Park Avenue Summer

by Renée Rosen

  A moment later the secretary’s voice squawked back on the intercom. “I have Mr. Brown on line one for you.”

  “The best way to get to Helen is through her husband,” Elaine said as she picked up the phone and swiveled around in her chair, facing the window. “Hello, David.” She leaned back and laughed at something he said. I watched her reflection in the glass as she propped her feet on the windowsill and crossed her ankles. She was wearing a pair of Gucci loafers. I recognized the interlocked gold G’s on top. “Is Helen still looking for a secretary?” she asked. “Oh, good. I have someone I think she should meet.” She looked back at me and winked. “Her name’s Alice Weiss. Shall I send her over? Okay, let me know. Thank you, David.”

  She hung up, dropped her feet to the ground and swiveled back around, facing me with a smile. “I know it’s a secretarial position. It’s not photography, but you have an interview with her tomorrow.”

  “With who? Helen Gurley Brown?” I was in disbelief. Helen Gurley Brown was a celebrity. A famous author who’d been a regular on radio and television shows even though hosts like Merv Griffin and Jack Paar couldn’t say the title of her book on the air.

  “David’s going to call back with the time. I’ll let you know as soon as I hear from him. Meanwhile . . .” She scribbled an address down on a monogrammed notepad, tore the page free and slid it across the desk to me.

  “Is she writing another book?”

  “Actually, no. The Hearst Corporation just hired her to be the new editor in chief at Cosmopolitan magazine.” Elaine shook her head, bewildered. “Last I heard, Hearst was folding Cosmopolitan. Then all of a sudden, they bring in Helen. Must be some sort of a last-ditch effort to save the magazine. Hearst isn’t in the habit of hiring women for positions like that, and frankly, we’re all scratching our heads, wondering how she landed the job. I’m sure David had something to do with it, seeing as Helen’s never edited a magazine before. My lord, she’s never even worked at a magazine.” Elaine laughed at the absurdity of it all. “But I have worked with Helen. I was one of her editors for this.” She tapped Sex and the Single Girl resting on her desk. “And while I don’t agree with everything she says in here, I do think she’s smart. And God knows she’s got chutzpah.”

  * * *

  • • •

  The following morning, I arrived at 224 West 57th. I was in the lobby, waiting for the elevator, when two girls walked up beside me. They were about my age and the one, with white-blond hair teased and backcombed into a magnificent bouffant, pressed the call button a second time, as if that would make it come faster. The Bouffant was wearing a chartreuse triangle shift dress. The other girl, a brunette with a pixie and chandelier earrings that touched her shoulders, wore a short red and white checkered skirt with knee-high boots. Compared to them, I had a big Ohio stamped on my forehead, even in my best houndstooth sheath dress.

  The elevator landed with a ding, and after the doors opened, in we went. The two girls chattered on the way up, oblivious when I exited behind them on the fourth floor and followed them into Cosmopolitan’s lobby. Before they disappeared down a hallway, the Pixie noticed me, glancing back with a neutral expression before she turned again, leaving me behind. There was no one at the receptionist’s desk, so I waited.

  The office was not what I’d been expecting. It suffered from neglect. The carpet was worn to its frayed backing. The seat cushions of the leather chairs were cracked, veins of white stuffing poking through. Even the dust clinging to the leaves on the plastic plants in the entranceway said to all who passed through those doors that the reading public had lost faith in the old gal.

  Still no sign of the receptionist. To pass the time, I studied the covers from past issues strewn across the wall, hanging in cockeyed frames. I was surprised by what I saw. The Cosmopolitan magazine I knew was filled with casserole recipes and housekeeping tips, but the lobby walls told a different story. There was a plaque with a list of authors who’d written for the magazine going as far back as the 1800s, including Mark Twain, Edith Wharton, Kipling and others. Among the covers hanging up was the April 1939 issue featuring Somerset Maugham’s The Facts of Life. Pearl S. Buck had a novella published in March 1935. O. Henry’s The Gift of the Magi was also published by Cosmopolitan.

  I was studying a 1906 cover with an Indian chief on horseback when a woman appeared from around the corner with a banker’s box hoisted up on one hip, a Rolodex and a picture frame jutting out the top. Her pocketbook was hanging off her wrist.

  “Excuse me,” I said. “I’m looking for Mrs. Brown. I have an appointment with her.”

  “Straight back. Corner office.” She gestured with her chin as she backed up, pushing the lobby door open with her behind.

  I ventured down a long hallway that opened into a larger space with several desks near the private offices. As I approached the new editor in chief’s office, I noticed the desk just outside was vacant, not a pencil or paperclip resting on top. The ashtray was spotless and the typewriter sat hooded beneath its plastic cover.

  I inched closer still. The door was open and there I got my first glimpse of Helen Gurley Brown. She was perched on the edge of a mahogany desk that looked too big for her slight frame. She was on the telephone; one of her gold clip earrings—which I would later learn was a David Webb worth more than $1,000—was lying in the ashtray, where I presumed it had landed after she tossed it off to answer the phone. She was wearing a pink mullet chiffon dress with a scooped neckline. I thought she was far more attractive in person than in the photo on her book jacket. She’d been so self-deprecating in Sex and the Single Girl, referring to herself as a mouseburger, but the woman in front of me was no frumpy girl from the Ozarks. A rich heap of dark brown hair accentuated her dainty features, including the nose, which, according to her book, was the work of a good plastic surgeon. Her makeup, albeit heavy and dramatic, was flawless. I’d never seen anyone with eyebrows so perfectly arched, and even if they were drawn on, they called attention to her eyes, dark and mysterious and a little sad. A bouquet of red roses was stationed at her side, their soft scent mixing with her perfume.

  I imagined the decor, the orange and brown striped drapes, the heavy wooden chairs, the credenza and shag carpeting, reflected her predecessor’s tastes. Aside from the bulky furniture, the room was empty, right down to the bulletin board with its rivet-headed thumbtacks waiting once again to be put to use.

  Mrs. Brown was still on the telephone, twisting the cord about her slender wrist. “But, David, the woman never even gave me a chance. I’ve only been here two days—how horrible of a boss can I be? I offered to take her to lunch my first day—and at Delmonico’s like you suggested—but she said she was too busy. Apparently, she was too busy looking for another job.”

  Not wanting to eavesdrop, I backed away from her door but still I heard tidbits. Though she spoke softly, Helen Gurley Brown’s voice carried and it was distinctive. No one sounded like her; velvety and animated, flirty and breathy like Marilyn Monroe but with a touch of lockjaw. She barely opened her mouth, and yet when she spoke, everyone heard her. Everywhere. Across the country and around the world.

  While still on the phone, she walked herself around the desk and I saw that she had a faint run in her stockings, right along the back of her calf. She dropped down into her chair, leaning in on her elbows as if some tremendous burden were bearing down on her. With her back teeth clenched, she said. “What am I going to do without a managing editor, David? Who’s going to fill that position? I’ve already lost two other editors. They’re dropping like flies around here.”

  After she’d finished her call, she reached for her appointment book, unaware of my presence, as she drummed a pencil on the desk in time with her foot tapping the plastic floor mat. When I knocked on the doorjamb, she looked up startled and I could see that she was crying.

  With an open hand splayed across her chest, the first thing she said was, �
��Oh dear, are you going to quit, too?”

  I’d mentally rehearsed my opening lines, beginning with, It’s such an honor to meet you, but her tears had thrown me off script. “Actually, I’m here to interview for a job. To be your secretary. Elaine Sloan sent me. I’m Alice. Alice Weiss.”

  “Oh, thank God.” She blinked, letting another tear escape as she rose from her desk and scampered to my side. “Alice Weiss, am I ever glad to see you.” She couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred pounds, but I felt the strength of a woman twice her size when she grabbed hold of my arm and pulled me into her office. Still holding tight, she looked at me with her big brown eyes. “My goodness, you’re so . . . young. I was expecting someone older.” She sounded congested from crying.

  I reached into my pocketbook and handed her a tissue along with my résumé.

  She thanked me, dabbed her eyes and invited me to have a seat, composing herself on the spot. “Why, you’re a darling girl,” she said, perking up. “Beautiful hair. Mine is so thin, you can see my scalp in places. This is a wig, you know.” She tugged on a tress, shifting her mane, as if offering proof.

  I didn’t know what to say after that, so I sat quietly, waiting while she glanced at my credentials, making comments here and there: “Ohio, huh? I’m from Arkansas originally.”

  “I know. I read your book.”

  She smiled, her eyes still on the résumé. “I see you’re a fast typist. Seventy-five words a minute. That’s good. You know, I used to be a secretary, too. Oh, I was terrible,” she said with an impish chuckle as she plucked her earring from the ashtray, blew the ashes away and clipped it back on her lobe. “I couldn’t hold down a job for the life of me. I had seventeen secretarial positions over five years. Seventeen—can you imagine!”

  She turned my résumé over, as if expecting more on the other side. “Oh dear.” She looked up and frowned. “Why, you haven’t got any magazine experience at all, have you?” She tilted her head and turned out her bottom lip: Poor little lamb.

  “But I’m smart,” I told her. “And I’m a hard worker.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you are, dear.” She pressed her palms together as if in prayer, her many bracelets ringing the communion bell. “But you see, when Elaine told David about you, we were expecting someone with more credentials. I need a secretary who knows this business. I’m sorry you came all this way for nothing.” She stood up and extended her hand. “Lovely to meet you, though.”

  We shook hands and I thanked her, but as I was about to leave, something stopped me. This was a once-in-a-lifetime chance to be face-to-face with Helen Gurley Brown. My job interview was over and I had nothing to lose. “Mrs. Brown?”

  She looked up from her desk. “Yes?”

  “In your book you encouraged single girls to find a job that could be—and I might be paraphrasing here, but—‘your love, your happy pill, your means of finding out who you are and what you can do.’”

  I watched her lips curve upward. “I’d say that’s pretty much a direct quote.”

  “I guess I was hoping that working for you could become my happy pill.”

  She set her pencil down, her eyes on me, holding my gaze. I sensed that she saw into me, knew my secrets, my fears. She was the gypsy woman, and I, her crystal ball. After a moment I saw the shift in her posture, the way her shoulders went slack and her face softened. “Come back in here, pussycat. Have a seat.”

  I did as she said, my knees pressed together, my hands clutching my pocketbook.

  “There’s more to this job than typing and answering the phones. I’ll need someone who can lock arms with me. You need to know how to deal with the public. And sometimes that means keeping them at bay and saying ‘bye-bye.’” She gestured with a flirty open-and-close hand gesture. “I’ll need help with everything.” She began counting off her fingers. “There’s my schedule, travel arrangements, meetings where I’ll need you to sit in and take notes. There’s my fan mail, my personal affairs, too. I need someone who can plan a gala at the drop of a hat.”

  I nodded, letting her know she hadn’t scared me off, though in truth it sounded overwhelming.

  “I’ve inherited a real muck of a mess here,” she went on. “It’s going to take a lot of hard work and long hours to turn this ship around. They’re expecting me to transform Cosmopolitan and I have a feeling the Hearst Corporation isn’t going to be very happy with what I’m planning to do. It’s going to be a battle every step of the way. Are you up for this sort of challenge?”

  “I am,” I said, not even sure why I was petitioning so hard for this job. Yes, I needed the money, which we hadn’t even discussed yet. And yes, I’d been on some dreadful interviews, but more than anything, I was caught up in the excitement—a woman in the corner office, calling the shots. I decided in that moment that if given the chance, I would do whatever I could to help her. I would see to it that Helen Gurley Brown never wanted for anything, not a cup of coffee, a sharp pencil or an impossible-to-get dinner reservation. I would be there to serve her.

  “Well,” she said, “you do realize that we’d be learning this business together.”

  “Does this mean I have the job?”

  A staticky voice broke in over the intercom. “Mrs. Brown? I have Mr. Deems on the phone for you.”

  Helen raised a finger, putting my fate on hold. Her brow furrowed, showing her age for the first time, and I could see that she really was every bit of forty-three. Just as she had softened for me moments before, now I saw the shoulders go back, the chin rise up as she removed her earring again, jostling it in her hand like dice.

  “Why, hello, Dick,” she said, forcing a smile in her voice. “Yes, I know Betty quit. She gave me her letter of resignation this morning.” She propped the phone between her ear and shoulder, dropped the earring and reached for a pencil, gripping either end with both hands. “Oh, I know. The timing just couldn’t be worse.”

  I could hear Deems’s muffled voice over the phone and figured he must have been with Hearst. She shifted in her chair, clutching the pencil so tightly, the color was draining from her fingertips.

  “Now, Dick,” she cooed, “no point in getting all worked up. We have time. The April issue just hit the stands and . . .” She drew a deep breath, the pencil beginning to bow, her voice perfectly serene. “We’re going to be fine, Dick. Really. As a matter of fact, I already have someone in mind for the new managing editor.” I heard him speaking again, a little louder this time. “Well,” she laughed softly, brightly, “of course I’m going to review the flatplan today.” She snapped the pencil in two. “That’s at the top of my list.”

  Mrs. Brown picked up another pencil. I thought she was going to break that one, too, but instead she jotted something down on a pad of paper and turned it my way: Can you start tomorrow?

  As soon as she hung up with Dick Deems, she turned to me, her hand still on the receiver. “Do you have any idea what a flatplan is?”

  CHAPTER TWO

  No one would ever have accused me of leading a charmed life, but just then it seemed like I did. One week in New York City and already I had a job, working for Helen Gurley Brown no less, with a starting salary of $55 a week. Plus, I had a place to live.

  I walked down the street, my pocketbook swinging at my side while I jangled the key to my new apartment, ridiculously proud that I’d made it back to 75th and Second Avenue without getting lost. I took it as a small victory after days of being disoriented, scrambling from one wrong train to another, bumbling from the East Side to the West. Sometimes it seemed like the longer I was here, the bigger the city was becoming.

  Ah, but I’d made it back to my apartment. There was a butcher shop on the ground floor of my four-story walk-up. Signs in the window advertised Pork Chops 55¢, Ground Chuck 39¢, Roast Beef 65¢. A black cast-iron fire escape zigzagged down the brick facade.

  I had found the apartment listed on a bu
lletin board in a coffee shop the second day I arrived. Semi-furnished. $110 a month. The landlord explained that Rhonda, the girl who’d been living there, had left town unexpectedly, leaving behind her bed and other furniture along with some clothes. I found a few dresses, some shoes and a pair of denim jeans in the closet. There were sweaters and other items stuffed inside one of the drawers of her abandoned bureau.

  When I reached the second floor, I bumped into my neighbor across the way in 2R. Trudy Lewis was a button of a girl, petite with strawberry blond hair and a face full of freckles. She even had them on her pale lips.

  “How’s the job hunting going?” she asked, keying into her apartment.

  When I said I’d just landed a job as Helen Gurley Brown’s secretary, Trudy’s hand paused on the doorknob. “This is fantastic. We have to celebrate. Stay right there. Don’t you move.”

  I stood in the hallway while she darted through her door and came back out with a bottle of Great Western Champagne. “I’ve been saving this for a special occasion,” she said as we entered my apartment.

  My tiny unit, 2F, was what they called an efficiency, though there was nothing efficient about it. The front door was warped, the windows didn’t seal and the floor was slanted, which explained why random items sometimes rolled off the table and nightstand. The tiles in the bathroom were loose and a few of them did a swan dive into the tub while I was bathing that morning.

  “Now tell me everything,” she said as her thumb sent the cork soaring across the room. “What’s she like? Is she beautiful? What was she wearing? How tall is she?”