Little Pink Slips

by Sally Koslow

picture and it’s money from ads that keeps the cost of subscriptions so

  low, even with soaring postal rates.”

  “Who gives a hoot about all those celebrities?” asked the fishing

  editor of a small Minnesota magazine.

  “Much as I might love to feature a big-mouth bass on our cover, sir, we could hardly call a magazine Bebe and not go with Bebe Blake,” Magnolia responded.

  “How did you get your start?” inquired a white-haired woman

  with a gravelly voice.

  “Miss Pierce?” Magnolia said. Could it be? Rosemary Pierce had

  been her ninth-grade English teacher, the woman who introduced

  her to Dorothy Parker and was the first nonrelative to tell her she had

  talent? “Is that you?”

  “Yes, dear. We’re all so proud of you.” There was a ripple of applause.

  “I moved to Manhattan and worked myself up from fetching cof

  fee,” Magnolia began, and summarized the last twelve years of her life into two hundred and forty seconds. Magnolia let herself feel a

  tremor of pride. It would be good to end now, she thought, but unfor

  tunately one more hand was waving.

  “Isn’t it hypocritical to advertise cigarettes in the same issue with a

  ‘5 New Ways to Stop Cancer’ story?” Misty asked, her face arranged in angelic innocence as she held up the current Bebe.

  Magnolia locked eyes with her hostess and adolescent nemesis—a

  girl who got into Brown, where Magnolia only made the wait list, and

  then blew off the acceptance to attend the University of North

  Dakota, so she could join her mother’s sorority. Of course it’s hypocrit

  ical, Misty, Magnolia thought. But magazine publishing isn’t a social

  justice organization, honey. Live a day in my shoes, you with your

  four-car garage, 5,000-square-foot house, six-burner Viking stove,

  wine cellar, media room, and snowmobile fleet.

  “Those decisions are ultimately made by the publisher, not the edi

  tor,” Magnolia answered and shrugged. “Division of church and

  state.” But just the same, she resented the gotcha.

  Satisfied or not by the answer, Misty thanked Magnolia and

  announced that the afternoon seminars, which Magnolia this instant

  chose to boycott, would begin. In fact, Magnolia decided that she

  would call the airline and see if she could stand by for the next plane

  out of Fargo. Later, she would tell Misty that an emergency back

  home prevented her from attending the cocktail reception and

  evening dinner dance. Magnolia could live without the karaoke.

  “Great presentation,” a woman called to her as she made her way

  out the door. It was Miss Henderson, the head of the high-school

  physical ed department, who had accompanied Miss Pierce. So they

  really were a couple.

  “Will you sign my copy of Bebe?” said the man from Missoula. Autographs! No one in the office was going to believe it, not that she

  would mention it. Magnolia finally reached the coat check.

  “I had a feeling I’d find you here,” he said. “Good speech. I’m

  impressed.” Tyler smiled warmly.

  She hadn’t noticed him in the audience. “Tyler, thanks for com

  ing,” she said, genuinely surprised. “You’re my whole point for driving into Fargo,” he said. “C’mon,

  I’ll see you back to the hotel.”

  She could hardly refuse him, considering that her chances of hail

  ing a cruising taxi were right up there with finding a buffalo roam.

  And she had to admit that throughout the morning, her mind had

  drifted to Tyler once, twice, twenty times. It was another Magnolia

  who had burned for him all through high school and well into fresh

  man year of college, but seeing Tyler brought her back. Magnolia

  realized she missed not just him but the girl she once was, a girl who

  wrote poetry for friends’ birthdays, who cared more about a boy’s call

  ing than whether she would get a raise. She wanted to spend a little

  more time with both of them, Tyler Peterson and Maggie Goldfarb.

  Magnolia followed Tyler out to the street, where a layer of light

  snow was dusting the icy sidewalk. She climbed over a steep snow

  bank—rather nimbly, she thought, considering her heels—and he

  opened the passenger-side door to his minivan. During the ten-minute

  drive, neither of them spoke. Magnolia, at least, was busy crafting a

  tender but final good-bye speech—how she’d cherished their history,

  how she’d love to meet his family if they ever visited the Big Apple,

  how they could e-mail if he wanted. When they reached the hotel,

  she opened her mouth to launch her oratory, which Tyler interrupted.

  “Not such a good idea to talk here,” he said, unbuckling his seat

  belt. “Didn’t you listen to the weather?”

  She looked at him dubiously as he zipped past Christian rock on the

  radio until he found the local news.

  “—you betcha, ten to twelve inches of the white stuff. Get your

  selves off the roads. Ya, gonna stick this time. Be a big one. Listen to

  Ole here. Throw a log on the fire, open a bottle, snuggle up with

  someone special. Settle in for the night. It’s baby-making time in the

  Red River Valley.”

  “You heard the man,” Tyler said and winked. “You wouldn’t send

  an old friend out on the Interstate now, would you?”

  Magnolia drew her coat around her in the frosty car as he reached

  for her hand. She gently pushed him away. “Seriously, won’t your wife

  be worried about you?” she asked. “Jody’s clear across the state for a 4-H event, staying at her parents’

  farm with the kids. Judging from the weather report, she’s not going

  anywhere.”

  “Pastor Peterson,” she said slowly, “did you order this snowstorm?”

  Magnolia walked out of the bathroom in her red plaid flannel pajamas and called Misty with apologies about skipping out on the

  evening’s dinner. By the time she hung up, Tyler had stripped out of

  his clothes and slipped into the steaming hot tub placed squarely in

  the sitting area of the suite. Without his glasses, in the dimmed light,

  she could take him for the Tyler in her yearbook who’d signed, “I’ll

  love you forever.” The last time she’d seen his bare chest, it had eleven

  pale, blond hairs, which her teenage fingers had memorized. Now, a

  discreet patch of fur covered his sharply defined pecs. Clearly, a min

  ister’s schedule allowed time to work out.

  “You look about twelve in those pj’s, Maggie.”

  “You were expecting, what, a little pink slip and high-heeled slip

  pers trimmed in marabou?” Tyler didn’t need to know she had both

  items back home.

  “You’re everything I was expecting and more,” he said, moving

  aside their second empty champagne bottle to pat the side of the tub.

  “C’mon in.”

  “Tyler, you’re ripped,” Magnolia said. “And this is wrong.”

  “I’m not drunk—I’m happy. We’ve been together on that bed and

  now you’re saying it’s wrong?”

  She was covered with goose bumps—or was it guilt?

  “We were both dressed on that bed,” she said. “Well, practically

  dressed.” In her ten years of postdivorce dating, Magnolia had redefined appropriate on an annual basis. She’d been with a colleg
e roommate’s father; both her gynecologist and her periodontist, although

  not at the same time; and a senator twenty-five years her senior. But

  she’d never done the husband of a subscriber, at least not that she

  knew of. By the technical definition of any blow-jobs-don’t-count,

  friends-with-benefits teenager in America, they hadn’t had sex yet. Yet Magnolia felt queasy and was fairly certain it wasn’t from the

  drinking.

  “I care for you, Tyler,” she said. “I really do.” And she really did, in

  a way that felt love-song pure—and appealingly naughty. “But this is

  wrong.”

  “It’ll be my sin,” he said.

  Magnolia flashed to the perfume she’d discovered at a flea market

  the past fall. “My Sin,” it was seductively labeled. She loved the pris

  tine bottle, but when she opened it, the 1950s Parisian scent had

  turned. Mosquito repellent smelled better. “My sin.” Not auspicious.

  “I’ve been dreaming about you for years—you broke my heart

  when you stopped writing me,” he said. Magnolia didn’t respond, in

  hopes that he would continue. “I have a good life,” he said, “but I

  need for us to be together again, even if it’s just for tonight. I have to

  know what it would feel like.”

  The last time she’d seen a man this emotionally exposed, she was

  watching a movie on Oxygen. His letters—short, dear, pleading—

  kept coming all through that first year at Michigan. She’d return to

  the dorm after a date and tuck them away in the bottom of her

  drawer, always meaning to respond the next day. But the girl who got

  A’s in creative writing could never find the words.

  Maybe she owed him. Magnolia took a what-the-hell breath,

  divested herself of her pajama trousers, and walked over to the tub.

  As she slipped in next to Tyler and eased her legs through the water,

  her gooseflesh disappeared. He pushed aside her pajama top and began

  to run his hands over her shoulders and breasts.

  “Like silk,” he said.

  Thank you, La Prairie Caviar Luxe Body Cream. She responded to

  his familiar mouth as her hands slipped below the water. There was nothing boyish about him. Buzz … Buzz.

  They proceeded to explore, above and below the water, but Magno

  lia kept hearing the buzz.

  “That the doorbell?” he asked, dreamily.

  “My BlackBerry,” she said. “Your what? You lewd New York girls.”

  “Just let me check it,” she said, hopping out of the tub and walking to her bag as she dripped water on the carpeting. Package to arrive by five … call ASAP, the message from Cameron said. “Just a minute,” she said to Tyler who waited in the water while she dialed the front

  desk. “Any deliveries for me?” she asked.

  “Golly, I’ll check,” said the front-desk clerk, who put her on hold.

  Magnolia, with just a towel around her, stood freezing. “The FedEx

  guy was late on account of the storm,” the girl at the front desk said,

  “but something just arrived and I’ll send it up in a sec.”

  Magnolia went to the bathroom for a thick white robe and handed

  another to Tyler. “Get dressed, please,” she said.

  “But … ?”

  “It won’t take more than a moment,” she said, answering the

  knock as he disappeared into the bathroom. The bellman handed her a box containing an early, unbound edition of Bebe, gun moll cover included. But it didn’t take a moment to read the issue in full. It took

  a good forty minutes, followed by just as long a wait on the phone

  with Cameron to rectify mistakes.

  “Can’t this wait?” Tyler asked when she was halfway through the

  ritual. He’d sat down next to her on the bed and was playing with her

  as she continued to read.

  “The thing is, no,” she explained, with her hand over the receiver.

  “The magazine pays for delays.”

  “Aren’t your values a little out of whack?” he asked.

  “Yours aren’t?” she said.

  “I’m just a guy, a guy in love, and God understands, if that’s what

  you’re wondering.”

  “You’re not in love, Tyler,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Well, maybe

  you are—I hope you are, with Mrs. Peterson.”

  “Take me seriously,” he said.

  “What I have to take seriously right now is this little bit of work.”

  She continued the task at hand, happy to opt out of a discussion that

  had taken a turn for the uncomfortable.

  Tyler started to doze. By the time she had finished talking to New

  York, he was fast asleep. Magnolia gently outlined the muscles in his strong back, then moved down to between his legs, but he slept as if

  he were drugged, tossing and turning and mumbling.

  What was he saying? The Lord’s Prayer? Magnolia moved away

  from him, got under the covers, and tried to sleep, but she stayed

  awake most of the night, wondering if she hadn’t got an e-ticket to

  hell after all. A one-night stand with a married minister wasn’t what

  she’d expected room service to deliver. The chemistry might be there,

  but it wasn’t just a case of his being from Mars and her from Venus;

  they were from different galaxies. She could no more imagine him

  discussing the Whitney Biennial at a Manhattan dinner party than

  she could see herself running a bake sale in Wild Rice, North Dakota.

  Magnolia rose at six A.M., baptized herself in a scorching shower,

  and hurriedly packed. As she tiptoed around the room, she savored

  one last look at Tyler’s sleeping frame now stretched comfortably

  under the goose-down comforter. It took all of her willpower to slide

  into her coat and turn to leave. Before she closed the door, she kissed

  him softly on the lips and left a note by his pillow, still not sure that

  the writer in her had the words. “Dear sweet Tyler,” it began. “God

  works in mysterious ways… .”

  C h a p t e r 2 4

  In the Bleak December

  “Magnolia, you’re here!” Elizabeth waved at Magnolia as if they’d bumped into each other in the Amazon rain forest. Was

  she not expecting to see her tonight?

  When the invitation arrived for Jock and Pippi Flanagan’s party—

  which kicked off the holiday season the first Monday of every

  December—Magnolia’s reaction was relief even greater than usual.

  She’d made the cut. Jock had been known to include the head of

  human resources, but not her counterpart in production; the pub

  lisher of a magazine without its editor, and vice versa. The chosen

  ones didn’t scan the room to view who else was there as much as to see

  who wasn’t. Even though the gathering was called from six to eight,

  to max out their exposure, guests tended to arrive exactly at seven,

  after—with uncharacteristic cheer—they greeted Mike McCourt,

  who decamped to the corner of Park and Ninety-fourth for note

  taking. Tomorrow, the merrymakers would devour Mike’s recital of

  the guest list, second in popularity only to his column about the Condé

  Nast Christmas lunch, whose seating plan he analyzed like a pur

  loined state department document.

  Scary folk made up only a third of the group: the rest was a flesh

  and-blood Q-rating of Manhattan’s reigning air kissers. As Magnolia checked her co
at—for tonight, mink was fine—she looked around.

  The first two luminaries she spotted were the former mayor and his

  second wife, who’d attached herself to Natalie Simon like a barnacle.

  “Honey, she can suck up all she wants,” Elizabeth whispered, her

  Southern accent switched on for the party, as if she’d pressed CHARM.

  “Natalie’s never going to make her a columnist. Doesn’t she realize

  the ex-mayor’s ex-wife is one Natalie’s best friends?”

  “Pippi, you remember Magnolia Gold?” Jock said as she worked

  her way to the front of the receiving line. Pippi Flanagan looked at

  Magnolia blankly, though this was the third year in a row that she’d

  attended their party. “Pleased to make your acquaintance,” Pippi said,

  fingering her dainty pearls as her eyes shifted from knee-jerk polite

  ness to unbridled delight. Magnolia turned to see who’d arrived. She

  saw the top of a silvery head. Was it her friend, Dan Brewster? She

  started to walk in his direction and then saw, no, it wasn’t Dan. That

  handsome hair belonged to Bill Clinton, with Hillary.

  As well-wishers swarmed around Bill and Hill, Magnolia was

  pushed from the foyer into the Flanagan’s double-size parlor. She

  heard Bebe before she saw her.

  “The magazine’s doing fantastic,” she was crowing to a small

  circle, including Darlene and the head of Glamazon. Magnolia won

  dered if Bebe even recognized the woman who’d decided not to buy ads in Bebe. “Just wait till you see our next cover—designed by my secret weapon back at the office,” Bebe said.

  Noticing Magnolia, Bebe charged toward her, her long sleeves flap

  ping. Tonight she was Mrs. Claus with cleavage, dressed in red velvet

  trimmed in white fur.

  “Happy holidays, Magnolia, What, no drink? Let’s hit the bar.” She

  corralled Magnolia into an alcove off the other end of the parlor. “I’m

  so glad you’re here,” she said, handing Magnolia a cup of bourbon

  heavy eggnog and quickly downing a glass herself. “Let’s show Jock

  the cover. It’s in my bag.”

  “Bebe, this isn’t the place,” Magnolia said. She could hear the ador

  ing crowd that had swelled around the Clintons, and expected that Jock was reveling at its epicenter. Bebe began to fumble for the cover

  just as Jock ushered the royal couple into the parlor.

  “Let’s keep that cover between us, okay?” Magnolia said, but