by Renée Rosen
As I set the coffee cup on Helen’s equally tiny side table, Berlin spoke up. “George here told us about your meeting yesterday. He said you want to scrap the July flatplan and start over. He also shared the kind of articles you want in it.”
I glanced at George, who brought his fist to his mouth and cleared his throat, seemingly unapologetic for tattling on Helen. I started to leave, but she motioned for me to stay and close the door. I think she wanted a witness in case blood was spilled.
“Welcome to the new Cosmo, fellas,” she said in her silky tone, while leisurely making notations on the pad of paper in her lap.
“We’ve talked about this,” said Deems. “We have standards here at Hearst.”
“Oh, Dick,” she purred, “tell me something, what was your relationship like with your mother? I only ask because you seem so abnormally uptight about women and sexuality.” She looked up at him, wide-eyed and smiling. “As a matter of fact, you’re all so uptight about sex. Why, you boys can’t even utter the word sex without blushing.”
Deems’s face went dark, but not as dark as Berlin’s. I was too shocked to check Erik’s expression but I was also cheering on the inside. This was the Helen that Elaine had told me about.
“Very funny,” said Deems. “I’m serious about the content of the July issue. And besides, you should be focusing on finishing up June. There are holes in that issue that need to be patched.”
“Yes,” said Berlin. “You need to patch those holes.”
“If I hear about those damn holes one more time . . .” Her voice trailed off as she shook her head, exasperated. “June will be what June will be,” she said a moment later, recovering with a singsongy delivery. “But July”—she smiled slyly—“now that one we can do something really nifty with.”
“How do you expect to execute July?” asked Erik. “You’ve already lost half your staff. And you went and fired Rex Reed. Who’s going to write these new articles for you?”
“Hold your horses, Erik,” Berlin barked. “We’re not done discussing June.”
Erik stuffed his hands in his pockets and took up a fascination with the floor.
I’m a lackey and a whipping boy, he’d said at lunch. I could see now that it was true.
“Helen,” said Berlin, “you’ll use the articles we already have in-house for June and for July. And that’s all there is to it.”
“Oh.” She laughed as if the idea was absurd. “Those will never work.”
“None of them?” said Deems. “C’mon now. You mean to tell me that out of all the manuscripts we have stockpiled around this place, you can’t find any acceptable articles to publish?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying. Except for maybe that one piece about an estrogen pill. The rest are all just boring, dull and wrong for my girls.”
“Well, I’m sorry, Helen,” said Erik, trying to recover from his earlier reprimand. “But I’m afraid that’s all you’ve got to work with.”
“Oh, nonsense.” Her eyes shifted to her notepad, her wrist moving back and forth as she scratched down another idea. “This city is filled with writers who would love to see their work published in Cosmopolitan.”
“Maybe so,” said Deems. “But you won’t have the money to pay them.”
“And why is that?” Helen looked up, drumming her pen against her notepad.
“We’ve made some adjustments to the budget,” said Deems. “As you know, Cosmopolitan has been operating in the red for the past several years. Ad revenue is way down and June looks no better, according to Ira. Plus, you went ahead and hired Walter Meade at a top salary and you certainly didn’t hold back on redecorating your office.”
“That’s true,” Erik agreed. “You did go a little overboard in here.”
“The bottom line,” said Berlin, “is that the board has decided that we need to make some cuts.”
“Cuts?” Her pen stopped moving, and for the first time I saw genuine concern flicker behind her big brown eyes. “You told me you haven’t increased the Cosmopolitan budget in over twenty years. It’s already impossibly tight and now you’re talking about making cuts?”
“You’ll have $30,000 per issue,” said Berlin.
That sounded like a fortune to me and Helen must have thought it was sufficient, too. She leaned back in her tiny chair, letting her shoulders drop down into place. “Why such long faces, fellas? I’m sure $30,000 will be enough for the articles.”
The men turned to Berlin.
“I don’t think you understand, Helen. It’s not $30,000 for the writers. It’s $30,000 total. For the entire issue. That includes photography, models, retouching, illustration, editing, advertising, shipping, salaries for the staff, expenses—everything.” He cracked a triumphant smile.
If Helen was thrown by this, she didn’t show it. Not in the least. But George, well, he slapped his hands to his forehead and topped that off with an exasperated sigh. Helen didn’t give them the satisfaction of knowing they’d gotten to her, if indeed they had.
“You forgot printing costs,” she said, setting her notepad aside.
“That will be absorbed by Hearst.”
“Oh, well, thank heavens for that.” Sarcasm wasn’t her usual style, but she was making her point as she gracefully rose from her doll’s chair and smoothed down her dress. “Well, gentlemen, if it’s $30,000, then it’s $30,000. I can see I have my work cut out for me, so unless there’s anything else, I should really get back to the July issue.”
* * *
• • •
George, Berlin, Deems and Erik had barely cleared Helen’s office door when I saw her break down. She went over to her sofa, curled up in the corner and wrapped her bony arms tightly around her middle as if she were about to split in two.
“Mrs. Brown?”
She sank even farther down into herself and began rocking back and forth. I noticed a fresh run had appeared in her stockings.
“Are you all right?”
She didn’t respond. I went to her side and was about to ask again when she started crying. “I can’t take this anymore,” she said.
I’d never before met a woman who cried as often or with as much gusto as Helen Gurley Brown. Every upset and hurt, every frustration and disappointment, got washed away with her tears and an occasional eyelash or two. After a particularly hard crying jag, the kind that left her eyes puffy, she’d remove her wig and submerge her face in a bowl of ice water, holding her breath for as long as she could stand it. Afterward I’d hand her a towel and guard her door while she reapplied her makeup and reappeared, looking fresh-faced and perfectly composed.
I was shocked by her tears at first because I was just the opposite. I hadn’t let myself cry since my mother died. After losing her, nothing else seemed worthy of my tears. It was as if crying over anything else diminished the depth of my grieving for her. And it wasn’t that I hadn’t had my share of reasons to cry. When Michael told me it was over . . . When I heard that he was getting married . . . When my father decided to remarry. Even then, I had stopped myself from crying.
Helen undid her arms and cradled her head in her hands. She was sobbing full on now, and she didn’t give a goddamn that her nose and mascara were running. I reached over and plucked a tissue from a decoupaged box and handed it to her. She dabbed her eyes and blew her nose, clearing the way for the next round of tears. I handed her a second tissue, the first one balled up tight in her fist.
“How do they expect me to edit this magazine with both hands tied behind my back?” she said, choking out the words. “They’re setting me up to fail.” She looked up at me, her nose as red as W. C. Fields’s, her painted lips quivering.
This was the one time I didn’t try to convince her otherwise because we both knew it was true.
Helen was despondent and it seemed to take all her strength just to say, “Get me David.”
>
Twenty minutes later, he appeared, a tall, older, distinguished man whom she often called lamb chop, whom she spoiled with one hand and tried to discipline with the other, weighing him every morning to determine if he could have an extra slice of toast or strip of bacon. He was certainly fit, slightly balding with a mustache and every bit as charming as she’d professed in Sex and the Single Girl. In the weeks and months to come, there would be many times she would have me track him down, pulling him out of meetings, making him miss luncheon appointments and flights to the West Coast. He never objected to her interruptions. He was vested in his wife. Before working in Hollywood, he himself had been an editor with Cosmopolitan and knew the business inside and out. She leaned on him, all 105 pounds of her, and I would come to think of him as her silent partner.
But that morning David Brown was stern with her. I heard him through the closed office door telling her to get ahold of herself. “Stop your crying, Helen. That’s not going to solve anything.”
Her voice was muffled and sounded nasally. I heard sobs but couldn’t decipher a single word.
“No, they’re not going to fire you,” he said in response. “It’ll cost them a fortune to buy out your contract. And even if they did, think of it this way, you’ll have a nice, long paid vacation.” More mutterings from her before he said, “Yes, of course I’ll still write the cover blurbs for July. But first things first. You need to finalize the June issue. Then you can go to town on July. We’ll come up with a plan. We’ll get creative and find a way to make the budget work. We’ll show them. But for now, just put June to bed.”
This was followed by a long period of hushed murmurs between the two before Helen’s office door opened. Despite having retouched her makeup, Helen had obviously been bawling her eyes out.
“If anyone’s looking for me, I’ll be back in a couple hours,” she said with forced cheerfulness. “Just tell them David and I are taking a nooner.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
After Helen and David left, I went down the hall to get a cup of coffee. Margot was in the kitchen along with Penny and Tony La Sala, the head art director. He had dark hair, dark eyes and a five o’clock shadow even at nine in the morning. He was stylish and wore Nehru jackets like the Beatles along with a chunky gold medallion and a healthy helping of Jovan Musk.
“Did you hear about Dale?” Penny asked, setting two saccharin tablets loose in her coffee, fizzing their way across the surface.
“We’re taking bets on who’s next,” said Tony, reaching for a donut in a cardboard box on the counter. “I’m putting my money on Bobbie. One more pussycat and she’s outta here.”
I cracked a half smile and instantly felt guilty, like I was being disloyal to Helen. As I poured my coffee, George rushed into the kitchen, perspiration visible on his forehead.
“Has anyone seen Helen?” he asked, panting. “Alice—there you are! Where’s Helen?”
“She’s taking a nooner with Mr. Brown.” As soon as I said it, George’s cheeks turned red. Suddenly all eyes were on me and everyone was laughing. I didn’t know what I’d said. Helen told me if anyone asked to say she was taking a nooner. So I did.
George scrunched up his face and hissed, “That is disgusting, young lady.”
Before I could say anything, he stormed out of the kitchen, and by then the others weren’t just laughing, they were howling.
“I can’t believe you said that to Walsh.” Tony was doubled over, clutching his sides. “That was too much.”
“Did you see his face?” Margot was sopping tears from her eyes. “That was great.”
Great? Too much? What did I do? What did I say?
“Of all people,” said Penny, struggling to catch her breath.
I didn’t know if she was referring to the fact that I’d said it to George of all people or that whatever it was had come out of my mouth of all people. Either way, they seemed to have developed some newfound respect for me, as if they’d underestimated my hipness. For the first time since I’d started at Cosmopolitan, I had their approval. They were still laughing, so I began laughing with them, hoping to solidify our bond.
Bridget walked into the kitchen, her hair swept back in a green headband that matched her top. “Is it true?” She looked at me in disbelief. “Did you really just tell George that Helen was taking a nooner?”
“Well,” I said with a combination smirk and shrug, “that’s what she told me.”
The others were still laughing, and Bridget must have sensed the confusion lurking beneath my blithe expression.
“Alice.” She pulled me aside and leaned in, whispering, “Did she really say those exact words to you?”
“Yes.”
“You do know what a nooner is, don’t you?”
By then, I knew enough to have been embarrassed by not knowing. I was too proud to own up to my naiveté so instead I gave Bridget one of those noncommittal, middle-of-the-road grins that fools no one.
“Oh, Alice, you just told George that Helen left work to go ball her husband.”
“What?” I wasn’t sure I’d heard right, but the look on her face made my stomach drop. I felt sick inside, my cheeks and chest growing hot. How could I have been so stupid? Innocently or not, I had just betrayed Helen. Yes, I wanted the others to like me, but not at Helen’s expense. And what was worse, I’d lost all the ground I’d just gained with my coworkers. I’d just confirmed that I was nothing but a hick from Youngstown, Ohio. While everyone else was still recovering from the hilarity, I excused myself.
When I got back to my desk, I saw that the morning mail had arrived and I was grateful for the distraction, but the shame of what just happened kept replaying in my head like a song you can’t get rid of.
* * *
• • •
It was almost one o’clock when Helen returned from her nooner. Or more correctly, from what Helen had referred to as a nooner. I would come to learn that a nooner for Helen and David Brown consisted of a long taxicab ride where Helen wouldn’t fret about the meter, instead taking as much time as needed for David to calm her down and resolve whatever crisis had arisen with the magazine. But I didn’t know that yet, and neither did anyone else.
All this nooner business was still buzzing through my mind when Helen came and stood by my desk, hand on hip and something set and unapologetic in her posture. “They want the holes patched in the June issue—fine. I’ll patch ’em up. They want me to produce a magazine on a shoestring budget; I’ll do that, too.”
David was gone but Helen was back. All the way back. Whatever her husband had said, whatever he’d done to her, their nooner did the trick. She was Helen Gurley Brown again.
“Alice, come into my office. It’s time to get busy.” She said she was famished as she reached for her brown paper bag, removed two foiled bundles and nibbled on a carrot stick while she paced. “I want to issue a memo to the staff. We’re going to tighten our belts. Effective immediately, there will be no more $8 lunches at Lutèce. They want to entertain a writer or take a client to lunch, they can go to Longchamps and be in and out of there for $2 a head. And if someone submits a bar bill from the Tea Room—or anyplace else—I expect to know who they were buying drinks for. And why.” I could feel the energy stirring inside her as she reached for a celery stick and kept pacing. “There’ll be no more personal long-distance telephone calls made from the office, and we’re done reimbursing people for late-night taxi fares. Everyone’s going to have to learn to get their work done during normal business hours or else pay their own way home.” She ate another carrot stick and, in between bites, said, “From now on, everyone submits their expenses to you for approval.”
I looked at the few remaining carrot sticks and the hard-boiled egg resting in a nest of tinfoil. “Would you like me to run out and bring you back a sandwich? Or maybe some soup?”
“Oh, no, no.” She nibbled the last of her
carrot sticks. “This is more than enough.”
No wonder she was so tiny. The woman never ate. A splurge for her was an extra helping of diet gelatin.
After Helen finished dictating her memo, she reapplied her lipstick in a mirror on her desk and rattled off a number of things for me to do with an added sense of urgency.
When I left her office, I typed the memo, and while I distributed it around the office, I was collecting articles and story ideas that she hadn’t seen yet.
“She’s really cracking the whip, isn’t she?” said Margot as she read the memo. “Next thing ya know, they’ll be charging us for pencils.”
Bridget came and stood behind her, reading over her shoulder.
While they dissected the memo, I searched for stray manuscripts and finished delivering the bad news about expenses to the rest of the staff. By the time I’d rounded up a stack of articles and taken them into Helen’s office, George was in there and he was as worked up as I’d ever seen him.
“Please,” he said to her, “I beg you to use what we have in-house for July. You’ll blow your entire budget trying to get someone to write your ideas. As it is, you can’t even afford one or two articles from someone like Tom Wolfe or Norman Mailer, let alone a short story from Capote.”
“You assume I want a Tom Wolfe or a Norman Mailer or a Truman Capote to write for me,” said Helen, taking the manuscripts from me. “But I don’t.”
“Well, all right then, so maybe not those authors specifically. But you’d still have to pay someone to write the articles. We’re just hoping you’ll come to your senses and not try to publish any of those—” He pointed to the bulletin board that was wallpapered with story ideas: Men’s Naughty Bedroom Fantasies, Even You Can Wear a Miniskirt, Secrets to Snagging Your Dream Man.
“I’m willing to look through these articles,” said Helen, her palm down on the stack of manuscripts. “But I’m not going to publish just anything because it’s already been paid for.”