reading

ALSO BY ELIZABETH COOKE

LIFE SAVORS

a memoir

EYE OF THE BEHOLDER

an art book on the loves of six famous artists

A SHADOW ROMANCE is a work of fiction.

Names, characters, places and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or scanning into any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the author except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Cover design by Todd Engel

Book design by Emma Schlieder

Printed in the United States of America

The Troy Book Makers • Troy, New York • thetroybookmakers.com

To order printed copies of this title, contact your favorite local bookstore or visit www.tbmbooks.com or amazon.com

Print ISBN: 978-1-61468-205-9

Digital ISBN: 978-1-61468-218-9

Dedication

A SHADOW ROMANCE is dedicated to all us women of a certain age – not old, but getting there; not young, but youthful enough to be unable to live emotionally on fantasy alone. For them, the shadow romance may be yet to come.

The story, A SHADOW ROMANCE, is for we who have come a long way on the journey and who still dream of love and enwrap ourselves in the enticing vision of the true companion/lover.

This little story is for each of us. I believe most women d’un certain age, will find something strikingly familiar in this narrative. You, perhaps, may have been there too.

In fact, I’d bet on it!

Acknowledgements

In putting together this odyssey of love, my sincere thanks to my editor, Marcia Rosen, who helped me cut through the sentiment; to Todd Engel who created the cover, front and back; and of course, to the elusive gentleman (you know who you are) who took me along for this shadowy romantic ride. Hats off to you.

Prologue

walking up the stairs

The French have a saying that goes something like this: the most exciting part of a sexual liaison is walking up the stairs.

I guess it means anticipation outstrips (excuse the pun) the act. Once orgasm is done, the conquest made, desire takes a back seat. An additional mantra of the French: the first orgasm is the beginning of the end of a love affair.

Oh, woe.

How sad for the lady. In the afterglow of love, she is indolent, replete.

But really worse for the man, although he doesn’t realize it. He turns for a cigarette. The smoke tastes delicious. He’s spent, done, fatigué.

Enough already.

Soon, he is on to the next chase and it ends the same and then on to the next. This is one of the definitions of a “man about town.”

I had such a “man about town” without his ever reaching the top of the stairs. It was all about flirtatious – no, seductive – no, erotic talk, innuendo upon innuendo, signifying nothing in the long run. But I, as a woman of a certain age, fell like a ton of bricks and suffered the consequence.

I wouldn’t have missed it.

The endless possibility. The endless prettying up. The endless dream of fruition. The solemn realization – over a period of a number of years – that for my “man about town,” it was all a superficial game, a shadow romance that was truly a puff of smoke I inhaled and on which I lived and cried and hoped for a meaningful, serious affair.

He was the romance, and I? I was the shadow.

Meaningful is what I wanted. I wanted him to really love me back. Not marriage! Oh no. For what? Babies?

I was well over the age of that possibility. But I felt still viable, a widow of over five years and still young enough for love. Not marriage. Love.

Besides, he was already married, had three children, and a wife who had returned to live in her family enclave in Savannah, Georgia. He visited occasionally, to keep up appearances, than returned happily to his little penthouse in the sky, a recent purchase, to pursue the pleasures of New York City and his magnificent view of the East River from his terrace. It was beautiful in snow, mysterious in a rainstorm, and exquisite when the moon was full.

Best of all he could enjoy his constant, restless pursuit of beautiful women, young, older, but intelligent. He did have certain standards and admired women of achievement, admired women of class, elegance and style. His standards, in fact, were high. He once remarked to me, that a young couple had moved into the adjacent penthouse and when he was in the elevator with the model/bride, descending to floor level, he looked into her beautiful eyes.

"I was shocked,” he said with chagrin. “There was nothing there.”

His tone was one of real disappointment. I wondered what he was looking for, what he expected to find.

Someone to love?

Part 1

at the bottom of the staircase

I met Stephen at a meeting of the board of directors of the charity, PAW PRINTS, of which I was Chairman.

He came into the room with confidence, an engaging smile upon his face, to present to us – the board – his proposal for defending against a lawsuit my charity was presently undergoing.

His was a prestigious firm and his presentation impressive – if expensive, - but we needed top-level help to protect us against a vindictive woman, the previous Chairman of PAW PRINTS, the animal orphanage of which I was so proud. She had embezzled funds and donations from our cause and left in disgrace. But, because of her aggressive personality and inability to accept blame, she decided to try to ruin our whole concern and prove she had done no wrong. In the end, she did not succeed.

Mostly because of Stephen’s excellent intervention.

A woman scorned and bitter.

I found Stephen instantly attractive: tall, witty, sophisticated, and surprising, a man in his early sixties, a New Yorker born and bred, of the upper echelons of society. He was sought after to fill out a dinner table, cherished for his wit and erudition, admired for his wide reading list, and enjoyed by those who loved the sound of his laughter. A real, dedicated man about town, that he was.

With all the attendant perks! Beautiful women. Hmm, I wondered. What would he feel about a lady slightly older?

I discovered he relished ‘MOSTLY MOZART’ at Lincoln Center in the month of August, the vacancy of the city streets of a New York summer, the breeze on his terrace when he gave small dinner parties for a variety of friends, mostly younger than he, the occasional sail on the East River in the early dusk on a chartered boat. This was the stuff of his life. It was immensely satisfying to him, this man about town manner of living. Apparently it was enough to keep him a happy man.

And it was at this juncture in time that we met, the happy man and the lonely widow.

And my ecstatic/melancholic romantic life began for the next nine years.

first step on the stair

After Stephen had been working behind the scenes on the lawsuit against PAW PRINTS for about four months, with several meetings during that time at our office on 60^h Street and the East River, he invited me to lunch. It was kind of a formal invitation, something I understood he did with clients, to create a better understanding between colleagues.

I must say, I was truly excited – wasn’t quite sure why.

We met at a small Italian restaurant on a chilly November day where we enjoyed an hilarious meal over crisp, fried calamari and Chianti, Stephen describing one of his rich clients who had a couple of small Maltese dogs, one of which almost bit off her elderly finger. I don’t know why this seemed so funny, but we laughed to the point of hysteria at the thought of that visual moment and the astonishment of that older lady.

Of course, there was a great deal going on beneath the laughter – a kind of chemistry had been tapped into, a chemistry that deepened as we came to know each other.

I was quite enchanted. He seemed to be too, as he put me into a cab with the remark, “You have made my week!”

It was totally unexpected, my reaction to this man. Of course, he was attractive, but there was a startling difference from the men I was used to, his rather nasal sounding humor and cynicism and turn of phrase, quite deliciously biting. It made for a kind of conspiratorial alliance of two against the world that I found magical.

Early in December, I received a Christmas card from Stephen depicting a set of rather pompous lawyers, looking very serious. It was the official Christmas card for the firm, but on the inside was a clear message in large letters in red ink: “I love working with you.” It seemed incongruous but needless to say, I was thrilled.

I found a card of a wayward skier, careening down a mountainside, (Stephen had told me he was an avid skier) and inside, I put “Me too.”

This was the beginning.

I knew it, and I was confident. I had never had a problem with the opposite sex, in terms of persuasion. The sense that the hunt was on its way was compelling.

Stephen had put me in touch with an extremely prestigious and wealthy foundation that had funded many worthy charities in Manhattan over the years. The originator of this foundation, a widow of a famous financier, and I might add, notable dog lover, had died, but the foundation continued in its good works and was run by a young woman (married), named Esther Candace. When I met with her, it was late afternoon, and the expensive office was dark. Esther and I were alone together in her inner cubicle. She didn’t turn the lights on, but I could see she was quite middle-aged pretty, slim, well dressed, and not the least interested in my PAW PRINTS’ cause.

Suddenly, she looked at the ceiling and said, in a strange, wistful tone, “You are going to have such fun working with Stephen.” I didn’t know how to respond. But I realized right away that this woman was enamored of my lawyer associate. It was in her voice.

She said she would call me and let me know, after talking to her board, if they would endow PAW PRINTS. Her manner was curt, not rude, but I was dubious because she had seemed so disinterested.

In fact, she was so cold as to be hostile. I was perplexed. Was she jealous that I would be working with Stephen? She had certainly eyed me up and down with a strange expression on her face. Had she been involved with him? Oh, yes, I determined. She had. For sure.

This meeting happened some weeks before my luncheon with Stephen at the Italian restaurant, but that day, after he put me in a cab that afternoon, I returned to the Marquette Hotel where I was staying to await my car and driver who were to take me to my home on Long Island. As I waited in the lobby, a bellman approached me with a telephone.

It was Esther Candace calling. How she knew where to find me I will never know. In a rude voice she said, “We have decided against any endowment for PAW PRINTS, and I will tell Stephen. There is no need for you to speak to him,” and she hung up. I was dumbfounded.

Fat chance. I would certainly contact Stephen and tell him myself. I was positive now that there was indeed something between them – at least on her part. Perhaps he had taken her to lunch as a client in the early days of their association.

I’ll bet she happened to be at the same Italian restaurant Stephen and I had just left. It had to be. She must have seen us laughing and couldn’t bear the intimacy it revealed and the pleasure.

The thought gave me a delicious frisson.

Otherwise her call made absolutely no sense, no sense at all, poor woman. But it made me all the more determined in my interest in my caustic and exciting new friend.

And, mighty curious too.

Strangely enough, three months later, Stephen, in a business call, suggested that he call Esther Candace again and see if her foundation would change its mind about giving a grant to PAW PRINTS.

I had to laugh silently.

"Not a good idea,” I said.