One Rule for the Rich, A Sequel

I turned off the mower, "I got them, but I thought I'd wait."

"What for," she asked?

"I don't know, maybe you'd change your mind. You know I still love you."

She replied, "Give it up. Get the papers and sign them. I'm in a hurry." Then she added, "Look I have a second set here. You can sign them right now."

I heard the screen door open. It was my mom, "Who are you talking to son?"

I turned to my mom, "My wife. She's here to get me to sign the divorce papers." Then it dawned on me, Clare and I had lived together a year and been married for three, and she'd never, not once, ever met my parents. In my stupid pride I'd been too ashamed. I'd met hers once in New York, but she'd never met mine. Now I was really ashamed.

I said to Clare, "Bring your papers inside. I'll them there."

She nervously looked at her watch, "Let's make this quick. I have to get back to New York, there's a flight I have to take."

I wiped my hands on my jeans and waved her up, "Come on, it won't take long." Mom was hanging back by the door. I could tell she was ashamed of me.

We went inside. Clare pulled out the packet. It was a simple thing, she'd set it up in Norway. I sat at the table and perfunctorily read over the paperwork. Clare fidgeted. My mom just watched. I stopped for a second. I figured my mother was owed something, "This is my soon to be ex-wife. I'm sorry you never met her. She's from New York City."

My mom was un-phased, "Pretty girl."

I looked at Clare, "Yeah, sure you wouldn't like to stay for a coffee or something?"

She fidgeted some more, "Come on. I have to get back."

I signed the papers.

She took them, started to leave, but turned. I didn't get up. She said, "All this over a stupid set of golf clubs?"

I replied, "It wasn't the clubs. It was never the clubs."

She gave me one of her patented disgusted looks, shook her head and started for the door again, but then stopped again. She looked back one more time, she seemed to soften, she took one step toward me but stopped, "I'm sorry... I thought... We even had names. I've always... I guess I'll always... you know."

I said, "Yeah, I know."

She turned and walked all the way back to the door and then stopped again, she turned and said, "Conall." My name was Conall Cassidy Stewart. Our ancestors hailed from Scotland and my mom had always had a thing for the place so all us kids had weird Scottish names. Clare said, "No matter what, I want you to know you're the most masculine man I ever met. No one can hold a candle... it wasn't just the... you know... You're... I'll...," she started to break up, she turned and flew out the door.

A few seconds later I heard the rental pull away. I believed I'd never see or talk to her again, it broke my heart... again, and I vowed to get over her as fast as I could.

+++

Did I get over her? No, a true and deep love doesn't die easily, and in spite of my many vows and hopeless promises to move on I couldn't. I kept a watch in the news, and I tried to stay in touch with my few remaining European acquaintances. Clare I could see was always out and about with this or that special someone, but she could never seem to hang on, damaged goods I guess.

Sometimes I wondered, what if she came back, or what if I went to get her. I knew where her parents lived. Her dad had been a barber. Maybe... someday if I ever get up the courage... she was always so special. Oh well... money.

+++

So I was divorced, I was back in my home town, and I was miserable. What was I going to do? I scanned my immediate horizon. I knew I couldn't stay where I was. I had to move on. OK, while I finished the school year I'd try to come to terms with who I was and where I was going. For sure, I wasn't stupid. I'd excelled in high school at math and science, but I'd always preferred literature, hence the nonsense degree in "Liberal Studies". I had a good facility when it came to language. I'd learned French, Italian, had a smattering of Latin, and was conversant in Russian. I recalled reading "Caesar's Commentaries" partly in high school and later in college. I'd read it Latin.

I started; I thought I might get back to where I was. I didn't know what it would be worth, but it was better than reading eighth grade poetry for the next thirty years. I went back and started to reapply myself mathematically. I needed to make money. I'd never be rich, but I knew I wasn't going to struggle in a failed society as were so many of my Pennsylvania contemporaries. What had John McCain said, "The jobs are never coming back," and he was right. I looked all about me; wherever I looked I saw once prosperous towns riddled with poverty. I was driving through I fields of old trailers where not long before there'd been corn. The old trailers had become the habitué of families who'd lost their homes during the banking crisis of 2007. Yeah, everyone had worried about Goldman-Sachs and Wells Fargo, but no one gave a shit about the people who'd played by the rules and trusted the system. I read 20,000 factories and 7 million jobs had been lost just around the Great Lakes, talk about the "forgotten man".

So I went back to work, not to make money, but on self-improvement. I could've taken classes on the stock market, but why do that when I could learn better and more quickly on my own. That's what I started to do, and I started to write. I knew I'd never write some great novel, but poetry. Poetry! When I was in college that had been the connection between Clare and me. She loved poetry. She wrote poetry, and she loved books, as did I. But we had gone wrong, somehow we'd gone off the tracks. I remembered when too. Clare and I had been in New York, we'd been invited to one of Clare's rich friend's weddings. We'd gone and met Brea. Brea said she liked my look, I had style she said. She said she had an opportunity for me. We took it. Fuck it, that was in the past. Time to move on... again, so I concentrated on self-improvement.

Though I still loved her desperately deep down inside I knew Clare was gone. Then something unexpected happened! I got a Federal Express. It contained a copy of "Paris Match", and a box of golf balls, Dixons. Inside the magazine someone had folded down a page; it showed my wife on the arm of some man. David the Russian was fucking with me. I threw the shit away.

I went back to my own private desolation. When school was out I thanked my brother for the Cavalier and gave it back to him. I kissed mom good-bye, shook dad's hand and left town, this time for the last time I was sure. But where to go? I had to live somewhere, do something. OK, the do something came first. I found an honest stock broker, an older Jewish man who lived in Maine, where else? I think he took a liking to me; he taught me some Yiddish, he told me about how his grandfather and grandmother had fled Russia a long time ago. I told him some of my story, and it was like he understood me.

That did it. Maine wasn't like anyplace I'd thought about. I'd spent time there. I knew about Bar Harbor, Bangor, and Portland, especially Portland.

I moved to Portland, Maine. This town had a thriving counter-culture, gays, lesbians, people with alternative life-styles, people not impressed by the David's of the world, and yes people Clare and I used to cultivate. Then something happened again, another package from Europe, this time another Paris Match, a picture, yes it was her, but it was enclosed with a golf club, just an iron but it was a Tiger Woods club, that bastard David. I ignored it.

What was I going to do? I would never get rich, but with the little acumen I had and my broker I was beginning to see a little daylight, not much but some, a few hundred and then a few thousand here and there. I thought I had it figured out. I'd put my life back together by backtracking to where Clare and I had been before we got involved with Brea and the charity scams. If I could get back, then maybe I could get Clare back by showing her what I'd accomplished.

So I saved, I invested, and I got back on my feet. Clare and I had once had a love of books and poetry so I found a small bookstore in Bar Harbor, Maine. Being seasonal and stocked mostly with older paperbacks the place wasn't doing well. I made the owner, an older woman who'd lost her husband, an offer, she didn't want to accept what I considered a fair bid so I made a second offer. I offered to buy in as a partner, we'd split fifty-fifty. I'd put up enough money for her to hire a reliable, mature assistant. I told her I'd provide enough seed money for her to hold on for at least two years, plus I'd set up a cash fund for her so she could start scouring the world for rare older books and hard to get first editions. Next I guaranteed there'd be no hanky-panky; she'd have the decisive role in everything we did as long as she was alive. Then last I showed her a picture of my wife, told her a little of our story and my plans to bring her home; hearing that I guessed pulled pretty hard on her heart strings, she accepted.

Thus with the bookstore in place I believed I had what I needed to lure Clare back home. Was it wishful thinking? I thought maybe, but then what did I have to lose? I'd use the bookstore as the place where I'd accumulate rare first editions; it would become a collector's haven. It wouldn't matter if I made a lot of money as I already had other interests, and if I failed to get Clare back I'd still have the bookstore and the start of a new life. Hell, it was Bar Harbor, I could eat lobster, I could go whale watching.

+++

Of course nothing ever works exactly as one plans. Some months into my bookstore adventure I found out my Russian friend still hadn't forgotten me, it was his third gift, and it came in a long oblong box. I knew who'd sent it before even opening it. I wondered if I should bother, but open it I did. Inside was the Tiger Woods putter, and also wrapped inside were pictures and a DVD.

This was too much. I checked the pictures; they were all of Clare in various what I thought were publicity shots of some sort. One had Clare in a tight bikini, a brown thing that left almost nothing to the imagination. She was standing poolside surrounded by a handful of men all dressed in expensive suits. A second photo showed her aboard some yacht; she was naked, this time surrounded by richly dressed men all looking in her direction and laughing. That second picture got me because the men were all obviously intent on exhibiting her in a most disparaging and humiliating setting. Then I saw standing toward the rear of the picture was David, smiling, and looking directly into the camera as though he was looking straight at me, it infuriated me.

I had to check out the DVD; I didn't want to but I did. It was short, not more than a few minutes, but it revealed all I needed to know. There was some late night party and clearly the same pool-side venue as the earlier daylight picture where Clare had been clad in the brown bikini. In the DVD there were hundreds of people, all richly dressed. Then out from a side building stepped a tall lavishly dressed older woman. I had no idea who she was, but she was holding two leashes, and prancing on all fours in front of her were two women, one was Clare. She was wearing some kind of harness. I recognized it as a type of bondage attire, her ass was in the air, her breasts were fully exposed, and around her neck was a collar. I didn't recognize the other leashed woman except to see she wore a bikini. The older woman was leading my ex-wife and the other woman around like they were dogs. She led them down along the side of the pool and then out of view. That was when I saw him; standing in the background the whole time, it was David, drink in hand, smiling and looking directly at me.

I looked around the small bookstore and wondered, was I already too late? It didn't matter, I had to push ahead with my plan. I had to find out. My next stop would be Queens, New York to see Clare's parents.

My meeting with her parents was hostile. They hated me, they also had been staying apprised of Clare's new circumstances, and they blamed me for their daughter's ruination. I didn't mind, I hated and blamed me too. What I got though was all her poetry compilations. Clare had been an avid poetess; they agreed to lend them to me. I had a stupid idea. I'd take her poems and some of mine, plus some plagiarized E.E. Cummings, and a couple Anne Bradstreet, and put it all in a self-published paperback and somehow get it to her. It took weeks, but I got it done. Though it hardly mattered but about that same time I got another mailer from Europe, of course from David.

This time what he sent me was awful; it was just a box and a single picture. The picture was of Clare, naked, arm resting on David's thigh and kneeling at his feet. They were both smiling at me. That was unpleasant, but the real shock was Clare's appearance; she was pencil thin, almost emaciated, but the worst was all her hair had been shorn off. There she knelt in an almost worshipful position wearing her hair in the shortest of short page-boy cuts looking out at the camera like some trapped puppy. She was smiling, but I knew her, the smile I saw wasn't real.

I knew Clare, and aside from her literary idealism her long black hair had always been her most precious personal trademark. Like I said the picture came in an envelope; wrapped around the picture was her hair. It was time... I had to go back to Europe. I had a mission...

+++

Once back in England I was at a loss; how was I to get near Clare? I revisited all our old haunts. I traveled by our old house; somebody else lived there now. I kept out a watchful eye. I did what I could, but that didn't amount to very much. I certainly kept my eyes peeled for any signs of David or any of his friends, especially the dark Bulgarian. Luckily, or unluckily, I did get a glimpse of some of David's business associates at one of the restaurants I knew they habituated. I was sure one of them saw and recognized me. I wondered...

It didn't take long, within days I got a call from my old employer Brea McLeish. She sounded excited, "Oh you've come back. Are you busy? Let's get together," We set up a time and place. I hoped; maybe this was my way in?

As soon as I got to the restaurant I knew it was a setup, as rich, sophisticated and as powerful these people were they were still transparent as hell. I supposed it was either their disdain for me or just plain indifference. I walked in, saw Brea, she waved and started to get up. I shooed her back down, but as I did I caught some well concealed eye contact. Brea passed something to the woman who I assumed would be our waitress, who in turn I saw signal three men at a distant table.

The men I didn't know, but they fit the type, dangerous. They were all cat-like thin, wearing white shirts and black pants. Even from a distance I saw how their black shoes glistened. All three had the scruffy looking beards typical of Middle Eastern Muslims.

Moreover, and worse, our waitress didn't fit either. She sure wasn't the type I'd expect to see waiting tables in a London restaurant like the one where we were. First, it was the hijab; it wasn't precisely an original as this one only haphazardly covered her nose and mouth. She was wearing a modest mini-skirt that came just a couple inches above her knees, but her legs were covered in tight black leotards, and her shoes were black lace ups, something like what grandmothers used to wear earlier in the United States. Her blouse was white as snow, Peter Pan collar and long sleeved. She gave the impression of being anyone's typical western Muslim girl, except I knew she wasn't.

Then again, maybe she was? Maybe I was paranoid, but I believed David might still be playing me. But why? After all this time, why? And what about Brea? Was she in on it? I almost turned around and walked out, but I was desperate. I had to find a way to see my ex-wife.

I reached Brea's table. She smiled graciously. Brea was a real anomaly, she was married, she was always bright and cheerful, she could charm a man right out of his pants, but I knew she despised men. Once, late at night when it was just she and I she admitted the only thing she saw in men was a warm vibrator, a fleshy dildo. I remember asking her why she was married. She said she wanted children. She'd had three, raised them largely on her own, but only stayed married for propriety's sake. I never had a doubt in my mind she would've cut my dick off and sold it if there was any real money in it. I loved her just the same.

She smiled, "I'm glad you've come back. I can use you."

"Brea," I replied, "That's not why I'm here..."

She cut me off, "I know why you're here. It's about Clare. I want to help you, but for your sake I hope you understand she's gone."

She always amazed me, she knew everything, I said, "I need to try,"

"Sure, I get it. You love her. You want to save her, but you won't."

"I don't care. I've got to try."

Brea held up her left hand, "Listen to me. Sure you're brave, you're passionate, you're kind-hearted to a fault, you're faithful, loyal and true, but you're not Abelard and Clare's not Heloise. She's more Cressida to your Troilus, and David is Diomedes. She'll betray you. She already has"

"I don't believe that."

"Believe it. She's too far gone; she's damaged goods, she's soiled."

"Brea I've got to try. I owe it to her. I owe it to myself."

Brea gave me a cat-like smile, "I want you to meet someone, a woman, and I think she's someone you'll like," she looked away and flipped a finger. Our waitress came over and Brea gave me that feline smile again, "I'll have a Domaine Leflaive Batard Montrachet. He'll have," she looked at me, but I wasn't paying attention. "What will you have, she asked?

"Pinot Grigio," I answered.

"Anything in particular," the waitress asked?

"The 'House' blend will be fine."

The waitress smiled and left.

Brea made another passing effort at a smile, "You like what you see?"

"Who was that girl? I never saw... I never."

"Would you like to meet her?"

"You know her?"

"She's one of the reasons why we're here."

I knew I'd been duped, "Sure, why not?"

Brea snapped her fingers, "Ajmaani! Come here please."

Our waitress came over, "Yes Mrs. McLeish?" Out of the corner of my eye I saw the three men get up and leave.

Brea pushed out a chair, "Have a seat please," she turned to me, "Conall this is Ajmaani Sadulaev,' then back at the girl she said, "Tell us about yourself."

The girl eyed me up and down. What a feral look I thought. She said, "Nothing to tell really. I'm a refugee from Chechnya. I grew up in a farming region outside Grozny. My mother, father, and sister were killed when the Russians came. My younger brother and I escaped, first to Belarus, then to Poland, and now here, England. The Russians are still looking for us. If they find us they'll kill us. My brother has his own plans. Me, I need protection. That's why I'm here." She pushed back in her chair and looked straight ahead.

I couldn't take my eyes off her. It was her face, no her eyes, she had eyes black as midnight, thick black brows, dark mascara all around. And her hair, no hijab could hide that hair; that thick black mass shimmered even through the dark red of her covering.

She surprised me. She pulled the bottom of the hijab down and away from the rest of her face. I couldn't help myself, I involuntarily gasped; her nose had some of the typical prominence of people from that part of the world, but it only served to accentuate her beauty. But it was her lips, a perfect heart; cherry red. She was incomparable.

She looked at me. No, she looked deep inside me. My stomach was in knots, I couldn't catch my breath, and my groin... was I sixteen again? Then it seemed to hit me, I asked, "Who were those men at the other table." Then looking at Brea and pointing to the girl I asked, "Is she another of David's sales offerings?" Angrily I turned and wrestled around in my chair, "And what am I supposed to do? What's this with this Muslim woman?"