When she first walked into the offices of Random Ventures about a month after its formation, she was exactly the kind of girl I imagined would date someone like John—and she intimidated the hell out of me. Wearing a Calvin Klein pencil skirt, a white T-shirt, stiletto heels, and blue nail polish, she looked like a model, effortlessly perfect in an unstudied yet elegant outfit.
Carolyn and John had dated briefly in 1993 and reunited in 1994, a few months after his mom passed away. When John introduced us, I felt like I’d gained ten pounds and shrunk three inches. But after he left her in the reception area to deal with something in Michael’s office, I could tell Carolyn was different from the typical gorgeous girls you see around Manhattan. Women who have attitude always stand in a pose, like they’re trying to be sexy and intimidating, even if they’re in line at the supermarket. Carolyn’s easy posture said it all: standing with her legs crossed, she held her small, black patent-leather Prada purse behind her back with one hand, while absentmindedly twisting a lock of hair with the other. She wasn’t trying too hard. In fact, she wasn’t trying at all.
The phone kept ringing as Carolyn and I tried to make small talk. Finally she said, “Does it ring like this all the time?”
I nodded.
“You poor thing.”
I smiled, pressing a button on the phone. “Random Ventures,” I said as I answered another call.
“Hi, is this John Kennedy’s office?” a woman asked.
“May I ask who’s calling?” I said.
“Where are you located?” the caller asked.
“Is there something I can help you with?”
“Does he come into the office every day?”
The caller was trying to get way too much information. I wanted to end the conversation without being rude, and I had to think fast. It didn’t help having Carolyn about two feet away. “John Kennedy?” I said. “Oh, I’ve never even met him. I wish he came here every day, miss. But this is an answering service. We just dispatch calls and take messages. So if you want to leave a message, I can take it down and get it to the right person.”
“No, that’s okay. Thanks,” the woman said, and then hung up.
“Wow, you’re good,” Carolyn said.
John, having returned to the reception area, found us laughing.
“What are you two cackling about?” he asked.
We looked up at him like two kids caught in the act.
“Nothing,” Carolyn said.
John and I didn’t talk about his personal life when I first began working for him. He was a typical guy with no desire to hash out with me the intimate details or thoughts about his dates. However, I knew Carolyn was becoming an important part of his life because whenever she phoned the office, he always took the call. The only other person he did that with was his sister.
From the beginning of their relationship, it was obvious they were at ease around each other, the way friends are. Once we moved to Hachette in February 1995, Carolyn would come into the office and sit at John’s desk, making phone calls as if it were her own. Or she would go directly to see Matt Berman, whom she loved, and hang out with him for a while before she even said hello to John. She didn’t feel the need to run in to her boyfriend and announce herself. Carolyn wasn’t John’s shadow; she was his equal. He would ask her, a fashion insider who worked for Calvin Klein, about cover choices or get her advice on approaching designers and advertisers.
From my point of view, John was happier when Carolyn was around. And Carolyn, like any smart woman, had a way of making John pay attention to things he didn’t necessarily want to even think about. She got him to differentiate between the people taking advantage of his generosity and those who needed a little extra attention from him. With those two circumstances alone, Carolyn made my life much easier.
CHAPTER
4
Carolyn always made me feel attractive and smart. And according to her, there was no better self-esteem booster than great fashion. “Nothing feels better than new clothes,” she’d say. “That and vodka are your new best friends.”
Carolyn had the best taste, so when she suggested a shopping trip—with her acting as my personal stylist—I was beyond excited. But I was also a little nervous. I pictured huge price tags and tiny sizes: way out of my league.
So when John said he needed me in the office around noon on the Saturday of our shopping expedition, I was relieved. But when I called Carolyn to relay the news, I couldn’t talk her out of our plan.
“No problem,” she said. “The stores open at ten o’clock. We have plenty of time. Just meet me,” she said. “We’ll shop for an hour, max. We need to get you a few good jackets and skirts.”
When we arrived at Barneys, I was immediately overwhelmed by all the beautiful things. Carolyn knew exactly where to find outfits that worked for me, and she knew precisely what to pick out.
“Try this on, Rosie,” she said, grinning, as she held up an eight-hundred-dollar Ann Demeulemeester leather skirt.
She had found the perfect piece for me—the gorgeous, very expensive version of me. I immediately launched into the kind of fantasies that amazing clothes induce: I could wear it with combat boots for a romantic date or with a blazer to a high-powered work meeting. But instead of grabbing the skirt out of her hands, I said, “I don’t want to try it on.”
Even though I was a size four from all the cigarettes I’d smoked and all the lunches I’d skipped, I was convinced there was no way I could wiggle into that slim leather skirt, and I didn’t want to put myself through the embarrassment of having to try a bigger size. It wasn’t just my size that bothered me; it was everything about my looks.
For as long as I could remember, I felt ugly. When I was a child, my aunt Rita (who wasn’t actually my mom’s sister but, rather, her best friend from the moment she moved in three houses down from ours) used to tell the same story about my birth at every holiday or family gathering: After first seeing me as a newborn in the hospital, Rita had such an expression of pity and disappointment on her face that the horrified nurse asked, “What’s wrong?”—to which Rita replied, “She looks like her mother!”
She’d deliver the punch line to big laughs—every time. So the gag continued for years. I wanted to crawl under the table but instead laughed along with everyone else so as not to draw any more attention to the joke. (And my family always wondered why I never brought guys home for them to meet.)
My mom had her own riff on the same theme. Whenever someone said, “Marion, RoseMarie looks just like you,” her response was always, “I know, the poor kid.” Along with her looks, I also inherited her penchant for sarcasm. From the moment I became a teenager, I followed in my mom’s footsteps, keeping my guard up with jokes at my own expense that masked any insecurities or yearnings.
It took me a long time—and some geographic distance from the Bronx—to realize that my mom was actually pretty. She had a great smile and a quick-witted sense of humor (she also had great boobs and great legs). But she lacked confidence in her femininity, and obscured her best features: chopping off her beautiful, thick, dark hair with the excuse that she didn’t have time to waste worrying about it.
Unsurprisingly, self-deprecation came naturally to me, but Carolyn was the one person who wouldn’t stand for it. Whenever I put myself down with a wisecrack about my appearance—such as, “I’m funnier than you because I look like me, and you look like you”—she reacted as though I had personally offended her. “Don’t you dare say that,” she would admonish. “You’re beautiful and have the kind of body that boys love. You’re so sexy, Rosie, and you don’t even know it.”
That tiny leather skirt from Barneys, Carolyn knew, would give me a boost of confidence.
“Try it on!” she said.
The next thing I knew, I was on my way to the cash register with the skirt, which fit like a glove, and—at Carolyn’s insistence—“a shirt that goes with the skirt but doesn’t match, a jacket that kind of matches, and pants to go w
ith the jacket.”
Headed to the cashier with thousands of dollars’ worth of merchandise, I woke up from the whirlwind of playing dress-up and realized I couldn’t afford any of it. “You know what, Carolyn? I’m just going to take the shirt,” I said, trying not to be obvious while picking the least expensive thing in the pile. “I don’t need the rest of it.”
“No,” she said firmly, and handed her credit card to the salesperson. “We’re going to take all of it.”
Carolyn understood how lucky she was to be able to afford beautiful clothes, and she wanted to share the wealth with those she cared about. I loved the clothes and her generosity, even if I was uncomfortable with the extravagance of the gesture.
After she reluctantly agreed to put back two of the items, I looked at my watch and quickly found something much worse to be upset about than the pile of money she had just spent on me. It was nearly one o’clock. I was an hour late for work! That was something I had nightmares about, not something I did in real life.
Carolyn tried to calm me down as I spiraled into total panic.
“I’ll call John later and tell him we went shopping,” she said. “It’ll be fine.”
Fine? In my world, being late to work was about as fine as showing up naked. I decided not to waste time finding a working pay phone to call and say I’d be late. What would my excuse be, anyway? Sorry I couldn’t show up for work on time, John. I was busy. Your girlfriend was just buying me a new wardrobe. Instead, I dove into a cab and proceeded to lose my mind.
As I walked past reception, a sweaty mess, John was standing in the hallway talking to an editor.
“Well, look who decided to grace us with her presence,” he said.
“I’m sorry.”
“Apparently not sorry enough to show up on time.”
John was pissed at me all day. But for once, I didn’t beat myself up. I’d had the best time with Carolyn—and not just because she bought me the most beautiful clothes I’d ever seen. The shopping trip, which marked Carolyn’s officially becoming my style fairy godmother, was her way of contributing to my success.
Confident in my abilities from the get-go, she wanted me to be respected in the role of John’s assistant. She understood that if I wanted to get respect, I had to look the part. People do judge a book by its cover, especially in an industry as superficial as the media. She wanted others to see in me what she saw.
Within the first year of our friendship, I went through a complete style transformation under Carolyn’s enthusiastic guidance. She didn’t introduce me to fashion, but previously I had conflated trend with style (probably due to the influence of my sister Andrea, who was named “best dressed” in high school, having spent her entire paycheck from her cashier’s job at Gristedes buying the latest looks from Bloomingdale’s). Carolyn proved that I didn’t have to look obvious to be sexy and that I could wear classic styles but make them my own.
As Carolyn had expected, my new clothes changed how people perceived me. Even John took note. A week after the shopping spree that landed me on his shit list, I got up the courage to wear one of my new outfits to the office.
“Whoa, Rosie,” he said. “You look nice. Where are you going all dressed up? It certainly can’t be for work.”
“I have a job interview,” I said, joking.
Carolyn’s makeover didn’t stop at clothes. Standing back and looking at my dark, curly Italian hair, she pronounced that I should get highlights, insisting I go to the top guy in the business. Her guy.
“You have such light skin, highlights would be so pretty and would brighten up your face,” she said. “Next time I go to Brad Johns, you’ll come with me.”
Brad Johns was the colorist. All the best blondes in the city went to him. He was famous for inventing that rock-and-roll blond hair with chunky strips of lighter and darker colors. So I found myself entering Brad’s Fifth Avenue salon, a bright, bustling space where everyone except me was blond. A muscular guy with, yes, blond hair flowing down to his shoulders ran up to greet Carolyn with a kiss on both cheeks. It was Brad.
“Hi, honey,” he said. “What’s new?”
“This is Rosie, John’s assistant. And Rosie is the best,” she said, pushing me in front of him. “She’s here to get her hair done.”
Brad didn’t really do hair anymore—he usually instructed his employees on how to do it. But that day, he sat me down to do my hair. He explained how he was going to soften my base color from a dark brown to a honey brown and add highlights in gold, wheat, and lemon.
Carolyn, sensing my unease (mostly from my staring in the mirror at my mass of black curls among this sea of blond), put her hand on my shoulder and said, “Don’t be scared. You’ll look gorgeous.”
Through the next several hours of washing, dyeing, streaking, and blow-drying, about a dozen staff people approached to ask if they could get me coffee, tea, sandwiches, wine, champagne—whatever I wanted. I felt as if I were in a movie, as an emaciated girl with a white-blond bob brought me a flute of champagne, after a little gay man with an ash-blond crew cut had cleared away my cappuccino cup. I also felt like a fraud. Worried they’d find me out if I didn’t come clean, I wanted to tell them: I am not one of these people. You don’t have to pull out all the stops for me.
Brad proved Carolyn right: my hair looked gorgeous. I’d never had it professionally straightened and couldn’t believe how soft and sexy it felt on my shoulders. And the color completely changed my face. My dark inheritance receded into the past. I loved it.
No one loved my new look more than Frank—certainly not a particular George editor, who snickered and whispered behind my back that I was copying Carolyn. (Well, if Carolyn Bessette wanted to buy me a wardrobe or take me to her colorist, what did they expect me to do, turn her down?) When we went out with friends, Frank showed me off: “Look at her fabulous coat!” Occasionally, he took it too far—like when we visited his mother around my birthday, and she apologized that she didn’t have a gift for me: “I bought you a blouse from Macy’s, but Frank said you’d never wear anything from Macy’s.” Mortified that his mom would think I had become a terrible person, I yelled, “Frank, how dare you!” and set the record straight.
Frank’s passion for glamour caused him to intermittently put on airs, but I knew it made him perfect for the job of PR director at Brad’s salon. As soon as I heard Brad was looking to fill the position, I began scheming. Frank was essentially incapable of finding employment for himself. So not only was I constantly trying to secure jobs for him but I also wanted to bring him along for the ride. I wanted Frank to experience the same kinds of perks that my job offered.
Carolyn seconded the idea. She knew that Frank was gorgeous—six foot two, with George Clooney salt-and-pepper hair—sweet, funny, and charismatic. The life of the party, he could talk to anyone and got along with everyone. The female beauty editors at women’s magazines, whom Brad needed to woo, would adore Frank after he doted on them and made them feel special.
Carolyn and I concocted a plan: drinks at El Teddy’s, a Mexican joint and Tribeca institution, topped with a giant replica of the Statue of Liberty’s crown, that had been serving killer margaritas for more than twenty years.
Frank and Brad hit it off right away, which was no surprise. If you were a gay guy sitting across from Frank, you were into Frank. A few margaritas later, Brad offered him the job of PR director, a plum position that paid well and promised the start of a new life.
But the biggest coup came two days later, when Page Six printed an item about Brad and Carolyn dining at El Teddy’s with “two fashionistas.” At first I wondered whom they were talking about, then realized: Frank and I are the fashionistas! Having grown up reading the New York Post, I couldn’t believe I was in it—and in the same sentence as the word fashion. It was amazing. Frank called me at work every day for the entire week after the item appeared and yelled into the phone, “I’m a fashionista!”
My friendship with Carolyn was about more than
shopping sprees and trips to the hair salon. She and I shared a bond in that we both lived in John’s unique world—although, obviously, in very different ways. I was often the only person who could relate to what she was going through. “I know this is kind of sad, but there’s no one else I can talk to,” she said one night, having fled to my studio after an argument with John. I could certainly relate; the burden of being close to someone so famous meant you had to watch everything that came out of your mouth. But Carolyn recognized that her visit put me in an awkward position as his assistant. “Don’t tell him I came here,” she said. “I don’t want him to feel uncomfortable that I talked to you.”
First thing in the morning, I walked into John’s office and told him where Carolyn had been the night before.
“Look, you can get mad about this and have a huge fight with her, but she’ll think I’m a tattletale trying to cause trouble,” I said to John. “If you cause a rift between us, it’s going to make your life harder and mine a living hell.”
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