
Adel does not want him to sit where her Dad had used to sit,
but she is too gracious to say so and thus just nods her
head. The man seats himself, and Adel perches on the
opposite end, as if ready to run at the first sign of
danger. He continues to look around until his eyes come to
rest on Adel’s vintage radio. It had been her Dad’s, but
now everything that had been her Dad’s is hers. It is a
floor model, probably built in the 1930’s, maybe as old as
Adel herself, encased in dark brown mahogany, with five
knobs in the front and a circular tuning dial like the face
of a small clock.
“The radio. What kind is it?”
It is the last question Adel imagines the man would want to
ask her. She tells herself she has to be dreaming again,
doesn’t know why this is happening again with the same old
guy, but does not want to run away like the time before. So
much has happened since her last dream. Her Dad has died,
of course, but there is also the new closeness with Nick, a
feeling for a man she had never thought she’d have as a
mental case, yes, to herself, she would always be a mental
case, even if she has started to learn that she should not
call herself that where others can hear, and there is her
work at Norm’s Diner, and Norm and Miss Tallie who have
taken such good care of her and will be there for her again,
she prays, if she needs them. In her first dream with the
older man, the one in which she felt trapped in his office,
she had been a very weak Adel, struggling with some of the
worst of her illness. She is now a much stronger Adel, and
even without her Dad around to help her she feels she can be
the master of the dream. Maybe she can even make it end in
a happy way.
“It’s an RCA Victor Model 128.”
“Can you turn it on, please?”
“I thought you were going to ask me that. Sure. Hang on.”
She reaches down, fiddles with the knobs, and shortly finds
a classical music station playing a violin and piano
sonata. It sounds happy, energetic. Beethoven, she
thinks? Her Dad would have known and told her. She keeps
the volume low, then turns back to her visitor. “How’s
that?”
“It’s amazing. Being here is amazing. I’ve been thinking
about this apartment for a long time, you know.”
“You want to ask me questions again, right?”
“If you will allow it. I will go as soon as you say so.”
“I know this is a dream. I will wake up soon. I probably
won’t remember half of what we talk about, but go ahead.
Ask away.”
“Well, first, I want to tell you how sorry I am about the
loss of your Dad. I know you loved him very much.”
“Thank you. Didn’t you tell me last time that everything
that happened to me was something you invented, that I was
just one of your stories?”
“Yes, I did say that.”
“You’re going to tell me that again, aren’t you?”
“It upset you last time.”
“Which means you’re saying the same thing to me now.”
“You don’t seem as upset.”
“I’m more confident now about who I am, thank you. You can
imagine any crazy thing you want to imagine. You can
pretend you’re God if you want to. Jesus said he was God,
and maybe he was or maybe he wasn’t. Maybe you and he are
both God. I’m cool with that. The thing is, I don’t think
you’ll hurt me. I wouldn’t have let you in otherwise.”
“Let’s forget all about stories and who’s writing what. It’s
not really clear to me anymore. I just want you to be in
charge of your own life. What do you want to do next?
Where does your life go?”
Adel sits quietly for a while, contemplating. The man
doesn’t bother her at all now. She kind of likes him, in
fact. He reminds her a bit of her Dad. Seems to like
classical music, like her Dad. She remembers the ballplayer
photographs in his office and knows that he is a big Dodgers
fan, too. Too bad the guy is nuts, but then she is nuts and
thinks that the nuts of the world can help each other out
when they need help.
“Well, I want to work at Norm’s Diner for the rest of my
life. I want to cook everything on the menu. I want to
understand the money, you know, how to order supplies, how
much to pay, what to charge. Norm is teaching me.”
“Has he called you Grace again, by mistake?”
“Say! How did you know about that?”
“Never mind. Go on.”
“He hasn’t.”
“What?”
“Called me Grace again. He thinks about her, I’m sure, he
wonders about what his daughter did with her life, where she
is, even if she is. But he now always calls me the right
name. He’s very good to me.”
“That’s great. OK, go on, please.”
“Go on what?”
“Your life, your plans.”
“You’re not going to tell anyone, are you? I mean, some
things a girl thinks are just for her heart, you know.
You’re not going to share?”
“I’ll be honest with you. Everything you say is on the
record. You know what that means, right?”
“You’re a reporter?”
“No, I’m a lawyer, trying to become a writer. But nothing
you say will be going into the newspaper, if that’s what
you’re worried about. And, I promise not to tell anyone you
know about our conversation, whatever you say to me.”
“Not even Nick?”
“Particularly not Nick.”
“OK, then. I’m in love with him.”
“Aha! I thought so! That’s great!”
“Well, I’m not sure how he feels about me exactly.”
“Have you asked him?”
“Of course not! Girls don’t do that. I listen to all the
radio shows. Girls wait until they’re romanced. The guy
has to make the move.”
“OK, well, this is 1960, I see your point, but how has Nick
acted towards you?”
A dreamy look comes over Adel, a smile brightens her face
involuntarily. “He is awfully nice to me. He’s taken me
out to dinner. He’s taken me to a show! We saw The
Fantastiks! It just started, you know. I hope to see it
again some day, it was so good. ‘Try to remember, the kind
of September, when life was slow and oh so mellow.’” Adel
sings, and her voice is really good. She has a very unique,
appealing voice, especially when she sings.
“So things look like they’re going well with Nick, then?”
“I don’t know what to expect. I’m scared that he thinks I’m
just a patient.”
“He made it pretty clear that he was not your doctor, though,
didn’t he?”
“You seem to know an awful lot about my private life.”
“Adel, I didn’t know anything about the dinners, the shows,
The Fantastiks, or in fact that you were in love with Nick
until you just told me. I had no idea that you sang so
well. Thank you so much for letting me know what’s going on
and for singing.”
“You’re welcome.”
“So, has Nick, you know, ever tried to … to …”
“Has he kissed me? Well, yes.”
“And?”
“And what?
“Your reaction? Did you think he was being too pushy?”
“Of course not. I told you I’m in love. I kissed him back.
We held each other. We’re going to see each other again
tomorrow night.”
“He’ll treat you well.”
“Are you asking me or telling me?”
“Let’s just say I’m making a prediction, and I have a strong
feeling I’m right.”
“You seem pretty confident. That’s good. I hope you’re
right … Bruce.”
“I’m right, trust me.”
“You know, you do remind me of my Dad.”
“Maybe because we’re both lawyers and both loved the Brooklyn
Dodgers.”
“No, I think it’s more than that, just I’m not sure what.”
“Maybe because he cared about you deeply and so do I.”
“That could be it.”
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