The Rothman Scandal

by Stephen Birmingham

Several members of the fashion press were already reaching for their pencils and note pads. “Dammit, he’s turning my party into a press conference,” Alex whispered.

  “I’m not a social historian,” he went on, “but let us examine these changes. In the nineteen seventies, when Alexandra Rothman first came to us—and how long ago that seems!—there was a settling down and a seriousness that, in the beginning of it, the magazine really caught. This coincided with the rise of women in the work force. This is one of the themes we’ve been involved with, and that was important to our readers. However, in many ways, the ideological, political side of that has softened. Coming cultural changes will be profound. They will include increasing informality, and a blurring of the rigid guidelines of what is high art and kitsch, all of which will be manifested in fashion. There have been clear lines of what was high fashion and casual fashion.…”

  “Do you have any idea what he’s talking about?” someone whispered from a corner of the terrace.

  Alex Rothman turned to whisper to the deposed bandleader. “Sorry, but I didn’t know there were going to be speeches. As soon as he finishes, go right into ‘Happy Days.’”

  He nodded.

  In his bedroom at 720 Park Avenue, many blocks away, the old man lay flat on his back on his hospital bed, breathing evenly. In one corner of the room, the night duty nurse, Evelyn Roemer, sat in front of her television set, with the picture tube aglow but with the sound turned off. Though she glanced occasionally at the screen, she was also reading a romance novel in which the heroine, who had been brutally raped, now found herself madly in love with her assailant, and Mrs. Roemer had just come to the conclusion that it might not be all that bad to be raped. In fact, it might be kind of exciting.

  Suddenly her patient pushed himself up on his elbows and shouted, “Goddammit, turn up the sound!”

  “Sure, hon,” she said, and turned up the volume. “It’s about some party they’re having on the East Side. It’s pretty boring.”

  From the screen, the voice said, “… clear lines of what was high fashion and casual fashion. I think those lines are less apparent now. I think the change in the nineteen nineties, when we look back, will be as decisive as …”

  “That’s my son!” the old man said. “That’s Herbie! Get the missus!”

  “Now, hon, you know Mrs. Rothman has went to bed. Let’s just us settle back and get ourselves a good night’s sleep.”

  “… the shift from the sixties to the seventies. There’s been a …”

  “Get the missus! Like I tell you! Now!” He was sitting straight up in bed now.

  “Now, hon, let’s have our blood-pressure pill.”

  “Get the missus! Like I tell you, meshugge woman! Is my order! Get the missus!”

  “All right, Mr. Rothman, all right,” she said, rising and slamming down her book, then padding on her crepe soles to the door.

  “… recognition of that in magazine publishing. I think.…”

  “I think,” Herbert Rothman continued into the camera’s lens from Alex’s terrace, “at the midpoint of the seventies there was a very decisive change in the way we all lived, and in people’s attitudes toward fashion, culture, and health. It was a change from the headlines of the sixties, and the whole eroticism from Britain …”

  “From Britain? Eroticism?” Lenny whispered in Alex’s ear.

  “Excuse me, I meant exoticism,” Herb corrected himself, and there was light, nervous laughter from his audience. “In many ways, the British are fashion’s bellwethers. In many ways, the British entered the nineteen nineties years before we did.…”

  “Neatest trick of the week,” Lenny whispered.

  “In many ways, the British entered the nineties back in the seventies and eighties, and the best way to perceive this is to study the facts. And the facts are that we are now in the nineties, and we are in the nineties and here to stay, at least for the next decade, and we are prepared for the soon-to-be-realized eventualities that will be reflected in fashion in the nineties, and even beyond, for the foreseeable future, as the experts foresee it, and even beyond that, and, believe me, I have consulted all the experts, and I have even become something of an expert on it myself.”

  “Beyond the beyond,” Lenny murmured dreamily.

  “But to return to the present, which is where we are right now, and to the future of Mode, which is where we are headed, and to throw off the shackles of the past, which was where we were before we got to where we are today, we know we are here to celebrate and extol and praise the fine work of a great fashion editor, which is what Alexandra Rothman has been, who has shown us all how far she can go, how greatly a great publication can grow—grow in power, prestige, and influence, not to mention circulation. And the very process of that growth, and all those long, long years of toil, have taken an enormous toll on Alexandra Rothman. She may not admit it, but we all know the toll those years have taken on her because, as the enormity of Alexandra’s responsibilities, tasks, and duties at the magazine have grown, they have grown too enormous to be enormities that one mere woman can handle alone.”

  There was a small collective gasp from his audience at these last remarks and, briefly, Lenny Liebling closed his eyes and, with the little finger of his right hand, he reached out and circled the little finger of Alex’s left, which she quickly withdrew, sitting forward in her chair and staring at Herb intently.

  “And so,” Herb said, turning again to Alex, “Alexandra Rothman, you will not go unrewarded for all those years of toil. Tonight, I am announcing your reward for those years of toil. Your reward, which I know will please you, will be a good right hand. I have today created a new spot on Mode’s masthead—that of co-editor-in-chief, to provide you with the good right hand you so desperately need. The young woman I have chosen to fill this spot comes to us with splendid credentials—from brilliant editorial work for one of Britain’s leading fashion magazines to, more recently, the proprietress of one of London’s most fashionable custom design studios, in the heart of the West End’s fashionable Sloane Street, where she has overseen the fashion needs of all of Britain’s most fashionable women, up to and including Diana, the Princess of Wales, who, I am told, rarely makes a fashion decision without consulting this special lady, who will join our staff on July the first. Ladies and gentlemen, may I present the new co-editor-in-chief of Mode, Miss Fiona Fenton.” And the tiny woman in the oversize sunglasses and the oval of glossy black hair stepped forward and, with just the slightest trace of a curtsy, smiled nervously for the cameras. Herb Rothman remained at the microphone, apparently expecting applause, but there was none. Instead, the terrace immediately became abuzz with excited, astonished conversation, while Alex sat rigidly in her chair. In the confusion, Lenny spotted Fiona’s Chanel bag sitting unattended at her table. He stepped quickly toward it.

  In the semidarkened bedroom at 720 Park Avenue, where Ho Rothman’s wife, Aunt Lily, had joined him in her nightie, her face creamed, wearing her chin strap, her ash-blonde hair in rollers—the two stared at the television screen.

  Aunt Lily was the first to speak. “I warned you the damned fool might try to pull something like this,” she said.

  Nurse Roemer puttered in the background. “Time for our blood-pressure pill,” she said.

  “Shut up,” Aunt Lily said. “Just you shut up.”

  Yes, there might have been some people on Alexandra’s terrace that night who had actively hated her, who had longed for her downfall, uttered prayers that she would fail, and who knew in their heart of hearts that any one of them could have done her job as well as, or even better than, she had, but what they had just heard and witnessed from Herbert Rothman was too much for any of them. One of their own had just been publicly humiliated, and in the most awful of ways. In front of two hundred and fifty people, she had been told that she could no longer manage her job by herself. A great wave of sympathy—sympathy, the last thing Alex wanted—poured out for her now, as voices rose in shock and consternat
ion.

  “Poor Alex—what a way to be told that you’re finished.”

  “Did you hear him? ‘A mere woman’?”

  “Typical Herbert Rothman. His father may have been a son-of-a-bitch, but he’d never do something like this!”

  “Who is this new woman? Has anyone ever heard of her?”

  “Mona Potter’s been screwed again.”

  “Poor Gregory—I wonder what will become of him?” Gregory Kittredge’s too-handsome face was a mask.

  “Poor Alex—did she have so much as an inkling?”

  “Shocking … awful … in the worst possible taste …”

  “In my book, Herb Rothman is a bastard.”

  “It’s ageism, is all it is. If I were Alex, I’d sue.”

  Alex could hear some of these whispered comments and, though her eyes might be blue-green in some lights, and hazel in others, when she became angry they became black as coals. She sat rigidly in her chair with her fists tightly clenched, her knuckles white, her face frozen in a dreadful parody of a smile that she was sure convinced no one. Beside her, Lenny whispered, “It’s worse than I thought. The whole camel is in the tent. But don’t let it show, Smart Alex. Keep your famous cool, Smart Alex. Remember who you are.…”

  Meanwhile, there was indeed a great difference between the important guests and the members of the working press. It was not just that the general-assignment reporters and photographers were not, for the most part, wearing dinner jackets, and instead wore blue or gray pinstripe suits, white shirts, and neckties. They also wore furtive, hunted looks, expressions of discomfiture that revealed that these were men and women who were unaccustomed to appearing in such perfumed, opulent surroundings. Had they been wearing creased fedoras with “PRESS” cards tucked in their hatbands, they could not have looked more conspicuously out of place. These were not just people from the large metropolitan dailies, the weekly news magazines, and from Spy and Vanity Fair. There were also reporters and photographers from suburban papers on Long Island, Westchester, Connecticut, and New Jersey, as well as stringers from other cities—Boston, Washington, Baltimore, and Philadelphia. These people knew that they had been invited to—or in some cases merely assigned to attend—the party simply because their hostess wanted to generate as much publicity for her magazine as possible. The evening, after all, was all about ink for Mode.

  The grandes dames of the press—women like Bernadine Morris, Enid Nemy, Aileen Mehle, Mona Potter, and Liz Smith, who, for some reason, had come dressed in a cowgirl outfit—comported themselves like the giant celebrities they knew themselves to be, letting Dr. Kissinger envelop them in his bear hugs, blowing kisses to Brooke Astor, calling each other darling. But the others, whose names no one really knew, or would probably ever know, or would ever really care to know, had spent most of the evening trying to be inconspicuous, hovering mousily in the background, scribbling in their notebooks the names of famous guests that were attachable to famous faces, noting designer dresses, and guessing at the caratage of large gems, knowing (at least they knew that much) that the question, “How many carats in that ruby?” would be answered with a frosty stare. Instead, they tended to interview each other. Those not bold enough to ask Jackie Onassis who had designed her dress asked others from the little fraternity. A reporter from a South Norwalk paper who had missed Brooke Astor’s entrance kept trying to find out, from his fellows, where the great lady was. And when dinner was served, all these press people gravitated toward a few tables at the east-facing end of Alex’s L-shaped terrace so they could be close to one another.

  But the moment Herbert J. Rothman stepped away from the microphone, these members of the so-called working press knew at once they were on to something they understood, something they had never expected to come away from this evening with—a story. All at once they were on their feet, pushing, shoving, elbowing their way toward the publisher and the new editor. All at once they were transformed from little gray wrens, pecking quietly at the sidelines for little scraps of this and that, into a braying pack of newshounds on the scent of a Major Development, even a front-page by-line. Pencils poised and cameras at the ready, they pushed their way forward toward the pair in the center of the circle of the television cameras’ floodlights, shouting questions, all at once on a first-name basis with the principals in the drama.

  “Hey, Herbie! Look over here, Herbie! Does this mean Alex Rothman will be retiring?”

  “No comment.”

  “Hey, Fiona—over here, Fiona! Smile, Fiona—big smile! Take off those damn shades, Fiona, so we can see you!”

  “How old are you, Fiona? How much do you weigh? Who designed your dress, Fiona? Are you married? Any boyfriend? What’s your love life?”

  “Herb, does this mean you are finally taking over the reins of Rothman Communications?” the reporter from Women’s Wear Daily asked him.

  The question clearly annoyed him. It was the word finally, which reminded him that close to seven decades of his life had passed before he had been given any control, or any real power, at all. “Mr. H. O. Rothman is a very old man, and very ill,” he replied stiffly.

  “How about the IRS lawsuit against Rothman Communications?” the same reporter wanted to know. “How has your father responded to that?”

  “I doubt my father is even aware of it,” Herb said. “Besides, I’m not at liberty to discuss the lawsuit at this point in time.”

  “We’ve heard the figure eight hundred million dollars. With penalties and interest, that could amount to—”

  “I’m not at liberty to—”

  “Herb, you said you had consulted experts who have foreseen the future of the magazine. Specifically, could you give us the names of these experts, and explain a bit more fully why they have some sort of crystal ball?”

  “Herb, why did you choose not to promote someone from within the organization to this new post? Why an outsider? Why an unknown?”

  “Yes, why a Brit, Herb? Why not an American?”

  “Fiona, what’s the name of that Brit fashion magazine you worked for? Lady Fair? Never heard of it. Who publishes it? Who owns it? Who? Never heard of ’em!”

  “Fiona, what was the name of your shop in Sloane Street?”

  “Who does your hair, Fiona?”

  “Fiona, does this mean you’re being groomed as Alex Rothman’s successor? What makes you think you can fill her shoes?”

  “Fiona, do you have a particular fashion philosophy?”

  “Take off the shades, Fiona, so we can get a shot of you.”

  “How do you spell ‘Fiona’?” Mona Potter called from the periphery of the crowd, and then, more loudly, “What’s she look like? Is she pretty? I can’t see her from here.”

  “Skinny. No tits,” someone yelled back.

  Meanwhile, when Herb Rothman stepped away from the microphone, the bandleader, as instructed, struck up the opening chords of “Happy Days.” No one, not even Alex, heard him, of course, except Coleman, inside the apartment, who was waiting for his cue. “Ladies and gentlemen … ladies and gentlemen,” the bandleader shouted into the microphone, “if you’ll all please rise and face Riker’s Island, we have a very special little show …”

  And Coleman pressed the button that was the signal to the fireworks barge in the river.

  “Oh, my God, the fireworks,” Alex said, jumping to her feet.

  Lenny also sprang to his feet. “Fireworks!” he shouted. “Fireworks! Look this way, everybody!”

  But still only a handful of Alex’s guests saw the first flare that shot up, burst, and cascaded down through the night sky in a fountain of colored light, exploding and popping.

  “Fireworks! Fireworks!” Lenny shouted, as Alex gazed in dismay at the shambles of her party.

  “How old did you say you were, Fiona? What’s your cup size? Is that your real hair or a wig?”

  The second flare shot upward from the barge, exploded, and hung in the air as the sparkling lights gathered and coalesced to form the wo
rd MODE, before the letters tumbled apart and fell to the river.

  A third flare went up, and the words THAR SHE BLOWS! were spelled out.

  A fourth and final flare then went up with an almost ear-splitting bang, and the figures 5,000,000 arranged themselves across the sky.

  This last explosive blast drew a few more onlookers to the edge of the terrace, but the questions to Fiona Fenton continued, and her whispery, all-but-unintelligible replies seemed to make the reporters’ questions even more hostile and intrusive.

  “Hey, Fiona—who’s your favorite designer?”

  “Who’s your favorite Limey designer, Fiona?”

  “How much is Rothman payin’ ya, Fiona?”

  “Fiona, will you take those Goddamned glasses off?”

  “Do you sleep in the nude, Fiona baby? Look this way, Fiona.”

  Suddenly a television cameraman roughly shoved a news reporter out of his way. “Move, fuck-face! You’re blockin’ my frame!”

  “Fuck your frame!” And now fists were flying. The reporter’s body was flung against the side of the gazebo bar, and there was the sound of shattering glass as a waiter’s serving table was overturned. There were screams as women, seated close to the fray, tried to duck under tables to protect themselves, and one tall gentleman, resplendent in evening dress, rose to his feet and lifted a gilded caterer’s chair over his head, in a Statue of Liberty pose, as though to defend himself from all attackers, while a young woman in a scarlet Scaasi evening suit was trying to crawl, on her hands and knees, among flying fists and kicking feet, across the terrace toward the French doors that led into the apartment. Meanwhile, the orchestra, doing its best to prevent Alex’s party from turning into a well-dressed riot, had launched into a noisy, upbeat version of “Ain’t She Sweet?”

  Fiona Fenton had managed to make her way through the jostling, pushing, shouting crowd to where Alex stood watching it all with helpless horror. Alex saw that there were tears streaming down the young woman’s face, and suddenly she was filled with a great wave of pity for this poor, benighted girl—surely no more than twenty-three or twenty-four—who had certainly not meant to cause all this. It was Herbert—Herbert alone—who had done it, and now he was nowhere to be seen.