Little Pink Slips

by Sally Koslow

  It took at least two years to get to the front of the line and by then,

  anything could happen. A young mom celebrity could, for example,

  decide once her baby became older, “for security reasons,” never to

  allow her child’s face on a magazine again. Editors had it easier at People or Dazzle, Magnolia thought. They used paparazzi photographs, although the fights for the best ones got ugly and monstrously expen

  sive. Still, it didn’t matter if the star had lettuce in her teeth, as long as

  readers recognized her. Magnolia and all the editors of more traditional

  publications needed a perfect studio shot, where the celebrity locked

  eyes with the reader, Mona Lisa–style. And forget about recycling a

  photograph from a few years ago. Any of the stars you’d want bought

  the rights to all the photos that had ever been taken. Every single one. It

  was an arcane system. You needed the approval of a celebrity’s publicist

  to reprint a photo and if you tried to sneak around and approach the

  photographer or his rep directly, they would alert the publicist who, by

  midday, would be on the phone, taking your name in vain as she drove

  to work in L.A.

  So the Kate Hudson cover was good news, very good. On the down

  side, though, Magnolia hadn’t been able to meet with Jock. It took her

  all of Sunday to convince herself that confronting him—make that,

  gently reasoning with him—was her best move. His assistant had

  rescheduled an appointment three times over the course of Monday,

  Tuesday, and Wednesday. Then Jock flew off with Darlene, Charlotte Stone, the publisher of Elegance, and two other publishers to weasel the Detroit car lords into doing a lucrative joint buy of Scary ads. Magnolia tried not to think about the whole nasty business. It was

  time for the evening’s first big decision. What to wear? She didn’t

  know whether tonight was the equivalent of a budget meeting

  washed down with a few martinis or a potentially life-altering first

  date. Magnolia tried on the new Tuleh floral. It showed tasteful “I’m

  a woman, not just a working girl” cleavage, and Abbey had lent her a

  pair of dangly tourmaline earrings that made her eyes look as green

  as granny apples. Her orange mini and halter? Did it say “festive

  dress,” as Natalie had requested, or “tranny hooker”? Should she go

  for understated chic with the Chloe cream eyelet pants and semisheer

  shirt? The outfit was her seasonal splurge—she could have gone to

  Paris for a week on what she’d spent—and now she wondered if it

  looked like she’d grabbed it from Forever 21. Maybe she should

  default to her five-year-old black Gucci pants (thank you, Abbey, for

  insisting that Loehmann’s wasn’t a waste of time) and compliment

  generating $69 Pearl River chinoiserie jacket. With that getup at least

  no one would be staring at her chest.

  Dressing for Natalie’s little party was harder than writing a

  résumé. In terms of self-promotion, more depended on it.

  Tuleh won. Cleavage never hurt. As Magnolia slipped on the frilly

  frock, the doorman rang to announce Harry. She gave herself a spritz

  of scent, slicked her lips with gloss, and looked in the tall mirror that

  leaned against the foyer wall. Good to go.

  She’d never seen Harry in anything but one of his dark business

  suits, button-up shirt, and narrow ties. But there he was in a pale pink

  shirt, linen trousers, and a three-button black jacket. And damn he

  had blue eyes, blue as a ‘57 Chevy. His wavy brown hair, combed

  straight back, looked as if he’d just stepped out of the shower, an

  image she’d never considered until this very moment.

  Harry walked around to give her a peck on one cheek and then the

  other—he smelled good, too. He opened the door of his car. Magnolia

  hated to be behind the wheel of a car—she didn’t know a clutch from

  a carburetor—but she was reasonably sure this was a vintage Jaguar.

  Sinking into its nicely broken-in tobacco-brown leather upholstery as

  they headed toward Westchester, Magnolia once again thanked Harry for Uma, who was still in full bloom on her coffee table, and told him for at least the fifth time how much she liked his Lady redesign. “Now tell me what you’re not telling me,” Harry said, laughing

  and turning his eyes from the Henry Hudson Parkway to Magnolia’s

  face—and if she wasn’t mistaken, her legs. The self-tanning had been

  worth the effort.

  “Just that I’m not sure the design’s going to go forward,” Magnolia

  said, hating that corporatespeak was the best she could do, wearing a

  girlie dress on a balmy June night with Diana Krall in the air and a

  handsome man to her left.

  “This toiling artist demands a reason,” Harry said.

  “My publisher has an idiot big idea, high concept, never gonna hap

  pen, but I have to make nice.”

  “Big how?”

  “Bebe Blake.”

  “She’s big all right.” Harry roared. “We’re talking wide-angle lens. But I’m not connecting the dots. What does she have to do with Lady?” “Bebe wants to do an Oprah. Start an empire, mold nubile minds,

  preach to the little people. The Scary folks are thinking of giving her Lady on a silver platter.”

  “Which makes you the turkey?”

  “Stuffed, trussed, eaten alive.”

  “Magnolia, luv. Dial back. They can’t just give away a magazine.

  Utter rubbish. Wouldn’t get all worked up if I were you. The folks at

  Scary have got to be smarter than this.”

  “Have you met Jock Flanagan?”

  “Only in Liz Smith.”

  Magnolia raised her eyebrows and gave him a long, skeptical look.

  “I take your point,” he said.

  As Harry smiled at her, she noticed a dimple. That and what a fast

  driver he was. They were already beyond Scarsdale, sailing through

  that slice of good-school-district burbs to which most of Magnolia’s

  college friends had migrated with their reliable husbands and fast

  track toddlers. By the time Exit 4 on 684 came into view, an hour had

  melted away. They’d covered all the safe subjects: their first jobs (his was at Rolling Stone), their last vacations (Barcelona for her, Reykjavik for him), and their dogs (could she warm up to a hyperactive

  Jack Russell?).

  Magnolia guided Harry through the twists and turns of what New

  Yorkers loved to refer to as “the country.” Then they entered the

  grounds. It was 8:30. Showtime.

  Beyond stands of evergreens and birch, elegant gray gates parted

  on a winding road. At the top of a hill stood not a condo development

  but the house Natalie had christened Simply Simon. Every lamp and

  chandelier was ablaze, rivaling dozens of Chinese lanterns strung

  along an open front porch and swinging from old oaks in the soft

  breeze. The only thing missing was Bambi. That and the paparazzi—

  though for all she knew, Natalie might have hidden a crew in the

  bushes. They got out of the car, handed the key to the valet parking

  attendant, and walked to the front door.

  The first time Magnolia laid eyes on Natalie’s house, her envy was

  like a rash. Natalie and her husband had bought their mini-estate only

  three years before. After a contractor had gone belly up, he’d unloaded

 
his family dream house and its nine hilly acres to Natalie and Stan

  (“all cash”) Simon. Within a year, Natalie had nestled a swimming pool and Jacuzzi into rocks that looked cloned from the set of The Flintstones—if Wilma and Fred had lived beside a man-made waterfall and hot tub. She and her decorator had tag-teamed at every

  antique show on the Eastern seaboard for insta collections of McCoy

  pottery, folk art tchotchkes, and flower-sprigged English china, which

  crowded into imposing cupboards with their requisite peeling paint.

  Outside, weathered European garden furniture dotted the lush, rolling

  grounds. An herb garden sat next to two tennis courts surrounded by a

  tasteful log fence. A cutting garden wasn’t far from the basketball

  court and campfire circle, should anyone have a Kumbaya moment.

  “Cookie, you made it,” Natalie shouted as she encircled Magnolia

  with a warm hug. Natalie wore a heavily embroidered purple kimono

  over silky black cigarette pants. Her hair was secured by chopsticks.

  Magnolia was glad she’d ixnayed her Chinatown jacket.

  “And you must be … ?” Natalie asked. “Harry. Harry James,” he said as he extended his hand.

  Natalie clasped Harry’s hand with both of her own. “Harry, I’m so

  glad you could join us.” But when Harry began to thank her, she had

  already turned to receive the next couple, whom Magnolia recognized from the Sunday Times Evening Hours photos as a Park Avenue plastic surgeon and his bony wife. Natalie didn’t bother to introduce

  Harry and her, and motioned them toward the door to the back

  veranda. Waiters circulated with delicate walnut-stuffed artichokes,

  gooey Brie tartlets, and spears of asparagus to dip in a lemony sauce.

  Magnolia and Harry maneuvered past a throng to the bar, trying to

  avoid eye contact with the head of Scary circulation, who looked like

  the missing Marx brother but who, sadly, lacked the family’s wit.

  Drink in hand, Magnolia noticed an old-fashioned glider at the end of

  the porch. She weighed whether she might park herself with Harry

  for a respectable length of time, dodge the small talk with other

  guests, and get to know this man just a little better. She didn’t know

  if it was due to the magical combination of dusk and high-voltage

  electricity—or the fact that she hadn’t eaten so much as a six-ounce

  yogurt all day—but during the ride, he seemed to have grown more

  attractive.

  No such luck. “Magnolia, speaking of the devil …” It was Darlene,

  coming at her like a tornado and speaking with that natural disaster’s

  force. “Charlotte and I were wondering if you’d be here. I knew you

  were a Wong girl.”

  Magnolia had almost forgotten that the party was in tribute to

  Dr. Winnie Wong, the dermatologist, and Darlene and Charlotte were

  patients, too. Not that Natalie would have left them out even if

  tonight’s celebration honored the assistant to the head of sanitation in

  Queens. Charlotte and Natalie were the best of friends and Darlene

  was, well, Darlene, who got herself invited everywhere.

  Charlotte, she suspected, had done a bit better at the Chanel

  sample sale than she had. As Magnolia was complimenting her on her

  satin pants and tiny beaded halter, both of which exactly matched her

  Gwyneth-blond hair, Darlene was leaning dangerously close to Harry,

  snorting at something he’d said. Magnolia tried to eavesdrop while nodding attentively as Charlotte described in footnoted detail the

  house she was building in Sagaponack.

  “After a lot of thought, we decided to go with bidets in three out of

  five bathrooms,” she said. “You know, from Waterworks. The white, not

  the bone. Definitely not the ivory.” As Magnolia tried to concentrate

  on the stress of picking high-quality porcelain fixtures, she realized

  Darlene had commandeered even more of Harry’s personal space and

  was now whispering—she hoped only that—into his ear. Magnolia

  waited until Charlotte drew a breath, then turned to Darlene.

  “What are the girls doing this summer?” she asked. Magnolia knew

  Darlene always shipped the three of them and the two senior nannies

  to her parents, the ranking royalty of Des Moines’s country club set. Then in August she and her husband spent two weeks en famille on Martha’s Vineyard. But Magnolia suspected that Darlene wouldn’t

  want to out herself to Harry as a young matron with a large family.

  “The Vineyard. The usual,” Darlene responded, with less than

  complete enthusiasm. But Darlene was not to be bested easily. “Harry,

  have you met Jock, our president?” she asked.

  There he was, strolling toward them, arm in arm with Bebe and

  Felicity, each of whom was dressed as if for the Grammys. In her red

  sequined pants and flowing top, Bebe appeared ready to accept her

  trophy with thanks to Jesus and her band, the Mother Fuckas. Felicity

  took it down a notch, in a black-and-gold-striped caftan. A vaguely

  familiar-looking man trailed them. Oh, yes, the Southerner, Arthur

  Montgomery, Jock’s elevator friend and Bebe’s lawyer.

  “Can you imagine anything more ideal than all of us meeting up

  here?” Jock boomed, pecking Magnolia’s cheek.

  Magnolia could, actually. She and Jock exchanged introductions.

  “Magnolia, I believe you’ve met Arthur,” he said.

  “Mag-knoll-ya, the magazine girl,” Bebe asked. “Who’s the hottie?”

  Bebe zeroed in on Harry. Arthur disappeared to refresh both Mag

  nolia’s drink and his own. Darlene, Charlotte, and Felicity attached

  themselves to Dr. Winnie, who was being led around like a show dog

  by book publishing’s glamour girl, Rachel Wright. Wright had made the doc’s book, The 30-Day No-Wrinkle Diet, the top of her summer list, along with political screeds from both the right and the left. That

  left Jock holding a double-malt Scotch, waiting for Magnolia to speak.

  “I’d hoped to get to you this week,” she began.

  “Right.”

  “About Bebe.”

  “Change of heart?” Jock asked. He wasn’t making it easy.

  “Not exactly,” she began.

  “But you’ll trust me to make the right decision?” he said.

  Magnolia began to answer, but there was Arthur, back with the

  drinks. “My lovely Magnolia,” Arthur said, “you’ve done up one pretty

  little magazine. Good girl.”

  “We made a big change when we brought Magnolia Gold in as editor in chief of Lady,” Jock said. “Our job right now is to support her, to give her both the time and the room to perform.”

  Magnolia thanked him, although nothing he’d said or done in the

  last two weeks suggested that his statements were anything but hooey.

  “You are a generous man,” Arthur said, “given the numbers you

  showed me,”

  Score one for Bebe: her attorney had seen Lady’s books, although not necessarily the ones with the figures Magnolia had been shown.

  Magnolia downed her second martini.

  “Magnolia, care to join us tomorrow at Winged Foot?” Jock asked.

  “Arthur, Darlene, and I are in hot pursuit of a fourth.”

  During her marriage, whenever conversation drifted to putters and

  the back nine, Magnolia’s boredom began to simmer. She’d explained

  to her ex, Wally—who’d always wanted her to join
him at his parents’

  country club—that if he’d read the editor bylaws, he’d know that it

  was expressly forbidden for her to even learn to play golf. Maybe

  there were some female editors somewhere who loved golf—she just

  didn’t know any.

  “I’m going to have to beg off. All I know about golf I can summa

  rize in three words: bad Bermuda shorts.”

  “Golf. Did I hear my second-favorite four-letter word?” The ques

  tion was coming from Bebe, still glommed onto Harry.

  “You play?” Jock asked. “My favorite outdoor sport,” Bebe said. “I am thinking of planning

  the Bebe Blake Invitational Pro-Am. Already in conversation with

  ESPN. Ford’s on board as sponsor.”

  “Stupendous marketing opportunity for Lady,” Arthur added. “But we’d have to talk soon. Deal’s almost done. I’m sure your readers

  would be interested.”

  Felicity wandered over, locking arms with Bebe and Jock. “I am

  having the best time,” she said. “Dr. Wong promised me an appoint

  ment for Monday. It’s not at all like what people say. You magazine people do know how to party. Bebe, have to steal you away. Here, kitty, kitty, kitty.”

  The two of them wandered back into the crowd. Harry pulled

  Magnolia into a corner. “May I rescue you?” he asked.

  Magnolia was already way past her usual two drinks. Even Jock

  was beginning to look attractive, and forty-five years old was her cut

  off. “You may,” she said. “We are so finished here.”

  C h a p t e r 9

  Good, Clean Manhattan Fun

  Magnolia was not hallucinating. That really was Harry James—he of the excellent pecs and other lovely body parts—

  snoring softly in her bed. She threw on a silk kimono and tiptoed into

  the kitchen, careful not to wake him.

  As she began to brew a pot of coffee, extra strong, she attempted to

  reconstruct last night. She remembered trying to get out of Bedford

  while the getting was good. Then her publisher, Darlene—no, it was

  Bebe—stormed in her direction, offering an invitation she felt she could

  not refuse: meeting up at Bebe’s suite at the Ritz-Carlton back in Man

  hattan. There were curt words with Natalie, who was probably peeved

  that she, too, couldn’t go to Bebe’s after-party, not with a hundred guests