Little Pink Slips Part 31

"Oops, forgot you hate onion on Nova," he said. "Little hick. I'll take yours." He plucked off the onion and placed the extra slice on his own bagel tower. "It's not like you're going to kiss me-though you should."

Magnolia glanced pointedly at the photo of Whitney and the twins.

"I deserve a kiss-I've been a champ," he added. He poured them each a large cup of coffee from a silver Georg Jensen pot.

"How's that, Wally?" Magnolia asked.

"Let me first tell you that your old company's legal department should stick to copyrights and libel. What is it you call your com pany?" Wally asked. "Scary?"

"Very," she said.

"Okay. Scary failed to consider, when they switched you to deputy editor and then corporate editor, that the term of your contract for editor in chief was still in effect," he began. "They screwed up royally with that one."

"Goody," she said. "So, we have a case?"

"Patience, darling. It gets better," he said. "Turns out your other lawyer wasn't such a putz after all. There was a clause in your contract stipulating that in order for Scary to change your t.i.tle, they needed your written consent."

"Really?" Magnolia asked. "Which, obviously, they didn't get. Don't you love it? G.o.d is in the details."

"So, is that our case?"

"Magnolia, you'd think you were paying me by the hour. That's just the beginning of our case. No check to cash just yet."

Her smile vanished.

"Scary isn't talking big enough numbers." He quoted her a figure.

"That's almost my salary for the rest of the year, Wally," she said, shifting to panic. "Can't you just say yes, and stop the games?"

"They said take it or leave it, so I said shove it," he said. "Chump change."

Why did I ever get involved with Wally? Magnolia asked herself.

Why? Was this what the psychic meant about not repeating mistakes?

She rubbed her temples.

"Stop stressing, Mags. Believe in Wally, who is pulling another card out of his pretty little deck."

"And that would be?" Magnolia said.

"A little gem called quid pro quo s.e.xual hara.s.sment." Wally's face lit up as if someone had offered him a b.l.o.w. .j.o.b. "So, if you don't mind, I'm going to turn on my tape recorder and ask you a few questions."

Magnolia suddenly felt dirty. She'd rather a.n.a.lyze her s.e.x life with her own father than do a play-by-play with Wally. But there he was, wired and ready.

"Did Jock Flanagan make s.e.xual advances or requests to you, or otherwise engage in conduct of a s.e.xual nature?" he began. At least his tone was quiet and professional.

Magnolia nodded yes.

"Speak up, please, Magnolia."

"Yes, he did," she said. "Jock Flanagan did make s.e.xual advances to me."

He nodded yes and smiled. "Was the s.e.xual conduct welcomed by you?" he asked.

"What do you think?" she said, looking at him as if he had the IQ of a matzo ball.

"Magnolia, a simple yes or no?" "No," she said, recalling Jock's paw on her leg, his fingers running 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 cla.s.sic 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. n.o.body 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."

Chapter 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 mult.i.task 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 sw.a.n.ky cafe. 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, rea.s.sured 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 gla.s.s. "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 gla.s.s 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 s.e.xy." 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.

c.o.c.ktails 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 appet.i.te.

"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 l.u.s.t," 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 gateau, 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 pet.i.ts 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 b.o.o.b," 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 ta.s.sels 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 sh.e.l.ling." Bebe grabbed Magnolia's arm- hard-and wasn't letting go. "You didn't honestly think I'd sit still for those mental midgets to steal my money, not when Jock and Darlene and all the others have treated me like pond sc.u.m, 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, d.a.m.n 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."