by Renée Rosen
Another back and forth and I caved and ended up going to lunch with him.
In Erik’s grand style he introduced me to another Manhattan hot spot, taking me to La Grenouille on East 52nd Street.
“I hope you’re on an expense account,” I said, after opening the menu.
“Do you make a joke out of everything?”
“Only when I’m nervous.”
He looked at me, smiling and all too pleased with himself. “So I make you nervous, huh?”
“Not for the reasons you think.” I gave him a stern look. I wasn’t playing with him. “I’m still suspicious of your motives here.”
“Alice”—his hands raised in surrender—“I come in peace. I swear.” He smiled all the wider.
I broke away from his stare, glancing about the lavish room filled with flower arrangements rising out of three-foot-tall cut glass vases. Every table was full, mostly with businessmen in expensive suits, cutting deals along with their chateaubriand. There was a lot of power in that restaurant. You could feel it radiating off the tables, like heat coming off the pavement on a ninety-degree day.
The atmosphere in that room fortified my anger, adding fuel to what Elaine had said about my having the upper hand in this situation. I decided to flex my muscle and make Erik squirm. “I don’t think Mr. Berlin would approve of your ethics. Do you?”
That wiped the smirk off his face. “Are you going to say anything to him?”
“I’m not sure yet,” I said, though I’d already decided to follow Elaine’s advice and keep my mouth shut.
He swallowed hard, and the color in his handsome face blanched out a bit.
“What exactly do you do for Hearst anyway?” I asked as I closed my menu, setting it aside.
“I ask myself that every day.” He shook his head, his eyes moving side to side.
I wasn’t going to let his self-deprecating response soften me. “I’m serious, what do you do?”
“If you must know, I’m pretty much a lackey and a whipping boy for Berlin, Deems and Dupuy.”
“You don’t say.”
He looked embarrassed, even surprised, as if he hadn’t meant to make such a confession.
I was trying to hold my ground, even as I felt my hard edges beginning to weaken. Administering punishment wasn’t one of my strong suits. “But I heard you were the rising star of Hearst.” My delivery was deadpan to show I wasn’t impressed.
“Well, that’s not what it feels like to me. For now it’s a lot of grunt work. Every day I have to prove myself.”
“Is that why you wanted me to spy on Mrs. Brown?”
He winced. “I wish you wouldn’t put it that way.” He pulled out a cigarette and lit it, snapping his gold lighter shut with a solid click. “I’m not proud of what I did. I swear, I’m not a bad guy. Do you believe me?”
“Why do you care what I think about you?”
“I don’t know, but I do.” He shrugged, though we both knew it was because he didn’t want me talking to his bosses. He gave me his best smile, like he was falling back on an old trick that had gotten him out of hot water in the past.
I wasn’t moved by his ploy. We went silent for a moment.
The waiter came by and took our orders—something called Les Quenelles de Brochet au Champagne for me and Steak Tartare, Pommes Gaufrettes for Erik.
“If you want to know the truth,” he began after the waiter left, “I was desperate when I asked you about Helen.” He was no longer smiling and obviously felt the need to further explain himself. “Things haven’t been going so hot for me lately and I can’t afford to get fired. The magazine business is a small world. People talk and well . . .” He held up his hands, letting that thought float off, replaced by another. “I knew Hearst wasn’t happy about the Brown hire and I was looking for a way to score some extra points. My judgment was off, and for that I am sincerely sorry.”
He seemed genuine and I realized I didn’t have the stomach to be cruel, even to Erik Masterson. I’d made my point, no need to belabor it.
So we made small talk instead, going on about the weather and various exhibits until our food arrived: a pile of raw filet mignon and fancy overpriced potato chips for him and fish dumplings with a creamy champagne sauce for me. It was quite good, but I noticed that Erik only poked at his meal.
“I’ve worked really hard to get to where I am,” he said, circling back to our earlier conversation. Clearly, it was still bothering him. “It’s not like anyone handed me this position on a silver platter.”
“I wouldn’t have thought they had.” There was still a definite edge to my voice.
“Can we call a truce, Alice?” His eyes were locked on mine, and as he leaned forward, his elbow nudged his fork onto the floor. Upon retrieving it, he accidentally knocked his knife off his plate as well. For the first time, the practiced, pretentious mask slipped from his handsome face, and with a disarming shrug and his cheeks flushing pink, he said, “Wait till you see what I do to dessert.” The coloring on his face only deepened. He was full-on blushing now, and suddenly the real Erik Masterson had shown up—no putting on airs, speaking French to the waiter or commenting on the latest exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art. He was being a regular guy, just being himself.
“I really am sorry about what happened,” he said. “Truce?”
Despite myself, I smiled and nodded.
He took a drag off his cigarette and we let the conversation drift along with his smoke. He told me stories about Helen’s predecessor, Robert Atherton, and even about Richard Berlin.
“There was the time Truman Capote threw up on Berlin’s alligator shoes. Right in the Hearst lobby.” He playfully slapped the table, laughing. “That was the last time he ever took Truman to lunch.” He made a mime-like drinking gesture.
Erik kept talking and soon had me laughing over some of the classic typos where a recipe ran that called for two cups penis butter and another one for porn and beans. Erik’s favorite, though, was the farmer who shit a buffalo in his field.
As my laughter subsided, he caught my eye, looking at me intently and longer than what would have been casual. I felt my heart beating just a bit faster. If he could have read my mind, he would have known just how attractive I found him. I wanted to turn away, but couldn’t. It was as if he had hold of me. I didn’t know what to make of this, but I got the feeling that something had just started between us. I didn’t know what it was, but I knew what I didn’t want it to be.
I wasn’t looking for love—not with Erik Masterson. Not with anyone. Everyone I’d given my heart to—my mother, my father and Michael—had left me in one form or another. I couldn’t bear another loss. Especially now that I was finally in New York and ready to put the past behind me.
But Erik was sitting across from me, smiling, sending a wave of heat rushing through me. I thought back to what Helen said the day before, about sex being just for fun. I knew I wanted to kiss Erik, to feel my body pressed to his, and wondered if I could really be that girl. I could tell he wanted me, too, and it had been so long since I’d felt desired. I’d only ever slept with Michael, and that was because we were engaged and I’d loved him. That made me still a good girl.
But Erik had me intrigued. I was drawn to him and there was definitely a flirtatious spark between us. I wanted to experience Manhattan and who better to show me a good time than Erik Masterson? Already he’d taken me to two restaurants I could have never afforded to step foot in. Besides, there certainly wasn’t any danger of him looking for something serious, either. This was fun, easy, with no jagged misunderstood edges to get snagged on.
I was enjoying myself now, but I only had an hour for lunch and had to keep an eye on the clock. It was getting late, and if I walked it, I could cut up Fifth Avenue and make it back to the office in fifteen minutes.
When we rounded up to the forty-five-minute mark,
I said, “I hate to do this, but I have to get back.” I still didn’t trust him and didn’t want to tell him that Helen had called a staff meeting that day for one o’clock.
“I’ll get the check.”
“No, no. Stay, finish your coffee.” I was already rising from my seat.
“This is twice now, Alice. You can’t keep walking out on me in restaurants,” he called after me.
I stopped and looked back over my shoulder, offering a coquettish shrug. “Well, maybe the third time’s the charm.”
* * *
• • •
By one o’clock I was back in the office and had ushered what was left of Helen’s staff into the conference room. Her only other new hire, Walter Meade, wasn’t starting for another week. The editors and writers took their places at the long table, setting down their cigarettes and coffee cups, their Tabs and Diet Rite Colas. By the time the people from the art department arrived, all the seats were taken, so they perched along the window ledge like a flock of birds.
Helen lugged in a big heavy box held together with twine, while I carted in an oversize drawing pad and propped it up on the easel stand at the front of the room. Helen stood next to me in a lavender shift that exposed her delicate knees and perhaps a little more thigh than a middle-aged woman should have shown, but she pulled it off, even with the run in her stockings. She had an uncanny knack for snagging her nylons and fishnets, catching them with a fingernail or pen, or on the edge of her desk during one of her spontaneous exercise routines. She must have gone through three or four pairs a week.
She waited patiently while people settled into their seats, and with a clearing of her throat, she snuffed out their conversations. In that wispy, silky voice of hers, she thanked them all for coming as if it had been an open invitation rather than a mandatory meeting. “And now I’d like to announce that we have a new managing editor.” She turned and introduced him by way of a hand gesture.
All eyes were on George Walsh. There was an audible reaction, and not necessarily a positive one, followed by some glib congratulations. Everyone knew George had been offered the position by default. He certainly wasn’t Helen’s top pick. George had been with the magazine for twenty years and was ingrained in the old Cosmopolitan ways. He kept a Bible on his tidy desk, and you just knew he thought Helen was a sinner, going straight to hell. No one could see how this was going to work with the two of them. She was heading into battle with Hearst, and her deputy was a good soldier—for the enemy—who stood up and practically saluted each time Berlin passed by.
“Now then, let’s get down to business, shall we?” Helen uncapped a thick black marker, which sent a pungent smell through the room. She faced the easel and wrote in bold letters JULY, underscored with two exclamation points. She turned back around, beaming.
“July?” George Walsh stood up, playing his new role of managing editor to the hilt. The glare from the overhead lights bounced off the dome of his balding head. “Helen, with all due respect,” he said with a patronizing laugh, “this meeting should be about filling the holes in the June issue. And frankly, not everyone needs to be here for that.”
“Oh, I know, George.” Helen smiled graciously, matching the pitch of her laugh to his as she wiped his concern away with her hand, her bracelets setting off a delicate, tinny sound. “You’re absolutely right. That’s what we should be doing. Oh, but let’s face it, the June issue is already a lost cause. It was pretty much set before I was even hired.” Helen knew that July would be her first chance to truly edit the magazine and introduce the country to the new Cosmo. “That’s why today we’re going to discuss articles and concepts for the July issue.”
“But we’ve already started the flatplan for July,” said Bobbie Ashley, her articles editor.
With a fresh spark of lightness, Helen said, “What do you say we forget about the flatplan and start with a clean slate? Anything goes. Burt, let’s start with you.” She clasped her hands in anticipation; her smile and expectations were earnest.
“Well,” said Burt Carlson, adjusting his bow tie, which left it more crooked than before, “the home entertaining guide for executive housewives that we ran last July was well received. We could bring that back.”
Everyone nodded while Helen made a face. “Oooh, so dull.” She wrinkled her nose and shook her head. “Dale, what about you?”
Dale Donahue was a features writer who wore heavy tortoiseshell eyeglasses and had the ruddy complexion of a fisherman. After glancing at the backs of his hands like they were tea leaves, he said, “Lately I’ve been hearing a lot about fluoride, so I think something on tooth decay and—”
Helen cut him off. “Tooth decay? Hmmm, so dull, dull, dull.” She smiled, casting her sights on Bobbie Ashley. “What have you got for us today, pussycat?”
Bobbie was obviously not accustomed to her boss calling her pussycat. It threw her and me both, because up until that moment, I thought that had been Helen’s special pet name for me. I admit I felt slighted.
Bobbie took a moment to recover as she sorted through the scribbles on her pad of paper. Helen was still smiling, waiting. “I think it goes without saying,” began Bobbie, “that women are going to want summer recipes.”
“Oh really? You think so, do you?” Helen crinkled her brow. “I’m afraid my girls will find that so boring. What I’m really looking for is something fresh and unexpected. I really want something daring for my girls.”
“Excuse me,” said Bobbie, “I’m missing something. Who exactly are your girls?”
“The girls! My girls. Your girls. The new Cosmo reader is a young, vibrant, single woman. She’s career minded and driven. She’s sexy and fun spirited. Even a bit naughty. And I know her better than anyone because I was that girl.” This was all said with dramatic hand flourishes that everyone watched, as if her fingernails were sparklers, giving off showers of glittering light on the Fourth of July.
“Bill,” she said, addressing Bill Carrington Guy, her fiction editor, “what do you have lined up?”
Bill Guy was an attractive middle-aged man with a full head of light brown hair, neatly coiffed. He flipped open a folder and shuffled through some pages, and speaking like the well-mannered Southern gentleman that he was, he said, “I’ve got an excerpt of Michener’s The Source and a new Ray Bradbury story.”
“Are they happy?”
He squinted, as if he hadn’t heard right. “I beg your pardon?”
“Are they happy stories?”
“Ah, not particularly, no.”
“Oh dear, that’s what I was afraid of. From now on, I want us to only publish happy, upbeat fiction.”
The room filled with groans that she seemed not to hear or else chose not to acknowledge. “The whole point,” Helen said, talking over the commotion, “is that Cosmopolitan should speak to that girl in Kansas City who’s worried that her boyfriend won’t marry her after she’s slept with him. This magazine is for the girl in Upstate New York who’s wondering if she can have sex while she’s menstruating. Our reader is the girl in Phoenix who doesn’t know what to do when her boss makes a pass at her. This girl doesn’t care about gelatin and casseroles or gardening or fluoride. She cares about love. About getting a promotion at work. About being desirable and making the most of what she’s got. She wonders why she’s still getting pimples when she’s twenty-one years old. She cares that her boyfriend thinks her bosom is too small. She needs to know that masturbating is perfectly normal and that it can make her a better lover.”
I heard myself gasp, but half the room did, too. Eyes were bulging, mouths were gaping. Nice girls didn’t touch themselves. Did they?
Helen was still talking. “No one else is speaking to that girl. She’s all alone out there—maybe she’s right here in Manhattan. Right here in this very room.”
My face grew hot as I imagined everyone staring at me, like I was that girl.
> “Doesn’t matter where she is,” said Helen. “She needs us. What’s she supposed to do when she finds herself attracted to a married man? Or what if she’s lying awake in the middle of the night wondering why she doesn’t have an orgasm every time? I’m trying to reach the girl who’s worried that she’s immoral because she enjoys oral sex. If we don’t tell her the truth about all that, who’s going to? We’re here to help her, to let her know that she’s completely normal and, more importantly, that she’s not alone.”
I took in the reactions from the room: eyes wide in disbelief, hands clasped over shocked mouths, others staring uncomfortably at their notepads, too embarrassed to look up. They thought they were listening to a mad woman, and even though I was blushing the whole time, I saw something different in Helen. I saw this tiny woman taking on all of society, starting with her staff. Starting with me. I knew Helen saw nothing wrong in sleeping with married men, but I did. And I wondered, would she have changed her tune if some young girl made a play for her husband? There were other things she’d preached in her book that I also felt uneasy about, like using sex to get ahead at work. But whether I agreed with her on all counts or not, I could not dispute that she’d struck a nerve. She truly cared about her girls. This wasn’t just a job for Helen Gurley Brown; this was a calling. A personal quest. And people wondered why her book had sat at the top of the New York Times bestseller list for months and months. What she was saying in that conference room encapsulated all the reasons why so many young women had read and reread Sex and the Single Girl.
“When my girls wake up in the middle of the night with these thoughts plaguing them, I want them to reach for their issue of Cosmo. When our girls read Cosmo, I want them to feel uplifted and optimistic about their futures.”
Helen snapped her fingers as if struck by a brilliant inspiration. “I want to show you all something.” She reached for the box she’d brought in and untangled the twine while everyone looked on.
“When my husband and I first thought about starting a magazine, we came up with this—Femme.” She held up what looked like a child’s art project. Her homemade dummy for Femme was nothing more than clipped photographs and bits and pieces of headlines snipped from other publications and glued in place.