I'll Take Manhattan (25 page)

Linda Lafferty simmered with midsummer rage. Productivity in her art department—
her
department!—had fallen off precipitously since the advent of Maxi. All her workers, who at best had never been as dependable as she would have liked, had turned into randy goats who spent
most of their time thinking up excuses to have yet another long conversation with that … that … she couldn’t think of the right word. Maxi was outside of her previous experience, and none of the words she knew managed to satisfactorily categorize that sexy, funny, absolutely lawless, disruptive and yet somehow, in spite of it all—admit it, Linda, you like to talk to her too, she told herself in disgust. The kid was a daily bacchanal. She must be Miss Seagram’s or Miss General Foods or Miss Coca-Cola to be allowed such a range of nuisance value, for Carl Koch simply refused to listen to her complaints about the new trainee.

However, Linda Lafferty had a department to run, a department that had always been the single most overworked department at the magazine. Much of the body of the book was given over to photographs and the rest of the thick magazine was stuffed with ads for luxury products. The readers of
Savoir Vivre
were rich people and the magazine, printed on glossy, thick, fifty-pound paper, was expected to drip visual riches that would make its rich readers feel even richer. All the responsibility for the quality and originality of this monthly cornucopia lay squarely on the art department. The text barely mattered although the food and wine articles were all written by top literary figures who were paid enormous sums of money by magazine standards.

She needed a new assistant art director, Linda Lafferty decided in desperation, someone fast and good who would be tough enough to speed things up. A lot of severe ass-kicking could do wonders to kill Maxi-lust, she thought, but something about being so tall made it almost impossible for her to kick ass effectively. She hadn’t decided if it was her desire to be liked or fear of killing someone, but at least she was smart enough to know when she needed help.

When she put her request to Carl Koch she was surprised at how quickly he agreed to let her hire a new top assistant. Although
Savoir Vivre
was clearly a money-machine, Koch, like most editors, didn’t like to add any staff if he could help it. In her last job Linda had worked with a young man who was as single-mindedly work-oriented as he was brilliant. She had wanted to hire him for a long time and now Maxi Adams, queen of the rubber cement, Lorelei
of paste-up, catnip sorceress of the ruler, was going to give her the opportunity to offer Rocco Cipriani a salary he couldn’t resist, for he had always said that only a lot of money could get him away from Condé Nast. Maxi Adams would serve a purpose, would make a contribution in spite of herself.

Linda Lafferty looked at Rocco Cipriani severely. “I’m taking a vacation. I haven’t had one minute off since I came to
Savoir Vivre
. I won’t be there when you start tomorrow. I don’t want people coming to me about you and complaining. You’re going to be in absolute charge. They’ll all have memos to that effect.”

“You want a new broom, mixed with Captain Queeg and a few floggings?”

“Precisely. There isn’t one of my bums who’s doing a full day’s work. I have a major discipline problem on my hands. I’m absolutely counting on you to beat and whack and knock them back into shape while I’m away having that thirty-day nervous breakdown Carl said I was entitled to, and when I get back I want to be ahead of schedule … or else.” She had decided not to pinpoint Maxi as the source of the trouble. Let him find out for himself. On-the-job training.

“You’re cute as hell, Linda, when you get threatening.”

“That’s why I’ve hired you, that’s why we’ve spent all weekend going over this disgusting backload of undone work. You’re going to save my ass because you’re not at all cute.”

“And I thought you liked me.”

“You’re all right for a kid,” she said primly, cursing her never-give-up Irish lust that didn’t have the good sense to stop raging at the sight of that young and completely untouchable Rocco Cipriani. She looked at him closely, trying to decide how any man so absurdly gorgeous could still command as much respect as he did. He had an indecent chaos of black curls, heavily hooded dark eyes that were both dreamy and glowing in their intensity, as well as the nose of a Medici prince. In his strong features, for all her
acuteness, she could find no single fault. She didn’t even dare to look at his mouth. A girl had only so much self-control. Everything about Rocco worked together, relentlessly, powerfully, insistently. It was difficult to turn away from him. He was, she decided, like the model for a great Renaissance painter’s masterpiece, a vision of a proud Saint Sebastian. All that was lacking were the arrows piercing his body at those interestingly vulnerable places. Rocco Cipriani explained as much about the high period of Italian art as a trip to the Met.

Yet, at barely twenty-three, he was doing so well at Condé Nast that it was only a question of having a little more seniority, a little more seasoning before he would be the art director of his own magazine. She knew full well that he would never stay at Amberville. This was simply one of those sharp, strategic, sideways moves that some of the best and most ambitious art directors made in order to go ahead faster than they would if they stayed at one company during their entire career … she’d done it herself. It made you more appreciated than total loyalty ever did, and it was only risky if you were not very, very,
very
good. Rocco had nothing to worry about.

There are as many kinds of art directors in Manhattan as there are publications and agencies and commercial-makers. Rocco was one of a very special kind, one who never wanted to work on anything but magazines. He harbored no itch to work in advertising in spite of the desirable big bucks those poor bastards who called themselves “creative directors” made. They were bound by the demands of clients and he was bound by nothing but the limits of his own imagination. For Rocco the ultimate joy in life was pages and pages of an empty magazine, pure glorious white space, space without end, space renewed each month by advertising department magic, waiting for him to fill it with layouts that had never been dreamed of before, combinations of type that had never been put together since typography was invented, graphics that would make history, photographs hitherto unimagined, cropped in ways no one had ever cropped before, drawings commissioned from
artists who had never been thought of except in terms of gallery and museum walls. Each page of editorial space was to him like a blank canvas to a painter: a new chance to impose his vision of what
could
be, and like a painter, he was never totally satisfied.

Rocco was the not-yet-satiated Alexander the Great of the magazine world, still on the rampage, not with armies but with torrents of talent. He worked at least ten hours a day at his desk and then went home to empty his mailbox into which were stuffed magazines from all over the world, each one of which he devoured page by page, cursing horribly when he saw a new idea he hadn’t thought of himself, raping the magazines of the pages he wanted to study, which he taped to the walls of his big Soho loft until they went from floor to eye level, and were gradually covered over by other pages so that being in the room was like living inside a collage of the best international graphic design.

There were only two men in the world whom Rocco Cipriani envied: Alexander Liberman, the genius who was Artistic Director of Condé Nast, and Pavka Mayer. One day he felt sure he was destined to replace one or the other of them, but he also knew he still had a lot to learn, so Linda Lafferty’s job offer had an additional allure: he’d be working for Pavka for the first time, indirectly it was true, but still there was always the potential opportunity of picking the man’s great brain.

Rocco started at
Savoir Vivre
on a Monday in mid-July. By Friday, Linda couldn’t stand it anymore and let herself give in to the temptation to telephone him and find out how things were going.

“We’ve cleared up all that major lot of undone work and Monday I’m attacking the November issue,” he said.

“Already? Are you sure?”

“Well, nobody was thrilled about working till midnight every night all week, but they did it.”

“What about the Maxi problem?”

“ ‘Maxi problem’? You mean my trainee?”

“If you want to describe her that way, yes.”

“Christ, Linda, she’s no problem at all. I can’t believe
what a help that kid is. Doesn’t even take her lunch hour, just bolts a hard-boiled egg out of a paper bag and goes right back to sweeping up and getting rid of eraser crumbs and making sure that everyone has fresh supplies when they come back from lunch. She seems very grown-up for only nineteen. In on time every morning, last one out at night, doesn’t fool around in the bagel breaks, brings coffee just before anyone begins to itch for it, keeps my Magic Markers arranged just right, in fact I’ve never had such an organized desk anywhere. Doesn’t smoke, wears those demure little dresses, doesn’t indulge in idle chat and doesn’t even seem to take time to pee. Maybe she’s a Mormon? She’s always there when I want her … yet she’s never a nuisance. A good lady, that one. Not bad-looking too, now that I come to think about it … in fact … not bad at all …”

“Oh SHIT.”

“What’s that about?”

“Forget it. Just forget it. Carry on, Rocco. I’m going back to the beach and walk into the ocean until I drown.”

“If you’re planning on working all weekend, Rocco, maybe I can help out?” Maxi suggested casually, holding her breath. She would die for him, she would not just walk on burning coals for him, she would cover herself with them and lie down quietly until it was all over. There wasn’t anything in the lexicon of human behavior that she would not do for Rocco Cipriani beginning with leaving home and crossing continents on foot and starving in the wilderness. He had only to ask.

“I don’t want to interrupt your weekend plans,” he said.

“I don’t have any actually. And I could learn a lot while I kept your stuff straight. You know how your layouts disappear under each other when you’re working hard. And … I could go out for pizza,” she added, a suggestion that grew from every bit of wisdom she had absorbed in her life.

“Good thought. I usually forget to eat. And there’s that pizza place right next door that takes so long to deliver that
the cheese is always cold. O.K., come by on Saturday morning about nine. I’ll give you the address.”

She took the paper and put it in her handbag to keep forever. She already knew where he lived, she knew his phone number, she knew all about his big family in Hartford, his scholarship to art school, his prizes, his promotions. The advent of Rocco had started a storm of speculation in the art department of
Savoir Vivre
and Maxi had listened carefully, saying nothing but registering every morsel, weeding out the bits that overlapped or didn’t seem to go together and ending up with a fair idea of the truth. She knew he had had a lot of girls but no long-lasting one, she knew his enemies and his friends, she knew as much about this stranger she had met for the first time five days before as it is possible to learn and intuit. Maxi’s intuition of Rocco was far more than the act of mental contemplation or recognition or consideration. It went deeper than that philosophical definition which claims for intuition a spiritual perception and immediate knowledge that can be ascribed to angelic or spiritual beings. Hers went further and was a good deal shorter. It was Hawthorne’s definition: “A miraculous intuition of what ought to be done just at the right time for action.”

The first Saturday and Sunday Maxi spent in Rocco’s loft were busy ones. Whenever she saw that Rocco was lost in thought before his drawing table she moved about the room, so quietly that he never heard her, finding out where he kept his household supplies. She made his bed with fresh sheets and bundled up all his dirty linen and shirts for a trip to that laundromat which, for the first time in her life, she was sure she would be able to find and figure out. She washed her first sinkful of dirty dishes and put them away; she went through his pantry and made lists of the basics that were missing; but she didn’t have time to tackle his drawers or closets. While she bent to these divine tasks she always had one eye on him, and whenever he looked up, needing something, she had it ready for him, with much of the expertise of an operating-room nurse. He gulped down
the pizza and sandwiches she brought back for him, sharing them with her of course, but silently, as he thought about the design problems that confronted him. Now that the backlog of old work had been cleared up, Rocco wanted to impose his own style on
Savoir Vivre
before Linda Lafferty came back from her vacation.

He was immediately concerned with the problems created by a magazine devoted to food and wine. He had worked with models and clothes so long that the presentation of objects, whose main relation to the readers was to cause them to salivate, provided him with a challenge which made him oblivious to all else.

“
One
grain, just one grain,” he muttered as Maxi sliced another pizza on Sunday night.

“Not hungry?” she asked, worried.

“One single grain of golden caviar, on a full-bleed double spread. The obvious thing to do would be to have Penn photograph it but Penn means Condé Nast and anyway I don’t do the obvious. Laser photography? Photomicrography? You can’t
draw
caviar—or can you? Maybe, yeah, maybe … with gold leaf covering both pages and Andrew Wyeth to draw the caviar … maybe … is that pepperoni?”

“I asked for everything on it.”

“Good.” He lapsed back into silence and soon afterwards, seeing that he was about to stop working, Maxi left, so quietly that he didn’t notice she was gone.

During the following week anyone coming into the art department of
Savoir Vivre
might have thought himself in the manuscript room of a medieval monastery as the workers bent over their desks with concentrated industry, trying out all the ideas that Rocco flung at them in his search for ever newer, ever more exciting pages.