by Ruth Reichl
“Thank you for coming down to the Village to meet me. I wanted to be sure we wouldn’t be seen.”
Did everyone at Condé Nast think they were being stalked by paparazzi?
She’d obviously expected someone older, more fashionable, and decidedly more formidable. As we made idle small talk, I could sense her questioning Si’s judgment. She remained cool, even distant, until I mentioned that I’d grown up a few blocks away. At that, her entire demeanor changed. “My house is just around the corner!” she cried.
“Which one?” When I was small, Dad walked me up 10th Street every morning on the way to P.S. 41. He’d peer into the apartment windows we passed, inventing stories about the people who lived inside. He decided that the man who sat in the bow window, the one who waved whenever we walked by, was a retired sea captain. He made up fantastic adventures for the girl on the fourth floor who looked like Audrey Hepburn. But he didn’t have to dream up stories about the family in what was now Gina’s townhouse; they were old friends.
“Ruth Wittenberg was an amazing woman,” I told Gina. “She fought for suffrage and civil rights, and she was a famous gardener. Your house was always the main feature on Village garden tours, but I was much more interested in the dining room: Phil collected cookbooks, and the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves were filled with them. Are they still there?”
Gina made an odd little face, as if she’d swallowed something bitter. “Nothing’s still there. My mother-in-law had Mario Buatta decorate the house as a wedding present.” She leaned in meaningfully, as if I’d empathize.
I didn’t know anything about the decorator—or any decorator, for that matter—but back at the office I looked him up. Buatta favored heavy drapes, patterned fabrics, and overstuffed furniture—conventional comfort at its most luxurious. I thought it was a good sign that Gina didn’t like his style; it seemed meant for older people.
“She seemed nice enough,” I reported to Kathy, “but she struck me as very ordinary.”
“Could you work with her?”
“I don’t see why not. Although,” I couldn’t help adding, “I didn’t get the impression she thought much of me.”
“She must have liked you better than you think.” Kathy’s voice was brisk. “Because Condé Nast just called to make an offer. Do you want to hear the terms?”
Two minutes later I hung up in a daze. All around me the newsroom buzzed, familiar, cheerfully distracting. My fingers shook as I dialed to cancel the reservation at Les Celebrites, the fancy new restaurant I was supposed to be reviewing; Michael and I could not possibly discuss this in the middle of a packed room where we could be overheard. Then, still dizzy, I turned off my computer and picked up my purse.
I considered dinner as I rode the subway. I’d stop at Citarella to buy some shrimp, make that Marcella Hazan pasta Nick and Michael liked so much. I’d get a bottle of wine. A bunch of flowers. Bake brownies.
At home I stood in the kitchen, mind spinning as I stripped shells from the shrimp. In the living room Nick and his friend Zack were doing math homework. The murmur of their voices made this seem like any other day.
“You boys hungry?”
After years of insisting on five white foods, my son’s appetites had abruptly changed; he was now on the constant prowl for interesting snacks. “Any more of those deviled eggs?” he shouted back.
I put the eggs on a plate and carried them into the living room; they were slightly smashed, which gave them a rakish air, but the boys didn’t seem to mind. I’d finished cleaning the shrimp by the time Michael walked in, but I was still at the sink, my hands beneath the running water.
“Are we staying home tonight?” Michael opened the refrigerator, rooting around for a beer, an expression of pleasure on his face.
“Condé Nast made me an offer.”
We’d already discussed the pros and cons; Michael thought I should stay at the Times. He mistrusted Condé Nast—the company was such a revolving door—and was convinced they were more interested in luring a writer away from the Times than in revamping the magazine. Despite Si’s promises, Michael worried that once I got there he’d veto all substantial changes. “I just don’t want you to be disappointed,” he said.
He’d cheered me on at every move, urging me to take jobs at both the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times, and I trusted both his instincts and his judgment. If not for him, I’d still be in Los Angeles.
But he trusted my instincts too. “I haven’t met the man. You have, and if you really believe Si Newhouse is going to let you make the magazine of your dreams, then you should probably take the job.” He retrieved a Heineken and opened a drawer, searching for a bottle opener.
“Don’t you want to hear their offer?” I gave him the figure.
His hands stilled. “Say that again.”
I repeated the number.
“Are you sure you heard right? Six times what you’re making now? Is that possible?”
We stood staring at each other across the open drawer, stunned by our naïveté; he was a producer at CBS and I’d worked at the country’s biggest papers, but neither of us had ever known that journalists could earn that kind of money.
“I made Kathy repeat it twice. And that’s not all. There’s a driver. A car. A clothing allowance.”
“A clothing allowance?” It came out halfway between a sputter and a snort. He had finally located the opener and I watched him open the beer and take a quick gulp.
“Apparently they pay for everything. Country clubs—”
“Can’t you just see us in a country club?”
“—hairdressers, travel. You name it. It’s kind of unreal. I worry about the money, worry it will change us.”
Michael came to the sink, turned off the water, and put his arms around me. “If this is what you want to do, then you should go for it. It’s risky, but you’re fifty years old and if you’re ever going to do it, now’s the time.”
“I’ll probably make an enormous fool of myself.”
“No, you probably won’t.”
“And then there’s all that other stuff—like the sixty people I’m supposed to send packing.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Don’t have to what?” With a child’s unerring instinct, Nick chose that moment to appear with the empty plate. He set it in the sink and looked up at me.
“Fire a lot of people.”
“Oh.” Nick’s eyes went to Michael, knowing something was missing.
“Mom’s just been offered a new job.”
“You mean you wouldn’t be a restaurant critic anymore?” Nick’s voice rose, excited. “You wouldn’t have to go out all the time? We could eat dinner at home? Every night?”
“Well, yes.”
“Do it! Do it! Do it!”
THREE MINUTES AFTER THE CONTRACT arrived, the phone rang. When I picked up the receiver, a torrent of staccato screeches came pouring out. I held it far away from my ear, trying to decipher the words. At last I grasped that Condé Nast’s PR czar was on the line. I had yet to meet Maurie Perl, but her rat-a-tat communication conjured up a large, fierce woman with dark hair and huge red lips. She finally ran out of steam and slowed down enough to make me understand that she was talking about the need to control the news.
“When,” she said very slowly, as if speaking to someone of limited mental capacity, “were you planning to give notice at the Times?”
I had not given this a single thought. “I guess I’ll tell my editor tomorrow morning.”
An intake of breath. “Not your editor! You have to go right to the top.”
“You want me to tell Lelyveld directly?” Joe Lelyveld was the executive editor of The New York Times.
“Of course!” A pause. “Now, we have to consider the timing. This is going to be very big and we want to be on top of it.”
“These are the people who think paparazzi are following them around,” Michael reminded me.
“Well, I hope Maurie’s not disappointed. I can’t imagine many people are going to care, but she’s treating it like a military operation. She’s timed it to the last millisecond.”
“Does she have a stopwatch?” Nick asked.
“I wouldn’t be surprised. She’s created a minute-by-minute timetable. I tell Joe. Then I call her. She calls Truman. He fires the current editor.”
I didn’t know Gail Zweigenthal, but I knew she’d been at Gourmet for her entire career and was, by all accounts, a very nice woman. I hoped this wasn’t going to come as a terrible shock. I also hoped the rumors about Condé Nast’s generosity were true and that she had a golden parachute (although there was no mention of such a thing in my contract).
“What then?” asked Nick.
“Then Maurie makes phone calls. She’s very concerned about some guy named Keith Kelly, who’s the Post’s media critic; she kept saying we have to give him an exclusive interview before the news leaks out. And she must have told me a thousand times that I’m not allowed to talk to anyone unless she says it’s okay.”
The next morning I made pancakes and watched Michael pack his suitcase. The Clinton impeachment hearings were in full swing, and he was off to Arkansas to work on yet another story. As an investigative producer for CBS, he was always on the road, following the story wherever it led. “I wish I didn’t have to leave right now.” He zipped the suitcase closed. “I’m sorry you’re facing this alone.”
Nick came in, bouncing the pink rubber ball he always kept in his pocket, and looked up at Michael. “Are you taking me to school?” There was a wistful note in his voice; he hated having either of us leave town.
Michael punched him lightly on the arm. “Don’t look so sad, pal; it’s only a few days.”
Nick slipped his hand into Michael’s and we all walked to the hallway to wait for the elevator. I felt queasy; everything was about to change. I hoped this wasn’t a huge mistake.
* * *
—
THE DONUT MAN on the corner of 43rd Street and Broadway handed me coffee and a jelly donut; after six years, he knew exactly what I wanted. “Give me one for Stan too,” I said. Kassim nodded; I often took coffee to my favorite guards. They, in turn, occasionally shared the giant sandwiches they bought at the Big Apple Meat Market on Ninth Avenue, which was famous for its overstuffed heroes.
“You’re in early.” Stan was a beefy, talkative man who loved telling me about his favorite restaurants on Staten Island. I was going to miss him, miss this little ritual that started every day.
I pushed through the security turnstile, wondering about the guards over at Condé Nast; thanks to the cloak-and-dagger manner in which we’d conducted our affair, I’d never been inside the building.
Upstairs, the style section was still empty and I looked around, taking in the details, already nostalgic. A tan cardigan sat sentinel at Alex Witchel’s pristine desk, a warning to interloping freelancers that she might be right back. Elaine Louie’s desk overflowed in its usual state of chaos. I watched a startled mouse leap across the jumbled papers and disappear beneath the desk Trish Hall used. The former editor of the dining section still came in from time to time; I hoped the mouse would be gone by the time she arrived. I was going to miss these people, miss the easy camaraderie with my colleagues; there was always someone to talk to, someone who’d come upstairs for a cup of coffee or go out for a bite to eat.
Gourmet would be different: Nobody wants to gossip with the boss. It must be unpleasant, I thought, to be surrounded by people who are afraid of you.
But even when Trish Hall was at her most powerful, she’d never thrown her weight around and never insisted she knew more than you did. She was also completely candid about wanting to work with people she could learn from. My first boss, Rosalie Wright, had been much the same. Rosalie is the toughest person I’ve ever met: She bucked enormous pressure to run major investigative articles in New West. When powerful people pulled strings and made threats as they attempted to stop the first negative stories about Jim Jones’s Peoples Temple, she was fearless. “The story’s solid and it’s shocking,” she said, refusing to give in. But Rosalie never pulled rank; if she was alone in the office, she’d take phone messages for you, and she was constantly saying, “You’re the expert. What do you think?” Unlike the men I’d worked for, Rosalie managed to be in charge without ever being a boss. It came to me that I had excellent role models; I just had to keep them firmly anchored in my mind.
I called Joe’s secretary, who promised to let me know the moment he arrived. Edgy and anxious, I occupied myself by taking down the papers pinned to the bulletin board above my desk. Phone numbers: Nick’s pediatrician, the vet, various babysitters. A note from Mike Nichols, thanking me for taking him on a review. A snapshot of Nick standing upright on Michael’s shoulders. It was ancient history: They stopped performing that trick the year Nick turned six.
The secretary called to say Joe would see me now, and I went downstairs, heart thumping as I entered his office. Joe looked up and uttered exactly two words. “Condé Nast?”
I nodded and his lips turned down.
Rumor had it that Joe was angry about Si poaching his people; Paul Goldberger had recently left to be the architecture critic of The New Yorker. “What will you be doing there?” he asked grimly.
“I’m going to edit Gourmet.”
His expression quickly changed. “I can’t blame you for being tempted by that.” He was almost smiling. “It’s a wonderful opportunity.” Now it was actually a grin. “My wife’s a longtime subscriber.” Why was he so happy?
Suddenly I understood: He’d been afraid I was off to The New Yorker, GQ, or Vanity Fair. One of the important magazines. I sat up straighter. “Do you ever read Gourmet?” I asked.
He looked incredulous. “I don’t have time for food magazines.” The disdain in his voice was palpable.
“That’s exactly why I took the job. I plan to make a magazine you’ll have to have time for.”
“I wish you luck” was all he said.
Back at my pod, I dutifully dialed Maurie. “Get out, get out,” she commanded. “You don’t want to answer questions from the Times. It would be best if you came here.”
Condé Nast had not yet moved into the modern skyscraper that would transform Times Square from a derelict honky-tonk district into a squeaky-clean tourist attraction. The company occupied a venerable old edifice, which had started life in 1922 as the home of the Borden Company, but when Si moved his magazines in he’d given the place modern polish. As I walked east toward 350 Madison Avenue, leaving the still-gritty theater district behind me, the sidewalks became cleaner, the stores more elegant, the pedestrians better dressed. I passed Prada, Gucci, Chanel. Even the guards, I thought as I entered the lobby, looked classier at Condé Nast; their backs were straighter, their uniforms crisper, and there was not a paunch among them. As I waited for the elevator, someone who looked a lot like Graydon Carter strolled up. The editor of Vanity Fair fascinated me; he’d co-founded Spy magazine, where he’d invented wonderfully nasty nicknames for a host of people (Donald Trump was a “short-fingered vulgarian”), before transforming himself into a card-carrying member of the social elite. I studied him; with his wild mane and beautiful suit he reminded me of a superbly self-satisfied lion. In the research I’d been doing on Condé Nast, I’d learned that Graydon hired a private architect to design his office.
Maurie also fit so perfectly into this elegant atmosphere that the image I’d had of her instantly vanished. Blond and petite, dressed in cashmere, tweed, and diamonds, she reminded me of a miniature poodle fresh from the groomer. She placed the
first call and to my discomfort stayed on the line, listening intently as I fielded questions from Keith Kelly. It was awkward having her listening in, but when I protested she insisted that this was common practice. One more reminder that I had just entered a new world.
Maurie dialed again, and again, and again; I hadn’t known there would be so many interviews, but I seemed to be doing okay. She never interrupted as I sat for what felt like hours, talking to the press. Between calls she tried to reassure me, offering a smile as conspiratorial as a wink. Now that I was officially on board, she acted like we’d been friends forever.
Around midday Si’s secretary called, and Maurie jumped as if a shot had been fired, manicured fingers making small shooing motions. “Go. Go. Go.” There was that smile again. “Don’t be afraid. Last time he called I was so terrified. Then I got to his office and it was worse: Steve Florio was there too! The owner and the CEO? I was positive I was being fired. And what did they do? Handed me the keys to a new car and thanked me for doing a good job.” She walked me to the door, practically pushing me out.
But Si did not have cars on his mind. “I want you to come to Gourmet’s offices on Lexington Avenue tomorrow morning.” The words, as always, emerged slowly, as if he could not bear to part with them. “The staff will want to meet you.”
“But I don’t start for three more months!” I’d agreed to stay at the Times while they sought my replacement, and as far as I was concerned the Gourmet job was off in the distant future. What was the point of meeting the staff now?
“Everyone in New York will be talking about this tomorrow! You must be introduced. It cannot wait.”
