Late

The following is my contribution to the seven-hundred-fifty-word challenge( 753 with the title.) It was originally the back story for a character in a novel that didn't get written. Sorry, no graphic sex. I want to take this opportunity to thank all those who wrote me during my recent illness, Randy, and the other members of the writing group for their support. I'm almost recovered now and will be sending in more contributions to the site.

Copyright© 2019 by Richard Gerald

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Brooklyn: 1975

Elizabeth Bowlen, exiting the Court Street IRT subway station turned right walking up Montague Street past the Episcopal church and school. She ambled by the trendy restaurants and the upscale stores. Their warm incandescent lights invited the casual passer-by in, but Elizabeth, known as Beth to her intimates, strolled the block to Henry street where she turned headed for the second-floor walkup apartment in the row house down Henry in the Carroll Gardens neighborhood.

Her walk would take her through Brooklyn Heights and Cobble Hill, but she took no bus or cab tonight being early, the time not even seven o'clock in the evening. "An early night indeed," the young lawyer thought, but this had been an extraordinary day.

"Brent would be surprised." The last three years had been difficult. They had strained the relationship that began so well. Beth could recall her first sight of him, the young John Brentwood, known universally as Brent on their first day of Law school. It was in their first class, Business Organizations. The students were crowded into a large lecture hall all in alphabetical order, Bowlen next to Brentwood, the average looking over smart girl seated next to the most extraordinarily attractive man. Tall, dark, and handsome was a gross understatement. However, she discovered him to be as shy as he was beautiful.

Beth made the most of her advantageous position. In addition to her undergraduate liberal arts degree, she had a fine education in the feminine arts thanks to her college suitemates. Dressing sexy proved a more difficult course than Astronomy, but far more useful. She remembered how she worked for his attention and then his love.

They married in their third year and spent that year in love and poverty in a basement apartment off President street. Trouble came later when each pursued the careers they had prepared for, he in poverty law and she with a Wall Street firm.

She immediately moved them to a second-floor apartment where the windows looked down on the street not up to it, and the bedroom door closed when the bed was in it, unlike their former apartment. Now, she spent little time inhabiting their bed or their apartment. She worked ninety-hour weeks putting the energy she once expended in her marriage into the pursuit of her goal, "a partnership."

The row houses of Brooklyn Heights are stately in their Victorian grandeur as solid as the men who own them, but they give way at Atlantic Avenue to the Arab groceries and the near eastern restaurants with their scents of spice and coffee. Across the Avenue, Cobble hill begins with its narrower more modest houses.

It was up or out in the Wall Street firms with little time to make your mark. She knew a woman needed to use all her assets because the deck was stacked in this boys' game. Women were the very definition of outsiders. Push too hard, and you were overly aggressive, not enough, and you were out. The way to win was to become what was known as a "Good Sport." Her wedding ring was no handicap. It made her safe.

She sold herself, and Brent needn't know. Lines were crossed and vows broken. At two years, Beth began to worry. You could be an associate for three years, but not four. There was little time. She dug deeper and pushed harder at being the best of sports, one of the boys but just a bit sexier. It strained the marriage, but that would all end now. "They could be happy again."

The lunch that day was with her immediate boss, a senior partner, at an expensive place. It could only mean either out or up, good news or bad. She relaxed when she saw sitting waiting for them at their table three additional partners all smiling. Four partners in all and she had been a "Good Sport" with each. Their good news was celebrated with Champaign and overpriced beef.

She came to the invisible line that separated Cobble Hill from Carroll Gardens, a neighborhood with sometimes garishly decorated buildings and Italian shops and restaurants. A few blocks more brought her to her own stoop. She was through the outer door and rushing up to the second floor.

Opening the door, she called out, but the apartment was dark—empty. "Was he late on her big night?" Turning she caught the glint of gold on the table. Beneath the ring a note— just the one word, "GOOD-BYE."