Little Pink Slips

by Sally Koslow

  Bebe’s attention had moved on.

  “Holy fuck, it’s him, isn’t it?” she said, fixated on the former presi

  dent. “And her.” She began to dart in the couple’s direction.

  Magnolia saw a flicker of terror in Jock’s eye. As the former presi

  dent was swarmed by wide-eyed females, Jock swiftly created a no-fly

  zone around Hillary, whom he adroitly steered toward a cluster of

  kingpin advertisers. His moves were as smooth as a swan dive.

  For a split second Bebe stood paralyzed, then replaced her aston

  ishment with cavalier amusement. She turned to Magnolia. “Gotta

  get to my next party—one with real food,” she said. “Want to join

  me?”

  “But there’s a whole spread in the next room,” where Magnolia

  could hear Darlene.

  “Suit yourself. I’ve had it with this crowd. An eggnog for the road

  and I’m history.” She padded off to the bar, leaving Magnolia to head

  for the buffet to make sure that Darlene and the other Scary disciples

  registered that she was here.

  By the standards of a ten-room Fifth Avenue duplex, the Flana

  gans’ dining room was small. Magnolia found herself bosom to bosom

  with Darlene, directly under a portrait of one of Pippi Flanagan’s dis

  approving ancestors.

  “Have you met Raven?” Darlene asked, smearing caviar on a blini,

  popping it in her mouth, and motioning toward an exceedingly tall

  woman with hair and clothing as dark as her name. “Raven Kensing

  tonWoods, Magnolia Gold. Raven’s visiting,” Darlene said as she

  chewed. “From London.”

  As if that weren’t obvious the minute the woman opened her mouth.

  “Grand party,” the Brit said. “Are you another of Jock’s lovelies?”

  “Are you?” Magnolia asked.

  Raven laughed like wind chimes. As if on cue, Jock appeared and

  linked arms with her and Magnolia. “Everyone drinking up?” he said.

  “I’m told you press people here in the States don’t like to drink,”

  Raven said. “Not like us, who end every bloody workday with cocktails.”

  “You’re going to have to change that, Raven,” Jock said, and moved

  on as happy host.

  “Here for long?” Magnolia asked Raven.

  “Not likely,” Raven said. “I doubt you all could afford me.” She let

  her wind chimes tinkle one more time, tossed her sable hair, and

  floated off with Darlene toward the bar.

  “Who—or what—was that?” Natalie asked, sidling up to Magno

  lia as they watched heads turn toward Raven, who cut an inky wake

  in a crowd which had abandoned its customary black for hits of festive

  color. Natalie wore a thigh-high caftan in blue iridescent silk, gold

  bangles on each wrist, and slouchy, calfskin boots. Her hair was in its

  customary Wilma Flintstone do.

  ” ‘ Tis some visitor tapping at my chamber door,’ ” Magnolia said.

  Natalie took a second to get Magnolia’s reference. But she was an English major, too. “‘Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,’ ” Natalie recited. “I take it that’s the Raven SomethingSomething I’ve read about?”

  “Only her and nevermore,” Magnolia said. “Or at least I hope

  there’s nothing more.”

  “Don’t do one of your paranoid numbers—I hear she’s in town

  about one of the cheesy tabloid jobs,” Natalie said, always making a point of distinguishing Dazzle from the only slightly trashier celebrity magazines that had overtaken the newsstands. “Stop think

  ing about that pea-brained Page Six item. Everyone else has.”

  “Okay,” Magnolia said. “I’ll try.” She decided now would be a good

  time to leave the party and collected her coat from the attendant in

  Jock’s lobby. Despite Natalie’s order, she couldn’t stop obsessing over

  whether Raven might be the mysterious Englishwoman rumored to

  be after her job, and, to clear her head, she started to walk south

  rather furiously.

  Soon enough, she was in midtown. She passed Barney’s Christmas

  windows, loaded with insider innuendo, walked over to Bergdorf’s, whose displays were dripping with more layered opulence than she’d

  ever recalled, and past Cartier, whose whole building was wrapped in

  a red bow. She ultimately stationed herself in front of the towering

  tree at Rockefeller Center, standing before it as if it were the great Oz

  ready to spit out answers. Why can’t anything be simple, she won

  dered? Not a store window. Not a party. Not a guy. Not a job.

  Out of the corner of her eye, a tall man in a blue knit ski hat put

  his arm around a woman’s waist and pulled her close for a kiss in front

  of the tree. Magnolia did a double-take. Could that be Tyler?

  Magnolia blinked and the man disappeared. Had she made him up?

  She walked toward the skating rink in an attempt to see him again,

  weaving in and out of the crowd until she spotted him. He turned.

  Blue Hat had a cropped red beard. Not Tyler. But why could she not

  stop thinking about him? Since she’d left the hotel room yesterday,

  she’d been marinating in both guilt and a persistent emotion she

  couldn’t name that was dangerously close to longing. Magnolia could

  see him, taste him, hear him, and smell him.

  Was she so needy and vulnerable that she’d lost all common sense?

  If they’d spent a whole weekend together, they probably would have

  run out of conversation by Saturday afternoon.

  Had she used Tyler? She’d discussed their time together with

  Abbey, who tried to convince her it had been the other way around.

  You can’t think about him, Magnolia told herself. And she didn’t for

  most of the walk home, because she was back to ruminating about

  Raven, a certain head-of-another-masthead who Magnolia, informed

  by her intuition, knew had made the trip with the hope of becoming

  her replacement.

  At the very least, Magnolia had distractions. Just as magazines glorified Christmas, whipping female readers into a froth of insomnia

  inducing, chemical-dependency-seeking stress as they compared their

  ragged efforts to the results of photo shoots engineered by teams of

  professionals, so, too, the industry romanticized the season for its own

  amusement. First, there were the parties. It was true what Magnolia had told Raven: during the rest of the

  year, if there weren’t a profit motive to get together at the end of

  the workday, staffs splintered off to Westchester, New Jersey, Con

  necticut, and four of the five boroughs. (Magnolia had yet to meet

  anyone who worked on a magazine and lived on Staten Island.) But in

  December, they made up for it, with day after day and night after

  night of bonhomie, both real and faux.

  Scary, for instance, traditionally invited every employee to the

  once-glorious Tavern on the Green, which they rented out in its

  entirety. Mail-room attendants showed off MTV-worthy dance moves

  with rhythm-challenged editors as partners. Those who didn’t dance

  feasted from a pile of shrimp the size of the national debt.

  For Magnolia, there was also Darlene’s tree-trimming party at her

  Upper East Side brownstone. The evening masqueraded as a family

  fete, her velvet-clad daughters—Priscilla, Camilla, and Ann
abel—

  circulating silver trays of canapés to the advertisers Darlene treated as

  her nearest and dearest. Magnolia knew that the magazine paid the bill. But who was she to complain? Lady used to do the same for the staff brunch she threw at her apartment, featuring an ecumenical

  spread of Zabar’s finest Nova Scotia salmon, sweet potato latkes, and

  Christmas cookies she had baked herself from the magazine’s recipes.

  But this year, she wouldn’t be giving her party. In its place was Bebe’s

  Nashville rib-and-brew bash at Blue Smoke.

  But that wasn’t all. Until the industry flew west for skiing three

  weeks later, every venue from Mulberry to Madison was filled with

  mistletoe madness. The Estée Lauder gang, for example, invited the

  town’s top editors in chief and beauty editors to a discreet cocktail

  party at the 21 Club. Glamazon staged a disco night around the pool at

  Soho House. And Scary threw an official no-executive-left-behind lunch at Daniel, which was decked out with trimmings fit for Dr. Zhivago. Between courses, Daniel Boulud himself greeted the guests to make sure the food was perfect. It was. Lunch ended with gifts—

  enameled cuff links for the gentlemen, fur shrugs for the ladies.

  Presents flowed through the season. Magnolia gave and Magnolia

  got. For the staff, she decided on long, kiwi green gloves which Ruthie Kim ordered at a discount, though Magnolia footed the bill. She

  debated whether or not to stretch for the splurge. She wasn’t the edi

  tor in chief anymore, and maybe her colleagues wouldn’t expect

  it. But history and ego convinced her to go the distance; she didn’t

  want to appear stingy, considering what she raked in from PR firms,

  grateful contributors, and the more senior staff members. While this

  year she didn’t accumulate as much swag as in previous seasons,

  she adored the satin evening bag with its Swarovski crystal clasp, the

  cashmere hoodie and sweatpants, and best of all, a mad bomber hat

  from Cameron.

  The presents were exhilarating, but the fake fun wasn’t. By

  today—an afternoon on the final week of work before Christmas—

  Magnolia was as limp as the last piece of tinsel in the package. Natalie had invited her to Dazzle’s ho-ho-hoedown. Magnolia sat at her desk and realized that she didn’t have a thing to wear—anything

  party-worthy in her closet was, by now, at the cleaners or had been

  on view again and again, and she hadn’t gone shopping in at least

  two months.

  Briefly she considered if, for her, that could be as credible a sign of

  depression as a sudden change in appetite. No problem. The fashion

  department could surely help, at least with the clothing challenge.

  Remembering a plum velvet suit she knew had just been returned

  from a photo shoot, she walked into the fashion closet.

  As Magnolia began foraging in the racks, she heard a husky male

  voice at the far end of the crammed room. “What the hell are you

  doing?” it said.

  “C’mon, babe,” Bebe answered him, loud and clear. “I’m talking

  fun. Have another glass of Pinot Noir. I took you for a grown-up.”

  “No, thanks,” he said. Magnolia heard a tussle. “No,” he shouted.

  “Get away … not my type.”

  “Sweetheart, you’re too young for a type.” Bebe laughed loudly.

  “I can teach you a few things. You’ll thank me for this later. And

  haven’t I been good to you?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Agree, cute butt.” Magnolia stuck her head through the racks just as Bebe started to

  unbuckle his belt. With the grace of a Bond girl, she pushed Bebe and

  Polo apart, shrieking, “Bebe, do the terms ‘statutory rape’ and ‘jail

  bait’ mean nothing to you?”

  Bebe looked up, startled. Her beady eyes barely blinked.

  “Paws off, Bebe,” Magnolia said, having no idea where her convic

  tion was coming from. “And you, boy, out!” Polo bolted.

  “Calm down, you little buzz kill,” Bebe cackled at Magnolia. “I am

  educating this kid. Don’t get your tit in a ringer. And what’s with the CSI Investigates bit anyway? Why are you snooping?”

  “I didn’t think I had to put on a HazMat suit to walk into our fash

  ion closet,” Magnolia said, staying close to Bebe and talking in a

  hushed tone. “Why I’m here is irrelevant. What part of ‘normal’ don’t

  you understand?”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Bebe said, walking away. “I’ve always found

  ‘normal’ was highly subjective and sadly overrated. Get out of my face,

  Mag-knowl-ya. You’re trying to turn a PG13 short into an X-rated

  miniseries. Go party and forget this happened.”

  “Your secret is safe with me,” Magnolia said to Bebe’s back. You sleazy child molester, she said to herself.

  “And me.” Magnolia spun around. Wide-eyed, her assistant, Sasha,

  had watched the whole thing.

  C h a p t e r 2 5

  Fattened Up for the Kill

  “Suing?” Magnolia asked. “Did you say they’re suing?” It was odd for the phone to ring at 6:15 A.M., and even odder for an early

  morning caller to be Natalie.

  “Magnolia,” Natalie said, “you stayed too long in the sticks. Stop

  sounding like you’re calling a hog.”

  “Natalie, I’m usually hitting my snooze button about now,” Mag

  nolia pleaded. “Can you just give me the net-net?”

  “Let me spell it out. A little spook told our friends at the Post a story about Bebe coming on to Nathaniel Fine in the fashion closet.”

  Magnolia woke up fast. This was huge. “Back up!” Magnolia said.

  “Someone tipped off my friends the Fines, and Nathaniel’s dad is a

  $1,000-an-hour litigator,” Natalie said. “Put together the pieces.

  We’re screwed. It’s on page three, and God knows where else it will

  end up.” Just when Magnolia was going to speak, Natalie started

  again, yelling so loud Magnolia had to hold the receiver away from

  her ear. “I see what you must have been thinking. Bebe’s reputation gets trashed. The company pulls out of her magazine. Lady rises from the dead.”

  “Whoa,” Magnolia yelled back. “Are you accusing me? Of the

  leak? That’s absurd, Natalie. You are so off.” Twenty seconds passed before Natalie said “You’d swear you know

  nothing about this?”

  “I didn’t say that.” Magnolia paused. “I saw it all.” Magnolia won

  dered if she was a moron to have admitted this, but Nathaniel would

  most likely report it eventually. “But call a newspaper? What possible good could come of that? I like Nathaniel. And he’s just a kid.” Why was she squirmy and defensive? Damn Natalie for having that effect on her.

  “Listen, I said nothing. To anyone.” Abbey, she decided, didn’t count.

  “Oops, hold on.” Magnolia waited while Natalie took another call.

  “Can’t talk, Cookie,” Natalie said as she clicked back on. “Jock and

  Elizabeth conference call.”

  Natalie called her Cookie—she must be calming down, Magnolia

  hoped, as she began surfing the net and TV to see what play this was

  getting. So far, nothing on the morning shows, though the blogs were

  banging the item as if the United States had invaded St. Barth’s. She

  threw a coat over her nightgown and ran to the newsstand.

  BEBE PLAYS WITH FINE BOY TOY headlined a story accompanied b
y Nathaniel’s water-polo team photo, and either the Post had digitally enhanced his crotch or their intern had a future on male greeting

  cards. Magnolia raced back to her apartment, threw twenty dollars at

  her neighbor’s sixth-grader to walk the dogs, and dressed so fast that

  it was only when she was in a taxi that she realized her boots didn’t

  match.

  The corridors at Scary were strangely quiet as she walked to her

  office. Magnolia immediately called in Sasha and closed the door.

  “How did this item get in the Post and every fucking blog?” she asked, throwing the paper on the desk. “Did you rat them out?” Mag

  nolia knew Sasha had been an eyewitness in the fashion closet; what

  she didn’t know was if there’d been other flies on the wall that she

  hadn’t noticed.

  “Not me exactly,” Sasha answered, biting her lip and looking like a

  high school sophomore.

  “Talk,” Magnolia said.

  “I was in a bar last night, drinking to the point where this I-banker

  was looking cute, and when he asked me where I worked, I found myself describing Bebe and Polo—the material was just too rich. He joked about calling it into the Post, that he knew someone who knew someone who knew someone.”

  “Sasha, do you realize what you’ve done? Polo’s dad is a partner at a

  major law firm. Making noises about suing for child abuse, sexual

  harassment, God knows what. You didn’t think, did you? This is

  breaking-the-sound-barrier bad—for the magazine, the company, all

  of us.” Magnolia stared at the ceiling and drummed her fingers on the

  desk. Though she might have made the same mistake herself when she

  was twenty-three, she nonetheless felt like ripping off Sasha’s face.

  “I’m so sorry—I just wanted to impress this guy,” Sasha sobbed, as

  she pulled a tissue from the box on Magnolia’s desk. “And I wanted to

  screw Bebe.”

  “You hit it out of the park on that last one,” Magnolia said.

  “Plus, I thought it might help you.”

  “Help me? If you wanted to help me, why didn’t you at least warn me about this item? That would have helped me.”

  “But I only found out when I read it on the train.”

  “Okay,” Magnolia said, finding a quieter voice. “Well, you’re going

  to help me now. Get me every clip, every inch of loop tape, every Web

  site. We’ve got to be all over this. Now blow your nose and get out of