Little Pink Slips (12 page)

hundred percent God-given cleavage. I am not an implant gal." She

stood back and mimicked the cover.

"Or do you like it better this way?" She struck a different pose. "Or

like this?" Bebe began to dance, first alone, then with Felicity, Jock, and

Darlene, and finally with Magnolia. The podium became a hoedown.

Bulbs began to flash as Elizabeth supervised various constellations

for photo ops—Bebe and Jock, Bebe and Darlene, a large group shot

that included Magnolia, then Bebe posing one by one with many of

the reporters. The members of the feared Manhattan press corps were

probably going to each ask for Bebe's autograph, Magnolia thought.

No one paid attention to Magnolia as she peeled away to play back

her voice message and return Sub-Zero's call.

"Harry, it's about time you called," she said. She failed to sound angry.

"Sorry, sorry, sorry, Magnolia, luv. I am a bad boy, but I was trying

to think of the right words, and I'm never very good with that. But

enough about me," he said. "You poor chickadee." "What's this about you missing me?" Magnolia asked.

"What can I say? We English like a woman who appreciates a good,

juicy chop," he said. "Oh, and I like your bum."

"I like yours more."

"I need to rescue you from this hell you seem to have fallen into,

don't I?"

"I'm not saying no."

   "Can I talk you into dinner Saturday? Please tell me you're not one of those women with a tattered copy of
The Rules
next to her bed, who needs weeks of notice."

"I hardly have any rules at all," she admitted.

"Lovely. A woman with no scruples is the one for me. So, eight.

Pick you up. I have just the place."

"Where?"

"Surprise."

   "Date."

   
Date.
Magnolia liked the retro ring of it. She popped her cell back in her bag and returned to the reception. Jock was giving sound bites to Mike. Darlene had snagged the
WWD
guy. Elizabeth was steering Felicity away from the
New York Times r
eporter.

   As Magnolia scanned the room, she felt a tap on her shoulder and

turned.

"Nice touch, Gold," Bebe said, embracing her. "Loved the cell phone

bit. Priceless. Got to admit, I never thought you had it in you, upstaging

me and all. God knows, I respect a worthy adversary." She shook her

head in admiration and held on to Magnolia's arm, in a best-girlfriends

way. Then she gave Magnolia's arm an affectionate squeeze. "Are you

ready to rock and roll?"

"I'm ready if you're ready," Magnolia said, wishing she actually

had been crafty enough to have planned the mishap.

C h a p t e r 1 3

Extra Virgin

Waiting for their manicurists,
Abbey and Magnolia huddled on a black leather love seat, heads down, hooting at movie star photographs in
Dazzle'
s "What Were They Thinking?" section. "Will you promise to stage an intervention if I ever buy anything

this short?" Magnolia asked. "The statute of limitations for wearing

skirts like this is just about over for me."

"The thing about age-appropriate dressing is that the rules keep

changing," Abbey said.

Magnolia hoped she'd evolve into a wiser version of herself and

that woman would want a wardrobe she couldn't even imagine right

now. She closed the magazine, and focused on Abbey, who had the

look she got when she wanted to spill a secret.

"What is it?" Magnolia asked.

"Tommy and I had ex-sex last night," Abbey announced, as seri

ously as if she'd disclosed that she'd fornicated with a beagle.

"It's not technically sex-with-an-ex," Magnolia pointed out. "But

give me the goods."

"We've been e-mailing and text messaging," Abbey said, moving

over to her manicurist who, today, was Lily Kim. "Stay away from that man." Lily had joined the conversation. "Bad,

very bad." With her normal efficiency, Lily began to file Abbey's nails

square and short, which made her hardworking jeweler's hands look

even more like tiny paws.

"I couldn't turn him away. He wanted to stop by and talk."

"Run that conversation by us," Magnolia said, sliding into the

chair next to her. She immersed her fingers in the china bowl her

manicurist presented before her. As Abbey continued to speak, Mag

nolia closed her eyes and let the warm, jasmine-scented water wash

away the last few days.

"First we went to dinner at Balthazar, and you know how much

I love it," Abbey started. "We'd gone there for our last anniversary."

When you fought about the gift you received, Magnolia recalled.

"Dinner turned into coffee back at the apartment," Abbey said.

"Did he seem mildly contrite?" Magnolia asked. "Deeply apolo

getic? Fraught with anguish?"

"No, no, and yes." Abbey said. " 'Disabled' was how he put it,"

"Well, we all want to embrace diversity," Magnolia said, striving

for funny and realizing she'd failed. "How did the conversation go?"

"Quickly, with a trail of clothes to our bedroom," Abbey reported.

"Sex was never the problem. It was almost like the first time."

Magnolia thought back to her own first time, which had been fast but

worth the wait. Reverend Peterson's Pontiac after the prom. She and

Tyler Peterson, the preacher's son, had dated for two years. Soon she'd

leave for Michigan and he to St. Olaf, where bright Lutheran boys with

good baritones go. During the summer he'd be in Montana, working

cattle or whatever you did with cows. The end was closing in on them—

graduation, college, another life. The nightly phone calls and Saturday

movie dates would be fading to black. They both knew it and never dis

cussed it. Tyler couldn't imagine he'd ever again meet a girl as full of

dreams as Maggie Goldfarb and she, a sweeter guy—or better-looking.

The Norse gods had kicked in, and Tyler had shot up to well over six feet.

"Magnolia, are you with me?" Abbey asked.

"I'm listening to every word," she said. "Does this mean you guys

are back on track?" "Hardly. Even when we were kissing, I knew it was a mistake.

Not the kissing—he can still speak in tongues—but change is not in

Tommy's vocabulary. Talk about fraught, though. I was definitely

fraught. With lust fraught. Incredible night."

"And the morning?" Magnolia asked. She believed in the revealing

powers of mornings after.

"There was no morning," Abbey answered, shrugging. "I asked

him to leave at around four A.M." She drew her hands away from Lily

and turned toward Magnolia. "Tommy's always going to be a baby.

Who can wait for him to grow up?"

"How do you feel?" Like backup singers in a Motown group, Lily

and Magnolia begged the question in unison, giving the last word

emphasis.

"Sad. Resigned. Pretty sure it's the end."

Magnolia wished Abbey could be happier—she deserved to be hap

pier—but her assessment of Tommy was dead-on accurate. "You're

tough," Magnolia said. "You'll get through this. I'll help you. Do some

thing today that will make you smile."

"Such as?"

"Hmm . . ." Magnolia said. "Make dessert lunch?"

"Pecan pie and cheesecake," Abbey said. "And buy slutty underwear."

"That's a start," Magnolia said.

"Pick different polish," Lily insisted. "Your nails have been Dead

Red since 1999."

The three of them deliberated over Lily's newest choices. Abbey

chose Kinki in Helsinki. Magnolia considered Chocolate Moose, but

decided it would make her fingers look as if she'd been digging for

worms. Pink Slip? Definitely bad karma. She settled for Jewel of

India, a shade the red of Shiraz. Magnolia guessed she could live with it for a week, and if things didn't work out at
Bebe,
perhaps she'd get a job naming cosmetics. Or erectile dysfunction drugs.

Kinki in Helsinki and Jewel of India progressed to the nail dryers.

"Give me your world news of the week," Abbey said. Magnolia hit

the high notes, compressing Bebe, the new office, and her cosmic panic

to a chunk of conversation that she felt came across with minimal self-pity and admirable cheer. Magnolia wasn't up to analysis. She

wanted only to coax herself into the right mood for tonight.

"All I'm thinking about now is Sub-Zero," she said, knowing

Abbey would see through her fiction but wouldn't press.

After lunch,
Magnolia took a nap and didn't dream of Bebe, Jock, or Darlene, just a long riff involving Jude Law and chocolate.

She awoke refreshed, and dressed quickly. Magnolia had insisted to

Harry—who lived in the Village, as did most ex-pat media Brits—that

he didn't have to pick her up just to drive her back downtown for din

ner. Women who played the high maintenance game infuriated her.

On the cab ride downtown, she ruminated on how second dates

were loaded, especially when Date One lasted for eighteen hours and

ended with a tasting menu of I'd-forgotten-how-this-feels sex. Would

the two of them fumble for conversation—the bioethics of lobster

boiling, perhaps? Magnolia often wondered why couples in long rela

tionships didn't run out of chat but then considered her own parents.

After thirty-eight years of marriage, Fran and Eliot Goldfarb never

failed to find something about which they didn't agree; conversation

thus wasn't a problem.

Just this morning, when they called her—as they did every Satur

day morning on the dot of ten—Magnolia's father thought he had

the sure cure for her work-related problems. "Quit and move out here

to Southern California," he said. "I don't know why anyone in their

right mind would put up with New York."

"But, Eliot," her mother interrupted, "Magnolia is a magazine edi

tor and New York is where all the magazines are. That's why she

moved there. Am I right, Maggie, honey?"

"Right, Mom," she said.

"Now tell me about Bebe," she said. "I've read that her last hus

band was ten years younger and she had to pay him a fortune after

they divorced? Is that true?"

"Mom, she's not exactly confiding in me," Magnolia said.

"Fran, you're wrong," her father said. "She's gay." "Eliot, you're crazy," she said. "That's Rosie."

The bickering raged on, until Magnolia told them she needed to get

off the phone because she had a date and wanted to get a manicure.

"A date, honey?" her mom said. "That's fabulous. Is he Jewish?"

"No, Mom," she said. She had no idea what Harry's religion was,

but she was fairly sure he wasn't Jewish.

"It's the most important thing, doll," her father said. "Never forgot

that."

"Because it's been the charm for you two?" Magnolia said, and

instantly regretted it.

"Do you ever hear from Wally?" her mother asked.

"Not in years, Mom," she said. "And, anyway, he remarried."

"You blew it, kiddo," her father said.

"Eliot, shame on you," her mother said. "What's wrong with you?"

And on and on.

Magnolia relived the conversation until she arrived on West

Fourth, the kind of tranquil, leafy street where she could easily pic

ture living. She opened the door to Extra Virgin and found Harry

waiting at a corner table. He stood as she entered. Tonight he wore

faded jeans, a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up—a jacket hung on

the back of the chair—and a faint scent which, when they hugged,

recalled long walks in Nantucket.

"Magnolia, duckie, the week you've had," he said, holding her face

in his hands and giving her a short, tender kiss. "Has that big bully,

Bebe, stomped all over you?"

"I have a little bruise right around here," she said as she pointed to

her heart. "But don't underestimate me."

"You?" he said. "Never. Here, have a look at the menu. The chef

here is a genius."

Magnolia's appetite usually left men asking "Where do you put all

that?" For this biological blessing, she thanked her mother, who still

fit into a Pucci dress from her honeymoon. Magnolia started with

Chardonnay-steamed mussels, but nibbled one of Harry's roasted

artichokes. He continued with the branzino. She wavered between

crabmeat ravioli and lamb tangine. Ravioli won. Having eaten dessert for lunch—her own flan and half of Abbey's tiramisu—she slowed,

but couldn't resist a taste of Harry's tarte tatin, sipped with strong

espresso. Tonight she hoped she'd be up for hours.

"Caught a moment of that press conference on the telly," Harry

said. "You looked ravishing, if a little frightened. Or was it bored?"

"Maybe I should be frightened, but for the moment I'm wearing

the red badge of courage."

"Bebe—she's got eyes like a nasty little hedgehog," Harry said,

sliding his hand on top of Magnolia's. "I knew her stunt double at

university. Or maybe I'm confusing her with the mean nanny of my

nightmares. Is she the type who hangs around with a lot of poofs?"

"I'm told she likes real men," Magnolia said, "and lots of them,

the younger the better. Her last husband was twenty-eight."

As the candles burned low, dripping on the roughly hewn wooden

tables, Harry's hand slid under the full skirt of her gauzy white sun

dress and skillfully climbed her bare thigh. While they discussed

work—tactics to handle Bebe, how he could land an account with

Banana Republic—Magnolia's mind settled between her legs. She

knew Harry lived only blocks away, but he wasn't rushing to end their

dinner. He was setting the pace, slowly and confidently.

"Amaretto?" he asked. At this point, the only thing she wanted to

put in her mouth was an appetizing part of his anatomy, but he nod

ded to the waitress. A brunette with long, silky hair and a personal

trainer's body sprinted across the room.

"Heather, luv, two Amarettos, please," Harry said, letting his hand

graze the waitress's slim waist.

"Mr. James, of course," she responded, holding his gaze and never

glancing in Magnolia's direction.

Harry brushed her hand, but turned back to Magnolia and stroked

her arm. Twenty minutes later, she and Harry were the last diners to