It was one of those timeless, 1920s nights. The big daddy boss man himself, Ian Ippolito, turned his pad into the swinging speakeasy, Elysian, hosting an open bar hootenanny to rival the Great Gatsby.
Just as the Jack at the door was about to throw me out on my ear for being a crasher, I spit out the password: Love. The big cheese boss man couldn't have picked a better word for the night. The whole mad crowd was a gas about how Ippolito had just proposed to his best gal, and the club's namesake, Elise, days before. Now I believe in buying a dame flowers or chocolates now and again, but Ippolito put the rest of us fellas to shame. He drove Elise around the city on a day long scavenger hunt to find presents, poems, and clues that led her to a diamond ring. And man what a ring. I couldn't get a word in with any of the broads without them asking if I'd seen Elise's ring. 3 carats they'd say, challenging my feeble attempts at romance and offers to buy them free drinks from the open bar. With a ring like that, Elise might as well have been wearing a Studebaker Big Six on her finger. But to be honest, when you meet Elise, jewelry is the last thing you notice about her. The gal is pure gold, and now she has a man to match. That night she was dressed to the nines in a glitzy gold number with a red feather boa, but she wasn't flaunting it. She personally greeted everyone, and even said my name every time she waltzed by though she just met me that night.
This article appears in Jan 6-12, 2010.