The Manny

I tried to be polite while saying, ‘Would you please tell Leon Rosenberg I will personally throttle him if he doesn’t pick up this phone?’

‘No need to get overexcited once again, Ms Whitfield. I will put your name on his call sheet in the order …’

‘That’s just not going to do.’ I stood up and talked into the phone as coldly as I could. ‘Our anchorman Joe Goodman and a team of NBS lawyers are standing right in front of me and will destroy your entire law firm with a story we have on the shelf about your unethical practices. I will personally see to it that we mention you by name, Sunny Wilson.’

No response. Five seconds later: ‘Hello, Jamie.’ Rosenberg picked up. ‘No need to traumatize my secretary every time you call. She is doing exactly what I told her to do. You really doing a story on us?’

‘No.’ I had to laugh. ‘Of course not.’

‘Jesus, you scared even me this time.’

‘Sorry, Leon. And I really want to apologize for hanging up on you the last time we talked. That was very rude and uncalled for. How can I make it up to you? You know, everyone at NBS thinks you do a phenomenal job. And we know how hard you work to protect your clients.’

‘Cut the shit, Jamie. I know I owe you one. I always play fair, especially with the pretty ones like you.’

What a pig.

‘Of course it doesn’t hurt you’re Joe Goodman’s producer.’

I rolled my eyes. ‘OK. What have you got for me?’

No answer. Was he playing games? Did he have anything? Were there really more tapes?

‘And don’t forget the handsome shot I put of you in that Brioni suit walking your client out of her waffle house. The other networks just had the shot of her alone. But not NBS. NBS not only had twelve seconds of you in that suit but also mentioned you by name.’ I mimicked Goodman’s deep voice. ‘“Boudreaux shown here with her high-powered attorney Leon Rosenberg leaving her café in Pearl, Mississippi.” Goodman didn’t think we needed that in. I thought you might be pleased to see it. Of course I did think that would seal the deal for the interview with her.’

‘I get it. I already got it. I owe you.’

‘That’s convenient. I feel the same way.’

‘Why don’t you just get on your knees and start puckering up.’

I made a loud kissing noise. Charles put his finger down his throat in solidarity. Pause. No answer. ‘I’m still waiting, Leon.’

‘Are we alone on this line?’

‘I promise. Let me just put you on hold one sec.’

I looked at Abby and Charles and scrunched my eyes closed and crossed my fingers on both hands and then my legs. Charles turned around and picked up the extra receiver and pushed mute while keeping the phone on hold. Abby was so jittery she could have stuck to the ceiling like Spider-Man.

I motioned 3-2-1 with Charles so that he could surreptitiously hear the conversation. It wasn’t the first time I needed him to listen on a call – we’d done this a hundred times. Leon finally spoke in a low voice. ‘There are more tapes.’

‘More tapes? Between Theresa Boudreaux and Huey Hartley?’

‘Hmm-mmm.’

I gave the thumbs-up sign to Abby. Charles’s eyebrows danced up and down like Groucho Marx’s.

Leon continued. ‘And no one’s heard them but me.’

Abby passed me one of her index cards. ASK HIM TO CONFIRM HOW GOOD THEY ARE.

‘How good?’

‘Makes the ones that aired on Seebright’s show sound like the Teletubbies having a tea party.’

Another card. ASK HIM EXACTLY WHAT IS ON THE TAPES.

‘I need details, Leon. This is a serious news organization. I can’t go to Goodman with innuendo.’

‘OK. But you’re not a serious news organization if you care so much about Theresa Boudreaux. Get over yourself, cutie-pie.’

‘I’m waiting, Leon.’

Still nothing.

‘Leon?’

He answered, ‘How about the fact that Congressman Hartley likes to go in the back door?’

‘The back door of the waffle house?’ I asked. Charles shook his head and put one hand over his forehead and then lay down on the sofa.

Abby kept mouthing, ‘What? What?’

‘Maybe I didn’t give you the original tapes because you are so very dumb, like all those pretty girls. Maybe you should do the weather instead of producing? Ever think of that?’

‘The back door of her house?’ I didn’t get what he was referring to. Charles sat up and started waving his arms in the air, shaking his head wildly NO!

Leon answered slowly. ‘No. Doggie style. From behind. Literally behind, if you get my meaning here.’

‘Doggie style,’ I repeated, in a surprisingly businesslike manner. I had to pace around in little circles to help myself take this in.

Abby bulged her eyes open, the tension and electricity visible in the clenched veins in her neck.

‘Leon, give me a few seconds.’ I looked at Charles. He nodded his head and motioned for me to remain calm. On one of my trips to visit with Theresa, I had gone to a prayer breakfast attended by Huey Hartley. I remembered how he always spoke like a preacher delivering an outdoor sermon in a thunderstorm. Fornicators will no longer be put on a pedestal by the elites of this country. God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve! While the liberal media focuses on securing the rights of homosexuals to marry, while they make their assault on families, unborn children, the Ten Commandments and even Christmas nativity scenes, I, and you, the good people of Mississippi, are going to change the conversation of this great nation of ours!

I recovered my equilibrium. ‘Mr Married former minister. Former owner of the PBTG Christian television network. Current red state US House of Representatives Congressman Huey Hartley with four children says on a tape to his waitress girlfriend that he prefers the doggie-style position?’

I looked up at Abby, who was no longer in her chair. I assumed she was now prostrate on the floor. I leaned over the front of my desk. I had assumed correctly.

‘Jamie. Not just doggie style. Hold on to your hat while I illustrate what we have here a bit more graphically for the mentally impaired folks like yourself. The poor son-of-a-bitch literally says on tape that he likes it up the behind. Preferably up Theresa’s sweet Southern little behind. He talks about the next time she’ll take it up the behind. He talks about how much he loved it the last time she took it up the behind.’

‘Leon, you can’t be serious.’

‘Yep.’

‘You’re screwing with me, right? Literally he says, “up her behind”?’

Abby moaned orgasmically from the floor.

‘Yep.’

I scratched my head. ‘Hartley is the leader of the movement to get the anti-sodomy laws on the ballot for the 2008 presidential …’

‘You got that right.’

‘And he’s a sodomizer?’

Leon chuckled. ‘Yep. I’m with you.’

‘And he’s such a family man, always with his blonde wife in the fifties bouffant and his four kids …’

‘Yep.’

‘What a sanctimonious blow-hard. Remember when he was on that show on his network, with all the proselytizing about family this and that?’

‘Yep.’

‘Some family man.’

‘Yep.’

‘And Boudreaux is ready to discuss all this? I mean the nasty sex?’

‘Yep.’

I shook my head. ‘OK, Leon.’ I had to laugh. ‘I take your point about my serious news network. I tried, but I can’t keep a straight face and tell you you’re mistaken.’

Leon laughed. ‘And it goes on and on and on. It’s the real thing. She’s ready to sing on the record. About this. In detail. And it’s all Goodman’s.’

I put the receiver down, fell to my knees and closed my eyes in silent prayer because I, Jamie Whitfield, had just landed a story that was going to bring in serious super-bowl ratings. And maybe it was going to be the most salacious crap ever broadcast on a mainstream network, but, boy, was it beautiful.

About five minutes after Charles and Abby left, there was a knock on my door.

Peter.

He put his head in. ‘Are you, uh, done with whatever you needed to do?’

‘I am so sorry!’ I ran around my desk and shepherded him back into my office. ‘I am so appalled by my bad manners. I just got totally preoccupied with the most unbelievable story.’

He seemed to get I was kind of out of my mind at that moment. ‘Sounds like a good one, whatever it is.’

‘I don’t know if good is exactly the right word. More like I said: literally unbelievable. If you heard it, you’d maybe excuse my rudeness.’

‘OK. So I’m very interested in this job.’

Omigod. ‘You are?’

CHAPTER SEVEN The Manny Makes his Debut

I sat on the edge of Dylan’s bed, brushing the hair off his forehead. ‘I have some good news for you.’ He looked up at me.

‘What is it?’

‘Guess.’

‘You won the lotto?’

‘No.’

‘You’re going to quit your job?’

‘Dylan!’

‘Well?’

‘Dylan. I’m with you a lot.’

‘Are not.’

‘Sweetheart, you know I need to work, but it’s just a few days a week. We have dinner together all the …’

‘No, we don’t. You’re always working.’

‘Well, I am working a lot right now.’

‘So fine. Just admit it.’

‘OK. I admit I am working a lot on my piece. And I told you it was the biggest piece I’d ever done. And I want to do it well. And I want to be proud of my work.’

He rolled his eyes and turned away from me towards the wall.

‘Dylan. I love you and being your mom is the most important thing in my life.’

He pulled the covers over his head.

‘You know what? I’m not going to get into a debate about this. I know how difficult it is to have a mommy that works hard. I know you would prefer that I were here more. But I promise it will get better in just a few weeks’ time. But I have news. Something that’s going to make you happy.’ Intrigued, he now lay on his back, edging closer to me.

I turned out the light and lay down next to him with my elbow propping up my head. I caressed his forehead with my fingers, our bedtime ritual, and pulled his hair back.

‘A cell phone? My own cell phone? You said I had to wait till I was …’

‘It’s nothing like that. It’s not a thing. It’s a person.’ I massaged his eyebrows, outlining them down with my thumb and index finger. He closed his eyes, all dreamy, letting his anger go.

‘Tell me,’ he whispered.

‘You’re going to make a new friend, someone who is going to be so much fun for you.’

He sat up, appalled. ‘Oh maaaan! You said I didn’t have to see Dr Bernstein any more! I don’t want to see another feelings doctor. It’s so stupid.’

‘It’s nothing like that, Dylan.’

‘Someone at school?’

‘Nope, not …’

‘At sports? At the …’

‘Dylan, lie down.’ I pushed his shoulders down to get him to lie on his back once again. ‘You’re never going to guess, so just let me explain.’

‘OK.’

‘His name is Peter Bailey. You’re going to have your own friend in the house all the time. I mean, from after school on till bedtime. He’ll be here after school tomorrow.’

‘Like my own boy babysitter?’

‘Better than that. He’s about twenty-nine. He’s from Colorado. He’s an awesome skier, or snowboarder, I guess. He loves chess, works on chess computer games or other games making homework fun for middle school kids. And he’s super cool. I mean, really cool. He has long hair.’

My son had shifted into neutral. I thought he’d be ecstatic about the kinds of things he and Peter could do together – and relieved this wasn’t another Dr Bernstein. Of course, in retrospect, that was just my own hyped-up fairy-tale version of how Peter would glide into our lives.

I added, admittedly with forced enthusiasm, ‘What matters is he’s fun! He’s going to pick you up, take you to sports, anywhere you want! Even the batting cages at Chelsea Piers.’ Still nothing.

‘Honey. You’re not excited about batting cages? How come?’

He kept his eyes closed and shrugged his shoulders. This was heartbreaking. I thought this would bring joy to my little Eeyore; instead, it just made him sad. I had waited for this moment to tell him because I wanted him to go to sleep happy. His lip quivered.

I tried one more time. ‘You only get to go to the cages for birthday parties. I’m telling you this guy is going to take you there just on a regular weekday!’

He sat up. Then he turned on the light and looked at me with those squinty eyes. ‘Is this all because Dad’s never home?’

Kids are always smarter than you think.

‘Whoa.’ Peter Bailey handed me his coat the next afternoon and I searched for a hanger. ‘This closet is bigger than my bedroom.’ He peeked around the corner to the living room.

‘It still seems big to me, too. We just moved in a few months ago. But you’ll see, we run a very relaxed household.’

I had told him to dress casually, so he showed up for duty wearing two-toned Patagonia snowboard pants with pockets and zippers up the flaps on the sides. A worn-out flannel shirt covered up a T-shirt with a Burton logo on his chest. He had brown suede Pumas on his feet.

He took off his baseball cap and I gasped.

‘Oh, this.’ He pointed to a scab the size of a tangerine on his forehead. ‘That’s why I wore the cap. I slipped off the skateboard last week. Stupid. And I know it’s ugly. Sorry.’

I shook my head. ‘No worry. Dylan will think it’s cool.’

Peter was a bigger guy than I remembered. Two minutes in, it was already strange having a full-grown man with a deep voice in my house in the middle of the day. And I hired him to be my nanny help? And with a graduate degree? He was so much taller than me. How could I boss him around? Stand on my tippy toes and order him to clean up those toys right now!? I felt panicky.

‘Peter, I’m just really excited about you being here.’

‘You don’t look it.’

‘Really. It’s going to be great. Just great!’

The early-afternoon light streamed through the yellow silk curtains in the living room and reflected off the piles of books on the coffee table and the two large Tupperware boxes on top of them. I motioned for Peter to sit in the small antique armchair while I sat next to him on the sofa.

‘So! Can I get you a drink?’

Would he ask for a guy drink, like a Corona?

‘Sure.’

I jumped up like a jack rabbit.

‘Ginger ale. If you don’t have that, Coke is fine.’

I got some ice out of the ice machine and started to put it in a crystal highball glass. Wait a minute, was I sending off the wrong signals? He wasn’t a guest; he was an employee.

Meanwhile, Peter was considering the Tupperware boxes. One had a sticker labelled CHILDREN’S MEDICINE, and the other HOUSEHOLD EMERGENCY MEDICINE. Next to the table was a cardboard box labelled: HOUSEHOLD EMERGENCY SUPPLIES – boxes I had put together that ghastly fall of 9/11. There was also a folder with two stapled copies of important phone numbers and addresses plus the daily schedules, all colour-coded by child and by academic, sports or cultural activity. My mother was a librarian at the local Cretin High School, so I grew up in a household where the Dewey Decimal system was used to organize the garage. It was all her fault I was a little compulsive at times.

I could hear the clock ticking on the mantelpiece while Peter sat, an attentive, polite look on his face. ‘Why don’t I explain to you how things work here …’

‘What things?’

‘Well, you know, the house, for instance. How it, it runs.’

‘You mean, like a little company?’

‘No. These are just schedules.’

‘Is there an employee handbook?’

‘Very funny. No, but we do have employees. Yvette the nanny and Carolina the housekeeper. They’re both wonderful women but it’s going to take a few days for them to get used to you.’

‘No, it’s not. Where are they?’ He stood up.

‘Wait! Let’s just, go over a few items … I mean, if that’s OK. I mean, are you OK? Are you OK being here?’

‘Yes. It’s been, like, seven minutes. Doing just fine so far.’ He smiled. ‘Are you sure you’re OK?’

Was I that transparent? I shuffled my papers nervously, still feeling like I didn’t know how to talk to this grown man without talking down to him. I didn’t want to sound patronizing. And then I thought how sexist it was that I could more easily boss around the women in my house (or try to), but not a man.

‘Dylan goes to St Henry’s School on 88th and Park. On Mondays, he has sports on Randall’s Island. It’s called the Adventurers. They pick the kids up on a bus, and then bring them home, but sometimes the moms drive so they can watch the games. You could drive him. Do you know how?’

‘Hmmm, driving …’

‘You don’t?’

‘Maybe you could teach me?’

‘Me?’

‘I’m just joking. I can drive.’

‘You can? OK, good.’ I had to start acting normal. This was ridiculous. ‘OK, I deserved that … I think I just meant, have you, like, driven a Suburban? One of those huge ones with three rows, in the city?’

‘How many guys who are thirty years old and who come from the Rockies do you think can’t drive an SUV?’

‘Not many. I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be sorry, it’s cool. It’s just, I’ve handled like thirty kids on my own so, you know, this is going to be just fine.’

‘It is?’

‘Yeah.’

‘That is sooo great.’ I sounded like I was praising a three-year-old. I could feel my face flush. ‘And on Fridays, he has cello, but not until five. At a great music school on 95th Street. Did you have any idea it’s been proven that kids who took music as young children do 40 per cent better in medical school.’

‘Huh?’

‘Yes. Something about integrating all the notes in their heads. The address is in the folder. On Wednesday, it’s woodworking – which really gives him a jump-start on geometrics and is great for sharpening fine motor skills and really focusing on seeing a project through from beginning to end. Then on Tuesdays and Thursdays, from three thirty to five thirty, or even six, that’s completely fine with me, you two …’

‘Whoa.’ He looked concerned.

‘Whoa? Excuse me?’

‘Yeah. Whoa. Let’s not even revisit that geometrics idea. But you’ve got, like, every day totally planned out?’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘May I ask why?’

‘Well. I work. We live in New York, that’s just the way things are.’ He gave me a disapproving look which I took as overstepping some bounds. But I forged ahead, needing to show him who was in charge after all. ‘So, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, you just do what you want. You could just take him somewhere. Like there’s a Mars place in Times Square with video …’

‘I have lots of places in mind.’

‘You do? Like what?’ I spoke as if I didn’t trust him, as if he was going to take my son to a crack house.

‘I’d like to take him to the park at first, maybe shoot some hoops …’

‘He’s really freaked out about the basketball.’

‘I know. I know.’

‘Well, then you’ll have to tread lightly on the basketball …’

‘And you’re going to have to trust me. I told you, I’m not good at strict hierarchy.’

Oh, Jesus. Not only was this guy not going to be a star in the service industry, but also he couldn’t follow direction? ‘We’re talking about my son here.’

‘And I’m going to do whatever you want. Just try to trust me a little. Remember, I’m good with kids and I drive.’ He smiled.

My mobile phone rang for the second time from deep inside my bag. I had ignored another call, but I had been waiting a week for this one. On the caller ID it signalled Leon Rosenberg’s law firm.

‘Peter, just give me a second.’

I flipped open my cell. ‘Yes, Leon?’

‘I’ve now triple-checked with her,’ he was yelling into the phone. I pictured him leaning back in his leather chair chomping on his omnipresent cigar. Like a mafia don, he would be flicking some cigar ash off one of his hideous suits with a bold white stripe and too much sheen. At this point the networks were in an all-Theresa-all-the-time, full-on media feeding frenzy. The talk shows dissected the ramifications for Hartley’s political future, the prime-time magazine shows did profiles of her background – though they weren’t able to get anywhere near her – and the syndicated entertainment news shows just tried to blow as much steam into the story as they could. However, none of them advanced the story at all because the two principal players weren’t talking. ‘Most importantly, she knows you know what’s on the tapes and she’s going to confirm that while your cameras are rolling. Meaning the whole ass thing.’

Goodman and I had been negotiating the exact parameters of the interview with Leon Rosenberg: where it would be held, how much of the telephone tapes we could use, and, most importantly, that she understood she would need to verbally detail the sex – which Leon had just confirmed. Goodman would be so psyched. I punched my fist in the air.

‘And on the other details,’ said Leon, ‘Theresa’s ready this week to go ahead …’

At this moment, Peter opened the HOUSEHOLD EMERGENCY MEDICINE Tupperware box and pulled out three huge plastic bags: a lifetime’s supply of potassium iodide, Cipro and Tamiflu. He began reading the laminated card I had put inside for Yvette and Carolina about what to do in case of a dirty bomb explosion, anthrax attack or avian flu outbreak.

‘That’s great, Leon.’

‘Although she was hoping for a big-city extravaganza, she understands you will pay only for the hotel room and eighty-five dollars per diem for the two days she is in the city. But she needs to look good. She wants a spa day, facial, pedicure, manicure and other stuff.’

I pulled the other Tupperware box away from Peter and put it on the floor next to my feet. It was filled with EpiPens for peanut allergies and asthma inhalers and Benadryl – all for play date guests, not my kids. It seemed like half my kids’ friends had life-threatening nut allergies, and some of their moms were totally blasé about it. Sometimes they even forgot to remind us about it. I could see Peter thinking I was completely neurotic. Not that I wasn’t.

‘Leon, again please make clear to her this is not some syndicated entertainment show or a British tabloid. This is a top news division of a major network. We will pay for hair and make-up, period. We can’t pay cash for interviews or appear as if we’re delivering favours, like facials, to interview subjects. We have news policy standards to uphold.’

Leon guffawed and slammed something down hard on his desk. ‘Get off your high horse for a second and listen to yourself, sweetheart.’ He laughed again. ‘Oooooo weeeee. All high and mighty like Walter fucking Cronkite and you and I know the only thing you’re interested in is the ass-fuck thing.’

I winked at Peter to let him know this call was going to take a few moments. He stood up and leaned against the windowsill looking down on Park Avenue, then headed towards the other end of my living room, which opened up with pocket doors into Phillip’s study. Reaching into one of the bookcases on either side of the doorway, he pulled out How to Raise Children in an Affluent Environment, a book Phillip had read while I was pregnant with Dylan. I was horrified, but he was all the way across the room, so I couldn’t grab it from him.

‘All right, Leon. We’re talking about a guy who used to run a Christian television network, a guy with four children who’s been married for thirty years to a June Cleaver lookalike, a guy who’s in bed with Focus on the Family, the Christian Coalition, and even the Promise Keepers. So there’s a little bit of hypocrisy here that is the main thing. But you are right, the, uh, exact sexual manifestations of this hypocrisy are quite interesting to us. Especially with the irony involving the anti-sodomy laws. That is kind of delicious. I won’t deny that. But, remember, we cared a lot about this story before we had that little item.’

‘That’s a twenty-five-million-dollar item, baby.’