Innocent Spouse (38 page)

I
T’S GOOD
I was content because the negotiations for my freedom that Brendan Sullivan thought we could wrap up in a matter of months ended up lasting a few years, until the very moment the lease expired in April 2009. Now he understood intimately the frustration and angst I’d lived with for so long. He didn’t disparage the Halkias family, but he said, “They’re like nothing I’ve ever dealt with in my entire career.” That’s a career that included his single-handedly taking on the U.S. Congress in the sensational Ollie North hearings, which ran for seven days on all the networks in 1987, when Brendan famously said to Senator Daniel Inouye, “Sir, I’m not a potted plant. I’m here as the lawyer.”

The drama of our dispute got in the way of my being able to tell the landlords that I wasn’t blind to their point of view. I did understand them and I did care. I just needed them to understand what I was trying to tell them as well: that the business was sinking, and it was a business we all relied upon for income. Early on we probably needed relationship counseling more than lots of lawyers. It would have saved us heartache and money. Howard left them holding the bag, too. He’d spoiled them by seeming to effortlessly meet their lease demands, and they were content with the way things were, but he was lying to them as much as he was lying to the IRS and to me. It was simple: Once his father died, Howard couldn’t afford the place, and when Howard died,
I couldn’t afford the place, either. That simple fact got lost in so much dust and dustups: The landlords did not trust me and I did not trust them, either. The Halkias family—the principal landlords and their several children—were like many families in that everybody had a different opinion and they disagreed with one another much of the time. When they couldn’t reach a consensus it was easier to shut down rather than continue the debate. That would cause the long and frustrating stretches of silence between my shouts of “Mayday.”

With the lease up I was technically free to close up and go, except I wasn’t entirely free: There was still the claim by the landlords that I owed them back rent. The lease had expired, but as we negotiated our differences Nathans remained open on a month-to-month agreement based on the terms of the expired lease, including the personal guaranty that made me liable for just about everything. Brendan remained adamant that the issue of back rent was off the table, but the landlords did not concur. Since the day in 2001 when their lawyer had first suggested I decrease the monthly rent by 30 percent, and my lawyers at the time directed me to do so, the amount of so-called debt had reached about $800,000. I did not have that kind of money. I owned my home, free and clear, and a few last antiques that didn’t amount to much in value, but that was it. There was no other money. All savings, CDs, and stocks were gone.

Brendan, Jon Moss, and I had several meetings in which we agreed that the most critical issue before us was resolving any debt that attached to me under the personal guaranty, chiefly rent and taxes. Only then could I walk away a free woman. If the Halkias family didn’t accept an agreement on the contested debt, and we went to court and I lost, then the only option would be a new lease that would enable me to operate the business and pay the debt over the years. Neither side wanted that. They wanted me out so they could sell their building. I envisioned a new lease as a prison sentence. While the negotiations went on, the Halkias family officially put the building on the market. Every commercial real estate broker in the city, or so it seemed, brought a client through to kick the tires: banks, retailers, phone stores. They sent surveyors and measured every square inch, but none made an offer the family would accept. Publicly I had to pretend we were staying open, but privately I knew the end was only a matter of time.

———

I
SAID TO
Jon, “You know we’re going to close. We don’t know exactly when but it will happen.” He nodded. “We should have a party,” I said. “I don’t want it to be viewed as a closing party. In fact, I’m not keen on an official closing party. If we close—
when
we close—that party will be open to everyone, we’ll just go until we turn the lights out. But for now, since it’s 2009 and officially Nathans fortieth birthday year, let’s have a smaller party to mark that milestone. It can be a happy occasion.” He agreed. We posted it on the website and it sold out. The room filled with a mix of regulars, friends and family, including Martha, Vijay, and Spencer with his girlfriend, Courtney Prillaman.

In 2007 we’d had a similar party to celebrate the tenth anniversary of my ownership. On that occasion, too, it sold out. We set it up like
The Q&A Café
, but the tables were turned: A local television personality, Dave Statter, interviewed me. The guests included the city’s popular new mayor, Adrian Fenty, who said nice words about Nathans and its legend in Washington. While dinner was served I sat on a barstool in the middle of the dining room and answered Dave’s questions. Toward the end he asked if I missed Howard.

“Oh, every day.”

What else could I say? The truth? Oh, God, no. A roomful of paying customers, drinking and making merry, who wanted to laugh and who certainly didn’t want to hear the truth, not my truth. Who could handle that?

But had I been interviewed in 2009, at the party celebrating Nathans fortieth year, my answers might have surprised the customers.

I would have said, to even my own surprise, I missed Howard less and less. I could no longer instantly recall the sound of his voice. I visited his grave less often. Spencer and I talked about him, of course, but whole weeks would pass without mention of his name. The twelfth anniversary of his death arrived and we remembered it only late that evening. Along with missing him less, I was processing the anger more, but it was muddled up with regret, remorse, and disappointment. Publicly, I made excuses for him. He never meant to leave Spencer and me with a life of turmoil, debt, and uncertainty, but regardless, that’s exactly what he did do.

The closer it came to Nathans’ end the more clearly I saw the emotional landscape around me, especially what was behind; the widow’s fog from the beginning of this journey had started to lift. I’d like to ask generals who have been to war if, as the end draws near, they start to reflect on past battles with new eyes. In making peace with the so-called “enemy,” do they make peace with themselves, too? That’s what was happening to me. My enemies weren’t so much people as the questions I didn’t want to answer and the anger I’d kept tamped down inside for too long.

Whether they were posed to me in front of an audience, or from a friend, or even inwardly from myself, there were important questions to answer. My friend Rachel Pearson asked, “Aren’t you mad at Howard forever for hitting you?” Well, I was, but I made peace with that before he died. I mean, I fell apart at the time, but then with the help of therapy I put myself back together, and actually better than before. Howard never acted aggressively toward me again. I became whole and strong. When he died, though, he submitted me to a whole new type of abuse with his legacy of lies, the IRS, an endless stream of lawyers, and—worst of all—Nathans, the restaurant equivalent of a failed state.

I was asked if I was angry at the IRS. No, I could have been their poster child. I don’t think of the IRS as warm and cuddly, but they didn’t do wrong by me. Howard did wrong by them (and me), and they did right by me. I paid—and pay—my taxes. Was I mad at the landlords? Yes and no. Honestly, I was more frustrated. They didn’t want me, trust me, understand me, or appreciate me, and they shut down every avenue I pursued to try to save Nathans, which was counterproductive because I had to save Nathans for all of us. With the crazy lease Howard had signed, and that the Halkias family held me to, I couldn’t sell it. I had to keep it going, bailing it out, because it was all Spencer and I had. In their defense, the Halkias family didn’t ask to be stuck with me, either. Howard had made that happen.

Anger is real, and it serves a purpose. It needs to be put out there and dealt with, because just like stress it can chip away at well-being. There was no bottom to my anger toward Howard, but just as it was time to cut Nathans loose to regain my freedom, it was time to cut the cord with Howard and my anger toward him. I did not want to carry
it around. I was a sailor, I’d always been a sailor, and sailors know that an anchor slows and even stops the forward motion of the boat. I had two big anchors on me—Nathans and Howard—and they had to be let go if I was to find my wind and move forward toward whatever the future had in store. That, with considerable help from Brendan Sullivan, was the goal as we steered Nathans toward closing day.

U
NBEKNOWNST TO ALL
but a few people, for a couple of years I had been writing a column about Washington under a pseudonym. It was called “This Town”—it appeared in the monthly
Washington Life
magazine—and the name I used was “Michael Strange.” The style of it was commentary, woven from my experiences and imagination, but while part of it was fiction, many of the tales I told were true. It was fun for me, a little bit of private literary michief as a distraction from the Nathans struggles. But it didn’t pay and the anonymity began to be stifling. In fall 2007, a serendipitous event happened.

Two charming men from New York came to Washington and offered me a job. David Patrick Columbia and Jeff Hirsch owned a popular website called New York Social Diary, a compendium of the good life brilliantly varnished with David’s perceptive, informed, and blunt view of the upper classes, present and past. David wrote a daily “Social Diary” column focused on New York, and Jeff put the site together, took photos, and collected columns from contributors that covered travel, food, home furnishings, real estate, art, openings, and shopping. I’d met David and Jeff earlier when David appeared for an interview at
The Q&A Café
. When they were back in town for a social event they stopped by Nathans to have lunch with me. Over dessert they made their pitch. “We’d like you to write a column about Washington for our site. You’d be perfect. Please do it.” I hemmed and hawed. I was not a socialite, didn’t have a whole lot of interest in social life, and was uncomfortable at parties.

“We’ll pay you,” David said.

“Okay, done,” I replied.

In addition to the anonymous
Washington Life
column, I’d had my own personal blog for a few years. Swimming in Quicksand was a daily rant about my life, with occasional civic observations and thoughts on
food, travel, and life in Washington. My readership was modest, maybe a thousand people on a good day. With New York Social Diary, I got a readership of six hundred thousand. My $250 a week salary was hardly a living wage, but my little column had a value greater than money: It was a chance to report and write and have a byline in the media—and in this case new media—which felt modern and forward. I was all about going forward.

T
HE LAST DAYS
of Nathans were chaotic but not a blur. My memories of them are indelible. I put away all the aggravations, frustrations, and anger, and instead focused on making the closure as special as possible for the bar’s loving fans and loyal staff. In the end, as with all bars and restaurants, it was about the customers. They had made it, they had loved it, and they deserved the opportunity to say good-bye. That’s what guided Jon and me as we made our decisions about when and how to close and when we’d make the fact public.

Even though Nathans’ problems were long-term and complicated, its fate was in sync with the times. In spring 2009, Wall Street was on the ropes and the national economy was in turmoil. Home foreclosures and the closing of small businesses were becoming routine news. While Brendan and his law partner Stephen Sorensen were in the last stages of peaceably negotiating me out of any liabilities to the landlords, the Halkias family had their new real estate lawyer file an eviction action. It was exasperating. I mean, why? We were so close. For a week I dodged the process server, literally—sometimes in disguises, sometimes with him pounding on my front door—but he finally gave up and delivered the papers to Williams and Connolly. Brendan and Stephen were able to head off the eviction and finish the settlement, in which I agreed to pay a load of back property taxes—tens of thousands of dollars—and an assortment of debts that attached to me personally. I never paid any of the $800,000 back-rent claim, however. Brendan was good for his word on that. Getting out of Nathans cost me about $250,000, which I covered with a mortgage on my home. Thank God I owned it free and clear; using a mortgage made sense.

Typically when restaurants close, it’s at midnight and a surprise to everyone: customers, staff, vendors, the bank. Again, because of the history of the place, and the customers and the staff, I didn’t want to
go out that way. It didn’t feel right. Jon warned me there were risks in announcing in advance that we would close. “Everybody we owe money to will be pounding on the door.” So what’s new? We put the word out on Nathans’ website two weeks before the scheduled closing date. Fortunately it got picked up quickly by the media, and word spread far and wide. That was important. I wanted everyone in the Washington area to know that now was the time to come in for that last beer, shot, plate of fresh fettuccine Alfredo, or basket of the great house-made potato chips—all those folks who had met at the bar, had their first date over a burger, or got engaged in the dining room. Or, for that matter, partied after hours till the sun came up.

What Jon had feared came true. Our bold public announcement got the attention of the District of Columbia’s tax and revenue office. Did they freak out? Yes, they did. Nathans had an outstanding sales tax debt of $26,000, which we planned to pay promptly after closing with the enhanced profits we expected from the last two weeks. The tax office would not wait. They wanted the money, or they would close us down immediately. My mortgage had not gone through yet and there was no way to get our hands on that much money. When I mentioned the crisis in my daily blog, a reader suggested I ask for contributions of $100. “If 260 people each give you $100, which is not outlandish, you will have the money.” I posted his message on the website and, in a scenario out of
It’s a Wonderful Life
, customers began to pour through the front door with checks for $100. They even stopped Jon or me on the street to hand us checks. They mailed them from distant cities, sometimes with little notes mentioning how much Nathans had meant to them “back in the day.” One very generous customer sent a check for $5,000, another sent one for $3,000, several others sent checks for $1,000, and quite a few contributed $500. The money came in so fast it was all Jon could do to get it across the street and into the bank account. The tax office granted us a brief stay of execution to see what we could raise. Within a few days we’d raised the $26,000, paid the tax, and got the reprieve that would keep the place open till its last “last call.”