Paolo called me often at home in Washington around midnight. He’d be in his kitchen office; I’d be in bed, with the phone cradled by my ear on the pillow. We didn’t talk about anything in particular, really; we talked around things, flirting. He’d gloat about good news. “The king of Spain was in tonight.” Or the celebrity customer would be Woody Allen or Johnny Depp, his personal favorite. Tim and Nina Zagat were at a table and swooned over the food. The Daily News was about to do a review and he’d heard it was good.
At my end of the line I’d whisper, “Well, I got the spotters’ report and only two of the bartenders are stealing and only one is seriously over-pouring. We got a $100,000 lawsuit from a woman who said she slipped on a butter pat and it ruined her sex life.”
PAOLO WAS AN elixir. One flash of his smile threw off enough positive energy to bolster several days of my war-torn life in Washington. I craved a romantic dinner for two. I wanted us to behave like normal people, the way I remembered these things. I wanted to dine with him, drink wine with him, eat and talk with him. Yes, I had a crush on him. I was infatuated.
We made a proper dinner date and he picked the restaurant, owned by a friend. Paolo picked me up in a taxi and we rode together to the restaurant just off of Central Park West. The maître d’ greeted Paolo warmly and led us to a corner table. It felt private. There was candlelight. A lovely tapestry hung on the wall behind us. We sat next to each other, nervous, both of us aware we had crossed a line. I’d brought no spreadsheets or P&Ls; this was no longer about two old friends talking shop. This was a romance, and Paolo was a man—strong, powerful, macho. He smiled and everything else in my head was vaporized.
“Champagne?” he asked.
“That would be lovely,” I said.
We had easy conversation over dinner and our hands stayed on the table with the flatware, the food, and the wineglasses. We did no touching, no fingers grazing hands or arms. Paolo ordered a bottle of Puligny-Montrachet. We talked about our pasts, our careers, marriage, life, and how we met. Over the course of our dinner the other customers left, the chef said good night, and the maître d’ pulled off his tie and followed the chef. By dessert it was only us and the candlelight; the sommelier and waiter kept a respectful distance.
Paolo looked at me but said nothing. He reached out with his hand and took mine and pulled it over to him and kissed my fingers. He kissed them slowly, one at a time.
I leaned close to him and said in a low voice, “You are my secret.”
He said, “You are my secret garden.” I pulled his hand close and placed the back of it against my right cheek and held it there as if it were a precious possession. My eyes met his and we sat like that until the waiter walked over. We collected ourselves and Paolo asked for the check.
“You are our guests,” the waiter said kindly. “There is no check.”
Alone again, Paolo took my hand in his and kissed the back of it and turned it over like a leaf and kissed my palm. The tip of his tongue played with the soft skin inside my wrist. I closed my eyes. My breath caught. The fingers of my other hand played with his hair and moved over the back of his head to the nape of his neck. I tried with my touch to give him the same pleasure he gave me.
The waiter shuffled in the distance, snapping us back to reality. I picked up my small clutch and sweater. Paolo had no jacket. He wore a striped long-sleeved shirt of soft cotton. His cuffs were rolled up to just below his elbows. He looked good. We looked good together.
We walked along West Sixty-First Street toward Central Park, his arm around my shoulder and my arm around his waist. The air was balmy. The streets, even Central Park West, were quiet. It was almost one o’clock in the morning. “Let’s walk a bit,” I said. Under a streetlight, he stopped and turned and took me in his arms. I moved closer toward him, at first tentatively and then eagerly until my face was buried deep in the warmth of his neck.
He pulled back enough to put his hand under my chin to lift my face toward his. He kissed me, at first softly and then more urgently. He stopped and started, his lips softly pressed against mine, and then hard and harder, for what felt like many minutes. Paolo pulled back, his arms still tight around me. “We’ve got to get a cab,” he said. Entwined, we hobbled to the street. A cab pulled up. Paolo opened the door and continued to kiss me. We climbed in, kissing. He came up for air only long enough to speak to the driver—“across the park”—and then he dove back into me. The windows of the cab, all of them, were open to the soft June air, and it buffeted us as we flew through the park, jostled by the cab and the bumps in the road, adjusting our kiss to the motion.
Paolo stopped. “We are not going to become lovers,” he said.
“Yes,” I said. “I know that. You’re married and I’m not ready. Nothing more will happen.”
“We are only kissing,” he said.
“Yes, only that,” I said. We flew back into each other’s arms and kissed again. His hand ran along my back and down my thigh and across my tummy to my breast. I cupped his face in my hands and kissed his eyes and nose and lips. When the cab stopped at a light at Seventy-Ninth and Fifth, I gasped, “Let’s get out and walk. I have to get some air.”
We walked half a block before he grabbed me and embraced me and kissed me again. We stopped in front of an apartment building. He kissed me so vigorously that one of my earrings flew off and rolled across the sidewalk before it went down a grate. “These earrings were a gift from Howard,” I said. “I think he just sent us a message.”
“I hope it was approval,” he said. Doubtful.
We walked along Fifth Avenue, the only people on the street. I walked backward with my arms around his neck, looking him in the face, exchanging more kisses. He pulled me closer and stopped us in our tracks and kissed me again. He held me so close our bodies were practically welded. He kissed my neck and my ears and my mouth. I was limp and warm and flushed.
At the entrance of the Carlyle we decided we should part right there, but each time he walked away he turned back and kissed me again. “Let’s get away from the hotel cameras,” he said, and pulled me into the shadows just beyond the entrance. He kissed me again.
“I must go now,” he said. “It’s late.”
“So, go,” I said.
He kissed me again. “I guess this was dessert,” I said, nibbling at his neck.
“The chef’s special,” he said. “I must go,” he said again.
“Go,” I replied. He wrapped his arms around me, pulled back, kissed my eyes and my nose and my lips. “You have no idea how wonderful this is for me,” I said.
“For me, too,” he said, holding me tightly next to him.
“Let’s not wake up in the morning and regret this,” I said.
“We won’t,” he said, kissing my neck.
Before we parted we inhaled each other and pulled the scent up into our heads for safekeeping. And then all I saw was the back of him. He was gone, walking toward Park Avenue to hail a cab.
THE NEXT MORNING, swooning in my hotel bed, a smile pasted on my face, I called a girlfriend to tell her what had happened. I was in that goofy, heady, crazy state of mind that comes with a crush.
She would have none of it. She gave me only tough love, especially when I told her I wanted to call him.
“You can’t call him! He can’t call you! You can’t go to his restaurant! You can’t have anything to do with him. You made out with him. He’s married. You can’t have a relationship with him. You just have to back away!”
I knew she was right. I was being selfish, but for a moment I felt whole again. I had been kissed. I was a widow who got her first kiss.
Chapter 15
MY DAYS WERE an organized, well-oiled machine—with chaos lurking just beneath the surface. I zoomed here and here, and there and there. I timed everything. In my new world there was no wiggle room, no time for a delay, a backup in traffic, a meeting that ran over, or surprises. The real world had another plan. It worked on its own time, and inevitably a cris
is would strike like a bolt of lightning.
This day began normally enough for mid-July. Searing heat by seven-thirty, too hot to run. A walk to the bagel shop and Starbucks and back home. A shower, then walk Spencer up the hill to his day camp. He was particularly talkative that morning. He was still chattering when I kissed him good-bye and left him at camp. I was in no rush. I would take my time walking down the hill to Nathans. My plan, though begrudgingly, was to give the day to Nathans, to be there, to roll up my sleeves and learn some actual restaurant skills. The morning may have been hot, but it was also quiet and peaceful. It was too good to last. Sometime after nine my cell rang. Wendy Walker was on the line. “Versace’s been shot! Murdered! In Miami.”
My jaw dropped.
“Get on it, Carol,” she said. “We need it for the show tonight.”
The fashion elite were still my beat, and this would be my story. As awful as it sounds, I needed a big breaking story like this to prove my value to the show. Journalism thrives on the misfortunes of others. As I walked I began making calls to the design houses of Valentino, Chanel, and Donna Karan, to reps for models such as Naomi Campbell and Cindy Crawford, and to New York PR people such as Susan Magrino and Paul Wilmot. A bee stung me on the toe, making me hop in pain, but still I juggled the phone. I got to Nathans, made my “good mornings” all around, and jumped on the phone at my desk in the basement, my toe still burning.
Wendy called again. “Carol, I think I’m just going to have them work on the show from here. I can’t have you there and my not being able to control what you’re doing. This is just too big. I have too much pressure on me. Tom [Johnson, the head of CNN] was just on the phone with me and I have to deliver. I just can’t take the chance.” She paused for a breath. “I hope you’ll understand. You’d feel the same way about Nathans. You have too much to do there. You can’t possibly give this the time it needs.”
I said, “Wendy, I understand and I’ll do what you want but I wish you would just give me a try. I can do it. I’m working on nothing else. I’m here. That’s what matters at this end. Besides, this isn’t any different from any of the other shows I’ve worked on from out of the office.”
“Carol, this is a big breaking story,” she said.
“I know. I know. But just give me a chance. Let’s see if I can do it. If it gets over my head I’ll be the first one to pull out. Why don’t we wait till lunchtime to see where I am? I’ve already put out a lot of calls. I’ve been doing nothing else.” She gave me until noon. I hung up, desperate, but also resenting that I was stuck at Nathans, where I least wanted to be, rather than at CNN with my colleagues, doing the job I loved. The business I owned felt like a cancer eating away at my career and there was nothing I could do to fight it. All I could do was try to juggle both.
The calls I’d put out there were rolling back in. Sometimes I was fielding so many calls that all three lines into Nathans were on hold and I was on my cell. Deliverymen came into the office, waiting for me to sign off on crates of fresh fish, cases of beer, and slabs of beef while I haggled over Naomi Campbell and Cindy Crawford.
“I know Naomi can’t stop crying, but that will be okay for us,” I pleaded into the phone while one of the delivery guys waited for his check. He gave me a strange look. An architect was standing at my desk, waiting to survey the upstairs. Doug was waiting for me to look over the newly reworked menu. I was juggling calls and taking notes. “Okay. Maybe Naomi can stop crying long enough to do a ten-minute interview with Larry? That’s all we need. No? You don’t think so? Okay. If she changes her mind, we want her.”
Sylvester Stallone, Demi Moore, and Madonna said no. More pleading with Wendy. She extended my deadline. A wine salesman showed up with some of his top wines for me to try. I’d forgotten I’d made a lunch appointment with him.
Wendy was getting more nervous because the big designers—Calvin Klein, Valentino, Donna Karan, Isaac Mizrahi, as well as a half dozen big stars—looked like they were no-gos. I was sitting with the wine salesman at a table in the bar. He’d brought a vintage Oregon pinot noir and two rare rosé champagnes. Some of the summer college-student staff gathered around while he showed them how to uncork a bottle of champagne properly. When he got to the part about the importance of keeping a thumb on the cork so the cork won’t fly out, saying “that happens about one in a thousand times,” the cork shot out with a loud bang. It caromed from the ceiling to the floor to the bar and every man sitting there ducked. I laughed out loud. The salesman did, too.
Wendy called. I pleaded for time. “I’m waiting for a big call. I think I’ll have it soon.”
“Okay, Carol,” Wendy said, “but that’s it.” I knew this time it really was “it.”
A waitress approached the table. A call from Paris was holding for me. It was the Chanel rep, with whom I had a good relationship. Karl Lagerfeld would do the show via satellite. Jackpot! I called Wendy, who was ecstatic. “That’s huge, Carol!” she said. “Wow! You did it.”
I beamed. I needed this booking to prove my worth, to stay in the game. I returned to the table and said to the salesman, “Well, I get to keep my job for another day.” He had no idea what I was talking about.
IN THE MIDDLE of all this, Miriam Fisher called. She needed me to pull more numbers together and went through a list of issues that were coming up in the week ahead, such as the final tally of my total debt and a meeting she had scheduled with Deborah Martin at the IRS. “Deborah’s very relaxed, so far,” she said. I chose to interpret that as a good sign.
A friend had suggested I stash away some money for Spencer and me—just in case. He suggested offshore accounts. I ran this idea by Miriam. She put the kibosh on that. “In light of your debt and the circumstances,” she said, in her most serious, lawyerly voice, “the government would charge you with fraud.”
So much for that dumb idea. “Okay, Miriam,” I said, “I’ll get the numbers for you.”
Chapter 16
LATER IN JULY Martha invited us to join her, Vijay, and Zal, at a summer rental on Chappaquiddick Island. I immediately said “yes.” Spencer and I packed our bathing suits and sandals and headed for Martha’s Vineyard. The “Casa Kumar” turned out to be an old fisherman’s camp. We drove to the end of a long dirt road, took a treacherous drive along a lumpy beach, and followed one more dirt drive to the house, which sat at the water’s edge. It was stripped down and ramshackle in a poetic seaside way, and we loved it. Meals were shared at a big table in the window-filled kitchen. We all cleaned up together. Spencer and I shared a room, but bedrooms were really just bunk areas divided by partitions. At night we could all talk to one another across them. The windows were open, the breezes blowing through.
In the mornings Spencer would don some goggles and grab his plastic bucket; I would slather him with sunblock, and off we’d go in search of what he called “nature.” The water was knee deep for him. We stopped every few feet as he reached down for a rock or a shell. Sometimes when something he was after would suddenly move, he’d jump into my arms. “Mom, are there sea monsters up here?”
“No, honey, don’t worry. Maybe some crabs and fish, but no monsters.”
At Chappaquiddick, Spencer’s world expanded beyond just our usual twosome. Sometimes he’d go off on a hike with his much older cousin, which, as he told me, made him feel “all grown up.” As a family we cooked and ate lobsters. We played games, sat at the table, and talked. We listened to music and danced on the beach. Spencer put his little feet on the tops of mine and I waltzed him in the sand. It was altogether lovely. The mosquitoes, of which there were many, couldn’t spoil that.
At night before his bedtime Spencer and I would sit outside and look for the brightest stars. I put my arm around him and we’d snuggle.
“Mommy, is Daddy up there or is he here?”
“What do you mean, sweetie?”
“Well, you said he’s watching over me all the time but he’s a spirit. I just wondered if he was up there on a star or down he
re with us.”
“Where would you like him to be?”
“Here with us.”
“That’s where he is.”
“Good.”
Spencer’s childish interpretation of death was endearing, a balance to my own acceptance of the hard reality: Howard was completely gone. He was a life form that had vanished. I had no idea when Spencer would come to terms with that view. Over time he did, but for the longest time he looked up and believed his daddy was there, in heaven, keeping an eye on things. Who would want to rob a child of that hopeful notion?
MY FATHER WAS seventy-nine years old and in failing health. He suffered from diabetes and Parkinson’s disease. When my brother David called to say Dad had been admitted to the hospital with a heart problem, Spencer and I raced to his bedside in rural Virginia. My other brother, Robert, who lived near my father, was there when we arrived. David had made it sound like the bell was tolling but when we arrived the doctors said that while Dad was in rough shape, it was not his time. I treasured my visit and gave him loving assurances and kisses, but afterward I told Robert, “You and David have to handle this. I’m tapped out. I can come see him, I can spend time with him, but I can’t handle the heavy stuff. There’s no more of me left to pass around.” And there wasn’t. He died within the year and was buried with full honors at Arlington National Cemetery, where I read the eulogy. Spencer and I, with my brothers, walked behind the horse-drawn caisson to his grave.
While seeing his grandfather was fun for Spencer, seeing him in a hospital brought up too many memories of his father. As we walked out into the fine summer day I asked, “Would you like to hike a mountain stream?” The hospital’s location was close to the Blue Ridge Mountains. It was a weekend. We had time. Spencer beamed.
We drove up, up, and up a twisting mountain road in the Shenandoah National Park and parked near a familiar trail. I’d been there years before and recalled it as tame enough for urban folk. We looked for “nature” and right away we found it in the form of a snake. It was gray with white stripes and we decided it had to be poisonous. “Mommy, you’re not the one who knows how to kill snakes. That’s Daddy, and he’s not here. We shouldn’t be around a snake without Daddy.” He pulled me away.
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