Back to Astaroth’s Wager, Part XI.
Adelaide found it difficult not to be taken with Thomas’s enthusiasm. She returned his smile and asked, “What happened?”
“Yesterday was a pretty normal day at work, when into the elevator walks this man—kinda older, wearing a really nice suit and hat, going to the ninth floor. Something about him felt kinda familiar from the start. Anyway—we start going upstairs when this man just starts staring at me. So I ask him about his day, and he answers politely but doesn’t really mention much, until out of the blue he asks me, ‘Are you Henry Carver’s son? The Henry Carver from Independence, Missouri?’
“This man introduces himself as Philip Meese, and he starts asking after my parents. I told him that Pop passed away last January and was followed by Mom the following April. Then this Mr. Meese tells me how it’s a shame that he’s gone because my father was a great man who helped him out once. Apparently this Mr. Meese was travelling through Kansas City in ‘02 and got taken for all his money by a dishonest man, and my father spotted him a dollar to get a hot meal and a part of a train ticket to Chicago, where, incidentally, he made his first fortune.
“So Mr. Meese gets off on the ninth floor, and he’s up there for about twenty minutes before he gets back in my elevator to go back downstairs. He goes on to tell me that he always wanted to repay the favor to Pop, but he never got back to Kansas City to look him up. Then he asks if I’d be willing to let him take me out for dinner that evening to discuss a business proposition with me.
“This Mr. Meese takes me to John’s Grill for dinner and buys me a steak with all the trimmings. He tells me all about how he’s involved in the pictures these days as a producer. Even though everyone else has fallen on hard times, he’s making lots of money in Hollywood. Then he tells me that he’s been looking for a hard-working young man like me to work with him and learn the business of being a producer, and he offers me a job working in his offices with him the week after next if I can convince my bride-to-be to elope with me and move down to Los Angeles.
“I’ll be making at least four times what I make here, Addie. We can get our own house and everything,” Thomas said. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a cigarette lighter. “Look—this is what Mr. Meese gave me. He said it was his way of investing in me, like collateral. It’s gold. You can bite it yourself if you don’t believe me.”
Adelaide took the lighter. There were small indentations in the corner where Thomas had bitten it to test the gold’s authenticity. Along the bottom, there was a geometric arrangement of triangles engraved into the gold, and it looked like this:
“So whaddya say?”
Adelaide felt a touch of hesitation. She remembered the dream she’d had the previous morning in which they’d eloped. She couldn’t remember how it had ended, but she felt like the ending was important when compared with the other dreams she’d had that same night. Of all the dreams she’d had, it was the most positive of them all, and it didn’t occur her to that she ought to find the precognitive nature of the dream in itself a reason for hesitation. In fact, it made the circumstances feel right, and she put aside her momentary misgivings.
She looked into Thomas’ eyes. His enthusiasm was contagious. She knew that he didn’t want to be an elevator operator or a grocer, and that he’d discovered his opportunity to make something of himself. She knew that she’d be happy as long as she was with him. All the rest was forgivable.
She threw her arms around him and kissed him. She said, “I’ll sneak out an hour before sunrise. Meet me here then.”
“I’ll buy us tickets for the first train for Los Angeles tomorrow. We can get married there.”
“I can’t wait to be Mrs. Adelaide Carver!”
And it was so that on Tuesday, June 9, 1936, Adelaide Grayson married Thomas Carver, with Mr. & Mrs. Philip Meese serving as their witnesses. Adelaide didn’t understand why, but after they kissed before the Justice of the Peace and the Meeses, Adelaide thought about the dream she’d had in which she and Thomas had eloped. She remembered that in her dream, the witnesses they had chosen were the same two women with the swords she’d seen in the dream with Rose Nielsen.
Dominus tecum.