The Wedding Beat (11 page)

“Saving room for dessert,” I blathered. He looked skeptical.

Téa leaned toward me as he left, and I tried my best to keep my eyes on her face and not her lacy cleavage. “So, did you always dream of writing about weddings?”

Hardly. “I dreamed of playing backup guitar for the Rolling Stones.”

“I’m not seeing it,” she said with a smile and a sip of sake.

“I also dreamed of writing for
Rolling Stone
and decided that was more likely.”

“So why don’t you write about music?”

The question of the decade. “I wrote for
Spin
for a few years.” I’d probably still have been writing for
Spin
if an old journalism professor hadn’t introduced me to Renée. “The up-and-coming
indie rockers I enjoy interviewing are too offbeat for The Paper, and more mainstream musicians aren’t willing to open up with me. They just recite their press-release talking points, and there’s no fun for me in being a glorified publicist.”

“Uh-huh.” She rearranged her chopsticks.

I was losing her. I tried to explain better. “What I thrive on is getting underneath a person’s skin. I call it skin diving.”

“Skin diving?”

I was reeling her back in. “When I sit down to write about a couple, I have up to twenty hours of tapes and sometimes a hundred pages of notes. I don’t just read and listen. I submerge myself. Nothing exists but these two people, their thoughts and feelings.”

“It sounds intense,” she said. “It sounds sexy,” is what she insinuated.

“I still get butterflies every time,” I said, milking the thrill factor. “It’s like going out on an early-morning dive. It’s dark and cold. And staying on the boat seems a far more pleasant option. But I force myself to dive in.”

“To what?”

“The couple’s relationship. I explore the hidden crevices with a flashlight and a magnifying glass. Then I resurface with a sort-of prose sonar report, revealing the contours of their emotional bond.” I didn’t mention that I feared it was a substitute for forming my own.

“You must write about couples who have been together a long time.”

“Not always,” I said, looking deep into her vibrant aquamarine eyes. “A few weeks ago, I talked to a couple who met at camp when they were seven. He pushed her out of a canoe, and she had the preternatural wisdom to know that was a sign of affection. But the week before that was a couple who had known each other only six months.”

“Have
you talked to people who broke up and got back together?” Something about the question seemed a little rehearsed.

“Sure,” I said.

“Do they end up okay?”

Did she think I was a reporter or a fortune-teller?
“I can’t really speak with any authority about what happens after the wedding reception.”

She mulled that silently for a few moments. “Have you ever been married?”

Not my first-choice topic for first dates.

“No,” I said, knowing what that sounded like coming from the mouth of a man my age.

“Have you lived with anyone?” was her next question.

I preferred when we were discussing restaurants I’d never eaten at. “Not in a formal kind of way,” I answered, picturing Laurel in my bathrobe, drinking green tea from a Knicks coffee mug and working on the Sunday crossword puzzle. I expunged the image from my memory. “How about you?” I asked, more out of obligation than an active desire to know the details of her dating history.

“Pretty much the same,” she said. “Never married. Though I had an on-again, off-again relationship with an investment banker for almost five years.” She was trying to sound casual about it, but she wasn’t entirely succeeding.

“Did you live together?” I asked.

She looked down at the table. “I’m supposed to move into his place tomorrow.”

It was my turn to say “Oh.”

“Or that’s the plan. He’s been pushing to move forward, and I’ve been very unsure. We’ve been back and forth so many times, and we haven’t even been living in the same city for more than
a few months. It’s so easy to do something for the wrong reasons. Because you’re scared. Because you’re getting older. Because you don’t want to make the effort to find someone new.”

I nodded, wondering whether it was too late to cancel my sashimi.

“When you asked me out, I wasn’t sure what to say, but I decided this is exactly what I needed. A chance to find out if there’s someone else out there for me. Someone smart, sophisticated and successful.”

That sounded more promising. I was ready to jump ship too soon. I was still getting this bee thing down.

“The truth is, I was dreading having the movers show up tomorrow,” she said. “I feel so much better about it now. I really owe you.”

The bill for dinner: $190. The emotional cost: immeasurable. As I walked home, I replayed the sequence of events in my head, wondering where I went wrong.

There was only one person to ask: Mike. After apologizing for calling so late, I launched into my tale of woe.

“A year ago,” he said, “I hired one of the top marketing firms in the city to help me do a survey of what men and women look for in a mate.” I wasn’t even remotely interested in his survey. “What my research showed—which was quoted on
Oprah
—was that for men, the number-one concern was looks and the next was personality. For women, number one was financial success—”

“Meaning?” I asked, cutting him off.

“You need to date less-attractive women or start earning more money.”

Chapter Twelve

I
dreamt I was getting married at Nobu.

I stood beneath a canopy of sashimi in front of a geriatric rabbi in an Elvis outfit, and a lobster salad sculpture of a giant koi. Beside me was my bride, but I couldn’t see her face. She was hidden by a veil of newsprint. As I was about to say “I do,” the waiter handed me a bill for the event and said my credit card had been denied. The bride screeched, and the rabbi beseeched the crowd, “If there is anyone present who can afford to marry this woman, let him speak now or forever hold his peace.”

I bolted up in bed. I needed a raise.

I had never asked for one before. In fact, I didn’t know if anyone at The Paper ever had. Newspapers aren’t like banks. Your byline is your only bonus. I had always accepted that being underpaid and overworked was the natural order of things. Suddenly, I could see a future that included a bedroom. And
stemware. It was like Mike had thrown open a damask curtain revealing an intoxicating new vista.

Feeling invigorated, I went for a short run and then charged uptown to work through lightly falling snow. When assigned to elevator B, I queued up with a sense of purpose and entitlement. I knew writers in the Entertainment section making double my salary. I wasn’t going to ask for double, but I sure as hell was going to ask for my fair share.

Assuming I ever got upstairs. Elevator B was MIA.

Joe Mariano, a business columnist, was standing beside me. “If I wanted an extra half-hour commute, I’d move to Westchester,” he said.

As if on cue, the errant but energy-efficient elevator arrived and whisked us upward. There was a newly installed digital screen where floor numbers could be displayed—
could be
but were not. When the doors opened, I poked out my head and scooted down the hall. I could hear Joe ask in his native Brooklyn patois: “Does anyone know what friggin’ floor we’re on?”

Moments later I was at my desk, but Renée was not at hers.

“Have you seen Renée?” I asked Tony.

“Target at twelve o’clock,” he said without taking his eyes off his monitor.

Renée was in a glass conference room with Tucker Prescott, the head of the Lifestyles department. That was unusual. They had what I considered a unique working relationship: He barely tolerated her existence, and she pretended not to notice, which seemed to be working for them. Implicitly, interactions were kept to a minimum.

“I want to talk to her about a raise,” I confided in Tony, testing his reaction.

“Good luck with that,” he said, still glued to his computer screen. “They just announced layoffs.”

“Who? When? Where?” I stuttered.

“I’m just reporting it as I’m reading it,” Tony said.

My stomach churned as I quickly logged on. “Did they send out an e-mail?”

“Fat chance,” Tony said. “I’m reading Gawker.”

Gawker, the gossipy Web site devoted to all things snarky and sleazy in the media industry, was the best source of in-house news. When a music critic ripped the toupee off a copy editor and had to be restrained by a security guard, Gawker had the story with video before the rumor had circulated past the third floor.

I found it disappointing that people didn’t have a greater sense of loyalty to The Paper. But at times like this, I was also grateful.

According to Gawker, unnamed sources at The Paper predicted the imminent elimination of 150 news staff jobs, which was roughly equivalent to recent announced cuts at the
L.A. Times
and the
Washington Post
. As if that was consolation.

With all the newspapers pulling back, it would be nearly impossible to find a job if I was laid off. I knew I shouldn’t assume that I would be. In fact, there was no proof that anyone would be. Gawker often got things wrong. Fact-checking was not their forte. I needed to find out if other news sites were carrying the story. My phone rang, and I distractedly answered while scanning CNN’s home page.

“This is Emily from the
Today Show
.”

I freaked out. The
Today Show
’s standards were much higher than Gawker’s. What did they know that I didn’t?

“I have Roxanne Goldman on the line for you.” False alarm. Roxanne was a segment producer whose Malibu wedding was the last weekend in February. I had a preliminary interview scheduled with her at two p.m.

“I need to take a rain check on our appointment,” Roxanne said. I guess I
had
an interview scheduled. It was the third time she had canceled on me. Either she was a diva or she was getting cold feet about doing an article. She was marrying an Israeli gymnast she met while on assignment at the Athens Olympics. I had heard about her wedding from a publicist, and I was concerned the publicist wanted the piece more than she did.

“Do you want to do it later in the day?” I asked.

“I was thinking later in the week,” she countered. It was Friday.

“Unless you want to do something this weekend, we’re talking about next week,” I said.

“Even better. Would you mind doing it in the evening?”

Of course I’d mind.
“How about six on Monday?” I considered six p.m. a compromise.

“Let’s do nine on Tuesday. Oops, that’s Lauer on the other line. E-mail me if there’s a problem.”

It never ceased to surprise me how many women assumed their wedding was the most important event in
everyone’s
life. Fortunately for Roxanne, it didn’t behoove me to take an adversarial tone with a bride. A publicist was another story, and this one’s client chose the wrong morning to piss me off.

I looked up the phone number for Brooke Brenner, the PR agent who’d been pitching me Roxanne’s wedding for months. It was an LA area code. I wondered if it was too early to call, but by then I had worked up a head of steam and figured I’d just leave a curt voice mail. My attention was diverted by the sight of Renée angrily gesticulating in the conference room, and I was caught off guard when Brooke answered the phone groggily. I sheepishly identified myself, and she immediately perked up.

“We’re so excited about the article,” she gushed.

“Well, that’s not exactly how it’s coming across,” I said,
deliberating if I should apologize for waking her or stick to playing the ticked-off reporter. I noticed Tucker seemed to be successfully placating Renée.

“What do you mean?” Brooke asked breathily. I pictured her batting her eyes at me. Not that I knew what her eyes even looked like, since we had spoken only on the phone. But she had a sexy voice with a disarming giggle. I was losing my focus.

“Roxanne’s canceled on me three times, and she seems to think it’s my job to work round the clock to accommodate her,” I said, worried that I was coming off as peevish. “If we’re having this much trouble scheduling the first interview, it makes me uneasy about getting the others in. Which is why I wanted to let you know that if she cancels again, I’m going to have to kill the piece.”

“That is not going to happen,” Brooke assured me. “I am so sorry you’ve been inconvenienced.” Her soothing, apologetic tone made me feel like a jerk. “Roxanne’s just been so busy with work and the wedding. But that is
so
not your problem. By the way, I loved your column last week. I cried.”

“Really?” I asked. Flattery will get you everywhere.

“I had to get a Kleenex. Did he really show up at the airport and stop her from getting on the plane?”

“With a bouquet of wildflowers,” I threw in.

“You didn’t mention the wildflowers in the piece.”

“It got cut,” I said, still a little sore about the subject. Captain Al had extracted a pound of flesh for agreeing to leave my lede intact.

“Why don’t I ever meet men like that?” Brooke asked. I made note of the fact she was single. Just being a thorough journalist.

“Roxanne will be available at whatever time works best for you. Just send me an e-mail, and I’ll arrange it.”

I glimpsed Renée and Tucker getting up from the conference
room table. Renée didn’t look happy. So much for Gawker making things up. Whatever was going on was real. And seemed really bad.

“Can’t wait to see your next column,” Brooke said before hanging up. At this point, I was just hoping there would be a next column.

Renée emerged briskly from the conference room, her jaw clenched and her lips pursed. Though that was always how she looked after a conversation with Tucker.

He ambled out behind her. Standing over six foot four, Tucker Prescott had the kind of regal profile that belonged on Mount Rushmore. His weather-beaten, athletic frame resulted from years of mountain biking (and varsity lacrosse at Dartmouth). He was the bad sheep from a good Boston family, having traded in his docksiders for Birkenstocks after college, when he traveled through South America as one of the youngest foreign correspondents in The Paper’s history. He had risen steadily over the past twenty years through a mix of political finesse and emotional indifference.