Wallflower at the Orgy by Nora Ephron Read Free Book Online Page B

“Ninety-nine per cent of the articles here are assigned by the other editors, but this particular thing was a secret of mine that I felt only I understood. I called my own writer in California and told her about it. She tried it and turned it in and it was beautiful, but God, it didn’t have
anything
to do with how men should treat women’s boosoms. It had to do with
love
and it had to do with
companionship
and the wonderful relationship between men and women, but it just didn’t have
anything
to do technically with the subject. I wanted techniques. What does she like and how does she tell him and what does he do and how does he shape up. So I called my writer and said, ‘This is your personal reminiscence of all your love affairs, and fascinating as it is, it doesn’t have
anything
to do with boobs.’ And she said, ‘I know. Can you supply me with any material?’
    “That’s when I sat down and wrote my memo to the girls in the office. Just give me your thoughts about boosoms, I said. Has anybody ever been a real idiot in making love to you? How could men improve their techniques? What would you like done that’s not being done? I just got a wonderful response. All the girls responded except two. I’d like to know who the two were because I don’t think they’d be happy at
Cosmopolitan
, but I had no way of knowing becausea lot of girls didn’t sign their memos. I’ve sent many memos before—give me your definition of a bitch, have you ever dated a very wealthy man—and this was just another one of those memos. Then I saw it in
Women’s Wear Daily
and I really did hit the roof. A lot of people said, Ho, ho, ho, how lucky can you be? You probably mailed it yourself in an unmarked envelope. But that’s not true, because I tread a very careful path with Hearst management and I don’t want to get them exercised about anything. If I just very quietly develop these articles and show them the finished product, it’s much better. But this big brouhaha started because this little bitch, whoever she was, sent the memo to
Women’s Wear
, and I would still fire her if I knew who she was. Because then the turmoil started. My management said to me, We want to see a copy of the boosom article the minute it’s finished. I didn’t want this attention to be called to what I was doing. Furthermore, we have trouble with supermarkets in the South and I didn’t want them stirred up ahead of time.
    “Well, the girls wrote their wonderful memos, I put two other writers on the story—because the girl in California suddenly got very haughty and said she didn’t want to deal with the material. She just went absolutely crackers about the whole thing. So these two writers took it on and between them they turned in wonderful stuff, their own ideas plus all my material. I got this fantastic article. But my management won’t let me run it. The actual use of anatomical words bugs them. Well, you cannot talk about love and relationships when you’re talking about how to handle a breast. You must be anatomical. You’ve got to say a few things about what to do. I’m not mad at them—they do it because they’re afraid we’ll have too much flack. But I plan to lie lowfor a while and come back with my boosom article later. I read it tenderly, like a little love letter, every so often. I’ll try it again after a while.”

    One day a couple of years ago, a
Cosmopolitan
editor named Harriet LaBarre called me and asked if I wanted to write an article on how to start a conversation. They would pay six hundred dollars for one thousand words. Yes, I would. Fine, she said, she would send me a memo Helen had written on the subject. The memo arrived, a breezy little thing filled with suggestions like “Remember what the great Cleveland Amory says—shyness is really selfishness” and “Be sure to debunk the idea that it is dangerous to approach strangers.” I read it and realized with some embarrassment that I had already written