Innocent Spouse

by Carol Ross Joynt

  The Iraq Mission to the United Nations was housed in an elegant townhouse on the Upper East Side off Park Avenue. Outside, some police officers and a few reporters were staked out. The reporters were curious to know what Larry was up to. “Hey boys,” he greeted them. “Just a little meeting. Nothing else.”

  We met in a large upstairs space that was probably once a ballroom. The Iraqis had furnished it sparsely with a silk sofa and chairs near a large fireplace. The meeting was a formality. We knew Aziz would do the interview. “But you won’t get Richardson to appear with me,” he said. “He won’t have the guts.”

  The Iraqis pulled cameras from their pockets and politely asked Larry to stand with various officials while I took their pictures. The Iraqis wore expensive tailored suits. Larry wore a windbreaker.

  I had a solid, friendly, and professional relationship with Larry, and we had plenty of time alone together. We talked a lot. Sometimes on assignments like this I thought of bringing up my struggles at the office. But I didn’t. Larry was the star, not the manager. Nothing would be gained. He’d likely say, “I’ll talk to Wendy,” and mean it, but he couldn’t change the complications or untie the knots. The only certain result would be a divide between us, and I didn’t want that.

  Later, back at the hotel, I worked out arrangements with Richardson’s staff. Aziz was right; Richardson would not appear with him on the set, but he would go on solo. The public information officer at the U.S. Mission said, “We don’t even want to pass him in the hallway, because if we do he will put out his hand to shake Richardson’s, and Richardson will not shake his hand.”

  That night we performed an elaborate hallway choreography, which kept Aziz out of Richardson’s sight. Richardson and his people were stationed in one room, Aziz and his people in another, and we posted staff in the hallway to make sure the two men did not come face-to-face in makeup or the men’s room. I poked my head in each room just before air. In Richardson’s room he and his entourage were stiff, tight-lipped, and tense. In the Aziz holding room the men seemed to be having fun—laughing, smoking cigarettes, talking trash, and making plans for the night. Richardson, who went on at the top of the show, was hustled out of the studio and through the CNN newsroom to the elevators; seconds later Aziz was hustled out of his room, through the newsroom, and into the studio. This maneuver had to be polite and deft and completed within a commercial break. It was dicey but we did it.

  When the broadcast was over, the Iraqis said they were off to dinner.

  “Where?” I asked.

  “Harry Cipriani,” said Aziz, adding that it was his favorite place in New York.

  “Well, that’s right in the middle of the action,” I said. I wondered what would happen if Richardson walked into the same restaurant. Would the maître d’ at Cipriani have to conduct the dance of the diplomats we had just performed or was that posturing reserved for the media only? Later, as my cab passed by Cipriani, I saw the Iraqis’ limousines parked outside. Inside, I’m sure, they were enjoying good wine and pasta and probably didn’t fuss much about the policies of the U.S. government. That would come later.

  My mind was on something else. I was off to a dinner date with Keith Hernandez, who still called faithfully late at night to ask what I was wearing to bed. Even if I was in something skimpy, I’d say, “flannels and a sweatshirt.” He was fast and furious to my slow and uncertain. We met at an uptown French restaurant, a corner table. He was movie-star handsome, flirtatious, and playful. He asked to wear some of my lipstick, had me apply it, tried to kiss me with it on, nibbled at my ear, and got his hands all over me like a tickle monkey. When the check arrived he paid it and declared, “Let’s go to Elaine’s.” I was up for that. Elaine’s is legendary, and I had happy memories of visits there dating back to my first weeks in New York in the ’70s. In the cab Keith put his arm around me and moved in for a kiss. When I demurred he pulled back.

  “Tell me something, are we going to have sex tonight?” he asked matter-of-factly. Oh, it was tempting, but I had nowhere near the self-confidence to play in his league. Keith had come along about a year too soon in this widow’s romantic reawakening.

  “No, no, I don’t think so. But can’t we still enjoy the evening?”

  Elaine’s was packed. We stopped to say hello to the Yankees’ Derek Jeter and his posse of friends before joining the table one over, a group that included owner Elaine Kaufman, the actor Chris Noth, and his date. Elaine lit up when Keith took the chair next to hers. “Carol owns a bar in Washington,” he announced as my introduction. Elaine acknowledged the information but couldn’t have cared less. I didn’t blame her. “She also produces Larry King.” That got her interested.

  I watched Elaine be Elaine. I swear she had eyes in the front, back, and both sides of her head, and they focused on everything from the front door to the back door to the bartender and waiters to the famous faces at a long row of tables. She watched them come and go and smile and frown, all the while jumping in and out of the chatter at our table. She was everything a restaurateur should be. I admired her but knew her skills were unique and instinctive, and that I was not Elaine.

  KEITH WAS AFFECTIONATE and attentive, but it was late and I was tired. It had been a long day and I had an early breakfast meeting. When I whispered that I planned to head back to the hotel he nodded and pulled me close. “Would it be okay with you if I just put you in a cab and didn’t take you back to the hotel myself?”

  “Sure.” I was relieved. “No problem,” I whispered in his ear. “After all, if you’re not going to get laid you might as well get drunk, right?”

  He pulled back and looked at me. There was a long pause, and then he burst into laughter and gave me a good night kiss. Like a gentleman, he helped me into the cab, handed some money to the driver, and blew me one more kiss as I sped away.

  Paolo and I talked on the phone, but we didn’t see each other that trip. He was busy; I was busy. It was okay with me. In the morning when I checked out there was a bag waiting for me at the reception desk. In it were pastries and cookies and a card signed “XXX OOO P.”

  Chapter 29

  I DIDN’T GO to college or to business school. Newsrooms, TV studios, and the stories I covered were my college education, and Nathans was my business school. The lessons I learned about business turned my natural instincts upside down. What I loved about the world around me became threats that could keep customers away from Nathans. Long summer days meant people didn’t start drinking till sunset; a beautiful snow or rainstorm may have fed nature, but they didn’t feed me. People stayed home; they weren’t at Nathans. The beach, the mountains, a swimming pool, a tennis court, a congressional recess—all took money from my pocket. And I haven’t even gotten to the Weber grill. The primary lesson I learned about business, though, was that it was normal life, minus the humanity.

  In business school, I imagine, learning how to fire an employee is equivalent to that moment in medical school when a student first cuts into a cadaver. You just take a deep breath and do it, but the fact that it’s a person who has a life, a career, and perhaps a family, too, has to be set aside. In my television career I had been a boss. At USA Today: The Television Show, I put together the Washington bureau and ran it. I felt I was a good boss—effective, organized, able to communicate, and compassionate. But I never had to fire anyone. I was a producer at CBS News during the bloodbath of the 1980s when Laurence Tisch bought the company and downsized radically. The firings were brutal. Friends were let go in the morning and had to have their desks cleaned out by the end of the day. Security guards were on call to escort them out the door.

  There was no question I wanted Doug Moran out of Nathans. Yes, for me it was emotional, but it was also business. For whatever reasons, he seemed to resent me. He didn’t want to work with me, he sometimes actively worked against me, and he mocked and insulted me. If he hadn’t been so handsomely paid—$100,000 a year, with perks—he probably would have quit. But why would anybody quit a paycheck l
ike that, especially with the leverage he conceivably had? My lawyers worried about what he might know about Howard’s activities that the IRS might like to know, too. But once Sheldon Cohen and Miriam Fisher submitted my defense to the IRS, Doug lost some of that leverage. When Dimitri Mallios told Jake Stein and me that the landlords didn’t care if I fired Doug, indicating they weren’t going to give him the lease, his leverage disappeared altogether.

  Nonetheless, firing him troubled me. He was a married man with a family, and his wife had recently lost her job. We were coming up on Thanksgiving. These factors weighed me down and fueled my guilt. But then Connie the bookkeeper sat me down. “If you had cancer would you keep it there? Wouldn’t you cut it out? Would you care what kind of day the cancer was having? No. Most restaurant owners would have fired him months ago. You had your reasons, but still. You’re the boss of fifty-five people, and it’s time for one of them to go. Besides, you’ve got Vito waiting in the wings.”

  I phoned the various lawyers to tell them I was about to fire Doug Moran. No one tried to stop me. My research and everyone I talked to recommended the same procedure: Do it off premises, don’t let him back in the office, have all his personal items boxed for delivery, and immediately change all the locks. Jake Stein offered one of his conference rooms for the deed. I took it.

  Miriam Fisher said, “If he starts to argue with you, don’t respond. Just let him talk. Let him say whatever he wants but no matter how mad it makes you, just let him talk. If you have to say anything simply acknowledge that he has a right to his opinion. But don’t let it go on too long. Keep the meeting short.”

  THAT MONDAY MORNING I stood outside with Spencer to wait for his school bus. He played with his new Giga Pet, a small plastic toy that was all the rage in 1997. Shaped like an egg, it had a small screen that displayed a moving image like an ink drawing. At the beginning, the image was a tiny fuzz ball, then the fuzz ball matured into a baby bird. The child pushed buttons to tend to its needs. One button fed it, another button cleaned it up, another played with it, and yet another determined the pet’s mood. When it wanted attention, the plastic egg made an annoying chirping noise that was hard to ignore. If not tended to properly, the pet “died” right there on the screen. I’d bought it for Spencer on Saturday. He’d fed it, played with it, and kept it alive through the weekend. Monday morning the image on the screen was a happy baby bird.

  When the bus arrived Spencer hiked up his backpack and placed the egg in my hand. “What’s this for?” I asked.

  “Mom, we’re not allowed to take them to school. You have to take care of it for me, okay? Don’t let it die! Please!”

  “Spencer,” I gasped. “What do I do?”

  “Mom!” he said, looking back at me as he climbed into the bus. “It’s fine. I’ve fed it and cleaned it and played with it. Just don’t let it die!” The bus driver smiled at me as if to say I wasn’t the first parent left standing at the bus stop with a Giga Pet in hand. Spencer disappeared into the bus, the door shut, and off it went. I looked down at the Giga Pet, which was momentarily quiet. I looked at the screen. It was an electronic drawing of the little bird. I smiled. The bird smiled back. When I got dressed for the day I tossed the Giga Pet into my own backpack.

  Doug and I were scheduled to meet at ten a.m. in Jake Stein’s office. When I called to set the appointment, he didn’t ask any questions, just said, “Okay, I’ll see you there.”

  Miriam advised me not to go alone. “Take someone. You need a witness to what goes on.”

  I picked up Connie outside Nathans. “I’m so nervous about this,” I said as I navigated rush-hour traffic. She wore a bright turquoise dress that set off the brilliance of her platinum hair. “What if he starts yelling at me? What if he refuses to be fired?”

  “Do you want me to do anything to help you, anything at all?” she asked.

  “No.” The traffic was terrible. “No. But thank you. Just sit there. Be my witness. Give me strength.”

  When we walked off the elevator into Jake’s lobby, the receptionist said, “Mr. Moran is in the conference room.” To shore up my courage I recalled what Doug had done and said to me in the last months. I remembered him disparaging Howard, demanding a partnership, and reminding me over and over that I wasn’t qualified to run the place. The day Jake called to tell me Doug was trying to get the landlords to give him the lease—that memory gave me resolve.

  The conference room was small, standard law-office décor: a polished rectangular table and six black leather chairs—one at each end and two on the sides—and a few nice but unexceptional prints on the walls. Doug had taken the seat at the head of the table. He wore a sport coat and tie. I sat on one side of him and Connie sat on the other. I put my small black backpack on the floor behind me. We all shook hands and gave one another tight little smiles. The atmosphere was tense. Doug and Connie both looked at me, waiting for me to speak.

  I took a deep breath. “Thank you for coming, Doug. You’ve worked for Howard for a long time and for me for almost ten months,” I said, looking directly at him. His eyes were cold. “Howard had his Nathans team, and now it’s time for me to form mine. For that reason I’m going to let you go, terminate your employment, effective immediately. You will continue to be paid for another month while you look for a new job. You’ll have health benefits during that time, too. You’ll have to return your parking pass. Everything that’s personal from your desk has been put in a box and will be delivered to your home.”

  The room was hushed. Doug stared at me with contempt in his eyes. Finally, he said, “I thought this might happen. I saw it coming.” I gave him my full attention but said nothing. “You can’t run the place by yourself,” he said. “You don’t know what to do. You’ll run it into the ground.” My face was fixed in an expression of serious attentiveness, Connie’s the same. When Doug stopped speaking, the room became as quiet as a vault.

  From my bag on the floor came a birdlike sound. “Chirp-chirp,” and again, “Chirp-chirp.” And then again and again. I looked at Connie, she looked at me, and Doug looked at both of us. I looked at him and nodded. “Continue.”

  “Chirp-chirp.”

  “You have some skills,” Doug said. “You think you know what you’re doing, but you don’t. You’ll be closed in a year.”

  “Chirp-chirp.” I suddenly realized the sound was coming from the backpack at my feet. The damned egg was hungry or constipated or bored or something. It wouldn’t stop bleeping.

  I continued to look at him, my face expressionless but resolute. He continued to talk. Slowly his demeanor began to change. Before my eyes he went from strong and angry to vulnerable and weak. I could see it in his eyes. Reality hit him. He’d been fired.

  “You’ll go under. You’ll see.”

  I couldn’t tell him this, but I was afraid he might be right. I was in over my head and I knew it.

  “Well, Doug, you have a right to your opinion. That is all I have to say. I have to go. I wish you well.”

  “Chirp-chirp.”

  I grabbed my bag, nodded to Connie, and we left the room.

  Connie and I remained silent in the lobby as we waited for the elevator. I bit my lips while rummaging in my backpack for the damned Giga Pet. When we finally got in the elevator and the doors were safely closed, I shrieked and slumped. “Oh my God, we did it!”

  “What was that incessant noise?” Connie asked. “A pager?”

  “This,” I said, pulling the yellow plastic egg out of my pack. “It’s Spencer’s Giga Pet.” Connie looked perplexed.

  “Don’t ask,” I replied with a groan. I looked down at the egg. There was the little black bird, frowning. I held it up for Connie. “I think it wants to play,” I said. “At least it’s not dying.” I pushed some buttons on the side of the egg. The bird calmed down, smiled, and returned to sleep. I slipped it back in my bag. “That was awful,” I said. “I couldn’t believe that was happening. Right in the middle of firing the poor guy. Oh, God.”


  “How do you feel?” Connie asked.

  I sighed. “Scared. Adrenaline overload. Sad. So many things.”

  “What about Vito?” she asked.

  “He’ll be on the job tomorrow,” I said. “Bob can take care of anything that comes up today. I want to tell the staff about Doug myself and prepare them for Vito before he just shows up.”

  We walked out of the building onto bustling Connecticut Avenue. An early winter chill was in the air. It was blustery. The holiday season would begin soon. I buttoned my coat and put on my gloves. “I can’t believe I fired someone—and just before Thanksgiving, too.”

  “You did what you had to do. And you did well. You did it right.” Connie paused and looked directly at me. “If the tables were turned he would have done it to you months ago.”

  I HAD ONE more trip to New York before Thanksgiving. Spencer came with me to take in the holiday sights and smells. For better or worse it was a chance for me to spoil him a little. He celebrated his sixth birthday in Washington with a party at Nathans and now we had several days just for us. For all the good times I had in New York with friends, colleagues, or Paolo, the best times were with Spencer. Publicist Jeffrey Schneider, someone I’d met through work but who had become a friend, met up with us to watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Afterward, Spencer and I got together with Martha, Vijay, and cousin Zal at the home of family friends who lived on Gramercy Park. We enjoyed the Thanksgiving feast with a warm crowd of people. We caught a Broadway musical, studied the amazing holiday windows along Madison and Fifth avenues, wandered in and out of grand hotel lobbies such as the Plaza and the Waldorf, and stood beside the pushcarts to smell the sweet scent of roasting chestnuts. One new Lego set from FAO Schwarz could keep Spencer entertained through lunch or dinner in a new restaurant I was eager to check out—just the two of us. I was grateful to the Carlyle. After all the money Howard and I had funneled their way for years, and now on my own through CNN and Larry King Live, they gave me a sharply discounted rate and upgraded us to a suite. Spencer loved running from room to room, almost as much as he loved exploring every square inch of the Museum of Natural History.