Reinhart's Women by Thomas Berger Read Free Book Online Page A

enough to make your mark. This could be but the first step! How’s anyone to know of your culinary prowess if you hide your light under a casserole?” She made a flat chuckle.
    He laughed for another reason. “Do you realize that you have never even as yet looked at anything I’ve cooked? Let alone tasted it?”
    Grace grew solemn. Obviously she was here enunciating one of the tenets of her faith. “I know real quality when I see a person, Carl. After all, did I not pick Winona?”
    Assuming that her question had a sexual reference, he was repelled. Yet how could he protest without supplying an implication that would be unfavorable to his daughter?
    In fact he had again misjudged Grace, who proceeded to reveal that her meaning had been exclusively professional. “Did I not see her in the ads for Herk’s knitted ensembles and know she’d be perfect for our instant-cocktail mixes?”
    Herkimer’s was the big downtown department store. Winona modeled for their newspaper ads and for the special sales that were hawked on television. Indeed her married suitor was a Herkimer executive.
    “She’s worked for you?” Immediately he felt better. The image of Winona’s being picked up in a lesbian bar (if, to be sure, there was such a thing: his fantasies were necessarily based on what he knew about male homosexuals, nor was that much) had been persistent and repulsive.
    “You didn’t see the ads?” Grace asked with synthetic incredulity. “The concept was an innovation of mine. That sort of product is ordinarily only advertised nationally, with everything handled in New York, of course. There’s not a big market in instant mixes and never could be. So why then, you ask, do I throw away our good money on local newspaper ads? I even wanted to do TV spots, but on that I was voted down by my colleagues, who are all male, by the way.”
    Reinhart refused to feel guilty about that. “I gather you are preparing to announce a sudden burst of sales, a big run on instant cocktails.”
    “No sirree!” Grace cried in triumph. “During that campaign sales were no higher than ever. There’s no reason to believe a single extra can was sold by those ads, featuring your exquisite daughter against the background of the best local country clubs, Wynhurst and Checkhaven, and the Silver Huntsman Restaurant in Stricksville. Carl, are you telling me you didn’t see those ads?”
    “For some reason Winona didn’t show them to me. And I seldom see the papers of my own volition: I had been pretty well burned out so far as news goes when Vietnam and Watergate were done. But I’ll say this, Grace, if I do happen to come across a newspaper, I give most of my attention to the food advertisements, you’ll be pleased to hear.”
    “Be that as it may,” said she, “you haven’t asked me why I am so pleased at losing a fair amount of money on an apparently useless project. Here’s why: because it put Epicon on the map.” She made a sound that effectively constituted a verbal wink. “That it did the same for me is just between us.” Again that sound: a kind of chock.
    “Grace, am I correct in assuming that your company name is made up of the first two syllables of ‘epicure’ and the first of ‘connoisseur’?”
    “Carl, are you following my story?” Grace asked disapprovingly. “You’re really not picking up on my points. That’s hardly encouraging if we’re going to work together.”
    “I don’t think we are going to, Grace, with all respect.” He had suddenly arrived at that decision: her world, perhaps as much in its business phase as in its private character, was utterly alien to him. “But look here, I’m grateful to you for thinking of me!” He thanked her again and hung up. He would not go so far as to say anything about seeing her around with Winona.
    He switched on the television set that had its home on his dresser top and identified the intense green image of the typical Sunday-afternoon golf tournament. The