Little Pink Slips

by Sally Koslow

  with rows of small, horizontal ruffles, was longer than Magnolia’s

  usual length. “For tonight—with your spiky, brown boots,” the note

  from Abbey commanded. It was a dress that Magnolia would have

  never tried on in a store. She was fairly sure it made her resemble a

  poodle, especially because Abbey had requested she wear her hair,

  which hadn’t been cut in three months, loose and curly.

  “You don’t think I’m old for ruffles? I’m feeling like I escaped from

  the Moulin Rouge.”

  “You can bring it off,” Abbey said.

  When she had tried on the dress, Magnolia wondered if perhaps

  tonight would be some kind of covert costume ball and everyone

  would be similarly coiffed and clothed. That, however, was not the

  case. The rest of the crowd—which, when she arrived, already over

  flowed Abbey’s foyer, dining room, and living room and stood deep in

  the hall leading to her bedroom and library—wore the usual black

  and charcoal wools of a Manhattan Sunday night in March.

  Servers in tuxedos circulated with trays bearing white roses—her

  favorite flower—and tuna tartare; flaky, Brie-filled biscuits; and roasted red peppers and chèvre on tiny baguettes. In the corner of the

  living room, a pianist played jazz, and the piano sounded—for the

  first time ever—perfectly in tune. Abbey had put in all three leaves of

  her dining room table and set it with an old-world damask cloth, tall

  white tapers in mismatched sterling silver holders, and her usual

  garden of flowered Limoge. For a centerpiece, hundreds of ranuncu

  lus and lilies of the valley were packed tight with miniature white

  roses in an ornate silver ice bucket.

  “How did you pull off this party so quickly?” Magnolia asked

  when Daniel rushed over to greet a handsome older couple and a

  woman about Magnolia’s age, all regal and slim.

  “It’s amazing how freedom can kick-start your engine,” Abbey said.

  “Turns out, our divorce was about the only thing Tommy and I agreed

  on. He met someone else, and wanted to move fast. Let me keep

  everything. The minute the paperwork was signed, I felt I could fly.”

  “When will the divorce come through?” Wally and Magnolia’s

  split had been reasonably amicable and yet it had taken almost a year.

  “Yesterday,” she whispered in Magnolia’s ear. “I’m single!”

  “Abbey!” Magnolia said. “I don’t even know what to say. Congratu

  lations?”

  “I accept,” she said. “Now go mingle. This is my night, and you

  have to promise to enjoy yourself.”

  “You’re getting pretty damn pushy,” Magnolia said. She kissed her

  on the cheek and walked off to the bar for a glass of champagne—

  except for water, the only beverage available. She scanned the room

  and noticed a bearded man in his thirties who looked vaguely

  familiar.

  “Do I see you around the track?” she asked.

  “Four times a week,” he said, introducing himself. “Matthew

  Hirsch, die-hard runner. Not that many of us crazies keep going

  through the winter.”

  “How do you know Abbey?” she asked. It seemed odd that he was

  here—when they ran together, Abbey had never greeted him at the

  Reservoir. “We just met—the other day,” he said. “On some business.”

  Abbey’s next-door neighbor joined their conversation. “Good

  evening, Rabbi Hirsch—may I steal you away?”

  “Rabbi?” Magnolia asked. Now it clicked. “Are you the rabbi the Ben Stiller character was based on in Keep the Faith?” She’d rented that DVD twice.

  “Guilty as charged,” Rabbi Hirsch said with a dimpled smile. He

  hurried away with Abbey’s neighbor, leaving Magnolia to penetrate

  the crush of guests in the hallway.

  “She knows how to throw a party, huh?” Cameron said, coming up

  to her from behind. “Now I see why she didn’t get jazzed when my

  idea of a great date was Niko’s on Broadway.”

  “You can feed me their moussaka any day, but Abbey’s allergic to

  plastic grapes dangling from ceilings,” Magnolia said, smoothing her

  ruffles. “By the way, I’m only in this ridiculous dress because Abbey

  forced me to wear it.”

  “I was just thinking I like you all girly,” Cameron said, clicking her

  glass with his.

  “That’s high praise coming as it does from a man whose idea of

  sartorial elegance is L.L.Bean.”

  “You just wish you owned a cap that repels ticks,” he said. “And I’m

  pretty sure I’ve seen you in a Bean Mad Bomber hat.”

  “I’m pretty sure you gave me that hat,” Magnolia said. “And, for

  the record, I love it.”

  The two of them wandered back to the bar for refills. “By the way,

  you actually look very handsome tonight.” He did. Magnolia couldn’t

  remember the last time she’d seen Cameron in a sport coat. They

  leaned against the dining room wall, which was painted a deep per

  simmon, a perfect backdrop for Magnolia’s brown gown. “How did

  your Bebe deposition go?” Magnolia wasn’t the only one who’d been

  living in lawyers’ offices.

  “Interminable,” Cam said. “Was it true that during Ms. Blake’s

  vacation in Baja you sent her two hundred e-mails in one day? Did you

  hear Jock Flanagan say Ms. Blake would be thrown off the magazine if she had any more ‘bullshit hissy fits’? Did you call Felicity Dingle a

  ‘harpy’? Like that. And by the way I didn’t call Felicity a harpy. I

  called her something much worse.”

  “So how are you spending your time when you’re not in a lawyer’s

  office?” Magnolia asked. Phoebe was staying home with her baby, Sasha was studying for the LSAT, Ruthie got nabbed by Lucky, and Fredericka was skiing in Switzerland with a German school friend

  who now owned half of Hamburg.

  “Write, write, write.”

  “You’re not job hunting?”

  “I think my illustrious career as a managing editor may have

  ground to a halt,” Cam said, as his cell phone rang. He looked at the

  name. “Find you later. Got to take this.”

  Magnolia began to search for someone else to talk to when Abbey

  walked over. “Can I steal you away?” she said. She pointed toward the

  hall. “In my bedroom.”

  Abbey closed the door behind them. She kicked off her silver san

  dals, pushed aside a profusion of embroidered silk pillows, and

  crawled onto her bed. From the bedside table, she handed Magnolia a

  small box. “For you,” she said.

  “Another gift?” Magnolia said. “It’s not my birthday, Abbey. You’re

  spoiling me.” She shook the box. Maybe it was the spiral earrings

  Bergdorf’s ordered. Inside, however, was a small gold locket that dan

  gled from an almost invisible chain. Magnolia opened it to find a pic

  ture of the two of them, victorious after their first six-mile race. They

  looked very young, very sweaty, and very happy.

  “Put it on,” Abbey insisted. The locket sat below Magnolia’s collar

  bone at exactly the right spot. “It’s my way of thanking you.”

  “For what?” Magnolia said. “Being a best friend doesn’t require

  thanks.” She gave Abbey a lingering h
ug.

  “Being a maid of honor does,” Abbey whispered, still embraced in

  Magnolia’s arms.

  Magnolia pushed her away so she could see her face and said very quietly. “Excuse me? You’re getting married?” Magnolia decided not to add “again.”

  “Yes!” Abbey said and started to cry. “I know it’s abrupt, but he’s

  the one. Daniel and I together are magic.”

  Magnolia fell back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. “When’s

  the wedding?” she asked.

  “Soon,” Abbey said.

  “How soon?”

  She heard Abbey draw a breath. “In ten minutes.”

  Magnolia bolted upright. Abbey grabbed a tissue next to her bed so

  the tears streaming down her face wouldn’t drop on her dress. Her

  wedding dress. “Hold on.” She darted into her bathroom.

  Hold on, that’s for damn sure. Get a grip, Magnolia thought, as she

  fell back on the bed and began to take short, hyperventilated breaths.

  Abbey walked out of her bathroom, holding two nosegays: one with

  white roses and lilies of the valley tied with garnet-red silk ribbon

  and another of chocolate brown rununculus and lilac roses, which she

  handed to Magnolia.

  “Your bouquet,” Abbey said, placing her own bouquet on the bed. “Now, please help me with this veil. It’s your job.” From her closet she pulled out a wisp of tulle attached to a comb jeweled with garnets that

  matched her bee pin. “I stayed up all night, trying to get this right.”

  She sat down at her silvery mirrored antique desk and faced its

  matching mirror. Magnolia put the veil on Abbey’s head but it wound

  up crooked. Abbey looked deranged. Magnolia tried again, but her

  hands were shaking too hard to get the comb in place. Abbey gently

  pulled Magnolia’s hand off the headpiece and futzed with it until she

  looked like the bride on the top of a cake. She grabbed Magnolia’s

  hand. “I know you think I’m making a mistake—another mistake,

  even bigger than Tommy.”

  “That’s not what I’m thinking,” Magnolia said, “because I don’t

  know what to think.”

  “It’s crazy, but it’s good crazy,” Abbey said. “We’ll live here and

  Daniel will commute, and in the summers we’ll live in France near

  his vineyards, and of course I’ll go to Paris whenever I can.” Abbey’s

  words were flying faster than Magnolia could catch. “I love his family,

  and they love me.” Magnolia stared at Abbey in continued shock. There was a tap at

  the door.

  “Who is it?” Abbey said.

  “Véronique,” a French-accented voice said.

  “Entrez, s’il vous plaît,” Abbey said. The lissome blonde whom Magnolia had seen Daniel greet entered the room. “Magnolia, I’d like you to meet Daniel’s sister, Véronique. Véronique, mon amie, Magnolia.” The blonde kissed Abbey, and then Magnolia, three times

  each—on their right cheek, left cheek, and then right again.

  “Tu est prête, ma chérie?” Véronique said.

  “Ready,” Abbey replied, as Véronique returned to the living room.

  From faraway, Magnolia heard the music switch from jazz to

  “Chapel of Love.” “That’s your cue,” Abbey said. “Just walk out the

  door and down the hall through the living room. My brother will

  have already asked people to be still. You’ll figure out the rest.”

  Magnolia stood up and smoothed her ruffled dress as best she

  could. She grasped the bouquet, holding it tightly in front of her gal

  loping heart, and walked out of Abbey’s bedroom. The rooms at the

  end of the hall were silent. A blur of faces turned to look at her as she

  walked toward the candlelight. The guests had parted, leaving a wide

  swath. The chapel of love, Abbey’s dining room, seemed fifty miles

  away.

  As Magnolia walked closer, she saw that Véronique, Abbey’s

  brother and sister-in-law, and Abbey’s college roommate were each

  holding a pole that supported an embroidered Spanish shawl that

  usually hung on the grand piano. Under the canopy, Daniel stood next

  to the older man she’d seen with him before—now, his best man.

  Matthew Hirsch, in a black velvet yarmulke and a tallis over his

  Armani suit, winked at Magnolia as she walked toward the chuppah.

  Daniel bowed to her slightly and offered a half-smile. A white rose

  bud was now in his lapel.

  The pianist changed to “Here Comes the Bride.” Magnolia hadn’t

  taken her friend for the sort of woman who would want that song

  played at her wedding, but it certainly got everyone’s attention. Every eye turned to Abbey as she proceeded through her living room, twin

  kling like a small star.

  Later, when friends asked Magnolia to describe the ceremony, all

  she could remember was that Abbey circled Daniel seven times, there

  were vows in three languages—English, French, and Hebrew—and

  the bride and groom each sipped from a tall silver goblet of wine, pre

  sumably poured from an excellent Rothschild vintage and a very good

  year. The rabbi spoke of fate, of people coming together, and used the word beshert. Magnolia glanced down to see if her red bracelet was still there. It had disappeared. “When the job is done, the bracelet will be gone,” she remembered Malka as saying. But she couldn’t contemplate what the missing bracelet might mean, because just then Daniel

  stepped on the glass and kissed Abbey like the actor in the favorite movie of Magnolia’s mother, A Man and a Woman. Shouts of mazel tov and bonne chance echoed through the apartment.

  As the piano played Cole Porter, waiters circulated with champagne

  and more champagne. There was dancing, singing, and shrieks of joy.

  The pianist struck up “Hava Nagila,” and Rabbi Hirsch grabbed Mag

  nolia by the waist for several loops of the hora. Abbey broke away

  from Daniel, took both of Magnolia’s hands, and began twirling with

  her in the center of a circle of clapping friends and relatives.

  “If you expect me to do the cancan, forget it,” Magnolia said.

  “Thanks for being so sportive about wearing the dress,” Abbey said. “It didn’t come from the flea market, by the way.”

  “Oh, really?” Magnolia said, half out of breath as the two of them

  whirled.

  “It was Daniel’s mother’s. Couture. From her trousseau.”

  “Do I have to give it back?” Magnolia said. “I like it better now.”

  “It’s yours,” Abbey said. “The least I can do.”

  At midnight waiters brought out a four-layer wedding cake of

  chocolate iced in white fondant. Chocolate piping replicated the

  embroidery from the shawl that had doubled as the wedding canopy.

  The couple cut the cake and fed each other pieces, and then everyone

  gorged on cake, profiteroles, and lemon squares. Well past 1:30, the bride and groom bid the crowd adieu and guests started to drift away.

  Magnolia found her boots—which she’d pulled off hours before and

  left in a corner—and went to Abbey’s bedroom to put them on.

  Ringlets stuck to her face. She looked as if she’d been to a hockey

  game, not a wedding.

  “Magnolia Gold, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you this ripped,”

  Cameron said as she walked out of the bedroom.

  She’d danced with him hours before. Then he’d switched to

  Véronique as a partner, and Magnolia ha
d got into a long, inebriated

  conversation with Daniel’s father, who promised Magnolia an invita

  tion to the Cohen villa in St. Tropez, providing she didn’t keep her

  bikini top on like a typical American. Magnolia had agreed.

  “Hmmm,” Magnolia said to Cameron, swaying in the boots, which

  felt staggeringly high. “I might have had a little too much to drink.”

  Feeling at risk of falling, she put her arms around his neck.

  In Abbey’s hallway, as a clock chimed, she suddenly gave him a

  sloppy, lingering kiss. He kissed her back. His tongue tasted like chilled

  champagne.

  “C’mon, Mags,” he said, grabbing her around the waist. “I’m walk

  ing you home.”

  A fine rain fell as they strolled, wordlessly, down Central Park

  West, then past brownstones on the side streets where more sensible

  people had gone to bed hours before.

  “I can’t believe she did it,” Magnolia said, several times. “It took

  such guts.”

  “Sometimes guts is all you need,” Cam said.

  “Guts and roses.”

  They arrived at her building. Magnolia was still happily intoxi

  cated, but not so skunk-drunk that she didn’t remember that fifteen

  minutes before she’d kissed her longtime former employee and cur

  rent friend. And he hadn’t pulled away. Quite the opposite.

  As if she were a documentary filmmaker shooting from across the

  street, she saw—in black and white—a man and a woman holding

  each other. The couple looked as if they belonged together. Magnolia wondered what would happen next. But mist blurred the image, and

  she was suddenly exhausted.

  It was hard to tell whether what she was seeing was real or a cham

  pagne dream.

  Magnolia awoke at noon and forced herself out of a catatonic sleep. She was wearing her underwear and she was alone, which

  she decided were both good things. She remembered enough about

  last night to wonder if Cameron would be there and if they’d both be

  naked. She winced.

  Once she’d published an article in Lady that said if you have a hangover you should make yourself a fruit smoothie from a banana,

  soy milk, and a handful of vitamins. Magnolia opened her refrigera

  tor. It contained batteries, leftover pad thai, and some rather nasty

  carrots. She filled a glass with water, drank it down with two aspirin,

  and filled it again.