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. She apparently thought that the up-and-coming corporate manager was looking for a green behind the ears farm boy would-be lawyer.

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 goy.”

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 goy?”

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

“Somebody said I was a fine young man, for a goy.”

“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.

“Religious?”

She smiled; it was a pretty smile, and she explained, “Drinking in a singles bar with a goyish on a Friday night; and what could I tell my mother about that suitcase?”

As she said this, I looked down, suddenly remembering my suitcase.

“Oh, I ... well ... I had to leave. It’s her apartment, after all,” I said, taking a swallow of the drink that burned all the way down.

Sugar/Amanda didn’t really ask me any questions. She told me funny stories about herself and the people we mutually knew from the bankruptcy court. It’s a small specialty, and everyone knows everyone else. She kept my glass full and tried to make me laugh. I guess she already knew I was engaged to be married soon, but she didn’t seem surprised that I found myself in a Brooklyn bar on the Friday before my wedding with a suitcase. Perhaps she had been drinking a bit before I arrived and didn’t understand the significance of the suitcase and where I currently found myself.

Pretty much the only thing I remember about that night was Amanda helping me into a car and saying, “It’s a short ride.”

Later, I had a dream about Eloise. She had me pinned to the bed and was riding me cowgirl style. Not her favorite position, but she seemed to be enjoying herself far more than usual.

I needed to pee. It was a definite must, but as I got out of bed, I realized I had no idea where I was. The apartment had changed. For a moment, I was wholly disorientated—and then it came back to me in one sharp and painful memory. I had walked out on Eloise and her apartment. So, where was I now?

My head ached and felt like someone had filled it with cotton. I could remember little of the night before. I remembered entering a little bar along Court Street. Someone I knew showed up. For a moment, I couldn’t remember who it was ... and then I did. Amanda Sugar Moskowitz. What was she doing there, and what was I doing here, naked, in an unfamiliar bed?

I was in a small room. It was barely able to fit the double bed. The room was barren of any other furniture. The bed abutted right up to a window that ran from the middle of the wall to the ceiling. I was alone in this bed that showed the signs of a second person having slept in it. The room had no closet, and my clothes were nowhere in sight. In fact, the room might have been an overly large closet fitted with a bed.

There was a door. It didn’t open all the way, being blocked by the bed. I peeked out. There was a larger room. On one side, a window bayed out from the wall. You could see the sidewalk outside. I was in what they call in this part of the world an English basement. It’s a floor sandwiched below the main building. It’s half above and half below ground. The windows began just below the level of the sidewalk. The space had been made over into a small apartment, or in this case, as I was to learn later, two apartments; the one I was in and an even smaller rear apartment.

The main room was divided by a counter into a dining area and a kitchen. The bay window was a kind of living room nook with two small chairs and a window seat.

Seeing no one, I crept out, looking for a bathroom and my clothes. There was a door on the far side of the room. As I entered, it opened. Out walked Amanda Moskowitz in a bathrobe, rubbing a towel over her wet hair.

“Oh, you’re up!” she said, noticing me. “About time. It must be almost noon.”

My hands flew to cover my genitals, which only provoked a giggle.

“Bit late for modesty now,” she said. “I saw it all last night.”

All I could do was run past her, assuming that the room she had exited with damp hair was the bathroom.

I was right, and closing the door, I lifted the toilet seat and let loose the contents of my bladder into the toilet. It was a small bathroom, with only a shower stall, no tub. I decided to make use of this and grab a wash before confronting my host about the subject of what happened to my clothes and my suitcase.

Small the shower might be, but the water was hot and comforting to my very hungover body. Renewed, I searched in vain for a towel. Wet and naked, there was nothing for it but to walk out to confront Amanda.

I opened the bathroom door and stepped out, only to realize we were no longer alone. A young, dark-haired woman was seated at the table, staring straight at me with a big grin on her face. Amanda was in the small, open-plan kitchen fussing with cups and a coffee pot.

“How do you like your coffee?” Amanda asked, as easy as if I had not been standing there naked. I jumped back behind the bathroom door and called, “Could I get my clothes, please, or at least a towel?”

The two women were laughing, but Amanda stopped long enough to say, “The towels are in the closet, as is your bag and the clothes you shed last night.”

Craning my head out from behind the door, I asked, “And where might the closet be?”

Still giggling, Amanda pointed with the coffee pot toward a set of louvered doors on the far side of the room behind the table and just before what must have been the apartment entrance door.

“I’d get them for you, but I’m busy, as you can see,” Amanda said.

The other woman made no attempt to rise, and there seemed nothing for it but to make a run for the closet. So, I made a mad dash. On reaching the closet, I pulled the doors open. My clothes were right inside. My suit and shirt were hung up neatly, and my underwear folded over on the top of my suitcase. I grabbed for the latter, pulling the shorts and shirt on as fast as I could. But all the while, I could hear the women giggling behind me.

“Walter, this is my sister, by the way, Sonia Rabinowitz,” Amanda said.

“Hello, Mr. Stillman,” Sonia said.

“Hello,” I replied while I opened my case to extract a pair of jeans.

“Don’t feel you need to get dressed for me,” Sonia said. “I’m the younger sister, but I’m already married with three children, two boys and a girl. Naked male bodies don’t shock me.”

They both laughed at this as I was pulling on my jeans.

“Come have some coffee,” Amanda invited. “And Sonia brought Bialys.”

“I’ll be just a minute,” I retorted.

“You didn’t tell me he was so shy,” Sonia stage-whispered to her sister.

“Didn’t really know,” Amanda responded, also whispering loudly. “We’re kind of a new thing.”

“You’re a loose woman, Amanda Moskowitz,” Sonia chuckled.

With my pants and shirt on, I turned to take a seat at the little table. I needed the coffee.

“I like my coffee black, no sugar,” I said.

Sonia giggled and whispered to her sister, “I guess he got his sugar last night.” They burst out laughing. It hurt my head.

Amanda handed me a cup of extremely strong coffee. As I placed the cup down before me, a cell phone rang. It was Sonia’s, and she extracted it from a great leather purse that had been sitting by her feet on the floor.

“Oh, hi,” Sonia said, answering. She covered the phone and whispered, “Aunt Hester!”

“Of course, I remembered,” Sonia continued. “I’m at Amanda’s right now to remind her, but she has company, and I haven’t had a chance to mention it.”

There was a pause, then Sonia said with a smirk, “No, her company is male.”

Amanda passed her hand over her throat in a cutting sign, but Sonia continued unperturbed. “Yes, he’s kind of cute, but a little shy ... No, definitely not Jewish ... Yes, I’m absolutely sure.”

Sonia whispered into the phone, “I caught a glimpse when he exited the shower.”

Sonia was now laughing uncontrollably. “She wants to speak to you,” Sonia said, handing Amanda the phone.

“Hi, Auntie,” Amanda said into Sonia’s phone. “No, I would never forget Dad’s birthday ... Six tomorrow tonight, and we eat at seven. Got it ... Oh, he’s just a friend. Really!”

There was a pause while Hester apparently spoke.

“That’s not going to work out. He’s a work friend. I’m sure he’d feel uncomfortable at a family party.”

Amanda handed the phone back to her sister.

Sonia listened while her aunt spoke.

“I don’t know,” Sonia said, and then turning to me, “She wants to know your name. What should I tell her?”

“Walter,” I replied. “Walter Stillman.”

“It’s Walter, and I’m pretty sure they slept together last night.”

“Sonia!” Amanda cried.

“Now Aunt Sofie is on the line saying they want to meet him.”

“No! Oh, sugar. No!” Amanda shouted.

Then Sonia handed the phone to me, saying, “My aunt Sofie wants to speak to you.”

I took the phone and put it to my ear.

“Hello, Walter, I’m Amanda’s aunt Sofie, and my sister, Hester, and I are having a birthday party for our brother Leonard, Amanda and Sonia’s father. We would love for you to come with our Mandy. Will you please? It would mean a lot to the family.”

“I’m not sure. I wouldn’t want to intrude. Mr. Moskowitz might not want me at his party,” I said, fishing for a polite way to refuse. “I’ll leave it up to Amanda.”

Then I passed the phone to Amanda. She argued with her aunts for a good ten minutes while a mischievous Sonia smirked. The aunts on the phone switched off, each contending with their niece in turn. Finally, Amanda gave in.

“Okay, I’ll bring him,” she said, and then hanging the phone up, “Sugar, sugar, sugar!”

“She does that, you know,” Sonia said.

“What?” I asked.

“Substitutes the word sugar for fuck, like we don’t know what she is actually saying.”

With a final laugh, Sonia rose and said, “Well, it looks as if my work here is done. Time to go relieve my husband before my kids drive him insane.”

Now alone, Amanda turned to me and said, “Look, you don’t have to come. My family can be a bit overbearing at times.”

“I just don’t understand why your aunts want an outsider at a family gathering.”

Amanda gave a brief, almost sad laugh and said, “Sonia is my younger sister by almost four years. I turned thirty on my last birthday. She already has three children. My aunts, and for that matter, the rest of my family, think I should be married and pregnant by now.”

“It sounds like your biological clock is ticking on their shelf, but they still don’t know me, and apparently, I’m the wrong religion.”