In 1972 I was 8 or 9 years old in a New York City public school. I didn’t fit in. My clothes came from second-hand stores. My sneakers were falling apart. My mother was a single mom. Back then they called it a broken home. Kids picked on me every day.
Then one day I met a girl. Her name was Eleanor Rubinov. She wore shabby clothes like me. Her and I got along. We ate breakfast together, lunch together. I even brought her to my after-school chess club and photography class.
Then one day she was just gone. She never showed up to class again.
Twenty years later I was working on Wall Street. There was a man named George Rubinov who worked in a neighboring department. We talked sometimes but not much. I never connected the last names. This was New York City. Similar names didn’t mean anything.
One day George didn’t come to work. A whole week went by. His manager got worried and asked if I could help find him. They were calling his house and getting nothing. No answer. No response.
I called every hospital in the area I thought he lived. Then I found him. He was in a hospital. But the nurses said they couldn’t give any more information. His daughter had taken over communication. Her name was Eleanor Rubinov.
That name hit me hard. I instantly remembered my grade school companion. I asked the nurse if she could give me her number. She did.
I called. Found out George had passed away. Then I asked her if she remembered my name.
She did.
She was excited.
She wanted to meet me.
She suggested we meet at a fancy restaurant in Soho. We met. We hugged. We were curious about each other’s lives. As it turned out, she was a model for Victoria’s Secret, Talbots, and a few other clothing lines.
We instantly got together. I helped her with her father’s estate, which turned out to be just an apartment in the Village.
Eleanor and I became an item. We met on Thursdays or Fridays for dinner. We planned weekends together. We went to the country, the Hamptons, the beach. We did a lot of things together.
Problem one was her friend. She had this frumpy-looking friend who instantly hated me. It wasn’t real hate. It was fear. She saw me as someone who would take Eleanor away from her, someone who would jeopardize her own security. I tried to come across as harmless, as non-threatening as I could, but I could feel her watching me, measuring me.
Problem two began when she started getting upset at everything I did. If I made small talk with the concierge at a hotel or chatted with a cab driver, she got upset. She said I shouldn’t be talking to “the help” and that doing so is so pedestrian. She was upset the way I opened the door for her and how I helped her out of the car. Everything I did was wrong. One time she complained that I didn’t correct a waiter for serving me from the wrong side. She became so snobby I could not believe it, but I thought this would pass. It never did. It got worse.
ne day we were planning to go to the Hamptons for a three-day weekend. I was walking to her apartment from work when I saw her coming out of a luxury building. She made a right turn, walking directly in front of me, heading away. She never saw me. I followed several yards behind as she walked to her place.
When she entered her building, I waited about fifteen minutes. Then I rang her doorbell.
She let me in. I asked how everything was and what she had done that day.
She told me right away, “I was in my apartment the entire day. I never left. I was designing some pattern for something.”
I ignored it, but I kept it in the back of my mind. I didn’t know how I was going to address it. One thing I liked about her was that she didn’t mind spending money. She was making close to $20,000 a month after taxes. She often paid for lunch, dinner, whatever.
So this time I said, fine, we’re going to the Hamptons. I let her rent the car. I drove. I let her pay for the hotel, which was about $450 a night with a minimum four-night stay. I didn’t pay for anything. Deliberately.
One night she went to bed early. I headed out to the beach. There were people out there singing songs and playing guitars. I brought them a few six-packs of beer and instantly made friends. I stayed out with them until around four in the morning.
Next day she was complaining. About everything. Third day she gave me the silent treatment. When we left, we left late to avoid the traffic. We returned the rental and got back to her place around one in the morning.
We got into bed and she exploded. Full anger. I didn’t say a word. I got dressed and left.
I didn’t want to argue with someone who lied to me. That wasn’t acceptable.
About fifteen years later I was walking through the Village. I saw her through the window of one of her favorite restaurants. A glass of wine on her table. Torn shopping bag at her side. Her hair was a mess. She looked angry.
That was the last time I ever saw her.
What a disastrous woman she was.
