This year, only two individuals have been selected as Deserving Americans in the Delaware Valley: you, Keisha Olen, are one of these. Both you and your fellow Deserving American have already received your First and Second Gifts. Your Third Gift is to be a more substantial sum of money, which will be awarded to you if you (1) pledge never to speak of it to anyone, not even a close family member; and (2) pledge to use the money exclusively on or for yourself, and not on family, church, or charitable organizations, however worthy.

Acceptance of the Third Gift must be in person. It will not be sent through the mail like previous Gifts. You (and your fellow recipient) will be asked to appear at the Delaware River Inn, Herrontown, at five p.m., Monday, April 15. Please arrive promptly. A table will be reserved for you and your fellow awardee in the restaurant. A light meal will be served, at which time you will receive the Third Gift. You must come alone and arrange to leave alone and keep the meeting, and all circumstances surrounding it, confidential.

G__ G__

Executive Director

Society for Deserving Americans

This (carefully composed) letter is mailed to Ms. Keisha Olen at 54 Mill Run Street, calculated to arrive on the Monday preceding the date of the meeting. It is my supposition that Keisha brings in the mail herself on Mondays, which is her day off from work, while on other days she may not be home when the mail is delivered and may not see it until it has passed through others’ hands.

The risk is that Keisha will not be free on that date or at that time. For there is no way she can contact me to arrange for another time. This is a risk I must take.

However, the Delaware Inn is ideal for our meeting. As a local “historic” landmark with inflated prices, it is well known to local residents like Keisha, who rarely patronize it.

Yes, this has all been shrewdly calibrated. My most ingenious narrative in years, I am thinking!

And so, by way of this invitation, which to anyone with a modicum of skeptical intelligence would be identified as a ruse, the naïve and trusting grocery store cashier is seduced into agreeing to a meeting with a stranger—a surreptitious meeting with an individual she believes to be a fellow Deserving American. Since she is sure to recognize me as a customer at McGuire’s, this is a (plausible) explanation.

And does everything go as planned at the Delaware Inn? Yes, but no.

10.

On the afternoon of April 15, precisely at five p.m., here is Keisha, hesitantly entering the Delaware Inn: in a dressy blouse and jacket, skirt, and high-heeled shoes. To my disappointment, her eggshell-fragile head is covered by a flowery hat of the kind a Christian lady might’ve worn to church in 1957. Just inside the doorway, she halts, blinking and staring. She is very nervous, like a wild creature that suspects it has blundered into a trap and is poised to bolt away.