Bernard watches Ann on stage playing with her band. He remembers the letter Ann received to take a screen test but ignored to marry him. He wants to know what course Ann’s life would have taken if they had not married.
I watched Bernard. His hands were clenched and the muscles in his jaw reflected the tension he felt.
“When the gig was over I watched Annie put her music together. She got ready to leave. I wanted to speak with Annie more than anything I’ve ever wanted in my life.”
Sitting up in his chair a bit straighter, he said, “ I was 30 years in my past a second time about to speak to a woman with whom I had made love a thousand times. Here she was again, the same lovely young woman only 30 feet away and she didn’t know I was alive. How could I walk away?”
Bernard grabbed my wrist, nearly knocking over the recorder on my desk, and looked at me with fierce earnestness.
“It’s a terrible feeling to know that she was there and I was walking away from her; that I might never see her again.”
After several seconds he took another deep breath and tightened his jaw. Bernard was determined to go on.
“I sat there, Doctor, waiting for … I don’t know what. My glass of scotch was still half full. I finished it in a swallow. To satisfy myself that I was not dreaming, that this was real, I felt my pocket and took out my wallet. There was my driver’s license that had to be renewed on my birthday next June of 1956. I smiled a little bitterly to notice that my license had no photograph of me. They didn’t start that in California until the early 70s, I think. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted Annie.”
His voice took on a new note of determination.
“I also knew that after we had been married for a few years, Annie would wish that she had had a chance to find out how far in her music career she might have gone if we had never met, although she never said that to me. I owed her that chance. I paid my bill, got up and left.”
This time his voice was nearly a whisper. He was confiding a revelation.
“Doctor, that wasn’t the end of the dream. The dream went on for another 25 years.”
He looked devastated.
“I never saw Annie again.”
“Doctor, at that moment my so-called real past in this world was a fast-disappearing memory. My hotel room was the real world. My head swam with the paradox.”
“The dream didn’t end. In the bathroom next morning I looked at myself in the mirror. I was still a young man of 30.”
He smiled in wonder.
“My God, had I ever been so young …”
He grinned.
“And I was better looking than I am now with most of my hair and I was a few inches taller.”
“ I had to go back to California before I lost my nerve. And I did. My work in ChiCandel was finished. They expected me home in California by Monday.”
“I went back to work. From time to time I searched the entertainment section in the papers. Annie was there. I saw her name every so often. She had become a celebrity. She was a popular actress and really going places.”
“There was an article by Herb Caen, a ChiCandel Times editor. The article said that Ann Champion was in Hollywood and she was starring in a motion picture, a remake of Samson and Delilah, with Ramon Magnifico. When the picture opened in Los Angeles I saw it five times. Annie was wonderful.”
“A hundred times I thought of going to the RKO studios or calling her. I never did. It would have been no use and wrong of me. Ann was a closed chapter in my life. Besides, an important star like Ann Champion would hardly have the time to talk to me.”
Next Episode: All Bernard’s questions are answered.
Gene Paleno is an author and illustrator living in Witter Springs.
