The Rothman Scandal

by Stephen Birmingham

  As each woman made her entrance, she paused, lifted her chin, and smiled her most radiant smile for the photographers and television cameras. There was nothing, Alex knew, that New Yorkers liked more than being photographed, especially for television. The presence of television cameras made a party an instant success. Of course there were also photographers there from the News, Newsday, and Women’s Wear. No one knew how many of their pictures would be used in the next day’s papers, but no one was taking any chances, and meanwhile the cameras were recording everything.

  “To me, Alex Rothman is just one helluva great broad,” Lauren Bacall was saying to the hand-held microphone in front of her.

  “Only Betty could get away with that kind of language,” Lenny whispered to Alex.

  After each celebrity had affixed his or her smile into the cameras’ lenses, and made his or her personal statement, they all moved toward Alex. “Alex darling … you look divine … congratulations … what a heavenly night for a party … you’ve never looked lovelier … congratulations … you look divine, Alex darling …”

  “Here comes the great man now,” said Lenny, as Herbert J. Rothman made his entrance, and the cameras and lights fell on him to record the moment, and the head of Rothman Publications, always unaccustomed to public smiling, smiled a tight smile.

  “Who’s the woman with him, I wonder?”

  “I’ve no idea,” Lenny said. “But she’s borrowed Louise Brooks’s old hair.”

  The woman in question was small and thin, all in black, in her middle twenties, perhaps, with a pale, heart-shaped face framed in a glossy helmet of black hair. She was wearing oversize dark glasses with black frames. Her smile, too, was nervous, uncertain.

  “He certainly likes them young, our Herbert,” Alex said.

  “Young? Behind those perfectly ridiculous shades, it’s hard to say. But the dress is either a Saint-Laurent or a very good knockoff.”

  “No, it’s Yves. Look at the buttonholes. No one does buttonholes like Yves.”

  “She has a certain—shall we say surface chic? But until we meet her, I have a name for her. Anna Rexia.”

  “Bitchy, Lenny.”

  “Meanwhile, my dear, you have not just staged a party. You have not just staged an event. You have staged une grande occasion. Une occasion du moment. Everyone in New York is here. If a bomb fell on this building tonight, the entire city would go out of business.”

  “I just wish Ho and Aunt Lily could be here. I owe everything to them. If Herb had had his way, I’d have been back in Paradise long ago.”

  “No. You owe everything to you.”

  The occasion, of course, was simply this. It was Thursday, June 21, 1990, and the final circulation figures for the June issue of Mode had just come in, and circulation had passed the magical five-million mark. For a fashion magazine like Mode, five million in paid circulation had seemed all but unattainable—like reaching the top of Everest, or seeing the Dow-Jones hit three thousand. All spring, the circulation had been inching slowly upward—4,780,000 for April, 4,890,000 for May—and everyone at the magazine held their breath. But now the figures were in, and the June issue had broken the final barrier, and Mode had become not only the best-selling magazine in the Rothman chain, but the best-selling fashion magazine in the world. When Alexandra Rothman became editor-in-chief in 1973, circulation was just over 250,000.

  How had Alex done it? She could not answer that question herself in any simple way. She could only say that it had taken her seventeen years to do it, with only grudging support from her father-in-law. She could say that she had tried to do what she promised Ho Rothman she would do—to make Mode more than just a fashion magazine. Though its focus was still on fashion, she had expanded that focus and made Mode more than a book that reported on what smart women were wearing, but that reported as well on what smart women were thinking and doing and talking about, or what smart women might be thinking and doing and talking about. She could say that she tried to avoid making Mode a book that told women what they ought to be thinking and doing and talking about, because she hated women’s magazines—like Ms., for instance, or even Cosmo—that so often seemed to be lecturing to their readers. She always assumed, she said, in planning each new issue, that her readers were at least as smart as she was, if not a good deal smarter.

  “What was the secret of your success?” a reporter from the Wall Street Journal asked her the other day.

  She thought a moment before answering. “Mainly, showing up.”

  “Showing up?”

  “Isn’t the basic secret of doing any job successfully: just showing up every day to do it?”

  “Would you describe yourself as a workaholic?”

  “No—unless loving the work you do describes a workaholic.”

  “I’ve heard you described as a perfectionist.”

  “I think most people are perfectionists at heart. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if everything were perfect? But most people are smart enough to know that nothing ever really is.”

  “I’ve heard you described as a completely driven woman.”

  She had laughed. “Well, I was driven to the airport the other day,” she said. “But I guess you could say that I can be a little stubborn.”

  “They say the magazine is your entire life.”

  “It isn’t. It’s just the way I make my living.”

  She often wondered: What made reporters ask such silly questions?

  A reporter from Women’s Wear had cornered her. “Now that you’ve become a living myth, what next?” he asked her.

  “The main thing is not to begin to believe in one’s mythiness,” she said. “Is that a word? Mythiness?”

  “If you say it is, it is.”

  Coleman had appeared at her side. “The last important guests have arrived,” he said. “A few more of the working press on their way.”

  “Forty-five minutes till the soup,” she said. “You know I hate a long cocktail hour.”

  “I guess he’s the perfectionist,” the Women’s Wear reporter said. “Knows the difference between ‘important’ and ‘working press.’”

  And now the full contingent of two hundred and fifty guests was gathered on Alex Rothman’s penthouse terrace—guests that swirled together into little groups, groups that quickly broke apart and re-formed into other groups. Alex’s terrace was a perfect setting for a party like tonight’s which, after all, was more of a theatrical production than a social gathering. It was show business, and the terrace was a prop. It covered nearly two thousand square feet, and faced north and east, paved with flagstone. It was a real roof garden, and solid stone planter boxes contained flowering cherry and crab apple trees, even dogwoods, which the people at Terrestris had assured Alex could not survive at this exposure in the city. There were even twin magnolia trees. The terrace was bounded by a four-foot-high stone parapet and, along the wide ledge of the parapet were more stone planters filled, for tonight’s party, with pink and white azaleas. For the party, the garden furniture had been removed, and the terrace had been set up with twenty-five round tables for ten, covered with alternating pink and white cloths, with centerpieces of English ivy and pink and white tulips. The white wrought-iron gazebo, at the elbow of the L, where, on good mornings, Alex liked to have breakfast, had been decorated with pink and white ribbons and balloons, and had been put to use tonight as the bar, from which pink-coated waiters radiated outward through the ever re-forming groups and the flashbulbs.

  Tonight’s production was all about publicity, everyone knew that. The socialites and celebrities were merely set-dressing, interchangeable extras in the performance. More important were the editors, writers, artists, photographers, members of the fashion press, designers, models, the agency people, the retailers from Fifth and Madison avenues, the wholesalers from Seventh, the advertisers and their reps. And as her guests glided by, they blew their breathless kisses in her direction, and murmured their congratulations: “Fabulous, darling … so exciting … what
a thrill … it had to happen … darling, just think, five million.…” And so on. It was all meaningless and meaningful at the same time—these elegant, splendidly coiffed carnivores, predators, sycophants, and parasites.

  Because it would be naïve to suppose that all these people showering Alex with air kisses and affectionate greetings actually loved and admired Alex Rothman, and no one knew this better than Alex herself—surely she knew it. This was New York, after all, and this was the fashion industry. Some of these people were more than Alex’s competitors. They were her arch-rivals, would-be usurpers of her special throne. There was fierce jealousy here on this terrace—bitterness, anger, disappointment, rage, and all-consuming, outrageous, mindless envy. Because this was a party for Mode, every woman here tonight had arrived with but a single goal in mind—to outdress all the others—and, in terms of the designers represented here, and the amounts of money spent, it was almost possible to conclude that they had all succeeded. And yet, with her apparent instinct that the woman who dressed most simply was also the most chic, Alex—in her white Bill Blass, with the turquoise and silver Old Pawn belt cinched at her waist—had managed to outdress them all, and this fact did not go unnoticed, nor did Alex go unhated for it.

  Turquoise was the color of her eyes and, as the astute could not have failed to notice, it was also the exact blue-green of the English ivy leaves in her centerpieces—no accident, of course, all planned with devilish cleverness to show the hostess off, and many women silently vowed never to use Renny the florist again. The evening breeze was rising, flipping up the corners of the pink and white tablecloths, while some women prayed for a hurricane, a tornado, a full-fledged monsoon to descend and ruin everything. Meanwhile, the waiters moved efficiently about, securing the tablecloths with clothespins. Alex had prepared for this contingency, and even the clothespins were pink and white. The women, especially, noticed this and made a mental note. Who else but Alex? they thought, hatefully.

  Because there were some women on this terrace—and some men, too—who actively hated Alex Rothman, and hate was not too strong a word, who ardently wished that her June issue, with its daring cover, had fallen flat on its face, who cringed at the news that the press run of Mode had sold out in Nebraska. The fashion business was symbiotic, parasitic. Relationships here were like those between orchids in a rain forest and the trees to whose bark these exotic plants affixed themselves, and whose sap they sucked. These people all preyed on one another, yet they needed each other. The magazine could not live without the designers, nor could the designers survive without the magazine, yet they all despised each other unreservedly. Where would the fashion models be without photographers and the art directors, or the art directors without the photographers and models and designers? Yet they constantly derided each other’s talents, each other’s singular powers. Still, in the evening light high above the East River, they blew their air kisses at one another, told each other how marvelous they looked—beautiful, deadly moths in the jungle, scavenging for vulnerable quarry.

  Tonight, their quarry of choice was clearly Alex Rothman. The person at the top, in this world, seemed to be asking to be toppled—her position was so exposed. Tonight, Alex was the brightest star in the fashion firmament, and she had managed to eclipse all the other stars on the horizon, who would remain eclipsed until she began to fall. At the top of her career, Alex Rothman stood out as an easy target, a sitting duck. Tonight, an open season had been declared on Alex.

  Lenny Liebling moved about the terrace, smiling his bland and somewhat condescending party smile, from group to group, receiving and bestowing kisses, saying not much of anything, but listening, always listening, gathering bits and pieces that might be woven into something resembling solid information.

  “I don’t care what you say. No model on earth is worth two thousand an hour, regardless of her pelvic bones.”

  “Fucking her must be like fucking a venetian blind.”

  “Actually, she’s not a bad lay.”

  “There’s Betty Zimmerman. Her husband got a year in the state pen.”

  “It’s more like a country club, really. Minimum security. I hear they can even have girls in. Besides, he’s getting a book out of it. I hear Doubleday has offered a million five, and there’s talk of a miniseries.”

  “Look who the cat dragged in. Dolores Blearman. God, she looks awful. Tom left her, you know.”

  “Oh? Another woman?”

  “No, darling. Another man.”

  “Well, it’s either one or the other, isn’t it? Dolores! How marvelous you look.…”

  “Him? I forget his name. He’s really nothing but a gofer for Helmut Newton, but they say that in the darkroom he can salvage some of Helmut’s worst shots.”

  “Darling, you can imagine what else goes on in Helmut’s darkroom, can’t you?”

  “Photographed her through gauze? It had to be more like burlap, darling, or linoleum—to block out all her stretch marks. Look at that neck. It’s one solid stretch mark. She looks like a turtle.”

  “Well, if she had as many dicks sticking out of her as she’s had stuck into her, she’d look like a porcupine.”

  “There’s Dodie Applegate, getting drunk again. The Washington Post trashed her last novel. They called it ‘clitorature.’ Don’t you love it?”

  “Alex’s June cover? I hear it was a desperation move, darling—desperation city. Herb Rothman told her, ‘Get me five million, or you’re finished. Finished.’”

  “Speaking of finished, there’s Portia Perlman.…”

  “Well, none of us are getting any younger, darling, including our hostess. Oh, Alex! Darling! You’re looking marvelous tonight!”

  Lenny moved slowly about the terrace, listening here, listening there, as the noise of the party rose, as the pink-coated waiters scurried about, as a few pale stars began to appear in the evening sky, as the lights of the city began to come on, and the clothes-pinned tablecloths swelled and billowed and slapped in the breeze like spinnakers. Lighted candles guttered from the centerpieces.

  In the northeast corner of the terrace, Lenny overheard an interesting conversation.

  “Has Alex Rothman had her face lifted? I’d say yes.”

  “Hmm. How old is she, anyway? Forty-six? Forty-seven?”

  “Let’s just say she’s a few years older than her friend Mel Jorgenson, darling.”

  “Doesn’t she look pleased with herself tonight? No wonder her husband killed himself.”

  “She actually did kill a man once, you know. With a gun. Bang-bang. It was years ago, but it was in all the papers.”

  “Oh? Was it a lover?”

  “No one knows, exactly. But there were the usual rumors.”

  “Is it true that if a woman wants to get ahead at Rothman Publications, she has to fuck Herb Rothman?”

  “What a ghastly thought, darling. But it’s certainly not true of Alex. She and Herb loathe each other.”

  “Well, perhaps that’s why?”

  “I always assumed it was Ho Rothman she was fucking. She’s always been Ho’s little pet.”

  “But now they say Ho’s a complete vegetable. Herb’s getting ready to take over everything.”

  “Well, one thing’s certain—she slept her way to the top one way or the other. She must have, considering her background, which is from Nowheresville.”

  “They say before she met Steve Rothman she was a disc jockey in Kansas City.”

  “Worse, darling. She read the weather.”

  “Still, you’ve got to admit she looks—all right.”

  “You’d look all right, too, darling, if every designer in the world gave you free clothes.”

  “Are you implying that I don’t look all right—darling?”

  “Well, one thing I happen to know. She’s in deep trouble—in spite of all this nonsense about five million circulation, and the ridiculous ad in this morning’s Times. As everybody in this business knows, circulation can be bought. But meanwhile, Vinnie, who do
es my hair, also does Pegeen Rothman’s hair, and Vinnie told me that Pegeen told him that Herb was absolutely furious with what Alex did with the June cover. He was also furious about the ad in this morning’s Times.

  “Oh? I didn’t know that Herb and Pegeen spoke to each other anymore.”

  “Oh, they speak. It’s just that they don’t have much to say to one another.”

  “That’s a big difference, of course.”

  “Anyhoo, Herb hated the June cover. He said it was just another of Alex’s gimmicks. He says Alex is getting to be just too gimmicky an editor, and all her gimmicks are beginning to seem old hat. He’s definitely looking around for someone younger.”

  “Well, I think that’s only fair. Alex has been in that spot for much too long. It’s high time she moved over in favor of someone else. I always thought Mona Potter should have that job. She was promised it, you know, until Ho and Alex jewed her out of it.”

  “My dear, I said someone younger. Someone younger wouldn’t be Mona Potter.”

  “I don’t care what you say about Mona. Mona’s always been very nice to me.”

  “Hmm …”

  “She’d be nice to you, if you treated her properly—if you know what I mean, darling.”

  “Anyhoo, things are going to change around here when Herb gets in the saddle, wait and see.”