Little Pink Slips Part 26

"That anchorwoman the network wanted to replace with the American Idol runner-up-a Walter Fleigelman I read about got her two million bucks. I kept meaning to ask if he's your ex."

"If he is, he's my guy," Magnolia said. "Oops, call waiting. Talk soon."

"Would this be the best d.a.m.n a.s.s in Manhattan?" the genial caller said. "The wildly successful magazine lady?" The voice sounded even fuller of bravado than she remembered.

"Not anymore, Wally," Magnolia said.

"You mean you didn't phone my home because you hoped to start things up again?" he said. "You're breaking my heart."

"How are you, Wally?"

"Can't complain," Wally said. "When you've got your health, you've got everything." He'd apparently morphed into his pinochle-playing grandfather. "Plus, in my case, seven-year-old twins; the wife, who's a looker, by the way . . ."

"That so?" Magnolia said.

". . . the apartment, Aspen, Southampton, solid practice-knock wood-and still shoot in the seventies. Over Christmas, my third hole in one. Boca's always been my lucky charm."

"So I recall," Magnolia said, remembering one of their more three-dimensional fights, which took place on a visit to his parents'

condo there, and featured a redheaded tennis pro.

"Yes, Mrs. Fleigelman. Like I said, Can't complain."

"Well, I can," Magnolia said. "My company's trying to pretend I don't have a contract. They eliminated my job and want to cut me loose with virtually no severance. I'm completely nuts. Don't know what I'll do for money. Sell my eggs?"

"Does this mean there's no Mr. Gold to pay your bills?"

"You know Daddy has never given me a dime."

"I'm thinking husband, Magnolia," Wally said, chuckling.

"Oh, one of those," she said. "Tried that. Didn't take."

"I can't believe you're still single, gorgeous girl like you. You're what now, thirty-six?"

"Give or take."

"Should have stayed with me, kid," Wally said and laughed again.

At this rate she and Wally would be kibitzing all morning. "Wally, I hate to hit you with this, but I was wondering if you'd take my case?" Magnolia said. "Please."

"So Maggie needs Wally, after all," he said. "Let's see. I have a load of depositions in Washington tomorrow, then off to Seattle Monday.

May be there for a few weeks."

"If you don't have the time, I understand," she said.

"For you, I'll make time," he said. "Can you be in my office at three?"

Except for the cigar and a slightly higher forehead, Wally hadn't changed much. He was still broad-shouldered, bespeckled, and loud.

"How do I look?" he said, patting his head. "I'm one of those schmucks where Propecia did zip. The minute I turned forty, my dad's face started staring back at me in the mirror."

"You look like you," she said, kissing him on the cheek "Not a day older and oozing charm." She noticed that he still wasn't stingy with the aftershave, although along with a better wardrobe he'd upgraded to a more subtle scent than Old Spice. His suit was light gray wool; the shirt, red-striped with a white collar, French cuffs, and discreet gold cuff links; the shoes, soft, well-polished black leather oxfords; and the tie, subtle silk twill.

"You look like someone I was married to once, only prettier," Wally said, hanging up Magnolia's coat and motioning for her to sit at the couch in the corner of his office, where the wraparound windows looked north over the park and west toward the Hudson. On the gla.s.s table in front of the couch were a stack of legal pads and a foun tain pen.

"Nice outfit, by the way," he said. "My wife would approve."

For their meeting Magnolia pulled out her Chanel bag, a black Dolce & Gabbana skirt-Wally had always complimented her legs, whose calves, she thought, were a little too muscular, but were just like his mother's-and a pale pink V-neck sweater that revealed a peek of cleavage. She hoped her choices balanced needy female with worth-every-d.a.m.n-dime executive.

"Thanks, Wally," she said. "Love to see pictures of your kids."

He walked to his desk and returned, carrying a photograph of two toothless tykes with long bangs and chin-length, dark brown hair.

"Harper and Morgan." Magnolia didn't want to ask if they were boys, girls, or one of each.

"Adorable," she said.

"Take after their mommy," he said.

"You were always eager to be a dad," Magnolia said.

"Didn't that have something to do with our splitting up?"

That, the tennis pro, and an almost complete lack of shared inter ests, but who's keeping score? "We were just too young to be married,"

Magnolia said. "At least I was."

"So, tell Wally everything," he said. "You have a contract they don't want to honor?"

"The company's claiming it's for a job that no longer exists," Magnolia said, and retold her story of Lady turning overnight into Bebe, of being demoted to deputy editor of Bebe, then being switched to corporate editor of nothing.

"With all these different jobs, were you paid the same?"

"Yes, I was," she said, placing her contract on the table.

"And how much was that?"

She handed him pay stubs from each job.

Wally whistled. "Not bad," he said. "That's what you get for put ting in commas? Wish my wife pulled in dough like this-I wouldn't be busting my b.a.l.l.s." As Magnolia scrolled through her brain for a response, he continued. "Just kidding-I love that Whitney's home with the kids. She's always b.i.t.c.hing about how all those committees she's on are as much trouble as a job, though. You tell me."

"I wouldn't know," answered Magnolia, truthfully.

"So, anything more?" Wally asked.

Magnolia debated whether or not to tell Wally about Jock's come- on. As a lawyer, he'd surely heard far more lurid tales, but as an ex husband who always accused her of being a flirt-despite the fact that he was the actual cheat-she hated the idea of Wally's judging her. She decided to edit that part of the story.

"Seems pretty clear to me," Magnolia said.

"Then I'll read this contract on the plane, sweetheart," he said.

"Call you as soon as I can, and you call me if any other details come to mind."

"Thanks, Wally," she said, as he helped her into her sheared mink.

"Your fees?" "You can afford me," he said, laughing, and paused. "Hey, I'm thinking, why don't you come to our place Sunday? Whitney's having a bunch of friends in. Superbowl."

"Oh, I don't know, Wally," she said. "Don't you have to ask her first?" To get him to take her case, did she really have to sit through hours of Fleigelmans and football?

"What's to ask about?" he said. "We're at 740 Park. Any time after four."

"Sunday, then," Magnolia said. If she didn't come down with a twenty-four-hour virus and have to beg off.

"Just one more question," he said.

She knew it: he'd read her mind, and was going to nail her on the Jock proposition.

"Shoot," she said.

"What'd you do with the ring?"

"The ring?" Magnolia said.

"You forgot about a flawless three-carat emerald-cut stone set in platinum with two serious baguettes?" he asked. "Did you hock it?

Turn it into a necklace? That's what Whitney did with her first ring.

You need a loupe just to find the little f.u.c.ker."

"The ring's in a safety-deposit box, Wally," she said. "I like know ing it's there."

"You always were such a Midwesterner," he said. "And I was some schmuck to let you keep both that ring and the apartment." He gave her a hug and patted her b.u.t.t.

As Magnolia walked down the hall, she could still hear him laughing.

Chapter 3 2.

A Defining Address.

"Abbey, what do people wear to watch football?" Magnolia called to ask.

"Cameron, what do people wear to watch football?" Abbey shouted. At three o'clock on Sunday afternoon, it appeared that Satur day night hadn't ended for the newest couple on the Upper West Side.

Magnolia didn't like to think of herself as a jealous person-not when it came to close friends-but the thought of Abbey and Cam having s.e.x made her squirmy; not picturing-your-parents-in-bed squirmy, but close. Was it because she felt left out? One down? Propri etary about Cameron? Abbey kept insisting they hadn't slept together, but Magnolia found that hard to believe.

Cameron grabbed the phone. "Jeans, sweatshirts, and cheese heads," he said.

"Cheeseheads are for Wisconsin," Magnolia said. "Even I know that. They're not playing, and I doubt this is a sweatshirt crowd. Put Abbey back on."

"Go with a sweater and good jeans," Abbey said, taking back the phone.

"You're sure? Friends don't let friends make fashion faux pas."

"Trust me."

"Boots: high or low?"

"Low," Abbey declared. "It's Sunday afternoon."

Of the better buildings on Park, 740 was even more persnickety about its owners' pedigrees than Jock's residence up the street or Natalie's co-op on Fifth. Rumor had it a co-op applicant needed a liq uid net worth of more than $100 million to pa.s.s the board, which was rumored to have ixnayed show biz types, including Barbra Streisand and Liz Taylor. It wasn't lost on Magnolia that Wally had probably extended his invitation to give her a taste of what she'd missed.

She checked the time that the game would start, and calibrated her five o'clock arrival to be late enough to avoid pregame chitchat, but not so late that Wally would consider her a brat unworthy of his help.

Magnolia checked her coat in the lobby as the doorman directed, and rode the elevator to eleven.

Maybe this was a sweatshirt crowd: a pack of small boys in Manhat tan private school sweatshirts opened the door and confidently yelled out, "h.e.l.lo" like the type-A investment bankers and hedge-fund man agers they would no doubt later become. Magnolia took a guess and addressed the tall child who resembled Wally's pre-braces, Raquette Lake Boys Camp photographs. "Are you Morgan?" she asked.

"Do I look like a girl?" he said. "I'm Harper. Who are you?"

"A friend of your daddy's," she said. "Magnolia Gold."

"Hi, Mrs. Gold," he said, and tore off up the staircase with his friends. She left the chocolates she'd brought next to a vase of white calla lilies on a large, exquisitely polished table. As Magnolia was try ing to figure out her next move, one of the French doors at the end of the foyer opened. From a distant room in the generously proportioned apartment, she heard a buzz of conversation. A waitress walked toward her with a silver tray of empty champagne flutes.

"h.e.l.lo, Mag-Miss Gold," she said.

"h.e.l.lo," Magnolia said.

"I temped for you when Sasha was on vacation," she said. "Remember?"

"Of course," Magnolia said, drawing a blank. Magnolia prayed she'd done nothing to offend this girl, and that she wasn't marketing a novel based on an egomaniacal editor in chief.

"I'll be back with refills," the waitress said and pointed toward the doors. "Everyone's in the media room."

Magnolia entered a gathering of no less than a hundred people.

The room smelled like a cigar bar crossed with the fragrance floor of Bloomingdale's. Every woman was perfectly blow-dried and the men-Magnolia couldn't see any men, although at the other end of the room, which had to be at least thirty-five feet long, she could pick out an enormous plasma television screen. Magnolia was al ways astonished that you could live in Manhattan for years, yet in a crowd notice no one familiar. An anthropologist could get loopy mapping the town's circles of influence-so many people considered themselves supremely important, yet relatively few circles over lapped.

As she searched the room for Wally, a trio of blondes seemed to be looking at her. Magnolia approached them. "Magnolia Gold," she said, extending her hand.

"Lizzie," the tall one said, "and this is Julia and Rachel." Each was dressed as if for the most important job interview of her life, except with more jewelry. Magnolia saw them eyeing her jeans. If they asked about them, she'd have to say she'd just come from mucking out her barn, that the horses couldn't wait.