The Manny

Sometimes sexy women like to act stupid because it helps them get exactly what they want. Theresa Boudreaux was one of those types: a bodacious waffle-house waitress with a devilish streak. Unfortunately for a certain high-ranking elected leader, she had the wits to go to RadioShack and buy herself a nine-dollar phone-recording device. She then used it to tape her dirty phone calls with US Congressman Huey Hartley, a powerful, sanctimonious, married-for-thirty-years politician from the solidly red state of Mississippi. When network news anchors lose interviews like this one, they get mean and scary. That’s why producers call them anchor monsters, whether they just lost an interview or not. They’re scary people even when they’re trying to be nice. But no one was being nice to me that day.

For a moment, I thought I’d be fired. In my defence, I really thought we had it. I grabbed my cell phone.

Message number four was in fact Theresa Boudreaux’s lawyer calling at ten last night. What a sleazebag. Just after the Seebright interview was in the can, he thought he should tell me that things had changed.

Jamie. It’s Leon Rosenberg. Thank you again for the flowers on Friday. My wife thought they were beautiful. Uh, we need to discuss some changes in the plan. Theresa Boudreaux has had some concerns. Call me at home tonight. You have all my numbers.

I dialled Leon at work, fury raging inside. His irritating assistant Sunny answered. She never knew where he was, didn’t know how to reach him, but always put me on hold to ‘see’. I waited two full minutes.

‘I’m sorry, Ms Whitfield. I’m not sure where he is right now, so I can’t connect you. Is there a message?’

‘Yes. Could you please write this down verbatim: “I heard about Seebright. Fuck you very much. From Jamie Whitfield.”’

‘I don’t think it’s appropriate to write that down.’

‘Mr Rosenberg won’t be surprised. He’ll think it’s appropriate given the situation. Please pass it along.’ I hung up.

‘That’ll get his attention.’ Charles Worthington gave a nod of approval as he strode into my office, found a place on my couch and grabbed a newspaper. Charles was a fellow producer who did all the investigative work on the show. A thirty-five-year-old fair-skinned African American, he grew up as part of the black Creole elite in Louisiana. He was short, thin and always immaculately dressed. Charles spoke in a soothing voice, with a discreet Southern drawl. We’d worked together for ten years, growing up in the business side by side. I often referred to him as my office husband, even though he was gay.

The phone rang thirty seconds later.

‘Yes, Leon.’

‘Jamie. Really. That’s so rude; she’s just my secretary, and she’s all shook up now. And very embarrassed.’

‘RUDE? RUDE? Why don’t you try unethical? Unprofessional? Fraudulent?’ Charles leapt from the couch with two fists clenched, giving me the rah-rah sign. ‘You said we had a done deal. How many letters did I write that little sex vixen client of yours? How many times did I bring big Anchorman Goodman to try out her soggy pancakes? What’d you do, grant the interview to Kathy Seebright at ABS and shoot the Theresa Boudreaux No Excuses jeans ad the same day? And, why did she go with a woman anchor anyway? Doesn’t fit the bill.’ Vixens like Theresa always go for the male anchors who can’t concentrate on the proper follow-up question because they’re discreetly rearranging the bulge in their pants.

‘Jamie, try to calm down. It’s just television. At the last minute, Theresa decided that Kathy would lob easier questions in the interview. She got scared about your guy. He does have a reputation for going for the jugular.’

‘And I’m sure it was all her decision, Leon. You had no input whatsoever.’ I rolled my eyes at Abby and Charles.

‘Now look,’ said Leon. ‘I promise I’m going to make this up to you. I’ve got some O.J. Simpson sealed court documents that would blow the roof off that little network of yours and I can sure …’

I hung up on him.

‘What was his excuse?’ asked Charles.

‘Same thing every time we lose one to her: “Seebright seems so much sweeter than Joe Goodman.”’

How had I let this interview slip through my fingers when we had it solidly in the bag? Why hadn’t I taken extra steps to secure her? And why were we doing this interview in the first place? Just because Hartley was a controversial, pro-family politician with four children? Did his prurient behaviour deserve all this media coverage? Absolutely.

Hartley wasn’t a deeply entrenched Christian conservative, but his ferocious anti-homosexual, pro-family oratory singled him out as one of the most outspoken Southern politicians. About eighty pounds overweight and six feet four inches tall, he usually walked around the lectern to speak so he could tower over the audience, rattling his fist in the air as his jowls jiggled. His grey moustache and goatee highlighted his enormous mouth and protruding lower lip. He had crystal-blue eyes and a perpetually sweaty bald spot that reflected the camera lights. He helped win the 2004 elections for Mississippi and the White House by supporting the drive to put the anti-gay-marriage referendums on ballots in twenty-four states. That White House strategy brought all the mega-church crowds out in their Greyhounds and was a major factor in the triumph of the Republican Party. Now he’d already jumped on the anti-gay bandwagon again for 2008: lobbying to put the ancient anti-sodomy laws on the ballots in the thirty-odd states where they weren’t already on the books.

I tried to accept the magnitude of my screw-up before I walked into executive producer Erik James’s office. That way, I wouldn’t argue. Arguing was never a good idea when Erik was angry. He was behind his desk finishing up a call when his assistant showed me in. I stared at the dozens of Emmy Awards lining his top shelf. He had worked for NBS for almost twenty years, at first executive-producing the Sunday news shows and then launching the multi-award-winning ratings bonanza Newsnight with Joe Goodman.

He hung up the phone and stared me down. Then the diatribe began.

‘You talk a big game.’

‘I don’t mean to.’

‘And your follow-through is lacking.’ He pushed his chair back, walked around to the front of his desk and took off his gloves. At five feet six, Erik had a pot belly like a pregnant woman two weeks past her due date. Even though he was standing a safe distance away, his stomach was almost touching me. ‘YOU! SUCK!’

‘I do not!’

‘DO TOO!’ He waved his hands in the air like King Kong. One of his suspenders popped and he furiously clawed at his back trying to reach it. Now he was really pissed off.

‘Erik, Leon Rosenberg assured me …’

‘I don’t care what he assured you! How many times did you go down there? What were you doing, shopping?’ That was low. No question I was the only Newsnight producer with a rich husband, but I’d worked my behind off for over ten years for this guy and I’d broken more stories than any producer on his staff.

‘That’s really unfair. You know I’ve killed myself to get this story.’

He flared his nostrils. ‘Last I checked, you didn’t get me any story, F-fuckin’-Y-I.’

‘I, I …’

He sneered at me. Then he reached into a huge glass jar on his desk and gobbled a fistful of jellybeans. ‘Get out o’ here,’ he mumbled, and some of his Kelly-green spit landed on my shirt, next to a coffee stain.

The battle was over for now. We’d start fighting for another angle on this Theresa Boudreaux story together as a team again in the morning. This wasn’t the first time I’d gone through this. Not that my defeat didn’t depress me, but I refused to let it derail me. The pressure was intense to break some news and advance the story. Every tabloid in the country had published cover photos of Theresa, many with a question mark, ‘Hartley’s Heartthrob?’ Right-wing radio talk shows chimed in with their unwavering support of Hartley while they trashed the bloodthirsty members of the liberal media elite.

Ultimately, as the story played out, Theresa gave nothing away to Kathy Seebright, she’d merely gotten her to confirm that she knew Hartley, that they were ‘close’. So, at that moment, my bosses and I were having a meltdown over nonsense. But histrionics over nothing are the price of entry in the network news business.

Back in my office, I applied some lipstick very carefully as I tried to take control of my day. I stopped for a moment with the compact in my hand and stared out the window at the Hudson River. The anxieties piled on: a major professional screw-up, my insufferable husband, Dylan and his troubles. My watch read eleven o’clock – Dylan had gym before lunch: perhaps the exercise had already cheered him up. He had asked me to cancel his play dates that week. Obviously the humiliation at the game made him want to hide behind his door after school and get lost in a Lego robotics trance, but I told him I wouldn’t cancel anything, believing that interaction with his friends was curative. I felt bewildered about what else to do with him except follow the routine and make sure he didn’t close in on himself. When I get very depressed, I eat KitKats. As I tore the wrapper off with my teeth, my cell phone rang.

‘Honey, it’s me.’ I heard honking and car brakes screeching in the background.

‘Yes?’

‘I want to apologize.’

‘All right. Let’s hear it.’

‘I’m sorry about this morning. I’m sorry I was difficult.’ A siren whizzed by.

‘Difficult?’

‘Sorry I was impossible.’

‘You were.’ I took a bite of chocolate.

‘I know. That’s why I’m calling. I love you.’

‘Fine.’ Maybe I could forgive him.

‘And you’re going to love me more than ever.’

‘Oh, really? And why would that be?’

‘Well, you know my success with the Hadlow Holdings deal has had some ripple effects.’

‘They owe you big.’

‘And they’re giving me something big.’

‘OK. And what might that be?’

‘The question is, what are they giving my wife?’

‘Phillip, I have no idea. It’s not cash, so what is it? How can they repay you?’

‘They asked me that very question.’

‘And …?’

‘How does pro bono work for Sanctuary for the Young sound?’

My charity. The board I had served on for a decade that supported foster children. The organization was broke, almost going under, they could barely serve the desperate kids. My eyes welled. ‘You didn’t.’

‘I did.’

‘How much help?’

‘Lots.’

‘Like how much?’

‘Like they’re going to treat it like a regular account.’

‘I can’t believe you did this. It’s going to change everything.’

‘I know. That’s why I did it.’

‘I don’t even know what to say.’

‘You don’t need to say anything.’

‘Thank you, Phillip. It’s totally amazing. You didn’t even tell me you were considering this.’

‘You give them a lot of your money, and a lot of your time, but I wanted you to give them something even more substantial. I know what they mean to you.’

‘So much.’

‘I know.’

‘I love you back.’

‘Item two: there is something you need to do for me before my flight to Cleveland.’

‘Where are you, anyway?’ I asked. ‘I can barely hear you with all those horns honking. Are you in Times Square?’

‘I’m actually rushed as all hell. Are you going to pick up the kids?’

‘Just Gracie. I couldn’t deal with her expression this morning. I’m going to pick her up in her classroom, but ask Yvette to meet me outside to take her home. Then I’m hightailing it back to the office.’

‘Perfect. I need you to stop at home before you get Gracie.’

‘I won’t have time.’

‘This is critical.’ Phillip suddenly sounded like a British boarding school headmaster. ‘I need you to go home. Go into my office. Turn on my computer. Get the code for my new safe. The screen will automatically ask for my password.’

‘Phillip, can’t this wait?’

‘Please do as I say, for God’s sake!’

‘No. I’m not doing as you say. I’ve had a shitty day so far and I’ve got more work to do. I’m telling you, this is most definitely NOT a day I am going to be leaving the office for a long time. I can’t tell you how much the pro bono thing means to me. You know that. But I still can’t do this right now.’

‘Honey. This isn’t an ask. This is a “you gotta do this for me now”. I’m travelling for three days and before I take off I need to know that this is handled.’

‘This is really so important?’

‘Yes, beautiful.’ He laid on the charm with a soft voice. ‘It is. I love you. Please. I’m going to owe you huge.’

I decided I would make a quick stop at home after picking Gracie up, perhaps without anyone even noticing I’d left the office. ‘Hurry up. What is the password?’

No answer.

‘Phillip, I will do this for you, but I am very rushed too. What is the password for your home computer?! Couldn’t you have thought of this this morning?’

‘I was distracted this morning. By Dylan of course.’

Tapping my pen on a notepad, I sighed. ‘You were telling me the password …’

‘Uh …’

‘Phillip! What is the password?’

‘The password is Beaver.’

‘What? You’re kidding.’

No answer.

‘Phillip, your password is Beaver? That is so lame. Is this on your work computers too? In a stuffy law firm like yours? What happens if your IT guy has to get into your account?’

‘Why should I care about an IT guy?’

‘Phillip, I can’t believe you want me to type in B-E-A-V-E-R.’

‘Yes. I’m sorry. It’s a private password. I’m the only person who knows it and now unfortunately for me you do too. I’m a horn-dog, so shoot me. Now go into my office when you get home and type B-E-A-V-E-R into my computer. Get the new safe code, it’s hidden in a document titled “Kids’ Activities”, it’s 48-62-something …’

‘And then what?’

‘On my desk, in the in-box, under some bank stuff, or just on a pile to the right on top of the desk you’ll see a folder marked Ridgefield. I need you to put it in the safe.’

‘Why?’

‘Carolina.’

‘Carolina what?’

‘First it’s the nail scissors. Then she puts a pile of newspapers to be thrown out on top of my desk as she’s dusting, then by accident, she grabs important folders, then she throws everything out. I lose everything. And I can’t risk losing this.’

‘Phillip, please. You’re being crazy neurotic. I’ll call her up and tell her not to touch your desk.’

‘Every day I tell her not to touch my nail scissors or my collar stays or my favourite Mont Blanc pen, and every day I can’t find any of them. She doesn’t listen.’

‘You know that husbands are more work than children, don’t you?’ My body was now splayed over my desk like a banana peel.

‘I never would be asking you this, but in this age, you never know.’

‘You never know what?’

‘Never know anything! It’s the information age! Everything is stolen from people’s trash, their mailboxes, their computers.’ Phillip was now in calm, lawyerly I-know-everything-there-is-to-know-on-the-planet mode. ‘I come from three generations of lawyers, and I am trained and versed in making prudent decisions. This is a prudent precaution and I’m going to Newark airport, no way to stop on the East Side. I want to leave knowing this is taken care of.’

‘Why can’t I just do it tonight when I get home?’

He’d lost his patience. ‘For the last time, I beg you, please stop questioning me. It’d be so much easier for me today, if, for once, just this once, you could just do as you are told.’

I harrumphed and went straight home, where I didn’t exactly do as I was told.

CHAPTER FOUR Everyone Knows That

It was pouring in New York at noon the next day.

‘Oui?’ The maître d’ stuck his enormous French nose through a crack in the thick, chocolate-brown lacquered doors.

‘I, uh, came for lunch?’

‘Avec?’

‘I’m getting wet here. Susannah, she’s …’

‘Qui?’

‘Susannah Briarcliff, surely you …’

The door opened. Jean-François Perrier looked right through me. I pointed out to him that I was with my friend Susannah over there, smiled foolishly and stared plaintively into his deep blue eyes. He waved his hands to motion for the busboy to take me there. No-contact rule in play. Francesca the check girl sized me up and concluded that I wasn’t really one of them. So she decided to sip her Diet Coke at the bar rather than bother with my raincoat. I shook the raindrops off my umbrella in disgust.

La Pierre Noire has no sign on the awning, no published phone number. It is the executive watering hole of one of the world’s most peculiar tribes: a breed of very rich humans inhabiting a specific grid that stretches from Manhattan’s 70th to 79th Streets to the north and south, bordered by Park Avenue and Fifth Avenue to the east and west.

Pity the poor West Sider who strolls by and mistakenly believes this is a restaurant operating by normal procedures, one that actually caters to the public. None too soon will they learn that they are not welcome, even though many tables are free. From the window, one can see rich tangerine velvet banquettes that surround the small, café-style mahogany tables. Handsome thirty-something French waiters dressed in blue jeans and starched, yellow Oxford cloth shirts squeeze between the tight tables.

My closest girlfriends don’t have lunch for a living like Susannah Briarcliff. Most of them have actual jobs, but Susannah is one of the few inhabitants of the Grid whom I go out of my way to see. It’s easy to forget that beneath Susannah’s fabulous wealth and stunning genes, there’s a fun girl that lurks inside. You can basically look for her in any column with party pictures – Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, the New York Times Style section – and it’s kind of like finding Waldo. Susannah has two kids, three dogs, seven on staff and one of the largest apartments in the city. All this courtesy of her family ties to one of America’s great real-estate dynasties. She’s five feet ten, has a thin athletic build and a shortish blonde Meg Ryan haircut. She is also married to a top editor for the New York Times, which sets her apart from most of the East Side socialites married to dead-wood bankers. Although she doesn’t reach the best-friend category – Kathryn from downtown and Abby and Charles from work all hold that title – she’s a close second.

I slipped into the plush banquette beside her. ‘Jamie. You look good. Really good.’

‘I’m not sure I’m properly dressed …’

‘Stop.’

Twelve of the fifteen tables were taken, filled with New York’s young socialites in fur-collared sweaters and their gay party planners, most of them charlatans who charge three hundred and fifty dollars an hour to pick out just the right fuchsia water goblet to go with a kasbah-themed dinner for twelve. Or just the right cheetah-print heel for a plain black suit. If any of these women purchase a recognizable piece of a certain season, they have to burn it before the following year. And once a blouse or shirt appears in Vogue, it’s already passé for them. I studied my khaki trousers, white blouse and plain black silk sweater. When I’d tell my mother about these women around me – and how sometimes I felt that I didn’t measure up – she’d chastise me for getting sucked into their nonsense. ‘How do you expect to get where you want to go if you’re rubbernecking at everyone else along the way? Don’t focus on what you wrongly perceive as your shortcomings.’

Ingrid Harris blasted through the door with her nanny and four-year-old daughter Vanessa. Jean-François stumbled on his thick French loafers as he ran to greet her. ‘Chérie!’ Kiss kiss.

He snapped his fingers and Francesca eagerly swept the tan shawl off Ingrid’s shoulders. She then unbuckled the fireman hooks from Vanessa’s rain jacket, revealing a pink tutu underneath. The nanny stood back, and held her own coat, used to this drill.

Ingrid looked perfectly gorgeous: she had far-apart brown doe eyes and long layered hair pulled back with a Jackie O-sized pair of black sunglasses. Better than anyone, Ingrid knew that serious style is all about attitude. She was wearing ratty jeans and a four-thousand-dollar lime-green Chanel jacket, as if she just grabbed it off the closet floor. It’s not what you’re wearing, it’s how you wear it; you can’t act like you’re all excited about an expensive fancy new jacket. You wouldn’t be ‘one of them’ if you did that.

‘Jamie, nice to see you. Hello, Susannah.’ Susannah mustered a smile but didn’t speak or even look up. She concentrated on dipping bread into her rosemary-scented olive oil and twisting a straw in her San Pellegrino.

An uncomfortable silence ensued. I broke in. ‘Ingrid, I still can’t believe you had a baby just a month ago. Your body – you look fabulous!’

Ingrid threw back her silky caramel mane. ‘Well, I told them what path to take to get me back to normal quickly, and I was right, even though they all objected.’

Susannah chortled. ‘What you did wasn’t normal. I’m sorry but most doctors would object.’

Ingrid, not at all intimidated, put her hands on her hips. ‘It may have sounded abnormal to you with your two perfect children delivered naturally. But I don’t come from the same Pilgrim stock as you do. My people don’t believe in voluntary discomfort.’

‘That doesn’t mean …’

‘And that means nothing was going to make me push. I said that to my doctor the second he told me I was pregnant. I said, “Dr Shecter, that’s wonderful news but just so you know: I don’t push.”’

I thought Susannah was going to kill her.

‘Too sweaty. Told him my motto: “If I can’t do it in heels, I’m not interested.” I just told him I wouldn’t do it. And I wanted a C-section.’

‘And what did he say?’ asked Susannah.

‘He said, “Sweetheart, I got news for you. Your body’s gonna push whether you like it or not.” And I said, “No, buddy, I got news for you which you are clearly not understanding: I do not push.”’

‘So what did you do?’

‘I went to another doctor who understood that I meant what I said, so he basically agreed to the C-section and told me we’d do it in the thirty-ninth week.’

Susannah rolled her eyes.

‘But then that doctor wouldn’t promise to give me general anaesthesia.’ Ingrid tapped her boot and crossed her arms impatiently. ‘Well, I told them at East Side Presbyterian that they were bringing it back for me!’

‘And they agreed?’ Susannah asked incredulously. ‘Without a medical reason?’

‘Well, my dear, they sure didn’t want to, but I made Henry give the Chief of Obstetrics a membership at the Atlantic Golf Club, so they really had no choice.’

Susannah coughed into her napkin like she might throw up. Despite Ingrid’s crazy behaviour, I admired her for always getting what she wanted and never being scared to ask.

‘Which is why I came over here, Jamie,’ Ingrid continued. ‘Did you get my email about the auction?’

‘I did.’

‘This year they aren’t holding it in that hideous gallery space in the West Village. I told them if they did, I wouldn’t chair the event. I said to the organizing committee, “Hello?!! Look at the crowd that is coming. Rich people don’t like to leave the Upper East Side! We also don’t like to pretend we’re poor and hip. OK? Because we’re not.” So they’re doing it at Doubles. Nice and close for you.’

‘I’m not sure I can come.’

‘Even if you can’t, we want your anchor to let us auction off a visit to a taping of Newsnight with Joe Goodman. You’re close to him, right? I mean you’ve worked at his show for as long as I’ve known you.’

‘Well, he is my boss – I, I, I’m not sure I really feel comfortable …’

‘Oh, puh-lease, Jamie. What’s more important to you, a few awkward moments with your boss or a cure for Alzheimer’s? So I can count on you?’