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 pined for Annie.”
“That’s funny, isn’t it Doctor; to long for a woman that you have never spoken with let alone never made love?”
“To give you some idea of how authentic my experience was during the next 10 years, Doctor, one of the girls I almost married was a woman named Edna Plovic. Edna was a dark haired girl that reminded me of Annie. I think that was the reason I led her on and kept stopping by see her. She was blind in her left eye. The only time Edna shook me up was when we were making love. Edna always lost control of herself at the supreme moment of love. Her glass eye always slipped to the right toward her nose. The effect was hard on my performance.
“By that time I was nearly into middle age. Fifteen years had passed since I last saw Annie in ChiCandel. I remembered that world…”
Bernard corrected himself.
“… I mean this world, the real world I had left. I started drinking. My drinking got so bad I lost my job and all the jobs I had after that one. I was on the skids.”
There was another long pause of introspection as Bernard relived the dream a second time.
“Now it gets harder for me to remember what happened to me next. I think I ended up in a Santa Monica hotel room, the cheapest sort of a broken down dive that was home for bums and prostitutes. I had empty bottles of cheap Port wine all around me on the floor and lying on the dresser. I lay, half conscious, on the bed. I thought of Annie. I remember thinking, ‘What have I done? I had given Annie her great chance for happiness and her great career but at what a cost. If I had married her I would never have ended up like this.’ I hoped my decision had been worth the cost. I hoped with all my heart that Annie had achieved her heart’s desire and that she was happy.”
“In my sorry state I stumbled down the hall to the community bathroom. On my way back I opened the wrong door. When I went in to the room the first thing I saw was an old woman laying across the bed like a sack of potatoes. For one single horrible moment in my liquor soaked brain I imagined it was Annie; except she was old and her beautiful black hair was a dirty gray. She was out cold; either drunk as a skunk or in a heroin dream. I even called her name, ‘Annie, is that you?’”
Bernard shook like he was fighting a heavy windstorm. His face was gray. His eyes were wild.
“That poor woman opened her rheumy eyes, stared at me and answered. Her words were slurred and she was barely able to get her words out. At first I was sure I misunderstood her rambling.”
For the first time since I met Bernard I was astonished to see him crying. He was in tears, his face was wild with horror and uncertainty.
“The world went black and I fell to the floor. I think I fainted. Just before I passed out…”
He seemed unable to finish the sentence. I said nothing but leaned forward waiting for what I did not know. I think I already knew what he was going to say.
“… I heard that old woman say my name.”
I was as astonished at the revelation as the man who had experienced it. It was the most macabre twist of fate in the lives of two people I could possibly have imagined. For the moment my thoughts were so chaotic I did not hear Dellarambo speaking to me.
“Dr. Candella, the next thing I knew I was back here.”
Bernard lay back in the chair, his hand over his eyes. For a minute he said nothing as he fought to regain his self control.
“What did it mean, Dr. Candella?”
I said nothing. Shaking my head I answered some nonsensical reply. Some things were better left unsaid. Bernard rose and put on his coat and hat, prepared to leave. He shrugged.
“Dr. Candella, maybe this life is the illusion.”
“But it doesn’t matter, does it?” I said smiling faintly.
“I guess not. I only know it was a damn good thing for me I married Annie.”
He shook my hand and headed for the door.
“I guess I’ll go home. Annie has dinner waiting. Her great pork chops and spaghetti sauce should be about ready by now.”
Next episode: Dr. Candella enters his own invention. He is attempting an experiment. He wants to know if he can go to a future parallel world.
Gene Paleno is an author and illustrator living in Witter Springs.
