Save Me the Plums - Ruth Reichl Page 0,82
do anything to save the magazine.”
He patted my arm. “I’ll try to think of something.”
The next morning I stood in the lobby, woozy and hungover, idly chatting with the editor of a fashion book while we waited for the elevator. “I’ve decided to elevate my personal profile in order to expand my book’s reach,” she said. My bark of laughter spiked my headache, but her words sounded so pompous. The woman whirled on me. “If you want to survive, sweetie, you’d better become a brand steward. Editor in chief is so last year.”
That stopped me cold. I wasn’t entirely sure how to be a brand steward, but, terrified by what was happening to our once-robust magazine, I was willing to learn. Since Giulio’s departure, the revolving door had caused a precipitous decline in advertising, and as the ads vanished, editorial pages went with them. I could hardly believe the speed with which it happened, but each month there was less room for the articles we cared most about.
I stopped in to see Tom. “Would it help,” I asked, “if I rolled out Brand Ruth?”
He gave me a huge, relieved smile.
* * *
—
THE TIMING WAS right. Nick had gone off to college, leaving me with a hollow, homesick feeling I could not shake. I’d expected to miss my son, but the depth of my devastation overwhelmed me. “We only got to have him for such a short time,” I moaned to Michael.
“He’s not gone,” Michael said, “he’s just away for a while.” Remembering my own relief at leaving home, I had a hard time believing this. When I left at sixteen, I was gone for good. Why would Nick be different?
“Because you’re not your mother,” Michael reminded me. “You’re not crazy. He’s not going to vanish. You’ll see. But in the meantime you’ll cope the same way you always do: by throwing yourself into your work.”
He was right: It was what I’d always done and now that Nick was grown I regretted every minute I hadn’t spent with him. I thought of all the nights I’d stayed late at the office, when I could have been at home. All the business trips I’d taken. All the client dinners. If I had it to do over again, I thought, I’d do it differently. But the time was gone, and it was never coming back.
I became the honorary chair for the Tenement Museum Gala, the Food Bank Gala, the March of Dimes Gala, the Great Chefs Dinner, the High Line Gala, the Who’s Who of Food & Beverage in America.
“Thousands of press impressions!” said Karen, plunking a book fat with clippings onto my desk.
I went on the lecture circuit, staying up all night to research talks for Princeton, Columbia, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies, and the Oxford Symposium on Food.
“Thousands more press impressions!” Karen sang out.
I accepted awards: The Distinguished Journalism Award from the University of Missouri. The Matrix Award for Women in Media. The Genesis Award from the Humane Society. These too came festooned with media attention.
Tom was thrilled. When a clue in the New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle was “Food writer Ruth,” he reprinted the puzzle and sent it to clients with this note: “Gourmet’s editor in chief is a household name.”
But becoming my own personal publicity machine did not make me happy. I loathed the constant self-promotion, and I hated the way it took me away from the magazine for increasingly long periods of time. These days it was Doc who met with writers and edited copy. Larry sent messages about personnel decisions and Richard emailed layouts, but I felt divorced from the day-to-day life of the magazine. In a crisis they called, but all the things I’d loved best about being the editor of Gourmet now happened around me. Even when I was at 4 Times Square, most of my time was devoted to ad sales and corporate meetings. I began dreading going into the office, and I thought about Paul Bocuse’s famous response when a reporter asked who did the cooking when the great chef was away. “The same person who cooks when I’m here,” Bocuse replied. It had always seemed like a reasonable answer, but now I wondered if it made him as miserable as it was making me.
I began to notice the staff eyeing me warily, shooting me anguished looks. They understood that I’d fallen out of love with my job. Finally Sertl just came right out and baldly asked the question