by Sally Koslow
of his colorist.
“You, Mr. Jones, will be mistaken for a star,” she said. “In fact, I do
believe you will get lucky tonight.”
“I believe I have gotten lucky already,” he said. “Did you see the
tall Spanish guy at the bar around eleven? Great abs?”
“I am sorry to say at that hour I was asleep.” “Well, here’s the deal,” Malachy said, as he helped her into the
limo. “He’s a seat filler tonight, and we’re going to meet at the end of
the evening. But don’t worry. The car will still pick you up to take you
to the party.”
“Got it,” Magnolia said, as a surge of Fargo shyness kicked in at the
thought of having to navigate an Oscar bash solo. But, she told her
self, like everything else this year, it would be character-building.
Given the crush of limos, it took almost thirty minutes to drive
twenty blocks on Sunset Boulevard, and the car came to a complete
halt on Hollywood, two blocks from Highland.
“Let’s walk,” Malachy suggested. They joined the swarm of other
guests already perspiring under the blinding afternoon sun. It took
twenty-five minutes to get near the red carpet.
But there it was. Hair extensions! Cleavage! A lyric poem to excess,
the epicenter of hyperbole. Vince Vaughn, Nicole Kidman, and Bill
Murray looked taller than she had imagined; Jude Law, Reese With
erspoon, and Ralph Fiennes, shorter. Two feet from her, Catherine
Zeta-Jones dissed Renee Zellweger, who turned to chat up a man in a
cowboy hat. Her ex? No, Tim McGraw, with Faith Hill.
A man bumped into her as she and Malachy got pushed to one side.
“That you, Magnolia?”
“Hugh!” Magnolia said, but when she blinked, he was gone.
“You know Hugh Grant?” Malachy asked.
“Long story,” she said.
In one corner, a phalanx of reporters and photographers charged
Angelina Jolie, dressed tonight as an impossibly beautiful angel of
death. A rogue state of hip-hop artists, led by Jay-Z and Sean Diddy
Combs, all but danced its way across the carpet, nearly colliding with a
frizzy-haired, fashion-resistant gentleman Magnolia recognized as the
director of the creature feature nominated for best picture. From far
across the red carpet, she spotted Joan Rivers accosting Bebe, though it
might be the other way around. Oprah and her best friend Gayle—
in Magnolia’s exact gown—arrived, bejeweled and bemused, and ex
changed compliments with Cate Blanchett. Everyone greeted Jack
Nicholson as if he were Jesus, Buddha, and Muhammad combined. Prada, Yves Saint Laurent, Gucci, Ralph Lauren, Jean Paul Gaultier,
J. Mendel, Vera Wang, Dior, Chanel, and Armani—the gang was all
here. The tuxedos were exceptional, especially Ellen DeGeneres’s.
Magnolia wished Abbey could be here just to do a head count of the
eight-carat-and-larger diamonds, although it would be more fun to
critique the fashion boo-boos. In eighty-degree heat, why was Hilary
Swank in chinchilla? Did Penélope Cruz think a bubble skirt flattered
anyone over the age of ten? Magnolia hoped she wasn’t watching it all
with her mouth agape. She circled wide-eyed through the crowd, knowing it wasn’t just fodder for Dazzle but the world’s best cocktail party.
Eventually, Malachy grabbed her hand as they were ushered into
the theater. Passing through a glass curtain, she wanted to study the
photos from the previous years’ Best Pictures, but like a herd of royal
cattle, she, Malachy, and the other three-thousand-plus chosen ones
were verbally prodded toward their seats. The two of them headed for
the uppermost balcony. It didn’t matter, at least not to Magnolia.
Tonight was the best one she’d had in—well, ever. If celebrity wor
ship were religion, this was Jerusalem. The thought of Cameron
bounced in and out of her brain—how great it would be to chew over
this vaudeville of narcissism with him—but then the overture began.
She leaned back.
Malachy seemed far less taken with it all than Magnolia. He fid
dled with the digital buttons next to his seat, ordered them cocktails,
and any number of times checked his BlackBerry. But for Magnolia, it
didn’t matter if it was for Best Actress or Best Sound Mixing—when a
winner was announced she cheered as if her mother had won.
“Excuse me for just a minute,” Malachy said as the third hour of
the ceremony began. “I’m going to the little boy’s room.” Magnolia
barely heard him, since the next award was for Best Actor. The bright
lights beamed on every face, each trying harder than the next to look
as if he didn’t give a flying fuck.
And the winner is … “Johnny Depp!”
The auditorium erupted in applause. Magnolia stood up and
started clapping. “Johnny—I love you,” she shouted in a rebel yell. She may have actually whistled. Until he spoke, however, she barely noticed
that a body had slid in next to her, filling Malachy’s empty seat.
“That guy your type?” said the seat filler.
She whipped her head around so fast an earring flew off.
“Cameron?” Magnolia blinked in disbelief.
“Hey, aren’t you that magazine chick?” he asked.
“And aren’t you the writer whose novel’s getting all that buzz?”
“Good dress,” he said.
She wanted to answer with something appropriate, but had no idea
what appropriate might be. He looked as good in a tuxedo as she had
imagined, from his piqué shirt, to studs the exact blue of his eyes,
right down to his feet, shod in dignified black, and not—thank God—
in velvet slippers embroidered with martini glasses, like the stranger
to her left. She continued to stare. “What a coincidence,” she finally
sputtered.
“Do you think maybe we should sit down?” he said. After one of
the more abbreviated speeches, Johnny Depp had already left the
stage. Magnolia and Cam were the only people in their corner of the
third balcony left standing. Hands all around were motioning for
them to stop blocking the view. But first, Cameron bent over and
retrieved her earring, which had landed—like an offering—directly
at his feet.
He took her hand and laughed as he placed the earring in it. “Mag
nolia, it’s good to see you,” he said as he slid his cool fingers down her
bare back, let them rest above her hip, and pulled her as close as he
could. “What a guy has to do to get your attention.”
She leaned into Cam both to steady her balance and to see if he
was real. “How’d you come up with this idea?”
“Abbey.”
“Really?” was all she could say.
“And your publisher, Malachy—great guy—engineered it. The
magnolias, though,” he said, nodding his head up and down, “my
idea. All mine.”
The clapping started again, but Magnolia was no longer paying
attention. “I love those flowers.” She started to cry and opened her tiny bag in search of a tissue. Fortunately, anticipating her reaction to
the film clip of the year’s dead Academy members, she’d packed as
thick a wad as her tiny bag would allow. “I absolutely love them.�
� Her
hands were shaking.
“I’ve missed you,” he said, and sounded not one bit flip.
Say something, Magnolia. Say something that shows this man he’s been in your dreams for the last year, that every day you’ve asked yourself whether you made the right decision. Do. Not. Blow. It.
“I’ve been kind of an ass,” she said. It wasn’t poetry, but it was
utterly from the heart.
“That you have,” he said. “But I have always kind of liked your
ass—and I’ve been kind of an ass, too.”
“Congratulations on your second book deal,” she said. “I’ve read
about it everywhere.” Now that Leo DiCaprio was signed to play the lead in A Friend Indeed, Cameron’s advance for his next novel commanded a jaw-dropping sum.
“Thanks, but now I have to write it in one year, which is already
ticking away. Those advances you hear about—you only get a sliver at
the beginning. You’ve actually got to write the sucker to see any real
money. Imagine that?” As he smiled, he pushed up his glasses in that
little boy way Magnolia never got tired of seeing. “Congratulations
on your job, which, I guess, isn’t that new anymore.”
“With the shelf life of editors, ten months is a lifetime.”
“Do you love it?” he asked. What he was really saying was you better love it, fool, because look what you gave up.
Magnolia certainly didn’t like analyzing the rising and falling
futures of celebrities as if they were pork bellies, and she hated to
think that at the end of her life, her finest accomplishment would
have been to have persuaded the movie-star-of-the-month to do a Dazzle cover. But all the standard editor hash—that she loved as much as always. She’d be lying if she denied it.
“I like it fine,” she said, “for however long it lasts—but I have no
illusions about growing old in this or any job. Being editor in chief of Dazzle could last for twenty years—or twenty more minutes.” “So it’s right up there in security with writing books and screen
plays.”
“Like trying to weather a hurricane in an inflatable kayak.”
It felt good just to be talking to Cam, but the people around her
didn’t see it that way. She realized she’d best cut to the chase.
“Are you coming back to New York?” she asked, and didn’t care if
she came off borderline psycho for being direct. Cameron was here
next to her. Now.
He shrugged. “I’m house-sitting till May. After that, who can say?”
Don’t expect too much, she chanted to herself. Enjoy this little moment, even if that’s all it is. Yet the editor in her was already writing the headline: MAGS AND CAM—THEY’RE BAAACK.
“Could you see yourself ever moving out here?” he asked.
“I’m the kind of bike rider who never likes to shift gears,” she
admitted. She knew there was no way she’d give up her job.
“What do you say we just think about tonight then,” he said. “That
is, if you don’t have some fabled party to attend.”
“I do,” she whispered and ran her fingers up his arm. “But I heard
about this far more exclusive party. At the Four Seasons. Suite 492.
The champagne is ready, the room is full of flowers, and I can guaran
tee an enthusiastic showing of your fan base.”
“Ah, the director proposes a Hollywood ending?” he asked.
“Too big a cliché for you?”
“Let’s stay on point here. As the writer, I will consider the sugges
tion, but I have one immediate thought—a proper Hollywood ending
needs to include a kiss.”
“Interesting,” Magnolia said, softly. “Show me how you’d write
that.”
He did.
From the front of the auditorium the nominees for Best Picture
were being announced. The room thundered. An entourage of win
ners ascended the stage and began thanking everyone from their
baby’s nanny to their brother’s chiropodist. Every eye in the theater
focused on the stage. All except four.
“Who are these people?” Magnolia asked, taking one last look at the stage before she put Cameron’s hand in hers and nodded toward
the exit. “I have never been more bored with anything in my life.
C’mon.”
Magnolia and Cameron looked at each other. “What the hell?” he
said, and standing up and wrapping his arm around Magnolia’s waist,
he started leading her toward the door. “We’ve got work to do.”
This was a job at which Magnolia had a feeling she would excel.
About the Author
Sally Koslow, who was born and raised in Fargo, North Dakota, is the former editor in chief of McCall’s magazine. Married and the mother of two sons, she lives in New York City. Little Pink Slips is her first novel.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
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