Little Pink Slips

by Sally Koslow

  How big a fool had she made of herself ? Enough so that her first

  instinct was to go back to bed. This is why people have dogs, she

  reminded herself as she cleaned up Biggie and Lola’s mess, to make

  sure that they don’t simply pull the covers over their heads and never

  get up after they have thoroughly embarrassed themselves. She fell

  into some jeans and a sweatshirt, grabbed a raincoat and hat, and

  attached the dogs’ leashes.

  “Some mail was dropped off for you, Miss Gold,” her doorman said

  as she walked out.

  More subpoenas? They could wait. “I’ll get it on the way back,”

  she said. Magnolia took the dogs to Central Park; the day was surpris

  ingly warm, with the promise of spring in the air, and the rain stopped

  the minute she started walking. You weren’t supposed to let dogs loose

  at this time of the day, but what the hell—in the ranking of mistakes

  she might have made in the last twelve hours, the offense was small.

  She unhooked Biggie’s and Lola’s leashes and for a full hour watched

  them revel in the wet grass. Her headache faded, she walked back home, and brought up the mail. Sure enough, the thin letter was a

  subpoena. Bebe and Jock’s trial would be starting next week, and she

  was cordially invited to appear in court.

  The second piece of mail was large and heavy, taped shut in a big

  manila envelope with no stamps or return address. Inside was another

  sealed envelope, and a handwritten note.

  “Magnolia,” it read. “I’ve been wanting to show you my book for a

  long time. My agent called last night to say it sold. If you’d do me the

  favor of reading it, I would be very grateful. Also, I need some help

  with the dedication and acknowledgments.”

  Magnolia ripped open the second envelope to find a manuscript of

  more than five hundred typed pages. The first page had only a few words: A Friend Indeed by Cameron Dane.

  She walked to her living room couch, and began to read. Magnolia

  read through the afternoon, well into the night, and long past sunrise,

  stopping only for coffee.

  At nine, she dialed Cameron’s number. His voice mail picked up.

  “If you wanted to ask me out,” she said, “you could have just

  called.”

  C h a p t e r 4 0

  A Goose Is Cooked

  Magnolia slipped into a seat in the remarkably unsupreme courtroom. Elizabeth Lester Duvall, her short hair shorter than usual, had parked herself next to the Post’s Mike McCourt, most likely willing him to cover the trial through her own eyes. Darlene

  Knudson sat behind a row of attorneys—although the lawyer who’d

  administered Magnolia’s deposition was conspicuously absent. Had

  he been hired by Central Casting, she wondered, to try to unhinge

  her? On the far right, Felicity Dingle—whose knitting needles were

  clicking furiously on a long, drab garment—was stationed next to

  Arthur Montgomery, Bebe’s lead lawyer.

  “All rise,” said a court officer. As everyone in the courtroom stood, a

  short, stout woman in half-glasses waddled to the judge’s chair. Mag

  nolia deflated. She’d been expecting the smash of a gavel and, in the

  role of judge, was thinking along the lines of Meryl Streep. The

  crowd had barely taken their seats when “the defense calls John

  Crawford Flanagan Jr., CEO of Scarborough Magazines” rang out in

  the room. Jock—on this, the second day of the trial—strolled to the

  witness stand for his swearing-in.

  “Why did you enter into an agreement to publish a magazine with Ms. Bebe Blake?” a lawyer from Team Bebe said. Jock pondered the

  question as if he’d been asked to name and spell the capital of Uzbek

  istan. After a moment, he furrowed his brow and said, “We thought it

  was a potentially profitable idea.”

  “Could you please define ‘we’?”

  “Our team of top executives,” he said with a thinly disguised tone

  of contempt, reeling off a list that included Darlene’s name but,

  Magnolia noted, not her own.

  Yesterday, Magnolia had stayed home and tried to focus on her proposal for Voyeur. She’d been advised that she might be called to testify later in the week and had dutifully turned in an overflowing box of

  notes and files. But knowing the trial was taking place just miles from

  her home had made her too twitchy to work. That, and the fact that

  she couldn’t stop thinking about Cameron, who she thought might be

  there. Today she boarded the subway and found the State Supreme

  Court of New York.

  As soon as she sat down, she scanned the courtroom for Cameron.

  She couldn’t, however, find his face in the crowd.

  Several days had passed before Cameron returned the phone mes

  sage Magnolia had left after she read his manuscript. This gave Mag

  nolia ample time to impale herself with regret. Could she have

  misread his book? With Abbey, her reality meter, away on her honey

  moon, she went into a spin, obsessing day and insomnia-filled night.

  Ultimately, she decided she’d got the subtext of the book just fine;

  there was, in fact, nothing sub about it. The heroine was one Daisy

  Silver, a magazine editor, albeit taller, slimmer-hipped, and blonder

  than she. The hero—a shy, wry colleague—yearned for her. The sex

  was hot, the love scenes graphic but romantic, and the dialogue,

  steamy and real. There were a few testosterone explosions along the

  way—a murder, a terrorist act, the requisite car chase—but the end

  ing was pure Hollywood, and the writing, clear, clever, and poignant.

  Maybe it was her assessment of the writing—or rather her lack of

  assessment—that had tripped her up. Maybe she’d been so focused on

  the plot she hadn’t made it evident to Cam that his talent took her

  breath away. Maybe he was horribly and legitimately disappointed, not to mention furious, on that count. Maybe he now regretted reveal

  ing his feelings.

  As the days passed, Magnolia’s worry crescendoed to the most

  painful possibility of all—maybe their one high-as-a-kite kiss had

  succeeded in terminating his fantasy. When Cameron did finally call,

  he talked about everything except what had happened between them.

  Then he flew to California on a mission he didn’t explain.

  Magnolia was left with her maybes, including maybe on Cam

  eron’s return she should beg him to retreat to friendship, with its

  comforts of weightless silence, scrubbed-face honesty, and chaste but

  unconditional love—if such a state were now possible.

  She looked up. Jock was still on the stand.

  “How long does it take for most new magazines to turn a profit?”

  the lawyer asked him. “Ballpark figures.”

  “A year or two,” Jock said. Above his eye, a blue vein throbbed like

  a tiny blinker flashing “stress.” The lawyer reminded him he’d sworn

  to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. “But

  more often it takes five years, or even longer,” he added.

  “So it was unreasonable to expect Bebe to be profitable anytime soon?” he asked. Jock answered with a flurry of figures, but all eyes—

  even the judge’s—had turned to the back of the room. In a tweed suit

  and a boa, Bebe sashayed to th
e front of the room. She was treating

  the courtroom’s center aisle as if it were a red carpet, looking from

  side to side and smiling for invisible paparazzi. Like the Wave, a buzz

  moved forward as she progressed to her seat.

  “Don’t mind me,” she said loudly to no one in particular. “The

  president is in town. Traffic sucks.” Everyone stared. She shrugged.

  “Don’t blame me—I didn’t vote for him.”

  Judge Tannenbaum looked over her glasses and gave Bebe a stern

  stare. “Glad you could join us, Miss Blake,” she said. “Mr. Mont

  gomery, please, continue.”

  “I have concluded,” he said. One of Cromwell, Adams, and Case’s

  lead attorneys stepped forward to cross-examine.

  “Mr. Flanagan,” he said, “how much money does Scarborough

  Magazines stand to lose by Bebe Blake abandoning your co-venture?” “One hundred million dollars,” he said.

  Magnolia was familiar with Scary’s case. Who wasn’t, the way it

  was being tried in the papers? But where Jock was getting this num

  ber, she didn’t know.

  When the court officer declared an adjournment until two, Mag

  nolia made her way through the crowds to the steps outside court. As

  she reached the bottom, someone shouted her name, startling her. She

  stumbled into a large puddle of mud and soaked her best black suede

  boots. Magnolia looked up in time for a television camera to catch her

  saying, “Fuck.”

  “How do you think Scary’s doing?” a second voice shouted. It was

  Mike McCourt, approaching with a notebook.

  “No comment,” she said. Wally had warned her not to talk to the

  press while her settlement was dragging on, as it was, like a Wagner

  ian opera.

  “Is it true you’re on the short list to start a new magazine

  for another company?” Mike asked. Who fed this guy his intelligence? Abbey and Cam were the only people she’d told about Voyeur, and neither one would squeak a word. The leak had to be from Fancy.

  “No comment,” she said.

  “So, I guess that means ‘yes’?” Mike asked. Magnolia was consider

  ing if she should say, “No comment” once more when Mike craned

  his neck to her left.

  “Mr. Dane?” Mike yelled. “Mr. Dane, that you?”

  Magnolia turned as well, and saw Cameron walking toward her.

  “Some book deal I’m hearing rumors about,” Mike said to Cam.

  “Hardcover rights, paperback, audio, foreign in fourteen countries,

  and a possible TV series and film option. What’s up?”

  “You must have me confused with someone else, buddy,” Cameron

  said amiably, as he walked toward Magnolia, grabbed her elbow, and

  steered her out of the throng.

  “Cam, is what Mike says true?” Magnolia asked.

  He laughed off the question. “Hungry?”

  “When have I ever not been hungry?”

  “I’m in the mood for dim sum,” he said. “Want to join me?” They began walking to Mott Street. “Did you catch my grand legal

  performance yesterday?” he asked.

  “Really?” Magnolia asked. “You testified?” There had been no

  report of it on television, online, or in the press.

  “Chapter and verse about how much money Bebe spent on this and that,” Cam said. “I assure you, Court TV is not flashing a contract in my face.”

  “I’m praying I won’t be called,” she said. “It would kill me to help

  any of these barbarians win a dime.”

  They reached the restaurant and continued to dissect the trial. But

  what Magnolia wanted to talk about was them. As Cameron’s hand

  reached for a sparerib, she imagined it under her skirt, above her

  soggy boot, inching upward.

  “Chicken feet?” he said.

  In her mind, the hand warmed her as its sensuous journey con

  tinued.

  “Magnolia?”

  “Excuse me,” she said. “What’s this about cold feet?”

  He looked at her strangely. “Chicken feet. You don’t like these

  suckers, do you?” The dim sum lady was standing by their table, try

  ing to tempt them with some sad little body parts that looked like the

  last remains after a nuclear holocaust.

  “I’ll pass,” she said. “Thanks.”

  “The desserts, please,” Cam said. A few Chinese words flew across the

  room like insects. Sesame rice dumplings, mango pudding, and sticky

  buns in lotus leaves appeared on a cart beside their small table, which

  was nestled underneath a window. As Cam leaned forward to check

  them out, his thigh brushed hers. He poured the last drops of green tea

  into their cups and raised one. It looked fragile and small in his hand.

  “You’ve been on my mind,” he said.

  Finally, Magnolia thought. She took a deep breath. “You’ve been

  on my mind, too,” she admitted.

  “I originally called my book The Shy Guy, but the editor changed it,” he said. “Deal point.” He laughed a musical bass that Magnolia

  realized had been an essential background noise in her life for several years. “Shoot me. I’m talking like some L.A. studio exec.” He shifted to an imperious voice. “‘Hello, my name is Trevor, and I demand that my pathetically underpaid assistant roll my calls the minute people who’ve tried to reach me walk out of their offices.’ “

  “Please, don’t start walking around, wearing a headset,” she said.

  “Promise,” he said. As Magnolia waited for Cameron to pick up his

  original train of thought, they heard a bang on the window.

  “Get your butts out here,” Bebe mouthed through the glass.

  Cam and Magnolia looked at each other. “The queen beckons,” he

  said. Cam paid the bill, and they gathered their coats and umbrellas

  and met her outside.

  “I haven’t been to Chinatown in years,” Bebe said gaily, her arms

  filled with large, flimsy plastic sacks. For a woman who, according to

  every paper and newsmagazine, was worried about a twenty-million

  dollar investment going south, her spirits were remarkably intact.

  “Here, have a bag,” she said, handing Magnolia a Gucci knockoff

  fashioned of industrial-strength vinyl. She cocked her head, sized up

  Cam, and fished out a pimp-worthy faux gold Rolex Oyster, which she

  attached to his wrist. “For the gentleman,” she said.

  “Thanks, Bebe,” he said. They all began walking back to the court

  house. “How do you think the trial’s going?”

  “Are you kidding?” Bebe snorted. “Fabulous! That judge loathes

  Jock. Can’t you see the venom in her eyes?”

  “You think?” Cameron said.

  “What’s your esteemed opinion, Magnolia?” Bebe asked.

  “Honest, Bebe, I can’t even see the judge’s eyes,” she said, “with

  the glasses and all.”

  Bebe stopped and scowled at Magnolia. “Why am I asking you any

  way? I’m not supposed to even talk to either one of you.” She ducked

  into yet another handbag stall. “Later!” she yelled.

  Magnolia and Cam reached the courthouse. She returned to her

  seat, and Cameron joined her. Darlene was now on the stand, explaining her role as Bebe’s publisher. “I was in charge of the magazine’s business department,” she said. “Ad sales and marketing.” Magnolia was tuning out Darlene, concentrating only on Cam’s

  closeness—until a document flashed on an ov
erhead screen.

  “Is this your pay stub?” the lawyer asked.

  “Yes, it is,” Darlene said, swelled with both pregnancy and pride.

  Magnolia had always suspected Darlene made a lot more money than

  she did, but with the evidence bigger than life, she sat there, her

  shoulders hunched, and slumped.

  “Could you cringe more quietly?” Cameron whispered. “I can hear

  your teeth grinding.”

  “What galls me is she still has a job,” Magnolia whispered. Dar

  lene had been moved to Scary’s business development unit, and insiders expected her to soon replace the current publisher of Dazzle. Darlene’s paycheck made way for wearying charts of ad revenues,

  which Darlene interpreted for the lawyer in anesthetizing detail.

  “Want to duck out?” Magnolia whispered to Cameron. “Catch a

  movie at the Angelika?”

  “Let’s wait a few minutes,” he said. “It looks like Bebe’s attorney’s

  going to cross-examine.” Arthur Montgomery stepped forward.

  “Is this your signature?” he asked Darlene.

  “Yes, it is,” she said. On the screen was a statement from the auditing bureau which tracks magazines’ circulations. “I see that Bebe sold 480,500 copies per issue during its year of publication. Is that true?”

  Anyone in the courtroom who wasn’t blind could see that.

  “Yes,” Darlene said.

  “So, can you explain these figures for me, please?” On the screen, to

  the right of the statement, a second document appeared, but this one stated that Bebe had sold, on average, only 278,935 copies per issue. Darlene’s eyes darted to Jock, the screen, and then to her attorneys.

  One of them sprung up from his chair and waved his hand like the

  smartest kid in the class. “I object,” he said. “Your honor, I object.”

  The judge peered down at him. “Would counsel approach the

  bench, please,” she said. All Magnolia could make of the conversa

  tion—which lasted for a few minutes—were aggressive hand ges

  tures on the attorney’s part. “Counsel may continue,” Judge Tannenbaum said to Bebe’s lawyer.

  “May I remind you, Mrs. Knudson, that you are under oath,”

  Arthur Montgomery said. “Which of these two statements is cor

  rect?”

  Darlene mumbled softly.

  “Could you speak up for everyone to hear, please?” the judge

  directed.

  Darlene returned to her normal speaking voice. “The one on the