Intermezzo - a new New York Story from Altimexis

[Altimexis]

More than 2½ years have passed since I last posted a story involving the original characters in the New York Stories Series, and Asher, Seth, Freck and Kyle have been up to a lot since then. Their more recent friends, Josh, Dave, Robin and Larry, have also been busy and much has changed in their lives with one major exception. In spite of the fragility of middle school and high school relationships, all four couples have remained together. In the interim, I’ve written a pair of additional New York stories and introduced some new characters, Zach, Tanner, Craig and Simon, who were unrelated to the original characters except that they also attend New York’s specialty high schools.

A lot has happened in my life too and, of course, I was busy posting my novel, the Brilliant Boy Billionaire. I was in a bit of a writing hiatus as I underwent two hip replacements, and then I began an aggressive exercise program and taught myself to cook. In spite of actually eating more than before, I’ve lost some thirty pounds, taken more than three inches off my waistline and can run up six flights of stairs without breaking a sweat. I’ve replaced all the planters on our terrace with ones made of Corten steel that should last a lifetime, and of course that meant replanting my entire garden. For the record, the four cubic feet of wet dirt weighs a hell of a lot, and that’s on top of the thirty pound weight of the planter itself! Between these projects and chronic migraines, my writing has slowed a bit but it’s one of the things I enjoy the most and I look forward to continuing the New York Story Series.

Intermezzo is, as the name suggests, a transitional story that helps to bridge the gap between my earlier stories and the ones to come. It also serves an important role in bringing the characters from the two newest stories into the fold of the existing cast of characters, as had been intended all along. As usual, it helps to have read the other stories in the New York series to understand the history of all of the characters involved, but the story nevertheless stands on its own. Although my writing will be sporadic for a while, I hope to complete several more stories in the series before moving on to my next major writing project. Many of the stories will be concurrent with the others as was this one, rather than sequential. As I strongly hinted, there will be some rather interesting episodes ahead.