Little Pink Slips (34 page)

"Yes, I understand," she said.

"If you work hard, Malka, and believe, God above will reward

you," he said. "You want your dreams to come true? Then don't sleep,

and when fortune calls, offer her a chair."

Rabbi Nucki rose to leave. "Thank you for coming today," he said.

"It means a lot to your friend." He smiled kindly and returned to the

inner sanctum, leaving Magnolia to decode his message. As soon as the

door closed, however, Malka hurried over and sat down next to her.

"Malka," the young woman said, "put out your left wrist and close

your eyes." When Magnolia opened them, she saw a delicate red

thread tied next to her Cartier watch. "This will bring you blessings,"

Malka said, "and protect you against the evil eye of jealousy." A pity

Scary didn't direct-deposit these bracelets with paychecks. "Thank

you," Magnolia said.

"Don't thank me," Malka said. "This bracelet was meant for you.

It will remind the One Above you want His protection. When you see

it, you will remember to perform acts of kindness—like you have

today—and that humility is an attribute of God."

I'm not sure I do humility, Magnolia thought.

   "Don't take off the bracelet," Malka warned. "When the job is done, the bracelet will be gone,
Barusch Hashem.
" She gave Magnolia a quick hug and returned to her computer as Abbey and Tommy

opened the door, accompanied by Rabbi Nucki. Tommy's eyes were as

red as Magnolia's newest accessory. Before he hurried out of the

office, he shook the rabbi's hand, kissed Abbey on the cheek, and

waved to Magnolia.

Magnolia and Abbey gathered their coats. "Go in peace, ladies,"

Rabbi Nucki said as Malka offered her good wishes. In the elevator,

neither Abbey nor Magnolia spoke.

"You want to grab some coffee?" Magnolia asked when they

reached the street, "or just cab it uptown?" "Caffeine," Abbey said. "I don't feel too steady." They walked a

few blocks in silence, until they found a Starbucks.

"What was it like in there?" Magnolia asked, as they faced each

other over cappuccino.

"I sat apart from Tommy," Abbey said quietly, "about twenty-five

feet back from the rabbis and a scribe who wrote on parchment with a

quill. Tommy had to read from a binder with plastic sleeves. Hebrew

words written in English. He signed something. I don't have a clue

what it said."

"So he might have traded you for three briskets and a she-goat?"

Magnolia said. Abbey didn't laugh. "Did they ask why the marriage

went bad?"

"They only wanted to know two things—if I kept kosher and

Shabbat," Abbey said. "I assume they were disappointed on both

counts."

"No chance to vent about what a rascal our Tommy was?" Magno

lia asked. "Or for him to confess his sins?"

"No," she said. "At a certain point I had to pretend I was leaving

with our marriage contract. They put a tiny cut in it and kept it. The

people were gentle, but the whole thing was . . . formulaic." Abbey wiped away a tear. "A marriage,
poof,
gone. I don't know what I expected—more pomp and ceremony, certainly. I feel a lot more upset

now than before."

Magnolia put her arm around Abbey's shoulder, and the two of

them sat until Abbey stopped crying.

"I know you're going to be all right," Magnolia said softly. "A

woman has to be open to possibilities, and you are."

Abbey looked unconvinced.

"When fortune calls, offer her a chair," Magnolia said.

"Today's horoscope?" Abbey sniffed, wiping her tears and finding a

small smile.

"Something a wise man said," Magnolia said, pushing her red

string under her sweater.

"Are you going to tell me to go on JDate, too?" "Listen to Malka the wise," Magnolia said. "We've got to work

hard at this happiness business."

"Thanks for coming," Abbey said. "I'm just rattled. Tommy broke

down in the rabbi's office—it's only hitting him now that he blew it. I

don't want to be with him anymore, but we loved each other once and

I need to mourn. I'm going to go home, get in bed, and hope I'll sleep

for twenty hours."

"If you want your dreams to come true," Magnolia said, "don't

sleep."

Abbey looked at Magnolia as if she knew what she was talking

about.

C h a p t e r 3 4

What Would Anna Do?

"He'll be with you
in a few minutes," the executive-floor receptionist said.

Should the interviewer want to see it, Magnolia had printed her

résumé on paper with such a high fiber count a historian would be able to read it centuries from then. The best pages from
Lady
and a few from
Bebe w
ere tucked away in a black matte leather portfolio. Her new Jimmy Choos could pass muster here. The question was,

could she?

If you visited the company's cafeteria, you'd know that three

fourths of the employees looked as bedraggled as much of the in

dustry. A few six-foot swans contemplated whether to indulge in a

leaf of radicchio, but you could count more jeans in the room than

four-thousand-dollar suits, and most of the women actually had hips.

Still, for a top job, Magnolia realized she'd be held to the highest

standard.

If Magnolia knew what job she was being considered for—if, in

fact, she was being considered for a real job, not simply being

appraised like a piece of meat—she might be less nervous. But when

the editorial director e-mailed her, he'd been cryptic, and you don't ask questions at Fancy—which is how Magnolia thought of this com

pany. They weren't the biggest publisher, and despite their glossiness,

you could subscribe to many of their magazines for five dollars a year

on Mags4Cheap.com, but in the Triple Crown of hauteur, Fancy was a

high horse indeed.

The editorial director met her himself in the outer lobby on his

high floor. He walked her to his office, which, she was surprised to see, was smaller than her former suite at
Lady.

"Magnolia Gold," he said. "At liberty, I understand."

"Free at last," she said.

"Bebe Blake, now there's a train wreck."

Knock Bebe and she'd come off as a whiner; say nothing and she'd

bore this guy. Magnolia settled on: "Bebe looks out for herself—

you've got to admire her grit."

"But why back her in a magazine?" he said. "What was Jock Flana

gan thinking?"

Another land mine. For all Magnolia knew, Jock and her inter

viewer played squash together twice a week. Magnolia decided to

respond with a laugh—not a guffaw or a giggle, more of an airy

chuckle—although when she heard herself she was afraid she had

whinnied like a sick pony. Damn, what would Anna Wintour do? By

now he would have mortgaged his co-op to buy her a sable.

"How's
Bebe
selling?" the editorial director asked.

To say it was selling poorly wouldn't do her a bit of good. "Rather

well, actually," Magnolia replied.

"Well, these numbers Darlene Knudson's spewing—are they for

real?" he said. "Our publishers here aren't buying them."

"You'd really have to ask Jock or Darlene," Magnolia said, wishing

he'd move to another topic.

He read her mind. "So what do you think of our magazines?" he

said.

If she critiqued ferociously, he might kick her into the hall, a

theme park of archival photographs and voices as muted as the color

palette of the decor. Overpraise the magazines, and he'd think she was a suck-up with nothing to bring to his table. Magnolia decided to say

only good things, sticking to magazines where she didn't stand a

chance of ever becoming editor in chief, and emphasize how much

she particularly loved the men's, home design, and food magazines.

   "I dig almost all of what you do," she concluded. Did she just said
dig
in an interview?

"Any you don't dig?" the editorial director asked wryly.

This is where an interview could turn ugly. Why didn't this

man stop torturing her and let her know why she was here?

Should she happen to pounce on a magazine that he had decided was

flawed and flay it in a manner he found cunning, at this notably mer

curial company she might land herself a top job with a clothing

allowance, a car and driver, and an interest-free loan for a country house.
But which magazine?
She could feel the seconds ticking away—or was that her pounding heart? She may as well have been on

a TV game show.

"Your teen title," she finally said. "You could shake that one up,

not be such a clone of the mother ship."

"Oh, really?" he said. "Do you think you're the right generation to

lead that magazine?"

Ouch. Why didn't he come out and say it: you, Magnolia Gold, have

aged out of the teen books, which were—inexplicably—how the

industry referred to magazines. Perhaps this company hadn't heard

that sixty was the new forty, and thirty-eight was a mere tot. She'd

pretend he hadn't made the remark. "Oh, no, teen books—not my

thing at all," Magnolia said, hating herself for being a weenie.

"Magnolia, I like you," he said. "You've done some lively work in a

tired category. You have a good eye, an amusing voice, and you don't

seem to take yourself too seriously." He made a sound that took Mag

nolia a second to realize was a laugh. "We're up to our eyeballs in

divas here. . . ."

Magnolia felt her ego inflate like a beach ball. She was going to

thank him, when he continued.

". . . and you have the common touch."

She'd been drop-kicked back to Fargo. Though their readers weren't any more gentrified than anyone else's, at Fancy it was all

class all the time.

"I'm going to take that as a compliment," Magnolia decided. "I'd

like to believe I can see into the soul of a fair number of women."

His half-smile returned. "You know, there's a new project we

might talk about," he said. "It's flying a bit under the radar and goes by the code name
Voyeur. Y
ou've heard about it, I assume." Magnolia hadn't. "Of course," she said, and smiled in a way she

hoped he took as knowing.

"Excellent," he said. He removed a short document from a folder

on his big, uncluttered desk. "So if you'll sign this mutual confiden

tiality agreement, please."

Magnolia stared at the legal letter. Nobody said no to this company,

but Wally would beat her with a nine iron if she made another foren

sic boo-boo. "I'm going to have to show this to my attorney," she said.

"Really?" he said, raising his eyebrows. "None of the other candi

dates have."

"Isn't it refreshing that I'm not like any of your other candi

dates?" Her remark failed to make him remove the agreement. Mag

nolia put down her silver fountain pen and closed her tiny blue

leather notebook.

He took her measure. "We could handle this differently, if you

wish," he said. "I won't show you our prototype, and you could simply

hum a few bars and get back to me on paper."

   "I could," Magnolia thought. Only she couldn't, since she hadn't a clue what
Voyeur w
as. For all she knew, he had made up the name and project two minutes before. "But I really need to know a bit more.

What I've heard, it's . . . sketchy."

He walked to his window, which had a commanding view of

Times Square. With his back turned to her, he spoke. "Think of the

magazines that celebrate Hollywood. Now imagine something entirely original. That's
Voyeur.
Sex, glamour, dirty secrets."

   "Aren't you describing
Vanity Fair
?" Magnolia said, not to mention
Dazzle
and all the others. Celebrity magazines had been popping out like free boob jobs in a San Fernando Valley shopping mall. "Not literary," he said, as if that were obvious. "It would be for

next-generation readers—and I use that term lightly—who prefer

the celebrity blogs and webzines. I would think your experience with

Bebe would allow you some insights." He gave her a sphinxlike

glance. "We'll only run with this if we find the right vision," he said.

"It's always about the editor."

"Deadline?" Magnolia asked.

"I'm leaving soon for the Oscars. A few weeks from now is fine."

"I'm on it," Magnolia said.

"By the way," he said, "the red bracelet? Nice touch. Very Ma

donna."