The Rothman Scandal

by Stephen Birmingham

  She started to write, “Life has become unbearable for me here,” but decided that sounded too melodramatic, and instead wrote:

  Please do not try to find me, for it will be very difficult to do, and as soon as I am settled I will drop you a line.

  I hope the brown spots on the lawn will go away soon. Alben Sellers, who is supposed to be one of the best farmers around here, told me he has a good solution. He suggests mixing equal parts of potash, baking soda, lime, vinegar, and well-rotted cow manure, and spreading this mixture on top of each spot. Then keep the entire area flushed with fresh water. It sounds kind of nasty, but it’s supposed to correct what is called the pH count in the soil. Of course I don’t know if this will work, but it might be worth a try. Mr. Sellers says you will still probably have to reseed in the spring …

  Give my love to Mother when you are able to go to see her.

  Goodbye,

  Alexandra

  She left the letter on the kitchen table the next morning, after he had left for the office, placing it on top of the unopened manuscript from Genesee Depot.

  Skipper had told her to pack very little—just her toothbrush, a change of underthings, a couple of nighties. Anything else she needed he would get for her when they got to Wichita. She stuffed everything quickly into a small suitcase. Then she carried it out onto the breezeway to wait for the yellow Corvette to appear around the bend in the road.

  When it did, she ran to the end of the driveway, tossed her suitcase into the back seat, and jumped into the front seat beside him. “Let’s go!” she cried.

  “Aw, don’t cry,” he said. “I hate to see you cry. We’re going to have a ball together, you and me. You’ll see.”

  “I’m doing this,” she sobbed. “I’m really doing this!” And she pounded both balled fists against the padded dashboard of the car.

  “Damn right you’re doing it, and it’s a damn good thing you’re doing, too. So don’t cry.…”

  She put her head back on the headrest of the seat, and squeezed out the last two tears as they drove toward Kansas City.

  “You know,” she said, a moment later, “I’m a pretty good seamstress. I design and make a lot of my clothes. Do you think, when we get to Wichita, I could get a sewing machine? It doesn’t have to be a fancy one.”

  “Only rule is, if it’ll fit in the trunk or back seat of this ’Vette, it’s yours. When we’re on the road, this ’Vette is our home away from home.”

  “A portable machine wouldn’t take up too much room.”

  “Then that’s what you’ll get,” he said.

  “I could make things for you, too,” she said. “I could make men’s things. I could sew for you.”

  “Hey, I’d like that,” he said. “I split out a couple of pairs of jeans a week in this job of mine.”

  At the Jackson County Court House, the ceremony was as swift and simple as he had said it would be. They filled out some forms, signed a register, and Alex subtracted a year from her actual birth date. Then they said the words, and the justice of the peace instructed Skipper to say, “—And with this ring, I thee wed,” and Skipper, to her complete surprise, produced a thin gold wedding band. It wasn’t much, as wedding bands went, but at the time she thought it the sweetest and dearest ring she had ever seen. Later, he would show her the inside of the band, where he had had engraved “J.P.–A.L.”

  “I now pronounce you man and wife,” the justice said and, turning to Skipper, said, “You may kiss the bride.” It was the second time he had kissed her full on the mouth.

  Then the justice of the peace filled out a very formal-looking certificate, signed it with a flourish, and affixed a gold paper seal. “Little lady looks a little sad,” the justice said when it was over, and handed Skipper the certificate.

  “Just nerves, I guess,” Skipper said with a wink.

  The date was August 20, 1961.

  “Well, how’s it feel to be Mrs. Skipper Purdy?” he said when they were back in the car, heading out of the city toward the interstate.

  “I don’t know. I’m still getting used to it,” she said.

  He patted her hand on the seat beside him.

  Presently they passed a sign that said:

  LEAVING MISSOURI

  Y’all Come Back Real Soon, Y’Hear!

  I’ve done it, Alex thought. I’ve run away from home and gotten married. I’m free. I have my own life now.

  A few hundred feet farther on, another sign said:

  WELCOME TO KANSAS

  The Sunflower State

  “This is the first time I’ve been outside the state of Missouri,” she said.

  “You’re going to see a lot more states,” he said. “After Wichita, the next stop’s Omaha.” He began to sing, “You are my sunflower, my only sunflower, you make me happy when skies are gray …”

  She was laughing now.

  “Oops!” Suddenly Skipper braked the car hard, and pulled off to the side of the road. About a quarter of a mile ahead of them on the interstate, just beyond a wide curve, there appeared to be three or perhaps four police cars with orange bubble lights flashing. Skipper made a quick U-turn, across the grassy median divider, and headed back in the opposite direction.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Smokey Bear,” he said. “They like to ticket this yellow ’Vette of mine, ’cause they think it’s flashy.” He looked quickly in his rearview mirror. “Didn’t spot us,” he said. “Besides, with you being underage and all, and crossing state lines—cops get funny about that, you know. And your daddy might have put out some kind of alarm.”

  “My father won’t get my letter until at least six o’clock tonight.”

  “Best not to take any chances, if you see what I mean. So we’ll take back roads for a while, see some scenery. There’s more than one way to skin a cat, right?”

  In a town called Lamont, they stopped at a diner for lunch. Skipper seemed preoccupied, and didn’t say much while they ate. “Take us a little longer on these country roads,” he said. “But we’re in no hurry, right? Gig doesn’t start till tomorrow night.” But she sensed that something was worrying him.

  It was nearly eleven o’clock at night when they got to Wichita, and registered at the motel the rodeo people had reserved for them. She watched him enter their names, “Mr. and Mrs. James R. Purdy.” She realized she didn’t know what the “R” stood for, but she was suddenly too shy to ask him.

  The motel room enjoyed an expansive view of its own parking lot and, in the room, they were both strangely quiet, quietly unpacking, opening and closing bureau drawers. Alex stepped into the bathroom first, undressed, and slipped into her nightie. Then she returned to the bedroom, opened the covers of one of the twin beds, and slid quickly inside it. Then he went into the bathroom, closed the door, and Alex turned out the light.

  From the bathroom, she could hear water running. It seemed to run for the longest time. At last he stepped out and, from the corner of her eye, she could see the shape of his muscular frame, in his jockey shorts, silhouetted in the light from the bathroom door. His body, outlined in this light, seemed all flat planes, smooth edges. Then he turned off the bathroom light, and she heard him get into the other twin bed. The room was silent now, except for the sound of his even breathing, and a distant radio, from another room, playing country music. Lights from the parking lot flickered dimly through the drawn curtains, creating a pattern of light and shadow on the ceiling.

  “Skipper?” she said at last.

  “Uh-huh?”

  “Are we going to—you know?”

  She heard him raise himself on one elbow in the other bed. “D’you think?” he said. “I thought maybe we should wait, take it easy for a while, wait till we get to know each other a little better, wait till we get used to being alone together like this. Don’t you think? After all, you’re really just a kid.”

  “No. I want to,” she whispered.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”


  “Have you ever—?”

  “Never. But I want to. Now.”

  “Well, if you’re sure.”

  “I’m sure.” How to tell him she was aching with desire for him?

  In the flickering light—and, again, from just the corner of her eye—she watched him as he put his long legs over the side of the bed, stood up, and slid out of his jockey shorts; they dropped noiselessly on the carpet, a small white pile. Then she felt him slide into bed beside her. “Skipper,” she whispered, “I want to, but I’m a little frightened.” With a fingertip she traced the scars on his back and shoulders, and the warm shapes of the welts were suddenly soft and exciting, and her lips flew to his.

  “Hey,” he said softly. “Not so fast. Take it easy. Relax. If this is your first time, everything’s got to be very … very … slow. It’s like a piece of music that starts out slow, then gets a little faster.…” He circled her moving fingers with his own.

  And what happened next she could never really adequately describe to anyone, nor would she even try. Just as there is no real memory of pain, there is no real memory of ecstasy, either. It seemed as though for a long time he was simply teasing her, touching her lightly, deftly, with his lips and fingers here and there, while her breath came faster, more expectant. Slowly, he became more purposeful, whispering words of encouragement and flattery and pleasure, but when he first entered her it was only brief, and tentative, before he withdrew. Meanwhile something utterly new and unimaginable was happening inside her, a rush of billowing crimson that seemed to build with the sound of wind from a summer storm rushing across the cornfields. It had that sound, and a wet smell too, and when he finally whispered, “You’re ready,” she knew that she was ready, and he entered her completely, and she was answering each deep movement of his body with a deeper, more urgent movement of her own. It was as though they had become not just one body, but one soul, and with the feeling of billowing, of being blown across some landscape by some strange, hot wind, a wind that seemed to increase to an almost furious intensity until she felt it climax with a kind of explosion of white light in her brain, and she cried out with joy at the pinpricks of colored light that flew out from this white central core of light, like fireworks, bursting, and then bursting again, and then again. She clung to him, for if she had not she surely would have fallen off the edge of the earth just then. And for a long time it seemed as though they were both falling, falling together, limply, loosely, two parachutists, their cords intertangled, looking expectantly, confidently, for a soft place to land.

  There was a small spot of blood when it was over—she had been told that there might be—but there was no memory of any hurt. And never, ever would there be lovemaking for her like that first night with Skipper Purdy when the earth fell away.

  26

  Now it was Tuesday morning, and Coleman had just brought Alex’s breakfast tray out to her on the terrace at 10 Gracie Square where, on good days, she liked to have her morning toast and coffee in the wrought-iron gazebo. With her breakfast tray were customarily four daily papers, the Times, the Daily News, the Wall Street Journal, and Women’s Wear Daily. She was used to reading them in order—the Times first, for world news, then the Daily News, mostly to see what nonsense Mona Potter was reporting, the Wall Street Journal, which often had solid stories on the publishing business which, as usual, was in a state of uncertainty and change, and, finally, Women’s Wear, to see which Seventh Avenue designer Johnnie Fairchild was pushing or punishing at the moment. Women’s Wear wasn’t really about fashion. It was about the garment industry.

  She flipped quickly through the papers now. “Where’re the Times and the Journal?” she asked Coleman.

  Coleman’s look was anxious. “There’s an ad in both those papers this morning, Alex,” he said. “And you’re not going to like it.”

  “Well, let me see it, darlin’,” she said.

  “It’s an ad placed by Mr. Herbert Rothman,” he said.

  “Then by all means let me see it. Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?”

  “I just thought I should warn you.” He stepped back into the apartment, and returned with the newspapers, the Times opened to a centerfold in the Business section, and placed them beside her breakfast tray. She picked up her reading glasses, and he started to withdraw again.

  “No, stay,” she said, and he hovered solicitously beside her.

  In the illustration, a man’s hand extended from the upper corner of the righthand page, pouring from a bottle of champagne. From the lower corner of the lefthand page, a woman’s jeweled hand extended, holding a champagne glass into which the bubbly liquid flowed. Across both pages, in 72-point type, the headline proclaimed:

  CONGRATULATIONS, ALEXANDRA ROTHMAN!

  She set down her coffee cup quietly in its saucer, and read:

  Today, June 26, 1990, Alexandra Rothman begins her eighteenth year as editor-in-chief of Mode. Incredibly, she has occupied the top spot on Mode’s masthead longer than any other person in the magazine’s 116-year history! Not even the legendary Consuelo Ferlinghetti, Mode’s editor for fourteen years, was able to demonstrate such editorial longevity!

  When she came to Mode seventeen years ago yesterday, Alexandra was young … inexperienced … but with a boundless supply of fresh ideas … enthusiasm … zest … energy that only the young can have. Yet think how the world has changed since 1973! In 1973, the nation was just beginning to hear of a place called Watergate. And now nearly all the figures in that great scandal are dead!

  Seventeen years later, those ideas … that youthful enthusiasm … that energy have all paid off. She has made Mode more than just a fashion magazine. She made it a magazine for the finished woman. The proof: Over 5,000,000 in paid circulation.*

  But, wisely, Alexandra Rothman knows that a magazine can only stay young and fresh when there is a constant infusion of young and fresh ideas. To insure that this keeps happening, she has asked the youthful British fashion expert, FIONA FENTON, to join her next month as Mode’s very first co-editor-in-chief.

  So, congratulations, Alexandra, on a job well done, and may you enjoy a well-deserved rest! And hail to thee, blithe spirit, FIONA FENTON!

  HERBERT J. ROTHMAN

  President & Publisher

  Rothman Publications

  A division of

  Rothman Communications, Inc.

  *SOURCE: Audit Bureau of Circulations

  She put down the paper with a little sigh, and patted the ad with the flattened palm of her hand. “So,” she said, “Fiona Fenton is now my idea. Very clever, isn’t he, our little Herbert?”

  Coleman still looked worried.

  “It’s a war of nerves, darlin’,” she said. “He’s trying to force me to resign. But he ain’t about to, as we used to say back home—at least not on the terms he has in mind. But don’t worry, darlin’. I still have a few more arrows in my quiver, and I intend to use ’em. If he wants to get rid of me, it’s going to cost him. And a lot more than a double truck in the New York Times.”

  “And the Wall Street Journal.”

  “And the Journal.”

  “May I ask you one question, Alex?”

  “Sure.”

  “It’s none of my business, of course. But I know Mr. Herbert Rothman has always hated you. But—why?”

  She looked at him candidly. “Actually, there’re several reasons,” she said. “For one thing, he had another woman in mind for my job, but his father voted him down. But the real reason is that a number of years ago he made a pass at me, and in a particularly unpleasant way. I’m afraid I laughed in his face. He never forgave me for that. Hell hath no fury like a Rothman scorned.”

  “I guessed it might be something like that,” he said.

  “You guessed correctly.”

  “And now that his father is ill—”

  “Dying,” she said. “I’m afraid Ho Rothman may be dying, or that’s the way they’re making it sound.”

  He nodded. “—the son is mak
ing his big power play.”

  “Exactly.”

  But now the telephone was ringing, and Coleman moved across the terrace to answer it. Alex picked up her coffee cup, and discovered that her coffee was cold.

  Coleman returned with the telephone on its long cord. “Mr. McCulloch,” he said.

  “Good morning, Rodney,” she said brightly, after picking up the receiver.

  “Well, well, well!” he said. “Does this ad in the morning paper mean that you’re mine, all mine? Ha-ha-ha.”

  “I really haven’t had time to think about your proposal, Rodney,” she said. “After all, it’s been less than twenty-four—”

  “What? You mean you haven’t handed in your resignation letter yet? After being kissed off like that in the New York Times by the little ferret bastard?”

  “And in the Wall Street Journal.”

  “Damnedest piece of shit I ever read. I thought you’d of had your resignation letter sitting on the ferret’s desk by now.”

  “It’s quite clear that’s what he wants. But there are certain contractual problems that have to be worked out. My lawyers are working on it now.”

  “Well, build a fire under your lawyers’ asses. The more time you let a lawyer take, the bigger the bill they can run up on you. That’s what lawyers call it. Billable hours. I know all about them billable hours. Meanwhile, you coming by to see Maudie and me tonight?”

  “Yes. Six o’clock at the Lombardy.”

  “We want your absolute candy opinion about Maudie. Your completely candy opinion. We trust you, as a high priestess of fashion, to give us your totally candy opinion.…”

  Downtown, in his office at 530 Fifth Avenue, Lenny Liebling’s telephone was also ringing. Lenny lay on his back on the massage table, and Francisco, his young Ecuadorian masseur, who was working on his lower abdominal muscles and had noticed the bulge that was developing under the towel that lay across Lenny’s middle, had just asked politely, “Would you like me to bring you off, Mr. Liebling?” Lenny considered this while the phone rang. “I’d better take this call first, Francisco,” he said. His secretary had not yet arrived for the day.