Innocent Spouse (15 page)

I’d bring menus, spreadsheets, and profit-and-loss statements to our rendezvous. One night as I blathered away about one restaurant issue or another, he slid his hand over and placed it on mine and left it there, his warm skin caressing mine. I didn’t know how much I had missed the feeling until I felt it. I wanted him to never let go. I stopped talking, almost breathless.

“Sometimes we want things we can’t have,” he said softly, “but that doesn’t mean we can’t want them. The first time we met I thought you were the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.” I remembered the first time, too, when Howard and I had looked him up at a mutual friend’s suggestion. He had been the new chef, and the culinary next big thing, at an Upper East Side bistro. As he emerged from the kitchen in his crisp chef’s jacket and headed toward our table with a smile, my silent reaction was “Wow.” I never thought of chefs as alluring until that day. But I was married and he was married and I put the thought away.

He wrapped his fingers in mine and leaned in close. “You are still that beautiful today.” Now tell me, what widowed tax fraud defendant with a cash-strapped saloon wouldn’t want to drink at that fountain?

He walked me to the elevator. As we hugged good night, and he kissed each cheek, I had the urge to crawl inside his leather jacket and live there. But I was scared and he was married. Been there, done that.

Howard was gone but I still felt very much his wife. Only the rules had changed. The new rules said I was free to do as I pleased. But what was that? I asked myself.

Paolo called me often at home in Washington around midnight. He’d be in his kitchen office; I’d be in bed, with the phone cradled by my ear on the pillow. We didn’t talk about anything in particular, really; we talked
around
things, flirting. He’d gloat about good news. “The king of Spain was in tonight.” Or the celebrity customer would be Woody Allen or Johnny Depp, his personal favorite. Tim and Nina Zagat were at a table and swooned over the food. The
Daily News
was about to do a review and he’d heard it was good.

At my end of the line I’d whisper, “Well, I got the spotters’ report and only two of the bartenders are stealing and only one is seriously over-pouring. We got a $100,000 lawsuit from a woman who said she slipped on a butter pat and it ruined her sex life.”

P
AOLO WAS AN
elixir. One flash of his smile threw off enough positive energy to bolster several days of my war-torn life in Washington. I craved a romantic dinner for two. I wanted us to behave like normal people, the way I remembered these things. I wanted to dine with him, drink wine with him, eat and talk with him. Yes, I had a crush on him. I was infatuated.

We made a proper dinner date and he picked the restaurant, owned by a friend. Paolo picked me up in a taxi and we rode together to the restaurant just off of Central Park West. The maître d’ greeted Paolo warmly and led us to a corner table. It felt private. There was candlelight. A lovely tapestry hung on the wall behind us. We sat next to each other, nervous, both of us aware we had crossed a line. I’d brought no spreadsheets or P&Ls; this was no longer about two old friends talking shop. This was a romance, and Paolo was a man—strong, powerful, macho. He smiled and everything else in my head was vaporized.

“Champagne?” he asked.

“That would be lovely,” I said.

We had easy conversation over dinner and our hands stayed on the table with the flatware, the food, and the wineglasses. We did no touching, no fingers grazing hands or arms. Paolo ordered a bottle of
Puligny-Montrachet. We talked about our pasts, our careers, marriage, life, and how we met. Over the course of our dinner the other customers left, the chef said good night, and the maître d’ pulled off his tie and followed the chef. By dessert it was only us and the candlelight; the sommelier and waiter kept a respectful distance.

Paolo looked at me but said nothing. He reached out with his hand and took mine and pulled it over to him and kissed my fingers. He kissed them slowly, one at a time.

I leaned close to him and said in a low voice, “You are my secret.”

He said, “You are my secret garden.” I pulled his hand close and placed the back of it against my right cheek and held it there as if it were a precious possession. My eyes met his and we sat like that until the waiter walked over. We collected ourselves and Paolo asked for the check.

“You are our guests,” the waiter said kindly. “There is no check.”

Alone again, Paolo took my hand in his and kissed the back of it and turned it over like a leaf and kissed my palm. The tip of his tongue played with the soft skin inside my wrist. I closed my eyes. My breath caught. The fingers of my other hand played with his hair and moved over the back of his head to the nape of his neck. I tried with my touch to give him the same pleasure he gave me.

The waiter shuffled in the distance, snapping us back to reality. I picked up my small clutch and sweater. Paolo had no jacket. He wore a striped long-sleeved shirt of soft cotton. His cuffs were rolled up to just below his elbows. He looked good. We looked good together.

We walked along West Sixty-First Street toward Central Park, his arm around my shoulder and my arm around his waist. The air was balmy. The streets, even Central Park West, were quiet. It was almost one o’clock in the morning. “Let’s walk a bit,” I said. Under a streetlight, he stopped and turned and took me in his arms. I moved closer toward him, at first tentatively and then eagerly until my face was buried deep in the warmth of his neck.

He pulled back enough to put his hand under my chin to lift my face toward his. He kissed me, at first softly and then more urgently. He stopped and started, his lips softly pressed against mine, and then hard and harder, for what felt like many minutes. Paolo pulled back, his arms still tight around me. “We’ve got to get a cab,” he said. Entwined,
we hobbled to the street. A cab pulled up. Paolo opened the door and continued to kiss me. We climbed in, kissing. He came up for air only long enough to speak to the driver—“across the park”—and then he dove back into me. The windows of the cab, all of them, were open to the soft June air, and it buffeted us as we flew through the park, jostled by the cab and the bumps in the road, adjusting our kiss to the motion.

Paolo stopped. “We are not going to become lovers,” he said.

“Yes,” I said. “I know that. You’re married and I’m not ready. Nothing more will happen.”

“We are only kissing,” he said.

“Yes, only that,” I said. We flew back into each other’s arms and kissed again. His hand ran along my back and down my thigh and across my tummy to my breast. I cupped his face in my hands and kissed his eyes and nose and lips. When the cab stopped at a light at Seventy-Ninth and Fifth, I gasped, “Let’s get out and walk. I have to get some air.”

We walked half a block before he grabbed me and embraced me and kissed me again. We stopped in front of an apartment building. He kissed me so vigorously that one of my earrings flew off and rolled across the sidewalk before it went down a grate. “These earrings were a gift from Howard,” I said. “I think he just sent us a message.”

“I hope it was approval,” he said. Doubtful.

We walked along Fifth Avenue, the only people on the street. I walked backward with my arms around his neck, looking him in the face, exchanging more kisses. He pulled me closer and stopped us in our tracks and kissed me again. He held me so close our bodies were practically welded. He kissed my neck and my ears and my mouth. I was limp and warm and flushed.

At the entrance of the Carlyle we decided we should part right there, but each time he walked away he turned back and kissed me again. “Let’s get away from the hotel cameras,” he said, and pulled me into the shadows just beyond the entrance. He kissed me again.

“I must go now,” he said. “It’s late.”

“So, go,” I said.

He kissed me again. “I guess this was dessert,” I said, nibbling at his neck.

“The chef’s special,” he said. “I must go,” he said again.

“Go,” I replied. He wrapped his arms around me, pulled back, kissed my eyes and my nose and my lips. “You have no idea how wonderful this is for me,” I said.

“For me, too,” he said, holding me tightly next to him.

“Let’s not wake up in the morning and regret this,” I said.

“We won’t,” he said, kissing my neck.

Before we parted we inhaled each other and pulled the scent up into our heads for safekeeping. And then all I saw was the back of him. He was gone, walking toward Park Avenue to hail a cab.

T
HE NEXT MORNING
, swooning in my hotel bed, a smile pasted on my face, I called a girlfriend to tell her what had happened. I was in that goofy, heady, crazy state of mind that comes with a crush.

She would have none of it. She gave me only tough love, especially when I told her I wanted to call him.

“You can’t call him! He can’t call you! You can’t go to his restaurant! You can’t have anything to do with him. You made out with him. He’s married. You can’t have a relationship with him. You just have to back away!”

I knew she was right. I was being selfish, but for a moment I felt whole again. I had been kissed. I was a widow who got her first kiss.

M
Y DAYS WERE
an organized, well-oiled machine—with chaos lurking just beneath the surface. I zoomed here and here, and there and there. I timed everything. In my new world there was no wiggle room, no time for a delay, a backup in traffic, a meeting that ran over, or surprises. The real world had another plan. It worked on its own time, and inevitably a crisis would strike like a bolt of lightning.

This day began normally enough for mid-July. Searing heat by seven-thirty, too hot to run. A walk to the bagel shop and Starbucks and back home. A shower, then walk Spencer up the hill to his day camp. He was particularly talkative that morning. He was still chattering when I kissed him good-bye and left him at camp. I was in no rush. I would take my time walking down the hill to Nathans. My plan, though begrudgingly, was to give the day to Nathans, to be there, to roll up my sleeves and learn some actual restaurant skills. The morning may have been hot, but it was also quiet and peaceful. It was too good to last. Sometime after nine my cell rang. Wendy Walker was on the line. “Versace’s been shot! Murdered! In Miami.”

My jaw dropped.

“Get on it, Carol,” she said. “We need it for the show tonight.”

The fashion elite were still my beat, and this would be my story. As awful as it sounds, I needed a big breaking story like this to prove my value to the show. Journalism thrives on the misfortunes of others. As I walked I began making calls to the design houses of Valentino, Chanel, and Donna Karan, to reps for models such as Naomi Campbell and Cindy Crawford, and to New York PR people such as Susan Magrino and Paul Wilmot. A bee stung me on the toe, making me hop in pain, but still I juggled the phone. I got to Nathans, made my “good mornings”
all around, and jumped on the phone at my desk in the basement, my toe still burning.

Wendy called again. “Carol, I think I’m just going to have them work on the show from here. I can’t have you there and my not being able to control what you’re doing. This is just too big. I have too much pressure on me. Tom [Johnson, the head of CNN] was just on the phone with me and I have to deliver. I just can’t take the chance.” She paused for a breath. “I hope you’ll understand. You’d feel the same way about Nathans. You have too much to do there. You can’t possibly give this the time it needs.”

I said, “Wendy, I understand and I’ll do what you want but I wish you would just give me a try. I can do it. I’m working on nothing else. I’m here. That’s what matters at this end. Besides, this isn’t any different from any of the other shows I’ve worked on from out of the office.”

“Carol, this is a big breaking story,” she said.

“I know. I know. But just give me a chance. Let’s see if I can do it. If it gets over my head I’ll be the first one to pull out. Why don’t we wait till lunchtime to see where I am? I’ve already put out a lot of calls. I’ve been doing nothing else.” She gave me until noon. I hung up, desperate, but also resenting that I was stuck at Nathans, where I least wanted to be, rather than at CNN with my colleagues, doing the job I loved. The business I owned felt like a cancer eating away at my career and there was nothing I could do to fight it. All I could do was try to juggle both.

The calls I’d put out there were rolling back in. Sometimes I was fielding so many calls that all three lines into Nathans were on hold and I was on my cell. Deliverymen came into the office, waiting for me to sign off on crates of fresh fish, cases of beer, and slabs of beef while I haggled over Naomi Campbell and Cindy Crawford.

“I know Naomi can’t stop crying, but that will be okay for us,” I pleaded into the phone while one of the delivery guys waited for his check. He gave me a strange look. An architect was standing at my desk, waiting to survey the upstairs. Doug was waiting for me to look over the newly reworked menu. I was juggling calls and taking notes. “Okay. Maybe Naomi can stop crying long enough to do a ten-minute interview with Larry? That’s all we need. No? You don’t think so? Okay. If she changes her mind, we want her.”

Sylvester Stallone, Demi Moore, and Madonna said no. More pleading with Wendy. She extended my deadline. A wine salesman showed up with some of his top wines for me to try. I’d forgotten I’d made a lunch appointment with him.

Wendy was getting more nervous because the big designers—Calvin Klein, Valentino, Donna Karan, Isaac Mizrahi, as well as a half dozen big stars—looked like they were no-gos. I was sitting with the wine salesman at a table in the bar. He’d brought a vintage Oregon pinot noir and two rare rosé champagnes. Some of the summer college-student staff gathered around while he showed them how to uncork a bottle of champagne properly. When he got to the part about the importance of keeping a thumb on the cork so the cork won’t fly out, saying “that happens about one in a thousand times,” the cork shot out with a loud
bang
. It caromed from the ceiling to the floor to the bar and every man sitting there ducked. I laughed out loud. The salesman did, too.