Moses Supposes Erroneously
MOSES SUPPOSES ERRONEOUSLY
Betrayal is the only truth that sticks.
—ARTHUR MILLER
1992
On July 6, 1992, Beanie Rosen scheduled a lunch in New York with Moze Goff. Requesting some time to discuss a private matter, she’d sent him an electronic mail on the NeXT computer, figuring that was safer than phones or memos, and figuring he’d be impressed that she was using the electronic mail system that many agents still treated like a novelty.
Moze responded immediately, inviting her to his penthouse apartment on Gramercy Park. He was warm and welcoming and genuinely happy to see Beanie. Contrary to gossip, he wasn’t dating Cher and hadn’t a clue how that rumor ever got started. “I’ve never even met her,” he said as he showed her around his two-bedroom apartment meticulously designed by Zajac he was going to be an agent.
For himself.
It was a devastating blow to the agency as every client went with him and others called to see if they could. Professionally, it was a knife in Sheila’s back. She had laid the stakes on the table; she had begged him to wait. And he had agreed, or at least she thought he had. Certainly he’d understood what was on the line for her. But he didn’t care. Sheila was shaken. She left for the day without addressing the resignation, the troops, or any press inquiries.
She was devastated.
But not nearly as devastated as Beanie Rosen, who had opened her heart, shared her dreams, and confided her plans. “He not only withheld his plans from me,” she told Ella, who’d come into her office as soon as she’d heard, “he didn’t include me in them. He didn’t ask if I wanted to go,” she said sadly, still trying to wrap her head around it.
“Would you have gone?” Ella asked.
Beanie shrugged. That was beside the point. He didn’t want her to. And that killed her. “Here I was telling him that we could work together and build something together, and all that time, he knew he was leaving, and he never said a word.” Tears were falling down Beanie’s face as the sting of his betrayal cut her into tiny pieces. “And it wasn’t just me who he betrayed,” she told Ella, explaining that he knew that Sheila Day was supposed to get the board seat at the end of the year, and that she needed all the agents to stay put to ensure she’d get it. “Now with him gone, she might not get it,” Beanie said. Oblivious to the fact that Ella hadn’t known about Sheila’s board seat, Beanie had unknowingly given her the kill shot. And Ella took it.
One week to the day later, Ella Gaddy, Howie Mishkin, Barry Licht, and Stevie Lanzetti announced the formation of King’s Road Partners, taking the agency, the industry, and most especially Beanie Rosen by complete surprise. They weren’t supposed to leave until the end of the year.
If Moze’s departure had wounded Sylvan Light, this was devastating.
The board held an emergency meeting as agents scrambled inside the agency to save clients and outside the agency to sign them. Between the clients the agency had lost a week earlier due to Moze’s defection, and the ones they were poised to lose because of the latest exits, Sylvan Light was spiraling. The press was ruthless, alleging that agents were jumping ship due to poor leadership. All eyes were on Sheila Day, who was blindsided and speechless.
She wasn’t the only one.
Beanie, stunned, asked Barry why they changed their plans.
Barry shrugged and told her, “Ella said if we don’t leave now, she’s out.”
Thanks to Beanie Rosen, Ella Gaddy made sure that Sheila Day did not get her seat at the table that Christmas.