Consolation Prize

He began drumming the fingers of his right hand lightly against the tumbler, its cut glass cooled by the ice and what remained of the bourbon. It was an aimless rhythm that signified nothing save his apprehension. He ground out the butt of one cigarette and shook another from the half-empty pack on the polished mahogany bar, snapped open his silver lighter and put flame to tobacco, drawing deeply. Nearly ten years he’d gone without nicotine. Then came the prospect of seeing her again, and the anxiety it triggered was enough to throw him back onto his old crutch. He finished what remained of his drink, caught the attention of the bartender and signaled his desire for another. He looked at his watch. Still a few minutes before she was to arrive.

Jesus, I feel like a kid on his first date.

“Maker’s, double, light rocks,” the bartender said, setting the glass on a fresh cocktail napkin. “It’s been a long time, Mr. Blanchard.”

“That it has, Lloyd, that it has,” he replied, rolling the ice around in the whiskey. “But I am delighted this place is still here and you are right where you belong. No better bartender in the city of Chicago.” Lloyd returned the compliment with an appreciative nod.

“Very nice of you to say, Mr. Blanchard. Whitson’s is all about continuity. Our customers like that. Keeps them coming back, even if they’ve been away for years. Like you, sir.” He raised his glass in salute and drank. As another customer took a seat farther down the bar, Lloyd excused himself. Tim Blanchard watched him go, marveling that after more than a decade, Lloyd—he never knew his last name—was so little changed, except for a deepened line or two on his face and a dash of gray at the temples, a perfect complement to the black barman’s jacket on his still-lean torso.

In a quiet corner away from the gentle arc of the long bar a man about Tim’s forty-five years nodded over the keyboard of a Steinway, playing what Tim believed was something done many years before by Bill Evans, though he couldn't place the name of the tune. For all he knew, his memory banks may have been triggered because it was the same song that accompanied his last meeting there with her.

That was twelve years before when he was freelancing in the city, writing mostly forgettable stories for whatever print publication would pay him a few bucks—the Reader or, less frequently, the Trib or Chicago magazine. At the same time he was shopping a novel around, a spy thriller that he pitched as “a sexy cross between Ian Fleming and John Le Carré.” With several years’ hindsight, a modestly successful literary novel, a short story collection in print and seasoned with a dose of brutal honesty, Tim had chalked up the first book to the over eagerness of a rookie trying desperately to write something commercial. A fool’s quest he came to realize. The one positive thing that emerged from the months in which he’d accumulated a shoebox-full of rejection letters was meeting Mara Rosen.

She was twenty-six, working at a small, independent publisher in the Loop, the only house that showed the slightest interest in his book, and that was only because a friend, a photographer at the Sun-Times, had a connection there who agreed to look the manuscript over as a courtesy.

As the junior fiction editor, Mara had drawn the short straw.

“Well, you know,” she had said slowly as he sat in her tiny office at State and Madison, “it shows promise.” It was the word every writer dreads for the surety of its message that what was on the page was not ready for primetime. It was a gentler letdown than what he imagined she was thinking:

“Publish this? You can’t be serious.”

Disappointed as he was, he wasn’t shocked. And in truth, as Mara talked on, offering suggestions how to mold the story into something the public would actually want to read—fleshing out the characters and tightening the plot—he found himself caring less about what she was saying than about his reaction to her. “Smitten” seemed to Tim to be such an old-fashioned word, yet it fit.

Though not beautiful, he thought she was quite attractive. The cover girl type had never appealed to him because he found their beauty was too often inversely proportional to their intelligence. And for him, smarts won every time.

He could see it most clearly in the depth of her brown eyes behind oversized tortoise shell glasses framed by a frothing cascade of dark curls.

When she finished, mustering a smile for him, he looked at her in silence for several seconds; and on impulse, despite her gold wedding band, very nearly asked her out, stopping short and chiding himself for thinking of such a rash, adolescent act.

But two days later, still obsessing over her, he called to ask for more input on his book; and flimsy as the pretext was, she accepted his invitation to have a drink.

As they laughed and talked easily together at Whitson’s—she on her third martini—Mara did little to hide that she was as taken with him as he with her. They quickly dispensed with Tim’s transparent cover story, and once they did, the conversation grew personal.

The early evening was beginning to fade as Tim nursed his drink, nervously tapping the ash from his cigarette, casting his memory back through the years and recalling how swiftly his affair with Mara had blossomed, how she had opened herself to him with a confession as old as the story of men and women doing the dance with each other—two years married to a husband distracted by his job with a high-powered corporate consulting firm, the constant travel, long stretches away from home. Despite satisfaction with her work, she felt neglected, restless and hungry. And, though his novel wasn’t “quite ready for the Pulitzer committee,” as she ribbed him, she had made a point of reading some of his newspaper features and magazine pieces, enough to see, she said, that he had the talent to do much more with his writing.

They began seeing each other two or three times a week, their conversations ranging over literature, art, the cinema and music. The more time they spent together, the more it was clear that he had found a kindred spirit to match the depth of his own restlessness, and he was mad about her. That, along with a primal physical attraction they did little to suppress, and the leap to becoming lovers was short.

As affairs go theirs was relatively fleeting—two months short of a year. Ending it was not his idea, and he felt blindsided when in the late afternoon on a rainy autumn day, with the city shrouded in shades of gray, they met at Whitson’s for what would be a final time.

“Look,” she began, affecting a gentle tone; yet beneath it there was a tension he’d picked up in the way she moved her body when she’d entered the bar. “This isn’t an easy moment for me, and I don’t want to make it any more difficult than it has to be.” She paused a beat, drawing a deep breath and meeting his eyes directly. “I—Joel and I—are leaving Chicago.” The declaration was so sudden that the implication didn’t register with him immediately. He stared at her for a moment before responding.

“Leaving?”

“Yes.”

“So…the two of us?”

“Over.” Her voice grew firmer. “I want you to understand why.” She paused again. “A week ago, Joel accepted a position with his firm in their New York office, so I knew I had to make a decision. At first, I was totally conflicted; but when I took a step back, I found my choice wasn’t as difficult as it appeared. I had to face up to the realization that Joel and I got together in the first place because of how well we matched up—yin and yang. And despite all the distractions, the fact is we are very well suited to one another.” Again, her eyes found his. “Better than the two of us.”

“But how can you say that?” he asked, alarmed and genuinely bewildered. “Look at what we’ve had together.”

“What we’ve had together,” she replied quickly, “has been wonderful, Tim. I needed it badly. I wouldn’t trade any of it. But what we’ve had has been a romance—an illicit one—full of secrecy and deception and all of the attendant thrill. But it’s not a relationship, not a partnership that requires what a day-to-day life together requires.”

“Well, why don’t we try?” He searched her eyes for some sign that what had been the most precious thing in his life wasn’t disappearing, but what she returned was only the briefest flash of regret.

“Because I know how the story would end,” she replied firmly. “We’d be left with bitterness and remorse. I don’t want that.”

Despite the inner turmoil he was plunged into, he did not plead with her. It was not in his nature. She had made up her mind, that was clear. So within a month she was gone, and Tim was left with the memory of one of the last things she had said to him.

“I must really love Joel to say goodbye to you.”

Autumn gave way to a cold and lonely winter. He did his best to pick himself up off the mat and get on with his life. There were attempts with other women, but the relationships were brief, always in Mara’s shadow, too often dissolving into the acrimony of unfulfilled expectations.

He put in another year of freelancing before he’d finally had enough of the city and packed it in for a place in the White Mountains of Vermont and serious work on novel.

This time he wasn’t chasing an audience but writing for himself. Fable’s End caught the eye of an indie publisher in Boston, drew some positive reviews in the literary press and garnered enough sales to warrant an advance on his next book, a short story collection that included one that had been shortlisted for the Pushcart Prize.

Now, the publicity tour for his new novel had brought him to Chicago and offered the possibility of reconnecting with the woman all the others who had passed through his life had been measured against and come up short.

Through the publishing world grapevine, Tim knew her career had flourished in New York where she had risen to become executive editor at a major house. And he had heard from a mutual friend some months before that she and Joel had divorced. With that in mind, when he learned that they both would be in Chicago at the same time—she to accept an award for championing the work of feminist writers—he took a chance that she might agree to see him.

He knew it was something of a longshot. More than once she had told him that she did not live her life looking in the rearview mirror, so when she replied to his email that she would meet him, he was not only somewhat surprised but dared to entertain the glimmer of hope that one more rendezvous at Whitson’s just might rekindle the old spark.

Tim ground out one cigarette and immediately lit another. Fifteen minutes past their meeting time. Dread was beginning to seriously twist his insides. He tried to push it away, albeit somewhat feebly.

Rush hour. Probably stuck in a cab.

He decided one more drink was in order and signaled Lloyd.

Once it was delivered and he’d taken a healthy pull, he allowed himself to begin an emotional slide.

You’re a goddamned fool!

No sooner had that bit of self-flagellation passed his mind than a voice from behind him spoke.

“Did you think you’d been stood up?” It was unmistakable, and it caused the breath to catch in his chest. Tim turned as Mara bussed his right cheek and slid onto the chair next to him. She had cut her hair and no longer wore glasses, but her mouth retained the same impish sensuousness and her eyes the electric depth that he’d found irresistible.

“Not a worry in the world,” he said with all the breeziness he could muster.

“Liar,” she shot back, allowing a smile to spread across her face.

“How are you, Mara?”

“Much too busy for my own good, but I’m well. And you? Hair a little thinner and a little grayer, but you’ve held up pretty well, I’d say.”

“And I’d say much more so in your case,” he said, letting his eyes roam her face.

“This is turning out to be old home week,” said Lloyd, placing a cocktail napkin on the bar in front of Mara.

“Hello, Lloyd.”

“Miz . . . Rosen?”

“You’ve got a remarkable memory, Lloyd,” Mara answered, genuinely impressed.

“Only for my best customers,” he replied.

“And a real gift for flattery,” she added. He smiled in reply.

“A martini for you then?” he asked.

“And you even remember what I like to drink! You are amazing, Lloyd. Yes, a martini.”

“Very dry.”

“Very dry.”

“He’s something, isn’t he?” said Tim, after Lloyd had departed.

“Just like it was yesterday,” Mara marveled. The nearness of her and the alcohol working in his brain was beginning to overwhelm him.

“If only it was,” he said, not bothering to mask his wistfulness. She turned toward him and her eyes narrowed a bit.

“All the way back down memory lane? Already?” There was a hint of annoyance in her tone that put him off.

“Well, isn’t that what our being here is all about—at least part of it?”

Before she could answer, Lloyd returned with her drink.

“Enjoy, Ms. Rosen.”

“Thank you, Lloyd. I’m sure I will.” Against his better judgment—again, the alcohol—Tim pressed ahead.

“Just why did you agree to this?”

“This? What exactly is your idea of what ‘this’ is, Tim?”

“I could ask you the same question.” Mara sipped her martini and looked in the direction of the piano player as he ended one tune and smoothly segued into another.

“I thought after all this time it would be a good opportunity to catch up, one old friend to another.”

“Old friends? That’s all we are? A couple of college buddies?”

“Of course we’re not just like ‘college buddies.’” Her annoyance was growing. She gave him a hard look. “Just what were you expecting, Tim?”

“Well ...  I.” he paused to gather his thoughts, choose the right words, afraid to blow the moment. “I suppose I thought that because you were willing to get together . . . that you and Joel ...” he broke off, self-conscious, seeing her face register surprise.

“So you thought we were going to have a drink or two and end up in your hotel room bed?”

“No, I—”

“Then what?”

“I feel like I’m being cross-examined here,” he said, stung and irritated.

“I don’t mean it that way,” she replied, “but I sense you’ve brought a ton of expectations—unrealistic expectations—with you.”

“Unrealistic?” He felt exposed and it put him on the defensive. He took a long pull at his drink and tried to avoid her eyes.

“Back to the way it used to be. That’s what you hope will happen? Or have I misread you?”

“And that’s wrong of me?”

“It’s not wrong, Tim. It’s misguided.” This set off a wave of turmoil within him. Despite trying to drive it back, he failed. He drained the rest of his drink and set the glass down roughly.

“Well, then, as long as I’m misguided, Mara, I might as well do some unburdening. For the past dozen years, since the minute you left town, you have never left me. And while you carried on with a life that included someone, I was left alone. I’ve had my share of romances, yes, but every one of those women—every damned one of them—I compared to you. And not one of them came close. I’m not saying my judgments were fair, they weren’t. But they were automatic and inescapable. So I’ve been left with the time we had together as this—how do I want to describe it?—this kind of snow globe, you know? But instead of a couple together under a cascade of snowflakes, it’s the two of us in the middle of a shower of silvery glitter.

“Too maudlin? I suppose it is, but it’s the best I could do,” he said lifting his empty glass in her direction, “under the circumstances.” Mara shook her head and looked at Tim with pity. In a booth behind them, a joke brought a burst of laughter from a group deep into happy hour.

“Are you through?” she asked.

“No. I’m not.” He had the false bravado of the bottle and he was prepared to shoot his bolt. “You want to know the biggest mistake I made with you? It was letting you walk away without a fight, a real fight.”

“Tim—”

“No. I mean it.”

“It would have done nothing to change what happened.”

“So you weren’t prepared to leave Joel even if I’d begged you?”

“Of course not. No.”

“So, then, I was nothing more than a dalliance? A diversion?”

She was not used to being pressed this way, and she didn’t like it.

“Now who’s doing the cross-examining?” she snapped. Before continuing, she took a deep breath. “Look, Tim, what do you want me to say? We had a fling; our lives moved on. It’s no more complicated than that.” The music from the piano swirled in his brain along with the murmur of a dozen conversations around the room.

“Okay. That was then, but now?”

“Now?”

“Why can’t we—couldn’t we—try now? Pick up where we—”

“You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“I am. Yes.”

“You’re drunk is what you are.” Whatever pity she had shown was turning to scorn.

“Well, no,” he protested. “I mean, yes, a couple of drinks, but drunk? No.” He knew he had slipped down a slope from which there was scant hope of recovering. “Look, we never had the opportunity—never gave ourselves the opportunity—to make a real go of it together. But why not now? Life’s giving us a second chance. Why not take it?” There was a long pause while Mara gathered herself.

“I had hoped that this would have been a pleasant reunion with someone who was very dear to me once,” she said wearily. “I see now that was naivete, and it makes me sad, profoundly so. She reached for her purse. “I need to leave. I’m meeting a friend for dinner.”

“A male friend?”

“It’s really none of your damned business; but yes, a male friend,” she said, standing. “There is no second chance for us, Tim. The past is past, and you need to bury it once and for all. For your own good. Thank you for the drink if not the memories. Goodbye.”

He did not watch her go as he felt his insides curdle. After a long moment, Lloyd appeared.

“Ms. Rosen had to leave so soon?” he asked.

“Yes,” Tim answered, trying to put the best face on it. “Another engagement.”

“Ah, I see. Can I bring you another whiskey, Mr. Blanchard?”

“No. No, thank you, Lloyd.” The bartender returned a perfectly practiced professional smile.

“Well, then, all that’s left is the check.”

“Yes,” Tim replied in a hollow voice. “All that’s left.”

About the author: Nick Young is a retired award-winning CBS News Correspondent.  His writing has appeared in dozens of reviews, journals, and anthologies. His first novel, "Deadline," was published in 2023.  He can be found on Bluesky @youngnick.bsky.social. He lives outside Chicago.