Save Me the Plums - Ruth Reichl Page 0,37

the only thing they don’t have.” Then he went gliding off to the next table.

Florio took a huge handful of spun sugar and stuffed it into his mouth. “What Julian doesn’t understand,” he said, “is that this is so much better than my childhood.”

WHEN I TOLD TRUMAN I needed a new art director, he was unsurprised. “You’ve done twelve fine issues,” he told me, “but your covers have been weak and your newsstand sales are terrible.”

He didn’t need to tell me that I was being judged on newsstand numbers; sales reports arrived on my desk at the start of every week, and I spent a great deal of time trying to make our covers appealing.

The problem was that, each time, Felicity would nod sagely and then totally misinterpret every word I’d said. I showed her a W. Eugene Smith photograph I loved, of a peasant woman standing in a field, wearing a radiant smile as she offers her cupped hands to the camera; you can’t see what she’s holding, but I’ve always imagined it’s a mushroom of some kind. To me it captures all the generosity of cooks; it’s as if she’s saying, “Look at the treasure I’ve pulled out of the earth just for you.” What Felicity shot was a skinny young model in a pink cashmere sweater, holding out a handful of berries. And so it went, month after month. I didn’t like the covers, but more to the point, the readers didn’t either.

I probably could have put up with that, had Felicity not made so many enemies at the magazine. Her feud with Romulo made everybody so miserable that I finally asked her to try being more tactful.

“I didn’t come here to make friends,” she snapped. And that was it for me: I wanted a happy workplace.

“I’ve been thinking,” Truman said now, “that you and Diana LaGuardia might be well matched. She’s been at the Traveler for a while, and she’s getting restless. I think you’d like each other. Shall I arrange an introduction?”

Change, at Condé Nast, does not dawdle. The next morning I met Diana for breakfast. I had no trouble spotting her as she crossed the Algonquin dining room; the stylish middle-aged woman might have had ART DIRECTOR tattooed across her forehead. Her pale, clever face was bare of makeup, her dark hair was streaked with gray, and she was dressed entirely in black. Her short skirt revealed excellent legs and feet encased in hip lace-up oxfords; in a time when most women teetered about on very high heels, hers was a definite fashion statement.

“Is your father the book designer?” she asked, and immediately began talking type. Of course I liked her. She ordered a big breakfast—potatoes, eggs, and sausages—leaning into her food with unembarrassed appetite. I liked that too.

* * *

—

“WHAT PERFECT TIMING,” said Gina when I introduced our new art director. “Our annual sales conference starts tomorrow. The reps are coming from all across the country, and they’ll want to meet you.”

I watched the two women circle each other, almost sniffing the air with suspicion. Gina, carefully coiffed and conservatively dressed in an understated suit, was cool and slightly aloof; she stood as far away as possible as she proffered her small hand. When Diana grabbed it, I wondered how my publisher would react. Diana didn’t just shake your hand: An alpha dog, she sent a message.

Gina calmly reclaimed her hand, her face revealing nothing. “You could kick off our sales meeting,” she said with a touch of hauteur, “by explaining your design philosophy to the staff.”

Gina’s annual meetings were legendary; it was the one thing on which she spared no expense. My first year she was hugely pregnant, but that did not prevent her from renting a fleet of motorcycles and roaring down Fifth Avenue on an enormous Harley. Another year she hired a voice coach, disguised herself as the Iron Lady, and addressed her staff in a perfect imitation of Margaret Thatcher. Once she floated in, scantily clad as Madonna, and sang “Material Girl.”

But this year Gina outdid herself. She’d chosen Enter the Dragon as her theme. Shamelessly appropriating a cultural trope, she arrived at the office dressed in Chinese silks, her face painted chalk white and her head covered in a stiffly lacquered black wig, leading a troupe of entertainers carrying an enormous paper dragon. Banging drums, they went cavorting through 4 Times Square, bestowing luck.

But Diana was the one who roared.

“Let me”—she climbed onto the podium of