THE APOLOGY

  742 WORDS

“The Apology” Revised

                                  Performed at the Framingham library on Valentines Day.
                                           Also, at the Lexington Rotary Club.

Facebook notified me that I had a message from a Pat Shaw. I assumed it was someone

inviting me to a story telling event thousands of miles away. I get these invites all

the time. I usually don’t respond.

This one read, “Are you the Robert Isenberg that I knew many years ago in N.Y.C.? I was Pat Steinberger then.  I thought I found you once and sent you an E-mail, which you didn’t respond to then.  I suppose you won’t now. If you are the Robert I knew, I’m sorry I acted badly. I hope you are doing well. You look as though you are. You were a smart, funny, charismatic man then, so it’s no surprise. I wish you well. Pat”

I showed my wife, Dana, Pat’s email. She laughed and said, “That’s quite the list. Are

you going to answer her? You probably should after all those compliments.”

“I’m not sure. Why would any one apologize some forty five years later?” I asked.

 “I never met the girl. You knew her I didn’t. Maybe she wants you back, or maybe she’s

  in some sort of apologizing group that has an agenda. Maybe they have rules that

  require  members to apologize so many times a yea

I thought I’d E-mail her that it’s impossible, that it’s me, because I never was any of

those things and besides she left off “ tall, dark, and handsome.”

I spoke to a few friends telling them that I received something that just about

never comes to anyone, an apology. In this case, arriving about 45 years later. The question that they all asked was, “Will you respond?”

I thought, I could mention my web to her. One of my stories is called “I WAS A

NERD BEFORE THERE WAS SUCH A WORD.” There is a segment in that story

about a Pat, I had met in Manhattan sometime in the sixties.

I met that Pat at a party in Manhattan in the early spring. She came home with me

to my apartment on 85th street and didn’t leave until fall. That Pat had come to N.Y.C.

from the University Of Michigan. She was planning on spending the summer in

Manhattan with the black convertible her daddy had given her for her 19th birthday.

She had been living with her friend Nancy and now me. That Pat cooked exotic

Hungarian and French dishes while she lectured me on Bob Dylan’s and Leonard

Cohen’s lyrics, explaining to me that their lyrics were much more than song lyrics.

They were poetry.  I said little, but ate a lot.

 That Pat and I discovered Manhattan. It was our wonderland. We had little money, but we had time and we spent every second. We scoffed at the rich tourists, who ate in the fancy shmancy restaurants. They would never know the joy of finding a Hungarian

 Bakery, that also served home cooked meals. Tasting cold cherry soup for the first time.

 Pat discussing the merits of the stroganoff, we had just savored, with the Hungarian owner. Sharing the palacsinta. Then off to a free concert in Central Park. Watching Neil Diamond trying out the lyrics of the song he had just written called “Cherry, Cherry.”

Another night, listening to Art Garfunkle and Paul Simon trying out “Bridge Over Troubled Waters” all free in Central Park.  Each and every day was full of surprises, discoveries and love.

That Pat fixed my friend Jake up with her friend Nancy. It seemed as if the fix up

was working, until Nancy confessed to me that she didn’t like Jake much and didn’t

like Pat at all. Nancy whispered ,”that I could find out what a real woman was like, if I

went off with her.” I stammered something like; “I’m probably not ready for a real woman yet. I’m trying my best with the fake ones.” She called me a loser and told me to grow up. I thought it was good advice. I should have written it down. No doubt, it would have served as an excellent reminder.

At summer’s end that Pat went back to the University Of Michigan along with streaming

tears and Nancy as her car mate. She asked me not to date anyone else for the rest of my life.She also said that it would be important to phone everyday and for about a month we did .Soon our phone conversations grew heavy, difficult and distant. Finally, that Pat ranted that I needed to grow up. Now I had a better idea what Nancy has said on the ride back to Michigan. That Pat also mentioned that her roommate, that I had never met, totally agreed with her about me. . Before that Pat hung up, she exclaimed that she had never experienced an orgasm with me and that she had faked every single one.

I said, “I never had one either and had faked mine as well.”

Anyway, I got the last word, I got an apology and I still haven’t responded to

her E-mail.