Little Pink Slips (6 page)

Sasha gave her a new batch of messages. Harry had returned her

thank-you call about the orchid and Cam had stopped by. Magnolia

was sorry she missed him, since she'd decided to tell him about the

Bebe situation—not that it was a talk she looked forward to having.

"Almost forgot," Sasha said. "Darlene's assistant set up a breakfast

for this Friday. You're supposed be at Michael's at eight-fifteen to

meet you-know-who."

Sasha looked at Magnolia, waiting for more, but Magnolia walked into her office and slammed the door. Seven manuscripts and one

editor's letter later, she went to work with Fredericka. At 5:55 she

called Jock. It was a brief conversation. Jock didn't think it would be

necessary for him to join Magnolia, Darlene, and Bebe when they met

for breakfast. He and Arthur Montgomery, her attorney, were seeing

eye to eye on everything and he was sure she and Bebe would, too.

C h a p t e r 6

A Legend in Her Own Mind

"Good morning, Miss Gold,"
the perennially cheery young greeter announced. "Mrs. Knudson's already seated."

In the evening, any visitor from Nome to nowhere could snag a

prime spot at Michael's Restaurant, but at breakfast or lunch the room was unofficially reserved for
le tout
media, who came to check out one another. Only after Michael's crack team verified your name,

rank, and serial number to make sure you were—or still were—who

you claimed to be. The unspoken rule was that if the maître d' and his

fembots didn't know who you were, they weren't interested in taking

your $27 for eggs and toast. The seating chart was planned with the

precision of a $500,000 wedding. Executives from advertising, fash

ion, and beauty favored the back room, which won for appeal, given

its peek at what passed for a garden. The front space, with its Hockney

lithos, drew this minute's superheroes from Scary, Condé Nast,

Hearst, Time, and big-ticket literary agencies. Television folk swung

both ways.

It was up front that Magnolia headed. She spotted Darlene bouncing

from table to table, floating photos of her sturdy Nordic daughters and

bestowing kisses as if she were campaigning for the New Hampshire

primary. Magnolia waved to several buddies from other companies as she walked across the room, stopping only to acknowledge the mayor's press secretary, who had just been featured in a
Lady
"40 under 40" roundup. Today Darlene's bag wasn't parked at her regular pied-à-terre,

#12, but at a table that seated four. Magnolia positioned herself across

from Darlene, who'd claimed the chair against the wall, the one with

the good view.

"She should be here any minute," Darlene said to Magnolia.

"They're on their way."

"They?"

"Bebe never goes anywhere without Felicity Dingle. She's her pro

ducer, memsahib, groomer, whatever." Magnolia remembered that at the last
Lady
photo shoot it was Felicity who'd barked to the publicist about Fredericka and had her banished from the studio. Darlene did a

few hits on her BlackBerry, then locked eyes with Magnolia. "Bebe's a

force of nature," she said. "You'll see."

   Darlene turned to the Marketplace section of
The Wall Street Journal.
Other than the local business pages—especially on Monday, when they traditionally decimated the magazine industry—it was all she

read. No one would accuse her of being a seeker of wisdom and truth,

nor would Darlene apologize for that—or much. She parsed her time

to reach her goals, and since she'd entered magazines ten years ago,

had been on a fast upward trajectory. Darlene left investment banking

to begin as an ad salesperson at a small magazine about decorating (or

"shelter," as Darlene always reminded people, even if they weren't in

the industry, and mistook her for speaking Finnish). She got hired as publisher of
Lady
last year. At forty, the statute of limitations had run out on her classification as a wunderkind. She needed a grand slam, and she needed it now. But so far,
Lady
had only been number three in its category, with number four nipping at her heels, and her ad sales

had slipped an eyebrow-raising 9 percent.

As Darlene perused her newspaper, Magnolia looked at the menu,

a waste of time. She'd be having oatmeal, as usual. Make a call? Not

here, where the guy at the next table might be a tabloid spook.

Suddenly, the room grew silent. Magnolia turned. Bebe Blake was

heading toward them, a long-haired animal—a ferret? No, it was a cat—peeking out of her burnt-orange Birken bag. Bebe was wearing

tight jeans—Juicy Couture, Magnolia guessed, although she wasn't

sure they were made in Bebe's size—a V-neck Grateful Dead T-shirt

that showed deep décolletage, and boots that looked compromised try

ing to support her. She had a heart-shaped face; a small, pointy nose;

and when she removed her Gucci sunglasses, close-set dark eyes not

unlike those of her pet. Bebe's hair was the color of ketchup.

Carrying an ostrich leather-trimmed, canvas tote loaded with

papers and liter-sized bottles of Evian, another sturdy woman arrived.

Her inky hair, which matched the feline's, hung close to her head in

an asymmetrical cut that recalled Austin Powers's shagadelic London.

In her aqua pants and zippered top, she looked ready for a power

breakfast in any Atlanta suburb.

"Darlene!"

"Bebe!"

"You adorable thing, you. And you must be the editor, Gardenia."

   In fact, this was not their first meeting. Every time Bebe had been on
Lady'
s cover, Magnolia had stopped by the photo studio to personally thank her and drop off a gift. Last time, to nibble during takes,

she'd given Bebe chocolates in a specially ordered box the size of a

laptop.

"It's Magnolia. Magnolia Gold. Thank you for coming."

"You're so much younger-looking than your photo." Bebe squawked,

and both Darlene and the other woman joined her in noisy laughter.

"And you're so much . . ." Magnolia began.

"Fatter?" Bebe offered. It was just this kind of self-deprecating

remark that won her fans, who were considerable in number. "I read

minds," Bebe continued. "Meet Felicity." Magnolia shook hands with

Bebe's cashmere-clad sidekick. "And this is Hell, the current man in

my life, who's going to need some cream. Got some tongue on him,

doesn't he?" She lifted the cat into her lap and let him lick her face.

"Shall we order?" Darlene said.

"I'll have raspberries with soy milk," Bebe announced. When she

smiled, her small eyes got smaller. "Felicity? Will it be soy yogurt? We

just returned from that new ashram in Santa Fe. We're vegans now." Magnolia wished she'd gone for the eggs Benedict. But her oatmeal

had arrived with efficiency.

Bebe yawned. "What's this I hear about your wanting me to take

over a magazine?"

   Magnolia almost spit out her cereal.

   "Jock and I have been scouting for a new take on
Lady f
or months now," Darlene began.

Total con, Magnolia thought. Unless it's true.

"We adore your show," Darlene continued. "I TiVo it and watch it

every night on my Stairmaster. Gotta work on the old tush." She pat

ted her rear.

"Your tush is a work of art, honey," Bebe said. "But let's cut to the

chase. Flattered as I am by your attention, magazines are over. They're

bor-ing. Never read 'em. Can't tell 'em apart. Beige, beige, blah. Dull,

dull, dead."

   Magnolia shot a glance at Felicity's bag, which was knocking against her leg. At least one of them bought magazines.
W
stuck out. And
O.
Plus obviously they were all going to pretend that Bebe's bright red memo for her own magazine, which they'd seen just days

before, didn't exist. Magnolia realized she had officially entered an

alternate universe.

"We think that your stamp on any product would make it stand

out, and a magazine isn't any different from, say, designing clothes,"

Darlene countered. Bebe's brand of plus-size studded denim routinely

sold out at Target.

Hell lapped up his dish of cream, at which point Felicity emptied

the table's milk pitcher into his saucer.

"If I would even consider this little venture, I'd insist on a few deal

points," Bebe announced.

"Shoot," Darlene responded.

"For starters, I require one hundred percent creative control," Bebe

began. "Can't be second-guessed. That's a given. Ground-rule two, I work

when I work. Never sleep, so it's not a problem. I spend July and August

in Hawaii, December in Aspen, and I'm thinking of buying in Tuscany.

Anyway, Felicity can make any decision for me. She's my go-to bitch." The two of them high-fived. Since "Good morning," Go-to Bitch

had said not one word. Magnolia saw mouths moving, heard laughter

coming from a faraway place. Drops of perspiration trickled down

inside her new linen jacket. She would rather be enduring a Brazilian

wax after a long, bushy winter than be here.

". . . and I don't intend to renew my show. Fuckin' noose," Bebe

said with enough conviction to turn heads at other tables.

Magnolia came to. No show, no endorsements, no visibility for the

magazine, if it should sink to that. No! No! No!

   "Bebe, I'm surprised to hear you'd think of leaving
The Bebe Show.
It's such an audience-pleaser. Your fans would be outraged." Magno

lia hated the sound of her own voice, although she wasn't surprised

Bebe would be taking this step, with her ratings slip-sliding away. She hadn't made the list of
Fortune'
s wealthiest women in the universe for the last four years by being a pea brain.

"We'll see," Bebe said, popping the last raspberry in her mouth.

"I'm looking at a lot of opportunities. Maybe open my own ashram.

Or a chain of foot reflexology salons."

   "If we're lucky enough to get you on board, is there anything you like and would want to keep from the current
Lady
?" Magnolia ventured, hearing her voice squeak, but feeling incapable of lowering it.

"Well, it's clever the way you do the product endorsement thing,

your seal of approval."

   "That's
Good Housekeeping.
"

   "And I like that column, 'Can This Marriage Be Saved?' Read it all

the time at the podiatrist's.

   "That would be
Ladies' Home Journal.
"

   "You ladies, you're all alike." Bebe snapped, although Magnolia had

to admit that she'd heard the exact remark many times in focus groups. Which was why she'd planned a redesign of
Lady
with Harry James. She could feel her temples throb at the epic injustice of the

whole situation.

"I'm sure we can work out any little details later," Darlene broke

in. "This is just get-acquainted time. Felicity, do you have anything

you want to ask?" Felicity's voice was low, her manner confident, and her accent,

decidedly northern English.

"Only if Magnolia thought there would be anything unusually dif

ficult about doing a magazine this way?"

Magnolia wasn't entirely sure what answer she could cough up,

other than that handing over the magazine to Bebe and/or Felicity

was the worst idea since bald guys with ponytails. "Typically, a maga

zine's editor in chief is a benign dictator," she responded. "What she

says, goes. For better or worse, it's her vision, her success if the maga

zine's a hit, her disaster if it bombs. In this case, the vision would be

Bebe's. It's an unorthodox arrangement, but I'm sure there's a way to

work it out."

"Dictator?" Bebe said. "Sweet."