Little Pink Slips Part 1

Little Pink Slips.

Sally Koslow.

Acknowledgments.

I am in debt to many people who gave generously to me throughout the writing of this, my first novel.

I could not have asked for a more delightful editor than Jackie Cantor, whose enthusiasm and insights have made the process a dream. I am honored to have worked with her and others at Putnam, especially Ivan Held, Catharine Lynch, Marilyn Ducksworth, and- too briefly-the legendary Leona Nevler. To Isabella Fasciano, thanks for imagining a Little Pink Slips cover that is as elegant and eyecatching as her name.

I am fortunate that fate brought me to Christy Fletcher, who believed in Little Pink Slips from the start. I appreciate her unerring judgment and continuing guidance, and that of Elizabeth Ziemska in Los Angeles and Araminta Whitley in London, as well as the atten tion of Kate Scherler.

Charles Salzburg deserves huge thanks for allowing a rogue fiction writer to invade his nonfiction writing circle. I value his friends.h.i.+p, strategic suggestions, and deadlines, without which I'd still be tweak ing page one. Vivian Conan is a fine writer whom I am happy to count as a friend. I am grateful for her common sense and questions-the more nitpicky, the better-and those of other good-luck charms in our workshops, especially Kimberlee Auerbach, Patricia Crevits, Sarah Doudna, Judy Gorfain, Sharon Gurwitz, Erica Keirstaad, Stephanie Klein, Patty Nasey, Naama Potok, Marian Sabat, Ellen Schecter, Sharon Samuel, Betty Wald, and Richard Willis.

To Amy Stewart and Thomas Gallitano at Conn Kavanaugh Rosen thal Peisch & Ford, LLP, many thanks for developing Magnolia Gold's legal argument as if she were a living, breathing client.

My friends in the wonderful, wacky world of magazines have a col lective wit and energy equaled in few other industries. There are a lot of Magnolia Golds out there, but I owe a special debt to the incom parable Ellen Levine, who mentored me and so many others, as well as to Catherine Cavender, Emily Listfield, and Diane Salvatore, whose friends.h.i.+ps supply a reality check and a bottomless well of wry observations. I also wish to acknowledge my remarkably talented former staffs at McCall's and Lifetime. I hope I was a better boss than some; if not, let's all just move on.

I definitely have the world's most giving friends, who offered hugs, hospitality, and editorial advice during the long writing process.

My friends.h.i.+p with Barbara Fisher flowered during the adventure of writing Little Pink Slips; she deserves loving thanks for her gentle encouragement and remarkable resiliency. Very special shout-outs also go to Anita Bakal, Sherry Suib Cohen, Margie Rosen, and Ina Saltz-who all critiqued early drafts and said yes! with warm enthusiasm-as well as to Michele Willens. Dale Singer asked probing ques tions and buoyed my spirits as I started a fresh chapter. Thanks to her as well.

The women in my family are extraordinary-every one strong and inspiring. I owe a great deal to my sisters, Betsy Teutsch, Dale Berger, and Vicki Kriser, and to my gorgeous mother-in-law, Helen Koslow Sweig.

My love of fiction comes from my mom, Fritzie Platkin, the Fargo Public Library's most regular customer. I wish that she and my father, Samuel Platkin, could have seen their daughter publish a novel and know how much I thank them both for a lifetime of quiet gifts. My extraordinary sons make me proud in about a thousand ways.

Thanks to Jed and Rory for cheering me on, as I do them, as we chase new dreams. It is a wonderful thing to be able to receive excellent advice from one's children.

Most of all, my husband, Robert, has always seen the potential in a girl from Fargo and was most of the reason I moved to Manhattan.

I thank him for his humor, love, and support, which I return.

Chapter 1.

From Fargo to Fabulous.

The Chanel sample sale, holy of holies for the aspiring fas.h.i.+onista. Magnolia Gold, editor in chief of Lady magazine, could imagine few other reasons to get out of bed before dawn. She hurled herself into a sleeveless black dress that showed off her biceps, and slipped on the stilettos she'd found in Milan, the ones you could almost mistake for Manolos.

When she usually left for her office, three hours later, you'd sooner find a five-carat diamond in the garlic bin at Fairway than an empty taxi on the Upper West Side. At this hour, though, she all but collided with a cab. In minutes, she zipped down West End Avenue, headed around Columbus Circle, and turned on to Central Park South, arriv ing early enough at the Park Lane Hotel to snag a good place in line.

Lady's beauty director, Phoebe Feinberg-Fitzpatrick, had given her the drill. "People get there at six, though the doors don't open till eight," she lectured, an echo of Long Island left in her voice. "Dress comfy-it can get intense." They both knew comfy wasn't code for Eddie Bauer jumpers and sneakers.

Magnolia figured she scored a solid 7.5 on the cosmic scale of attractiveness. She had mahogany brown hair-shoulder length, thick, cut with bangs that framed big green eyes; a G.o.d-given nose which, to her horror, called to mind the word perky; and, despite a nuclear metabolism, a b.u.t.t no one could miss. Thanks to Phoebe, who dispensed discounts and freebies wherever she landed, Magnolia had her frizz regularly deleted by the latest j.a.panese process ($800 for just anyone, zero for her) and benefited from gratis cosmetics that allowed her to make the most of high cheekbones and wrinkle-free skin, the continuing payoff of the teenage oilies. She hoped the last gift would keep on giving well past next fall's thirty-eighth birthday.

Today's invitation came via Phoebe's best friend, the PR girl for Chanel. Normally, editors in chief of old-time women's magazines never made the cut. In the Manhattan court of publis.h.i.+ng, they were ladies-in-waiting. Fas.h.i.+on royalty came first-Vogue, Elle, Bazaar, Elegance, W, and even InStyle. Next were the shopping glossies, led by Lucky, tied with Marie Claire, Cosmo, and Glamour, magazines for women who'd murder for a date. The celebrity rags, Dazzle, Us, InTouch, and The Star, had street cred, too, because all the showroom girls read them. But even though hausfrau magazines like Lady were far more popular-with millions of readers-their clout in the world of fas.h.i.+on fascists was down there with tapered, pleated jeans.

Magnolia entered the hotel, all five feet five inches of her, and scurried past sleepy doormen and tall stands of calla lilies. She shot up the thickly carpeted crimson steps. At least thirty women were strung out along one wall, sitting on the floor. She recognized . . . no one. Parking herself, she idly opened her New York Post. What was their freakishly accurate horoscope witch warning today?

Stop playing second fiddle. As Mars moves into your birth sign, you need to convince people you are special, that you were born for bigger and better things. First of all, convince yourself.

Indeed. Magnolia knew it seemed as if she was on the top of the heap-the great job, the enviable dividends that came with it. The inner Magnolia was, however, less than one hundred percent sure she deserved what she'd scored. Just as she began to ponder how, exactly, she might jump-start a confidence transplant-she'd had the name of a shrink on her nightstand for months-she was saved from the bur den of precaffeinated self-a.n.a.lysis by Phoebe, who was cheerfully shrieking her name.

"You made it. Can you believe this dedication?"

Magnolia could. She'd be perfectly happy still buying her clothes at H&M. But she happened to want to keep working. Along with danc ing at office parties, the unwritten job description of being an editor in chief at Scarborough Magazines-or Scary, as insiders christened the company years ago, when, in a putsch remembered as b.l.o.o.d.y Monday, five editors in chief were canned in one day-included managing her image. This was at least as important as keeping tabs on an $18 million budget. No one at Scary had a Conde Nastlevel clothing allowance, but every editor and publisher was expected to look as if she did.

At a luncheon a few years ago, Magnolia overheard the president of a major publis.h.i.+ng company snort, "That woman will never work for us," while critiquing an editor in a ruffled peach suit more suited to the Scottsdale Country Club than the podium of the Waldorf. In a flash, Magnolia got it, just as she understood that the editor-in-chief position she was appointed to the next year came with migraines, fourteen-hour days, and densely numbered Excel sheets.

"When the Chanel ladies open the doors, race to the handbags,"

Phoebe instructed, placing her hands on her hips, which, despite the eighth month of a pregnancy, were so slim they appeared to have been modified by Adobe Photoshop. "They'll be on the far wall and they let you buy two. Grab them right away. Go to the opposite wall next and hit the shoes, but don't get sucked in by the short boots.

They're so over. Then the clothes. Save the jewelry and sungla.s.ses till the end. They have plenty."

Okay, Magnolia thought. She might be a piece of wood at yoga, but if she could migrate from Fargo to Manhattan, she could manage these moves.

Truthfully, once you got over the accents, Fargo had been less frozen wasteland and more an agreeably Type B place to be a kid, good for cruising the mall and dating cute boys named Anderson or Olson. On vacations from the University of Michigan, she'd return home every summer, with interns.h.i.+ps at The Forum. But when the newspaper offered her a job after graduation-she was one fine obit writer, that Maggie-her mother and father couldn't hustle her to the airport fast enough.

"Fargo-no place for a Jewish girl" could have been the family b.u.mper sticker. For Maggie Goldfarb, there'd be little postbaccalaure ate mooching. Recognizing she'd hit her sell-by date in the state the country forgot ("You're the first person I've ever met from North Dakota"), she'd need to get out, ready or not.

Maggie headed for Manhattan and morphed into Magnolia Gold.

Later, when people asked her what connections she'd exercised to snag her job at Glamour, she fessed up to ignorance as her sole advantage. If she'd grown up in New York, she'd have been too intimidated to have cold-called Human Resources.

"Mags! Magnolia! Hey, Gold!"

Magnolia's head was in Fargo, but Darlene Knudson, publisher of Lady, was definitely here, dripping a tall latte on Magnolia's bare leg. She and Darlene were equals at Lady, each ruling her own dominion: Magnolia headed up the editorial staff, and Darlene managed sales and marketing. Both reported to Jock Flanagan, the company's president and CEO, and a former publisher himself. Most heads of magazine companies climbed the corporate ladder by starting as pub lishers, and though they feigned fascination for creative types, in a standoff, it was publishers who garnered their sympathy. When ad sales faltered, invariably an editor got the boot.

Big-boned and braying, Darlene plopped down next to Magnolia, ignoring scowls from the women-more than 150 by now-behind her in line. Darlene had never met a mirror she didn't like and, at forty, was still bragging about her SAT scores. She was a Midwestern transplant, too, but while Mr. and Mrs. Goldfarb failed to receive the memo that self-esteem had been invented, Darlene drank it in her mother's milk. The child of Iowa uber-WASPs, Darlene was now an Upper East Side mother of three, with a nanny for each daughter.

Everyone on her staff knew Darlene took mental health days every Friday to make up for rarely seeing Priscilla, Camilla, and Annabel the rest of the week.

She always tried to stick it to Magnolia, who considered Darlene her frenemy-more enemy than friend.

"First-timer?" Darlene asked, throwing down her bulging black satchel. "I hate this stuff myself, but Mother loves it."

"Yes, I'm a virgin," Magnolia responded in a tone she hoped was airy and ironic. But Darlene was already thumb-dancing with her BlackBerry. Conversation over.

By now the sisterhood of shoppers snaked down one long wall and back around the other. The latest arrivals were nearer to the door than sleep-deprived zealots who'd blown in at dawn. The crowd ranged from fas.h.i.+on victims-whose unfortunate garments represented every trend from the past four seasons-to dozens of adorable answers to the question "Who could ever wear that?"

As the clock neared eight, a Chanel representative emerged, arms br.i.m.m.i.n.g with papers. "No one will be admitted without proper ID,"

she shouted above the din. "Complete these waivers before we let you in."

"Forms?" countered a member of the Lucky pep squad. "What's up?"

"We need to make sure no one will resell on eBay," announced the gatekeeper.

"Last year one woman made over $60,000," the girl next to Magnolia whispered. Just as she was considering the brilliance of that energetic consumer, a tussle broke out. A new arrival (she must be past sixty-her face was Botoxed and Restylaned to perfection, but the neck told all) had tried to maneuver herself to a spot near the door. Two women half her age blocked her entrance.

"Where do you think you're headed?" one demanded.

"To shop like everyone else," the interloper responded as she plucked a speck of lint off her yoga pants.

"Like h.e.l.l you are," said early bird number one.

"Don't be cra.s.s," answered Miss Sixty. "We have equal rights here."

"Not if you don't wait your turn," the friend said as she raised an arm to bar her elder. "No one's going in till you all calm down, every one of you," yelled the Chanel rep, her camellia trembling. "No one."

Calm prevailed. For thirty seconds. Then the doors parted. The room, bright as a casino, swallowed Magnolia. Neatly boxed shoes and boots, carefully arranged by sizes, and every sort of brooch and more were piled high on tables, which ringed row after row of tightly packed clothing racks. Where to begin? The handbags, the handbags.

Totes the size of labradoodles, clutches too small for a Tampax, purses worthy of a Jackie O impersonator. Not a style in sight a workhorse could live out of from morning till night.

Then she spotted it, the black kid cla.s.sic. Interlocking C's stood chastely back-to-back in a quilted V. She'd seen this number advertised for $2,100 in the Times. Here, $150.

Magnolia grabbed the bag and a furry carryall that she could wear with-well, she'd figure that out later. She scat to the shoes, and furi ously began trying on every pair of size sevens. Powder blue ballerina flats with huge C's. Even in her delirium she realized they were more appalling than appealing. The ankle boots? Phoebe's orange alert sang in her ears. Pumps with thick ankle straps? They'd make her legs look like stumps. Maybe the kitten heels. Elle insists-again-that pink was spring's newest neutral. They would do.

Under a chair she spied an unopened box, the crisp white logo an island of dignity in the middle of funereal ebony. Inside, the sling backs' toes narrowed to a s.e.xy point. The lizard soles, which no one but the wearer would even see, glistened like s.e.xy snakes. "You need to convince people you are special," her horoscope had warned. These shoes had her name all over them.

Now, the clothes. Magnolia cursed herself for not having researched her size at Saks. Six, she guessed, eyeing her behind. For princely occa sions every woman was supposed to trot out a Chanel jacket, but there were few here without buckles and pockets run amok. Only one jacket looked acceptable-dove gray tweed with silver threads, a few discreet b.u.t.tons rimmed with rhinestones, C's linked in the silk lining. Like intrepid pom-pom girls, they were everywhere, those C's. She grabbed the jacket and sprinted to evening gowns. Magnolia considered the red chiffon, but it was too bare for a bra. While ogling her nipples, the testosterone club that ran Scary would declare such a dress in poor taste.

She settled on a demure black c.o.c.ktail dress. Maybe she'd be invited to a Catholic charity dinner.

Arms filled, Magnolia headed to the ad hoc try-on area. Women in all manner of undress were madly pulling clothes on and off, quickly discarding selections that retailed for thousands. They seemed grate ful for the males in the room-gay guys shopping for their sisters had opinions you could respect. As she was trying to decide if the dress actually looked like something from the Ann Taylor Loft 60 percent off rack, she saw them. The publishers.

Four of Scary's hotshots were stripped to their bras and thongs, zip ping one another up and lobbing compliments. Darlene Knudson, Lady's publisher, towered above the publisher of Elegance, Charlotte Stone, a perfect lady trying valiantly to outsell Vogue. Charlotte waved over Magnolia. Like every editor, Magnolia deeply distrusted most publishers, believing they would sell you down the river for a Depends ad. Charlotte, however, was reputed to be decent.

"Magnolia! Honey! Did you see the trenches they just brought out?

They're only $75!"

On size-zero Charlotte, the belted green coat looked soigne. "Check out the lining," she urged. The name Coco was knit into the fabric.

They really did have the branding thing going on. Magnolia guessed that the lumpy coat might give her all the grace of a gorilla, but grabbed the last one without a try-on. She dragged her purchases to the cash register. It took another fifteen minutes to check out.

"Thirty-nine hundred," said the Chanel girl, without looking up.

Magnolia took another look at the handbag. If you added a chain, it could double for her lunch box from fourth grade. Was she really going to spend almost four thousand dollars on purchases she wasn't even sure she liked? If she'd ever wear these clothes, she wished she could accessorize with a disclaimer that read, "Do not judge the wearer, who may look deeply shallow, but is truly a person you'd want to know."

"Are you paying or not?" a woman behind her shouted. Magnolia whipped out her credit card. She lugged her bags to the street, hoping the hotel doorman could flag a taxi. It was 8:45. Magnolia was famished, thirsty, and needed to get to the office for a nine o'clock meeting.

Finally, she slid into a cab. As it turned right past the old Plaza Hotel, Darlene, Charlotte, and the other Scary publishers-each on her cell phone-pa.s.sed her in a company limo. The light changed.

Magnolia looked at her watch, a Cartier tank she'd indulged herself with in honor of getting her job. She realized now she'd certainly be late for her meeting.

She might have the t.i.tle. She might be the youngest woman to ever edit a magazine as huge as Lady. But Magnolia Gold felt, not for the first time, as if she were a big, fat fake. Any minute now, she'd be exposed as the cubic zirconia she truly believed she was.

Chapter 2.

The Grunt Work and the Glory.

"Ah, the couture shopper," Sasha Dobbs greeted Magnolia as she entered her office on lower Fifth Avenue. "The sale-all it's cracked up to be?"

"Bought a lot, sweat a lot," Magnolia replied to her a.s.sistant. She glanced at her watch. Five after nine.

"Not to worry. The meeting's pushed to four because Little Jock broke his arm in an equestrian event yesterday. Or so they say."

Jock didn't strike Magnolia as a Mr. Mom who'd hang out at a child's bedside, even if it was his first son after five tries in three mar riages. More likely than not, he was enjoying the happy ending of a very late night, probably with someone cute and young and not his wife. But it was a gift to Magnolia just the same. She'd have the better part of the day to rehea.r.s.e for the meeting.

Sasha handed her the morning's messages. Three were from publi cists, one from her friend Abbey, and another from Natalie Simon, the town's current alpha dog editor, who headed up Dazzle. She'd hired Magnolia for her first job, as her secretary, a t.i.tle you were still allowed to use twelve years ago at Glamour.

"Okay if Cam pops in?" Sasha asked.

"Two secs, Sash." As Magnolia scanned her e-mail, Sasha arranged a fresh bouquet of peonies. Twice a week, Sasha stopped at the corner grocer and managed to discover flowers that looked as if they came from Takas.h.i.+maya. Nonetheless, Magnolia made a mental note, when salary renegotiations came up, to ask for a weekly stipend to order fresh flow ers every week from a real florist-ideally, that guru of design known for supersimple, superexpensive monochromatic bouquets.

She'd be useless without Sasha. When Magnolia's previous a.s.sis tant, the plummy-voiced Fiona, had failed to return from a vacation, Magnolia seriously considered hiring the Oberlin grad who was temping for her. Then she got a peek at her pierced tongue. The next day Sasha showed up, dressed in a slim black suit by Theory. Sasha had limited experience beyond Teach for America, but she clinched the deal with her thank-you.

Magnolia never hired anyone who didn't send a follow-up note; to not thank a potential boss for her time, and make a case for how per fect you were for the job, was just plain dumb. Sasha's note was liter ate and hand-delivered on creamy, engraved Smythson of Bond Street stationery.

Sasha had begun six months ago at $41,000 and had earned every penny twice over. Speak to the folks in New Delhi about fixing Magnolia's BlackBerry. Check. Book tickets to L.A. and make sure Magnolia gets a window seat. Check. Order from Cupcake Cafe for office party. Check. For the tenth time explain to Darlene's a.s.sistant that she can't put an appointment on Magnolia's calendar to call on a client without clearing it. Check. None of these ch.o.r.es required the double major in film studies and philosophy Sasha had earned at Wesleyan, but she was so efficient she always had plenty of time left over for writing the magazine movie column.

"Okay. Ready for Cam," Magnolia said, leaving the rest of her e-mail for later.

"No problem," Sasha said. Magnolia despised that expression. Yet if she complained about it to Sasha, she knew she risked getting as steely a warning from Human Resources as if she'd asked her a.s.sis tant if she'd tattooed her private parts.

Cameron Dane, the magazine's managing editor, excelled at the extreme sport of keeping Lady on time and on budget. When Cam told her to hurry, because a page needed to s.h.i.+p, Magnolia did. When they were at risk of overspending-last month, it was obscene sums on messengers-Cameron blew the whistle. Just as important, if Lady hadn't eaten up as much money as Scary allowed, he'd figure out where to use it or lose it, rule number one of corporate budgets.

Straight, six foot two, and in his early thirties, Cameron was one of the industry's less typical managing editors. If he hadn't been an aspir ing novelist in need of health insurance, he'd never have been in the job. As usual, he was wearing Levis, and his s.h.a.ggy blond hair hung over his collar. He placed his large mug of coffee on her desk.

Forty minutes later, after the two of them worked through his list of emergencies-including hiring a coach for the new lifestyle editor, who had impeccable taste but whose organizational instincts were a weapon of ma.s.s destruction-Cam was ready to leave. But not before he reminded her: "Time to write your editor's letter."