by Sally Koslow
attacking pecan tartlets, colossal strawberries, and chocolate-covered
fortune cookies that the caterer wasn’t presenting until eleven.
When she and Harry arrived at the hotel, Bebe’s cat, Hell, rubbed
against her leg. That Magnolia recalled. Jock—whose third wife, Pippi,
always seemed to be visiting her family in Houston—was canoodling with Dazzle’s entertainment editor, a corkscrewed, brunette poptart in a dress slit past the boundaries of corporate propriety. Jock’s hand
seemed glued to her left hip, all 34 inches of it. Bebe’s lawyer, Arthur,
played the piano while Felicity, in a booming alto, belted out Billy Joel. Did Bebe and Darlene start a game of strip poker? That was too awful
to try to remember.
Everything about the evening melded—everything except the kiss.
During the drive back into the city, she and Harry bantered away, hit
ting every broad target from Bebe’s behind to the number of plastic
surgery procedures per guest. Good, clean Manhattan fun. At Bebe’s, as
the Veuve Clicquot flowed, Magnolia and Harry began to feed each
other oysters. One for Harry, one for Magnolia, and on and on. They’d
staked out the balcony, its Manhattan vista as timeless as a torch song.
As if he’d done it hundreds of times, Harry put his arm tightly around
her waist, and pulled her close. It was just one kiss, one long, slow,
warm, champagne-y kiss.
He’d been together enough to call the front desk and have his car
brought around. With two crisp twenties, Harry thanked the door
man, Felix—he seemed to know his name. As they turned onto West
End Avenue, a parking spot opened in front of Magnolia’s building,
which she took as a portent. It would have been rude, then, not to
invite him up. Magnolia liked to think of herself as a well-mannered
Midwesterner. Who was she kidding? Manners had nothing to do
with it. It was two A.M., Harry was clearly available and she hadn’t
had sex in seven months.
The phone rang, jarring Magnolia back to Sunday morning. Who’d
be phoning at this hour? She looked at the clock. Anyone—it was almost
eleven. What was indecent was that she’d just got up after sleeping with
a man with whom before last night she’d never discussed anything more
intimate than a font.
“How was the party?” It was Abbey, sounding bizarrely chirpy for
a wife who knew her husband was floating in cyberspace, and not
much more. God bless her antidepressant, which she’d decided to
start two weeks ago. It must have begin to kick in.
“Either amazing or a catastrophe,” Magnolia answered. “Too
blitzed to decide.”
“Details, sweetie. Cough ‘em up.”
“Better-than-average food and much swanning around in off-the
charts clothes.” “Yeah, yeah, another dull night for Magnolia Gold. More, please.
Anyone fabulous there?”
“An impressive showing of the New York narcissists’ delegation,” she said.
“Plus Bebe, Felicity, Jock, and Darlene. Oh, and Bebe’s lawyer.”
“I see, all the cool kids from high school.”
“Starting to feel that way,” Magnolia said, as she walked to the cof
feemaker to fill her mug.
“Did you hold your ground?”
“It’s become a slippery slope,” she said. “But, to be honest, work is
not the first thing on my mind this very minute.”
“And what is?” Abbey asked.
“Not a what. A who,” Magnolia whispered, stirring milk into her
coffee. “Harry.”
“Magnolia Gold, you harlot,” Abbey screamed. “You do me proud.
I think I’m gonna cry. Was he worth it, or are you already suffering
dater’s remorse?”
“Box number one.”
“Do we think he’s interested?”
“Can’t talk. I hear him rustling around and I may be experiencing
post-traumatic stress disorder—the kind where you want to rip the
guy’s clothes off all over again.”
“As your mental health adviser I feel obligated to speak up. Miss
Gold,” Abbey said. “You may be in the first stage of an all-too
common condition we refer to as first-degree lust, which is often
brought on by an extended drought.”
She suddenly felt Harry massaging her neck and beginning to
work his way down the back of her thigh-high robe. “Dr. Abbey, you
are a brilliant diagnostician but don’t hate me. Gotta go.”
Magnolia stood up and turned to him, to say … what? … some
party last night, huh? How about those martinis? Fortunately, there
was no need for conversation, cheesy or otherwise, because while his
hands slipped inside her lacy panties, he was kissing her in the most
determined way. Harry was neither tall nor short, and for a guy in his
late thirties who mostly sat around making computer magic, he was in commendable shape—an attribute equal to his ability, just then, to
multitask.
Harry pressed her against the refrigerator. Twenty-five minutes
later, Magnolia realized that Sub-Zero would no longer be an appro
priate name for that particular kitchen appliance.
Drying off after their shower, Magnolia decided this would be an
opportune moment to locate her inner Frenchwoman. She pictured
them washing down flaky pastries with steaming café au lait while they lingered over the Times. The best she could offer, however, was stale granola topped with acidophilus yogurt and some rather mature
strawberries. Magnolia sensed that her standard breakfast would
squelch the mood faster than a dog pooping on the rug—which would
be happening any second.
“After I walk Biggie and Lola, how do popovers sound?” she asked.
“Popover Café?”
“It’s just a short walk.” Magnolia gave Harry her most fetching
smile. Famous for popovers as big as cantaloupes, the restaurant—
four blocks away on Amsterdam Avenue—was one of Magnolia’s
favorites, despite the fact that it appeared to have been decorated by
an eight-year-old girl—there were more teddy bears than you could
count, and calico curtains snatched from Snow White’s cottage.
“I’m not sure I could handle the double-stroller gridlock, luv,” he
answered. Much as she appreciated her nine-closet co-op, vigilant
doormen, and proximity to parks and the Dakota—which Magnolia
considered her ultimate destiny (she’d be a very considerate neighbor
to Yoko)—on the coolness scale, her neighborhood scored, maybe, a
five. It was family land, filled not just with strollers, which must been
made by Hummer, but with unshaved foodies, both male and female,
loading up as if Hurricane Shlomo would hit the Hudson any minute.
She thought it best not to suggest Barney Greengrass, the sturgeon
king, as a brunch alternative.
An awkward pause later, they both started talking. “I’ve got so much
work to do,” Harry and Magnolia said in unison. For Magnolia, at least,
it was true—even if she’d happily prepare performance evaluation reports all night long just to have Harry close to her for a few more
hours.
“It’s been——”
“Magnificent,” he interrupted. “The most delightful night. And
not unexpected
.”
Harry put on his jacket. After one lengthy embrace, where she
memorized the scent of his freshly showered neck, she closed the door
behind him. I-will-call-you-later, he recited, five words that loboto
mize even the most self-assured single woman. She walked the dogs,
collapsed on her unmade bed, pulling the rumpled Frette sheets up to
her chin, and fell into a dreamless sleep.
At five o’clock Magnolia awoke, ordered chicken with cashews from Imperial Dragon, and worked straight through 60 Minutes, an Entourage rerun, and a Lifetime movie where a washed-up actress plays a psycho who buries alive a tycoon’s wife. She had a mountain of
manuscripts, potential book excerpts, and layouts to review, which she
turned to during commercials. Usually she was a patient editor,
writing clear, detailed comments in the margins. But today, more
than once, she scrawled “Huh?” or “Is English this writer’s first lan
guage?” in barely legible handwriting.
Just as Magnolia was going to find out if the movie’s victim would rise
from the grave, the phone rang. It was Abbey, filling her in on Tommy’s
latest and waiting for Magnolia’s social weather report. At 10:45 she got
another call, from Sasha, to give her the heads-up that she was stranded
in the Pittsburgh airport and would be late in the morning.
Magnolia let her mind wander. She could picture Harry across the
room at the desk, her laptop replaced by a sleek designer’s computer.
He’d be calling her over, saying they had to stop what they were
doing, that he had other ideas in mind.
She should be focusing on work. On tomorrow. On deconstructing
what to do about Bebe. But she didn’t want to think about her—she
was too busy deconstructing Harry’s “not unexpected.” Did that
mean that she, Magnolia Gold, was as luscious a morsel as he’d imag
ined—or that she, Magnolia Gold, was as easy to bed as a porn star?
Why couldn’t men come with instruction manuals?
C h a p t e r 1 0
Manhattan Is High School in Heels
At home, Magnolia’s taste led her to Paris, circa 1965. She’d painted the living room a pale yellow to mitigate Manhattan’s gray
light and loved curling up with a pile of manuscripts on the curvy,
panther-print chaise, which she’d positioned next to the baroque,
white marble fireplace that had drawn Wally and her to the place
eleven years ago. Framing the windows were gossamer draperies.
They reminded Magnolia of her prom dress at Fargo South—and the
night she and Tyler Peterson celebrated their true love in the backseat
of his father’s Pontiac. The latest addition to the apartment was a
chandelier, tastefully dripping with crystal teardrops, which she
indulged herself with last year when her bonus came through.
Just looking at the chandelier made her feel like Simone de
Beauvoir—or Gigi—depending on her degree of literary pretension:
some days she saw herself as a serious person taking charge of her own
future, others as a ditz with charm around the margins. She could imag
ine stepping out for an espresso and a Gauloise at Café de Flore—or was
it Les Deux Magots?—on the Boulevard Saint-Germain, even though
she’d never smoked a cigarette in her life. Marijuana didn’t count.
This morning, however, as she opened the door to her office at
Scary, she landed in a world where Little Bo Peep met Ralph Lauren. Scary hadn’t wanted to spring for redecorating, so she’d inherited the
furniture of the previous editor, who was in love with American coun
try. Magnolia worked amid coffee-stained sisal carpeting, black wing
back chairs, and white walls due for a paint job. At one end of the room
sat her big, pine desk; at the other, a cozy couch with baggy, cream
colored slipcovers. Enormous bulletin boards covered two walls. On a four-week cycle—Lady was a monthly—one filled up with miniature versions of layouts and full-sized cover options for the next issue. The
other had developed into a Smithsonian of postcards, pages ripped
from other magazines, and Roz Chast cartoons.
Magnolia loved an early morning at work. She could quickly dispense with her e-mail and savor The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal. Unfortunately, it was too soon to phone her parents, who’d traded Fargo for Palm Springs, feeling they’d
earned the right to sun 365 days a year.
Soon Cameron would arrive and find a warm body to fill in for the
missing Sasha. This would require Magnolia to explain her nitpicky
systems to the terrified temp. She briefly considered whether she might
tell Cam that, thanks anyway, she could manage on her own today,
then recognized that he—being all but clairvoyant in the Magnolia
department—would attribute such an action to her being worried.
On that point, he would be correct. She counted on laser-beam
focus. Just now, though, Magnolia found it hard not to dwell on how quickly she’d slid from the exhilaration of buffing Lady to a gloss not seen in thirty-five years, to wondering whether the poor old dear
would soon be transmogrified into a magazine carnival act. Between
Bebe’s harangues on subjects only she cared about and all that bloody red, Magnolia couldn’t imagine readers buying Bebe more than once.
There was a knock at her door, which she’d left slightly ajar.
“Mags, good morning.” She liked that Cam called her Mags. He
was the only member of the staff who claimed this familiarity and he
spoke her name in a deep, commercial-worthy voice—one of his sev
eral earlier careers was acting.
“Hey,” she said. “How was the weekend?” Cam owned a house
upstate, where he retreated every Friday. Magnolia had never seen it.
“Major bike ride. Other than that, just cooking and weeding. Wrote. Reread Middlemarch.”
“I’m becoming illiterate,” she said. Lately she’d definitely been
more Gigi than Simone de Beauvoir.
“That can be our little secret, you with the fancy New York life.”
From anyone else, Magnolia would have been allergic to the sting.
But Cam actually knew how hard she worked, how many evenings
she surrendered to Scary.
“If you’re referring to Natalie’s party, I came, I drank. I listened to
people pontificate. I did not lose my cool or any brain cells that I’m
aware of.” Magnolia decided not to share the Harry part. She pre
sumed that Cam still had the same girlfriend, a Belgian photographer who was always flying all over the planet for National Geographic, and Cam was polite enough not to ask her if she’d starting dating any
one after Alec-the-architect.
“What’s going to happen next?” Cam asked.
“That question may have been answered by the eighteenth hole at
Winged Foot Country Club. I can hold my breath.”
“Good. That means you and I can do performance evaluations all
morning long.” He said the last three words very, very slowly.
“As soon as you nab a victim to be Sasha for the day.”
Cam returned forty-five minutes later, temp in tow. He and Magnolia
then began to hash out who would get a raise. Scary, not known for
generosity at the lower levels, had declared 2.5 percent as the norm.
That meant that if Magnolia wanted to reward a star employee wi
th
an increase she’d actually notice, another staff member would get
stiffed. As far as Magnolia was concerned, every employee deserved
more than the paltry standard. She’d rather have root canal than look
a talented, underpaid editor in the eye, slather praise like Crème de
la Mer, then announce that at the end of the next year she’d be richer
by $759.31. “You’re brilliant, you’ve slaved for twelve months, now
after taxes you can blow yourself to a weekend at Motel Six and a
Happy Meal.”
They chewed through the evaluations for as long as they both could
stand. Only when Cam left her office did the temp remind Magnolia that in ten minutes she needed to be at the 21 Club to hear Candace
Bushnell speak at a luncheon. In magazine mythology, Candace held a
vaulted place. Not many assistants started by sharpening pencils at Ladies’ Home Journal and ended with Sex and the City, hot novels, and the studliest dancer ever to perform with the New York City Ballet.
Sasha would have known to order a car to take Magnolia thirty
seven blocks uptown, but the temp didn’t, and it was too late to book
one. Magnolia dashed out to hail a taxi. She got lucky, and only eigh
teen minutes later a cab dropped her off in front of 21, whose wel
coming lineup of puny lawn jockeys always made her think of every
jerk she’d dated since tenth grade. The interior of the old-time
speakeasy-turned-club continued the equestrian theme, with horse
paintings grazing on the walls. You could almost smell the dung.
The minute Candace started her speech, Magnolia realized that
Sarah Jessica Parker had modeled Carrie’s delivery after Candace’s
excitable speech—or vice versa. Candace sounded exactly like Carrie
did whenever she was drunk, especially when she described a party
she’d attended in the eighties where the men wore only diapers and
the women dressed as nannies. “Some sort of English thing,” Candace
recalled, then started taking questions.
What are you writing? A book that sounded overdue to her editor.
When did you marry? Not until forty-three, which made the crowd
exhale with relief. What kind of shoes are you wearing? Candace took
off a sparkly, blue stiletto and placed it on the podium for everyone to
admire. Candace made Magnolia feel good about being a single woman