By Jae-Ha Kim
Chicago Sun-Times
March 2000
Madonna and Rupert Everett have nothing on Leslie Erkes and Steven Nisenholz.
In the new film, “The Next Best Thing,” Madonna plays a woman whose gay best friend (Everett) impregnates her after the two share a drunken tryst. They move in together and raise their son_all the while dating other people.
Nisenholz hasn’t seen the movie yet, but he can’t wait to check it out with, of course, his best friend Erkes.
“Rupert is so cute and I’m a Madonna freak,” says Nisenholz, 44, a Chicago-based wedding consultant. “The [movie’s theme] is actually representative of where I was at in my life a few years ago. Leslie and I used to talk about adopting kids together if we weren’t already in relationships.”
They would’ve conceived a child together?
“Oh, no,” Nisenholz says. “We would’ve adopted.”
Hearing this, Erkes begs to differ.
“That’s not true,” says Erkes, 57, who lives with her husband in Michigan City, Ind. “We may have discussed this in jest, but we would never have done that together. I mean we traveled together and have always enjoyed doing things together, but there would never have been any children involved.”
They agree to disagree. After meeting on the job 20 years ago, Nisenholz and Erkes hit it off immediately.
When they’re not out together at the movies, having lunch, hitting the malls or out antiquing, Nisenholz and Erkes talk every day on the phone.
“Steven and I just share a bond,” she says. “He is an incredible friend. We’re very similar on many levels. We have the same sense of humor and we just get each other.”
When she got married 9 years ago, he was in her wedding.
“[My husband] Richard is very fond of Steven and we’re all very close,” she says. “But then Steven and I have a separate friendship that goes beyond anything else. And our other friends understand that.”
Nisenholz says that when Erkes got serious about Richard, he had some concerns about losing her to him.
“But then [Richard] took me out to dinner,” Nisenholz says. “He said, `Don’t worry. I know you two are best friends and don’t want to change that.’ He made a point of including me. You don’t find many guys like that who are secure enough in themselves that they don’t feel threatened by other friendships.
“It’s really cute, too, because her nickname for me is Schlomo. And he calls me that now as well. We’ve rubbed off on him.”
