"It was the Spanish thing, right?" said my boss, Peter. "You spoke Spanish to him."
"He's French, and I spoke ordinary English to him," I said. "He's a French pastry chef."
We were in his office at lunch time, his lunch time, although I was hungry too. Peter was eating fries from a paper bag.
"How did you sell him an ad if he doesn't speak Spanish?" Peter asked me. "I thought that was your big ace, being able to speak Spanish to these other immigrant kitchen people."
Peter has giant blue eyes that look as if they never close, and big football-player shoulders.
"I had a pitch, just like you taught me," I said. "I brought out a fistful of clippings from the society pages, and I said, 'Where were you when your competition was making cakes?' I just chose some clips at random. 'Barry wedding? Who made that cake?' I said. 'One of the biggest society weddings of the year, and where were you? Goldzahl wedding? Fitzpatrick wedding? Foroohar wedding?' I spread clippings all over his pastry pans. 'Every baker,' I said, 'of every one of those cakes advertises in our magazine. They use it to get business with caterers and event planners, and they make cakes.'"
Peter was holding a fry.
"The guy bought three full-color pages because of that?" he said.
"He told me I was a very persuasive young lady," I said. "I told him I was 19 years old."