Fairy Tale Interrupted (10 page)

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.”

I told John the truth because, I reasoned, if Carolyn had decided to tell him herself, he might have wondered what else I wasn’t telling him, and someone in my position couldn’t afford that. I didn’t want to get in the middle, but I was trying to be honest with both of them and also protect myself.

After talking to John, I returned to my desk and called Carolyn.

“Hey, sweetie, just in case John brings it up, I told him you came over last night to hang out.”

“Okay. What did he say?”

“Nothing.”

“He probably would have dragged it out of you somehow.”

We both knew that wasn’t true, but it signaled that she understood the boundaries: no matter how much I cared about her, my allegiance was to John. Ultimately, she knew that because John could trust me completely, so could she.

More than anyone else, Carolyn saw how fiercely loyal I was and the extent of my work for John, and because of it, she loved me and was one of my biggest advocates. We were a pretty good team, too. Sometimes she would call me in the morning before John had made it into the office to give me a heads-up on the state of his mood and the reasons for it. If he had an issue with me—such as, I was spending too much time answering the phones and not concentrating on drafting an important letter—she let me know. I was already adept at reading John, but Carolyn made me seem like a genius.

It took two hyperorganized women to manage John. Everything was chaos with him. The first time he and I traveled together, the problems began before we even stepped inside the airport. He asked me if I had his ticket, which of course I did, but I decided to give him shit.

“No,” I said, deadpan.

“What? Are you kidding me, Rosie?” he asked, sounding panicked.

“I’m joking.”

“Oh, by the way,” he said, “I forgot my wallet.”

Great.

Matt Berman, John, and I were headed to Nashville to shoot and interview Garth Brooks for the
George
cover. John couldn’t miss the flight. As this occurred pre–September 11, the chance of American Airlines personnel denying him a boarding pass because he didn’t have his ID was slim; however, John was traveling to Europe directly from Nashville, and he definitely needed his wallet and passport to go abroad.

I told John and Matt to check in while I ran to a pay phone and called FedEx. Sure enough, they had same-day service to Nashville, so with FedEx holding on one phone, I called Carolyn on the adjacent pay phone to make arrangements for FedEx to pick up John’s wallet and passport.

She sighed in mock exasperation—moments like this with John were routine—and joked, “Better you than me.”

While Carolyn gathered the necessary documents and John’s wallet, and I sorted out the final details, John came over and pointed at his watch. “Rosie, what are you doing on the phone? We’re going to miss the plane.”

“I’m getting a psychic reading from Dionne Warwick. What do you think I’m doing?”

On the plane, he didn’t even ask if I’d resolved the issue. Once he told me about his forgotten wallet, I sensed his relief. It wasn’t his problem anymore; it was mine. He knew I’d take care of it. I always did.

John looked out for me, too. He wanted to come to my rescue if someone treated me badly, and he tried to do just that after my run-in with Barbra Streisand’s assistant. The iconic singer-actress had posed as Betsy Ross for the cover of
George,
and
although the deadline was fast approaching, the photographer still hadn’t delivered the images. John asked me to call one of Barbra’s assistants to see what the holdup was since Barbra had a deal with the photographer to approve any images that went to the magazine. After explaining to her assistant the urgency of the situation—that if we didn’t get the photos by a particular date, we were not going to make the cover—she lit into me like I had just made the most outrageous request in the world.

“The photographer has the photos, and when he’s done retouching them, that’s when you’ll get them!” the assistant screamed. Then she hung up on me. She was so out of control, I was shaking when I got off the phone. After John found out what had happened, he, too, went into a rage.

“Give me the phone. I’m calling her right now,” John said. “How dare she talk to you like that!”

I appreciated his desire to defend me but wouldn’t let him make the call. “That would be giving her a big ole gift,” I said. “After screaming at me, she gets a call from John F. Kennedy Jr.? No way.”

Ever the protective older brother, John also wasn’t a fan of my new boyfriend, Joey. He thought I needed someone more mature and sophisticated—and he was right—but it was his fault we got together in the first place. Joey was the assistant to the creative director of Naked Angels, one of John’s charities, and would often call the office to schedule board meetings. After we had spoken on the phone a few times, he told me he was in a band.

“Hey, if you’re not doing anything tomorrow, why don’t you come see us play at Brownies?” he said.

“Maybe.”

“Great. Can you also tell John my band is playing?”

He had about as much chance of John Kennedy showing up at one of his gigs as he did John Lennon.

I didn’t go to the gig and didn’t meet Joey in person until John asked me to give him some direction in his hunt for a new job, since his boss had left Naked Angels. I put him in touch with some executives at Hachette, and as a thank-you, he asked me to lunch. We met for sushi across the street from the office, and—there’s no other way to put it—he was fucking gorgeous. With his unruly, dark, curly hair that hung down to the middle of his back and huge blue eyes, I could hardly focus on food.

Joey was sweet, funny, and even a little shy. Despite my clear attraction to him, I put the idea of dating him out of my mind. There was no way that this kid in a rock band wasn’t going out with nineteen-year-old groupies. He was just a nice guy repaying a favor with lunch.

That Sunday, though, he called to ask if I wanted to see his friend’s band. I still didn’t see it as a date; I figured he was playing it smart, staying in touch with me because of my proximity to John. If we became friends, maybe John would eventually show up at one of his gigs. So without expectation, I headed out that night with my own agenda of meeting new people—perhaps even someone as cute as Joey.

Waiting for me outside the club on Great Jones Street, Joey wore a thin blue Adidas T-shirt with white trim and had cut his hair so that the black curls ringed his face like an angel’s—a really, really hot angel. He said with a deep, raspy voice, “Hey, baby, you look beautiful.” His greeting took my breath away—my first crush at thirteen called me “baby,” and I thought it was
the sexiest thing a guy could say. Joey put his arm around my waist and tucked my hand into his back pocket. It was definitely a date.

Not many people had showed up at the venue, Under Acme, a dark box with low ceilings and black brick walls, where every band with loud music attempted to become the next Nirvana. The empty expanse of dance floor left Joey, me, and our obvious chemistry way too exposed.

“Wanna get out of here?” he asked after one song.

We ran up the stairs and several blocks to 9th Street, where we crashed directly into the heady scene at Café Tabac. We talked and laughed, but mostly we made out. We kissed for hours—next to the pool table, in corners, and on various couches—until five o’clock in the morning. The place was closing and the sun was coming up. I hailed a cab, and as I opened the door to get in, Joey said, “Where are you going?”

“I’m going home,” I said.

“Can I come home with you?”

“No, let’s save something for next time.”

Joey was shocked, but he sort of loved it, too. He called the next day and every day after that. Whenever we saw each other, we both burst into big smiles, and then started kissing. We heard “get a room” called out on the street more times than I could count.

A couple of weeks after we began seeing each other, I went to one of his band’s gigs and brought along two friends, eager to show off my sexy new boyfriend. The band had played only a few songs when the lead singer said into the microphone, “So, everybody, what do you think of Joey’s new haircut?” The crowd cheered and I smiled, thinking about how his thick
black hair felt in my hands. Then Joey leaned into the mic and announced, “I did it to get more pussy.”

“Nice,” my friend said.

“Well,” I replied. “It’s working.”

Good-looking, young, and surrounded by groupies, Joey was a dangerous type to fall for. To add to that lethal combo, his parents were well-off. He had arrived in New York from an affluent Boston suburb. I’d seen his kind before: though he lived in a dive on the Lower East Side, he had no problem buying five-hundred-dollar Elvis Costello–style glasses or a good meal (using his dad’s Amex). He acted poor, but his style and alma maters were too expensive for him to pull off an accurate portrayal.

No, Joey didn’t exactly have
stability
written all over him. But I kind of got off on having the attention of a guy tons of girls gawked at every night. Still, I had to establish some kind of power, so I made him wait a month before sleeping with him. Joey turned my game into evidence of his desirability. “I know why you’re not sleeping with me,” he teased for the duration of that long month. “It’s because you really like me.”