LITMIR.BIZ

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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 to tell her the whole story, from the discovery of the newspaper in the attic, to the ad he answered, his subsequent order and the delivery. When he had finished, he looked at her, hard, trying to read her thoughts before she expressed them.

      “Only a dollar, you said?”

      “Right.”

      “For this?” she said, poking it, rather insolently, he thought.

      “For that, yes.”

      She picked it up and turned it in her hand a few times before setting it down and sliding it across to him. “Does it blow?”

      He frowned. “Of course it does.”

      “And you really believe it materialized from out of the past? Mysteriously?”

      “I didn’t exactly say that.”

      “You didn’t exactly not say it.”

      “Well, how else do you explain it? What other explanation could there be?”

      She shook her head sympathetically. “Gary, Gary, that imagination--”

      “Wait wait wait. At first I thought like you, that maybe it’s a company still around and somebody there decided to humor me.”

      “Isn’t that logical?”

      “Until I looked in the phone book. Hohner’s still around but the company I ordered through doesn’t exist anymore. I even asked my grandmother about it and she remembers the place-- a friend of hers used to work there. She said it was shut down at least twenty years ago.”

      “Gary, I know how exciting this is to you and I really hate to burst your bubble, but did it ever occur to you that some mail-order company now uses that address-- you did say the building is still there, didn’t you?”

      “No, but I did look it up and it is.”

      “So? Somebody there just took your order and filled it. Why make a mystery of it?”

      “As far as I know, that building’s been empty for years. But if I have to, I can go down and see for myself.”

      “That wouldn’t prove anything. The post office could have forwarded your letter to wherever they moved.”

      He slipped the ad from his shirt pocket and shoved it in front of her. “Here, look for yourself.”

      “Why, it’s just an ordinary ad.”

      “Well, it’s not. It’s from a 1939 newspaper.”

      “All right, I’m impressed. But what does that prove?”

      “It proves I’m telling the truth.”

      “I never denied you were.”

      “But don’t you see? It’s a Hohner. That’s a famous German harmonica maker, a reputable company. You don’t get those for a dollar, not these days.”

      She smiled. “Does it play any music, or only German music?”

      “C’mon, Shelley--”

      She laid her hand over his. “Oh, Gary, Gary,” she said, stroking his hand, “can’t you see how crazy this all sounds?”

      “That’s why I’m not telling anyone except you.” He pulled his hand away. “I thought you of all people would believe me, especially after seeing the ad and the harmonica itself.”

      “Gary, the harmonica may say Hohner, but is it a genuine Hohner? What do they call it, bootlegging? when some country duplicates the same product and passes it off as the real thing?”

      “And no tax, no sales tax, what about that?”

      “I don’t believe it’s required if the business headquarters is out of state.”

      Crestfallen, he jammed the harmonica in his pocket, sulked awhile, then straightened up. “Okay, we’ll see. Time will tell who’s right.” A wan smile crossed his lips. “And how’s the term paper going?”

      She brightened. “Oh, this?” she said, riffling through a sheaf of notes. “I’m getting there, little at a time, I suppose. ‘The Psychology of Money and Its Effect on Minorities.’ Sound thrilling?”

      “Which reminds me,” he said, digging into his pocket, pulling out a handful of

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