Save Me the Plums - Ruth Reichl Page 0,63

the Thin Man because he looked like Noël Coward and was the most sophisticated person any of us had ever met. Stevie Kaufmann went everywhere, knew everyone, and lived a life straight out of a thirties movie. He was the uncle I never had, the nearest thing to a living relative in New York City, and whenever he said, “Meet me for lunch,” I put on my coat and walked out the door.

I found him at his regular table at Michael’s, the restaurant New York media moguls preferred for power lunches. Stevie always acted like he owned the place, nodding graciously to acquaintances around the room. His table was strategically placed so that everyone who entered the restaurant had to pass by him. Even at ninety, Stevie was the most elegant person in the room, his great dome of a head gleaming as he smiled at the parade of people, enjoying every minute. But, then, no one ever had a greater talent for finding pleasure everywhere he went.

Stevie and Mom grew up together—their mothers were best friends—and they had an unshakable ritual: Every year, Stevie took Mom to the 21 Club for her birthday. She always went—even when she was deeply depressed—because no one ever said no to Stevie.

“You should see the way they treat him!” she’d say afterward, launching into her favorite tale. “Did I ever tell you about the time Stevie showed up at 21 in his uniform? It was during World War Two, when the restaurant had a strict no-uniform policy, but they changed it on the spot. They didn’t want to turn Stevie away.”

She repeated this story every year, as if we’d never heard it before. Then she’d tell us all the delicious stories Stevie had told her about his famous friends. He knew Greta Garbo, Lena Horne, Rock Hudson, the brother of the king of Sweden….Stevie had inherited some money at twenty-five, quit his job, and devoted the rest of his life to art, music, theater, and people. “His best friend,” Mom always told us, “is Bill Blass. I think they might have been lovers, and I know they talk to each other every day.”

Sometime in the early eighties Stevie announced, a little mournfully, “Blass says I need to get a job.” Stevie was seventy—an almost unimaginable age to my thirty-something self—and I peered at him in disbelief. “You can’t start working now,” I said ungraciously. “You’re much too old!”

Stevie was not offended. “I know.” He shook his head ruefully. “I never intended to let this happen. My parents both died in their sixties, and I figured I would too. I thought there’d always be enough.”

He went to work for the company that manufactured Bill Blass suits. I never was entirely clear what the job was; I imagine it was mostly looking good, being charming, and taking people out to lunch, all the things Stevie was good at. Maybe it was more than that, but he never discussed it; his life was much too full to waste time talking about work.

I barely heard from Stevie during the years I was in California, so it was a surprise to pick up the phone in my L.A. office and find him on the other end. “They tell me,” he said, “they’ve offered you the Times restaurant-critic post.”

“How could you possibly know that?” I cried. “I just got off the phone with them.”

“Don’t you know I hear everything?” I pictured him on the other end of the phone, dressed in one of his gorgeous suits, airily waving a hand. “You must come. It’s high time you took me to lunch.”

I did, and often. No one was ever better company; during my six years at the Times we shared a lot of lunches. Once, to his enduring delight, I wrote him into a review. And, of course, Stevie was the first to call when Condé Nast came knocking. “You have to do it,” he said, “if only for Mim. Think how your mother would have loved this!”

“But who told you?” I asked. Mere hours had passed since my meeting with Si.

“Oh,” he said vaguely, “I used to know Si’s mother, Mitzi.” She’d been dead for years, but this was clearly the only explanation I was ever going to get.

Now that I was at Condé Nast, Stevie thought it was time I attended Fashion Week. “I’ll get you a ticket,” he said, “and you can finally meet Blass.”

“Next year,” I said. And I kept saying it…until it was