by Sally Koslow
“Sixteen inches of powder last night,” he said. “Drifts up to my
tuches. Which is where I spend my time here. It’s Whitney who can
ski like a movie star. She did a double black diamond with Goldie
Hawn.” He nattered on about nine-hundred-dollar-a-night rooms
and steaks the size of thighs. “What can I do for you?” he finally
asked. “If you’re wondering when we’ll work through your contract,
hold your water, doll face.”
“Wally, I’m sure it’s nothing, but this morning I got a peculiar let
ter.” She speed-read it to him. “I just wanted to know what this has to
do with my case?” “Absolutely nothing,” he replied. “Was that letter delivered by a
greasy little troll in a bad suit?”
“More or less,” she said.
“Your company is deposing you in their claim against Bebe Blake.”
Wally explained. “Standard procedure. No big whoop.”
“I have to do it, even though they’re trying to stiff me out of my
money?” Magnolia asked. “This seems so unfair. Jeez.”
“I love when you talk all Fargo,” Wally said. “God bless America,
darling. This is what they call justice.”
“And Bebe’s lawyers can ask me, too?”
“Now you’re getting ahead of yourself. It’s Scary suing Bebe. She’s
the defendant.”
“Oh, you didn’t know? That’s right. I forgot. You couldn’t have
heard. Because nobody knows yet. She’s going tit for tat. Suing back.”
Wally laughed. “That Bebe is my kind of broad! So now she’s a plaintiff, too?” he said. “Must be a Law & Order junkie. I’m only sorry she didn’t hire me to represent her.”
“Wally, my question?” Magnolia asked.
“Oh, sure, speaking of asses, I’d expect that both sides will want a
piece of that pretty little butt of yours.”
C h a p t e r 3 8
Blue-Blooded
Butt-Head vs. the
White-Trash Nympho
“Good morning,” croaked the wrenlike receptionist in a surprisingly low voice. “May I help you?”
“I’m Magnolia Gold—for a meeting at ten,” Magnolia said. “My
attorney, Walter Fleigelman, will be joining me.”
The woman looked down at her desk. “According to our schedule,
your appointment is for eleven,” she said before she returned to her
Mary Higgins Clark mystery.
Magnolia had been sure about ten. “Could you double-check
please?”
The receptionist looked up briefly and shook her head. “No, no
mistake. If you’d like to make yourself comfortable …”
To even their score with Bebe Blake, Scarborough Magazines and
John Crawford Flanagan Jr., its CEO, had engaged Cromwell, Adams,
and Case, one of the whitest, white-shoe law firms in all Manhattan.
Magnolia entered their burnished mahogany offices on the fifty-fifth
floor of Rockefeller Center. Magnolia breathed in. Her nose picked up
a delicate bouquet of Shalimar wafting from the receptionist, an undernote of Murphy’s Oil Soap, and the slight rankness of uphol
stery dating from 1972. Ah, WASP incense, she thought; the scent of
old money.
After selecting the least worn sofa in the cavernous reception area,
Magnolia pulled out her newspapers and a fresh batch of celebrity
tabloids. In early press reports of their mutual sniping, Jock and Bebe displayed a certain dignity. “We couldn’t permit Bebe to migrate into a manifesto for its namesake’s personal views,” Jock stated in a
haughty tone Magnolia knew well. “I wouldn’t abide Jock Flanagan’s
interference,” Bebe replied with surprising restraint. But as each side
began leaking succulent morsels about the other, Jock’s suit and
Bebe’s countersuit began pulsating beyond the business section. Every
newspaper and all of the blogs were covering the story. Yesterday
Bebe referred to Jock as “that blue-blooded butt-head with the over
bite and pruney moneybags wife,” and he called her “a white-trash
nympho with the talent of a Dorito.”
As Magnolia read today’s smears—the Daily News reported Jock’s wife’s affair with his twin brother—she didn’t realize she was laugh
ing aloud until she heard Darlene. “You think this is funny?” her for
mer publisher asked, crossing her arms atop the mountain of her
pregnant belly.
“Darlene,” Magnolia said. “You’re looking well. Finally having a
boy?” The two of them hadn’t spoken since Darlene’s sympathy call
after Scary ditched her, when Magnolia matched Darlene’s mock sin
cerity with her own feigned serenity.
“A boy? That’ll happen when pigs fly,” Darlene said, sitting heavily
in a chair across from Magnolia. She patted her Lycra-bound tummy.
“No, Georgina here is a little clone of her three big sisters. And based
on her kicking, she’s an animal just like her mama.” Darlene con
sidered it high praise when Jock described her as being the sort
of publisher who would happily wrestle clients to the ground on
Madison Avenue to land the last Cool Whip ad. Darlene tapped out a
few messages on her BlackBerry, but soon enough Magnolia felt her
stare.
“I hope you’re on our side,” she said.
“How’s that possible?” Magnolia answered, looking up from Us. “I’m sworn to tell the truth.”
“Bebe sabotaged the magazine,” Darlene said.
“She got as good as she gave,” Magnolia said.
“Try selling ads with the pervert twins hogging the headlines and
covers that frighten small children,” Darlene harrumphed. “I’ve been
a miracle worker.” Magnolia noticed Darlene’s eyes downshift to her
wrist. “Why are you wearing that red string?” she asked suspiciously.
Magnolia was about to explain the bracelet when she heard a
racket at the other end of the room. Wally. He checked in with the
receptionist and hobbled over to Magnolia on crutches, his right leg
in a blazing orange cast.
“Good God—what happened?” Magnolia said, rising to kiss his
sunburned cheek.
“Schmuck here tried to show off on his last day in Aspen,” Wally
said, and shrugged as well as a man on crutches could. “From now on,
golf, period.” He sat on the other end of the love seat. “You ready, kid?
Anything you want to go over?”
Magnolia cleared her throat and tilted her head slightly toward
her former publisher. “Darlene,” she said, “I’d like you to meet
my … attorney,” she said. “Walter Fleigelman.”
As Darlene looked up, Wally assumed an expression of hangdog
sadness. “And former husband,” he added, extending his hand to
shake Darlene’s
“Magnolia, you sneak,” Darlene said. “How long were you mar
ried?”
“We were madly in love for eleven minutes,” Magnolia said.
Both of them turned to Wally. With his raccoon tan, he looked like
a masked sidekick—Slalom the Blind Skier perhaps. “Happy to meet
you, Walter.” Darlene gave him one of her billboard-big publisher’s
smiles.
“Darlene, I’m sure when we worked together, you remember that I
talked about Wally,” Magnolia said. “Maybe you don’t recall.”
But Magnolia was saved from further
discussion. The reception
ist announced that Darlene’s appointment would be starting, and she walked swiftly—considering the bulk she was balancing on stilet
tos—into the bowels of Cromwell, Adams, and Case.
Magnolia and Wally sat side by side. ” ‘I don’t recall,’ ” she repeated. “I’ve been practicing that line.”
“Good girl,” Wally said. When he’d rehearsed Magnolia for today’s
deposition, he’d browbeaten her with a careful instruction. “When
ever you cannot exactly remember an event or incident that the
lawyer deposing you describes, you are allowed to say, ‘I don’t recall.’
For example, let’s say every workday at precisely three o’clock you had
the habit of going down to the lobby for a Diet Coke. The lawyer asks
‘On June 1, did you get yourself a Diet Coke at three o’clock? Unless
you can actually remember the details of buying that can of soda on
that specific June 1, you are allowed to say ‘I don’t recall.’ “
“Sweet,” Magnolia had replied. “Got it.”
“The deposition was supposed to be on for ten, right?” Wally asked.
“So I thought,” Magnolia answered.
“Keep us waiting—oldest trick in the book,” Wally said. “Don’t let
it rattle you. Here—look at my pictures.” He pulled a digital camera
from his briefcase and showed her a good hundred images of Fleigel
mans squinting into the sun. Nearly an hour later, she and Wally
entered the Cromwell, Adams, and Case conference room.
“Walter, good morning,” boomed a tall, broad-shouldered man in
gray pinstripes that appeared to be cut from the same cloth as Wally’s.
Wally’s suit, however, was a 38 short; the other attorney’s, 44 long.
“Sky,” Wally boomed back. “Let me introduce my client, Miss
Magnolia Gold. Magnolia? James Skyler, Esquire.”
James Skyler looked like an aristobrat born to scull at Choate and
Harvard. He locked eyes with Magnolia. When he smiled, his per
fectly straight teeth sported a God-given gleam that bleaching can
never mimic. “Mind if I take off my jacket?” he asked, rhetorically. In
shirtsleeves, his shoulders looked as broad as a superhero’s, and Mag
nolia could see that his waist, encased in fine lizard, was no wider
than thirty-two inches. He slowly rolled up each cuff. The golden hair
on his arms matched the thatch on his head. Magnolia took in the performance which, she guessed, was for her
benefit. If the lawyer had been a woman, by now she’d be playing
with her hair and licking her lips. “The attorney is going to try to
seduce you,” Wally had warned. “Remember, he is not your next
boyfriend. Don’t fall for his schmaltz.”
“Miss Gold, could you give me your full name, please?” James
Skyler asked.
“Magnolia Gold.” Had she just perjured herself ? She’d never for
mally changed her name from Goldfarb. And what about Fleigelman?
Did she have to say that for less than a year she was Magnolia Gold
farb Fleigelman?
“Magnolia, charming name. Has it been passed down in your
family?”
As if—and what did this have to do with Scary’s case? Magnolia
wondered.
“No,” she said. Stay cool, Magnolia, she reminded herself.
Skyler had her résumé in front of him. “Could you briefly describe
your work history?” he asked.
Magnolia compressed thirteen years into three minutes.
“So, you were effectively demoted when you were switched from Lady’s editor in chief to deputy editor of Bebe?”
Magnolia felt Wally’s leg. Don’t let yourself get pissy, the cast
seemed to say. “Yes,” she answered, evenly.
“Did Bebe Blake make all of the key decisions at the magazine?”
the attorney asked.
Magnolia looked at Wally. “Am I allowed to ask what a ‘key deci
sion’ is?” she said.
“Could you please rephrase the question for my client?” Wally
asked.
“Certainly,” he said. “Let me be more specific. Who selected the
image for this cover?” He held up the premiere issue in all its leopard
splendor.
“Bebe did,” Magnolia said.
“This one?” “Bebe.” He must be trying to rankle her by showing covers she
didn’t get to choose herself. It wasn’t going to work. Magnolia stayed
steady while the lawyer ran through every one of the issues and
moved on to stacks of proofs and headlines.
“Do you recognize this signature?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Whose is it?”
“Mine.”
“Do you remember signing this?”
Every month she okayed hundreds of proofs. “I don’t recall,” she said.
Next he pulled out a school photograph. “Can you, please, identify
this person?”
“Yes,” she said. “That’s Nathaniel Fine, our former intern.”
“Did you see Bebe Blake, uh, make sexual advances to Mr. Fine?”
Magnolia stretched her mind back to December. She remembered
going into the fashion closet. She recalled hearing a rustle and a con
versation between Bebe and Polo. But did she actually see Bebe do
anything to him? The fashion closet had been filled with racks of
clothing which stood between her and the couple like size-four
artillery. Had she simply, based on the conversation she’d overheard,
imagined the worst?
“Miss Gold?” the attorney asked.
“I don’t recall,” she said—and said again, and again, and again.
“As a decision maker, how would you describe Bebe Blake?”
Wally broke in. “I object.”
“I’ll rephrase. Do you think it’s fair to describe Ms. Blake as unpre dictable?”
Magnolia thought it over. “Yes.”
“Did Ms. Blake have a clear vision for her magazine?”
Magnolia ruminated and shook her head. “No.”
“Did the staff like Ms. Blake?”
Did some of the staff like Bebe? Probably, considering how Ameri
cans devoured celebrity gossip as if it were hot-buttered popcorn. “I
honestly don’t know,” she finally answered. The questions bombarded her until she wanted to crawl under the nineteenth-century confer
ence room table. The next time she had insomnia, she would recon
struct this legal snooze.
“Thank you, Ms. Gold,” the attorney said. “That will be all. I
appreciate your help.” James Skyler, Esq., smiled coolly at Magnolia
as he put down his pen and legal pad. She and Wally walked to the
street and his waiting car.
“You did good,” he said.
“Really?” She sighed. “Scary won’t call me as a witness, will they?”
Wally threw his arms up in the air, then caught his crutches before
they fell. “Don’t think about it,” he said. “Compartmentalize.”
“I can’t,” Magnolia said as the two of them started driving uptown.
“My mind is a big, open loft, which is currently a mess.” She turned to
look at Wally. “Will you come to the trial—for moral support?”
“C’mon, you’ll be fine,” he said. “Bebe’s lawyer will try to get you
to admit Jock attempted to cramp her style, usurp her good name,
force a different editor on her, and make her life
unadulterated hell.
You decide if it’s true or not. I don’t need to be your little pit bull.”
“You do!” Magnolia said.
“Okay, Mags. Then you and I are breaking up before the Mrs.
changes the locks.”
C h a p t e r 3 9
Guts and Roses
“You must be Magnolia,” said a tall, thin man with black hair curling over his collar. He kissed her on both cheeks.
“Abbey was right. You are beautiful.”
“Thank you,” Magnolia said, standing in Abbey’s foyer. “Abbey for
got to mention your eyes. Not many of us have green eyes.” His were
like olives, lightly flecked with caramel. If you took his face apart,
feature by feature, you wouldn’t expect it to be reassembled in such a
handsome fashion. His nose was long. Under his eyes were slight
shadows, faintly lavender, like matching bruises. But it all worked,
especially the smile, which fanned a delicate web of early lines
toward each silver-laced temple.
“When the Moors invaded France, they left behind green eyes,” he
said. “In Brazil, with all their mixed bloodlines, green eyes exist in
the most exotic medleys of skin and hair. Green eyes come when
opposites attract.” His accent was heavy, and his voice low. “Daniel
Cohen,” he said. “I am so happy we finally meet.”
“I see you’ve found each other,” Abbey said, linking her arm
through both his and Magnolia’s. Next to Daniel, she looked even
more fragile than usual. She wore a white lace minidress, its high neck pinned with a garnet and diamond bumblebee Magnolia had
never seen.
“From Daniel,” Abbey said, touching the brooch. “His great
grandmother’s.”
“Because Abbey reminds me of a bee—small, busy, making sweet
ness and beauty wherever she lands.”
If an American man had said this, Magnolia would have wanted to
stick a finger down her throat. From Daniel, the sentiment sounded
poetic.
“The dress suits you, Magnolia,” Daniel said.
“I knew it would,” Abbey added. “I found it in the Paris flea mar
ket and wanted you to have it for tonight.”
That morning a messenger had delivered a large, white box tied
with a silky bow and filled with layers of chartreuse tissue paper.
Magnolia pulled out a chocolate brown velvet dress, cut deep at the
décolleté, which was frosted with lace and beads. The skirt, layered
