On the way home from the happiest place on earth, the girls and I were in the back while Tom drove and Jeff rode shotgun. Jeff was playing with Carrie’s Ariel doll, joking about whether the carpet matched the drapes, when Carrie started complaining that she really needed to go to the bathroom. We were in heavy traffic on I-5, so I asked if she could wait. She said she would try. Then she complained again.
“Tom, I think we may need to find a bathroom,” I said. “Carrie, can you hold it a little bit longer?” Then the car filled with a stench the likes of which none of us had ever smelled before.
“I guess not,” said Jeff.
When we reached a rest stop, I grabbed Carrie, holding her by the rib cage with stiff, straight arms, her legs dangling, as I hurried into the ladies’ room, trying not to laugh. I stripped off her clothes and threw them right in the trash—she was coated with diarrhea. Then I cleaned her up as best I could and wrapped the sweatshirt I’d been wearing around her. The whole disgusting incident became instant family lore （churro’d is still our word for having dealt with…let’s just say, a situation）。
ON TOP OF everything else, I had to manage the fact that my relationship with Tom was lining the pockets of the paparazzi. The shots were popping up everywhere; photographers were lying in wait when we arrived at hotels and restaurants. One guy ambushed us in the hallway of the Four Seasons and snapped a picture on a disposable camera, which was unnerving. On November 27th, I was on the cover of People, looking smiley and satisfied, next to the blaring cover line “Katie’s New Guy.” Above, in the right-hand corner, a smaller photo of Tom in a tux. The reporter had a giddy time of it, tracking our budding romance and assessing the chances that it was the real deal. Much earnest analysis of how I was doing post-Jay as a single mom with a big job （I’ll never get over the authority with which some reporters write about the inner lives of people they’ve never met）。
A lot of space was given to the fact that I’d lightened my hair, started working out with a trainer by the name of High Voltage （a close friend who’s a book in herself）， and spiffed up my wardrobe—or, as the article described it, “the leather and Lycra outfits, flirty sandals, knee-high boots and funky ’80s tie-tops…have displaced the sensible junior-exec suits a younger Couric used to favor.”
I wasn’t the only one. Workplace garb had been radically rethought. Now stilettos and slinky blouses were a common sight in the C-suite; legs had replaced L’eggs. Everything was sexier. And I embraced the leap from frumpy to frisky.
Not everyone was buying the new me. Viewers who had gravitated to my unpretentious relatability saw me as a traitor. But as a widow in my forties, I knew I had to get back in the game, and wanted to look as good as possible. I’d had many years as “the girl next door”; now I needed to be the girlfriend next door.
51
“TODAY, Tuesday,
September 11th, 2001”
AT THE LAST MINUTE, Tom had decided to fly down from Boston to New York City for a visit. He was spending more and more time back East because he was negotiating with a group to buy the Red Sox. Yeah, I know. That was what it was like dating Tom Werner. Later that morning, he’d be flying to LA. I jumped in the shower, picked out a black cotton summer-to-fall shirtdress, kissed him goodbye, and headed out the door.
Matt opened the show that morning with an airplane analogy: “Good morning, Air Jordan is taxiing for takeoff. Legendary basketball great Michael Jordan is getting ready to return to the game he loves TODAY, Tuesday, September 11th, 2001.”
We rolled through the day’s stories: A U.S. drone had been shot down over Iraq. President Bush was in Florida, promoting his education plan—on the agenda was reading a book called The Pet Goat to first-graders in Longboat Key. Tim Russert analyzed the administration’s controversial proposal to slash social programs while cutting the capital gains tax, and Tracey Ullman hawked her new talk show, Visible Panty Lines. We discussed thongs for a good portion of the interview.
The 8:30 half hour unfolded in the usual way, with people jammed up against the barricades on the plaza waving signs （HUG A NURSE TODAY!, FIRST TIME IN NEW YORK!, MY NAME IS AL TOO!）。 Al called it “a perfect fall morning, even though technically it isn’t fall yet.” The kind that makes you happy to be alive.
While Matt interviewed the author of a new Howard Hughes biography, I was goofing around in the production area, where the mood was relaxed, as usual, unlike in the studio, where you had to tiptoe and whisper. Suddenly everyone was staring up at a monitor displaying a startling sight: a giant gash in the North Tower of the World Trade Center, belching black smoke.