Fairy Tale Interrupted (8 page)

Cliques quickly formed, and there were two or three who perceived themselves as “serious journalists.” They overdid the “we don’t care what John says” thing. They took any opportunity to drive home the idea that they were at
George
to do the important stories and not to work for JFK Jr. In reality, everyone wanted to impress John. In that bizarre version of high school, he was the ultimate homecoming king.

They all competed for time with him. In fact, lunch became a real problem as the magazine evolved. If one editor had lunch with John alone, then another would come up to me—the paranoia and jealousy palpable—and say, “Why was
he
at
lunch with John?” Always the peacekeeper, John made an effort to eat with each editor, so that all would feel important. It got so out of control that at one point he was going to lunch with each of them once a week (until I, the hall monitor, put my foot down).

In the three months leading up to the publication of the first issue, there was not a day off to be had. Everyone bitched and moaned about how late we were working—still, people didn’t go home. We bonded over working at a magazine everyone was talking about. For the first time, those editors weren’t just covering the news; they were making it. With all that newfound attention, actually getting the magazine out seemed secondary.

I was as guilty as the rest of the staff of getting swept up in the hype. I stayed late and came in on the weekends when it wasn’t totally necessary. It wasn’t like John’s mail needed opening on a Sunday, but I didn’t want to miss anything. Though I didn’t know the difference between a managing and an executive editor, I was just as excited as anybody else about putting a new magazine on the racks. I loved the frantic highs and lows of the deadlines, the cynical banter between writers, and the debates about politics.

I loved being involved . . . until I realized I wasn’t a member of the club. At first, I ignored hints from some of the staff, like the incredulous looks when I mentioned that I was a fan of the
New York Times
writer Frank Rich or that I had gone to college. I didn’t see myself the way they saw me: as an unsophisticated assistant from the outer boroughs. John’s secretary. A dumb girl with a Bronx accent. No one worth knowing.

I clearly didn’t fit into their “George Plimpton at Elaine’s” vision of magazine publishing, where men with Upper East Side
addresses drank like tough guys and spent like heiresses while talking over the “important” stories. When they went out, it had to be to someplace where Hemingway took his last drink or Tom Wolfe first donned the white suit. And of course, at first I was not included. (“Well, if I were you, I certainly wouldn’t go,” a female editor who was part of their group said to me after I inquired about another editor’s birthday-drinks outing. “He was
very
specific about who he invited.”) That one particularly stung because the editor having the birthday was one I had a huge crush on—and he knew it.

Once, when most of the editorial staff was out of the office at a group lunch, John returned from a meeting to find me at my desk.

“Oh, you didn’t have to wait for me to get back,” he said. “You could have gone to lunch with everybody else.”

“I wasn’t invited,” I said quickly.

“What? Why?”

“They never invite me.”

I could tell John was annoyed. He didn’t tolerate people being slighted. “Come on, we’re going to lunch,” he said.

He took me to the place where the rest of the staff was eating, and we sat three tables away, laughing and gossiping. I didn’t need to look over at their table to know they got the message.

No lunch was going to change the fact that a few of the editors perceived me as a caricature of myself. They put on airs to hype what they perceived to be the mythic image of a magazine editor.

Their pretensions would have been funny if their assumptions about me didn’t hurt so much. At any moment, someone could
cut me down by reminding me where I came from. Especially if he felt threatened.

Once, an editor asked me to put a breakfast with him, John, and the head of PBS into John’s calendar.

“Does he know about it?” I asked.

“Don’t worry. It’s fine,” the editor said in a patronizing tone.

Keeping John’s appointment book was tough. I had to be diligent, because people were always trying to sneak their personal agendas into John’s calendar. He could barely even accomplish all his tasks for the magazine, let alone cater to everyone else’s needs. Of course, when I ran the PBS breakfast by John, it wasn’t okay with him.

I broke the bad news to the editor, perhaps with a little more enjoyment than I should have.

“Oh, that breakfast? I checked it with John, and he’s not going,” I said.

He gave me a snide look and said, “Do you even know what PBS is?”

I became more self-conscious, and because of that, I tried to hide my ignorance, not only of the magazine production process but also of current events. And frankly, there was a lot I didn’t know. Books, politicians, artists—a whole world of culture opened up around me. But I refused to give those editors the satisfaction of letting on that I was out of my depth.

Although I didn’t want the staff to think I was stupid, I absolutely didn’t mind if they thought I was tough. I played the part of the Bronx badass, amping up my foul-mouthed persona with eye rolls and a fuckload of expletives (even though I never swore growing up: an F-bomb out of my mouth would have merited a swat to the head). I wanted them to be a little scared
of me, but I also did it for John, who loved my Bronxy facade. When I strung together four or five curse words by way of an answer, he found the sassy street attitude charming.

John, in return, was my Henry Higgins. He was the one I asked about books and politicians I was unfamiliar with, and he never made me feel stupid. Not even once. He wasn’t going to judge. (He himself got creamed in the press for failing the bar twice.) John was also a champion of trying to better oneself. “Rosie, you’re savvy for asking the question,” he’d tell me.

Everyone else on staff was like a satellite in orbit, moving in and out of my focus depending on his position in relation to John. I did make friends at the magazine, and many of those friendships still stand, but at the time I wondered whether people actually wanted to be my friend or just wanted to get close to John.
He
was the one to point that out—about members of his own staff: “You have to be careful of people who are vying for your friendship because of your proximity to me, Rosie.”

That their motives were clear to John made the circumstances even more upsetting, because he didn’t look for pettiness. So if it was obvious to him, it was obvious to everyone else, too—except for me. I didn’t recognize the games people played because I didn’t want to. My desire to be part of the group trumped my judgment, and I overlooked insincerity. Once John made me face the plain truth, I realized I needed to make a decision: Did I want to be popular, or do a good job? Choosing the latter, I became
a lot
more careful about what I said and to whom I said it. Of course, that pissed people off, but it was clear to John where my allegiance lay, and from that point forward he gave me more responsibility.

I gained access to information about the magazine—who
was going to be on the cover, or who was about to be fired—before the editors did. And in publishing, information is king. For those reasons, I was more relevant than an ordinary secretary, and yet I felt I could never live down my title.

The only person other than John who understood me was Matt Berman, who coincidentally had the same last name as Michael. We were an unlikely pair: the creative director with sophisticated taste in everything from film to furniture and the smartass assistant who thought of posters as art. But we shared a deep love of poking fun at people and often practiced our best imitations over dinner or drinks. As our friendship developed, some people at work could not believe he actually liked me as a person. “Everyone knows why you hang out with Rose,” a coworker once said to him. “It’s only because she’s John’s assistant and you want the inside info.”

But I wasn’t always on the inside. One day late in the summer of 1995, I was on the phone with Frank (he was partying too hard and needed a “come to Jesus” moment), when the conference room door burst open and everyone piled out laughing and talking loudly. When John gathered the staff in the conference room for editorial meetings, the office grew quiet, and my desk, where it was normally as easy to concentrate as in Grand Central Station, became a hushed Zen sanctuary. I used those infrequent and fleeting moments to tackle projects that required more thought than did booking a table for lunch or—shocker!—to make a private phone call.

“What’s going on over there?” a groggy Frank asked.

“I gotta go,” I said. “I’ll see you tonight. Don’t be late.”

Now that the peace and quiet was over, I hung up the phone and stood to check out the scene: the editors were buzzing
around John, which was totally normal, but they were all looking down at something in his hands that I couldn’t see and saying over and over how great it was. The level of enthusiasm was highly unusual. And John led the charge. I had to find out what was going on.

As soon as the excitement died down, I popped into John’s office.

“Jesus, what’s going on? Did you hand out pictures of yourself to the whole staff?” I joked.

John looked up, smiling, with an expression on his face that I hadn’t seen before. Happiness mixed with pride.

“Ha-ha, very funny,” he said in a mock sarcastic tone. “I don’t know if you know what it is that we do around here all day, but we’re actually putting out a magazine. And here’s our first copy.”

As he waved the thick, glossy issue in the air, my heart sank. He and Michael had called everyone in to look at the first issue—except me. Staring at the cover girl, a bewigged Cindy Crawford dressed as George Washington, with exposed abs that would have made the first president blush, my throat tightened. I wanted to share in his excitement, and I
was
excited to see the first issue, which we had all worked so long and hard to put together, but the fact that he’d left me out of the grand unveiling hurt my feelings. I’d been at
George
since the very beginning—we were “a little family,” according to Michael—and I thought they valued my efforts. The editorial staff might have been smarter, better educated, and more experienced, but no one cared as much as I did. For the past six months, I worked harder than I had at any other job (I hadn’t had a day off for three weeks straight), but just like
that, every insecurity I had was reinforced; I was just a dumb secretary again.

As I stood there trying to fight off tears, John’s face clouded over with anger. “What’s your problem?” he asked.

“I’ve been working my ass off and have had no life for about a year, and you can’t even show me the magazine?” I started to cry.

“You know what?” he snapped, stuffing the magazine in a manila folder as if in punishment. “If this is the way you’re going to behave, you can just go home.”

I fled his office like a schoolgirl who had been admonished by the principal and returned to my desk. John closed his door, but I didn’t go home. Instead I sat there—with red, puffy eyes, sniffles, and all. Nobody asked me what was wrong. Minding your business is the unwritten rule when dealing with those who have to cry without the privacy of an office, and I was a crier.

John stayed out of my way that afternoon. Whenever he left his office, he skirted my desk without making eye contact. Crying and drama, especially when he was the cause, irritated him and made him retreat into a cold, protective shell. It felt cruel, though. As warm and welcoming as John was, he could be equally distant and punishing. Like everyone else, I wanted something from him—I wanted him to understand why I was upset, and felt betrayed and fooled that he didn’t.

When the clock neared quitting time, I collected my things and prepared to meet Frank for a much-needed drink. I shut down my computer and steeled myself to say good night to John, which I did every day before I left. I lightly knocked on the door, and then opened it. John was sitting at his desk, looking through the day’s messages.

“Is it okay if I go? Do you need anything else?” I asked.

“It’s fine. You can go,” he said without looking up.

I almost threw up.
I ruined everything,
I thought. Why had I cried? My outburst was so unprofessional. I had no right to expect anything from him. He was my boss. All he owed me was a paycheck.

Nothing could cheer me up, not even Frank ordering a second round of our new favorite drink, dirty martinis. I was defeated, a feeling that stuck with me all night and into the next morning as I opened John’s mail at my desk. John called me into his office almost as soon as he arrived.

That couldn’t be good. He was going to fire me, I was sure of it. My throat was choked with a fresh round of tears, but I squared my shoulders and opened the door to find John hunched over his desk, looking up at me.

“Take a seat,” he said. He looked serious, and I readied myself to hear a lecture about what’s required in a professional workplace.

“I’m sorry, Rosie,” he said.

The sincerity of his words was so plain that I thought I would start bawling again out of gratitude and relief.

“That was really rude and insensitive,” he continued. “I should have showed the magazine to you first. I should have showed it to you before they saw it. I totally apologize.”

John meant what he said, and the gentleness he showed in that moment overwhelmed me. I wasn’t used to such generosity.

“Thank you” was the only reply I could muster.

He pulled up a chair and took out the magazine so he could show me the pages. The cover was stunning. Matt had come up with the concept after finding an Alberto Vargas
illustration of a pinup girl in a tight Revolutionary War–style jacket and no pants. John had pulled a favor to get the edgy fashion photographer Herb Ritts, instead of a typical portrait photographer, to shoot the most sought-after supermodel in the country dressed as George Washington—an image that symbolized American success on steroids. It paid off; I had never seen a magazine cover like it and was sure no one else had, either.