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The Call - Fourteen for an interview. He was invited back to Atlanta, and after an entire day of touring the bank and meeting various employees, Ted received the offer of a position. It didn’t take him two sec- onds to accept, and when he returned to Gadsden he gave notice and prepared to move. Two weeks later, Ted had found a new apartment in Atlanta and was busy learning about his new job. His first assignment was in the credit card department, working with a woman named Harriett Wallace. They quickly became friends, and Ted found that she was easy to talk with and a real help in accustoming him to his new sur- roundings. In fact, everything about his life in Atlanta devel- oped so smoothly that he knew he’d made the right decision in relocating there. One afternoon, as he sat working at his desk, Harriett leaned over and said in a whisper, “Hey, Ted, do you believe in ghosts?” His eyebrows raised apprehensively as he thought back to the night of terror in Miss Flowers’ home. “Why did you ask me that?” he wondered. “My friend Julia has a friend named Marie Jackson,” Harriett explained, “and she just told me they’re starting some ghost classes.” “Ghost classes?” Ted repeated. “What on earth is that?” “It’s psychic development studies,” Harriett said. “They teach you how to communicate with spirits. My friend wants me to come along and participate, but I really don’t want to go by myself. I thought maybe you’d go with me.” “Huh-uh, no way,” Ted shook his head. “I don’t want any part of that! No, ma’am, I don’t want to talk to ghosts!” Harriett looked at him in surprise. “What is it?” she asked, “what’s happened that you’re not telling me?” “Honey,” he laughed nervously, “you really wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” But Harriett refused to be put off, and finally Ted relented enough to tell her a little about the experience with Ralph in Tuscaloosa. “Tf you’d been through that ordeal,” he concluded, “you Masquerade of Angels 134 The Call - Fourteen wouldn’t want anything to do with ghosts, either. So just let it drop, please, Harriett, and don’t ask me to go to those class- es, okay?” “Okay, sure,” she conceded, and for a while nothing else was mentioned. Still, she and Ted grew closer through the following months, talking frequently on the phone in the evenings and sharing the complaints and gossip from work. One night after they had been conversing for a while, Harriett once again brought up the psychic development classes, asking Ted to reconsider and go to a meeting. “Tf only you knew how all that stuff still upsets me to think about it,” he said in irritation, “you wouldn’t keep harping on it! Harriett, you just don’t understand. I moved all the way from Alabama to get away from that business, and now you’re trying to bring it back into my life. Besides, maybe the Baptists are right. Maybe it’s all the work of the devil. It’s something I just don’t want to deal with, so if you’ re really my friend, you’ ll drop it now!” “All right, I’m sorry,” Harriett apologized. “But I’ve got to tell you something else, and then I won’t bring it up again. I’ve talked about you a couple of times with Julia, Ted, and to Marie, too. Marie asked me what you look like, and when I told her she insisted that she had to meet you as soon as possible. I don’t know why, but at least I promised to try to get you two together.” “Well, please don’t!” Ted replied emphatically. “I don’t want to talk to them or meet them or have anything to do with them.” As soon as he spoke those words into the phone, Ted looked up and saw that a drinking glass, which had been on the kitchen counter, was rising up into the air as if lifted by invisible hands. His mouth dropped open in shock. Then the glass suddenly dropped and crashed into he sink, shattering into hundreds of small fragments. “What was that?” Harriett asked, hearing the noise in the background. “For God’s sake, get over here!” Ted shouted, dropping the receiver. He ran from the kitchen in terror and out to the parking lot, afraid to go back inside alone. Masquerade of Angels 135