Little Pink Slips (28 page)

Bebe had to blame her for her public humiliation, and she couldn't

inform her otherwise without exposing Sasha.

Magnolia was ready to call Abbey, who'd tell her whether she

was having an attack of the paranoids, when she thought she heard

someone shout her name. The snow was falling heavily now, and her

view was blurred. She opened the window, letting a gust of cold rush

into her bedroom. Yes, someone was shouting, "Maggie." It wasn't Tommy, and it wasn't Harry. Blue Hat was standing below

her window. Tyler in his blue ski hat.

"What are you doing?" was all she could think to yell back.

"Freezing my buns off," he said. "Can I come up?"

"You must be crazy," she shouted. She pressed her eyes shut. Was he

transported here by burning lust, romantic ecstasy, or random lunacy?

"Please," he shouted back. "Maggie, I've come all this long way."

"No!" she shouted, but friends don't let friends wake the cranky

couple in 2A, from which place an angry voice was already rumbling,

"Hey, Romeo and Juliet, shut yer traps. People wanna sleep."

"Okay, I'm coming down," she gestured. "Go inside." She grabbed

her parka and threw it over Jean Harlow, stepped into her dog-walk

ing boots, and rode the elevator to the main floor. At the end of the

hall which led to the entrance, a twelve-foot Christmas tree, switched

off for the night, stood guard like a sinister totem. Magnolia's footfalls

echoed as she rounded the corner, her nightgown dragging on the

marble floor.

"You know this guy?" Manuel asked.

"I do," Magnolia said. "Old friend." She moved out of the door

man's earshot and fixed on Tyler. "Whatever are you thinking?" she

whispered.

"Obviously, about you," he said, smiling slightly but looking like a

child on the back of a milk carton.

"But to get on a plane and arrive unannounced?" Magnolia shook

her head.

   
" 'I'm aware it's a bold move.' "
She realized he was trying to mimic Jack Nicholson in a movie she'd seen on HBO.

"When did you arrive?"

"Two days ago. Staying at the Y. Walking the city. There are a lot of

beautiful women here."

"Part of our regional charm."

"But you're the one I want." He paused. "I've been thinking . . ."

And, apparently, following her.

Magnolia cut him off. "Why didn't you just call me?"

"I wanted it to be a surprise," he said, stepping closer. "Believe me, it is."

This was the moment when a woman in love would reach out to

the man, draw him close, kiss him tenderly, and know her life had for

ever changed. Magnolia searched her heart. It was . . . crowded. There

was, she had to admit, warmth and not just of the chocolate chip

cookie variety. Compared to most men she'd met, Tyler was forthright

and kind and frighteningly handsome, especially out of his clothes.

And while she was shocked by his kamikaze courting, she was less

angry than overwhelmed that he'd flown thousands of miles to take a

chance on her. Yet bigger than the intense pleasure of chemistry and

flattery was an impenetrable layer of guilt from knowing her e-mails

had apparently been misinterpreted.

Magnolia fumbled in her mental toolbox once more and pulled

out . . . management skills. She took his hand. "Come upstairs," she

said quietly, thinking out loud. "You'll call your wife—who must be a

wreck." Magnolia turned to look at him. "Where does she think you

are, by the way?"

"Visiting my brother in Butte," he said. He tapped his pocket. "Cell

phone."

"We'll get you home by Christmas Eve," she murmured as they

rode up in the elevator. "Your wife won't have to know." She couldn't

say if the promise was directed to Mrs. Tyler Peterson or to him, or

was for her own benefit.

Magnolia kindled a fire and settled Tyler across from her on the

deep green velvet couch, a pot of herb tea and a plate of biscotti on

the suede ottoman between them. Instead of lighting her chunky

white candles, her usual custom with evening guests, she turned on a

lamp. In the burnished glow, she saw him look around the room as if

he were visiting the private quarters of the White House, and she

felt embarrassed by her home's casual luxury. She'd never been so

happy she had two sloppy dogs, who ran to him, placing their paws

on his legs, looking for a scratch. He knew exactly how to please them.

"Talk to me," she said.

"I feel so trapped," he said. "Got it coming and going—listening to

Jody complain about money and trying to comfort the people in my flock—plus the church is falling down on my head. Everywhere I

look, complaints, complaints. I feel so alone. I'm thirty-eight and all

used up . . ." He looked into her eyes. "I was hoping you could be

there for me."

"Tyler, I can't even imagine how hard your life must be," Magnolia

said, and meant it. "What I do, compared to you, is . . . trivial. And I'm

paid well to do it. Right now I'm feeling ashamed."

"Hey, you deserve it," he said. "Those magazines make folks

happy. Either they look at celebrities' lives and thank God they're not

one of them, or get a kick in the butt to change their ways. Jody is

always clipping and quoting stuff she reads in magazines, yours

included."

Magnolia felt too guilty to think about faraway, faceless Jody, and

how she took to heart stories like "A Little to the Left"—How to Say

What You Want in Bed Without Bruising His Ego" or "Have You Let

Yourself Go? Downsize Your Thighs in 4 Weeks."

"What I don't deserve is you, Tyler," she said.

He got up from his chair, sat next to her, and gently touched her

face. His hands were still cold. She placed one of his hands between

both of hers.

"I haven't felt this way in a long time," he said. "That weekend—

there was something between us. Don't you love me, Angel Girl?"

Magnolia knew she wanted to be loved. But this was, she realized,

irrelevant, because she didn't want to make her life with Tyler, and she

couldn't return his love the way he hoped. "I'm someone who adores

you, but I can't be your Angel Girl," she said. "I'm sorry if I misled you."

"Then are you my temptation?" he asked without a speck of

detectable irony.

"When you use words like that, I can't answer," she admitted. "I'm

still trying to believe that you went to all this trouble to surprise me

here."

He looked to the other side of the room, but she knew she was

reaching him.

   "Tyler, listen to me. It's not our fate to be together." The Yiddish word
beshert
—destiny—popped into her mind—and not only wasn't he it, she didn't want to have to translate from Yiddish. "Tyler, I'm

sorry, but I think it's best for everyone if you leave in the morning."

He nodded.

"Turning you away is very hard for me," she added, nervously twist

ing her hair. "I would love to play house with you, to show you Man

hattan. To prove I'm not the ball-busting bitch people take me for."

"Maggie, if anyone knows that, it's me," he said, and let his lips

graze hers. The graze turned into a long, deep kiss. "But I hear what

you're saying. I don't like it, but I hear it." He stared into the fire.

"And if this is your decision, I don't want to talk about it anymore."

He pulled away. "All of a sudden I feel very tired."

   She squeezed his hand.

   "I do have one request," he said.

   Magnolia brushed away a tear from her cheek.

   "Let me borrow a dog for the night," he said, stretching out on the coach and pulling an ivory cashmere throw over his lanky frame. "If I

can't have your warm body, at least let me hear a dog snoring." He

shut his eyes and she tiptoed out of the room.

In the morning,
Magnolia slept past ten. When she straggled out to the living room, Tyler was gone. "Dogs walked & fed," he'd writ

ten on a note. "Making 11:30 plane. Didn't want to wake you."

   That night, Christmas Eve, she heard from him.
"Angel Girl, thank u for the wake-up call,"
he e-mailed.
"You will be forever in my heart. But I'm writing to say good-bye. P. S. I'm closing down this account."

C h a p t e r 2 8

One-Way Ticket to Siberia

"See you at the retreat,"
a new publisher at Scary boomed to Magnolia as he swung his duffel into the elevator on a late

January morning. "You're speaking, right?" He'd started Monday and

didn't know any better.

"Uh, no," Magnolia said. That would be the executive retreat at an

upstate inn where anyone who wanted to present an idea had thirty

minutes for her personal tap dance; the retreat capped by Pilates and

outlet shopping, followed by an evening of fine food, good wine, and serious posturing—
that r
etreat, the one a corporate editor whose job meant something would definitely be attending. She had the feel

ing—egocentric as it was—that the off-site gathering, which nor

mally was held over the summer, had been moved up on the calendar

simply so Jock could exclude her, enrage her, and get her to quit.

Magnolia opened the door to her office-in-exile and read her e-mail,

which took only minutes now that she was no longer logging on to AOL

six times a day to see what Preacherman8 had to say. To her relief, last

week she'd got a handwritten letter from Tyler, who'd gone on a Chris

tian marriage weekend with Jody and was praying—which Magnolia

took literally—that their marriage could be saved.

She followed her e-mail with her regular four newspapers plus the
Los Angeles Times,
then glanced at her yawning in-box. Even her magazine pile was low—she'd been reading issues cover to cover the minute they arrived. She opened this week's
New Yorker
and was idly flipping through the magazine, cartoon by cartoon, when Bebe

clomped through the door.

"So what the hell are you doing in this job?" she asked by way of

greeting, making a chair creak as she sat down. Either she'd gone on

anabolic steroids or put on at least twenty pounds since the Polo

episode. "Hanging out where you can call tips into tabloids more easily
?
Bankrupt a few more people?"

"Nice to see you, too, Bebe, and once more for the record, I wasn't

the snitch," Magnolia said. "Not that I approved of what you were

doing."

"And I am a natural redhead," Bebe said as she rolled her eyes.

"You expect me to buy that?"

"I don't care what you buy," Magnolia said, wondering whether

she came off as petulant as she sounded to herself. "If you're looking

for an apology, you're not going to get one."

"Okay, keep your Girl Scout badge. That's not why I'm here."

"To what do I owe the honor?" Magnolia asked, genuinely curious.

   Bebe looked around the office. "You know, this is really a dump. Remind me why you quit
Bebe
?"

   "Quit?" The words flew out of her mouth.

Bebe raised her eyebrows. "Escaped, whatever?"

Magnolia weighed the advantage of revealing that her reassign

ment had been involuntary. She couldn't see the percentage. "If I told

you what really went on," Magnolia said, "I'd have to kill you."

"Well," Bebe said. "You've made your point." Bebe studied her fin

gernails, long tips enameled in a blackened red. "Get your butt back."

Magnolia took a quick breath, turned and gazed out the window so

Bebe couldn't see her shock. Suddenly, the sky looked bluer and was

stenciled with wedding veil clouds. A pigeon landing on her ledge,

she noticed, had feathers that shimmered silver-gray with a hint of

pink. She used to think of them as flying rats, never appreciating how

attractive pigeons—doves, yes?—actually were. She tried not to smile, but the sensation of Bebe asking her to return was sweet and as

she savored the taste, time stood still.

"Well, don't just sit there," Bebe said, looking uncomfortable. She

cleared her throat. "I'm not going to beg. What's your answer? Com

ing or not?"

As if Jock would let her kiss and make up with Bebe. Still, the plea

sure of having Bebe ask was multiorgasmic. "I can't. Raven's here.

The job's filled.

Bebe brushed away the thought and chortled. "Let Jock send her

back."

"Not so simple," Magnolia said. "Scary jumped through hoops to

get Raven a green card, rent her apartment, the whole bit." And, of

course, that was only the public half of why Jock wouldn't make a

change.

Bebe scowled.

"How
are
things with Raven, anyway?" Magnolia asked. Bebe sat back, and the frown hardened. "I hate her," she said in a

spasm of candor. "Eat Street this, Eat Street that. Who cares and

where the hell is it, anyway?"

"It's 'Fleet Street.' Means she's a British journalist, that's all."

"And what's 'fine fettle'? The woman won't speak English." Bebe

picked up an antique paperweight from Magnolia's desk and idly

moved it from hand to hand. "I'd like to break her skinny little neck."

Bebe stood, glanced back, and filled Magnolia's doorway. "So I gather

your answer is 'no'?"

"Not for me to say," Magnolia said. "It's a Jock decision."

"If I can get him to throw her across 'the pond,' will you come back?"

"It could happen," Magnolia said, as Bebe walked off.

Since Jock had relocated her to Siberia, she'd only seen him twice,

both times on his way to the men's room. But two could play the

game. A few days after she'd been planted on the executive floor, he'd

asked her, by e-mail, to analyze the covers of all the Scary magazines.

Within a week she'd fulfilled the request, presented in a gleaming

report which had been marking time on his desk for a week—if he

hadn't filed it in the trash. Though she had virtually nothing to do, she was keeping regular hours, even if a considerable number of

them each day were spent on obscure Web sites. Magnolia had been

careful not to leave a computer trail that might suggest she was job

hunting—she didn't want to give Jock grounds for firing with cause;

there was too much money at stake. She had a contract, after all. Best

to wait things out and hope that a mouthwatering job would come on

the market, and she'd be on the short list.

   She'd kill to see the look on Jock's face, though, when—and Bebe begged to get her back on
Bebe.
But Bebe had opted out of the retreat, so nothing would happen for days—if at all.

It was only eleven. Too early for lunch. Maybe she'd check in with

the new couple. Or maybe not. Cameron and Abbey had gone out

twice, and while neither claimed to be struck by lightning, they'd

purchased tickets for an Off-Broadway play two weeks from that day,

which, Magnolia decided, practically implied a betrothal. "She's good

company" was the only reaction Magnolia could pry out of Cam, but

on the subject of Cameron, Abbey was starting to sound like a 24/7

news network: how witty he was, how well-read, and how talented in

the kitchen—on their second date he'd roasted a chicken for their

dinner. Frankly, Abbey's oral reports were beginning to grate.

"Why didn't you ever hit on him, Magnolia?" Abbey had asked just

the previous day.

"We've gone over this before," she said. "Did you forget that until

five minutes ago I was his boss?" Not that the thought wouldn't have

occurred to her—at least a hundred times.

As Magnolia was scrolling through her BlackBerry to see which

neglected friend she could persuade to go to a movie with her this

weekend, Natalie walked through her door. Today she was a gypsy

queen in a flamenco skirt and a hip-slung leather belt heavy enough

for a carpenter. Magnolia was surprised to see her—she and Natalie

hadn't been talking since the Bebe-Polo dustup: She resented that

Natalie's coolness suggested that she believed Magnolia was the one

who tattled to the tabloid.

Yet she asked, "How you doing, Cookie?" as if they'd just chatted

yesterday. "How does it look like I'm doing, Natalie?" Magnolia said.

"I've seen worse," she said, sizing up Magnolia's office. "Anyway,

I knew I wouldn't be seeing you this weekend—bonehead move on

Jock's part to exclude you, if you ask me—and I wanted you to hear

something." Natalie put on her glasses. The minute she saw it, Magnolia

recognized the Smythsons of Bond Street envelope, from which Natalie

withdrew a piece of paper of the sort used in the copying machine.

   "Dear Mrs. Simon," Natalie read. "Magnolia Gold does not know I am writing you, but since she left
Bebe,
I can no longer live with my guilt. In case you are wondering, it was not Magnolia who informed

the newspaper about Bebe Blake and Nathaniel Fine. I watched the

whole thing, and I and I alone am responsible for disclosing this infor

mation to the press. I cannot reveal my identity, only that I am a member of the
Bebe
editorial staff and that I am sorry indeed for getting Magnolia in trouble." Natalie put the letter down. "It's signed, 'A

friend.' "

Silence hung between them like a blast of drugstore air freshener.

Magnolia hoped Natalie wasn't looking for a name to prosecute. "If

you're wondering who Deep Throat is," she said, "I don't know, but it

was big of her."

"Magnolia . . ." Natalie spoke in a voice usually reserved for guilty

three-year-olds.

"You don't actually think I composed that letter and mailed it on

my own behalf ?" Magnolia asked incredulously.

Natalie stared at her while she ceremoniously removed her glasses.

"Think about it," Magnolia said. "What point would there be? I'm

already so off the radar, no one would hear me if I sang grand opera."

"True," Natalie said, taking a moment to consider Magnolia's

logic. "So, I guess . . ."—she walked around the desk to give Magnolia

a hug—"you deserve an apology. I owe you."

"Well, actually, now that you mention it," Magnolia said, "there's

something I want to run by you."

"Oh?" Natalie said.

"You're my second surprise today," Magnolia said. "Bebe was here

a few minutes ago. Odd as it may seem, she wants me back." "Extraordinary," Natalie said. She took a moment to let it sink in.

"But what does this have to do with me?"

   Magnolia put it out there: "I wouldn't mind returning to
Bebe.
Anything you could do to make that happen? Plant a seed with Jock at

your think weekend, let's say?"

"And where would Raven fly off to?" Natalie asked.

"I haven't thought it through, but you're so much better at those

moves than I am," Magnolia said.

Natalie put her chin in her hand and leaned forward on Magnolia's

desk, which she tapped nervously with her three middle fingers while

she appeared to weigh the request. The light on her biggest ring

reflected the afternoon sunlight. "Okay," Natalie said, after a moment.

"If an opening presents itself, I'll run it by him. But I can't make any

promises."

"Fair enough," Magnolia said.

She could hear Natalie's flamenco skirt rustling as she walked

down the hall. The weather forecast for the weekend was suddenly

looking partly sunny.

Shipwrecked on
Fantasy Island, Magnolia imagined a reversal of fortune. If Bebe wanted her, seconded by Natalie, Jock would let

her return. One week drifted into the next, though, and she never

heard from him. The closest she got was a collision with Darlene.

"We missed you at the retreat," her former publisher boomed,

swooping down on her in Scary's lobby and kissing her on the right