up and down her thigh.
“Did you reject his advances?”
“Yes!” Magnolia was surprised by the steel in her voice. “Of course.”
“And after that incident were the terms or conditions of your
employment adversely affected?”
“After that I was moved from being deputy editor to corporate edi
tor, and soon after that I was fired.” It wasn’t cancer. It wasn’t even a
broken arm or a classic broken heart. She hesitated but said, “I call
that ‘adverse,’ yes.”
Wally turned off his tape recorder. “Was that so bad?” he said.
“We’ve had worse conversations over what color white to paint the
living room.”
Magnolia remembered and laughed. “You and Whitney agree on
all that?”
“I pick my battles, doll,” he said. “Marriage—who ever thought
that one up?” He began to tidy his desk. Magnolia considered that
perhaps she should leave, but then Wally started talking. “By the way,
were you surprised by the lawsuit?”
Magnolia had rushed out without reading the paper or listening to
any morning television. What new national or international scandal
didn’t she know about? Her face registered empty. Lately, she’d been
focusing so much on celebrity journalism—if that wasn’t an oxymoron—that The New York Times kept piling up unread. “Oh, you didn’t hear?” Wally said matter-of-factly. He broke into a
grin. “That’s right. I forgot. You couldn’t have heard. Nobody knows
yet.” He paused for dramatic effect. “Scary’s suing Bebe Blake. For
breach of contract. You heard it here first. The story’s going to break
in an hour or two.”
“Who told you this?”
“A friend handling the case,” he said. “Yes, ma’am. Scary’s suing
for damages, punitive and actual. Three hundred big ones.”
“Three hundred thousand dollars?”
“Oh, you are an innocent. Million, honey. Million. Claims your
Bebe Blake breached her contract. Behaved erratically. That true?” It was Magnolia’s turn to laugh. “Honestly, Wally, Bebe defines
‘erratic.’ One day she sends you the best birthday gift you ever
received, and the next day you’re afraid she might steal your dog.”
“So, did you see it coming?”
“Wally, if you’re asking me if I’m surprised that Scary would sue,
no. It’s Jock, down to his boxers. Ego the size of Alaska.”
“Guess that means you’re rooting for Bebe?”
Magnolia spoke very, very slowly. “Wally, honey. If Scary has money to throw around on vanity lawsuits, I’m rooting for me. Pull out every card in that pretty little deck of yours. Go get Magnolia a
nice, six-figure check.”
He smiled. “Now you’re talking.”
“This is for you, Wally,” she said, ignoring his onion breath and
kissing him on the lips. “Get lucky. Get very lucky.”
C h a p t e r 3 7
See You in Court
“Miss Gold, delivery coming up.” The doorman purred over Magnolia’s creaky intercom. “Flowers for the lady.”
Magnolia hadn’t received a bouquet in months. The only blossoms
that weren’t on her wallpaper were from the deli. Just this morning
she’d trashed two dozen roses which after only twenty-four hours had
arrived at death’s door, bending over as if they were praying.
Someone pressed her bell with short, urgent blasts. “Hold on,” she
sang out, as she squinted through the peephole. All she could see were
Smurf-blue carnations. Her fleeting thought was that this was
Cameron’s idea of humor. Magnolia opened the door, hoping he was
attached to the flowers.
A squat, middle-aged man held tightly to the carnations. His
greasy hair was combed over a shiny bald spot, and he wore an over
coat that appeared to have been be plucked from the annual New York
Cares coat drive. Magnolia reached for the neon bouquet, but the man
pulled it back while he shoved an envelope in her face.
“Consider yourself served,” he said before he slunk back into the
elevator, carnations in hand, like a villain in a 1942 comic book.
Magnolia ripped open the envelope. “You are hereby commanded
to appear in the offices of …” She read the name of a patrician law firm and noted a place, date, and time the following week. Strange
that Wally hadn’t mentioned anything about a command legal per
formance, Magnolia thought, as she walked to her desk to check her
calendar. “No can do,” she said aloud, noting a conflict with an ap
pointment she’d scheduled weeks ago to put a blast of bling in her
highlights—the winter was long enough without hair the color of
burnt toast. She looked up Wally’s cell phone number to call and ask
what this summons had to do with her contract dispute, then remem
bered it was far too early to reach him in Colorado. Magnolia tossed
the letter onto a pile of unpaid bills and returned to her television.
She could crash in several episodes of third-tier celebrity shows
before meeting Abbey.
She’d been missing Abbey. The velocity of their IM-ing, text mes
saging, and phone calls had petered out to half the norm. At least
that’s how it felt to Magnolia, who for the first time in her adult life
didn’t have to multitask while she and her only true confidante gave
each other full accountings of daily minutia, the dull as well as the
droll. Now, Abbey seemed to be abbreviating every conversation. Her
business had taken off. Bergdorf’s had requested three dozen pairs of
sea-foam sapphire earrings, Fred Segal was offering an exclusive for
all of la-la land if she could whittle down the price and do them up in
lemon jade, and Anthropologie would be willing to place an order
that was seven times the size of the others combined.
Yet Magnolia knew this flurry of entrepreneurial hyperbole didn’t
explain Abbey’s attention deficit, and she didn’t think for a second
that Abbey was cheating on her with another friend, someone who
might be—at the moment—a whole lot perkier. Abbey had a low tol
erance for perky, which was one of the qualities she and Magnolia
shared. No, there was only one explanation. A man. To be specific, a Frenchman.
Magnolia walked the long white runway that led to MoMA, where
they planned to meet at one o’clock. Advancing out of the tunnel, she
felt as if she should wind up in heaven, not a swanky café. Planted
under an enormous leafy photo was Abbey, who in her scarlet coat
looked like Little Red Riding Hood lost in the forest. Abbey waved gaily. “You look gorgeous!” she said, stretching to
hug Magnolia.
“You do and I don’t, but let’s not discuss it,” Magnolia said, return
ing the hug, reassured by the all’s-well-in-the-world comfort she got
when she looked into her friend’s dark almond eyes. “What I want to
know is—everything. And—now that I don’t have to worry about
falling asleep at my desk—let’s hear it over a drink.” One of a platoon
of waiters in charcoal Nehru jackets showed them to a choice table
with a view of the ghostly crystalline garden and its ice-frosted
Calders. “To you,” she said, toasting Abbey with her gl
ass. “My own
jewel of Las Vegas.”
“To Magnolia, who I can count on never to set foot in Las Vegas,”
Abbey said.
“So? Is this Daniel Cohen the One?” Magnolia took a sip, put her
glass on the table, and smiled warmly at Abbey. “He is! You’re blush
ing!” Abbey’s cheeks were rapidly turning the pink of a sweet sixteen
party.
“I can’t get enough of this guy,” Abbey said. She started counting
his virtues while tapping her delicate, white index finger on the digits
of her left hand. “He’s charming, he’s handsome, he’s brilliant, he’s
sexy.” She switched to the right hand. “He’s got an accent I could lis
ten to even if he were reading a grocery list, he’s totally into me—”
“That should be number one,” Magnolia said, cutting her off. “I
get it. He’s the anti-Tommy.”
“Right, except Tommy did have bedroom appeal. Let’s give him
that. On the other hand, Daniel’s a grown-up,” Abbey said. “He’s
older—thirty-nine—but mostly it’s his Frenchness. Even a Parisian
sixteen-year-old seems older than Tommy.”
“Where do you go from here?”
“Literally?”
“Cosmically,” Magnolia said.
“I only know literally,” she answered. “To Paris again this week
end. He keeps sending me tickets. And in a few weeks he’s coming
here and I’m planning to introduce him to my nearest and dearest.
Cocktails at my place. You’re not going to be away, I hope?” “For the near future I expect to be epoxied to my armchair with a
view of the TV.”
“It would never be a party without you. Oh, and Cameron,” she
said, as she took a bite of smoked eel. Love seemed to have sparked
Abbey’s appetite.
“Cameron’s made your A-list?” Magnolia asked, truly surprised.
“How do you do it? All my exes despise me.” Except Tyler, who every
once in a while sent her a friendly, funny e-mail from his regular Pas
torpeterson account. Harry? Had he thought to send her as much as an
e-mail expressing sympathy about her job loss—which he had to know
about, given its tabloid coverage? She’d concluded that Harry was a
user, and at the moment she wasn’t even useful enough to be his friend.
“To begin with, Cam and I never got near lust,” Abbey said. “He’s
just not the one to own my heart—”
“Whoa. You’re forgetting our rule,” Magnolia said. “No Country
Western lyrics until after two or more beers.”
“Plus, I know I don’t do it for him,” Abbey continued, ignoring her.
“I can never tell if he’s laughing with me or at me. You get him a lot
better than I do, but I do see where he’s hot, if that’s what you’re won
dering.”
Magnolia let the last bubble of conversation float in the air until it
disappeared, then attacked her gâteau, a rich pastry featuring crispy
potato and escargot. If you can’t eat carbs when you’re unemployed,
she’d decided, you just don’t love yourself enough.
“Back to Daniel Cohen,” she said. “You deserve this, Abbey. I am so
happy for you that—look at me—I’m going to cry.”
This was true. Magnolia blinked away tears. She was almost sure
she was ready to shed them entirely on Abbey’s behalf and not
because her friend’s attachment to the perfect Daniel might mean
one more shutter closed in her shrinking, darkening world. You are
pathetic, Magnolia told herself, brushing away both the thought and
the tear. Also selfish. Jealous. Small-minded. You adore Abbey. You
will find your own man. You will not be alone. Or a bag lady. Shoul
ders back, girl. “Dessert?” Magnolia asked as a cart sailed past, laden with choco
late napoleons and pale, lemony petits fours lined up like ballerinas.
“Not today,” Abbey said. “Got to get back to my studio. Call you
tonight?”
“Date,” Magnolia said. They finished their espressos, split the bill,
and left the restaurant. Magnolia wandered through a few cavernous,
sparely hung galleries, then out on Fifty-third Street. She began to
walk uptown toward Columbus Circle where she could catch a train.
As she crossed Fifty-seventh Street, someone bellowed her name.
“Over here,” said the voice. “In the limo.”
Magnolia swiveled to avoid oncoming traffic. A Stretch Hummer
had stopped across the street. “Where you headed, Bebe?” she shouted
back.
“My lawyer’s,” Bebe said.
“What’s the occasion?” Magnolia asked when she got close to the
car’s window. “Let me guess. You need another prenup. Are congratu
lations in order?”
“I need another husband like I need a third boob,” Bebe said. “Or
like I needed a magazine. But Jock’s going to pay. He’s in for a little
surprise.” She rubbed her hands together like an eager cannibal. “Don’t
stand there shivering—I’ll fill you in. C’mon—Gold. Chop, chop.”
“But I’m going uptown,” Magnolia said.
“So we’ll take a ride.” Bebe gathered her plentiful fox coat with its
hanging tails and tassels and patted the seat next to her. Magnolia
climbed into the car. “Like I was saying, our countersuit is almost
ready to rock and roll. Scary and Jock won’t know what hit ‘em. I’m
talking major artillery shelling.” Bebe grabbed Magnolia’s arm—
those mental midgets to steal my money, not when Jock and Darlene
and all the others have treated me like pond scum, did you? Well,
did you?”
“Bebe, I’ve been trying not to think about any of this,” Magnolia
pleaded. “I’m sorry you’re being sued,” she fibbed, “but you did pub
lish a cover that was blatant gun-lobby propaganda. You weren’t always the easiest person to work with and, damn it, you fired me.”
She wrested away her arm.
“Jock fired you!” Bebe said. “I wanted you.”
“Revisionist history. Jock may have pulled the trigger,” Magnolia
said, figuring it was a metaphor Bebe would understand, “but I don’t
recall an enormous show of support at the time.”
“You don’t know what you don’t know. I was behind the scenes, say
ing I wanted you. All along. You know I hate that eye-rolling bitch
Raven. Tried to shoot down my ideas like they were enemy Black
Hawks. And Jock! Did you know he had a security guard lock me in my
office? I was stuck there for ninety minutes. Thought I’d have a stroke.”
“I heard something about that,” Magnolia said. “But you’d threat
ened to kick Raven in the teeth.”
“I believe I identified a different body part,” Bebe said. “Lower
down.” She stopped talking for a minute. “This is an absurd conversa
tion. It’s all very simple. I need to pull out before I lose more dough,”
she said after a minute of meditation. “Like my ma always said, she
didn’t raise no stupid kids.”
Bebe may have calmed down, but Magnolia hadn’t. “Shall we talk
money now?” She asked. “How about the hundred people who got fired when Bebe closed�
�what about them? All they got was a month’s severance.”
“That’s what Scary decided to give them, cheap bastards,” she said.
“Though half that money came from me, which Jock neglected to
mention. I also wrote checks out of my own pocket for at least a thou
sand dollars each to every single person on the masthead.”
“Really? That was incredible,” Magnolia admitted. Cameron had
e-mailed her about Bebe’s gesture, and in fact, he had received two
thousand dollars, as had Fredericka, Phoebe, Ruthie, and Sasha. As
the star of her own tragedy, Magnolia had forgotten all about that.
“After Jock ordered all those wimps not to talk to me or Felicity!”
Spittle landed on Magnolia’s cheek as Bebe yelled.
“Speaking of Felicity,” Magnolia said. “What do you think Ms.
Whipsmart cost the magazine and the company?” Magnolia realized that now she was hollering as well. And probably spitting. “And what
about coming on to Nathaniel? How perverted was that?”
“Who?” Bebe looked puzzled.
“Our intern, Polo? How soon we forget.”
“That kid wanted it!” Bebe leaned back in the seat, turned her
head to the window, and began to pout. The car stopped at a light on
Central Park West about ten blocks from Magnolia’s building.
“Driver, I’ll get out here, please,” Magnolia decided and motioned
to him through the class partition. “Thanks for the lift.” She put her
hand on the door and began to open it.
“Magnolia, I was hoping for some support from you,” Bebe said.
“It wasn’t that bad, our working together.” She sighed. “But it doesn’t
really matter one way or another—you’ll be hearing from my attor
ney. He’s going to depose you. We’ve already discussed it.” This
seemed to cheer up Bebe, who put a smile back on her face. “You
know what? I’ll see you in court.” She laughed. “I’ve always wanted to
say that. ‘I’ll see you in court.’ “
As the car sped away, Bebe blew Magnolia kiss after kiss.
Magnolia walked to her apartment. It was just past lunchtime in
Aspen and perhaps she could catch Wally; he’d be the kind of guy
who’d ski with a cell phone.
He answered on the first ring.
“Fleigelman,” he said.
“Gold,” she said. “How’s the snow?”