Little Pink Slips (35 page)

C h a p t e r 3 5

Knickers in a Twist

Magnolia didn't know
whether her firing was an exclamation point at the end of a flickering work life or an ellipsis during a

long, rambling passage, but one thing she did know was if she was

going to breakfast with Natalie, she'd need the holy trinity—good

hair, good shoes, and a good bag. One, two, three, blastoff.

As Magnolia pushed open the door to Michael's crowded entry and

deposited her coat, someone jostled her from behind. She turned in

time to see Jock roaring out the door, his head a black comet careen

ing across Fifty-fifth Street. Darlene was the comet's tail, her long

Prada coat flying. But before her former publisher could cut and run

into the cold morning, she turned to Magnolia and yowled two words:

"Whip smart."

Escorted by the maître d', Magnolia walked to Natalie's usual table,

nervously waiting for faces to turn and inspect her. Every diner, how

ever, was buried in a paper. Magnolia thought she heard someone

say the identical words Darlene had shrieked, but she couldn't hear—

the room was rocking as if it were the White House Correspondents

dinner and the First Lady had got off a zinger piercing the presi

dent's ego. "Fresh orange juice?" the waiter said, barely concealing a giggle.

"Just coffee, please," Magnolia answered.

"Mrs. Simon phoned to say she was running late," he continued,

his snicker exploding. He paused until he controlled himself. "May I bring you a newspaper, Miss Gold?
Wall Street Journal,
the
Times—
"

   "The
Post,
please," Magnolia said. With today's thorough primping, she hadn't read it. The waiter placed the tabloid in front of her,

folded. All she could see was the business end of a whip dangling by a

pair of sturdy, fishnet-clad legs and thigh-high, nosebleed stiletto

boots. She unfolded the paper. Before her was a middle-aged matron

wearing a diabolical expression, a black leather thong, and a laced

bustier that any lingerie saleswoman worth her microfiber would

instantly dismiss as several sizes too small. The determined face

looked familiar; the cleavage, terrifying; the headline—WHIPSMART.

Holy latex G-string! Felicity Dingle, you snake in the grass, Mag

nolia thought. No wonder your cell phone is always going off. "I

Think I Love You," my big foot.

"We're a family newspaper, friends, so turn the page if you'll blush

over your morning java and spank us if you think we're naughty," the

page-two article began, "but perhaps Bebe Blake isn't keeping Felicity Dingle sufficiently busy whipping things into shape at
Bebe,
her eponymous magazine. Or maybe her day-job's salary is so stingy, the poor dear

needs to moon . . . light. Our exclusive sources inform us that in the evening hours, the high-ranking
Bebe
editor, aka Mistress Whipsmart, finds career satisfaction by, uh, dominating some of the city's finest, as

she had for years among the House of Lords, where she was known pro

fessionally as Nasty Nanny and, in later years, Madame Mumsy. In

London, she is reputed to have carried the tools of her trade in a large

handbag purchased at Her Majesty's favorite leather shop. . . ."

   Magnolia read quickly until she got to a quote from Felicity. "Don't get your knickers in a twist," Mistress Whipsmart told
Post
insiders. "It's not as if I opened a dungeon next to a day-care center. I

provide a needed public service, like the National Health. Oh, forgive

me. You don't have that here in the States. More's the pity.

"On the subject of humiliation, neither Jock Flanagan, president of Scarborough Magazines—which has a multimillion-dollar stake in
Bebe,
launched last year to replace the venerable
Lady
—nor Bebe Blake, the magazine's editor, nor its publisher, Darlene Knudson,

could be reached for comment."

As Magnolia read the item for the third time, Natalie tapped her

on the shoulder and sat down next to her.

"If you looked any happier, I'd say you had a new boyfriend or a

new job," Natalie said. "Which is it?"

"I wish," Magnolia said. "Natalie, I know a lot of people at Scary

have a shoe fetish, but this is taking it too far, don't you think?" she

added, laughing so hard, coffee almost shot out her nose.

   "What are you jabbering about?" Natalie said.

   "You didn't see the
Post
?"

   
"The Washington Post?"
Natalie said. "Of course. Why?" Natalie always waited to read the juiciest morsels in the
New York Post
after she arrived in the office and her assistant presented clips to her.

"Have a look," she said, waving the tabloid. Natalie's eyes got as

big as the mantilla comb supporting her updo.

"Oh. My. God," Natalie said. "Elizabeth is going to flip her wig on

this one."

"Elizabeth Lester Duvall's joining the Witness Protection Pro

gram," Magnolia said. "Who do you think spilled this story?"

"Who cares?" Natalie said. "What's important now is for us to look

like it's inconsequential."

"Why does that matter to me, Natalie?" Magnolia said. "Scary

gave me the boot."

"Of course," Natalie said. "What am I thinking? But be a pal and

stop gloating." The waiter came to take their order. "Excuse me for a

minute, Magnolia," Natalie said as she left, presumably to make a call

or two to ensure that none of Scary's newest scandal stuck to her. In

the ten minutes she was gone, several editors stopped by Magnolia's

table to offer breathless variations on the theme of "You look fabu

lous! I've been meaning to call—I'll have my assistant set up coffee or

lunch. Okay?"

"So?" Magnolia said, when Natalie returned. "How do you think this one's going to play out? Scary paid for the Polo incident and it

went away."

"This one's not coming at a particularly propitious time," Natalie

said, in a low voice. She shot Magnolia one of her cryptic looks.

"What is it?" she asked.

Natalie turned to her right, then left. One pleasure of eating at

Michael's was that the tables were far enough apart so that people

could shake on deals and share names of matrimonial attorneys with

out being overheard. Still, Natalie hadn't stayed in the industry for

decades by taking chances. "You didn't hear it from me, Cookie, but the circulation numbers for
Bebe
—well, let's just say Darlene is a very creative accountant," she said even more quietly.

When it served their purposes, the editors in chief at Scary were

loyal to the company, but as was true of any dysfunctional family, sib

ling rivalry could pop out at any time. If someone else's magazine

took a tumble, you could smell the schaudenfreude like blood at a

slaughter.

"She's cooking the books?" Magnolia asked.

"Of course I'm not a hundred percent sure, but my friends in circu

lation are dropping hints along those lines." Natalie made it her busi

ness to stay on excellent terms with that particular back office

department, which, on any given day, had the pulse of how each mag

azine was selling.

   "
Bebe'
s not a rip-roaring success?" Magnolia said, clutching her chest. "I'm shocked. Shocked."

"Like I say, these are speculations, but subscribers are apparently

canceling like crazy," Natalie said, looking smug. "The business with

Nathaniel Fine and that gun cover . . . Advertisers are cutting loose,

too. Darlene's putting out numbers that are pure fiction."

"With Jock's blessing?" Magnolia asked.

"Naturally," Natalie said.

"Does Bebe know?" Magnolia asked.

   Now it was Natalie's turn to laugh. "Not if Jock can help it. You know how these contracts work. If
Bebe f
ails to clear certain hurdles, Bebe's allowed to pull out—and if she does that, then Scary will never make back its investment. But—of course—I don't know any of this

for a fact. It may be innuendo from some bean counter with an ax to

grind because Darlene wouldn't dance with him at the Christmas

party."

Magnolia took it all in while Natalie finished the last bite of her

egg-white omelet.

"How are you, by the way?" Natalie said. "Cousin Wally coming

through?"

"Wally's a prince," Magnolia said absentmindedly while she

absorbed the enormity of Natalie's news.

   "Glad to hear it," Natalie said. "Now, how's the job hunt?"

   Magnolia decided not to report on her
Voyeur
conversation. Natalie was, after all, the editor in chief of
Dazzle
—theoretically, a competitor. "It's nowhere," she complained. "When you're a pub

lisher, people assume if you can sell ads in one magazine, you can sell

anything. But as an editor"—Magnolia knew she sounded kvetchy—

"there's this idea that you have to be a walking mission statement for

your magazine. Anyway, there are zero jobs now. Somebody would

have to be assassinated to make room for me."

"You have to get out, be seen," Natalie said. "Make a job find you."

"From your mouth to God's ears," Magnolia said, touching the red

bracelet hidden under her sleeve. "What's new with you—besides

Mistress Burberry's bombshell?"

   "Well,
Dazzle
couldn't be hotter," Natalie said, as she always did. "Up ten percent on the newsstand and surpassing last quarter with

ads. But it sounds as if Scary's going to be depending on us more than

ever to be a cash cow. The pressure . . ." She looked at her watch.

"Gotta run. Can I give you a lift? My car's waiting."

"No, I'm headed uptown," Magnolia said. "I have a meeting, too,"

she said—with Biggie and Lola.

As she walked to the subway, her BlackBerry beeped. Bebe. She

hadn't heard from her in months. Magnolia called back on the cell num

ber she had given her only after Bebe decided Raven was a she-devil.

"Magnolia, that you?" Bebe said, answering on the first ring. "Can

you believe this?" "Did you have any inkling?" Magnolia asked.

"Well, a pair of handcuffs once fell out of her bag, but who doesn't

own a pair?" Bebe said. "Now Jock's ordered me to dump poor Felicity.

Just because he took a boondoggle to China, he thinks he's the little

emperor. It's my magazine. Mine. I'd like to take one of his sus

penders and strangle that preppy asshole. . . ."

Magnolia held the phone away from her ear while Bebe ranted.

"Magnolia, you there?" Bebe shouted. "I asked you a question."

"Excuse me," Magnolia said. "There's a lot of traffic—I couldn't

hear you."

"I asked you if you'd come back," Bebe said. "Poor Felicity

deserves a long vacation."

"Aren't you forgetting Jock dumped me?" Magnolia said.

"But these are extraordinary circumstances," Bebe said. "Damn.

Hang on. Another call."

The pause gave Magnolia a chance to savor the moment. Even

if she hadn't been fired by Scary and wasn't disputing her sever

ance, this wouldn't be the burning building she'd pick to run back

into.

   "It's my agent," Bebe said. "
Good Morning America
and
Today
are fighting over me for tomorrow morning, and tonight I'm doing
Larry King
and
Letterman.
No time to fly to L.A. for
Leno.
Rats." She clicked off.

Magnolia dialed another number.