Reluctant Hero Read online

  I loved Fridays for many reasons, but Friday, September 7, felt especially nice. We were a week past Labor Day, and it was still perfect beach weather. Just before I descended underground to the Port Authority Trans-Hudson train, Joy called me on my cell phone. “Let’s definitely do a movie tonight,” she said. “It’ll be good to give ourselves the night off from wedding planning.” She was right. “What if we got up early and went to the Shore tomorrow?” she said. The girl could read my mind. I hadn’t even gotten on the train, and I was already looking past my day at Network Plus. I said I’d call her from the office, later on. You see, that was the other thing about moving to the World Trade Center office. It’s where I met Joy.

  Not long after I arrived at Network Plus’s New York office, in April 1999, I served as best man at Jeff Fernandez’s wedding in Key West. I flew down on a Tuesday. Jeff got married that Saturday. I left on Sunday. It was like spending a week at Mardis Gras with a wedding thrown in. What a party.

  I’d known Jeff’s entire family since meeting them my freshman year at Brown, sixteen years before. My fraternity nickname at Brown was Harry, after Harry Belafonte. My last name is Benfante, which sounds similar to Belafonte (creative bunch, those Ivy Leaguers). So this group knows me as Harry. They also know I was one of the last of my college friends to remain single. So all the mothers and wives dug in: Harry, when are you going find a nice girl? Harry, when are you going settle down? Harry, when are you going to get married? Unable to take the pressure any longer, I cried out, “The reason I’m not married yet is because I’m making sure my friends are taken care of first. It’s been hard enough setting these guys up one by one with the right girls, this weekend’s groom included. Starting Monday, I’ll worry about myself.” Mercifully, this ended the inquisition.

  When I got back to the office on Monday, I noticed a new girl. She was the assistant to the vice president on the local network side of the business. I’ll never forget walking into the office that day and seeing her for the first time—sitting there at her cubicle with perfect posture in front of the computer, wearing a white shirt under a sleeveless navy blue dress, gorgeous long black hair. I thought she was so beautiful. Later that week, I was having a conversation with a co-worker about Ayn Rand novels. I couldn’t remember the name of the protagonist in The Fountainhead, and the new girl, seated two cubicles away, just blurted out, “Howard Roark.” I was very impressed. ( To this day she says I shot her a dirty look, but really, it was one of delighted surprise. Really.) That was the first time I ever spoke with Joy Osuna.

  For the next two months, we saw each other in passing, and that was about it. Sometimes I asked her to write reports or clean up a document. Admittedly, I was overly critical of her work. (A not-so-subtle way of getting her attention, she claims.)

  And then it happened. On a random Thursday night, June, 17, 1999, John Powers, a college buddy of mine who lived in Connecticut, phoned late in the afternoon to say he was in the city, and could we have a drink? We arranged to meet at Bryant Park. I packed myself up and headed toward the elevator. On my way out I whizzed by Joy, who was chatting with another senior administrative assistant. Though my feet kept moving, my mind hesitated. I knew she lived uptown, which theoretically had us heading in the same direction. As I stepped into the elevator, I thought, somewhat impulsively, Why don’t I ask her if she would like to take the subway ride together? I caught the closing elevator doors with my foot, got out, and walked back into the office. And I asked her.

  After registering slight shock, she said yes, and I waited for her to get ready. We took the subway uptown. The ride was kind of awkward at first. I only meant it as a friendly invitation. Well, maybe I did. Sure, she was cute, and I was attracted to her. Still, I wasn’t thinking about much more than going to meet a friend and maybe getting to know her a little bit better in the process.

  We got to Bryant Park, and after one drink my buddy John Powers had to get back home to Connecticut. I turned to Joy, awkwardly, and managed to come out with “Are you hungry?” She said yes. So off we went to a kind-of-charming Italian restaurant in the Turtle Bay section of town—2nd Avenue and 53rd Street—called Caffe Buon Gusto.

  A waitress led us upstairs to the nicest little table for two overlooking the avenue. It was very romantic. The menus came, and it struck both of us at the same time that, well, this is like a date. Awkward moment number three. To break the uncomfortable silence, I joked, acting as if I were the big shot on an official first date, “Order anything you like on the menu.” We tossed each other a playful look and a half smile, thinking the same thing: Sure, OK, why not? Let’s see how this goes.

  After a wonderful dinner, we moved to a lively bar next door. We had drinks and watched the Knicks play San Antonio in the NBA Finals. The Knicks won!

  From there we went to another place, and from there another and from there another. We ended up at a New Orleans–themed bar called Harglo’s across 2nd Avenue and a few blocks down from Caffe Buon Gusto. It was around 2:00 a.m., and we were having a blast. The bar was owned by a charming old woman named Cia and her gregarious Greek family. I told Cia that it was Joy’s birthday (Joy’s real birthday was a week before, but hey). She brought out a piece of chocolate cake with a candle in it. It was the sweetest thing you ever saw. Joy blew out the candle, and then we clapped for her—me, Cia, her family, and two other customers. The jukebox played Sinatra’s “I’ve Got You Under My Skin.” I love that song. I know every word. I grabbed Joy, and we started dancing, me singing in her ear.

  Cia asked how we got together. She asked all about us. She had us laughing. I went to the bathroom; then Cia and Joy got to talking. Cia asked Joy, “How do you know dis man?”

  Joy said, “I don’t know him so well, he’s a co-worker. We’re out for the first time.”

  “He is a very good man—handsome,” Cia said.

  “You think so?” said Joy, making Cia laugh.

  “Listen to me,” Cia said, drawing Joy closer. “I think you gonna to marry dis guy.”*

  On cue, I came out of the bathroom and rejoined Joy at the bar. I started telling her story after story, semi-nervously trying to keep her entertained and probably thinking too much about how great this was all feeling and how it was all going. And then, in the middle of my talking about God-knows-what, out of nowhere, she kissed me. Stunned, and overthinking the situation, instead of kissing her back, I just picked up the conversation where I left off, practically in midsentence. But as she pulled away and gracefully resumed listening to my tales of glory, I saw something in her—something so lovely and familiar.

  All your life you hear couples talk about that magic night where you spill your guts and bond with that special someone. That night was it for me and Joy. We didn’t want to go home.

  The next day at Network Plus, at 8:30 a.m., Friday, there was an unscheduled, mandatory all-staff meeting on sexual harassment in the workplace. We both attended and took copious notes.

  That was the heady summer of 1999. I was thirty-four, and for the first time in years I felt that things were coming together for me. I met Joy. I found my own place in Jersey City. Just a few months later, in January 2000, I became manager of my company’s World Trade Center office that was rocking, staffed with great people I had trained. And all the while, I knew that Network Plus was going public. In my mind, the whole point was to go public and cash in those stock options. That was the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. That’s what I was working for. And I had worked hard to get myself to that position. When Network Plus went public in June 1999, it was the high point of my professional career. The stock rose every day. I really felt that I had accomplished something not only as a manager, but also financially, for myself.

  Not so fast. A few months later, in the fall of 1999, the dot-com/telecom crash hit New York. Network Plus crashed right along with it. Because of my quick rise through management and my relatively long tenure at the company, I had a lot of stock options. Not only did I have the options
, but I also had some on margin that I didn’t cover. I also had some of my retirement money reinvested in the stock. I had a lot of money invested in Network Plus. By December 2000, it was over. I’d lost everything.

  I had been with the company for seven years. The whole reason I stayed—the pot of gold—was gone. There I was, interested in this girl, thinking I’m financially secure, thinking that now is a good time to get serious in a relationship. I told Joy I was financially secure. Now I felt like an idiot. The one thing I was riding on was gone. I thought, Now where are you? You’re in a job—with no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. You’re just living for your paycheck and a commission.

  What could I do?

  There was this idea about debt restructuring, in which you try to build the stocks back up and hope they rebound. But it was like throwing good money after bad. Things got worse. I sat in on meetings, listening to one comeback strategy after another— we’ll do this, then do this, become “EBITDA positive”—and it was all bull. We knew it. My CEO was a very charismatic salesman. The way he put it was, “Be a good soldier.” I could relate to that. It gave some meaning to things, I guess.

  Was I resentful? Was my team? A lot of things were said and done that could’ve been handled differently and would’ve had a better impact on the employees and the people who had invested their time in the company. Let’s face it, there were certain owners who cashed in at some point. We were reading every day about dot-com and telecom owners cashing in on smoke-and-mirrors companies. Despite it all, I tried to keep things positive. I devised a personal comeback strategy and set new goals: grow my sales force to fifty people, make a mark as a sales manager in the telecom industry, build a résumé.

  Our office was still having fun. We were an excellent sales force. We met our quotas. We set additional goals and met them too. There was always a bonus at the end of the month. The home office would throw me a couple thousand dollars, and I’d always tell my guys that if they reached such and such goal, it was open bar for the night. We had a lot of good times. We bonded over work and play. We were a solid core of people who looked out for each other. It was a real team. I was no longer sure I liked the telecom industry, but I liked being a manager. I liked showing people how to sell. I liked watching people become successful and helping them get there. The people were what kept me going.

  Joy and I continued dating without anybody at Network Plus knowing about it. Although relationships in the workplace are fairly common these days, we felt more comfortable exercising discretion. Even after May 2000, when Joy took a new job with Atlantic Records, we still kept our relationship quiet. Also around that time, Joy moved into a studio across from my apartment near Hamilton Park in Jersey City. I’ve never had a friendlier neighbor.

  While riding the PATH to work that Friday, September 7, I began wishing we had played hooky and went down to the Shore a day early. Instead, I cracked open a book. A lot of us in the office were readers. We regularly swapped books. It was a diverse group of young people, so you got a bit of everything. And there were times when the whole office was reading different books by one author. That weekend I was reading Black Hawk Down by Mark Bowden, the true story about our policing action in Somalia, where thirteen U.S. soldiers were killed in what was supposed to be a routine mission. This book floored me. It was inspiring, gut wrenching, smart. It described in graphic and painstaking detail how, through camaraderie and teamwork, a unit of soldiers overcame tremendous adversity in the face of deadly conditions. I swapped for it earlier that week and couldn’t put it down. I actually wished my PATH ride lasted a little longer so I could continue reading.

  Friday was an “out day” at the office. In our typical sales week, Monday and Thursday were “in days,” when you set your appointments over the phone; and Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday you were out selling—out days. Friday, September 7, marked the first week into a new selling month, so without immediate pressure to meet monthly quotas hanging over our heads, things weren’t too hectic.

  Friday is a great selling day. Prospects usually have things cleared off their desks. They’re in a good mood. It’s a great day to bring home business.

  On out days my team worked like a well-oiled machine. I paired my core of twenty veterans with mid-level salespeople. I took all the new trainees, going out in front of people and showing them how to sell. That morning, I went out with Marc Reinstein. Marc wasn’t a trainee, but sometimes it was just good to get out. I had hired Marc in the spring of 2000 when he was a year or two out of college. A lot of people didn’t want to hire him, but I saw something in Marc, which proved to be right. He ended up being a very good salesman. He and I had a good out day that day.

  That Friday, like all Fridays, we ended the day at 5:00 p.m., earlier than the usual 6:00 p.m. out time for the rest of the week. It wasn’t a requirement to come back to the office on an out day, but a lot of people did. The main reason most people came back was to convene at the nearby John Street Bar & Grill. It was our weekly ritual. That Friday night was no different.

  I stayed later at John Street than I had planned. That wasn’t unusual. Feeling guilty, I called Joy. “Do you still want to see a movie?” She wasn’t sure. Maybe we should go to dinner first, then see a movie. Or maybe we should stay in. Both of us were trying to find the right activity where we could keep our minds guiltlessly off our wedding planning while not completely ignoring it.

  SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2001

  Joy and I got engaged on June 8, 2001. We spent much of that summer trying to find the right place to get married. It wasn’t easy. We wanted to get married outdoors. We wanted the place to ourselves. We wanted something special, something different; and most of all, we wanted what we wanted. Joy was becoming very discouraged. Nothing was right. The last week in August, we found the Pleasantdale Chateau in West Orange, New Jersey. Joy loved it. But it cost too much—much more than we wanted to spend. After so many rough outings, my fiancée was close to tears. We asked for a Saturday in September 2002. All the Saturdays were booked. Then we asked for a Friday. All Fridays were booked. I could see Joy was at her breaking point. “Actually,” the property manager said, “there is a Friday open. Are you superstitious?” He gave us a great deal for Friday, September 13, 2002.

  It had only been two weeks since we signed the contract for the wedding reception with Pleasantdale Chateau, and already we had a to-do list a mile long. We decided that the best thing to do was to give ourselves the day off. We knew the weather on Saturday was going to be exceptionally nice, so we got up early and drove an hour down the Garden State Parkway to Spring Lake, a storybook-pretty town on the New Jersey Shore. I spent the day with my head buried in Black Hawk Down. The book got me so wound up that I’d stop reading, hand the book to Joy, and have her read a passage out loud so we could talk about it. Time flew.

  We drove home around 6:00 p.m. We cruised up the Parkway sun-drenched and sandy, windows down and the wind in our hair, blasting Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day” on the stereo.

  That night we had dinner at Katie Ryan’s. We’d been meaning to go there for some time. It’s an older, pub-style joint that’s been a favorite in Jersey City for ages. We sat upstairs and ordered steaks. It was well worth the wait. The food was top notch, and the atmosphere swelled with old Jersey City soul.

  I’ve always cherished my weekends. This really was a perfect day.

  SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2001

  All my life, I’ve been going to my parents’s house for Sunday dinner. That’s where Joy and I went that Sunday. We watched football. We played in the yard with my nieces and nephews. We ate and ate and ate. My family is the central, most important thing in my life.

  We’re a close family that doesn’t like to be too far from each other. I grew up in Montclair, New Jersey, with my entire family living under one roof: my parents, my siblings, and my grandparents. The house was sold in 1999. Then my sister and my parents found what’s known as a “mother-daughter” house in Verona about a half
mile from my younger brother, Angelo, who was already living there with his family. So it became Sunday dinner at my “parents and sister’s house”—the family place.

  I’d really love for you to picture it. You’ve got the kids running around. It’s a loud family dinner table—lots of joking and heated debates on all kinds of subjects. We get into typical Italian-American, voices-raised “I’m always right and you’re definitely wrong” discussions. Topics range from who was a better running back, “Walter Payton or Jim Brown?” to the classic “Somebody says you said something, but you say you didn’t.” Or it could be something about how to raise the kids. The men always have some criticism about the food when they don’t know how to cook themselves. There’s never a dull moment, I assure you.

  That particular Sunday, we gathered with renewed family excitement because it was the first Sunday of the NFL season. The Giants were scheduled to play on Monday night, so we watched the Jets. We are decidedly a family of Giants and Yankees fans. It’s serious business for us.

  We’re serious about food too. My mother does the cooking, and my sister Maria does the desserts and baking. They’re both incredibly talented. We serve a four-course meal: First plate is always pasta with gravy. In the gravy you have sausage, meatballs, a little pork; or sometimes my mom might break out the special family recipe, “eggs in the gravy,” or, on an extra special occasion, beef braciole. (By the way, real Italians—at least real Italians where I grew up—call gravy what most people call tomato sauce.) A bowl of ricotta cheese and a fresh block of pecorino romano floats from person to person throughout the meal. The second plate is usually roasted chicken with a salad, which often includes a sideshow of my father and me fighting over the roasted liver in the oven pan. The third plate is fruits and nuts, especially almonds. We’re crazy for our almonds. And the fourth plate is one of Maria’s amazing desserts. She makes cookies, cream puffs, chocolate cake; and quite often she makes a cheesecake with my favorite—everybody’s favorite—roasted almond crust. (Maria’s desserts are so legendary that we’ve often talked about opening a business for her. She says, “If I had to do it for money—not love—I wouldn’t do it.”) We top it all off with espresso and sambuca. My friends, the entire experience is even better than it sounds.