Fairy Tale Interrupted (18 page)

After I had finished passing out the gifts, the private phone line (which only John, Carolyn, and a handful of other people knew the number of) rang at my desk: it was John and Carolyn.

“Oh my God, so what happened?” Carolyn said. “How’s it going? Is it in the papers?”

“What? Are you kidding me? It’s everywhere on the planet.”

“Jesus.”

“I can’t wait to see all the photos. The dress looked amazing in the pictures I saw.”

“Oh my God, the dress. I couldn’t get it over my head at first. I was freaking out. But Gordon saved the day. He put a silk scarf over my head and eased the dress down that way.”

“No fucking way.”

John grabbed the phone. “Hey, stupid,” he said.

“Hey, stupid, congrats,” I replied. “How does it feel?”

“It’s really great,” John said happily.

“It means you’re old, you know.”

I was psyched they had called me. It was funny and sweet that the Monday morning after their wedding, they wanted to talk to me and make me feel included, even though I couldn’t be there.

The media had always covered John and Carolyn, but after they got married, the paparazzi were relentless. At first, it was all about the wedding. For weeks after, people were still hunting for information. So much so that when Frank and I went on vacation to Paris the week after their wedding, we were photographed sitting at a café with Narciso, whom we were visiting. The photo was published in
People
magazine. I understood the media were trying to find a story, but that was a stretch. When John and Carolyn returned from their honeymoon, photographers and reporters were camped outside the house every day, and their constant presence was stressful for the couple.

I also got a taste of the paparazzi’s rabidity when John invited me to a Knicks game the January before they were married.

“What are you doing for your birthday on Tuesday night?” John asked me.

“Nothing. I’m celebrating on Friday and Saturday night.”

“Do you want to go to the Knicks–Bulls game with me?”

“Oh, you don’t have to take me, John. You can just give me the tickets and I can take a friend.”

“You’re such a bitch, Rosie. I want to go, too.”

“No, no! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant that if you would rather not go, you don’t have to just because it’s my birthday.”

“I want to take you.”

“Great! Thank you.”

It was an unseasonably warm night, so John decided that he wanted to walk the fifteen blocks from the office to Madison Square Garden. He extended his arm for me to hold on to and said, “You’re my date tonight, Rosie.” It was fun to be out with him socially for a change. I didn’t have letters to write or appointments to schedule, just the easy enjoyment of chatting about friends, the office, and life as we walked arm in arm, anonymous amid the crowds of midtown workers making their way to Penn Station.

We were halfway there when out of the blue, John said, “Rosie, why don’t we grab a cab?”

I looked at him like he was crazy. “Why? I thought we were walking. We’re only seven blocks away.”

“Just get a cab.”

I dropped his arm and stepped into the street to hail a taxi when the paparazzi descended like pigeons flying in to attack a half-eaten pretzel on the ground. I’d been totally oblivious to the signs, but with a practiced eye, John immediately saw them coming.

As soon as I raised my arm to flag down a cab, at least ten
of them appeared out of nowhere, screaming his name when they realized he was about to get away.
Flash, flash, flash!
Their cameras made my head spin. I almost fell on my ass in the traffic whizzing down Seventh Avenue. John allowed them to take a few pictures, and then maneuvered like a missile into the cab (head down, eyes up), as I tumbled in behind him.

Inside the cab, we waited at a red light, while the paparazzi snapped shot after shot, their flashes illuminating the car’s interior. John looked out the window, oddly embarrassed that I had witnessed firsthand the craziness that accompanied him wherever he went. The cabdriver broke the awkward silence by telling John how best to avoid the paparazzi on his bike.

“Listen, man, if you want to lose the photographers, you have to ride
against
traffic.”

“Thanks for the tip,” John said, then turned to me, smiling, and said, “Somebody’s life is going to be a freak show tomorrow.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“You’ll see.”

Two days later, the
Daily News
ran a picture of my big date with John. Not to be outdone on the JFK Jr. beat, the other tabloids quickly followed with their own items and photos of the night. The
New York Post
published a story identifying me by name. The
Globe
ran with the cover headline “JFK Jr.’s Hot Date with his Secretary,” and inside the paper: “By George, JFK Jr. Puts in Overtime.” Meanwhile, I couldn’t have been happier, because the article called me a “twenty-five-year-old beauty.”

“Every word of it is true,” I joked to my friends about the piece.

But of course it wasn’t, particularly the part about my
knowing “never to order cream of broccoli soup for John’s lunch—because he hates it.” John, the least picky eater I’d ever met, consumed whatever I got for him and half of my lunch every day. He would have dined on ground cardboard if I put enough salt and pepper on it.

When the press about our “hot date” hit, John seized the opportunity to mock me, poking fun at my coat in one picture by calling it “roadkill.” He wasn’t the only one who enjoyed my fifteen minutes of fame. My family, Frank’s family, and all my friends loved the article. My mother bought every single copy of the
Globe
at her local supermarket.

“Mom, there’s a lot of stuff in there that’s completely made up,” I said.

“You work for him and went to the game. That’s enough truth for me.”

John lost his cool with the paparazzi only a handful of times. One involved a contentious issue—his dog. You could yell at John, call him a pretty boy, or even call him dumb, but you didn’t mess with Friday, the Canaan puppy he brought home a few months before getting married. Usually as affable with the paparazzi as he was with everyone else, John was less than charitable when he witnessed, through the picture window of the restaurant where he was eating breakfast with Carolyn, a particularly crazy paparazzo named Ruth untying Friday, picking him up, and putting him on her lap to pet him. The provocation worked. John tore out of the restaurant, yanked the leash away, and snarled, “Don’t you
ever
touch my dog.” Other than taking photos, that’s what the paparazzi do: they try to get a rise out of you. And Ruth was brilliant at it. Despite her matted hair and oversized, frayed T-shirts, the
fifty-something-year-old had a knack for getting into highly secure places, such as private parties—and the
George
offices. Once, an editor reported that a strange, unfamiliar woman was using the copy machine. I went over to find out what was up.

“Ruth!” I yelled at the sight of the crumpled little woman, weighed down by her camera bags and hovering over the copier. “Get out of here.”

“I’m just copying something,” she said.

“It’s illegal for you to be in here.”

“I’ll be done in a sec.”

I felt sorry for her and often let her take a couple of pictures at an event before ushering her out, knowing full well that she’d be back if she could find a way. But by sneaking into the office, she had gone too far.

Another incident with the paparazzi happened after John called me from Hyannis one summer weekend to let me know we had a problem. It turned out that “our” problem stemmed from John having dumped a bucket of water over the head of a photographer who wouldn’t stop taking pictures of Carolyn on the beach every time John went into the water and wasn’t there to protect her. Regretting his reaction a few moments later, John left a note on the photographer’s car with the office address and the message that he would pay for the damaged camera. He also spelled the word
address
incorrectly.

Of course, the photographer fed the misspelled note to a newspaper and sent us a fifteen-thousand-dollar bill for the damaged camera. What was the camera made of—gold? Asking for repayment for the broken camera was one thing; quadrupling the price just because it was John Kennedy who’d
damaged it was quite another. I wasn’t going to let that happen; I called the photographer to tell him that now John wouldn’t be sending any money.

When John wasn’t by Carolyn’s side, the photographers released the full force of their aggression, which, needless to say, was pretty aggressive. Whenever she went out—to get a coffee, walk the dog, or meet a friend—they were there, pushing in close and shouting things like “whore” and “bitch.” And worse.

I was shocked at the display of raw meanness but understood why they resorted to nasty name-calling. Always discreet and reserved in public, Carolyn gave them nothing.

Carolyn couldn’t simply pose and then move on like John did, and anyway, it wasn’t that easy. Those staid pictures weren’t sellable: a paparazzo makes more money off a shot if there’s some action or emotion in it. If they could break her perfect exterior, it would be an instant story: “Carolyn on Verge of Nervous Breakdown” or “Problems at Home for Newlyweds.” So they reached new levels of viciousness and patiently waited for her to mess up, act out, or go crazy. I tried to cheer her up with a joke when she’d call, upset. “I don’t know why you said yes to John. I would have said no.” But I pitied her; the girl was basically a sitting duck.

“This is ridiculous,” she said, calling me at the office one day. “If I don’t leave the house before 8:00 a.m., they’re waiting for me.
Every
morning.”

I didn’t know what to say.

“They chase me down the street,” Carolyn continued.

“Just try to smile and don’t say a fucking word,” I told her.

I always stressed to Carolyn that she shouldn’t let the press,
the paparazzi, or cameramen hear her voice. A person’s voice is personal and intimate. If they never heard hers, I thought, they wouldn’t get what they wanted.

After two weeks of constant post-wedding madness, even John, despite his usual “suck it up” attitude, was at his breaking point. The number of paparazzi outside their apartment building had tripled and didn’t show any signs of abating.

“Rose, I’m going to confront them,” John said over the phone from their apartment. “This is out of hand. I’m going downstairs to give a statement, and then Carolyn and I will take a few pictures.”

Making an in-person statement to the press was revolutionary for a guy who never, ever addressed his personal life in public.

“What are you going to say?” I asked.

“I’ll say that we’re flattered by the attention, but that Carolyn needs a break. She’s not as used to this as I am.”

He was going to try to charm them.

Carolyn had her doubts. She grabbed the phone.

“I don’t want to go down there,” she said. “I’m not sure this is a good idea.”

“They just want a shot of you two together, the newlyweds. And then they have it. I think it’s a good idea. You don’t have to say anything, or even smile. Just stand there.”

Soon after we got off the phone, Carolyn, dressed in a long, elegant camel-colored skirt, stood holding her new husband’s hand on the steps of their building while John gave a speech to the photographers, who were snapping away.

If the paparazzi got some good shots and took John’s plea to heart, I thought they would go away and let John and Carolyn
enjoy their life. That’s what we were all hoping for, but the odds weren’t good.

While Carolyn was dealing with the unwavering attention on her marriage, I was dealing with the scrutiny on a professional level, and it definitely made my job harder. Although we were coming at it from different angles, we were in the same boat. With both of us trying to keep it together and scared about somehow messing up, we commiserated many times a day by phone.

The toughest part for me was keeping the focus on
George
amid all the nuttiness. John had done well positioning himself as an editor in chief and tried to let his magazine, rather than him, become the object of interest. I refused to let all that hard work go to waste.

Even internally, their new marriage changed things. Now that John had made his relationship with Carolyn official, some people at Hachette acted as if she were also the official property of the magazine. She wasn’t part of the equation before, but now some of the execs wanted to trot her out in the same dog-and-pony show they pressured John to be a part of.

The publishing company’s top brass had always tried to exploit John’s celebrity in ways that didn’t necessarily benefit
George
. While it was part of John’s job description to woo advertisers, Hachette’s CEO David Pecker seemed to find any excuse to make John go to dinner with clients.

When Pecker’s requests first starting rolling in, I’d politely take the calls from his assistant and relay the requests to John, who would invariably say yes. But soon his calendar
was almost completely filled up by dinners with would-be advertisers. Despite endless dining experiences with CEOs, fashion designers, and media planners, John couldn’t get those companies to advertise enough, if at all, in
George
’s pages. Pecker seemed to be pulling a shell game—entertaining them with John’s presence while encouraging them to spend their money on more appealing Hachette titles.

After the initial frenzy of
George
’s launch, the ad sales plummeted a few issues in and the magazine grew noticeably thinner. Pecker in turn became more brazen in his requirements of John, putting constant pressure on him to drum up business.