by Renée Rosen
The maître d’ led us downstairs, beyond a concrete facade door, where the secret wine cellar, from its speakeasy days, was located. It was a handsome room lined with wooden wine racks along the walls and a long lacquered table sporting a golden 21 emblem inlay in the center. The table was set for twenty with an array of silverware along with red and white wineglasses and crystal water glasses, too. I reached into my tote bag and placed a notepad and pen before each plate. Four tuxedoed waiters stood at the corners ready to take cocktail orders and tend to Helen’s every need.
As the guests began filtering in, Helen stood in the doorway in a cream-colored Norman Norell dress with a matching sweater draped delicately over her shoulders. As if by magic, her sweater stayed in place whether she was shaking hands with this one, hugging that one, or offering her cheek. She knew all the men and had worked with most of them in her former life as a copywriter, creating their advertising campaigns.
I had studied all the attendees’ bios prior to the luncheon and the one guest who intrigued me most was the only woman on the list: Mary Wells. An attractive blonde, she was smartly dressed in a pale pink suit, probably a Chanel. She was an award-winning copywriter from Jack Tinker and Partners who had grown up in Youngstown, Ohio. I’d read that she had started her career writing copy for McKelvey’s Department Store, the very store my mother used to take me to. Never satisfied with the quality of the merchandise, though, my mother always prefaced each trip with, “When we move to New York, I’ll take you to Saks and Bloomingdale’s.” But those memories aside, I was inspired that someone who had started out in Youngstown had gone as far as Mary Wells. It gave the budding photographer in me hope.
Once everyone had their cocktails, Helen stood at the head of the table with a glass of champagne, which I knew she wouldn’t drink for fear of going over her daily 1,200-calorie allotment. But the drink in hand did add a nice, celebratory touch. As she welcomed everyone, the waiters brought out sterling silver buckets piled high with steamers.
“As you know,” said Helen in her whispery voice, “I’ve entered into a new venture as the editor in chief of Cosmopolitan magazine. This marks a wonderful new beginning for the magazine and an exciting new opportunity for you.
“I know you’ve heard rumors about what the new Cosmo is going to be, so let me set the record straight. Shall we start with the facts? What if I told you that this magazine can put your products in front of 27 million women. That’s the number of readers this magazine is going to reach. Almost half of them are single and the rest are either divorcées or widows. Together it gives us a grand total of 27 million women. That’s a lot of potential consumers for you, and I’m here to tell you that the new Cosmopolitan can put your goods and services in the hands of each and every one of them.”
That was my cue to pass out the special dummy comp of the July issue that we had prepared despite resistance from Ira Lansing and some of the Hearst men.
“This is a huge mistake,” Berlin had said when he found out about the luncheon. “Don’t show your hand. It’s simply not the way we do things.”
But Helen had gone ahead and done it anyway. She’d compiled twenty samplers of the July issue: a sneak peek of headlines, introductory copy lines and some photos. It was just meant to give them a taste of the new Cosmo format. After I’d distributed the dummies, I went back to being inconspicuous and took my place by the door.
“Now, you might ask, who are these 27 million women? Who is the woman we’re trying to reach?” Helen smiled, her eyes twinkling. “Allow me to introduce you to the Cosmo Girl.” She paused for a moment and that’s when I realized she was gesturing toward me. “Alice?”
When she called my name, I panicked, thinking I’d forgotten to do something.
“Come here, dear.” She summoned me to her side with her fingertips.
I quickly realized that, like the untouched glass of champagne in her hand, I was about to become a prop for her presentation. Knowing Helen, the idea had just come to her.
“Alice here is my secretary, but she’s also a Cosmo Girl. Why, just look at her.”
All eyes were upon me and I felt I owed them something in return—a little soft shoe or a magic act. Maybe I was expected to light up like a Christmas tree. I didn’t know. All I could do was smile.
“She’s smart, independent, always striving for more,” said Helen. “She’s bold and daring. She loves men and she loves sex.”
I could feel my cheeks going red, the blush crawling up my neck.
Helen continued. “Like Alice, the average Cosmo Girl is anywhere from eighteen to thirty-four and she’s hungry for your products. She has a job and her own money, and she’s looking to make her life bigger and better. Here’s a girl eager to buy the latest shade of lipstick and nail polish. She cares about the brand of shampoo she uses. She’s not waiting for a man to take her on that trip to Hawaii, and she doesn’t need him to test-drive that new car, either. Yes, she wants to travel, drive a nice car and do it all in a stylish pair of shoes.”
Thankfully she dismissed me after that and I scurried back to the door, next to the waiters who stood at attention, hands clasped behind their backs.
Helen continued to paint the portrait of the Cosmo Girl while her guests dined on onion soup gratiné, the Gruyère cheese bubbling and oozing over the sides of the crocks. She didn’t have any soup but she did occasionally pluck a lettuce leaf from her salad bowl. And with her fingertips poised and pointed like she was having tea, she’d tear off the tiniest shred and make a seductive yet dainty show of placing it in her mouth. She could make a single lettuce leaf last three minutes, sometimes longer. Only Helen Gurley Brown could get away with eating with her hands. And in a restaurant like 21.
By the time the sirloin steaks had been polished off and the brandy was poured and cigars ignited, Helen had everyone excited about the new magazine. And she had a lunch bill for $278.
When we returned to the office, Ira Lansing was waiting for Helen like a puma stalking its prey, waiting to pounce.
“How dare you!” he said, practically spitting with rage. “How could you have held a lunch like that and not include me?”
Helen was unflappable. With a tilt of her head, she calmly said, “What would you have done there?”
I had to agree. Even if Ira had been invited, I wasn’t sure what he could have contributed. Though I wasn’t thrilled about being part of her act, I had to say, Helen was at her best that day. It was her show. She was the star and her performance was brilliant.
“That’s not the point,” Ira said. “How do you think it looks? I’m the head of sales and advertising.”
“And you told me you were losing accounts. I simply wanted to do what I could to bring some new advertisers on board.”
“But that’s not the way it’s done, Helen.”
“Oh, I know, but we did just pick up Philip Morris, Helena Rubinstein, Kimberly-Clark’s Kotex brand and Cover Girl.” Helen smiled and sashayed her way into her office, leaving Ira standing in the hallway, speechless.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Oh, pussycat? Where are you?”
It was the following Monday morning and Helen had just returned from her analysis appointment. Something in her voice, always velvety smooth, sounded a bit off.
“Is everything okay?” I asked, standing in the doorway, leaning against the jamb.
Helen was sitting in her favorite spot on the sofa, her wig tilted a little off center. She reached for a cigarette and tapped the end on the coffee table before she placed it in her holder and lit it. “Come in and close the door, would you please?”
“Did I do something wrong?” I asked, taking a few tentative steps closer.
“Not at all.” She smiled. “I have a special assignment for you.”
“Oh?” A special assignment? I perked up. She’d changed her mind. She was going to give me a photography as
signment. I waited patiently while she puffed on her cigarette and shot a stream of smoke toward the overhead light.
“I need you to go out and get me a copy of Playboy magazine.”
“What?” It was like someone had just knocked a stack of books off a high ledge. All excitement tumbled and collapsed inside me. The disappointment must have shown on my face.
“Uh-oh. What’s the problem?” Helen asked, flicking her cigarette ash.
“No problem.”
I went back to my desk feeling a bit put out. Of all the things Helen had asked me to do, including buying socks for her husband, picking up her wigs from the beauty parlor, doing her grocery shopping and scooping her cats’ litter boxes, this request to buy a copy of Playboy seemed like the most unnerving. What kind of nice girl looks at Playboy, let alone goes out and buys one?
I took a dollar bill from the petty cash drawer and went to a newsstand on the corner. It was a mild, sunny morning. Dozens of newspapers in dozens of languages were hanging off a display tree to the side, their pages rustling in the breeze. A middle-aged man with a turban on his head stood inside the stand behind a sliding glass window peppered with fingerprints. Cigarettes, candy bars and chewing gum were piled high on either side of him. With just a glance, I saw the current issues of Esquire, National Geographic, Mad, Highlights and the Saturday Evening Post. He had to have Playboys, too, but apparently, they were behind the counter, kept out of the hands and eyes of curious adolescent boys. It was obvious that I was going to have to ask for it.
“Playboy, please,” I said, slipping a dollar in the little metal gully beneath his window. “And would you put it in a bag?”
“No bag.” He dropped a quarter in the change bin.
After he handed me the magazine with a barebacked woman on the cover, draped in a sheer bed sheet, I rolled it into a tight cylinder so no one could see.
I slipped into Helen’s office, handed the magazine to her and was almost out the door when I heard, “Oh, and Alice?”
“Yes?” I said, walking backward toward her.
“One more incy-wincy favor?” She was already leafing through the pages. “Could you be a little lamb and round up as many back issues as you can find?”
“Back issues of that?”
“Mm-hmm.” She reached in her top drawer for a pair of scissors and began clipping out pictures of half-naked women. “And I’ll need them right away. Tomorrow at the very latest. David doesn’t keep any old magazines lying around. Says it’s too much clutter.”
“Well, I suppose I can check the library and see if—”
“The library?” She cracked a smile and held up her scissors. “Pussycat, I’m not planning on returning the issues.”
“Oh. I see.”
I left her office and went back to my desk, feeling like I was being tested. I thought about the various things I did for Helen on any given day. I took good care of her—and she knew it, too, often telling me that I was spoiling her. And I was. Picking up her dry cleaning without her having to ask, running home to pay her housekeeper because she’d forgotten to. I ran out and got her lunches that she never ate. And sometimes dinners, too. I brought her endless cups of coffee and had ducked out in the pouring rain to buy her cigarettes. Noticing she’d run her stockings again, I’d dash over to Bergdorf’s for a new pair. I made sure her newspapers were on her desk every morning. I set out extra pencils for her to snap whenever she was about to lose her cool and picked them up afterward so she wouldn’t trip over the carnage. I shielded her from phone calls and visitors she didn’t want to deal with. I kept people out of her office and kept her on schedule, minute by minute. I made it so she didn’t have to think about a thing other than running that magazine.
But those Playboys—I feared this would be the one request I couldn’t accommodate. I hated the thought of letting her down, but I didn’t have any idea where I was going to find back issues of Playboy. She said she needed them right away and there wasn’t time to order them from the headquarters in Chicago. Dentists’ and doctors’ offices were graveyards for old magazines but not magazines like that. After more contemplation, I realized there was only one place I could possibly get them.
* * *
• • •
“Do you read Playboy?” I asked even before our drinks arrived. Erik and I were seated side by side at the bar of the Russian Tea Room.
“I’ve been known to. Yes.” He gave me a quizzical look. “Why are you asking?”
“I need your back issues.”
“Oh, you do now, do you?” He began laughing.
It was the first time I’d been alone with him since the night he’d kissed me, and that was more than two weeks ago. I had wanted to hold out and make him come to me, but I needed those magazines, and in truth, I was grateful for the excuse. My eyes kept wandering to his mouth, remembering the feel of his kisses, the way his lips brushed mine, the sweet taste of his tongue and the way he’d worked me into a frenzy.
The bartender set our drinks down and Erik plucked his olive clean from the glass. “And why is it that you need my back issues of Playboy?”
“It’s for research.”
“I’ll bet. What kind of research?”
I didn’t say and took a sip of my martini, letting the icy gin race down my throat while I thought of a suitable explanation.
“Well,” he said, “if it’s research you need, I’d be happy to give you a hand with it.”
“Very funny. So can I have your back issues?”
“What’ll you give me for them?” He arched a suggestive eyebrow and I fell right into it.
“Just wait and see.”
“Oh, really?” He laughed. “Tell me the truth. Is this just some cheap ploy to get invited up to my apartment?”
I smiled. The innuendos were going back and forth. We were facing each other now, his leg was pressed against my thigh, and the heat coming off that touch point could have boiled water.
With our drinks still half-full, he peeled off a couple bills and left them on the bar. I slid beside him in the back of a taxicab, which dropped us off at a doorman building on Park Avenue.
“Good evening, Mr. Masterson.” His doorman nodded as we passed through the marble lobby.
Erik’s apartment was on the nineteenth floor; the type of place I’d fantasized about living in. It was the complete opposite of my efficiency. If I had to guess, I’d say he was paying at least $350 a month for rent. Everything in his apartment was sleek and modern with black-and-white Orla Kiely walls and thick shag carpeting. A straight-back sofa with Barcelona chairs completed the look. He had brass candlesticks, cigarette holders and table lighters. Every ashtray was clean, not a stray newspaper lying about or a glass left behind on his kitchen counter. I wondered if he had a housekeeper who came in every morning, picked up his socks and shoes off the floor, did his dishes and laundry and put the place back together.
He slipped into his kitchen and reappeared with a silver shaker. “Martini?” he asked, sorting through the array of bottles along his well-stocked bar.
“Why not?” I sat on one of the black swivel chairs and rested my elbows on the bar.
It took us one martini apiece before he mentioned the Playboys.
“They’re back there, in the bedroom.” He gestured with his head and I followed half a foot behind him.
Given the rest of his apartment, I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d had a circular bed with satin sheets and a mirrored ceiling. But his bedroom was perfectly normal, even understated compared to the rest of his bachelor pad. A Magnavox TV stood in the corner, rabbit ears stretched in a wide V. I took the only seat available, on his bed, my hands resting on the pale blue chenille spread. The room smelled faintly of talcum powder.
He went into his closet and came back with a stack of magazines. I could tell they’d been read more than once, the
pages curled and dog-eared. Miss January had the ripple of a glass ring on her bare thigh.
“You ever seen one of these before?” he asked, setting the stack aside, picking up the top one.
Miss March was a pouty blonde in a sheer negligee with a plunging neckline, her breasts heaving forward. He opened the magazine, letting the centerfold tumble down with all of Miss March hanging out. I looked at her body, the curve of her waist, the fullness of her breasts, the dark triangle between her legs. I glanced at Erik and noticed a vein in his neck throbbing. I hadn’t counted on him being nervous though I wasn’t surprised that I was. Neither of us said a word. The moment hung there, seeming to last forever.
“I should really be going,” I said, not wanting to leave but unwilling to make the first move.
He nodded and cracked a slight smile as if to say he understood. For a practiced Casanova, I was taken aback that he’d let the opportunity to bed me get away so easily. He closed up the centerfold and put the magazine back on the stack with the others and carried them out to the living room.
“So,” he said, hanging on to the word like a lifeline. I was already reaching for my pocketbook when he said, “How about a nightcap before you go?”
Moments later we were side by side on his couch, gimlets in hand, enjoying the view of the city with all those high-rise buildings and their windows, little panels of light twinkling like stars. It was surreal to think that here I was, on Park Avenue, in this glamorous apartment, in the center of all this. He opened a box on the coffee table, offered me a cigarette and took one for himself, serving up a blue-white flame from a lighter shaped like a speedboat.