Innocent Spouse (23 page)

“You like it?” I asked. I was flirting, too.

“Yeah. I can see right through it,” he said.

“No you can’t,” I said, laughing again. “But go ahead and dream.”

The hostess interrupted. “Ladies, your table is ready.”

Susan and I excused ourselves. Keith was so close I had to squeeze past him.

“You and Keith sure hit it off,” Susan said when we were seated. “Another second and he would have been all over you. Do you know who he is?”

“He’s in PR, isn’t he? Like Bobby,” I said. “PR people are always like that once they hear Larry’s name.”

“Carol, you don’t know, do you?”

“No,” I said, “I guess I don’t.”

“He’s a baseball player. Keith Hernandez. He’s a retired Met. Two World Series. He’s a star, a hero in this town, and a notorious lady killer.”

A look of shock lit up my face. “Wow,” I said. How could I not know who he was? I hoisted myself up in my seat and craned my neck to look back at the front door. He stood there with Bobby, looking at me. He gave a small wave. I smiled back, embarrassed that he’d seen me gawking. The cocky expression on his face suggested that he knew we were talking about him. I slid back down on the banquette to face Susan.

“Could you go for that?” she asked.

“He might be too exciting for me. But he is handsome. There’s no denying that.” The men had been joined by some young women and were being led to a table up front. “I’ve never really been into jocks but who knows. It’s a new world for me now.”

We ordered a carafe of red wine, steaks, and fries. When the waitress brought the fries there were so many of them they spilled out of the bowl and onto the white paper covering the table. It was a delicious sight. A bounty of French fries. They were long and skinny and dark brown and crispy. I nibbled away at them, loving every bite. People stopped by to say hello to Susan. We ate, shook hands with visitors, talked, and ate some more. Half the people I met handed me business cards and pitched ideas for Larry King. “There’s nothing in Washington like this,” I said to Susan. “The energy in this room could power a small town.”

The route out of the restaurant took us by the table where Keith and Bobby sat with a dozen people, many of them attractive young women. As we inched by, Keith whispered, “Everybody here is staring at you. I think it’s that skirt.”

“The one you can see through.” I laughed. I wasn’t usually that brash. I put out my hand to shake his. “It was good to meet you.”

“We should keep in touch,” he said. “I’d like to hear more about Larry King.”

Susan and I shared a cab uptown. “I have no idea how to deal with men,” I said. “I mean, he was flirting with me and I had no idea what to do. I was reduced to gibberish.”

“How long were you with Howard?” Susan asked.

“Almost twenty years.”

“You really are sheltered,” she said. “Give yourself time.” The windows of the cab were open. We were flying up Park Avenue with all the lights in our favor. I liked the speed, and the fresh air whooshing through the backseat.

H
OME AGAIN IN
Washington I told the story of Keith Hernandez to anyone who would listen. At Nathans the boys at the bar were at long last impressed with something I’d done. Martha, a baseball fiend, quickly faxed me all his stats and then in a phone conversation explained what they meant. At CNN, when I told Larry King, he said, “I love Keith. He’s one of my favorite people in the world.”

I reminded Larry that in the next week, when we were in New York to do an interview with Martha Stewart, I would be taking him and Shawn to dinner as a wedding present. “We’re going to Daniel, remember, where we went with Al Pacino?”

“Oh yeah, sure,” he said. A haute French restaurant was not exactly Larry’s top choice but Shawn was dying to go there. I liked Shawn and was pleased to make her happy. It was much more difficult to please Larry, but I had an idea.

“What if I invite Keith to come as my guest?”

Larry beamed. I wondered what had possessed me to think of inviting a man I barely knew and who was clearly accustomed to having women fawn all over him. As Becky the senior producer faithfully told any colleague who would listen, I was out of my mind.

“Okay, Larry, I’ll do it.”

I called Bobby Zarem and asked, “Is Keith married?”

“No,” he said. “Why?”

“I want to ask him to dinner next week with me and Larry and Larry’s new wife.”

Bobby said, “I’ll call him.” About an hour later the phone rang. It
was Keith. I was at my desk in Nathans’ basement, where Connie the bookkeeper and I were paying bills. His voice was soft, intimate.

“It’s something different to have a girl ask me out,” he said, “but I’d love to come to dinner with you and Larry King.” We agreed the four of us would meet at the restaurant after the live show.

Just like that. Not even two minutes later, we hung up. “Oh, my God!” I said, looking up at Connie. “I have a date!”

“What do you mean, you have a date? You don’t just have a date, you have a date with Keith Hernandez!”

This particular New York trip was jammed with work. I had a meeting with someone who was trying to help us book Lisa Marie Presley; I had a meeting with Hamilton South, the gatekeeper for Ralph Lauren; and I had a meeting with Ed Filipowski, who was the U.S. publicist for Donatella Versace. We had live shows with Martha Stewart and Kitty Kelley and a daytime taping of Chanel’s Karl Lagerfeld with Anna Wintour of
Vogue
, who agreed to come in because it was with Lagerfeld. All of them were my gets, my responsibility, my shows. But my focus was on the date.

The two cocktail dresses I had brought from Washington, the pride of my dwindling collection of designer frocks—I’d sold the others—hung in the hotel closet. I chose the little black one. I anxiously zipped up the dress and put on the pearls Howard had given me for our tenth wedding anniversary. I was careful not to muss my hair and makeup. All I needed was the man and the corsage and I was ready for the prom.

My reflection in the mirror made me grin. I hadn’t fussed over myself this much in years, and I felt a little foolish caring so much about how I looked. It felt odd, too, to be headed out the door alone, not to have a man beside me or waiting for me downstairs. The last time I had been on a “first date,” I was twenty-six years old. It was the first time Howard took me out to dinner.

It had been eight months since Howard died, but he was still a presence in my life. Every month I marked the anniversary of his passing. He was in my dreams and fantasies. I’d made progress, but I didn’t think of myself as a “single” woman. Paolo and I had kissed like teenagers—in secret and in shadow. He had, in some mysterious way,
freed me. But I wasn’t sure I was ready for this. A date? There was only one way to find out.

Shawn was good company. We stopped briefly at a party, but I was anxious to get back to the hotel. “It’s near the restaurant,” I said to Shawn. “We can relax and watch the show there.” Well, Shawn could relax but I was pacing. “What do you think? Should I change my dress?”

“Carol, you’re fine. Don’t change a thing. Just try to relax.” She was concentrating on the television, on Larry. It was 9:45. Fifteen minutes to go and the show would be off the air and we would head to Daniel. “Let’s not arrive right on time,” she said. “We should be five or ten minutes late, so you’re sure he’s waiting there for you. He can watch you walk in.”

“Okay,” I said, cheerfully. “That sounds like a plan.”

We waited. I checked my watch and waited some more. At ten-ten I said, “Can we go now? Please? Shouldn’t we go?” She nodded. I gave one last check in the mirror. Little black dress, check; pearls, check; subtle but good makeup, check; beautiful shiny hair, check; sexy, strappy stilettos, check. I hadn’t looked this good in ages. Who could resist me?

The maître d’, Bruno Jamais, met us when Shawn and I walked in the door. I looked around. No Keith. “Are we the first ones here?” I asked, only slightly disappointed that Keith would not watch me arrive. “Is our table ready?”

“Yes,” Bruno said. He showed us to a table near the middle of the room. It was the restaurant’s most visible table and it was set for three. That was odd. Somebody had backed out, and I knew it wasn’t Larry.

“We were supposed to be four,” I said.

“Ah,” sighed Bruno in the most consoling tones, “Mr. Hernandez called and said he cannot make it. He left a number. He would like you to call him.”

My thought: Forget that!

Larry charged through the door right on schedule. He was still pumped with the adrenaline from an hour of live television. Diners turned or looked up. Larry started to walk the short distance to our table as the chef, Daniel Boulud, reached his side, eager to greet the star. But that was of no matter to Larry. “Where’s Keith?” he boomed.

“He couldn’t make it,” Shawn said, quietly.

“What? He stood you up?” His voice boomed. He was still standing, looking directly at me, as if I’d lost an important guest for the show at two minutes to air. “You mean, Keith Hernandez stood you up, Carol?” Everyone in the room could hear him. I wanted to kick him in the shins. “Why would Keith stand you up?” Larry repeated. “Did you have any idea?”

Well, no. Shawn hustled him to sit down and tried to change the subject.

Larry could not be appeased. Food was no consolation. I knew Larry well enough not to take his reaction personally. It was just Larry being Larry. Sometimes he took his disappointments like that of a little boy whose toys have just been snatched.

The chef had to have recognized that the table was dysfunctional, but he leaned over to ask what I would like. My appetite was gone. He went to Larry, eager to suggest a variety of delicacies from his famed kitchen: foie gras, caviar, short ribs, crusted halibut. Since his angioplasty, however, Larry was eating a bland diet.

“For me?” he growled. “Grilled chicken with the skin off and some steamed carrots.” Larry could have been having a quick piece of chicken at Joe Allen—what he preferred after a show—but instead he was at this fancy French restaurant where the food would clog his arteries, and he was there for only one reason: Keith Hernandez. And no Keith!

“Why did Keith stand you up?” Larry asked, unable to let it go.

Shawn rolled her eyes and patted his arm. “Give it a rest, Larry.”

“I have no idea, Larry. Believe me, it’s not the way I wanted it to turn out.” We were both in the same dark mood. We’d both been stood up. But I put my chin up and moved us on to other topics. I asked about the night’s show, about his day. Shawn tried to make some jokes, but we were both hauling rocks through a sea of mud.

Bruno walked over. “You have a phone call,” he said.

I took the call near the coat check. It was Keith. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “I was just too tired.” He gave me a list of all the tough things he’d done that day, including being honored by the Mets with the retirement of his jersey, number 17, and now he was whipped and ready for bed. “Can I call you tomorrow and maybe we’ll have a drink or dinner?”

“Sure, Keith, you do that. Good-bye.” I hung up and returned to the table.

Larry, Shawn, and I were out of there in forty-five minutes, soup to nuts. The chef came out from the kitchen, astonished that we were leaving so early. “Larry moves fast,” I said as we raced past him and out the door.

I walked Shawn and Larry to their car. It was a gorgeous evening. Breezy. Cool. Dry. Full moon. Soft, soft air. The city was alive and vibrant. It was the kind of night I loved. But there I was, in the middle of it, rejected and alone. I struggled to hold back the tears as I walked through the lobby of the Carlyle, rode the elevator up to my floor, walked down the hall, and jammed the key into the lock. Once inside, I slumped against the door. “Goddammit. I want my husband back. I want my marriage back. I want my life back. I don’t want to be a widow.”

I took off the slinky black dress, the sexy heels, and the pearls, washed the makeup off my face, put on a white cotton T-shirt and boxers, and crawled between the crisp white sheets. I was not going to be a victim. “I’m not going to let any man get me down,” I said to myself. “If they want me they’ll have to come after me.” I wasn’t miserable. My ego had been bruised but it was already bouncing back.

The phone rang. “Tell me all about your date,” Martha said, unable to restrain her excitement.

“He stood me up!”

For a moment she was silent. “You’re kidding,” she said. Another pause. “No, you’re not.”

“Can you imagine? A widow goes out on her first date and gets stood up?” Suddenly we both burst into laughter. We laughed until we said good night. I turned out the lights and drifted off to dreamland.

Here was my problem: I couldn’t go back to Washington without at least a base hit. The boys at the bar were counting on me. It was a matter of saving face—Nathans’ face, not mine. I had to return to Washington with some kind of success story about me and Keith Hernandez.

The next day Keith paged me four times. After six hours and two more pages, I returned his call. He invited me for drinks and dinner. “We’ll see how the drinks go before I commit to dinner,” I said.

Shawn had advised me to arrive late. “And play it cool. Play it real cool.”

I arrived late but I don’t know how cool I played it. At Keith’s suggestion we met at the opulent bar of Le Cirque. “Carol!” He got my attention. I walked over, sat down slowly. He was as handsome as I remembered. Dark. Serious. He appeared nervous, shy, and appealingly contrite. We both ordered martinis; mine vodka, his gin.

We made small talk and big talk. During the time we sipped our drinks we covered the highlights of his career as a ballplayer, that he was divorced, that I was a widow, that he had three daughters, that I was a single mother, that he lived in Midtown, that I lived in Georgetown, that he had split up with his girlfriend, that I had a restaurant and a TV job, that he was in retirement, that I had an IRS problem, that he’d once had an IRS problem, and that it was a big no-no to stand me up.

At that point I agreed to have dinner with him. He chose the Park Avenue Bistro on lower Park Avenue. We sat side by side. He insisted I wear his World Series ring, which engulfed my finger. Celine Dion sang in French over the sound system, and he sang along; we ate roasted chicken and French fries, and drank a lot of red wine. He was very affectionate. He put his arm around me. He tried to kiss me.