by Amy Sohn
—STEVEN JENSEN IV, Editor in Chief,
and WILLIAM H. TURNER, Associate Editor
I swooned sideways onto the marble floor. “What are you so upset about?” said Sara. “It wasn’t that bad!”
“That’s exactly what I’m upset about!” I said.
“What?”
“I thought they were really gonna rake me over the coals. But that retraction was completely devoid of a single good zinger!”
“You’re saying you wished they’d been meaner?” she asked incredulously.
“Yes!” I wailed. “I gave those guys six and a half months of my vaginal secretions. The least they could have done was ended my career with a bang.”
“I can’t believe you,” said Sara. “You used to complain about the nasty letters, and now you’re complaining because the retraction wasn’t cruel enough” She was right. It was totally inconsistent, but I couldn’t help it. I just wished Jensen and Turner had had the balls to fry me with some flair:
From the Editors
At some point or another, every newspaper editor makes a major hiring mistake. Whether it’s because the editor was pulling a little too hard on the bottle before the interview or simply because the prospective employee has really nice gams, it happens. And once it does, all that editor can do is pray that the hire never screws up badly enough to get the paper in trouble. So far, we’ve been lucky. But then we met Ariel Steiner. And the bitch set us up. Like Jesus, we were nailed to the cross. And now we bleed, we bleed, we bleed.
In her March 12 “Run Catch Kiss” column, “Den of Len.” Steiner claimed she got booty when in fact she did not. One lie would have been bad enough—but then we found out that she’d fibbed in half a dozen others, too! A downtown penis probe elicited the following information.
Evan Draine (aka “Kevin,” of “Rockman”) acknowledges having had a sexual relationship with Steiner but contends that he chose to end it, not Steiner. “Ariel’s a sweet girl,” he said, “but she got way too into me too fast. I had to break it off. My music is my life. I broke up with her in a diner in Carroll Gardens. She definitely didn’t spit on my feet. As I recall, she looked pretty depressed. And she made something else up too. If she came while we were kicking it, she sure didn’t show it. I never felt contractions, she didn’t make any loud noises, and afterward, I didn’t notice any nipple flush.”
Charlton Wakes (“Royalton,” of “Smutlife”) claims: “First of all, I didn’t go down on her. She didn’t ask, so I didn’t offer. We did get it on in a booth at Show World, but then an attendant came to the door and said we had to put in more tokens, and Ariel freaked out and bolted. We didn’t go to Ben & Jerry’s either. And she never blew me. Although I sure wish she had.”
According to “Beat Writer,” of “Dyke Hands,” “Pap’s Blue Ribbon.” and “The Last Muzzle Guzzle” (City Week senior editor Corinne Riley). “I did have an affair with Ariel Steiner. But she didn’t proposition me. I propositioned her. I’m not ashamed. I’d do it again if I had the chance. I’m proud to count myself among the scores of Ariel Steiner’s lovers. For a chick who claimed to have no prior experience with women, she sure knew her way around my cooze. I consider the cunnilingus I received from Steiner to be among the best of my short thirty years. And I once dated Chastity Bono.”
The fabricated segment of “The Kiss” was the kiss itself. Jason Levin (“Mason Bevin”) contends, “Actually, I had a cold sore at the time. I was definitely attracted to Ariel that night, but I wouldn’t wish herpes simplex one on anyone, much less someone I consider a friend.”
Finally, playwright Sam Shepard offered this response to “Sam My Man”: “I never told her I lived in the Midwest. I live in rural America, and I’d rather not be more specific. But I did meet that girl outside the Public. I remember her quite well, actually. She was a bit pushy, but sweet and self-possessed. I found myself thinkin’ quite a bit about her . . . poise . . . on my trip home from New York, lyin’ on a motel bed in Dubuque one starry, starry night.”
How did this little schemer get away with her tricks? We’ve been asking ourselves that same question. Although we do have a fact-checking department, it is set up to monitor the work of journalists who have a modicum of respect for basic ethical principles such as fairness and honesty—not career scammers like Steiner. However, we take full responsibility for our mechanism’s failure to deliver and are currently launching a deep, probing investigation so as to guarantee that we are never Steinerated again.
As for what could possibly have motivated this senseless young hussy to act with such a brash lack of integrity, we, like you, can only speculate. Like the weimaraners on the television commercial who are told the food they are offered is 100 percent beef, all we can do is bark in unison, “Lies! Lies! We can’t believe a word you sa-ay!”
—STEVEN JENSEN IV, Editor in Chief,
and WILLIAM H. TURNER, Associate Editor
When I got back to my desk, the Corposhit was waiting with a computer printout in her hand and a grim look on her face. She handed the papers to me and leaned against the edge of my desk. The printout was from the famous Internet gossip site “The Dirt Disher.” Under the headline CITY WEEK COLUMNIST DISMISSED FOR FABRICATING was the following:
The City Week, a Manhattan alternative weekly, printed a retraction of one of its articles today, “Den of Len” (March 12, 1997), by the Week’s 22-year-old sex columnist. Ariel Steiner. In the column. Steiner recounted a tale of sexual intercourse with Ben Weinstein, 28, son of Wall Street bond trader Emerson Weinstein.
“I’m not saying I didn’t meet her,” said the younger Weinstein. “I did. But I totally wasn’t attracted to her. In fact. I found her much more disappointing than her cartoon. I have a girlfriend. I love her. I’d never stray. Never.” According to sources close to the Weinstein family, the family threatened suit unless the Week agreed to print a retraction.
The retraction states that Steiner was dismissed on March 15, following a partial confession. The Week is currently pursuing an investigation into Steiner’s past columns and has already concluded that at least six of them were all or partially fabricated. Week editor in chief, Steve Jensen, supplied this comment: “We love printing vitriol, but it better be true vitriol.”
I looked up at the Corposhit and handed her the papers.
“So it’s you?” she said.
I nodded.
“I didn’t know you wrote a newspaper column.”
“I didn’t think it was relevant,” I mumbled.
“I wish you’d told me. Evidently, I was missing out.” She smiled faintly, then wiped the smile away, pointed to the paper, and said, “This is not good news. I just got a call from my supervisor about this item. He said I had to let you go. It makes the company look bad to keep you on, even in a menial position. We’re a publishing house, after all, and to keep you among our ranks would give out the wrong impression. Pack up your things. I’ll call your temp agency and let them know what happened. I hope you understand.”
She went into her office and shut the door. I lowered my head toward the blotter, breathing in the ink and hoping the chemicals would kill me. Then I opened my top drawer, swiped a few pens and notebooks, and put them in my bag. I might need those pens someday. It could get to the point where I couldn’t afford stationery supplies. I had enough money saved to support myself for a month, max, but then I’d have to find myself another job. What if my temp agency fired me? What if they decided I was unemployable? I put on my coat, glanced at the Corposhit’s closed door, and went home.
•
When I got to my apartment, the machine was flashing like crazy. The Times, the News, and the Post all wanted my comments. Ego, the celebrity glossy, was doing a story on me and wanted my version of the events. My dad wanted to know if I’d seen the “Dirt Disher” piece. A Voice reporter was doing an article called “Why the City Week Is the Worst Paper in the Country” and wanted me to attest to Jensen and Turner’s shoddy fact-checking poli
cies. Ned Slivovitz, the tabloid talk show phenom, wanted me to come on and duke it out with Weinstein. The head of a production company called Wet and Slippery had some ideas for script collaborations. And a gossip columnist for the Daily News wanted confirmation of a rumor that I had actually gotten it on with both Ben and his girlfriend. At the same time.
I had always dreamed of arriving home to a wildly blinking machine, but these weren’t the messages I had hoped to get. This wasn’t the kind of fame I had envisioned. This was the cheapest and most insidious form. I didn’t want to go on schlock TV to be ridiculed by an audience of inbreds. I wanted to be remembered as a writer, not a liar.
I erased the messages, went into the bathroom, and threw some cold water over my face. When I lifted my head and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, I did not like what I saw. My upper-lip hair had grown so long I looked like Lonnie Barbach. My shoulder-length mop was mushrooming out and the ends were split-ended and dead. Perhaps it was time for a salon trip. It wasn’t like I had anything better to do.
Corinne had written about a place in Trump Tower a couple issues ago that she swore was the best in the city. Cuts were ninety bucks each, but she said it was worth it because there was a French dude named Pierre there, who made you feel like royalty. I called up, made an appointment, unplugged the phone, and walked to the train.
•
Pierre was about thirty-five, good looking, and effeminate in that generic French effeminate way that made it hard to tell if he was gay or straight. “What are you looking for today?” he said.
“Something short, and new.”
“ ’Ave you considered putting in some color?” he asked.
“No. Why?”
“Because some blond would look very pretty on you. A few streaks. For the spring. A little drama.”
I had never lightened my hair before, because I had always seen it as a form of Jewish self-hatred, but now that I was jobless, on the verge of financial ruin, and a target of a media witch-hunt, my moral integrity kind of flew out the window.
“What the hell,” I said. “Let’s do it.”
Two hours later I walked out with a chic bob, six blond highlights, and waxed lips and brows. I loved the new me. I knew it probably hadn’t been the wisest move to blow a portion of my scant savings on beauty, but I figured it was worth it. If I was going to be homeless soon, at least I’d look good begging for quarters.
That night Adam slept over, but when I woke up the next morning the bed was empty and the doorbell was ringing. I decided he was probably having shitting anxiety again and had gone to the diner. When I went down to get the door, though, he didn’t have the cleansed and refreshed look he usually did after he’d taken a dump. His head was stooped, his shoulders hunched. He looked like a war messenger telling some mom her son had been killed. Then I realized why. In his left hand were the Times, the News, and the Post.
We marched upstairs and sat down at the kitchen table. He passed me the papers one by one. All three had articles on my dismissal—and op-ed pieces that speculated on my possible motives for fabricating:
Ariel Steiner’s predicament sheds light on our increasingly fame-obsessed culture, in which young journalists will do anything at all—even concoct a fictitious love affair—just to get their Warholian fifteen minutes.
•
Raised in the elite neighborhood of Brooklyn Heights in an upper-middle-class Jewish family, educated at Brown University, Ariel Steiner was taught from an early age that she had to succeed in order to win her family’s love. Baby boomer parents need to examine the pressure they put on their children if they do not want to rear an Ariel Steiner of their own.
•
Ariel Steiner was merely a pawn in Steven Jensen’s randy game. The issue is not “Why did she lie?” but “Why does sex sell?” In an increasingly voyeuristic culture, it’s no wonder that nearly every alternative newsweekly in the nation now employs a female sex columnist to chronicle her weekly exploits. The current governing mantra in American journalism is “sleaze over substance.” Steiner simply took that mantra a little too much to heart.
All in all, the editorials weren’t nearly as bad as I had expected. But it was the accompanying photo in the articles that kicked me in the gut. Each paper used my graduation portrait from Brown. The portrait company had slotted me at 9 A.M., but I slept through my alarm that morning and rolled out of bed at ten to nine. I hadn’t had time to shower, much less put on makeup. So I arrived at the shoot with a huge frizzy head of hair and dark circles beneath my eyes. The stylist winced when she saw me and handed me a comb. But a comb is about as effective on a Jewish girl’s hair as Binaca on a Bowery bum’s breath, so I cast it aside and took my seat under the lights. I did my best to make up for my lack of attractiveness with an enthusiastic smile, but it came off looking forced. The cumulative effect was a half-comatose, heavy, and constipated serial killer. I was a veritable visual atrocity.
And now every guy out there who had ever wondered what I looked like was going to see that Medusa and think she was me. I could hear the wilting noise of thousands of New York City boners going limp. “Oh God,” I moaned to Adam, leaning my head against his shoulder and staring at the three identical witches.
“Ar?” he said. “There’s one more.”
“What do you mean? I read all three papers.” He gingerly reached for the Post, flipped backward to the gossip page, Page Six, and passed it to me.
Lady Dye
We hear that print isn’t the only arena in which former City Week sex columnist Ariel Steiner messes with the truth. She was spotted at the midtown salon Enrico Faberge yesterday, getting her hair highlighted by popular coiffeur Pierre Thibaut. What color did the former smutwriter go with? “I suggested a blond tint to bring out her natural highlights,” said Thibaut. “It’s a very natural look. You can hardly tell it’s not real.” How very fitting.
I put my hands to my cheeks like that guy in the Edvard Munch painting. How had they gotten that shot? Had someone hidden a spy cam in the blow-dryer—or had the sixty-year-old dame in the chair next to mine really been a paparazzo in disguise? And how could Thibaut have ratted? Who could a girl trust if not her stylist?
“I can’t fucking believe this!” I shouted, looking at Adam.
He was smiling.
“You’re laughing at me?”
“I’m not laughing at you. I’m laughing at the situation. You have to admit it’s a little amusing.”
“No, it isn’t!” I said, whacking him on the arm.
“I’m only laughing because I know this will blow over soon. And even if it doesn’t, you can take comfort in one thing: it can’t get any worse.” But of course, he was wrong.
•
After he left I took a shower and tried to get a grip. There was nothing I could do about the articles or the photo, but there was one area of my life in which I could still take some control: finding a new shit job.
I got dressed and plugged the phone back in. I started to dial my temp agency and then I got a call-waiting beep.
“Did you see the papers?” said my dad.
“Yeah.”
“Couldn’t you have sent them one of your acting head shots?” asked my mom.
“Mom! It doesn’t work that way! You can’t choose the photo they run of you!”
“I tried to explain that to her,” said my dad, “but she wouldn’t listen.”
“How are you holding up?” asked my mom.
“OK. The only one that really got to me was the Page Six item.”
“What Page Six item?” said my dad.
“In the Post.”
“Hold on. I have it right here. I’ll bring it to Mom.” I heard the static as he walked the cordless into my parents’ bedroom. Then I heard some rustling papers. My dad said, “Gevalt” and my mom said, “Why didn’t you tell me you colored your hair? I want to see it!”
“I have slightly more important things to worry about. The Corposhit fired me yeste
rday once she found out about the retraction.”
“I’m sure you’ll be able to find something else,” said my dad. “You can do anything you want. You have an Ivy League degree.”
“So does Ted Kaczynski.”
“Chin up,” said my mom.
“We love you,” said my dad.
“I know,” I said.
I hung up and dialed Frances, the woman at my agency. “We tried to reach you all afternoon yesterday,” she said, “but there was no answer.”
“I must have forgotten to turn the machine on. Did Ashley tell you what happened?”
“Yes. While we’re disappointed that the assignment ended, we discussed your . . . case . . . and decided we’d like to keep representing you. A few women in our office were big fans of your column, and they want to help you however they can. But we’ve decided not to try to place you in the publishing world, so you don’t wind up in the same situation again. I was able to get you an assignment at a bank starting Monday.”
“What is it?”
“It’s the same kind of position you had before. Similar responsibilities—memo and letter typing, light word processing, phone answering.”
“Does my boss know who I am?”
“We told her your name and she didn’t seem to react.”
“What’s the rate?”
She cleared her throat. “I’m afraid it’s a tad lower than the one at McGinley Ladd.”
“How much lower?”
“Eleven an hour.”
“Eleven an hour?”
“It’s in the back office of BankAmerica. They don’t pay as much in back offices.”
“Where is it?”
“Long Island City.”
“Queens?”
“That’s correct.”
Two weeks ago I’d been the most controversial columnist in the city, and now I’d be getting eleven bucks an hour to answer phones in an office in Queens. After taxes, it would probably be closer to seven. This was baby-sitting money. But how could I refuse? They might not be able to place me anywhere else. I had to be grateful for whatever I could get. I told her I’d take it, and went to get some breakfast at The Fall.
