Little Pink Slips (29 page)

cheek and then the left, a habit she kept going for a month or two

after her annual Alpine ski holiday. "No one understood why you

weren't there, especially since we discussed new magazine ideas.

They're your thing now, right?"

Good of you to point that out, Magnolia thought. "And how are

Bebe and Raven hitting it off ?" she said. "Bosom buddies?"

"Advertisers drooling over them," Darlene said, grinning.

"Must be quite a performance," Magnolia said. "Who gets the

Oscar?" "Oh, you do," Darlene said, turning away from Magnolia and talk

ing loudly into the Bluctooth as she disappeared into a town car, her

long black Prada coat flapping behind her.

The next day, Elvira called. Jock wanted to see her. The following

day—Thursday—at ten A.M.

Now that she had the appointment, she invited Abbey and

Cameron—who were going to be together that evening—for dinner.

She wanted to poll them on how they thought her meeting would

play out.

   "He'll send you back to
Bebe,
" Cam said, over grilled flank steak, a cut of beef Magnolia had learned that she couldn't destroy. As soon as

he said it, Magnolia discounted his opinion, which she realized was

more inspired by contempt toward Raven than his usual reliable logic.

Cam had just spent the last ten minutes mimicking his new boss in a

tweedy accent. "Hell of a bother to make the changes from those fact

checking cows," he'd quoted Raven as saying. "They seem to think readers give a damn whether the magazine is
true. Y
ou've got scads too many people here anyway—in London we get a magazine out with

half."

Abbey weighed in with "Jock? Admit he's wrong? No chance."

Magnolia reminded herself that Abbey was an outsider, unaware

that far more curious developments took place regularly in the

magazine industry; just last year a publisher bit a subordinate's nose;

after an out-of-court settlement, the guy received a promotion and a

raise.

"Maybe Jock has actual work for you," Abbey suggested. "Make

you sweat for your paycheck." She decided Abbey was right. Jock prob

ably wanted to hand her an endless, truly mind-numbing project—

analyzing why Scary's postage costs were through the roof, let's say,

which would require her to create enough Excel spread sheets to wall

paper her whole apartment before she blew her brains out.

At five minutes before ten on Thursday, Elvira phoned to say Jock

had been delayed and moved the meeting to eleven, then two, then

4:30, and ultimately to the next morning at ten. With each postpone

ment, Magnolia felt increasingly like a force was at work to wring away every last drop of her composure, but when she walked into Jock's

office, she faked a cheery smile—which he didn't return, motioning

her to close the door. Magnolia sat in one of the armless chairs, facing

him. He cleared his throat.

"Magnolia, I've reconsidered," he said.

"Really?" Relief surged through her like a current.

"Yes," he said, his face bleached of expression. "I've decided that

with regard to the corporate editor position, we will go in another

direction."

"What direction is that, Jock?" she asked. This time her smile

wasn't entirely faked, though she did pray that the direction not lead

to Excel spreadsheets.

He hesitated. "We will eliminate the position," he said.

"I see," Magnolia said, restraining herself from shooting Jock a

high five. She wanted to get to the next bounce, when Jock would tell

her—perhaps garnished with a compliment—either that she was headed back to
Bebe
because Bebe herself had demanded it, or that she would take on some sort of complex assignment that would make

use of her unique talents.

"This hasn't been an easy decision," he added.

   Yeah, yeah, yeah, Magnolia thought. Of course, it's hard—because he has to admit he's made a mistake—taking me off
Bebe, ev
en in starting the magazine in the first place, and not letting me renovate
Lady.
But does he think it's been a stroll on the beach to play the role of company loser? Let's get moving here, on to dessert.

"I respect that, Jock," Magnolia said, the only thing she could think

of to say.

"Thank you, Magnolia," Jock said. "You're taking this well."

What an odd remark, Magnolia thought. What other way was there

to take it? Does he actually think I'm going to miss being a corporate

editor who does nothing?

She heard someone tapping softly at the door. Through the glass

wall, Magnolia could see a man who worked at the other end of the

executive floor. She remembered him as the dancing fool at the last

Christmas party. Jock motioned for him to enter. "Howard from Human Resources will explain everything you

need to know," Jock said, as the man stood and stretched out his hand

to shake Magnolia's. He wore a suit fit for an undertaker and an

expression to match. Magnolia took it in and looked back to Jock.

Her stomach lurched. "What's going on?" she asked.

"Please don't make this difficult," Jock said.

"But, but," she sputtered, "what about my return to
Bebe
?" "Excuse me?" Jock answered, and it was fair to say he snarled.

"Bebe . . ." Magnolia said. "She wants me to—"

Jock interrupted her. "That decision is mine and mine alone," he

said, his voice rising. "Not Bebe Blake's. It's in the agreement she

apparently never took the time to read. If that woman wanted to veto

having Raven replace you, she had her chance months ago."

   Whenever someone referred to
that woman,
Magnolia knew it wasn't good. A minute passed, or it could have been five. "Are you

telling me I'm f-f-fired?" she asked, never remembering having stut

tered in her whole life.

"No one is being 'fired,' " said the human resources representative,

who had never sat down. "Your position is being e-lim-i-na-ted." He

enunciated the word as if he were a speech therapist.

Magnolia's brain didn't seem connected to her mouth, if it had

been connected at all for the last five minutes. "What are you saying?"

Jock and the HR heavy exchanged a glance. Magnolia now realized

the reason she'd never had much contact with this man was because

his primary job must be to show employees the door. When a com

pany appoints fire marshals, is this what they mean?

   "I think we're finished here," Jock said, evenly enough, though the look on his face read
Please, remove the dead rat from my rug.
"Let's not make this any more painful than it has to be."

Painful for whom, Magnolia wondered. Why did people who gave

subordinates a pink slip suggest that the hurt was mutual? If her eyes

had bullets, the men in the room would be on their way to the morgue.

When they were fired, some employees, Magnolia suspected, burst

into tears or ran to the bathroom to vomit. Those must be people who could identify their emotions; she, however, didn't have a nerve end

ing in her body. All Magnolia could do was stand and meekly follow

Howard-from-hell into the hall.

"Magnolia, don't worry," Howard said in a there-there-now-dear

voice. "Someone will pack up your office. We'll send everything to

your apartment. You can come to my office now—I'll explain your

severance and you can sign off on the paperwork." He placed his hand

on Magnolia's arm.

Magnolia shook it off. She stared at the man's moving mouth with

its thin, colorless lips, and she began to come alive. Does he actually

believe he's making this easier by telling me to get the hell out, she

wondered? That packing my office is my highest concern? That I

want my apartment littered with the residue of the last sixteen years

of my work life? Does he think I plan to steal toilet paper, dozens of

little green Post-it pads, a file cabinet of circulation records, perhaps.

Was this Howard going to whistle for a police escort?

Magnolia straightened her shoulders and activated her voice to

TAKE CHARGE mode. She'd be damned if, from this second on, anyone

else at Scary would see her sweat or flinch or shed a tear.

"Howard, I think not," Magnolia said. "Those papers? I'll let

you know my plans about them next week." She walked away before

Howard could answer.

Magnolia returned to her office. She locked the door, blasted a rock

station on her radio, and howled. It was a primal scream of rage, of

frustration, of pain. Damn that spoiled pig Bebe for ever having con

vinced Jock that her magazine deserved to exist. Damn that loud

mouth Darlene for leading Bebe's charge and, most likely, working

behind the scenes to assassinate her. Damn every boneheaded cretin at Scary for killing off
Lady
instead of letting her transform it into something special.

Magnolia moved to the next level of damnation—cursing herself

for ever having got into such a vulnerable position, and for being

deluded enough even as recently as ten minutes before in Jock's office

to imagine her situation would improve. Instead of standing like a turkey in a shit storm, she should have had the guts to walk away

from the money and quit months ago, to have already reinvented her

self as a movie producer or the writer of a beach book.

But, mostly, damn Jock, for taking away the work she excelled at

and adored. For coming on to her as if she were a happy little ho.

Damn Jock for having the power to yank out her heart. Damn damn

damn damn that asshole Jock.

Magnolia gasped, then laughed. She'd screamed for minutes and

no one had even noticed. That's how important she wasn't.

She quickly changed her voice mail to give callers her cell phone

number, sent out a mass e-mail to a select group of friends, and threw

her BlackBerry into her bag. Magnolia took a look around her office,

which she was still waiting for Scary to repaint even though she had

moved in two months ago. I'm not going to miss this pit, she thought.

Let the evil elves from Human Resources pack her.

She phoned Cameron.

"You're taking the afternoon off," she said. "I'm calling Abbey, and

both of you are going to get me more drunk than I have ever been.

Just name the place and don't ask why. I have only one requirement.

Pick something obscenely expensive. Scary is paying—with your

expense account. "

Cameron didn't skip a beat.

"The lounge at the Four Seasons?" Magnolia repeated, slipping

into her coat. "Total rip-off. I love it. Meet you downstairs in five

minutes."

C h a p t e r 2 9

A Persistent Vegetative State

Magnolia awoke on Monday,
and, with no compelling reason to get up in the cold, dim dawn, listened to the debate in her

head. A kindly social worker's voice tried to soothe her back to sleep.

"The dogs can wait," the voice said.

"Rise and shine, Missy," barked Drill Sergeant Haul Ass. "Run four

miles. Blow your hair. Put on makeup. Dress up. Everyone hates a sloth."

"Ignore her," whispered the social worker, who had the voice of a

yoga teacher. "Be good to yourself."

"Up, up," said Haul Ass. "Read your newspapers. Do a crossword.

Rewrite your résumé. Sign up for Habitat for Humanity. Network.

Visit a shut-in. Learn a language. . . ."

As the commands echoed, Magnolia buried her face in a pillow.

Inertia sealed her eyelids and muffled any urge she might have had to

mumble so much as a word. Suspended where disinterest meets disbe

lief, she surrendered to a lethargy one degree too tense to be called

slumber.

As a four-year-old, Magnolia was the itty-bitty grandstander who

relentlessly waved her hand in front of the nursery school teacher so

she could explain "hibernation." At this moment her heartfelt wish

was for just that, to sleep off the winter, emerging to a brighter spring. If the HR sherpa had wanted to be truly helpful, he might have

tossed her a manual on how to get through the day, the following

week, and who-knows-how-many months stretching before her. Mag

nolia felt better equipped to complete a long-form tax return than to

figure out what to do next. And she suspected the tax return might be

more interesting.

Minutes before ten o'clock, Lola began licking her face. She's prob

ably afraid I'm dead, Magnolia realized. She placed both feet on the

plush carpeting—and felt them sink into a warm spot of pee.

"Yech," she said, "Sorry, guys—won't happen again." She threw

on a coat, stuffed her dirty hair under a hat, and found the leashes,

which she'd dropped by the front door when she'd staggered in at

midnight from Abbey's. On Broadway, she paused at the newsstand.

Biggie pulled to keep moving, and she obliged. Perhaps the dogs intu

itively knew she should avoid buying today's newspapers on the

chance that media reporters had used their column inches as assault

weapons aimed in her direction.

She had read one item about herself, on Saturday. One was enough.

"Magnolia Gold has left her post at Scarborough Magazines for per

sonal reasons." She wondered why any company thought they did you

a favor by sending out a press release announcing you'd left for "per

sonal reasons"? Short of their believing someone had contracted a life-threatening disease, did people suspect the
personal reason
was anything other than the minor detail of no longer having a job? Did

readers imagine a more nuanced tale? She really, really wanted to get

to know her cousins. She decided to go ahead with the sex change.

The sidewalks were dense with strangers—senior citizens, nannies

pushing strollers, the occasional person in sleek business clothes rush

ing, perhaps late for a therapy appointment. She had no idea that dur

ing the workweek the Upper West Side was such a beehive of activity.

"Playing hooky?" Manuel, the doorman, asked with a wink as Big

gie and Lola stopped for their treats at his concierge desk. Ever since

the evening with Tyler, Manuel seemed to think she and he were ami

gos. Would she need to come up with a story to explain her current

life? "Got canned?" "Between jobs?" She worked up to "have a new schedule" and kept walking toward the elevator. Magnolia did not

want to become one of those women whose best friend was the door

man.

Upstairs, she brewed a pot of coffee and logged on to her laptop.

The day before and the day before that, she hadn't been willing to

face her e-mail. She didn't know what she feared more, a tragically

small number of messages from it's-not-enough-that-I-succeed

you've-got-to-fail acquaintances—or an avalanche. She didn't care

what other people thought. Except when she did. Like, she had to

admit, now.

"You've got mail," the friendliest voice she'd heard that day

announced. Yes, she did—from scarborough.com, condenast.com,

hearst.com, timeinc.com, meredith.com, and every other magazine

company where she'd had lunch buddies and former colleagues.

Clearly, the departing missive she'd hastily drafted had bounced all

over town. There were fifty-two messages, divided almost evenly

between sermon-spewers and the sympathetically bitchy, who real

ized that there but for the grace of God went they.

Group One apparently believed losing your job is a blessing in dis

guise; these things are always for the best; if life gives you lemons,

make lemonade; one day Magnolia was going to thank herself for this

happening; and—her favorite—when one window closes, another

opens. What was she supposed to do, jump through it?

She noticed such wisdom tended to come from editors and publish

ers who'd rolled through life on a tide of professional good luck they'd

grown to mistake for a birthright—though a few of the bromides

were from less fortunate souls who simply appeared to have bought

into their own magazines' spiritual porn and psychobabble.

Maybe the people who sent these words meant well, she reminded

herself; they didn't have to write at all. But their lectures left a bitter

aftertaste—the suggestion that nothing professionally rotten had

happened and she should put her setback in perspective. Magnolia

knew that's exactly what she would do—when she was good and

ready, dammit—and she didn't need to get a push from editors still

ruling tiny sovereign states. Magnolia saved these glad tidings for a later response, along with

those from the busier-than-thou's who suggested getting together for

lunch—several months later, assuming their insane calendars ever

allowed an opening.

She far preferred dear, sweet Group Two. Every one of their touch

ing communiqués was poetry.

What the fuck happened?

Begin SSRI Rx ASAP.

This totally sucks.

Raw deal.

Which bitch is responsible? Bebe or Darlene?

Tell me the backstory.

Call! Any hour.

You've been robbed.

This happened to me, several times, and you couldn't get me out of

bed for weeks.

Don't get mad—get even and, her favorite, a medley on the theme

of Jock: Did a bigger jerk ever roam the earth?

These sentiments made Magnolia feel understood, and after she'd

printed them out to savor, she responded to each. By the time she was

finished, it was 2:30, and she'd set up fourteen breakfast, lunch, and

cocktail dates for later in the month and into the next. Her lack of

work was going to run up quite a tab on the corporate credit cards of

industry pals who still had them. When life gives you lemons, order a

gin and tonic.

At the moment, however, she was hypercaffeinated and famished,

and realized she'd eaten through anything in her kitchen she could

pretend was a meal. Order in lunch at home? Pathetic. Eat alone in a

restaurant? Worse. Go hungry? Unthinkable. Go shopping? That's

what a grown-up would do. Magnolia started making a grocery list

just as the phone rang.

"Your boxes should arrive between four and eight," an unidenti

fied wonk from Human Resources announced. "And Howard needs

you to come in and sign your papers tomorrow at nine or ten. Which

time works for you?" Five minutes till never works for me, Magnolia thought. "I've had

a dental appointment scheduled for months," she lied. "Can't make it

until Thursday." That was the earliest she could picture herself walk

ing through Scary's door.

"Howard's at a conference on Thursday—it'll have to be Friday.

Ten."

Magnolia entered it in her calendar. She looked at this week and

the next. Emptiness loomed like a persistent vegetative state.

As she went downstairs and out the door, the sergeant's voice

started up again, and trailed her to the grocery store. Carpe diem,

little unemployed princess. Now that you've received this unexpected

gift of time, don't blow it.

Throwing groceries into her cart, Magnolia considered the arc of her

life. Every summer during high school and college she'd merrily slaved

away at some sort of internship, and since then had known nothing but

a buzz of work. Many of her friends prayed for something they called

me-time, dreaming of pedicures and trips to Patagonia—anything

for a break from kids and pleasure-sucking jobs. Why couldn't one of

them have been kicked out instead of her? For Magnolia, work was

first-class fun attached to a paycheck.

She returned to her apartment, unloaded her bags of the six food

groups—low-fat cottage cheese, Greek yogurt, strawberries, coffee ice

cream, dark chocolate, and cashews. As she passed by the big, gilt mir

ror in her foyer, she caught a glimpse of herself and stopped for a

closer look. She had a thought. This would be the perfect moment in

which to disappear, let's say to Brazil, for breast implants. But she would never dare; it would be her karma to wind up profiled on
Dateline
with silicone dripping out of her nose.

She needed another idea. Take a course? The community center

around the corner—a new building which had won architectural

awards but could nonetheless be easily mistaken for a minimum secu

rity prison—had recently sent a catalog. She found it stuffed between

overdue bills and unopened annual reports from companies in which

she hadn't realized she'd invested.

Magnolia spent forty minutes studying the community center's offerings. Who knew, just blocks away, you could enroll in "Cheese

cake," "Israeli Dancing with Shmulik," and "Mah-jongg for Begin

ners"? But what got Magnolia juiced was "Texas Hold 'Em." Poker

chips! Free snacks! Then Magnolia read the fine print. The class was

for forties and fifties singles.

She tossed the catalog in the garbage and curled up on her couch.

What she wanted to do was . . . nothing. All the enticements that had

drawn her to Manhattan, which she'd shoehorned into her frenetic

schedule, suddenly seemed as appetizing as a black banana. Sample

sales? For clothes to wear where? Galleries, the theater, ballet, opera,

literary readings, scones with clotted cream at Lady Mendl's Tea

Salon—the thought of indulging in any of them made her feel down

graded from bummed out to dejected, because there it was: she didn't

want to be alone. Every friend who lived in the city was busy working,

and her other buddies were young matrons exiled in the burbs, busy

with lactation consultants and landscape gardeners.

A man in her life might be pleased to know she could steal away on

an afternoon for a long lunch, with him for dessert. But there was no

man, and she shouldn't be taking the time to look for one. She should

be looking for a job.

   Money wasn't her instant concern—she was still under contract with Scary as editor in chief of
Lady
and could handle the bills for a while. But soon enough she'd need a salary, and editor-in-chief posi

tions didn't pop up often. She'd need to engineer meetings, light up