Barbara’s need for power landed her in all the wrong hands—romance-wise. She loved men in high places, vowed very early in life to have all the good, luxurious things in life, and that included the ‘right’ man. Within her life meeting and loving four men was her only quest to attain that power. What she hadn’t realize was that the most powerful thing she sought was—love, the right kind, the lasting kind. Maybe she had it all along, but from which man? Who ultimately controlled Barbara East to the point where she’d never be able to forget him?
1973 A high-rise balcony overlooking New York City:
Conrad Joung had not been just a man. He was Barbara East’s first man—first lover, making this day’s occasion that much harder for her to take. You never forget your first lover, your last, any in-between and there was one more still to go, her husband Frank. Who had walked out on her as she cried over Conrad’s death. She had outlasted just about all of her previous lovers, and today was Conrad’s day to be missed—truly missed.
Conrad, her Connie, was dead, and that was the cold, hard truth. She had worn a black signature dress commemorating the occasion only hours before. She didn’t have the energy or gumption to shed the flowery shroud that she had worn with it because for her it meant hanging on to Conrad that much longer. But she detested the dress simply because it confirmed the end of a life—a superior life. Hell, the color never suited her anyway.
She remembered running from the church and hailing the nearest taxi to take her as far away from his cold, lifeless body as possible. The sight of him in that coffin had scared her, made her think of her own demise. But in a way, part of her was already dead, as was how she had felt with the deaths of Thorndyke, and Collin. When would it be Frank’s day, her only survivor. But where was he?
On that note, Barbara lit another cigarette. She had smoked them all day both before and definitely after Connie’s funeral. But she was numb now, and wasn’t aware of the pack of Cool’s clutched in her hand. The first thing she did after paying the cab a hefty sum to rid her from the hazardous surroundings of a funeral was to flee to her high-rise. Where she had run to the big picture window that always seemed to calm her, and she had stared out at the city. That calmed her, calmed her to the point where she forgot something was also in her right hand; a document. The document that meant the absolute end of a life, Connie’s obituary, and it continued to weigh heavy on her soul.
Barbara retired from the window and sat down on the leather sofa, exhausted. After all, she was 66 years old and tired of burying lovers. She quickly puffed the cigarette, knowing it was a means to an end to her own life. Would it happen quickly? She needed her own death to happen right away because she was shedding lovers the way an animal shed fur. There was hardly anyone left to love her. She was used to being loved, even if it was by all the wrong men.
The long blond hair now streaked with silver rested uneasily on her neck, so she pulled it up, knotted it into a loose bun, undid the first two snaps of her dress, and settled back, rolling a puff of smoke before making herself take a look at the obituary. Having a little more nerve now, she looked at Connie’s picture. It was a younger picture of him, taken probably in his mid-fifties.
She took another puff and then smiled at the picture. He had been absolutely stunning from the day she met him to the day she left him. A spectacle in a business suit, and the prettiest man she had ever seen. He was the kind of man she had dreamed of as a child, a cinema tycoon . The few times she and her family had attended, she spied the many people pulling up in those things that were the utmost rage back then—automobiles. Men in their handsome suits, top hats and fancy walking canes were awesome. Naturally, those men sported something else, a fancy woman on their arm. Little Barbara wanted to be one of those women, and vowed to become one the minute she left the family home in the lower side of Brooklyn.
That day came. Connie literally burst into her life and made a blazing trail directly to her heart—the last place he needed to be because the picture of his fiancée, Viv Steele, sitting on his big executive desk always proved to be a source of dismay to her. But when you are nineteen, the thought of another woman having what you wanted perturbed you.
Barbara patted the butt of the cigarette out inside of a crystal ashtray, and turned her eyes to look again at Connie’s picture, remembering the first day she had laid her eyes on him…
