The Rothman Scandal

by Stephen Birmingham

  There were no place cards at the tables, but Lenny was able to work it out so that he seated himself next to Mona Potter. Though not always reliable, Mona was often a source of little tidbits. Lenny did not really like Mona Potter; neither did Alex Rothman. (Nor did Mona like Alex, who she continued to believe had cheated her out of the editorship of Mode seventeen years ago.) In fact, it would be safe to say that no one in New York really liked Mona Potter, but, with her three-times-a-week column, Mona had become a force in the city and had to be reckoned with, and had to be included on the invitation list of any party such as Alex’s tonight. It was said that the social status of any woman in New York could be measured by how often she was mentioned in “The Fashion Scene” each month. Some people actually kept running scores of Mona’s mentions. Mona’s mentions of Alex Rothman were invariably snide and catty—referring to Alex as “the venerable editor of Mode,” or “Mode’s vintage editor,” “Mode’s veteran editor,” “Mode’s perennial editor,” “Mode’s longtime editor,” “Mode’s durable editor,” “Mode’s forever-young editor,” or, when Mona was feeling particularly spiteful, “the well-seasoned fashion maven.” These sly little barbs were intended to enrage Alex Rothman but, if they did, Alex was careful not to let it show, and she had greeted Mona as warmly tonight as she had all her other guests.

  Mona’s column was mostly about the fashionable world, with the celebrities’ names set in boldface type, and it was notorious for its inaccuracies—names spelled wrong, quotes misattributed or simply made up—and when she tried to write about clothes she frequently lapsed into atrocious French. A peignoir became a “paisnoire,” a chemise was a “chamoix,” and once, trying to describe Kitty Miller in a gown of peau de soie, Mona had written that Kitty was “swathed in pas de soleil.” But she had a wide readership in the city and elsewhere among people who apparently didn’t know the difference, and she maintained a high profile.

  Also, at a party, Mona was hard to miss. If the young Englishwoman named Fiona Fenton had borrowed her hairstyle from Louise Brooks, Mona had borrowed hers from Lucille Ball. It was an improbable tangerine shade, piled high on top of her head, teased to the limit, and rigid with hair spray. In tonight’s breeze, Mona’s metallic coiffure was as indestructible as Gibraltar. Mona had two other personal trademarks. One was her fondness for rubies, which, she felt, set off her orange hair. The other was her spectacles with magnifying lenses as thick as the bottoms of Coca-Cola bottles. Alex often wondered how a woman who was almost certifiably blind could claim to report on fashion. Mona had difficulty navigating her way about a party like this one, particularly after she had had a few glasses of wine, but that didn’t matter. The people who wanted to be mentioned in her column, and who wanted to see their names in boldface type, made their way to her. Of all the gossip columnists in New York, “Mother Mona,” as she was called, was the undisputed queen.

  Now Mona was fixing her myopic gaze on Lenny. “Tell me, sweetie,” she said, “now that the mag has reached five mil, the rumor is that Alex’ll be taking early retirement. Any truth to that?”

  Lenny smiled his noncommittal smile. “I hadn’t heard that rumor,” he said. “But there’s no truth to it, Mona darling.”

  “But how can she top herself now, sweetie? Isn’t five mil what Herb wanted? Now that he’s got that out of her, what else can she do for him? He can’t get blood out of a turnip. That’s the rumor.”

  “Really? Where do these rumors come from, I wonder. Do you simply make them up?”

  “Listen, I hear something very top secret’s been going on on the thirtieth floor of the Rothman Building. How come Herb Rothman canceled a lunch date today at the Four Seasons, and had a pastrami on rye sent up to his office instead? What’s the hot poop?”

  “Interesting how you learn these things, Mona,” Lenny said. “I assume that Emilio at the Four Seasons is one of the little people you take care of. But how did you learn about the pastrami on rye? Interesting. Where was this sandwich sent up from, do you know?”

  “Ha! I don’t have to tell you my sources. Ever hear of something called the First Amendment? Come on. Take the cork out of your mouth, sweetie. Give me a little scoopie-poo.”

  “How about a little scoopie-poo of lobster bisque?” Lenny said, reaching out and guiding Mona’s blindly groping hand toward the soup spoon at the right of her plate.

  But he realized that she was actually groping for the stem of her wineglass, which she found and gripped with ruby-encrusted fingers, and of course this was not her first glass of wine tonight.

  Now Mona turned to the man on her left, Gregory Kittredge, who was Alex’s young secretary-assistant. For some reason, Lenny had never quite trusted Gregory, though he had no real basis for his distrust. It was all vague and intuitive, visceral. For one thing, Gregory was quite disturbingly beautiful—too beautiful, really, for a man of twenty-five to deserve to be. Gregory Kittredge looked like a young Tyrone Power, an actor on whom Lenny had had a violent boyhood crush back home in Onward, where he kept a collection of Tyrone Power photographs under his mattress. He had written a letter to Tyrone Power—“Mr. Tyrone Power, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures, Inc., 3459 La Cienega Boulevard, Los Angeles, California”—asking for his autograph, and never heard a word. Lenny assumed that Gregory was gay, but he could not be sure of that, either. He knew nothing about Gregory’s private life, but wasn’t it a little odd for a man named Gregory to insist on being called “Gregory,” and not Greg, or some other shortcut? Gregory was such a stilted-sounding, three-syllable name, like Percival or Archibald. Gregory was a very preppyish young man, Brooks Brothers from top to bottom, almost too preppy-perfect. Sometimes he brought his squash racquet to the office. He had come to the magazine right out of Princeton, had worked his way up from the mail room, through Production as a Production mole, and had been Alex’s assistant—screening her telephone calls and mail, typing her letters at eighty-perfect-words a minute, keeping her appointment book, handling her travel arrangements, balancing her checkbook—for the better part of the past three years. Alex found him conscientious, efficient, discreet, and bright. Across the vest of his dark blue three-piece suit, on a gold chain, there dangled a gold Phi Beta Kappa key, which Lenny found just a tad pretentious. “Gregory.” Or Manfred Goldbogen, or whatever Tyrone Power’s name had been before.

  With Gregory, Mona was trying a somewhat different journalistic approach. “Who’ll replace Alex when she retires, sweetie?” Mona asked him.

  “I didn’t know Mrs. Rothman was thinking of retiring,” Gregory said.

  “That’s the rumor. They say Herb Rothman would like to ease Alex out, now that she’s got him his five mil circulation, which was all he ever wanted out of her. They say he’s looking for someone younger. It could be you, I suppose.”

  “Hmm,” Gregory said, spooning his soup.

  “Or then again, it could be me. It was me Herb wanted in the first place, you know. Think I might have another shot at the top spot? What do you think? Has Herb Rothman said anything to you about me lately?”

  “No, I don’t believe he has, actually.”

  “What’s on the big boy’s mind, d’you know?”

  “Mr. Rothman is sitting right over there. Why don’t you ask him?”

  “Ha! I know Herb Rothman too well. He plays it too close to the vest. He won’t say boo till he’s good and ready. But what about your boss’s love life? Think she’ll marry whatsisname, the TV news guy, that Merv Jorgenson?”

  “I think you mean Mr. Mel Jorgenson?”

  “Merv, Mel—what the hell? Think they’ll make it to the altar?”

  “Really, Mrs. Potter, I have no idea,” Gregory said, as a waiter refilled Mona’s wineglass.

  In another corner of the terrace, Mel Jorgenson had just approached Alex at her table. Bending over her shoulder, he whispered, “I hate to leave early, darling, and before your big show, but I’ve got to get to the studio.”

  “I know, darling.”

  “I�
��ll watch the whole thing on our NBC monitor. Think you’ll still be propped up after I do the news? If I’m back around midnight?”

  “Absolutely, darling. I’ll have Coleman fix us chicken sandwiches, and we’ll have a nightcap and a nice schmooz.”

  “Terrific party,” he whispered. “Congratulations. You’re wonderful. I love you.” He kissed her quickly on the top of the head, and was gone.

  Now Herbert Rothman approached Alex’s table. Herb was not usually a demonstrative man, but now he pressed Alex’s hand between his palms. “Alex,” he said. “Alex, I just wanted you to know how proud I am of you.”

  “Why, thank you, Herb,” she said.

  “You and I have had our differences in the past, I know. Some of that’s been my fault, perhaps. But tonight—well, tonight I just wanted to tell you that this is your finest hour, your finest hour.”

  “Thank you, Papa Bear,” she said, using a term for him that she had not used in years, not since Tarrytown, when they had all lived together under one roof, trying—trying—to be one big happy family, and she had tried—tried so hard—to make her father-in-law become her friend. Under that chilly exterior, she decided, there really was a sweet side, and every now and then he let it show and, after all, he had not led the happiest of lives. She smiled up at him. “Give me a kiss,” she said, “to show me we’ve made up. Besides, it’s a great photo op.”

  Flushing slightly, he bent and kissed her lightly on the cheek, and the television and newspaper cameras recorded this moment.

  Back at her table, Mona Potter was still trying to dredge information from Gregory Kittredge as the main course was being served. When Mona was with the wine, she often became maudlin or belligerent, or sometimes both, and Lenny was enjoying watching Gregory’s obvious discomfiture. Mona’s soup bowl had been removed untouched, and now she was ignoring her main course. In fact, Lenny realized, he had never actually seen Mona eat, in all the years he had known her. Probably this was because she could not see what was on her plate. At home, she no doubt lapped up her meals out of a bowl, like a dog. When drinking, she had another habit, a kind of nervous tic, or compulsion. In her lap, she carried a large gold compact, and she kept flipping this open and looking down at her image in the mirror. The mirror, Lenny had noticed, was magnified, and so she was continually checking her magnified appearance through the further magnification of her corrective lenses. The face she saw in her compact mirror, Lenny imagined, must seem the size of Brazil. Opening and closing her compact in her lap, peering downward, she was saying to Gregory, “I gotta do something on this party for my column. Gimme something for my column. What about you? Don’t forget, I could help your career if I plugged you in my column. So let’s talk about you. What turns you on? What’s kicks for you?”

  “Delicious dinner,” Gregory murmured, slicing carefully into his veal chop. “You can always count on Glorious Food.”

  “C’mon, you can talk to me. You can level with me. Don’t forget, I could have been where she is right now—right up there at the top. You could have been working for me instead of her, ever think about that? I could have been your boss instead of her, ever think about that? I could have been sitting where she is, right at the top, handing out the orders, calling out the orders loud and strong, instead of sitting in a lousy little office at the News, pounding out copy for a column deadline three times a week. I could have been Miss Mode. I could of! I was that close—that close—” and she indicated the minute distance between a rubied forefinger and her thumb—“to having her job, until she kicked the ladder out from under me.”

  Gregory picked up a baby asparagus spear with his fork, and chewed it thoughtfully.

  “And now she’s up there at the top, instead of me. Well, I’ll tell you this. She’d better be very, very careful. It’s not easy being at the top. You know why? They say it’s lonely at the top, but there’s more to it than that. The person at the top has to keep topping herself, which ain’t easy. And now she’s got a new man. Think she’ll marry him?”

  “Really, Mrs. Potter, I wouldn’t know.”

  “Funny thing about her, isn’t it? She’s always had a man. She’s always had to have a man, even at her age. What’s her secret, d’ya think?”

  “Really, Mrs. Potter, I wouldn’t know.”

  She opened and closed her compact, opened it and closed it again. “I’ve got a lousy marriage. I guess everybody knows that. And d’you know why? Partly I blame her for that. Yes I do! Potter has no respect for me. If I was a big-time fashion magazine editor, like I could have been, and not pounding out a column on a deadline three times a week, Potter would show me some respect, but he doesn’t. But do I care what Potter thinks of me?”

  “I’m sure you do, Mrs. Potter,” Gregory said.

  “Hell, no! I don’t care. Potter can go to hell. Potter sells insurance. I’ve interviewed Nancy Reagan, Pat Nixon, Fawn Hall, all the big ones. So. D’ya think she’ll marry whatsisname? I say no. My sources say that Merv Whatsisname doesn’t want a career woman—type wife. They say he wants a little housewifey-type wife who’ll sit in a little rose-covered cottage in Scarsdale or someplace and darn his socks and cook him chicken soup. Whadda you think?”

  “Really, I just wouldn’t know.”

  “And I don’t have to tell you who my sources are. Ever hear of something called the First Amendment? But I guess everybody knows she’s sleeping with him. D’you think that’s gonna be the extent of it, or what?”

  Gregory Kittredge put down his knife and fork. “Really, Mrs. Potter,” he said, very carefully, “I do not wish to discuss Mrs. Rothman’s private life with you.”

  “Well, fuck you, sweetie,” Mona Potter said. “See what I have to say about you in Monday’s column.” She turned immediately to Lenny on her right. “How long have you and Charlie Boxer been lovers, sweetie?” she said. “Don’t you two ever worry about AIDS? Or do you figure you’re both too old for that?”

  Lenny Liebling smiled his brightest, most beatific smile, the smile he reserved for only the most tinglingly rapturous moments. “Darling Mona,” he said. “Tell me. Where did you learn to make such utterly charming dinner-table conversation?”

  5

  Now the pink-coated waiters were clearing the dessert course—Alex’s famous chocolate mousse served in individual terra-cotta flowerpots, with a fresh pink geranium sprouting from the center of each, looking as though it was growing there, a confection the caterer prepared only for Alex—and the orchestra had just finished a set. Alex stepped over to the bandleader. “As soon as the waiters have finished clearing,” she said, “play about eight bars of ‘Happy Days.’ That will be Coleman’s cue to signal the fireworks barge in the river. Then you can go to the mike, and say, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, if you’ll all please stand and face in the direction of Riker’s Island, we have a short show for you,’ or something like that. Then give us a quick fanfare, and the fireworks should start—okay, darlin’?”

  The bandleader nodded. “Got it, Mrs. Rothman,” he said.

  Alex returned to her table, where Lenny, who had escaped from Mona Potter, had joined her. “Cross your fingers,” she whispered. “I hope this all works.”

  But now Herbert Rothman stepped to the microphone. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he began. “Ladies and gentlemen—good friends—dear friends—If I may just say a few words—” And slowly the crowd grew silent. The lighting engineer from NBC turned his floods on Herb Rothman, and the cameraman hoisted his Port-O-Cam to his shoulder and trained it on Herb to capture whatever the president of Rothman Publications, and the publisher of Mode, would have to say.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, as the camera rolled and the flashbulbs popped, “we all know why we’re gathered here tonight—to celebrate the remarkable circulation breakthrough of Mode, a breakthrough none of us at Rothman thought possible, and to toast the editorial triumph of Mode’s editor, Alexandra Rothman, my favorite daughter-in-law.…” The camera panned briefly to Alex’s face
, and her smile was automatic as she mouthed the words, “Thank you, Herb.” There was a polite round of applause.

  “He only has one daughter-in-law,” someone whispered.

  Herb Rothman raised his wineglass. “Here’s to Alex,” he said. “As I told you earlier, Alex, this is your finest hour.”

  Responses of “Hear, hear” echoed across the terrace.

  “Now I can’t let this historic moment pass without comment,” he continued. “As we enter a new decade, the decade of the nineties, we will be entering a period of profound change, which will be felt in the world of fashion as well as on other fronts. We must be prepared for these changes. At Rothman Publications, we are already preparing for these changes. Here at Mode, we are addressing the future, not the past.…”