by Sally Koslow
she could explain “hibernation.” At this moment her heartfelt wish
was for just that, to sleep off the winter, emerging to a brighter spring. If the HR sherpa had wanted to be truly helpful, he might have
tossed her a manual on how to get through the day, the following
week, and who-knows-how-many months stretching before her. Mag
nolia felt better equipped to complete a long-form tax return than to
figure out what to do next. And she suspected the tax return might be
more interesting.
Minutes before ten o’clock, Lola began licking her face. She’s prob
ably afraid I’m dead, Magnolia realized. She placed both feet on the
plush carpeting—and felt them sink into a warm spot of pee.
“Yech,” she said, “Sorry, guys—won’t happen again.” She threw
on a coat, stuffed her dirty hair under a hat, and found the leashes,
which she’d dropped by the front door when she’d staggered in at
midnight from Abbey’s. On Broadway, she paused at the newsstand.
Biggie pulled to keep moving, and she obliged. Perhaps the dogs intu
itively knew she should avoid buying today’s newspapers on the
chance that media reporters had used their column inches as assault
weapons aimed in her direction.
She had read one item about herself, on Saturday. One was enough.
“Magnolia Gold has left her post at Scarborough Magazines for per
sonal reasons.” She wondered why any company thought they did you
a favor by sending out a press release announcing you’d left for “per
sonal reasons”? Short of their believing someone had contracted a life-threatening disease, did people suspect the personal reason was anything other than the minor detail of no longer having a job? Did
readers imagine a more nuanced tale? She really, really wanted to get
to know her cousins. She decided to go ahead with the sex change.
The sidewalks were dense with strangers—senior citizens, nannies
pushing strollers, the occasional person in sleek business clothes rush
ing, perhaps late for a therapy appointment. She had no idea that dur
ing the workweek the Upper West Side was such a beehive of activity.
“Playing hooky?” Manuel, the doorman, asked with a wink as Big
gie and Lola stopped for their treats at his concierge desk. Ever since
the evening with Tyler, Manuel seemed to think she and he were ami
gos. Would she need to come up with a story to explain her current
life? “Got canned?” “Between jobs?” She worked up to “have a new schedule” and kept walking toward the elevator. Magnolia did not
want to become one of those women whose best friend was the door
man.
Upstairs, she brewed a pot of coffee and logged on to her laptop.
The day before and the day before that, she hadn’t been willing to
face her e-mail. She didn’t know what she feared more, a tragically
small number of messages from it’s-not-enough-that-I-succeed
you’ve-got-to-fail acquaintances—or an avalanche. She didn’t care
what other people thought. Except when she did. Like, she had to
admit, now.
“You’ve got mail,” the friendliest voice she’d heard that day
announced. Yes, she did—from scarborough.com, condenast.com,
hearst.com, timeinc.com, meredith.com, and every other magazine
company where she’d had lunch buddies and former colleagues.
Clearly, the departing missive she’d hastily drafted had bounced all
over town. There were fifty-two messages, divided almost evenly
between sermon-spewers and the sympathetically bitchy, who real
ized that there but for the grace of God went they.
Group One apparently believed losing your job is a blessing in dis
guise; these things are always for the best; if life gives you lemons,
make lemonade; one day Magnolia was going to thank herself for this
happening; and—her favorite—when one window closes, another
opens. What was she supposed to do, jump through it?
She noticed such wisdom tended to come from editors and publish
ers who’d rolled through life on a tide of professional good luck they’d
grown to mistake for a birthright—though a few of the bromides
were from less fortunate souls who simply appeared to have bought
into their own magazines’ spiritual porn and psychobabble.
Maybe the people who sent these words meant well, she reminded
herself; they didn’t have to write at all. But their lectures left a bitter
aftertaste—the suggestion that nothing professionally rotten had
happened and she should put her setback in perspective. Magnolia
knew that’s exactly what she would do—when she was good and
ready, dammit—and she didn’t need to get a push from editors still
ruling tiny sovereign states. Magnolia saved these glad tidings for a later response, along with
those from the busier-than-thou’s who suggested getting together for
lunch—several months later, assuming their insane calendars ever
allowed an opening.
She far preferred dear, sweet Group Two. Every one of their touch
ing communiqués was poetry.
What the fuck happened?
Begin SSRI Rx ASAP.
This totally sucks.
Raw deal.
Which bitch is responsible? Bebe or Darlene?
Tell me the backstory.
Call! Any hour.
You’ve been robbed.
This happened to me, several times, and you couldn’t get me out of
bed for weeks.
Don’t get mad—get even and, her favorite, a medley on the theme
of Jock: Did a bigger jerk ever roam the earth?
These sentiments made Magnolia feel understood, and after she’d
printed them out to savor, she responded to each. By the time she was
finished, it was 2:30, and she’d set up fourteen breakfast, lunch, and
cocktail dates for later in the month and into the next. Her lack of
work was going to run up quite a tab on the corporate credit cards of
industry pals who still had them. When life gives you lemons, order a
gin and tonic.
At the moment, however, she was hypercaffeinated and famished,
and realized she’d eaten through anything in her kitchen she could
pretend was a meal. Order in lunch at home? Pathetic. Eat alone in a
restaurant? Worse. Go hungry? Unthinkable. Go shopping? That’s
what a grown-up would do. Magnolia started making a grocery list
just as the phone rang.
“Your boxes should arrive between four and eight,” an unidenti
fied wonk from Human Resources announced. “And Howard needs
you to come in and sign your papers tomorrow at nine or ten. Which
time works for you?” Five minutes till never works for me, Magnolia thought. “I’ve had
a dental appointment scheduled for months,” she lied. “Can’t make it
until Thursday.” That was the earliest she could picture herself walk
ing through Scary’s door.
“Howard’s at a conference on Thursday—it’ll have to be Friday.
Ten.”
Magnolia entered it in her calendar. She looked at this week and
the next. Emptiness loomed like a persistent vegetative state.
As she went downstairs and out the door, the sergeant’s voice
started up again, and trailed her to the grocery st
ore. Carpe diem,
little unemployed princess. Now that you’ve received this unexpected
gift of time, don’t blow it.
Throwing groceries into her cart, Magnolia considered the arc of her
life. Every summer during high school and college she’d merrily slaved
away at some sort of internship, and since then had known nothing but
a buzz of work. Many of her friends prayed for something they called
me-time, dreaming of pedicures and trips to Patagonia—anything
for a break from kids and pleasure-sucking jobs. Why couldn’t one of
them have been kicked out instead of her? For Magnolia, work was
first-class fun attached to a paycheck.
She returned to her apartment, unloaded her bags of the six food
groups—low-fat cottage cheese, Greek yogurt, strawberries, coffee ice
cream, dark chocolate, and cashews. As she passed by the big, gilt mir
ror in her foyer, she caught a glimpse of herself and stopped for a
closer look. She had a thought. This would be the perfect moment in
which to disappear, let’s say to Brazil, for breast implants. But she would never dare; it would be her karma to wind up profiled on Dateline with silicone dripping out of her nose.
She needed another idea. Take a course? The community center
around the corner—a new building which had won architectural
awards but could nonetheless be easily mistaken for a minimum secu
rity prison—had recently sent a catalog. She found it stuffed between
overdue bills and unopened annual reports from companies in which
she hadn’t realized she’d invested.
Magnolia spent forty minutes studying the community center’s offerings. Who knew, just blocks away, you could enroll in “Cheese
cake,” “Israeli Dancing with Shmulik,” and “Mah-jongg for Begin
ners”? But what got Magnolia juiced was “Texas Hold ‘Em.” Poker
chips! Free snacks! Then Magnolia read the fine print. The class was
for forties and fifties singles.
She tossed the catalog in the garbage and curled up on her couch.
What she wanted to do was … nothing. All the enticements that had
drawn her to Manhattan, which she’d shoehorned into her frenetic
schedule, suddenly seemed as appetizing as a black banana. Sample
sales? For clothes to wear where? Galleries, the theater, ballet, opera,
literary readings, scones with clotted cream at Lady Mendl’s Tea
Salon—the thought of indulging in any of them made her feel down
graded from bummed out to dejected, because there it was: she didn’t
want to be alone. Every friend who lived in the city was busy working,
and her other buddies were young matrons exiled in the burbs, busy
with lactation consultants and landscape gardeners.
A man in her life might be pleased to know she could steal away on
an afternoon for a long lunch, with him for dessert. But there was no
man, and she shouldn’t be taking the time to look for one. She should
be looking for a job.
Money wasn’t her instant concern—she was still under contract with Scary as editor in chief of Lady and could handle the bills for a while. But soon enough she’d need a salary, and editor-in-chief posi
tions didn’t pop up often. She’d need to engineer meetings, light up
the room like Forty-second Street, and be meticulous about what job
she took next. Wrong choice? Hello, Has-Been.
Thinking about it all made Magnolia drowsy. If she closed her
eyes, she could rouse herself in twenty minutes, shower, put on some
thing other than her baggiest jeans and run to Zabar’s. Sasha had just called to see if a group from Bebe could stop over after work with a bottle of wine. Magnolia would need at least some chips and
salsa, and she definitely required a quickie blow-dry and Think Pink
manicure.
A few minutes later—it felt like minutes, yet it was dark outside—
Manuel buzzed to ask if he could send up some people who said they were from her office. Forget the blow-dry and manicure. She rushed
to brush her teeth, but there was no time to change her clothes or
even put on lipstick.
She opened the door. “Sign here,” said a beefy messenger. “This is
the first load. Where do you want ‘em?” At least ten cartons as big as
Bernese mountain dogs stood in the vestibule outside her door.
“Here will be fine.” The delivery—which she’d forgotten about—
was joined by a second load, then another. But it wouldn’t be fine, see
ing her work life reduced to thirty-two cartons she’d have no place to
unpack. She supervised the messengers stacking the boxes in what
now looked like a war memorial blocking her foyer mirror. At least
she wouldn’t have to look at the face of a whiny malcontent every
time she walked to the kitchen.
“We’re done,” Mr. Muscle said. He gave her what she took as a
meaningful once-over.
Is this guy coming on to me, she wondered, dressed the way I am,
in a ratty Michigan sweatshirt? Then it occurred to Magnolia that he
and his sidekick expected a tip. To have her apartment become a stor
age bin was going to cost her thirty bucks.
The intercom buzzed again. The Bebe gang was on its way up. Ruthie, Fredericka, Sasha, and Cameron trooped through the door,
throwing their coats and bags on the boxes. She let herself be con
sumed by their embraces, not noticing that the door had opened again.
There was Felicity, lugging a case of beer. Bringing up the rear was
Bebe, carrying numerous large pizza boxes.
“Magnolia, you look like shit,” Bebe said.
If someone had used the Heimlich maneuver, they couldn’t have
got Magnolia to respond.
“C’mon, don’t be a hard-ass,” Bebe said, laughing. “I said it with
love. Got a church key? Let’s party like we actually like each other.”
“Don’t worry about a thing,” Felicity said. In five minutes Felicity
emerged from Magnolia’s kitchen with dishes and silverware and
placed them next to the pizza boxes on Magnolia’s seldom used for
mal mahogany table. This was testimony to the historical footnote
that ten years ago, as Mrs. Wally Fleigelman, she’d impersonated a grown-up and thrown dinner parties on wedding china. The group
attacked the pizza and beer.
“To the enemy of my enemy!” Bebe said by way of a toast, clicking
her beer bottle with Magnolia’s. “May that twat Raven slit her throat
with her own tongue.”
Magnolia checked to see if the others—who had to take orders
from Raven every day—were joining Bebe in the salutation. They
were silent, except for Felicity’s “Here, here.”
Bebe went on. “Hell sized her up and took a dump in her office.”
Bebe’s laughter ricocheted off Magnolia’s living room walls.
Bebe took another beer. “That Jock, sense of humor like a chair,” she
said. No argument there, Magnolia agreed. “On his birthday, I had the
art department mock up our gun cover, with me pointing the pistol at
him. Damn, Fredericka, why didn’t you bring a copy to show Magnolia?
Dickhead couldn’t crack a smile. Started going off on me about how
that issue sucked, stores sending it back, Darlene needing to do a little
dance about it to advertisers. In my face until I walked out on him.
”
A phone rang to the sound of the Patridge Family singing, “I Think
I Love You.” Felicity fished out her cell phone and took the call.
“Gotta tottle,” Felicity said. “Pressing engagement.”
“You with the ‘pressing engagements,’ ” Bebe said to Felicity.
“Always disappearing.” Bebe then shouted “Beer here!” to Cam as if
he were hawking drinks at Yankee Stadium.
Bebe at center stage was, Magnolia realized, strangely relaxing.
She felt like a throw pillow in her own living room and didn’t even
have to open her mouth. The others chimed in from time to time, but
it was Bebe’s show.
Magnolia wondered why she had come. It was too late for the two
of them to become allies, if that’s what the star wanted, and she
doubted that Bebe genuinely liked or cared about her. Someone must
have told her that it was good form to bond with your staff, and per
haps that’s what the woman thought she was doing.
By eleven, one by one, Sasha, Cameron, Ruthie, and Fredericka
peeled off, with the refuse from dinner bagged and ready to dump in
the garbage. Only Bebe was left, downing the last beer. “Nice place you’ve got here,” she said to Magnolia, as if just notic
ing the surroundings. “Not what I would have pictured.”
“Really?” Magnolia asked. “How did you see me living?”
“Truthfully?” Bebe asked. “Never thought about it.” Her big laugh
boomed again. “Hey, where’s your john?” she asked. Magnolia
pointed her toward the white marble powder room off the foyer.
When Bebe emerged, Magnolia was glad to see her put on her coat.
“So, Magnolia, about the magazine?” Bebe asked on her way out.
“Yes, Bebe?” Why doesn’t she just go home and Google herself for
entertainment, Magnolia wondered.
“Give me your esteemed opinion,” Bebe said in a surprisingly seri
ous voice. “Should I cut my losses and pull out?”
“Of the magazine?”
“No, Iraq,” Bebe said. “Of course, the magazine.”
Was it the beer talking? From what Magnolia knew of the partner
ship with Scary, both parties were obligated for a lot longer than six
months.
“If you do that, aren’t there consequences?” Magnolia asked.
“Consequences?” Bebe said. “Honey, that’s what lawyers are for.”
“You know what I admire about you, Bebe—you’re a risk taker,”