by Renée Rosen
Helen was seated at her desk, Ferragamo shoes kicked off, one bare foot tucked beneath her while she leafed through the proofs, her frown deepening when she came to each new page.
“Obviously, it’s going to be a rather lean issue,” said George, reaching for a chair as if preparing to settle in for a lengthy discussion. “Going forward, I’d like to see us expand the book coverage.”
Just as George sat and crossed his legs, Helen flung the proof onto the floor. It landed face up, fanned open to a page with a Mutual of Omaha Insurance ad opposite an article about orthopedics.
“Very well then,” George said, rising up. “We’ll discuss the book section another time.” He nodded, put the chair back in place and smoothed a flap of thinning Brylcreemed hair against his scalp before slipping out the door.
Helen slumped forward, planting both feet on the ground as she groaned into her hands. “Alice, do me a favor. Get David on the line.”
Moments later while at my desk, trying to track down her husband, I looked up and saw someone heading down the hall that caused the secretaries to scamper to their desks in an effort to appear busy. Whoever this man was, he looked like a politician in a dark suit and tie, his graying hair combed straight back. I could smell his aftershave—Brut—and noticed the reflection of the overhead lights in the tops of his polished shoes. It wasn’t until I heard one of the editors greet him by name that I realized he was Richard Berlin. The big boss. The president of Hearst. He had decided to leave his posh office in the Hearst headquarters a few blocks over and slum through the halls of Cosmopolitan.
“Helen . . .” he called from two yards away.
“Oh, Richard, is that you? C’mon in,” she said. “Alice, dear, show Mr. Berlin in.”
“You and I need to talk, Helen.” He was already standing in her doorway as I rushed up behind him, a useless gesture.
“How good of you to stop by.” She smiled as if hosting a country club reception. She was about to get up from her desk when he paused her with a hand command suited for a dog. Surprisingly, she obeyed and dropped down into her chair, putting him at an extreme height advantage.
“Advertising revenue is way down. We had twenty-one ad pages for May. That’s it. It’s got me very concerned about the June issue.”
Helen pressed a demure hand to her heart. “June? Oh, never mind about June. What we need to be concerned about is this.” She picked up the May proof pages like she was holding a puppy by the scruff of its neck. “We need to make some drastic changes or else the June issue won’t be any better.”
“And what changes do you propose?”
“First things first, we need to cut that Gore Vidal essay.”
“Cut Gore Vidal?”
“It’s dull, dull, dull. And while we’re at it, I know you promised Rex Reed he’d be the new movie critic but his latest review is simply dreadful. I’m afraid Rex and his pippy-poo copy have to go.”
“Pippy-poo?” I was surprised he’d repeated it. It had been slightly charming when Helen said it but sounded ridiculous coming from him. “So you want to cut the Vidal essay and fire Rex Reed?”
“For starters.”
“That’s nonsense. This magazine has standards we need to uphold. I’m not going to compromise the integrity and—”
Her chirpy laugh cut him off. “Oh, Richard.” Flouting him, she stood up and slipped out from behind her desk. “Trust me. I have a wonderful vision for this magazine.”
“That’s exactly what I’m afraid of.”
She smiled and tilted her head as if to say, You silly little boy, you. “I find it so funny that you’re nervous about a woman editing a magazine for women.” Though Berlin didn’t look amused, she continued talking while managing to escort him out of her office. I admired how coolly she dismissed him while leading him toward the lobby, her voice trailing behind her. “Isn’t that just too funny, Richard? Worrying about a woman editing a woman’s magazine . . .”
Moments later she came back down the hall; the glib lighthearted attitude was gone, her shoulders drooped, her head hung low. She seemed to be pouting, and without a word, she went into her office and closed the door. I noticed her line lit up on my telephone extension and then blinked off. Whoever she’d tried to reach must not have been available. A moment later, I heard her sobbing.
* * *
• • •
When I got home that night, I stood in the kitchenette, leaning next to the telephone mounted on the wall. I was eating a sleeve of saltines and a tin of sardines I’d bought at the little grocer around the corner. I watched the clock above the stove, waiting for the hands to reach eight o’clock, when the long-distance rates dropped, before placing a collect call to my father.
Faye answered and I had to fight the impulse to hang up. I never knew what to say to her. Everything was always so awkward and strained. I knew she made my father happy and I didn’t want him to be alone, but still. A year and a half ago, when he introduced us, Faye had been too polite and I’d been too rude, answering her overzealous questions with a string of indifferent yes, no, I don’t cares. I was later ashamed of the way I’d acted. I was too old for that, but I couldn’t help myself. In truth, Faye was perfectly lovely. Her only fault was that she wasn’t my mother. And there was nothing either of us could do about that.
“Collect call from Alice,” I heard the operator say. “Will you accept the charges?”
I poked a sardine with my fork, awaiting her verdict.
“Yes, Operator, I will.” Faye covered the receiver, her voice garbled as she called to my father, “Herb? Herbert? Get the phone. It’s Ali.”
I bristled at her taking liberty with my name. I was Alice to her, not Ali. I listened while the two of them talked, mumbling back and forth. I could picture them standing in the kitchen, the phone on the counter, next to the new avocado-colored range she had to have, because my mother’s blue one didn’t match the other appliances.
At last my father came on the line. “Ali? Ali, honey, how are you?”
“Hi, Dad. Wanted to let you know I got a job. At a magazine. Already started.” I realized I was talking in staccato sentences, as if trying to convey the most information in the most succinct manner possible. I wasn’t sure if I was doing this to save on minutes—the equivalent of a telegram, where you were charged by the word—or if I simply was that stiff and awkward talking to my father these days.
“Well, good. Good for you. So this means you’re planning on staying in New York then, huh?”
“Yes.” Of course I’m staying. That was the whole point of moving here.
The line went silent. The father I knew, before Faye came along, would have had a million questions for me: Which magazine? What are they paying you? Where’s your office? Do you like the people there? But then again, the daughter he knew before he’d married Faye would never have waited this long to tell him she’d landed a job.
“Dad? You still there?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m here.”
“Elaine Sloan—Mom’s friend—remember her? She helped me get the job.”
“Oh.” He sounded surprised. “So, ah, you’re in touch with her.”
“She’s very nice.”
“Uh-huh.”
I set a saltine cracker in my mouth, letting it turn soft on my tongue before I ate it. He allowed another fifty-cent-a-minute pause before he changed the subject. After clearing his throat, he mumbled under his breath, “How are your funds holding up?” I had a feeling he didn’t want Faye hearing him ask me about money.
“I’m okay. I’ll get paid soon.” I slid my spine down the wall, grateful that the phone cord reached to the floor. The line was silent again. This time I thought it might be the connection. “Dad?”
I heard Faye talking in the background, but couldn’t make out the words.
“Ah, hold on a sec, Ali. What—�
� He covered the phone and said something to his wife. I tapped my toes and drummed my fingertips against the hardwood floor. “Well,” he said, coming back on the line, “we’ll talk more on Sunday, huh? When the rates are cheaper.”
After he hung up, I stayed seated on the floor, my back against the wall, the receiver still in my hand, the dial tone filling my apartment with its steady din.
CHAPTER FOUR
By the end of my first week, Helen and I had begun transforming her office. She believed there was a correlation between creating the proper work environment and her productivity. The lobby, she said, we would address later, but in the meantime, she wouldn’t be able to fully concentrate until she’d banished the last traces of her predecessor and made the office her own.
So out went the orange shag carpet, the heavy furniture and striped drapes, and up went the pale pink wallpaper and the floral curtains, along with plush carpeting the shade of cotton candy. Though it didn’t quite go with her pink motif, she couldn’t resist bringing in a few leopard print desk accessories and throw pillows for her new sofa, upholstered in the same floral pattern as the window treatments. Despite her new vanity desk, Helen would conduct the bulk of her business from a little chair that looked like it belonged in a doll’s house rather than an executive’s office.
When I asked about it, she said, “Oh, it’s very important that I make whoever I’m meeting with feel bigger than me.” I had to laugh because practically everyone was bigger than Helen. “They mustn’t feel intimidated. By the time they leave my office, they need to feel like everything we agreed to was their idea in the first place,” she said with a crafty smile.
After spending so much time decorating her office, I found myself falling behind on the rest of my workload. Bernard Geis Associates had begun forwarding Helen’s mail to the office, thousands of letters arriving in grungy gray canvas mail bags with ropelike drawstrings and metal grommets.
As for the fan mail, Helen responded to all those herself. In addition, there were all the thank-you notes for dinner parties, luncheons, to anyone who sent her flowers, dropped off cookies and candies, which of course she wouldn’t eat. But the point was that no gesture of kindness went without a thank-you note. I never knew when she found the time, but each morning a fresh stack of handwritten notes and letters on her pink stationery would be waiting for me to walk down to the mailroom, each one addressed and stamped with her HGB pink sealing wax.
There was other mail, too. Hate mail, which Helen asked me to handle however I saw fit. She wanted nothing to do with any “nitpicky buttinskies.” Honestly, I was surprised by the volume of angry letters she received. It was hard to imagine so many people taking the time to scold her on paper, accusing her of being immoral and corrupting innocent girls. I’d just read a letter from a mother who’d found a copy of Sex and the Single Girl in the bottom of her daughter’s drawer. She’s fifteen years old and you’ve got her wearing makeup and stuffing tissue paper inside her bra.
I didn’t know how to respond so I set it aside and instead started on a letter of employment for Helen’s first new editorial hire. Walter Meade was coming on board as an articles editor. Walter was a former advertising man, the head of the copy department for BBDO, and like Helen, he knew nothing about magazines. But like just about every other copywriter on Madison Avenue, Meade had a novel he was writing in his desk drawer. Through the years, he’d sold a few short stories to Bill Guy, which was what got Helen thinking about hiring him in the first place.
Walter Meade was, in a word, gorgeous. Tall, fit, dark hair, dark eyes, dimples and a smile that belonged in a toothpaste commercial. Helen took one look at my face after he walked out of her office and whispered, “Forget it, dear. He’s a dandy.”
I fed a piece of paper into my typewriter and cranked it in position, my fingers gliding over the keys. After finishing the Meade letter, I looked up from my desk and saw that almost everyone was gone for the day. Desk lamps were turned off, typewriters were covered, sweaters no longer hanging off the backs of chairs. It was a Friday night and everyone was eager to start their weekend. Even Helen was getting ready to leave.
“Toodle-oo,” she said, closing the buckle on her yellow wicker pocketbook. “I’m off to meet David at Trader Vic’s. Don’t stay too late now. By the way, I meant to tell you earlier—I just love your nail polish. I’ve been admiring it all day.”
“Thank you,” I said, a bit mystified, looking down at my nails. Plain pink polish.
Helen smiled and whisked off down the hall in her orange Rudi Gernreich dress, a floral scarf tied as a headband, its ends trailing down the center of her back. When she reached the end of the hall, she turned back and called to me. “Have a wonderful weekend, pussycat.”
Being new to town and not really knowing anyone, I had no plans other than a tour of the city with Trudy on Sunday, so I was content to stay late and work.
I decided to get a jump start on a memo from Helen to Ira Lansing, Cosmopolitan’s head of sales and advertising: I’d like to see more feminine products advertised. Where do we stand with Maybelline, Revlon, Max Factor, Midol and Kotex? She told him she was worried about some of the Procter & Gamble clients: Needless to say, Ira, Crisco, Oxydol and Charmin bathroom tissue are not sexy products . . .
As I was finishing the memo, I heard someone talking down the hall and glanced up. Erik Masterson was standing in the doorway of Bill Guy’s office. I’d seen him on the floor several times that week, walking around with Dick Deems. I’d overheard some of the girls saying that Erik was the youngest executive Hearst had ever hired.
I went back to my memo, proofing it so it would be ready first thing Monday morning. Every now and again, I looked down the hall, aware that Erik was still there, hands flat against the wall outside Bill Guy’s office—no wedding band. After finishing the memo, I decided to tackle Helen’s mounting hate mail. I shuffled through them until I read a letter from Gretchen Hills of Indianapolis, who had followed Helen’s advice, gotten her nose fixed and now couldn’t breathe out of one side.
“Is she in?”
I glanced up to find Erik Masterson standing less than three feet from me. It was the first time I’d seen him up close like this, and I got why the other girls flirted shamelessly with him. Any woman would have killed for his long lashes. Plus, he had the dark eyes, the beautifully aligned white teeth, the pert straight nose and the full head of hair that made you look twice. He knew it, too. I got the sense that he liked what he saw in the mirror.
“Well?” He looked past my shoulder in the direction of Helen’s office. “Is she here?”
“Oh, no, sorry. I’m afraid she’s already gone. You just missed her.”
He folded his arms and puckered his mouth like he was about to whistle. A cleaning woman came around the corner, pushing a large trash bin, stopping to empty ashtrays and wastebaskets. I saw that Bill Guy’s office was dark now and a moment later the elevator bell dinged. That was probably him heading home. The cleaning woman had disappeared down the hall, and I realized Erik and I were the only two people left.
He turned and looked at me. There was a silence that I felt compelled to fill. “I’ll let her know you stopped by.”
“Actually, Alice. It is Alice, isn’t it?”
I nodded, surprised that he knew my name.
He scooted some papers aside, making a place for himself on the edge of my desk. “I’ve been meaning to talk with you. I was looking in your file.”
“Oh?”
“I saw your résumé.”
“Well, that must have been a quick read.”
He smiled as if he’d looked under my dress, rather than in my file. “That was some coup, landing a secretarial position here without any previous magazine experience. What’s your secret?”
“I type with Olympian speed,” I said, fluttering my fingers for effect. “Oh, and someone put in a good word for me.”<
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He offered a soft laugh and consulted his wristwatch. I knew it was no Timex even before I saw the Patek Philippe on the face. “It’s getting late,” he said, running a hand over his jaw. “You must be starving. I know I am. What do you say we go get a bite? The Tea Room’s right down the street.”
I hesitated, startled by the invitation.
“Oh, c’mon, I hate to eat alone.” This coming from a man who I was sure never wanted for a dinner companion. He stood up and gestured toward the lobby. “Shall we?”
* * *
• • •
A man in full Cossack regalia held the door beneath the red awning, welcoming us to the Russian Tea Room. “Very good to see you again, Mr. Masterson,” he said with a tip of his papakha hat.
As soon as we stepped inside and our coats were checked, I felt underdressed. Not that the women were in ball gowns and tiaras, but they possessed a certain elegance that I’d yet to acquire. In some cases, all that separated them from me was a string of pearls, or a cocktail ring, a Hermès scarf and a sense that they belonged there, whereas I was an interloper. The men were sharp and smartly dressed, too. Handsome suits, silk ties, gemstones in their cufflinks. These chic sophisticates were standing two deep at the bar, the mix of perfume and paisley swirls of cigarette smoke gathering above their heads. The restaurant was just as packed, with more Cossack-clad waiters tending to the diners at the red booths.
I figured we’d be waiting an hour or longer for a table, but then the maître d’ came up to Erik. “Mr. Masterson? If you and the young lady will follow me, sir?” And off he went, maneuvering through the crowd, graceful as a tropical fish navigating an aquarium. I, on the other hand, was more like a salmon swimming upstream, accidentally bumping into people, nearly spilling their drinks.
We were led up a flight of stairs to the second floor, where a twelve-foot glass Russian bear, looking like a giant ice sculpture, guarded the front of the room. I’d never been in such an ornate restaurant: the stained-glass ceiling, the golden tree growing out of the red carpet with colorful glass globes hanging from the branches, the decorative mirrors lining the wall of red banquettes. People mingled in the center of it all, like they were attending a cocktail party.