The invitation said to be at a certain private club in Key West three weeks from this Saturday, to come alone, and to wear loose-fitting clothes and flip-flops. Included was a key code to enter the club at a specified time. Nothing else.
What to make of this? No return address on the envelope, not even a name. For the next three weeks I agonized over what this could be about, trying to think if I knew anyone in Key West—nobody. Had any acquaintance ever mentioned that city?—nope. As time got close, my mind was filled with intrigue. Finally the day came. I flew down early in the day to get familiar with the town, checked into a small B&B, then waited anxiously as the time to show up got near.
Approaching the club, I noticed several other men heading the same way. Nearing the entrance, I joined a small crowd, all guys, waiting to show their pass code to the doorman. While waiting to get to the front of the line, I asked the fellows around me if they knew what this was all about, and nobody seemed to know. But all were curious enough to come and find out.
Once inside, I could see that this was an upscale private venue, somewhat like a small banquet room. Comfortable lounging furniture, a well-stocked bar, tasteful paintings on some of the walls, but no windows. Softly lit, with muted classical music just at the threshold of hearing. One long wall seemed to have several dozen 3x5 cards pinned up in a single horizontal row at eye-level, except that occasionally there were two or more cards arranged vertically at that position in the line. Looking more closely, I saw that each card had a name written in an attractive cursive long-hand. A very few of the cards, mostly at the left-hand side of the row, had black borders around them. Some others, all along the row, had a box checked in the upper left corner, and all had an unchecked box in the upper right. Of course, I started searching for my own name, and eventually found it about two thirds along the line from left to right, as one of three cards placed vertically at that position. I recognized one of the other two cards with mine, and also a few of the names to the right and left. But the other names along the line were complete mysteries.
So, I still had no idea what this was about. Milling around among the other men, I recognized one of the guys whose name I’d seen on a card close to mine. I asked him if he had a clue as to why we were here. Comparing life stories, we realized the only thing he and I had in common was that years ago we had both known a certain woman. He spotted a guy he knew but I didn’t, and we verified that he also had known this same woman. The three of us walked over to the cards, trying together to make some sense of this. Getting there, we each spotted other men who were discovering their own cards near ours. This expanded the data base a bit.