Little Pink Slips (13 page)

leave Extra Virgin. Magnolia tossed a tiny bottle of olive oil—compli

ments of the chef—into her bag, in which she'd stashed a toothbrush

and an extra thong. Without discussing it, Harry steered them toward

his brownstone. They entered through a foyer containing a small

table with an antique brass bowl for keys and a slim Steuben vase filled with several deep purple dahlias. The foyer opened into a large

room dominated by an enormous kitchen, as full of equipment as a

small restaurant.

She noticed several black-and-white paintings on the far end of

the room, which held low, oversized, red leather couches and a grand

piano. The canvases were well over ten feet tall. Just as Magnolia real

ized the sensual form in the largest painting was female, Harry

wrapped his arms around her from behind, caressing her face and

sliding down over her breasts to her hips.

"She reminds me of you," he said. "Curves in the right places, but

understated. Not too showy."

Perhaps it was his regular line. Maybe he was silver plate. But at that

point, "Miss Gold, please remove your clothes and put on this paper

gown" would have worked. They walked upstairs and entered Harry's

spartan bedroom—a simple black iron bed, a dark walnut Empire

armoire, a table, a chair loaded with art books, and a painting featuring

another fertility goddess. Harry gathered Magnolia's clothes and care

fully hung them on a heavy wooden hanger on the back of the door.

For a split second, an image of Harry and Extra Virgin's waitress,

together in this very room, crossed Magnolia's mind. She imagined

them naked, clinking Amaretto glasses, sharing a postcoital joke at her

expense. "Did you catch the business-class-sized butt on her, Harry?"

the girl would say. But then Harry pressed Magnolia to him, drew her

down to the cool, cotton sheets, and pinned her body under his.

"Magnolia Gold, my darling, surrender your red badge of courage,"

he ordered, in a low growl. "I am the big bad wolf."

C h a p t e r 1 4

Whatever Turns You On

"Magnolia Bakery?"
Magnolia said.

In every relationship, the man came up with the same idea. Harry just

thought of it sooner than most. On Sunday, a few weeks after they'd

started seeing each other, Magnolia met Harry at the front of the bakery's

line. Hipsters and tourists alike trailed out the door, waiting for sugar

transfusions. Magnolia Bakery might be in the Village, but inside, under

the swirl of a lazy ceiling fan, you could easily imagine Scarlett waving a

confederate flag. Magnolia found Harry's gesture as endearing as the bak

ery's signature cupcakes iced in the hues of little girls' party dresses.

"Four, please," he said to the guy behind the counter.

"Four?" Magnolia said. "I'll be as big as Bebe."

"On you it would look good," he said, putting a piece of cupcake in

her mouth. She wondered what life might have been like if she'd

been named, say, Hermès: smaller butt, better bags.

It was definitely the gold rush. She and Harry had been seeing

each other two or three times a week and last night, at bedtime, he

signed off his phone call with "You're growing on me."

"Sweet dreams," she replied. And that's what her dreams were.

She was gaga over Harry, and his attentions arrived with superb timing. Which made it all the harder to be sitting in her crowded

new office on Monday morning, watching a leftover cupcake disap

pear into Sasha's mouth as she sought Magnolia's opinion on her

new blog.

"What do you think of me calling it Almost 24/7?" Sasha asked.

"I'm almost twenty-four, and I'd yak about everything in my life—

oral sex, work, my 32AA boobs. Other women should know what it's

like to go through life built like a playing card. I'll call that entry 'No

Boobies, No Rubies.' "

"Almost 24/7? What will you do when you turn twenty-four?"

Magnolia asked.

"Not going to work," Sasha realized. "I'll give it another think."

She licked cupcake crumbs off her fingers. "Nutritious breakfast.

Should we go over your agenda?"

They both knew the daily ritual was pointless. Without discussing

it, Sasha had canceled the meetings she'd engineered weeks in

advance, her normal drill in order to accommodate editors' frantic

travel and shoot schedules. Except for an 11:45 dental appointment,

Magnolia's calendar stood empty.

Downtime at work had never existed before, and Magnolia didn't

like it one bit. Yet at the magazine it would be impolitic to charge

ahead—assigning features, approving photographs, interviewing

applicants for unfilled positions—as if Bebe weren't down the hall, at

least theoretically. The painters were still at it in Magnolia's old

office, and Bebe was nowhere in sight. Magnolia freshened her lip

stick and wandered over to the office next door. She stood for a full

minute before Cameron became aware of her, took out his iPod ear

phones, and smiled.

"And so it begins," he said.

"Have you done magazine 101 with our Queen B, explaining that

we actually have deadlines?"

"Planning a sneak attack for noon," Cameron said. "If she shows."

   With Bebe apparently not realizing she needed to be the orchestra leader,
Lady'
s symphony had ceased. The staff hadn't reached complete cacophony—all her colleagues were still at their desks,

nervously awaiting orders, whispering into phones, and dashing off

e-mails they tried to conceal should anyone approach their computer

screens. But it was already July. In weeks the October issue, com

pressed to a few computer disks, would be due at the printer. The

deadline could be stretched only a little—and at great expense.

October wasn't the only problem. November needed to get well

under way, along with issues after that. To save money, smart editors

always photographed in season. This very minute they should be

planning next summer's food stories to be shot now, at a nearby beach,

instead of spending $17,000 to fly a crew to the Caribbean in the high

season next February.

Editors were dodging calls from photographers' reps eager to con

firm dates. Writers, needing reassurance from motherly assigning

editors, whimpered for contracts. Freelancers were threatening to

defect to other jobs.

"I hate that you have to be the badass, Cam," Magnolia said. "But

with it coming from you, maybe Bebe will listen."

Felicity's voice rang out down the hall. "Yoo-hoo, Magnolia.

Cameron. Is this beyond exciting?"

Both Magnolia and Cam would have chosen a different word.

Felicity had a cat carrier in her hands. In it was Hell, wearing the

smirk of a serial killer. Magnolia backed away as the feline stuck out a

clawed paw.

"We're moving in!" Felicity trilled. "Jock told us to camp out in the

conference room until the paint dries. Don't you just love that perfect
rouge
?"

"Felicity, just the woman I was hoping to see," Cameron said, a

little too heartily, Magnolia thought. "If you wouldn't mind putting

the tomcat down for a minute, I was wondering if I could steal you to

go over some dates?"

"I'll leave you two," Magnolia said, backing out of the office and

pondering where she could, with a modicum of dignity, pounce next.

She entered the art department, walked beyond the three designers,

past the photo editor's desk and her assistant's cubicle, and into Fredericka's elegantly spare taupe office. Fredericka, her tanned arms

loaded with silver bracelets, hovered over her light box.

"Magnolia!" she moaned. "Vat am I going to tell Fabrizio about his

October cover?" Fredericka had shots of Sarah Jessica Parker spread

out, tenderly looking at each one as if it were an in utero image of her

unborn child. Just a few weeks earlier, Fabrizio daVinci had finally agreed to work for
Lady
—the result of Fredericka's considerable persuasive abilities and magnums of Cristal sent to his cavernous down

town studio.

"Fredericka, his rep probably has ten offers for those pictures,"

Magnolia said. "First, remind him that Scary still holds a six-month embargo on the images." Maybe this whole
Bebe
nonsense will disappear and we can restore
Lady,
Magnolia thought fleetingly and—she realized—stupidly. But Scary did own the pictures, and she'd be

damned if another magazine would benefit from her misery. "Then promise him the premiere
Bebe
cover."

Fredericka blanched, her skin almost matching her platinum hair.

Apparently she hadn't yet fully absorbed that she and her photo

editor would be responsible—issue after issue—for turning Bebe Blake

into a cover temptress. She looked at Magnolia like a raccoon in a trap.

"But Fabrizio vould never, never agree to shoot Bebe," she said.

"You know he only likes gorgeous vomen."

Fredericka was right. And Magnolia realized no good could come

from hanging around her office. Even if the dentist told her he'd need

to pull a front tooth, she'd rather be in his chair than here. She returned to her office, packed her Tod's tote with the latest
Vogue,
and left for his office, arriving forty minutes early.

Two hours later,
her face looking like a stroke victim's, Magnolia heard her cell phone ring. Sub-Zero, she hoped. While sit

ting in the dentist's chair, she'd happily relived every stroke and

thrust of both Saturday and Sunday nights. At one point, in her dental

stupor, she worried that she might be doing a pretty fair "yes! yes! yes!" from
When Harry Met Sally.
But it wasn't Harry.

"I've been calling and calling," Sasha said. "How quickly can you

get back here?"

"Fifteen minutes," Magnolia answered, overly optimistic. She'd

already been standing for ten minutes on 57th Street, searching for

a taxi.

"They're gathering," Sasha said. "Drop quiz. Cameron's looking

for you. Surprise staff meeting."

A half hour later Magnolia bolted off the elevator onto her floor.

She listened for the raucous laughter that usually erupted during a

meeting, the rising voices of editors interrupting one another with

ideas that trumped the next person's. An amped-up, competitive staff

meeting was better than a basketball game at Madison Square Gar

den, and sometimes just as sweaty.

She heard nothing.

When she entered the conference room, however, the gang was

there, stony and mute. Bebe presided at the end of the table in Mag

nolia's usual spot. For her first day of work she wore a silvery satin

bomber jacket embroidered with dragons, and coordinating pants.

With the ceiling spotlight shining on her you, had to squint.

"Sam here told me it was high time that we, uh, convened,"

Bebe said, looking at Cam. "I was just telling the girls—oh, 'scuse

me, Sam—about my idea for the first cover: posing in a tub full of

bubbles."

Bebe's gaze caught Magnolia's lopsided mouth. "What the hell

happened to you, Mags? Wild nooner?"

The staff turned to Magnolia, who ignored Bebe's comment.

"Bubbles. What, exactly, would you be trying to convey in that

image?" Magnolia asked Bebe in a level tone.

"That I'm all about fun," she answered, staring at Magnolia as if

that weren't as obvious as the fact that they both had boobs. "Life's a

hoot. Join in. Party on."

"I'm not sure most women want to hop in a tub with another

woman, Bebe," Magnolia said.

"Holy Jesus and Mary, my women aren't that literal," Bebe answered.

"Felicity, what do you think?" "Your crowd would follow you anywhere, Beebsy," she said.

"Who are 'your women'?" Magnolia asked. "We need to establish

that."

"Every woman. That's who watches my show. Nuns, truck drivers,

inmates, old biddies, teenagers. Here, the cover would look like this."

She sketched herself next to words marching down the right, instead

of the left. Bebe's rendering looked reversed. Perhaps it would sell

well to the dyslexic—or in Tel Aviv.

"Bebe, maybe we should brainstorm about the cover later in a

separate meeting," Magnolia said. "Fredericka has some drop-dead

ideas—Ruthie, too." She turned to her lieutenants. Fredericka flashed

her whiter-than-white teeth, but Magnolia noted she had chewed her

fingernails to the quick. Ruthie, not usually a poster girl for perfect

posture, appeared starched.

"How about turning our attention to what's going to be inside the

October issue," Magnolia said. "When you think of fall, what comes

to mind?" She hadn't a clue how to tease great ideas out of Bebe,

assuming she had some.

Bebe leaned back in her chair and put her boots on the table. "The

fall makes me think of . . . Harleys," Bebe said, finally. "Tearing up a

quiet country lane on a big road hog."

"I see models posing with bikers," Ruthie ventured. "It could be a

great way to show denim."

"But not those skinny bitches," Bebe said, opening her jacket and

pulling at a roll around her middle. "Every woman hates 'em."

Bebe had a point. "So are you seeing a plus-size fashion story?"

Magnolia asked. She noticed her anesthetic was wearing away. Had

she wanted to, she could now smile.

"Plus, minus . . ." Bebe answered. "You all can figure that out. Just

find me a bunch of biker babes."