Save Me the Plums - Ruth Reichl Page 0,32
swallowed a canary, saying, “I think we just took that business away from Bon App, which is extremely satisfying. Just winning isn’t enough; I don’t feel good unless the other person loses.”
The message came through loud and clear.
My methods were a little less blatant, but when I saw an opportunity, I took it. The first time we went to lunch with a client, Gina’s limo was late. “We’re due in fifteen minutes and my driver’s stuck in traffic,” she said, gazing anxiously up the street. “I hate not being on time.”
“We could take the subway,” I suggested.
It was a completely innocent remark. To me, the subway is more than a quick way to get from one place to another. It is New York in miniature, an intimate glimpse of the city. You rub shoulders with everyone who lives here, find out what they’re reading, see what they’re wearing, eavesdrop on their conversations. I love the music of many languages, the wide-eyed amazement of the tourists, the impatience of the seasoned rider each time the train comes to one of its mysterious between-station stops. Riding in a taxi gives you privacy, but why would you want to be insulated from all this?
Gina, clearly, did not see the subway in the same light, and her horrified reaction gave me an idea. I tugged at her arm, pulling her down the sidewalk. “Come on,” I urged, “it’s just a couple of stops.” Casting a final, despairing glance up the street, Gina reluctantly followed me down the subway stairs.
The train came roaring into the station with a metallic squeal of wheels, and I enjoyed her discomfort as she edged nervously back on the platform. Boarding the train, she pulled her shoulders in, making her body as compact as possible. “I don’t take the subway much,” she said, as if admitting something I didn’t know. Lowering herself into the seat next to mine, she sat ramrod straight, assiduously avoiding body contact. “The first time Steven took me out on a date we took the subway,” she confided. If this was an attempt to minimize the difference between us, it definitely did not work. “My father,” she added disingenuously, “was absolutely appalled.”
I thought it was time to change the subject. “Tell me about this lunch,” I said.
She relaxed as we entered more comfortable territory. “Beauty is central to our business plan, and Estée Lauder is an important client. All I want you to do is remind Mr. Lauder how powerful you were as the restaurant critic of The New York Times. I’ll do the rest.”
She exited the train with obvious relief, but as we walked into the restaurant I noticed her glance at her watch. “Mr. Lauder just arrived,” the maître d’ assured us, leading us to a table occupied by an elegant older man with papery skin. He half-rose to greet us, offering a steely smile. Beautifully dressed, he wore his wealth proudly, and I thought, briefly, how different he was from Si.
There were polite preliminaries and then Gina looked pointedly in my direction. “What should we order?” Taking my cue, I tried to recall which of the dishes was most esoteric.
“Cold lamb’s quarters soup,” I said, thinking how pleasant it was to be in a fancy restaurant and not have to take notes. “Nobody else is doing anything remotely like it.”
“Lamb’s quarters?” Lauder looked intrigued.
“The world’s most delicious weed. Jean-Georges is working with a forager who brings him wild greens. This one is like spinach with a college education: bright green, slightly spicy, very intense. He serves it with a little hash of hazelnuts and crab to coax out all the flavors: First you taste the forest and then the sea.”
Gina nodded, silently applauding my little show.
“But I can never resist Jean-Georges’s foie gras; he poaches it in sweet wine until the texture is unlike anything you’ve ever experienced. So fragile, like eating clouds.”
“Ah,” he said, remembering. “You gave the restaurant four stars, didn’t you?”
Gina looked pleased.
The food was as fine as I’d remembered, and I ate dreamily, savoring the sweetbreads with their hints of ginger and rumors of mango. Gina, I noticed, was pushing her food around the plate, merely pretending to eat. I noted that food was not her friend; she seemed relieved when she could finally put down her fork and swing into her pitch, rhapsodizing about the upscale lifestyle publication we represented, the one whose five million readers routinely dressed up to go out for lunches just