Little Pink Slips (27 page)

C h a p t e r 2 7

Angel Girl

"He asked for you again,
Miss Gold," Manuel, the doorman said. "The gentleman from yesterday."

"Any message?" Magnolia asked.

"No, said he'd be back. Tried to get me to say when you'd be around

but my lips are zipped." The doorman pulled his fingers across his lips

in an exaggerated gesture.

"By any chance," she asked, "did this man have an accent?"

   Manuel considered Magnolia's question as if the grand prize depended on it. "
Sí. Sí.
He did talk kinda funny."

   "Thanks, Manuel," she said.

"One more thing."

"Yes, Manuel."

"I think I seen this guy hangin' around during my shift a few days

ago."

She wondered whether she was getting an extra helping of atten

tion because it was Christmastime, and her doorman pictured his

hundred-dollar tip enjoying some jolly inflation. "Thanks again,

Manuel," she said. "Don't work too hard."

Magnolia let herself into her apartment, kicked off her shoes, and

returned her dogs' affection. Could the gentleman caller once again be Tommy? He'd phoned last week, eager to meet for a drink "now

that Abbey and I are finished." Magnolia thought she'd spurned him

with exquisite clarity, but Tommy was a no-means-yes guy—maybe

he saw her exclamation-point rejection as a flirtatious semicolon beg

ging for a repeat invitation.

Or was the visitor Harry, intoxicated with holiday spirit? Less than

two months had elapsed since their split—he might consider their

relationship under warranty, available for free repair. Harry swooping

into her life was not beyond her imagination; the nonstop Christmas

music everyone had to suffer through could wig out even the most

stable person, subliminally programming him to find a mate, wait for

Santa, and have compulsory intercourse.

She blinked away the thought. Magnolia was feeling doubtful of

her resolve to turn away Harry—especially if he returned, bearing

the Magnolia bracelet, although she knew she'd pay for it eventually

when old St. Nick replaced it with a lump of disappointment.

Dogs fed, she settled at her computer to dash off the last of her

holiday e-mails. But first she reread yesterday's message from Preacherman8:
Angel Girl, I hope u gt yr heart's desire. U 2,
she'd responded, in the language of the teenager she regressed to with Tyler.

She hadn't heard from him today. But it must be a pastor's busy season.

She glanced outside. Like tiny doilies, snowflakes were beginning

to fall, reflected in the high-intensity haze of yellow-white street

lights. The holiday messages could wait. Best to take the dogs for their

long walk.

It was the day before Christmas Eve, and the stock of the trees on

Broadway had dwindled to the last lopsided orphans, although the

scent of pine and balsam lingered, as did a gemütlichkeit that perme

ated the entire city. Magnolia walked south, down to Lincoln Center

awash in twinkling light, then back again, enjoying the mood-elevating

sociability that comes with being escorted by a matched set of canine

extroverts. She could never walk a whole block without someone's

stopping to converse, nose to nose, as if her animals were short, intel

ligent children. "Hello, sweetheart! How are you today?" And occa

sionally people talked to her, too. Starbucks was as packed as on a Saturday morning, especially the

tables favored by laptop users who turned them into private offices.

Magnolia thought she saw a woman wave, and peered inside. It was

Sasha, gathered with friends. Magnolia waved back—if she didn't

have Biggie and Lola, she might have joined them—and as she

turned, her eye caught the back of a man with a blue ski hat, sprint

ing uptown. Another Tyler doppelgänger—same long legs, same lop

ing gait. What would Preacherman8 be doing now? Sledding with his

kids under the endless black velvet of a starry prairie sky? Writing an

antiadultery sermon? Arguing with little Jody Sunshine about

whether to serve goose or turkey for Christmas dinner?

"Tyler—A Retrospective" had become Magnolia's favorite playlist

on the iPod in her brain. When she left him in Fargo, she'd been

relieved to escape into her real life, even if it was ruled by Jock and his

harem of amped-up harpies. She knew there could never be anything

real between her and Tyler Peterson; he'd hate the MTV-metabolism

world she lived in, and she'd never find her place in a state with more

cinnamon buns than bialys. In the absence of a flesh-and-blood

boyfriend, however, she loved Tyler's attention. If this was twisted

and pathetic, well, a therapist could make of that what she might.

She told herself their harmless cyberflirtation would—out of mutual

boredom or his fear of getting caught—soon fade.

Once home, she rubbed the salt off Biggie's and Lola's paws and

took out her present for Abbey. The box was wrapped in shiny scarlet

paper and a white silk bow, the tissue paper inside blanketing a

bracelet-sleeved gold brocade jacket—circa 1962, but pristine—that

Magnolia had found months ago in a downtown shop. She and Abbey

planned to indulge tonight in many movies, spaghetti alla carbonara,

a garlicky Caesar salad, Chianti, and—depending on the strength of

their willpower—chocolate mousse cake.

"Let's make it a yearly ritual," Abbey had suggested. "Food and

presents."

"You expect us to always be single forever?" Magnolia asked.

"I expect us to toast our friendship no matter what male baggage

we trip over," she said. As she turned into Abbey's building, she thought she saw the back

of Blue Hat again. It probably wasn't the same guy—hard to tell in

the dark. This man's hat might be navy or black or purple. As Magno

lia rode up Abbey's elevator, she played the stranger game and began

to weave stories about him.

Blue Hat was hurrying home to his wife for their twins' first birth

day, an engraved silver spoon for each tot in his deep pockets. Blue Hat

worked the Aspen ski patrol but flew in to see his widowed mother,

who was on life support after a horse had bucked her in Central Park.

Blue Hat owned a restaurant in Vermont and came to Manhattan to

buy truffles for New Year's Eve. Blue Hat had got a glimpse of her on

the subway and was traversing the streets, searching for his goddess.

He would run, run, run until he found her.

The evening melted away with comfort food and Katharine Hep

burn. Abbey danced around in her jacket, and Magnolia opened

Abbey's gift to her, pale lilac crystals strung with tiny pearls in a lariat

that would dangle enticingly between her breasts had she not been, at

the moment, wearing a bulky cable knit. "I can see you in this with a

low white dress," Abbey said.

"Something to look forward to," Magnolia said.

"Something to look forward to," she repeated to herself as she

walked the ten blocks back home at one A.M. Manuel opened the door

for her.

"You missed him," he said, excited. "The guy. Fifteen minutes ago."

"Did he leave a note?" Magnolia asked.

"Nothing."

"I'll live in suspense, Manuel," Magnolia said. "Thanks for the

update."

Earlier in the evening, she'd shared the news of the visitor with

Abbey. "It's getting a little unnerving," she said.

Abbey convinced her the guy was Harry. "He needs closure, Mags,"

she said. "The last word."

Upstairs, she decided to buttress the good mood the evening had

brought by slipping into her white Jean Harlow nightgown and try

ing on her beads. Abbey was clairvoyant about trends. By next summer, when Magnolia would probably live in the pale lavender trea

sure, compliments would rain. She returned the necklace to its silk

pouch and started to shut down her computer as an IM popped on the

screen.

"Angel Girl,"
Preacherman8 said.
"Did u hav a gd evning?"

   Magnolia smiled.
"Lovely. U?"
she wrote back. It did feel lovely to end the day with someone who asked nothing of her and who made her A and LOL.

   
"Brrrr. What did u do?"

   
"Party."

   
"Who with?"

   
"Aren't u being nosy?"

   
"Jealous type. Miss u. Visit?"

   E-mail was Archie and Veronica, chaste and juvenile. An actual

visit? Nightmare. Magnolia stared at the screen.

   
"Cat gt yr tung?"
he wrote.

   
"I hve dogs."

   
"Duh. I repeat. Visit?"

   
"When?"
she wrote, regretting the word as soon as she hit SEND.

   
"Now."

   How slow could a woman be? He must be talking about cybersex.

Was a semirepressed Midwestern preacher really capable of pound

ing out wet pussies, throbbing dicks, hot rods, tell me, higher, lower,

there! Sucking trembling fondling licking slippery climaxes, oh oh oh yes yes yes!!!!!!! Ahh
. . . . was it good for u, 2?
Or would it be the equivalent of an electronic dry hump?

Cybersex is definitely on my list of things to do before I die, Mag

nolia thought, but not tonight, not with Tyler. She wasn't going to

peck away, pretending her keyboard was his pecker when it belonged

to another woman, not to mention the Lutheran church.

   
"Gotta headache."

   
"Aw, let me make it better."

   
"Aren't u worried about J catching u?"

   
"Impossible."

   
"Anything's possible."

"Like your attitude. Visit?"

There was an easy way to get out of this rabbit hole.

   
"Merry XMAS & good night!"
she wrote, switched off her computer, slammed it closed, and crawled into bed. Yet as she tried to read

the bestseller on her nightstand, the unnerving image of Tyler as

perv replaced every sentence. Ten minutes later, she turned off her

light, pulled the covers to her chin, and begged for sleep.

In her dream, a phone rang. And rang. Magnolia awoke and recog

nized that the relentless trill was coming from her intercom. She

stumbled to the hall and pressed the TALK button.

"The funny-accent guy, he's back," Manuel said. "Won't say his

name."

"Well, don't send him up, Manuel," Magnolia said as she shivered.

"I ain't going to do that, Miss Gold. Wanted you to know, though.

Now don't worry."

But she did. What if this Tommy-Harry-creep was a stalker? Over

the last two years she'd received repeated, illiterate scrawls from a Florida prison inmate who, inspired by her
Lady
editor photo, professed to have fallen in love with her. While Scary's attorneys reas

sured her that the matter had been addressed, no one accused them of

being a crack legal team. Could Fred the Felon have found out where

she lived? Her phone number and address were unlisted, but a dedi

cated psycho had his ways.

Or what if Bebe had got completely unglued—enraged by the sum

she was going to have to fork over to Prince Fine—and ordered another

special delivery for her, this time in the form of someone a lot more like Tony Soprano? Knowing she'd been butted off
Bebe
might simply be a down payment toward the penance that woman felt she deserved.