Little Pink Slips (38 page)

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?"

"Sixteen inches of powder last night," he said. "Drifts up to my

tuches. Which is where I spend my time here. It's Whitney who can

ski like a movie star. She did a double black diamond with Goldie

Hawn." He nattered on about nine-hundred-dollar-a-night rooms

and steaks the size of thighs. "What can I do for you?" he finally

asked. "If you're wondering when we'll work through your contract,

hold your water, doll face."

"Wally, I'm sure it's nothing, but this morning I got a peculiar let

ter." She speed-read it to him. "I just wanted to know what this has to

do with my case?" "Absolutely nothing," he replied. "Was that letter delivered by a

greasy little troll in a bad suit?"

"More or less," she said.

"Your company is deposing you in their claim against Bebe Blake."

Wally explained. "Standard procedure. No big whoop."

"I have to do it, even though they're trying to stiff me out of my

money?" Magnolia asked. "This seems so unfair. Jeez."

"I love when you talk all Fargo," Wally said. "God bless America,

darling. This is what they call justice."

"And Bebe's lawyers can ask me, too?"

"Now you're getting ahead of yourself. It's Scary suing Bebe. She's

the defendant."

"Oh, you didn't know? That's right. I forgot. You couldn't have

heard. Because nobody knows yet. She's going tit for tat. Suing back."

   Wally laughed. "That Bebe is my kind of broad! So now she's a plaintiff, too?" he said. "Must be a
Law & Order
junkie. I'm only sorry she didn't hire me to represent her."

"Wally, my question?" Magnolia asked.

"Oh, sure, speaking of asses, I'd expect that both sides will want a

piece of that pretty little butt of yours."

C h a p t e r 3 8

Blue-Blooded

Butt-Head vs. the

White-Trash Nympho

"Good morning,"
croaked the wrenlike receptionist in a surprisingly low voice. "May I help you?"

"I'm Magnolia Gold—for a meeting at ten," Magnolia said. "My

attorney, Walter Fleigelman, will be joining me."

The woman looked down at her desk. "According to our schedule,

your appointment is for eleven," she said before she returned to her

Mary Higgins Clark mystery.

Magnolia had been sure about ten. "Could you double-check

please?"

The receptionist looked up briefly and shook her head. "No, no

mistake. If you'd like to make yourself comfortable . . ."

To even their score with Bebe Blake, Scarborough Magazines and

John Crawford Flanagan Jr., its CEO, had engaged Cromwell, Adams,

and Case, one of the whitest, white-shoe law firms in all Manhattan.

Magnolia entered their burnished mahogany offices on the fifty-fifth

floor of Rockefeller Center. Magnolia breathed in. Her nose picked up

a delicate bouquet of Shalimar wafting from the receptionist, an undernote of Murphy's Oil Soap, and the slight rankness of uphol

stery dating from 1972. Ah, WASP incense, she thought; the scent of

old money.

After selecting the least worn sofa in the cavernous reception area,

Magnolia pulled out her newspapers and a fresh batch of celebrity

tabloids. In early press reports of their mutual sniping, Jock and Bebe displayed a certain dignity. "We couldn't permit
Bebe
to migrate into a manifesto for its namesake's personal views," Jock stated in a

haughty tone Magnolia knew well. "I wouldn't abide Jock Flanagan's

interference," Bebe replied with surprising restraint. But as each side

began leaking succulent morsels about the other, Jock's suit and

Bebe's countersuit began pulsating beyond the business section. Every

newspaper and all of the blogs were covering the story. Yesterday

Bebe referred to Jock as "that blue-blooded butt-head with the over

bite and pruney moneybags wife," and he called her "a white-trash

nympho with the talent of a Dorito."

   As Magnolia read today's smears—the
Daily News r
eported Jock's wife's affair with his twin brother—she didn't realize she was laugh

ing aloud until she heard Darlene. "You think this is funny?" her for

mer publisher asked, crossing her arms atop the mountain of her

pregnant belly.

"Darlene," Magnolia said. "You're looking well. Finally having a

boy?" The two of them hadn't spoken since Darlene's sympathy call

after Scary ditched her, when Magnolia matched Darlene's mock sin

cerity with her own feigned serenity.

"A boy? That'll happen when pigs fly," Darlene said, sitting heavily

in a chair across from Magnolia. She patted her Lycra-bound tummy.

"No, Georgina here is a little clone of her three big sisters. And based

on her kicking, she's an animal just like her mama." Darlene con

sidered it high praise when Jock described her as being the sort

of publisher who would happily wrestle clients to the ground on

Madison Avenue to land the last Cool Whip ad. Darlene tapped out a

few messages on her BlackBerry, but soon enough Magnolia felt her

stare.

"I hope you're on our side," she said.

   "How's that possible?" Magnolia answered, looking up from
Us.
"I'm sworn to tell the truth."

"Bebe sabotaged the magazine," Darlene said.

"She got as good as she gave," Magnolia said.

"Try selling ads with the pervert twins hogging the headlines and

covers that frighten small children," Darlene harrumphed. "I've been

a miracle worker." Magnolia noticed Darlene's eyes downshift to her

wrist. "Why are you wearing that red string?" she asked suspiciously.

Magnolia was about to explain the bracelet when she heard a

racket at the other end of the room. Wally. He checked in with the

receptionist and hobbled over to Magnolia on crutches, his right leg

in a blazing orange cast.

"Good God—what happened?" Magnolia said, rising to kiss his

sunburned cheek.

"Schmuck here tried to show off on his last day in Aspen," Wally

said, and shrugged as well as a man on crutches could. "From now on,

golf, period." He sat on the other end of the love seat. "You ready, kid?

Anything you want to go over?"

Magnolia cleared her throat and tilted her head slightly toward

her former publisher. "Darlene," she said, "I'd like you to meet

my . . . attorney," she said. "Walter Fleigelman."

As Darlene looked up, Wally assumed an expression of hangdog

sadness. "And former husband," he added, extending his hand to

shake Darlene's

"Magnolia, you sneak," Darlene said. "How long were you mar

ried?"

"We were madly in love for eleven minutes," Magnolia said.

Both of them turned to Wally. With his raccoon tan, he looked like

a masked sidekick—Slalom the Blind Skier perhaps. "Happy to meet

you, Walter." Darlene gave him one of her billboard-big publisher's

smiles.

"Darlene, I'm sure when we worked together, you remember that I

talked about Wally," Magnolia said. "Maybe you don't recall."

But Magnolia was saved from further discussion. The reception

ist announced that Darlene's appointment would be starting, and she walked swiftly—considering the bulk she was balancing on stilet

tos—into the bowels of Cromwell, Adams, and Case.

   Magnolia and Wally sat side by side. " '
I don't recall,
' " she repeated. "I've been practicing that line."

"Good girl," Wally said. When he'd rehearsed Magnolia for today's

deposition, he'd browbeaten her with a careful instruction. "When

ever you cannot exactly remember an event or incident that the

lawyer deposing you describes, you are allowed to say, 'I don't recall.'

For example, let's say every workday at precisely three o'clock you had

the habit of going down to the lobby for a Diet Coke. The lawyer asks

'On June 1, did you get yourself a Diet Coke at three o'clock? Unless

you can actually remember the details of buying that can of soda on

that specific June 1, you are allowed to say 'I don't recall.' "

"Sweet," Magnolia had replied. "Got it."

"The deposition was supposed to be on for ten, right?" Wally asked.

"So I thought," Magnolia answered.

"Keep us waiting—oldest trick in the book," Wally said. "Don't let

it rattle you. Here—look at my pictures." He pulled a digital camera

from his briefcase and showed her a good hundred images of Fleigel

mans squinting into the sun. Nearly an hour later, she and Wally

entered the Cromwell, Adams, and Case conference room.

"Walter, good morning," boomed a tall, broad-shouldered man in

gray pinstripes that appeared to be cut from the same cloth as Wally's.

Wally's suit, however, was a 38 short; the other attorney's, 44 long.

"Sky," Wally boomed back. "Let me introduce my client, Miss

Magnolia Gold. Magnolia? James Skyler, Esquire."

James Skyler looked like an aristobrat born to scull at Choate and

Harvard. He locked eyes with Magnolia. When he smiled, his per

fectly straight teeth sported a God-given gleam that bleaching can

never mimic. "Mind if I take off my jacket?" he asked, rhetorically. In

shirtsleeves, his shoulders looked as broad as a superhero's, and Mag

nolia could see that his waist, encased in fine lizard, was no wider

than thirty-two inches. He slowly rolled up each cuff. The golden hair

on his arms matched the thatch on his head. Magnolia took in the performance which, she guessed, was for her

benefit. If the lawyer had been a woman, by now she'd be playing

with her hair and licking her lips. "The attorney is going to try to

seduce you," Wally had warned. "Remember, he is not your next

boyfriend. Don't fall for his schmaltz."

"Miss Gold, could you give me your full name, please?" James

Skyler asked.

"Magnolia Gold." Had she just perjured herself ? She'd never for

mally changed her name from Goldfarb. And what about Fleigelman?

Did she have to say that for less than a year she was Magnolia Gold

farb Fleigelman?

"Magnolia, charming name. Has it been passed down in your

family?"

As if—and what did this have to do with Scary's case? Magnolia

wondered.

"No," she said. Stay cool, Magnolia, she reminded herself.

Skyler had her résumé in front of him. "Could you briefly describe

your work history?" he asked.

Magnolia compressed thirteen years into three minutes.

   "So, you were effectively demoted when you were switched from
Lady'
s editor in chief to deputy editor of
Bebe
?"

Magnolia felt Wally's leg. Don't let yourself get pissy, the cast

seemed to say. "Yes," she answered, evenly.

"Did Bebe Blake make all of the key decisions at the magazine?"

the attorney asked.

Magnolia looked at Wally. "Am I allowed to ask what a 'key deci

sion' is?" she said.

"Could you please rephrase the question for my client?" Wally

asked.

"Certainly," he said. "Let me be more specific. Who selected the

image for this cover?" He held up the premiere issue in all its leopard

splendor.

"Bebe did," Magnolia said.

"This one?" "Bebe." He must be trying to rankle her by showing covers she

didn't get to choose herself. It wasn't going to work. Magnolia stayed

steady while the lawyer ran through every one of the issues and

moved on to stacks of proofs and headlines.

   "Do you recognize this signature?" he asked.

   "Yes."

   "Whose is it?"

   "Mine."

   "Do you remember signing this?"

   Every month she okayed hundreds of proofs. "I don't recall," she said.

Next he pulled out a school photograph. "Can you, please, identify

this person?"

"Yes," she said. "That's Nathaniel Fine, our former intern."

"Did you see Bebe Blake, uh, make sexual advances to Mr. Fine?"

Magnolia stretched her mind back to December. She remembered

going into the fashion closet. She recalled hearing a rustle and a con

versation between Bebe and Polo. But did she actually see Bebe do

anything to him? The fashion closet had been filled with racks of

clothing which stood between her and the couple like size-four

artillery. Had she simply, based on the conversation she'd overheard,

imagined the worst?

   "Miss Gold?" the attorney asked.

   "I don't recall," she said—and said again, and again, and again.

   "As a decision maker, how would you describe Bebe Blake?"

   Wally broke in. "I object."

   "I'll rephrase. Do you think it's fair to describe Ms. Blake as unpre dictable?"

Magnolia thought it over. "Yes."

"Did Ms. Blake have a clear vision for her magazine?"

Magnolia ruminated and shook her head. "No."

"Did the staff like Ms. Blake?"

Did some of the staff like Bebe? Probably, considering how Ameri

cans devoured celebrity gossip as if it were hot-buttered popcorn. "I

honestly don't know," she finally answered. The questions bombarded her until she wanted to crawl under the nineteenth-century confer

ence room table. The next time she had insomnia, she would recon

struct this legal snooze.

"Thank you, Ms. Gold," the attorney said. "That will be all. I