Save Me the Plums - Ruth Reichl Page 0,31
the car so it was blocking the street?” I was unable to keep the horrified fascination from my voice.
“Oh, yes.” Her reply was regal, implying this was the only sensible way to deal with such irritating inconvenience. “The meal was wonderful. After a leisurely lunch we strolled back and picked up the car.” She smiled benevolently. “The traffic was clear by then.”
I tried to imagine any situation in which I might do such a thing. I could not. “In those days”—Mrs. M. seemed to be reading my mind—“we knew how to live.” She gave me a condescending smile. Then, gaze shifting, she looked beyond me and her face changed as if she’d seen a ghost.
“What?” I asked.
“Mr. MacAusland,” she said. “I was thinking about our founder; he was both editor and publisher, and he had a first-class temper, which he never bothered to control. One day, when our offices were still in the penthouse of the Plaza Hotel, he had such a ferocious argument with an editor that the guests on the floor below came upstairs to find out what all the noise was about.”
“And what happened?”
“Oh.” She waved a hand. “His secretary handled it beautifully. ‘Think nothing of it,’ she said. ‘They’re just rehearsing for the Christmas play.’ ”
I laughed, but it explained a lot. They had believed the whole world was their stage, and they strutted around as if they owned it. The Gourmet they’d created had reflected that particularly American sense of entitlement.
But we were very different people, living in a very different time. And the magazine we were trying to make was for our moment, not theirs. “We’re having fun too,” I said to Mrs. Montant, understanding for the first time how much I’d come to love this job.
LUNCH WITH RALPH LAUREN. BREAKFAST with Lexus. Cocktails with Chanel. Now that I’d left the Times and my job here was official, my publisher, Gina, seemed to have an endless parade of advertiser events requiring my attendance. I had no interest in any of this, but when I tried to refuse, she grew ice-cold.
She prepared me carefully for each meeting, and soon I understood that the magazine we were selling depended entirely on the needs of the client. Gourmet might be a lifestyle publication, a humble homemaker’s bible, a travel magazine, or an epicurean pioneer. We might be upscale or strictly down-to-earth. On some days we emphasized the quality of our recipes; on others we acted as if they did not exist.
Gina herself was a chameleon, carefully dressing the part. Her clothes, her jewelry, and her watches changed with the impression she cared to convey. She never left a single detail to chance, and as I watched her operate I could not believe how wrong my first impression had been. There are many words to describe Gina Sanders; “ordinary” is not among them.
Bright, agile, and fast on her feet, she was the most competitive person I’d ever encountered. She never gave up, turned every lemon into lemonade, and obviously relished a fight. Conflict makes me so uncomfortable that I’ll do almost anything to avoid it, but Gina got under my skin. There was something about her that made me fight back every time she put up her fists.
Our biggest battles were over the travel editor. I wanted someone younger, with a more modern outlook; Gina was extremely satisfied with the travel editor we had. Why wouldn’t she be? Pat was a pleasant older woman, but she was neither a writer nor an editor and devoted most of her time to representing the magazine at travel conventions. When she wasn’t traveling, a constant stream of people from national tourism boards paraded through her office. These people oversaw impressive advertising budgets, which meant that Pat was far more important to Gina than she was to me. “I don’t see why we should be paying her,” said Larry. “If Gina is so fond of her, she can put her on the advertising payroll.”
“Why would I do that?” Gina asked frostily when I broached the subject. She watched every penny like a hawk and was extremely content with the current arrangement. But Pat ostensibly worked for me, and each time I said I would replace her, Gina reminded me how important travel advertising was to Gourmet’s bottom line.
Whenever I screwed up the courage to ignore Gina’s wishes, I thought of her most memorable remark. Driving home from an ad call, she’d turned to me with the look of a cat who’d