A gust of wind sent snow swirling around Sister and Tootie as they walked on a side street toward Madison Avenue. “I think there have only been about three times in forty years that I’ve come to this Ball and the weather hasn’t been filthy. No wonder they stop hunting in New York State early. Genesee Valley stops when the river freezes, which has to be now.”
Sister was telling Tootie about a hunt founded in 1876 by hard-riding upstate New Yorkers, among them the Wadsworth family, who still led them.
“I’d love to go up there and hunt,” said Tootie. “I can take a train up to Rochester and then rent a car to drive down to the Genesee Valley.” Turning her head from the wind, the snow on her creamy café au lait skin added to her considerable beauty.
“Next year. I’ll come with you. Watching Marion Thorne hunt hounds is always a treat. Then again she has good whippers-in. You know, that’s the hardest position to fill.”
“That’s what you always told us.” Tootie listened closely to everything the older woman had ever told her, as the gorgeous young woman loved hounds, horses, foxes, and Sister, herself.
Another gust of wet snow smacked them right in the face.
“Well, who needs skin abrasion up here?” said Sister. “Just go outside. You’ll get a few layers peeled right off.”
Tootie wrinkled her nose. “Sounds awful.”
“Ah!” Sister stepped faster as the shop came into sight.
“Ladies.” The owner rose from behind the store’s counter when the two swept into the shop. “Welcome.”
“We’re glad to be here.” Sister laughed, brushing off her snow-covered coat.
Adolfo Galdos, balding, pudgy, and sixtyish, smiled broadly. “One must submit to the weather. That’s what my dear papa always said. He never could fathom how people endured this.”
“Cuban?” Sister inquired.
“How did you know?”
“I’ve never met a proprietor of a tobacco shop from Barcelona.” She smiled, but she had recognized the lilt in his voice.
“There you have it.” He beamed anew. “For us, tobacco is gold, is art. Someday, and I hope I live to see it, we will return and once again, the finest cigar tobacco in the world will be available to you.”
Tootie quietly studied the shop. Cigarette cases with sapphire clasps, lighters of perfect weight and simple design, sparkled alongside impossibly long cigarette holders.
Adolfo noticed the object of Tootie’s scrutiny. “A Dunhill. 1938. That lighter will work as good as the day it was made.”
Now also studying the display case herself, Sister murmured, “Beautiful. Oh, look at that.”
He reached into the case, retrieving a heavy silver cigarette case with handwritten names incised. “This was given to a British officer by his surviving men.” He flipped it open where it was gold inside, the officer’s name—Cpt. Mitchell Markham—was inscribed therein.
Sister’s hand flew to her heart. “What a tribute. My father fought in World War One. He never spoke of it, but I expect it affected him all his life and may be one of the reasons he married so late.”
“Do we not ask impossible things of people?” Adolfo’s beautiful green eyes met hers. “We left Cuba in 1959. My own father, who owned a tobacco plantation, saw there was no hope and left. Those who grew sugar also fled. Others, thinking the revolutionaries would not come for them, lost everything. Everything.”
“This is called progress.” Sister grimaced. “No one learns. It didn’t work for the French in 1791 and it will never work, period.”
Adolfo spoke to Tootie, delighted by her youth and femininity. “I hope, Señorita, that you will never encounter such foolishness.”
Shyly, Tootie responded, “I hope so, too.”
“Ladies, allow me to show you the humidor. The aroma alone is intoxicating.” He stepped out from behind the counter, twirled one hand like a drum major, walked to the rear of the store, and opened a glass door—the fragrance of various cigars, cigarettes, long-cut pipe tobacco, filled the room. “After you.”
The two entered the well-organized room. It was larger than it appeared from outside, looking at the glass door.
Closing the door behind him, Adolfo pulled a wooden box off the shelf. “I regret I cannot sell true Cuban cigars, but this is made from seeds taken from Cuba and planted in the Dominican Republic. It’s a very good cigar, sophisticated and mild.” He handed one Montecristo to Tootie.
She held it, in the wrapper, under her nose. “It’s almost like perfume.”
“A bit stronger. This one.” Adolfo handed her a Pleiades. “Now this is a large cigar, a large gauge, but such a cigar draws smoother, easier than the small ones you often see women smoking. Granted those may be more ladylike, but I think in any social gathering it is the women who set the tone. If you smoked a Churchill,” he cited a monster gauge, “it would become the fashion.”
“Well, I—”
“We’ll take that,” said Sister, “and while I’m here, a box of Tito’s, if you have them. They’re somewhat hard to find.”
“Madam, I have them.” Adolfo leaned down and slid a box off the bottom shelf. “Not one of the famous brands, but a cigar for a discerning individual. Yourself, perhaps?”
“No, my gentleman friend. When he truly wants to relax, he smokes a cigar. When he’s nervous, he smokes a cigarette.”
Adolfo laughed. “Yes, well.” Then he lowered his voice. “So much has changed. Tobacco additives. Well, there was always that, but if you bought a pack of, say, Dunhill Regular, you knew they were made with the best leaf from the tobacco plant. Whether it’s cigarette tobacco or cigar, the upper leaves are most prized. The lower you go in price, the lower you go on the plant until you get to those discount brands—those are just chop.” He squinted his eyes for a moment, shaking his head. “How anyone can put one in their lips, I don’t know. Smoking should be a ritual of pleasure.”
“We have few true rituals of pleasure in this country. No siestas. No teatime. Other nations have a special part of the day to relax, recharge, give thanks. We do not.”
“Well”—Adolfo paused for a moment—“I cannot criticize a nation that took us in as refugees where we flourished. It took some time but we have made our way, the Galdos family.”
“Galdos?” Tootie’s eyes opened wider. “Do you know the designer, Sophia Galdos?”
He broke into the biggest smile. “My middle child. My oldest is a vice president at Altria, my youngest is a lawyer.”
“Then, painful as your exodus was, I am grateful you are here.” Sister reached out and took his hand, squeezing slightly.
Tootie couldn’t stop grinning. “I can’t believe I’ve met Sophia Galdos’ father.”
“She gets her talent from me, of course,” Adolfo joked.
Sister plucked two packs of Dunhill Menthols to put with the one Montecristo, one Pleiades, and the box of Tito’s. “Ah, I think I must have that World War One cigarette case.”
He bowed slightly, handed her the case as well as the small white card, good stock, with the price: $2,800.
Sister noted it. “This is good fortune. And each time I hold it, I’ll remember my father and yours, too.”
“I believe it will bring you good fortune.” He wrote out the ticket for the items, carefully deducting fifteen percent from the cigarette case, which he then slid over to Sister for her approval.
“Mr. Galdos, you are very kind.” Sister misted up.
She didn’t know why she was getting emotional.
“To think of a beautiful woman with this case in her hands pleases me.” Then he looked over at Tootie. “Two beautiful women.”
Sister rooted around in her purse, pulled out the slender little cell phone, found her small wallet with only the credit cards, and handed over her American Express Platinum Card.
The transaction completed, the merchandise secure in a plastic bag, Adolfo came around the counter again and gallantly kissed both ladies’ hands.
“Go with God,” he said, and he meant it.
“And you, too,” Sister replied and Tootie echoed her.
Out into the fray they charged. If anything, the storm had worsened.
“I bet Galdos Senior nearly died when he suffered through his first New York blizzard,” Sister said, head down.
“I got spoiled at Custis Hall.” Tootie was born and raised in Chicago. “Princeton reminds me of why I love Virginia. Four seasons of equal length. No long winters. I have good professors but, Sister, I hate it. I want to be an equine vet. I don’t need to go to Princeton, but Dad swears he will cut off the money if I don’t finish.”
“Princeton is one of the best universities in this country, honey. You can go to vet school after your undergraduate work. That gives you three more years, well, three and a half, to work on the parental units. I’m assuming your mother is in league with your father.”
“I guess,” Tootie responded with no enthusiasm.
After another big blast smacked them, Sister ducked into a doorway. The two women huddled there for a moment as Sister opened her bag, fishing for her cell phone.
“Oh no, I left my phone on the counter.” She sighed. “You go on back to the hotel. No point in both of us being out in this.”
“How can I ever dream of whipping-in if I can’t take a little bad weather on foot? We can sprint.”
They did, despite the slippery pavement.
Pushing the door open, they laughed to be out of the storm but they did not see Adolfo behind the counter.
“Maybe he’s in the humidor room.” Tootie shook the snow off her head, then passed the counter as she walked toward the large climate-controlled room. She turned slightly as Sister triumphantly spotted and retrieved her cell phone: right on the counter where she left it.
“Sister!” Tootie called, before running for the back of the counter.
The older woman followed Tootie, now kneeling down.
“Dear God!” Sister exclaimed, for Adolfo Galdos lay on his back, beautiful green eyes staring straight up to Heaven. He’d been shot neatly between the eyes. On his chest lay a pack of American Smokes cigarettes.