Cate Doty - Mergers and Acquisitions: Or, Everything I Know About Love I Learned on the Wedding Pages

The manila folder was slapped down on my desk with a flick of a large, hairy wrist, snapping me out of my daydream. My editor, Ira, stared down at me from above his mustache, standing with crossed arms as I scanned what hed thrown down. I felt like Deep Throat was waiting for me in a parking deck somewhere.

Think you can handle him? he said, raising his eyebrows and looking down at the folder. Hes a pretty-well-known asshole. Not just your average politician jerk.

I was twenty-four, writing for the New York Times, and convinced of my invincibility. Of course I can, I said, and snorted. Hes just a person.

Yeah, but he doesnt believe that, Ira said. You let me know if you need backup.

That was Monday. Then came Wednesday.

I was about two minutes into the call with the Pretty-Well-Known Asshole when he interrupted me, confirming his reputation. How dare you ask me that? he snapped. My relationship with my future wife is none of your business.

Im sorry, sir, I said, as gently as I could, but we ask these questions of everyone, even well-known people like yourself who need no introduction. Its part of the Timess fact-checking process. I could have added, but I didnt, that he was making his relationship part of my business. This was a man who, after all, had called a press conference to trumpet his love for his last girlfriend, whom he also said hed planned to marry, but she ended it before he had the chance.

Suzanne, his publicist, sighed. She was listening in on the conference line, of courselikely to protect me as much as the apoplectic man on the phone. The retired senior senator from the great state of New York was marrying a woman three decades his junior, a news item that had already been detailed breathlessly by the citys gossip columnists. His bride-to-be was a political operative and had spent a few years at City Hall, so she knew from assholes. I think that must have been her type. She and the senator had met at a Republican fund-raiser and soon afterward started showing up arm in arm at establishment restaurants, at more fund-raisers, and on Donald Trumps private plane. He even attended her intramural soccer matches out on Long Island and started calling himself a soccer dad, although theres no way he remembered his turn to bring snacks for the team. This went on for a couple of years and all seemed blissfulor if not blissful, then adequate enough to establish them as the citys newest political power couple. He finally asked her to marry him at her thirty-seventh birthday party, slapping a four-carat diamond ring on top of her cake, thereby making a celebration of her all about him. The affair was set for the first weekend in May. They booked a Catholic church on Long Island, registered at Tiffanys, and, presumably, wrote up one hell of a prenup. After the nuptials, Ms. Smooth Operative was to be known as Mrs. Senator.

I dont have to answer these fucking questions from you or anyone fucking else, the senator railed down the line. You should already know these things about me. Fuck you.

I heard the click of someone exiting the conference call.

His flack sighed again. Cate, she said wearily, could we answer your questions via email?

I felt badly for this poor woman, who probably made three times what I did, but there was no way it could have been worth it. Spending seven days a week working the phones, protecting a craven, attention-hungry man from his nastiest impulses, drafting nonapology after nonapology, and fielding calls from reporters when he succumbed to themand that was for political matters. But this, only his second time down the aisle, seemed to be as big of a brouhaha as any infrastructure bill hed ever brought to the Senate floor.

Thats totally fine, Suzanne, I said. Sorry about that.

Dont apologize, she said. This was her idea. Its such a mess.

We exchanged niceties and hung up, and I noted silently that shed done the correct thing: protected her client and thrown someone elseeven though that someone was her clients betrothedunder the bus. I turned to Ira, whod been listening in across the desks. Howd that go? he said, grinning.

Well, I think you heard the sum total, I said, and we both started to laugh. Ira shook his head. I told you, hes a jerk. I can deal with it if you want.

No, no. I want to do this. Its a test, right?

Ira laughed again. Well, you let me know.

I swiveled my rickety rolling chair back to my desk and looked again at the submission Ira had given me, which hed marked through with his signature red ink, noting the alleged facts that needed checking. It wasnt like Id never been hung up on before by powerful people. Id worked in Washington during the Bush years, after all, when getting yelled at and hung up on was as routine as ordering Thai for dinner. But Id never had a receiver slammed down over a matter as seemingly trivial as this: a wedding announcement, a public trumpeting of a couples love and commitment. It wasnt a policy proposal. It was society news.

I stared at the dirty taupe wall for a minute. I went to journalism school for this?

And then I laughed. You