Chana Joffe-Walt
Act 7, "Vivian."
Four years after Tana told Kristen that their experience was not news to anyone, suddenly it was news. A reporter named Cora Lewis at BuzzFeed News reported a story about sexual harassment allegations at AlterNet. She talked to Kristen and Tana and Deanna, and she talked to other women who haven't heard from here.
Don denied most of the allegations in the BuzzFeed story. Some he said were mischaracterized. For instance, he does not remember twisting Tana's arm, but did say he was rubbing her shoulders and stopped when he saw it made her uncomfortable. He does not remember showing Tana a photograph of his penis, but says he does have such a photograph, and some women may have seen it. He said he also took friendly photos in the office, and when he commented on Tana's body, it was out of concern that she was getting too skinny. The photo he showed Kristen, he said, was not a naked porn star, but a clothed movie star.
When I contacted Don, he said he told Deanna about his relationship with Vivian, his partner, on their very first date, and that his memory of their time at Big Sur is different from hers. Beyond that, he did not respond to specific questions, but asked that I include an apology from him, in which he says, along the way, I strove but apparently failed to treat everyone with the respect and consideration they deserved. I regret causing harm, and I'm reckoning with it. Some of the accusations against me are untrue, but I deeply regret those that are. I apologize to anyone I offended and treated badly.
Before the BuzzFeed News story came out, Vivian says Don told her he needed to talk to her about something, to prepare her. Vivian told me she knew what it was, Me Too stories coming for Don. She'd pictured how their conversation would go. When Don sat her down, it was not what she'd imagined. He told her, 10 years ago he'd had an affair with Deanna.
Chana Joffe-Walt
Oh--
Vivian
And--
Chana Joffe-Walt
--you didn't--
Vivian
Yeah.
Chana Joffe-Walt
You didn't-- he hadn't told you about it before.
Vivian
He hadn't told-- no, this is all-- I am assimilating all of this in the past month.
Chana Joffe-Walt
Wow.
Vivian
Yeah. I went crazy. I mean, I just sort of screamed, you have no idea what you've done.
Chana Joffe-Walt
Immediately, you did?
Vivian
Oh God, yes.
Chana Joffe-Walt
She wanted to understand why he did this. She tried to remember what was happening in his life around that time, and there was a lot. Moving his elderly parents, trying to take responsibility for a sister who was ill and suffering a psychotic break, his own health issues.
Vivian is a therapist, and from Don, Vivian solicited details, assembled details, as a therapist does.
Vivian
For myself. I mean, this was not playing therapist for him. This was just like, I have got to make sense of this somehow. I've got to. I'm still working on that. Don't get me wrong. He's got to, too.
Chana Joffe-Walt
Why do you have to make sense of it?
Vivian
It's what I do. Its who I am. It feels like the only way to be a person with a history that feels coherent.
Chana Joffe-Walt
A person with a history that feels coherent with him? Like, your history with him?
Vivian
Yes, absolutely. It's so hard to integrate.
Chana Joffe-Walt
Are you going to stay with him?
Vivian
I'm 99.9 certain we will make it through this.
Chana Joffe-Walt
Don had just destroyed the story Vivian had about their relationship, a coherent history that for Vivian had included a wonderful partner with whom she shared a joyful life, shared trips and friends and intellectual interests, a partner who took loving care of her last year when Vivian was in chemotherapy for breast cancer. To stay with him and to make her history coherent, Vivian is trying to figure out what she needs to know, and how to resist asking about the things she does not need to know.
Vivian
I want to know about stupid things like, did they share the music that we love? You know, things like that, things that have always felt very special and intimate. I want to know what was shared that's always felt exclusive.
We were watching a movie the other night, and one character was holding another in a certain way. And I just broke down, and just said, did you hold her that way? He said, no, when I saw that, I just thought, that's you and me. And I believe him.
Chana Joffe-Walt
Four days before Christmas, Don's story was added to the news of allegations about sexual harassment and violence that suddenly have a public platform in this stunning period of time that is right now. Don's story came after the one about Harvey Weinstein, and Mario Batali, and Louis CK, and Senator Al Franken, Matt Lauer, and Charlie Rose, and Russell Simmons, and Dustin Hoffman, and Kevin Spacey, editors at the New Republic, DC Comics, the Paris Review, the head of NPR News, the owner of an NFL team, and the choreographer of a ballet. After Don's story came Congressman Patrick Meehan, Michael Douglas, Rob Porter and the sentencing of Larry Nassar.
The board that oversees AlterNet said they were investigating the allegations in detail. That investigation did not include reaching out to any of the women named in this story or in the BuzzFeed article. I don't know how you can understand what happened without speaking to the people who are saying, something happened to me.