I Just Want To Say A Few Words About Nora Ephron

“It was one of her astonishing gifts—and many people are now attesting to this gift in the wake of her death this past spring—to notice when a fellow sentient being had caught her (yes, usually her) paw in a deadly trap, and then to go about freeing her.”—Elizabeth Boleman-Herring

Ruminant With A View

by Elizabeth Boleman-Herring

“Here’s the thing about dessert—you want it to last. You want to savor it. Dessert is so delicious. It’s so sweet. It’s so bad for you so much of the time. And, as with all bad things, you want it to last as long as possible. But you can’t make it last if they give you a great big spoon to eat it with. You’ll gobble up your dessert in two big gulps. Then it will be gone.”—From I Remember Nothing And Other Reflections, by Nora Ephron

TEANECK New Jersey—(Weekly Hubris)—9/3/2012—I did not know Nora Ephron. I did not know Nora in the same way that I did not know Sally Quinn or Ben Bradlee or Jonathan Randal—or Carl Bernstein, for that matter.

For a brief period though, for something over a year in the late 70s, I went to a lot of parties at these people’s homes in Washington DC and, so, I met them but did not know them.

Odd, because I was a writer and they, all of them, were writers. Eventually, we would have—when I grew up and ceased and desisted being simply an ornament upon the arm of one of their number—had so much in common. But, when I met Nora et al, I was in my 20s, and had chosen the path of the poet, the academic, the writer of first-person nonfiction, and most of them were in their 40s; wealthy; settled; East-East-Coast; and did not see me as a fellow grown-up in The Writers’ Room.

At one of Nora and Carl’s parties though, Nora being Nora, she did for a moment focus upon the only 20-something in attendance: the child-not-quite-bride at her table.

It was one of her astonishing gifts—and many people are now attesting to this gift in the wake of her death this past spring—to notice when a fellow sentient being had caught her (yes, usually her) paw in a deadly trap, and then to go about freeing her.

We were in Nora’s kitchen. Everyone held a wine glass, and some in the apartment had already put away several bottles. (This would be the selfsame evening Ben Bradlee told me he had tattoos, and then took off his shirt to prove it. Reader, I was so bowled over by this that I cannot report on the nature or even the location of Bradlee’s ink, but the stunt lent a certain indelible quality to everything else that transpired that night.)

However, back to Nora’s kitchen, where all of those who read her know she spent much happy time.

She was puréeing something, I cannot recall what, in the first Cuisinart I had ever seen. One of the huge solid models that came out back then. And she looked me right in the eye and said, without any segue, “You need to get away from that terrible man. And from Washington entirely.” (Not her actual words. It’s been 40 years.) But I recall that she imparted this intelligence to me, urgently, while continuing to purée whatever it was she was puréeing; and then she changed the subject; or we all picked up plates and began serving ourselves whatever wonderful thing it was she had prepared for us; or someone interrupted us.

I stood like a deer in headlights.

And, very soon, I heeded her advice; left the man in question; left DC. In the nick of time.

So, though I didn’t ever know Nora, in a very large way, she probably saved my life that night. When she gave you advice (and this, too, her readers will know simply from reading her, as opposed to knowing her), you took it.

I thought, after that night, that she’d forgotten all about me.

Until Heartburn came out.

In Heartburn, a roman à clef if ever there was one, Nora names Rachel Samstat’s mother (remember Meryl Streep in the role?), her own mother, in fact, “Bebe.” My nickname.

As far as I know (and Delia, correct me if I’m wrong), I was the only Bebe thereabouts at the time when all the sturm und drang of Carl Bernstein and Margaret Jay’s affair was occurring—and, so, all these years, I’ve taken that naming as Nora’s last, tiny, saved-just-for-me-after-I’d-left-the-scene spoonful of dessert.

Yeah, sure. Perhaps Nora did know Bebe Neuwirth. Perhaps. But I don’t think so.

Because, in Heartburn is also the big, heavy Cuisinart of the late 70s, all those selfsame dinner parties I attended (the 20-something parvenu from South Carolina), and that cast of big-name Washington Post characters I would meet, but never know.

That’d be like Nora, who was taught (by her real mother, Phoebe) that “everything is copy.”

And this is a bit too late, Nora Ephron, but, what the hell: thanks. Thanks for saving my life and for using my Down-South nickname in your glorious novel.

Just wish you and I had known, that night in the kitchen, that both of us needed to get away from our terrible men, and Washington, right then and right there.

More about Nora Ephron: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nora_Ephron