Sugar

Copyright© 2021

As many of you know, I'm working on a new Jimmy and Simone novel (it's only three months behind schedule but should be ready for Christmas.)

However, Randy has been persistent, and my online friends have been complaining that I haven't uploaded anything lately. DT wrote me and said that he saw my name in those submitting for the The Art of Falling list. I had to go into my file of unfinished stories to find something appropriate. I think this story fits. We should all thank Randi for the effort. The story itself is actually set in the near past. It was actually even further back, but I moved the setting forward a bit.

Now, just so you know, the comments are open. Say anything you like about me or the story. I don't read them unless someone tells me there is a post I need to remove. I do read my emails and try to respond to everyone. However, my personal situation makes it difficult for me to answer sometimes for a week or two. If it goes longer than that, try writing again. Sometimes I miss an email because they all have the same caption.

Thanks again to Randi, and please enjoy the story.

Eloise broke my heart. I know I should have been sharper and more sophisticated about the whole affair. However, basically, I am still a farm boy, even all these years later. I'm Walter Stillman, a would-be tax attorney by profession. I know, dull, right? But I was not even that. Fresh from law school with an advanced LLM degree in taxation, the only job I could get was in the bankruptcy department of a mid-sized Manhattan law firm. My position was in the firm's smallest practice area, and needless to say, least desirable.

My living arrangements were just as modest as my employment. The rents in New York City are notoriously high. In those days, Manhattan apartments were generally out of the reach of junior associates. What they call the outer boroughs seemed almost as high. After much searching, I found a room in an apartment with two other impoverished souls at the end of a subway line in Brooklyn. The neighborhood was on the general downswing, and it took forever to get to my office. In short, I had a modest job and a roof over my head. More than that could not be said for the opening of my career in the great city of the east.

However, my luck seemed to change almost from the day I started work. The firm's bankruptcy partner was Eric Ericson. He was a silver-haired fox in his late sixties. He was one of the de facto deans of the New York bankruptcy bar, the person you called with a complex or novel question. He had little patience for the ignorant or inept, but he was a good and willing teacher.

These many years later, I'm still grateful to Mr. Ericson. He, as these city dwellers say, "did me a solid." He was my mentor and friend, and taught me a skill that was to serve me well in the days to come. I didn't know it then, but I had found my place in life—and then found happiness by the purest chance. But first, I needed my heart broken.

The bankruptcy department was just Mr. Ericson and myself most days. Bankruptcy was the least-esteemed practice at the prestigious firm of Portman and Rosencranz in those prosperous times. If we needed help, two part-time associates were available, although grudgingly. I was getting a graduate-level education in an area of law best described as having been written by Lewis Carroll. A jurisdiction where left is right and right is always wrong. The laws all belonged with Alice on the other side of the looking glass.

Chuck Thompson was the only member of my graduating class at Northwestern University School of Law to have made it as far to the east as me. We were not great friends in law school. Still, we were drawn together by Midwestern familiarity in the cold eastern metropolis. Chuck worked—or rather slaved—for the Manhattan DA's office. He was newly married to Carol, a New York City girl. It was natural, I guess, to be invited to dinner at their Manhattan apartment.

I was blindsided on my arrival by the presence of a tall, exceedingly attractive woman. Eloise Shaffer was New York elegant. It is the most descriptive way to describe her. This was a sophisticated New Yorker with the casual manner that says her astonishing appearance is to be expected. You could almost believe that the perfection of her form was a fact of nature and not the result of long hours of work and contrivance.

Why she was my dinner partner at my friend's house, I had no inkling. This raven-haired, green-eyed beauty was no match for me. Indeed, no one could expect her to be interested in an average-looking farm boy working at a junior associate job. But apparently, Carol Thompson, in her matchmaking wisdom, felt otherwise.

I was treated to an evening of delicious companionship. Eloise Shaffer was not just a beauty; she had what is described as personality. Extroverted and anything but shy, she was a lively dinner companion. She asked me to see her home to her Brooklyn apartment. I expected to hail a cab, but she insisted that we take the subway. She stayed close to me on the ride from Chelsea in Manhattan to Boerum Hill in Brooklyn. It was a trip that took considerable time at night and involved a bit of a walk. She used the time to get to know me. She peppered me with questions, the answers to which she listened intently. It was a heady, ego-building experience.

At the door to her apartment, she insisted on rewarding me with a kiss for my efforts in seeing her home. It was a smoking-hot, tongue-down-the-throat kiss. She could have melted iron with that kiss, and she turned my prick hard as steel. A fact she acknowledged with a knowing smile while she waited patiently for the dumb farm boy to get the message.

"Ahhh, can I see you again?" I asked.

With some effort, we found a mutually agreeable time for our official first date, then with a second but less steamy kiss, she said good night.

I floated to my own dingy place at the far end of Flatbush Avenue, not believing I could get so lucky.

Five weeks later and four dates into the relationship, I was in a deep valley of despair. The night before, Eloise broke the news that she could not see me on the weekend. The reason was her prior commitment to another. With great difficulty, I extracted the name Rodrigo Ruis from Eloise. Looking the man up was easy. He was State Labor Commissioner, a very tall, handsome older man. He was the kind of man you would expect a woman like Eloise to be with.

I guess I was not very good at hiding my despair because Mr. Ericson called me into his office.

"Okay, Walt, what has taken that silly Midwestern smile off your face and left the gloom in its place?" Eric pried.

"Sorry, it's personal. Didn't want to bother anyone with my problems."

There was no use hiding anything from Eric. In short order, he had the whole story.

He leaned back in his office chair, peaked his hands as if in prayer, and placed his chin on his fingertips.

"When I was a boy," he began, "this city was still run by the Irish and the Jews. They were an interesting bunch to watch. Third- and even fourth-generation Americans who spoke with a brogue or slipped a Yiddish phrase into their speech. These were men and women who graduated from Fordham and Columbia, but had mastered the art of being professionally ethnic.

"They are gone now. I sometimes miss the fun they seemed to bring to the political arts. The politicians now are professionally Black or Hispanic. They lack the same panache, or so it seems to me, and I think they take themselves a long yard too seriously."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Ericson. I don't understand."

"My fondest wish is for you never to lose that Midwestern innocence you have," he said, sighing.

"Walter, your girl's man was born Rodney Kaufman. His father was an heir to the Kaufman department store fortune, and his mother was a Puerto Rican Jewess, Louisa Ruis. Rodney is married to Sophie Sloane, of the wealthier of the Sloane families. For political reasons, he has adopted his mother's last name and a Spanish version of his first.

"Roddy boy is a professional Hispanic and a full-time politician. Your lady, by the sound of her, will choose you over him for three good reasons. First, the man is forty-seven. Your lady is much younger.

"Second, he is married to a good Jewish woman with whom he has three children. That lady is the not very jealous type who lets her husband play but would strongly object to being replaced. As would her wealthy and influential family.

"And third, there is Roddy himself, and his family. These are progressive times, but I doubt he is seeking to offend his own rich and politically supportive family by taking up with a Christian girl."

"But if she is dating him?" I noted.

Eric gave the impatient frown he reserved for stupid questions.

"How old is the lady?" he asked.

"Twenty-nine."

"A lady with a running biological clock, and you an eligible, twenty-six-year-old lawyer. I think you have failed to properly assess your worth in this arrangement. The introduction of Roddy boy into the equation was just to produce a proper motivation in you to move it along. Four dates in this age with a twenty-nine-year-old single woman means it's serious. So it is get serious, or get out," Eric Ericson concluded.

I felt better and, in fact, emboldened, after talking to my boss. On our next date, I pushed, and was rewarded with a hot response in return.

"If we are going much further, I need to know you are serious," she said.

"I could ask the same."

"Are you speaking generally?"

"Yes, and of Roddy."

"I've been seeing him a number of years," she stated.

"But he's not serious, and I am," I replied, thinking once again how smart Ericson was.

She took me to her bed. I was no virgin, although I had no great experience. She had way more experience and used every bit of it. I barely survived the night.

One week later, I moved into her apartment. It was a large apartment by New York standards, with one of those hallways that seemed to go on forever. The proposal was a forgone conclusion. She began hinting as soon as I was in residence.

Eloise was 29 when we met, a junior executive for Sanderson Financial Management. She had one foot on the senior executive rung, and shortly after our engagement, she became a VP. I had realized she was smart and a bit anal, but I was nearly overwhelmed by her organizational skills. The wedding preparations took barely six weeks.

Family wise, she was the oldest of three children and the only daughter. Her father was also a lawyer, but he was occupied developing real estate in Westchester and Putnam counties, north of New York City. As near as I could figure, he was heavy into politics. Thus the truly large wedding they planned so well and so fast.

Death had reduced my family to a single sister. Nancy now lived on the West Coast near Portland with her girlfriend. She stopped speaking to me the day she informed me she was a lesbian. Maybe I wasn't enthusiastic enough, but some gulf was opened that would not close. I invited her to the wedding, but she declined to attend.

My own career had settled into a comfortable pattern. I now did the lesser cases without assistance from Eric. He made no bones that he was grooming me. Bankruptcy was in a slow cycle, and Eric made no secret of the fact that I had better be ready when things picked up, because he was getting ready to retire.

"You've got what it takes. The right amount of smarts and a likable personality. But you need to learn the ropes," he would say.

"I've been studying the statutes and cases very hard."

"Yea, but you need some moves they don't write down."

I learned a new move the Friday before my wedding. Eloise and her mother picked Labor Day for the wedding. There was something there I didn't understand about the early date, but it also meant that we had the weekend to prepare and could fly away to the Caribbean honeymoon her parents were giving us on the Tuesday after. The bags were packed and against the wall in the long hallway of our apartment; three for Eloise and one for me.

I was a bit nervous about the wedding but had no time to think of it that morning. The week before, my bride-to-be had taken off for the family home in Westchester so we could "have some space apart before the wedding. It will make the honeymoon all the better, and it will keep my wedding jitters from driving my hubby away," she said with a laugh.

At ten o'clock Friday, the last workday of August, three days before my wedding, I had a hearing in bankruptcy court for a first-day order. This type of order is entered early in a reorganization to establish the rules for the debtor's continuing operation under court protection. In a small case like I had, they are not very formal hearings, usually just a few attorneys with the judge. It is primarily the bank's lawyer and a debtor attorney like myself.

Judge Marks was usually a stickler for the rules. That Friday, I entered my office ready to grab the file and head down to court, only to have the secretary tell me the judge's secretary called to arrange a telephone hearing as soon as I got in. I was immediately nervous.

The judge's clerk got all the parties on the line, and Judge Marks said, "Okay, Amanda, tell me what your problem with this order is."

Amanda Moskowitz was the attorney for the bank. She was smart and knew the law. Her argument was precise, and very much to the weakest points of my request.

She was an excellent attorney, but not much to look at. She was nicknamed "Sugar," which made no sense. She was short, less than five feet, and plump, particularly in the lower half, but I always thought she had a cute face.

When Amanda finished, I tried to speak but the judge cut me off. "Order granted. My clerk will fax it to the parties," he said as the phone went click.

Amanda only laughed as I asked her, "What just happened?"

"Judge Marks got tickets from my firm yesterday for the last days of the Saratoga Races. He needs to be up north of Albany by one o'clock. Can't be on the phone with us. He ruled against me today for appearance's sake in a matter that doesn't much count, but you wait till next time, and I will slaughter you," she said, still laughing.

"Not the way I like to win," I complained.

"Take anything you can get," she retorted, and paused. "You know, my aunts would say you are a very fine young man, for a goyish."

Still laughing, she ended the call.

About then, Eric came in and told me to take the day off and relax before the wedding. As I left, I couldn't help but ask, "What's a goyish?"

He smiled. "You and me, a non-Jew. Why?"

"Somebody said I was a fine young man, for a goyish."

"Oh, a compliment. Somebody likes you."

I headed to the apartment. I thought I might get an early start to Westchester. I wasn't due until the following day. The wedding rehearsal was Saturday night. But hell—why kill time in the city? I had expected to be tied up with my case. It should have taken most of the day, and maybe into the evening. We would be writing and rewriting every word of the order to please everyone involved, but that didn't happen. So why not get a head start?

I tried to call first, but Eloise's phone went to voice mail, so I made a fateful choice. I called her parents' house in Westchester, hoping to speak to someone or at least leave a message.

I guess it was just one of the random circumstances that changes everything. None of the Shaffer family were home. The regular maid, Rosita, had taken the day off to get fitted for the dress she would wear to the wedding. She had her cousin stand in. The cousin was a woman with limited English, whom I had never spoken to. She did not recognize my name.

"I want to leave a message for Miss Eloise. This is Walter," I said for the third time.

"She not here, in city."

"I know she lives in the city, but she is home for the wedding. This is Walter, and I will be there later today."

"She in city—stay hotel. Be here tomorrow for wedding," Rosita's cousin said.

It took a second, but my curiosity was piqued. "What hotel?"

"Plaza," came the reply.

I am not a suspicious man, but who would not pause after such a conversation? It was almost noon when I broke down and called the Plaza Hotel. Our reception was in Westchester County, nothing at the famous Plaza Hotel in New York. Something was going on I was not told of. There had been a hen party the previous week, but maybe the ladies decided to have yet another premarital celebration.

I called the hotel and asked for Eloise Shaffer. No one registered under that name. Then, maybe it was insecurity that made me ask, "How about Rodrigo Ruis?"

"No, sorry," the young woman said.

"Try Rodney Kaufman."

There was a pause, and she said, "Yes, we have a Mr. and Mrs. Rodney Kaufman in the bridal suite."

"Please connect me."

It could still be someone else. A not uncommon name, I told myself as the phone rang. When a man answered, I nearly hung up, but I had to ask.

"Eloise Shaffer please," I said.

"El, it's for you," I heard him say.

"Hello," she said.

I recognized her voice, but I could not speak.

"Hello, is there someone there?"

"There's no one there," she said to him.

"There was, he asked for you."

"Hello?"

"It's Walter. Don't bother going to the wedding. I won't be there," I said, finally finding my voice. As I hung up, I heard her shout my name before the phone shut off.

I don't have a good recollection of the next bit of time. I was in shock. I sat in the apartment as if paralyzed. In a way, I was paralyzed. The strength seemed to have left my body. Everything good in my life seemed to have vanished.

It was all a lie; the romance, the living together, and the trendy apartment. It was our apartment, but actually hers by the lease. My mind was working in a kind of lockdown. I knew I needed to get up, take my bag from the hall, and leave. I had no place to go, but I needed to get out of where I was.

Someone opened the apartment door. It was her. I vaguely wondered how she had got here so fast. I looked over at the clock and saw it was two o'clock. It occurred to me the judge would be at the races. That fact had changed my life.

"Walter, we need to talk," she said.

"Were you there all week?" I asked.

She was standing in the middle of the living room. Her eyes did not meet mine.

"It was just us saying goodbye," she said.

"So, it never really ended," I accused.

"Walter, stop. You know I love you."

"How would I know that?"

"I'll never see him again. We ended it," she said.

"Why?"

"I was with him for seven years. Almost from the day I moved to the city—"

"No. Why end it?"

"Because I'm marrying you on Monday," she said.

"No, you're not."

"Walter, please be reasonable. It's all arranged. There are three hundred-plus guests coming."

I didn't respond. There was no point. I got up and walked past her.

"Where are you going? We need to work this out!" she cried.

I picked up my bag and walked out. She followed, screaming for me to stop. Eventually, she gave up. I wandered aimlessly for quite some time. I was vaguely headed toward the bridge.

It grew dark, and I was tired of walking. I crossed Court Street, not far from the borough hall. I found a small bar. It was packed with people on a Friday night, but I found a dark corner to crawl into.

"Hello," she said.

I looked up to see Sugar Moscowitz. She had a drink in each hand. She put one down in front of me.

"I thought you looked like you could use it," she said.

"Th-Thanks," I stuttered as I took a sip of a very strong drink.

"It's called a stinger, and as you can see, I am not a religious girl," she said.