We decided to spend a few days in Maurertown with my parents and Doris to acclimate her to the Couric/Monahan universe. In her khaki shorts, oversize T-shirts, tube socks, and sneakers, she exuded competence, moving about the house with military-style efficiency as she saw to Ellie’s every need.
One afternoon, Doris and I went grocery shopping while Jay stayed behind with Ellie, giving us a chance to get to know each other. It was slightly awkward—we were strangers, after all, at the beginning of a relationship that was both transactional and oddly intimate. On the way back from the Food Lion, we chatted about our lives—she told me she had never been married, had no children, and wasn’t close to her parents or siblings. She didn’t mention any other relatives, good friends, or a partner, past or present. And then, as we made our way along the bucolic country road leading to the house, she blurted out, “I don’t want to go away on the weekends. I want to feel like I’m part of a family.”
My immediate reaction was a combination of Wait a second…and sympathy. I quickly filled the silence with an overly upbeat response: “Oh, that’s okay, of course you can be part of our family!”
A few days later, Doris, Ellie, and I drove to New York and got our new nanny settled in our apartment. We gave her a small room near the kitchen; I’d be upstairs near Ellie’s nursery.
It wouldn’t be long before Doris convinced us to convert the TV/playroom upstairs into a bedroom. For her.
DORIS BROUGHT STRUCTURE and expertise to our routine, putting Ellie to bed at precisely 5:30 p.m. That seemed a little early to me, but the truth is, I was exhausted from getting up before 5:00 a.m. every day, and it was nice to have the evening to relax a little and prepare for the roughly six interviews I’d be doing the next morning. Besides, Doris was the expert. I trusted her judgment.
With Ellie asleep and everything in the apartment tight as a drum, Henry from NBC would deliver “the packet”—a giant white envelope bearing the peacock logo and my name in Magic Marker. Then I’d shake out the contents, including the rundown for the next day, research for the heavy-hitting “Close Up” segment at 7:09, a book synopsis for an author interview, perhaps a new CD if there was a musical act, and background on dependable topics like nutritious after-school snacks and hormone replacement therapy. Once I’d gone through it, Doris and I would eat dinner, just the two of us—maybe a rotisserie chicken she’d picked up at Williams Bar-B-Q on Broadway—while watching Nightly News. I spent more time with Doris than anyone else in my life, and I was completely unguarded around her, making funny/snarky asides about this or that person, ducking in to tell her something while wrapped in a towel post-shower.
The next morning, she’d hand me my research, fetch my coat, and send me off into the predawn darkness, down to the curb, where my driver, the brusque but sweet Jack Sturm, was waiting, his black sedan purring, taillights glowing red.
I sometimes joked that Ellie had two moms. Monday through Friday, when Jay was in Virginia, Doris and I really were a couple, in a weird kind of way.
THE SHOW HAD so much momentum, but soon it was clear that the executive producer, Tom Capra （son of Frank, of It’s a Wonderful Life fame）， wasn’t the guy to capitalize on it. Conveniently, Jeff Zucker was on deck. Everyone, including Michael Gartner, saw how smart, hungry, and ambitious he was. So, early in my tenure, Gartner made a bold move: He replaced Capra with Zucker. At just 26 years old, he’d be the overlord, tasked with having a vision, mixing the perfect cocktail of stories, and constantly innovating and sweating the details, all of which Jeff was built for.
By this point, Jeff and I were very tight. Ideas spilled out of us as we planned and schemed and brainstormed interviews and stunts that would attract yet more attention. （I always said if Edward R. Murrow and P. T. Barnum had a baby, it would be Jeff Zucker.） Jeff and I would hunker down in the newsroom before the show, going over questions for some of the tougher interviews. We talked about how I should calibrate my tone, depending on whom I was talking to.
But there were challenges, like how to funnel important stories my way without enraging Bryant and vice versa. And whenever Bryant got miffed at me during the broadcast, Jeff would whisper in my earpiece, “ROYB,” code for “Let it roll off your back.” He knew how to manage egos. Imagine being a brand-new EP in your twenties and having to tell Bryant Gumbel no. （Not fun at any age.）
Me, though—I was good. Not only did I have a shrewd and loyal producer in my corner; suddenly I had a very powerful one too.