by Sally Koslow
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication Page
Acknowledgments
Chapter One: From Fargo to Fabulous
Chapter Two: The Grunt Work and the Glory
Chapter Three: Oprah Envy
Chapter Four: The Two Women Who Still Eat Carbs
Chapter Five: The Corner of Grapevine and Yenta
Chapter Six: A Legend in Her Own Mind
Chapter Seven: Marshmallow and Mademoiselle
Chapter Eight: Cleavage Never Hurts
Chapter Nine: Good, Clean Manhattan Fun
Chapter Ten: Manhattan Is High School in Heels
Chapter Eleven: Avalanche of Reality
Chapter Twelve: Bushwhacking at the Pierre
Chapter Thirteen: Extra Virgin
Chapter Fourteen: Whatever Turns You On
Chapter Fifteen: In This Life, One Thing Counts
Chapter Sixteen: Bebepalooza
Chapter Seventeen: Too Much Information
Chapter Eighteen: Mistress Tortured
Chapter Nineteen: Not Great, Not Grateful
Chapter Twenty: Cupcake? I Don’t Think So
Chapter Twenty-One: Hugh Grant and the Glamazon Girls
Chapter Twenty-Two: The Intimidation Card
Chapter Twenty-Three: Aw, Heck, What Would Jesus Do?
Chapter Twenty-Four: In the Bleak December
Chapter Twenty-Five: Fattened Up for the Kill
Chapter Twenty-Six: Pluck Sucks
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Angel Girl
Chapter Twenty-Eight: One-Way Ticket to Siberia
Chapter Twenty-Nine: A Persistent Vegetative State
Chapter Thirty: An Offending Prepositional Phrase
Chapter Thirty-One: What About the Obvious?
Chapter Thirty-Two: A Defining Address
Chapter Thirty-Three: Yesterday’s History, Tomorrow’s a Mystery
Chapter Thirty-Four: What Would Anna Do?
Chapter Thirty-Five: Knickers in a Twist
Chapter Thirty-Six: It’s a Hard-Knock Life
Chapter Thirty-Seven: See You in Court
Chapter Thirty-Eight: Blue-Blooded Butt-Head vs. the White-Trash Nympho
Chapter Thirty-Nine: Guts and Roses
Chapter Forty: A Goose Is Cooked
Chapter Forty-One: The Curse of the Perfect Memory
Chapter Forty-Two: Fired, Finished, Decapitated
Chapter Forty-Three: Passion in Flip-flops
Chapter Forty-Four: The Devil’s Work?
Chapter Forty-Five: Best Picture
About the Author
Little Pink Slips
Little Pink Slips
… … … … … … … … … …
Sally Koslow
G. P. P U T N A M’ S S O N S N E W Y O R K
G. P. PUTN AM’S SONS
Publishers Since 1838
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York,
New York 10014, USA • Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700,
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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Copyright © 2007 by Sally Koslow
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in
any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or
encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights.
Purchase only authorized editions.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Koslow, Sally.
Little pink slips/Sally Koslow
p. cm.
ISBN: 1-4295-2927-X
1. Women periodical editors—Fiction. I. Title. 2. Women’s periodicals—Fiction.
PS3611.074919L58 2007 2006037339
813’.6—dc22
Book design by Lovedog Studio
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher has no control over and assumes no responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
To Robby
Acknowledgments
I am in debt to many people who gave generously to me throughout the writing of this, my first novel.
I could not have asked for a more delightful editor than Jackie
Cantor, whose enthusiasm and insights have made the process a
dream. I am honored to have worked with her and others at Putnam,
especially Ivan Held, Catharine Lynch, Marilyn Ducksworth, and—
too briefly—the legendary Leona Nevler. To Isabella Fasciano, thanks for imagining a Little Pink Slips cover that is as elegant and eyecatching as her name.
I am fortunate that fate brought me to Christy Fletcher, who believed in Little Pink Slips from the start. I appreciate her unerring judgment and continuing guidance, and that of Elizabeth Ziemska in
Los Angeles and Araminta Whitley in London, as well as the atten
tion of Kate Scherler.
Charles Salzburg deserves huge thanks for allowing a rogue fiction
writer to invade his nonfiction writing circle. I value his friendship,
strategic suggestions, and deadlines, without which I’d still be tweak
ing page one. Vivian Conan is a fine writer whom I am happy to count
as a friend. I am grateful for her common sense and questions—the
more nitpicky, the better—and those of other good-luck charms in our workshops, especially Kimberlee Auerbach, Patricia Crevits, Sarah
Doudna, Judy Gorfain, Sharon Gurwitz, Erica Keirstaad, Stephanie
Klein, Patty Nasey, Naama Potok, Marian Sabat, Ellen Schecter,
Sharon Samuel, Betty Wald, and Richard Willis.
To Amy Stewart and Thomas Gallitano at Conn Kavanaugh Rosen
thal Peisch & Ford, LLP, many thanks for developing Magnolia Gold’s
legal argument as if she were a living, breathing client.
My friends in the wonderful, wacky world of magazines have a col
lective wit and energy equaled in few other industries. There are a lot
of Magnolia Golds out there, but I owe a special debt to the incom
parable Ellen Levine, who mentored me and so many others, as well
as to Catherine Cavender, Emily Listfield, and Diane Salvatore,
whose friendships supply a reality check and a bottomless well of wry
observations. I
also wish to acknowledge my remarkably talented former staffs at McCall’s and Lifetime. I hope I was a better boss than some; if not, let’s all just move on.
I definitely have the world’s most giving friends, who offered
hugs, hospitality, and editorial advice during the long writing process.
My friendship with Barbara Fisher flowered during the adventure of writing Little Pink Slips; she deserves loving thanks for her gentle encouragement and remarkable resiliency. Very special shout-outs
also go to Anita Bakal, Sherry Suib Cohen, Margie Rosen, and Ina Saltz—who all critiqued early drafts and said yes! with warm enthusiasm—as well as to Michele Willens. Dale Singer asked probing ques
tions and buoyed my spirits as I started a fresh chapter. Thanks to her
as well.
The women in my family are extraordinary—every one strong and
inspiring. I owe a great deal to my sisters, Betsy Teutsch, Dale Berger,
and Vicki Kriser, and to my gorgeous mother-in-law, Helen Koslow
Sweig.
My love of fiction comes from my mom, Fritzie Platkin, the Fargo
Public Library’s most regular customer. I wish that she and my
father, Samuel Platkin, could have seen their daughter publish a novel
and know how much I thank them both for a lifetime of quiet gifts. My extraordinary sons make me proud in about a thousand ways.
Thanks to Jed and Rory for cheering me on, as I do them, as we chase
new dreams. It is a wonderful thing to be able to receive excellent
advice from one’s children.
Most of all, my husband, Robert, has always seen the potential in
a girl from Fargo and was most of the reason I moved to Manhattan.
I thank him for his humor, love, and support, which I return.
C h a p t e r 1
From Fargo to Fabulous
The Chanel sample sale, holy of holies for the aspiring fashionista. Magnolia Gold, editor in chief of Lady magazine, could imagine few other reasons to get out of bed before dawn. She hurled
herself into a sleeveless black dress that showed off her biceps, and
slipped on the stilettos she’d found in Milan, the ones you could
almost mistake for Manolos.
When she usually left for her office, three hours later, you’d sooner
find a five-carat diamond in the garlic bin at Fairway than an empty
taxi on the Upper West Side. At this hour, though, she all but collided
with a cab. In minutes, she zipped down West End Avenue, headed
around Columbus Circle, and turned on to Central Park South, arriv
ing early enough at the Park Lane Hotel to snag a good place in line.
Lady’s beauty director, Phoebe Feinberg-Fitzpatrick, had given her the drill. “People get there at six, though the doors don’t open till
eight,” she lectured, an echo of Long Island left in her voice. “Dress comfy—it can get intense.” They both knew comfy wasn’t code for Eddie Bauer jumpers and sneakers.
Magnolia figured she scored a solid 7.5 on the cosmic scale of
attractiveness. She had mahogany brown hair—shoulder length,
thick, cut with bangs that framed big green eyes; a God-given nose which, to her horror, called to mind the word perky; and, despite a nuclear metabolism, a butt no one could miss. Thanks to Phoebe, who
dispensed discounts and freebies wherever she landed, Magnolia had
her frizz regularly deleted by the latest Japanese process ($800 for just
anyone, zero for her) and benefited from gratis cosmetics that allowed
her to make the most of high cheekbones and wrinkle-free skin, the
continuing payoff of the teenage oilies. She hoped the last gift would
keep on giving well past next fall’s thirty-eighth birthday.
Today’s invitation came via Phoebe’s best friend, the PR girl for
Chanel. Normally, editors in chief of old-time women’s magazines
never made the cut. In the Manhattan court of publishing, they were ladies-in-waiting. Fashion royalty came first—Vogue, Elle, Bazaar, Elegance, W, and even InStyle. Next were the shopping glossies, led by Lucky, tied with Marie Claire, Cosmo, and Glamour, magazines for women who’d murder for a date. The celebrity rags, Dazzle, Us, InTouch, and The Star, had street cred, too, because all the showroom girls read them. But even though hausfrau magazines like Lady were far more popular—with millions of readers—their clout in the world
of fashion fascists was down there with tapered, pleated jeans.
Magnolia entered the hotel, all five feet five inches of her, and
scurried past sleepy doormen and tall stands of calla lilies. She shot up
the thickly carpeted crimson steps. At least thirty women were strung
out along one wall, sitting on the floor. She recognized … no one. Parking herself, she idly opened her New York Post. What was their freakishly accurate horoscope witch warning today?
Stop playing second fiddle. As Mars moves into your birth sign, you need to convince people you are special, that you were born for bigger and better things. First of all, convince yourself.
Indeed. Magnolia knew it seemed as if she was on the top of the
heap—the great job, the enviable dividends that came with it. The
inner Magnolia was, however, less than one hundred percent sure she
deserved what she’d scored. Just as she began to ponder how, exactly,
she might jump-start a confidence transplant—she’d had the name of a shrink on her nightstand for months—she was saved from the bur
den of precaffeinated self-analysis by Phoebe, who was cheerfully
shrieking her name.
“You made it. Can you believe this dedication?”
Magnolia could. She’d be perfectly happy still buying her clothes at
H&M. But she happened to want to keep working. Along with danc
ing at office parties, the unwritten job description of being an editor
in chief at Scarborough Magazines—or Scary, as insiders christened
the company years ago, when, in a putsch remembered as Bloody
Monday, five editors in chief were canned in one day—included
managing her image. This was at least as important as keeping tabs
on an $18 million budget. No one at Scary had a Condé Nast–level
clothing allowance, but every editor and publisher was expected to
look as if she did.
At a luncheon a few years ago, Magnolia overheard the president
of a major publishing company snort, “That woman will never work for us,” while critiquing an editor in a ruffled peach suit more suited to the Scottsdale Country Club than the podium of the Waldorf. In a
flash, Magnolia got it, just as she understood that the editor-in-chief
position she was appointed to the next year came with migraines,
fourteen-hour days, and densely numbered Excel sheets.
“When the Chanel ladies open the doors, race to the handbags,”
Phoebe instructed, placing her hands on her hips, which, despite the
eighth month of a pregnancy, were so slim they appeared to have
been modified by Adobe Photoshop. “They’ll be on the far wall and
they let you buy two. Grab them right away. Go to the opposite wall
next and hit the shoes, but don’t get sucked in by the short boots.
They’re so over. Then the clothes. Save the jewelry and sunglasses till
the end. They have plenty.”
Okay, Magnolia thought. She might be a piece of wood at yoga, but
if she could migrate from Fargo to Manhattan, she could manage
these moves.
Truthfully, once you got over the accents, Fargo had been less
frozen wasteland and more an agreeably Type B place to be a kid,
&
nbsp; good for cruising the mall and dating cute boys named Anderson or Olson. On vacations from the University of Michigan, she’d return home every summer, with internships at The Forum. But when the newspaper offered her a job after graduation—she was one fine obit
writer, that Maggie—her mother and father couldn’t hustle her to the
airport fast enough.
“Fargo—no place for a Jewish girl” could have been the family
bumper sticker. For Maggie Goldfarb, there’d be little postbaccalaure
ate mooching. Recognizing she’d hit her sell-by date in the state the
country forgot (“You’re the first person I’ve ever met from North
Dakota”), she’d need to get out, ready or not.
Maggie headed for Manhattan and morphed into Magnolia Gold.
Later, when people asked her what connections she’d exercised to snag her job at Glamour, she fessed up to ignorance as her sole advantage. If she’d grown up in New York, she’d have been too intimidated
to have cold-called Human Resources.
“Mags! Magnolia! Hey, Gold!”
Magnolia’s head was in Fargo, but Darlene Knudson, publisher of Lady, was definitely here, dripping a tall latte on Magnolia’s bare leg. She and Darlene were equals at Lady, each ruling her own dominion: Magnolia headed up the editorial staff, and Darlene managed
sales and marketing. Both reported to Jock Flanagan, the company’s
president and CEO, and a former publisher himself. Most heads of
magazine companies climbed the corporate ladder by starting as pub
lishers, and though they feigned fascination for creative types, in a
standoff, it was publishers who garnered their sympathy. When ad
sales faltered, invariably an editor got the boot.
Big-boned and braying, Darlene plopped down next to Magnolia,