The dance single “How Will I Know” (my vote for best dance song of the 1980s) is a joyous ode to a girl’s nervousness about whether another guy is interested in her. It’s got a great keyboard riff and it’s the only track on the album produced by wunderkind producer Narada Michael Walden. My own personal favorite ballad (aside from “The Greatest Love of All”—her crowning achievement) is “All at Once” which is about how a young woman realizes all at once her lover is fading away from her and it’s accompanied by a gorgeous string arrangement. Even though nothing on the album sounds like filler, the only track that might come close is “Take Good Care of My Heart,” another duet with Jermaine Jackson. The problem is that it strays from the album’s jazz roots and seems too influenced by 1980s dance music.
But Whitney’s talent is restored with the overwhelming “The Greatest Love of All,” one of the best, most powerful songs ever written about self-preservation and dignity. From the first line (Michael Masser and Linda Creed are credited as the writers) to the last, it’s a state-of-the-art ballad about believing in yourself. It’s a powerful statement and one that Whitney sings with a grandeur that approaches the sublime. Its universal message crosses all boundaries and instills one with the hope that it’s not too late for us to better ourselves, to act kinder. Since it’s impossible in the world we live in to empathize with others, we can always empathize with ourselves. It’s an important message, crucial really, and it’s beautifully stated on this album.
Her second effort, Whitney (Arista; 1987), had four number one singles, “I Wanna Dance with Somebody,” “So Emotional,” “Didn’t We Almost Have It All?” and “Where Do Broken Hearts Go?” and was mostly produced by Narada Michael Walden and though it’s not as serious an effort as Whitney Houston it’s hardly a victim of Sophomore Slump. It starts off with the bouncy, danceable “I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)” which is in the same vein as the last album’s irrepressible “How Will I Know.” This is followed by the sensuous “Just the Lonely Talking Again” and it reflects the serious jazz influence that permeated the first album and one can also sense a newfound artistic maturity in Whitney’s voice—she did all the vocal arrangements on this album—and this is all very evident on “Love Will Save the Day” which is the most ambitious song Whitney’s yet performed. It was produced by Jellybean Benitez and it pulsates with an uptempo intensity and like most of the songs on this album it reflects a grownup’s awareness of the world we all live in. She sings and we believe it. This is quite a change from the softer, little-girl-lost image that was so appealing on the first album.
She projects an even more adult image on the Michael Masser-produced “Didn’t We Almost Have It All,” a song about meeting up with a long-lost lover and letting him know your feelings about the past affair, and it’s Whitney at her most poetic. And as on most of the ballads there’s a gorgeous string arrangement. “So Emotional” is in the same vein as “How Will I Know” and “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” but it’s even more rock-influenced and, like all the songs on Whitney, played by a terrific backup studio band with Narada on drum machine, Wolter Afanasieff on the synthesizer and synth bass, Corrado Rustici on synth guitar, and someone listed as Bongo Bob on percussion programming and drum sampling. “Where You Are” is the only song on the album produced by Kashif and it bears his indelible imprint of professionalism—it has a smooth, gleaming sound and sheen to it with a funky sax solo by Vincent Henry. It sounded like a hit single to me (but then all the songs on the album do) and I wondered why it wasn’t released as one.
“Love Is a Contact Sport” is the album’s real surprise—a big-sounding, bold, sexy number that, in terms of production, is the album’s centerpiece, and it has great lyrics along with a good beat. It’s one of my favorites. On “You’re Still My Man” you can hear how clearly Whitney’s voice is like an instrument—a flawless, warm machine that almost overpowers the sentiment of her music, but the lyrics and the melodies are too distinctive, too strong to let any singer, even one of Whitney’s caliber, overshadow them. “For the Love of You” shows off Narada’s brilliant drum programming capabilities and its jazzy modern feel harks back not only to purveyors of modern jazz like Michael Jackson and Sade but also to other artists, like Miles Davis, Paul Butterfield and Bobby McFerrin.
“Where Do Broken Hearts Go” is the album’s most powerful emotional statement of innocence lost and trying to regain the safety of childhood. Her voice is as lovely and controlled as it ever has been and it leads up to “I Know Him So Well,” the most moving moment on the record because it’s first and foremost a duet with her mother, Cissy. It’s a ballad about … who?—a lover shared? a long-lost father?—with a combination of longing, regret, determination and beauty that ends the album on a graceful, perfect note. We can expect new things from Whitney (she made a stunning gift to the 1988 Olympics with the ballad “One Moment in Time”) but even if we didn’t, she would remain the most exciting and original black jazz voice of her generation.
Dinner with Secretary
Monday night at eight o’clock. I’m in my office attempting yesterday’s New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle, listening to rap music on the stereo, trying to fathom its popularity, since a little blonde hardbody I met at Au Bar two nights ago told me that rap is all she listens to, and though later I beat the living shit out of her at someone’s apartment in the Dakota (she was almost decapitated; hardly a strange experience for me), earlier this morning her taste in music haunted my memory and I had to stop at Tower Records on the Upper West Side and buy ninety dollars’ worth of rap CDs but, as expected, I’m at a loss: niggerish voices uttering ugly words like digit, pudding, chunk. Jean sits at her desk, which is piled high with reams of documents that I want her to go over. Today has not been bad: I worked out for two hours before the office; the new Robison Hirsch restaurant called Finna opened in Chelsea; Evelyn left two messages on my answering machine and another with Jean, letting me know that she’ll be in Boston for most of the week; and best of all, The Patty Winters Show this morning was in two parts. The first was an exclusive interview with Donald Trump, the second was a report on women who’ve been tortured. I’m supposed to have dinner with Madison Grey and David Campion at Café Luxembourg, but at eight-fifteen I find out that Luis Carruthers is going to be dining with us so I call up Campion, the dumb bastard, and cancel, then spend minutes debating about what I should do with the rest of the evening. Looking out my window, I realize that within moments the sky above this city will be completely dark.
Jean peers into my office, knocking gently on the half-open door. I pretend not to acknowledge her presence, though I’m not sure why, since I’m kind of lonely. She moves up to the desk. I’m still staring at the crossword puzzle with my Wayfarers on, stunned but for no real reason.
She places a file on top of the desk before asking, “Doin’ the crossword?” dropping the g in “doing”—a pathetic gesture of intimacy, an irritating stab at forced friendliness. I gag inwardly, then nod without looking up at her.
“Need help?” she asks, moving cautiously around the desk to where I sit, and she leans over my shoulder to offer assistance. I’ve already filled in every space with either the word meat or bone and she emits only a slight gasp when noticing this, and when she sees the pile of No. 2 pencils I’ve snapped in half lying on my desk she dutifully picks them up and walks out of the room.
“Jean?” I call.
“Yes, Patrick?” She reenters the office trying to downplay her eagerness.
“Would you like to accompany me to dinner?” I ask, still staring at the crossword, gingerly erasing the m in one of the many meats I’ve filled the puzzle with. “That is, if you’re not … doing anything.”
“Oh no,” she answers too quickly and then, I think, realizing this quickness, says, “I have no plans.”
“Well, isn’t this a coincidence,” I ask, looking up, lowering my Wayfarers.
She laughs lightly but there’s a real urgency in it,
something uncomfortable, and this does little in the way of making me feel less sick.
“I guess,” she shrugs.
“I also have tickets to a … a Milla Vanilla concert, if you’d like to go,” I tell her casually.
Confused, she asks, “Really? Who?”
“Milla … Vanilla,” I repeat slowly.
“Milla … Vanilla?” she asks uncomfortably.
“Milla … Vanilla,” I say. “I think that’s what their name is.”
She says, “I’m not sure.”
“About going?”
“No … of the name.” She concentrates, then says, “I think they’re called … Milli Vanilli.”
I pause for a long time before saying, “Oh.”
She stands there, nods once.
“It doesn’t matter,” I say—I don’t have any tickets to it anyway. “It’s months from now.”
“Oh,” she says, nodding again. “Okay.”
“Listen, where should we go?” I lean back and pull my Zagat from the desk’s top drawer.
She pauses, afraid of what to say, taking my question as a test she needs to pass, and then, unsure she’s chosen the right answer, offers, “Anywhere you want?”
“No, no, no.” I smile, leafing through the booklet. “How about anywhere you want?”
“Oh Patrick,” she sighs. “I can’t make this decision.”
“No, come on,” I urge. “Anywhere you want.”
“Oh I can’t.” Helplessly, she sighs again. “I don’t know.”
“Come on,” I urge her, “where do you want to go? Anywhere you want. Just say it. I can get us in anywhere.”
She thinks about it for a long time and then, sensing her time is running out, timidly asks, trying to impress me, “What about … Dorsia?”
I stop looking through the Zagat guide and without glancing up, smiling tightly, stomach dropping, I silently ask myself, Do I really want to say no? Do I really want to say I can’t possibly get us in? Is that what I’m really prepared to do? Is that what I really want to do?
“So-o-o-o,” I say, placing the book down, then nervously opening it up again to find the number. “Dorsia is where Jean wants to go.…”
“Oh I don’t know,” she says, confused. “No, we’ll go anywhere you want.”
“Dorsia is … fine,” I say casually, picking up the phone, and with a trembling finger very quickly dial the seven dreaded numbers, trying to remain cool. Instead of the busy signal I’m expecting, the phone actually rings at Dorsia and after two rings the same harassed voice I’ve grown accustomed to for the past three months answers, shouting out, “Dorsia, yes?” the room behind the voice a deafening hum.
“Yes, can you take two tonight, oh, let’s say, in around twenty minutes?” I ask, checking my Rolex, offering Jean a wink. She seems impressed.
“We are totally booked,” the maître d’ shouts out smugly.
“Oh, really?” I say, trying to look pleased, on the verge of vomiting. “That’s great.”
“I said we are totally booked,” he shouts.
“Two at nine?” I say. “Perfect.”
“There are no tables available tonight,” the maître d’, unflappable, drones. “The waiting list is also totally booked.” He hangs up.
“See you then.” I hang up too, and with a smile that tries its best to express pleasure at her choice, I find myself fighting for breath, every muscle tensed sharply. Jean is wearing a wool jersey and flannel dress by Calvin Klein, an alligator belt with a silver buckle by Barry Kieselstein Cord, silver earrings and clear stockings also by Calvin Klein. She stands there in front of the desk, confused.
“Yes?” I ask, walking over to the coatrack. “You’re dressed … okay.”
She pauses. “You didn’t give them a name,” she says softly.
I think about this while putting on my Armani jacket and while reknotting my Armani silk tie, and without stammering I tell her, “They … know me.”
While the maître d’ seats a couple who I’m pretty sure are Kate Spencer and Jason Lauder, Jean and I move up to his podium, where the reservation book lies open, names absurdly legible, and leaning over it casually I spot the only name for two at nine without a line drawn through it, which happens to be—oh Jesus—Schrawtz. I sigh, and tapping my foot, my mind racing, I try to concoct some kind of feasible plan. Suddenly I turn to Jean and say, “Why don’t you go to the women’s room.”
She’s looking around the restaurant, taking it in. Chaos. People are waiting ten deep at the bar. The maître d’ seats the couple at a table in the middle of the room. Sylvester Stallone and a bimbo sit in the front booth that Sean and I sat in just weeks before, much to my sickened amazement, and his bodyguards are piled into the booth next to that, and the owner of Petty’s, Norman Prager, lounges in the third. Jean turns her head to me and shouts “What?” over the din.
“Don’t you want to use the ladies’ room?” I ask. The maître d’ nears us, picking his way through the packed restaurant, unsmiling.
“Why? I mean … do I?” she asks, totally confused.
“Just … go,” I hiss, desperately squeezing her arm.
“But I don’t need to go, Patrick,” she protests.
“Oh Christ,” I mutter. Now it’s too late anyway.
The maître d’ walks up to the podium and inspects the book, takes a phone call, hangs up in a matter of seconds, then looks us over, not exactly displeased. The maître d’ is at least fifty and has a ponytail. I clear my throat twice to get his full attention, make some kind of lame eye contact.
“Yes?” he asks, as if harassed.
I give him a dignified expression before sighing inside. “Reservations at nine …” I gulp. “For two.”
“Ye-e-es?” he asks suspiciously, drawing the word out. “Name?” he says, then turns to a passing waiter, eighteen and model handsome, who’d asked, “Where’s da ice?” He’s glaring and shouting, “Not … now. Okay? How many times do you need to be told?” The waiter shrugs, humbly, and then the maître d’ points off toward the bar, “Da ice is over dere!” He turns back to us and I am genuinely frightened.
“Name,” he commands.
And I’m thinking: Of all the fucking names, why this one? “Um, Schrawtz”—oh god—“Mr. and Mrs. Schrawtz.” My face, I’m sure, is ashen and I say the name mechanically, but the maître d’ is too busy to not buy it and I don’t even bother to face Jean, who I’m sure is totally bewildered by my behavior as we’re led to the Schrawtzes’ table, which I’m sure probably sucks though I’m relieved anyway.
Menus already lie on the table but I’m so nervous the words and even the prices look like hieroglyphics and I’m completely at a loss. A waiter takes our drink order—the same one who couldn’t locate the ice—and I find myself saying things, without listening to Jean, like “Protecting the ozone layer is a really cool idea” and telling knock-knock jokes. I smile, fixing it on my face, in another country, and it takes no time at all—minutes, really, the waiter doesn’t even get a chance to tell us about the specials—for me to notice the tall, handsome couple by the podium conferring with the maître d’, and after sighing very deeply, light-headed, stammering, I mention to Jean, “Something bad is happening.”
She looks up from the menu and puts down the iceless drink she’s been sipping. “Why? What’s wrong?”
The maître d’ is glaring over at us, at me, from across the room as he leads the couple toward our table. If the couple had been short, dumpy, excessively Jewish, I could’ve kept this table, even without the aid of a fifty, but this couple looks like they’ve just strolled out of a Ralph Lauren ad, and though Jean and I do too (and so does the rest of the whole goddamn restaurant), the man is wearing a tuxedo and the girl—a totally fuckable babe—is covered with jewels. This is reality, and as my loathsome brother Sean would say, I have to deal with it. The maître d’ now stands at the table, hands clasped behind his back, unamused, and after a long pause asks, “Mr. and Mrs. … Schrawtz?
”
“Yes?” I play it cool.
He just stares. This is accompanied by an abnormal silence. His ponytail, gray and oily, hangs like some kind of malignancy below his collar.
“You know,” I finally say, somewhat suavely, “I happen to know the chef.”
He continues staring. So, no doubt, does the couple behind him.
After another long pause, for no real reason, I ask, “Is he … in Aspen?”
This is getting nowhere. I sigh and turn to Jean, who looks completely mystified. “Let’s go, okay?” She nods dumbly. Humiliated, I take Jean’s hand and we get up—she slower than I—brushing past the maître d’ and the couple, and make our way back through the crowded restaurant and then we’re outside and I’m utterly devastated and murmuring robotically to myself “I should have known better I should have known better I should,” but Jean skips down the street laughing, pulling me along, and when I finally notice her unexpected mirth, between giggles she lets out “That was so funny” and then, squeezing my clenched fist, she lets me know “Your sense of humor is so spontaneous.” Shaken, walking stiffly by her side, ignoring her, I ask myself “Where … to … now?” and in seconds come up with an answer—Arcadia, toward which I find myself guiding us.
After someone who I think is Hamilton Conway mistakes me for someone named Ted Owen and asks if I can get him into Petty’s tonight—I tell him, “I’ll see what I can do,” then turn what’s left of my attention to Jean, who sits across from me in the near-empty dining room of Arcadia—after he leaves, only five of the restaurant’s tables have people at them. I’ve ordered a J&B on the rocks. Jean’s sipping a glass of white wine and talking about how what she really wants to do is “get into merchant banking” and I’m thinking: Dare to dream. Someone else, Frederick Dibble, stops by and congratulates me on the Larson account and then has the nerve to say, “Talk to you later, Saul.” But I’m in a daze, millions of miles away, and Jean doesn’t notice; she’s talking about a new novel she’s been reading by some young author—its cover, I’ve seen, slathered with neon; its subject, lofty suffering. Accidentally I think she’s talking about something else and I find myself saying, without really looking over at her, “You need a tough skin to survive in this city.” She flushes, seems embarrassed and takes another sip of the wine, which is a nice sauvignon blanc.