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Chapter 2
The project was super challenging for me. Having to familiarize myself with a new lexicon, and acting like I knew anything about the history of New York and its architecture, took all my spare time. Getting to know New York with Randy like he had promised wasn’t easy because he was so busy. But he put me first, and that made me nervous. We ate dinner together as often as we could. I met his wife, Pam, and her family. Once he determined I was there for the duration, Randy gradually loosened his emotional grip on me.
But Ryan was persistent, asking me daily to spend time with him.
“Have lunch with me. I’ll show you around downtown.”
“Sorry, no can do,” I responded, my nose in the script. “If you want me to sound like I know what I’m talking about, I’d better study. I don’t know the difference between a corbel and a cornice.”
“You have to eat,” he’d say.
“I’ll order in. Ryan, go out. I’m serious. I have to read this.”
I saw him leave with my father’s gorgeous business partner, Sandra Benson. We’d been introduced, and she could barely contain the vitriol she must have felt for me, her eyes narrowed and a hint of a sneer around her mouth. I had no idea why she would feel that way.
Finally, I asked Jennifer. She ended up being someone I could count on for honesty. She had her finger on the pulse of the office.
“It’s common knowledge, so I don’t feel like I’m betraying a confidence. Sandra hates Randy. She thinks he’s trying to drive her out of the business.”
“Why?”
“It’s a long story. The brief version is that she was supposedly having an affair with the guy who started the company and has entitlement. And he was Randy’s wife’s first husband. It’s an ugly circle.”
I tried to follow the sequence in my head. Sandra Benson had been the late Jack Smith’s mistress. Pam Braddock, Randy’s wife, was Jack’s widow. Jack Smith had willed Sandra his partnership in the business, instead of to his own wife and children. Ugly. But he’d made sure Pam got a substantial draw.
“What do you make of Ryan going to lunch with her?” I asked.
“Yeah, he denies it’s anything more than work, but I know better,” Jennifer said.
“So, Ryan is sort of the office lothario.”
“Not sort of. He is.”
“Okay. Ugh. Thank you for your honesty.”
That was all I needed to hear, and my interaction with Ryan would remain strictly business, as originally intended. With the flirtation and constant requests for lunch or dinner, his behavior bordered on sexual harassment. I had to work with the man and learned to ignore him. Ryan also got the last word in nearly all of our interactions. On location, he was the perfect gentleman. I worked hard at avoiding any appearance of familiarity when we were on camera, and admirably, he made the effort, too.
Despite it, viewers loved us together, and when the trailer aired, viewers went nuts, calling us the adorable couple.
“We’re being asked to speed up production so they can release the first episode as a teaser,” Randy told us.
“That’s not a problem for me,” Jerry said. “The faster we finish this project, the better. I want to start collecting royalties and move on to next season.”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Randy said, chuckling.
“Did you see the material Ryan found? Amazing. We can do this series forever.”
The bullpen, made up of twenty cubicles where researchers, actuaries, title agents, and real estate lawyers spent their days, was buzzing with activity and formed the backbone of the company. Randy pulled researcher Sally Clark from this talent pool to work on Saving New York.
Fortunately for me, the researcher was young and attractive and was thrilled to be working with Ryan, one of her favorites in the firm. Having Sally around took all the heat off me. With no more lunch invitations forthcoming from Ryan, I poured myself into the project.
The first episode revolved around the Brownsville house. The production crew and police support attracted a lot of attention. I didn’t know how any sense could be made of what we did because it wasn’t taped in sequence. The editors had a massive undertaking ahead of them, but they did a great job, and when the trailer aired, the response was overwhelming.
Makeup and hair people waited for me every morning at the work site. They filmed Ryan alone until I was ready, we did our spots together, and then he left for the day and I did my solo spots. It meant I was there hours longer than he was, and that irritated me. I was being a little passive aggressive. I decided not to make an issue of it after all because I didn’t want to be around him any more than I had to be.
Then, as if we weren’t under enough pressure, National Geographic asked Randy if we could tape just a few weeks ahead of airing. That meant we were going to do twelve-hour or more days until all twelve episodes were taped.
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