Garlic and Sapphires (3 page)

“I don't have time for all that,” I said. “I'm really very busy. I'd only planned to spend fifteen minutes with Warren.”

“I understand perfectly,” she replied. Her voice was as brittle as ice. Even the secretaries here have attitude, I thought, wondering how I could allow a woman I had never met to guilt-trip me. This Shaw person was somehow able to make her voice convey both empathy and accusation.

“What happened to him?” I asked, relenting a little.

“He was in a restaurant,” she said. “He fell down some stairs, broke a rib, and the rib punctured his lung.” There was a strangled sound to her voice; was she trying to repress a laugh? In response I found myself biting back an inappropriate giggle.

“Please give him my best wishes,” I said, grateful that my voice sounded normal. “Tell him I hope he'll be better soon. And that I look forward to meeting him the next time I come to New York.”

“I'll do that,” she said.

 

 

 

 

 

I
immediately dialed Michael. “Can you believe the nerve of these people?” I asked. “They just went ahead and set up a whole day of interviews without even asking me!”

“C'mon, Ruth,” he replied, “it's the
New York Times
! You know you won't be able to resist meeting with them at some point. Why not see them now and save yourself another trip?”

“You just want to get out of Los Angeles,” I said.

“It's true,” he said. “But if you'd spent the last two years covering the riots, the Rodney King trial, the gang wars, and then another Rodney King trial, you'd want to get out too. This job isn't much fun; all the news in L.A. is depressing and it's not going to get better any time soon. There's no political will for change. I look down the road and I see myself reporting on racism, gangs, and poverty, with the occasional earthquake thrown in for variety. I'd like to go somewhere, anywhere, with a different story. But that's only part of it; I really think that this is an important opportunity for you. New York could change your life. I know you're scared, but you can do this. I'll be there for you in every way I can, but don't walk away from this job.”

Michael's faith in me was so touching that it forced me to consider the consequences of talking to the editors of the
Times.
I realized that once I had gone for the interview and made a good impression, it would be difficult to refuse the job. By the same token, if I was certain that I had no interest in becoming the restaurant critic of the
New York Times,
all I had to do was make sure they didn't want me. I had to make myself undesirable. Now, I decided, was the perfect time to begin the campaign.

“Fine,” said Carol Shaw when I called back. “I'm glad you've changed your mind.” She did not sound the least bit surprised. “Do you know how to get to New York Hospital?”

 

 

 

 

 

H
ey girlie,” said the grizzled coot in the second bed. Monitors above his head flashed his pulse and heart rate; bells pinged, lights flashed. “You here to see Warren?” He eyed my legs.

“Yes,” I said, smoothing my black suit, wishing my skirt were a little longer. The two other men occupying beds in the room looked on with interest.

“They took him down for X-rays, sort of unexpected. He said for you to wait.”

“Here?” I asked.

“That would be fine with me,” he said. “But Warren said something about the waiting room. It's down there.” He jerked his head to show me.

The waiting room looked like a graveyard for rejected flower arrangements. A couple of potted palms drooped in the corner, and vases filled with dying flowers were everywhere. The scent was funereal. I looked out the window at a sign that read, “New York Hospital is under construction. Please bear with us.” I suddenly remembered that this was where I was born.

“You must be Ruth.” I looked up. A tall man in a hospital gown was standing by my chair. He was carrying what looked like a plastic suitcase filled with liquid that seemed to be coming from a tube somewhere beneath his gown. I looked away, embarrassed.

“Warren?” I asked. I had not expected him to be so handsome. I indicated the plastic suitcase. “How did that happen?”

“I was coming out of a Russian restaurant in Brighton Beach,” he said. “I fell down two flights of stairs.”

“Was it one of those places that gives you all the vodka you are foolish enough to drink?” I asked, wasting no time. He winced. I smiled inwardly; I had begun the onslaught of charm.

But I found it hard to continue being rude to this extremely agreeable man. We talked about restaurants. We talked about food. We talked about movies. He was very amusing and the job never came up. After forty-five minutes of delightful conversation, Warren said that he was starting to get tired. I helped him down the hall and into his bed. “You're going to meet all the assistant managing editors today,” he said as I turned to go.

“What should I say to them?” I asked.

“Don't worry,” he replied. “You'll do fine.”

“But I don't want the job,” I said.

“Of course you don't,” he replied.

 

 

 

 

 

I
wouldn't fit in here,” I assured the first assistant managing editor I was taken to meet. He was a tall, unassumingly elegant man with a courtly manner. He had drooping gray hair and a surprisingly small and dreary office.

“Why is that?” he asked.

“Because,” I explained, “I don't review restaurants the way your critics do.”

“Oh?” he said. “And how do our critics review restaurants?”

“They hand down judgments from on high,” I said. “They seem to think that they are right.”

“They're wrong?” he asked.

“There is no right or wrong in matters of taste,” I said. “It's just an opinion. And in the case of restaurants, an extremely subjective one, given that no one has the faintest idea if what you taste when you bite into an apple is the same thing that I do.”

He looked a little taken aback, and I saw that he had expected me to lobby for the job. “You may be right,” he said in a conciliatory tone that clearly indicated I was not. “But of course,” he continued, “should you come to the
Times,
you would do things our way.”

“No,” I said, “I wouldn't. But why would you hire me if you don't want what I do?”

“I think it's time for your next appointment,” he replied, ushering me to the door.

Next up was Al Siegal, the much-dreaded arbiter of linguistic style. He turned out to be a thoughtful man of considerable girth. “Mr. Five by Five” played in my head as he said, “You've been very successful at the
Los Angeles Times.
You run your own department. Why would you consider coming to New York at this point?”

I was surprised by my answer. Looking him straight in the eye, I said, “My mother died a year ago. I wouldn't have considered living here while she was alive, but now that she's gone, I guess I can come home.”

He looked utterly shocked and a thrill ran through me. “That's done it!” I thought. “They'll never hire me now.”

 

 

 

 

 

I
saw one bigwig after another, surprised that none of them seemed to know what questions they should be asking. But it gave me the opportunity to ask a few of my own. “Who tells your critics what to review?” I queried one man.

His head jerked back as if I had just suggested that the paper was riddled with corruption. “I certainly hope,” he said stiffly, “that the
Los Angeles Times
does not attempt to influence its critics.”

“Never,” I replied. “But I've been told that things are different at the
New York Times.
They say that Bryan Miller doesn't choose his own restaurants and that the editors even decide how many stars a restaurant should receive.”

“I can assure you,” he said, looking extremely solemn, “that there is no truth in that rumor. Our critics are given the widest possible latitude. It is unthinkable that anyone would ever, ever, interfere with a critic's opinion. That would be”—he cast about, searching for a suitably derogatory word—“unethical.” And then, to make his point perfectly clear, “Absolutely unethical. And not at all in the tradition of the
Times.
”

As they escorted me from one gray cubicle to the next, I thought how itchy this would be if I actually wanted the job. These men in suits had a pompous gravitas, a kind of sureness we lacked at the
Los Angeles Times.
We were eager to please; they dared you to please them.

The physical differences were also shocking. In Los Angeles we had big airy, open offices. Light poured in through walls of windows, bathing the attractive modern furniture in California sunshine. The great
New York Times,
on the other hand, was a dreary landscape of worn metal desks heaped with stacks of papers, broken chairs abandoned in corners, and windows that had not been washed in years. Around every corner you found some pallid individual engaged in a tug of war with an overstuffed metal filing cabinet, valiantly struggling to get it shut; there just didn't seem to be enough room. The faces we passed were all ashen, as if a wicked witch had cast a spell preventing anyone from leaving the building. I suspected that mice were scampering behind the walls. The natural light was meager and smiles were in very short supply.

They dragged me through the newsroom and then over to the Culture Department, introducing me to so many editors that my hand grew sore from being shaken. Then I was turned over to a short, tidy woman with clipped gray hair. She was wearing a chic dark pantsuit that looked very expensive and her feet were clad in handsome oxfords.

“We've spoken,” she said, holding out her hand. “Carol Shaw. I'm here to escort you to the Living section.”

Her tone was so dry that I couldn't help asking, “Is it that bad?”

“Oh,” she said pressing the elevator button, “pure paradise. You'll see.”

Going from the newsroom to the Style Department was like going to visit a stepchild who has been exiled to the attic. The room was even dingier than those I had already seen, and very subdued, as if someone had turned down the lights and lowered the volume.

“I'm going to introduce you to a lot of people, but if I were you I wouldn't bother trying to remember names,” said Carol. “It'll be much easier that way.”

There was an edge to her voice, a New York wariness that was a clear warning to keep your distance.

“I see Carol has you in tow,” said a shaggy man, coming toward us, his hand outstretched. His voice had an odd but appealing cracked quality, as if he couldn't quite control it. With his rumpled clothes, scraggly hair, and pocked face, he seemed more like someone I might have known in Berkeley than an editor at the
New York Times.
“I'm Eric Asimov, the editor of the Living section. Carol may be my secretary, but she's the important person to get to know around here. She'll insist that you march for all her causes, but she knows where the bodies are buried, and she's got the nicest house in the department. She lives in a perfect Chelsea townhouse while I camp out in a miserable apartment on upper Broadway.”

“There's a reason for that,” said Carol, swatting his arm. I assumed the reason had something to do with his reputation as a ladykiller, but he certainly didn't look the part. He looked more like an R. Crumb character than a suave lover, and I found myself thinking that maybe this
Times
wouldn't be that different from the one out west.

“Home section,” said Carol, walking me briskly down the line of desks. “Fashion. Sports is over there.” She glanced at her watch. “It's time for your editorial meetings. You'll be happy to know that they are back downstairs, where the grownups sit.”

“Thanks for the tour,” I said.

“Anytime,” she replied. “Are you planning on coming back?”

“That's not up to me,” I said.

“That's not what I hear,” she replied, turning to walk away.

 

 

 

 

 

T
he editors met in a modest conference room around a table far less imposing than the richly polished wooden rectangle at the
L.A. Times
office. But the air bristled with energy as they laid out the paper, discussing the news with great passion and ferocious intelligence. From the squawk box in the center of the table a caustic and disembodied voice from the Washington Bureau kept up a stream of constant challenges. Were they sure about the number of ground troops Clinton had agreed to send to Bosnia? Shouldn't that story about the slaying of a gay sailor be above the fold?

Los Angeles piped in, offering a story on well-to-do blacks and their response to the King beating trials. The third in a series about Muslims in America was briefly discussed, along with a story about the way the children of the Branch Davidians had been abused in the compound.

It was fascinating, and I suddenly understood what it was that I was so wantonly rejecting. These were the finest news minds of my generation, and I had been offered the chance to work with them. I began to regret my behavior.

 

 

 

 

 

ut it was too late; there was only one interview to go and I had been burning bridges all afternoon. So I went into my final meeting and shook hands with the editor, Max Frankel, and his deputy, Joe Lelyveld. And when they asked what I thought of the way they covered food, I went back to the campaign. “Not much,” I said.