Little Pink Slips Part 27

"Are you a friend of Whitney's from nursery school?" asked the medium blonde.

"Did Whitney and I go to nursery school together?" Magnolia asked. What a peculiar question.

The women exchanged a glance. "Did your child go with the twins to the Ninety-second Street Y?" the short one asked. "We've never seen you up at Horace Mann."

"I don't have any kids," Magnolia said.

"Oh, forgive me," she said, casting her face in dramatic sympathy.

"I am so sorry." Magnolia was afraid the three of them were going to hug her. "It's fine, really," Magnolia said. This would have been a good time to add, "I work." Except she didn't.

"So how do you know Whitney-from a committee?" Lizzie asked.

"I don't," Magnolia said, "know Whitney, that is. Can you point her out?"

As the women turned to search for their hostess, Lizzie's long blond mane swatted Magnolia in the face. "That's Whitney over by the chairs," Julia-or-Rachel said. "Isn't it sweet the way she's made this look like a screening room?"

"Right," Magnolia said. All she could see of Whitney was that she was taller than Lizzie-and Wally, for that matter-and blindingly blond.

The four women stood together awkwardly. As Magnolia drilled deeper for schmooze material, she was grateful when Julia-or-Rachel spoke up. "Say, maybe you can help me," the short one said. "My housekeeper's gone AWOL. I'm losing my mind. My son, the apart ment . . . It's been since Monday. Know of anyone? I'm ready to slit my wrists."

Magnolia's weekly cleaning woman had just lost one of her other day jobs. "Which day do you need?"

"Well, every day," the woman said, as if Magnolia were brain damaged. "But for the right person I suppose I could give up Sat.u.r.day."

"What are the responsibilities?" Magnolia asked.

"The usual. Laundry, ironing, cleaning, errands, cooking, dog walking. I like someone to help me get Joshy ready for school, so that means starting at seven, but she can go home after the dinner dishes are washed and put away. That's usually around nine-thirty, some times ten," the blonde said and smiled charmingly. "I'm flexible."

This woman worked Scary hours. She might be a brain surgeon, a district attorney, an Internet entrepreneur with an international travel schedule. Magnolia was intrigued. She asked the question asked of her at every New York social event for the last ten years, the one she was hoping no one would ask today. "What do you do?"

"Do? " the blonde replied in the mystified tone Parisians reserve for those who butcher their language.

"Your job?" Magnolia said. "It must be fascinating." "I don't work," the blonde sniffed. "I'm busy."

Magnolia's comment hung in the air like a fart. She scoped out the room, caught Wally's eye, and waved enthusiastically. He walked over to Magnolia and embraced her from behind as she noticed Whitney noticing her.

"I see you've met Whitney's friends," he said. "Ladies, how do you like my ex-wife? See, I always get myself a looker. Mind if I steal her away from you beauties?"

Magnolia imagined they didn't.

"You might have told me your friends dress up to watch football,"

Magnolia said.

"Whitney's friends," he said. "Look at me-I'm the same old slob."

"Wally, I know that sweater," she said. "It's Tse cashmere."

"Doll, you look gorgeous," he said. "All the guys are looking at how you fill out those shrink-wrapped jeans."

While she knew she wasn't dressed like a Ha.s.sidic matron, neither did she want to be seen as a tart. Even worse, had she gained weight and not realized it? "Some apartment, Wally," Magnolia said, eager to change the subject. "This place is enormous."

"Five thousand square feet," he said. "With the kids, we need the s.p.a.ce."

Need or want? Another Manhattanite who couldn't tell the differ ence, Magnolia thought.

"C'mon, let me show off my favorite room," he said. "We can talk business there. I've read your contract." He led her to his upstairs plaid-as-a-kilt study and closed the door. "Whitney had these shelves made for my trophies," he said, pointing to a wall of s.h.i.+ny, engraved silver cups from two decades of golf tournaments.

She really is a trophy wife. "Very impressive," Magnolia said.

"Who are you trying to kid-you hate golf," he said, grinning.

He sat in one of two club chairs and patted the other. Magnolia sat down. "Listen, I've read over your particulars. It's an interesting case." Magnolia didn't want her case to be interesting. She wanted it to be over, with her savings, pride, and future intact. "How so, Wally?"

"Well, your company-Scarborough, is it?-could argue that they acted in good faith. After they stopped publis.h.i.+ng your magazine, they did, in fact, give you another job for quite a few months-until the end of the year-so they might say they fulfilled their end of the deal."

"I'm with you," she said.

"Then again, this new job, the 'corporate editor' thing, one might argue that it was bulls.h.i.+t . . ."

"One might."

". . . and that Scarborough did not, in fact, act in good faith-stick ing you in a c.r.a.ppy job they planned to eliminate, and, if you'll par don the expression, leaving you up s.h.i.+t's creek."

"That's my address, all right."

"Then again, had I been your legal counsel when you accepted this job, I'd have made d.a.m.n sure we paid attention before you started, and addressed the contract issue then and there," he said. "You and your attorney were asleep at the wheel, toots."

"I didn't have an attorney," Magnolia admitted. She was suddenly afraid she might cry. Why hadn't she gone over the details with a lawyer? Because the thought had never occurred to her.

"That's my girl, Miss Naive and Frugal," Wally said in his own sweet way. He began to doodle on a legal pad. "I keep wis.h.i.+ng there was more to this," he muttered. "Some point where I could really stick it to them. Got any help for me in that department?"

"You know I really didn't 'accept' this job," she said, after thinking it over. "There was never a choice."

"Why is that?" he asked.

Magnolia cleared her throat. "My boss," she said. "I mean my ex boss, Jock Flanagan . . ." The tears started.

"What is it?" Wally said, without the bl.u.s.ter now.

"He propositioned me, that a.s.shole," she said. "I rebuffed him.

The corporate editor job was payback. I had to take it-or quit- which I thought meant I'd be breaking my contract, so I stuck it out, feeling like a horse's a.s.s."

"Okay," Wally said, drawing out the word as if he were enjoying it as much as a long toke on a good joint. "Now we're getting somewhere.

To the best of your recollection, what did you tell that sonofab.i.t.c.h?"

"Well, I can't remember, exactly," Magnolia said. "That I didn't think this was the time for him to make advances-the company was already in the middle of a scandal. Bebe had just been caught making s.e.xual overtures to this boy, Nathaniel Fine, who worked as our intern. The press blasted her. The company was trying to clean up an enormous mess."

"I heard about that," Wally said. "The parents are members of our club and everyone was talking. Fourteen-karat gold gossip. I felt sorry for the kid, but it all went away. The Blake woman paid up big. Your company, too, up the wazoo."

"Scary paid?" Magnolia said. "Really? I never knew that. How do you know?"

"I was in a foursome with the kid's dad."

"How much did Scary pay?"

"Settled out of court, close to a half million from the publis.h.i.+ng company, and more from the talk show gal. But stick to your story, darling," Wally said. "We might be on to something."

"I told Jock, 'I like the way things are now.' "

"Not sure I understand," Wally said. "What did you mean, 'I like the way things are now'?"

"I didn't want us to be a couple."

"I like the way things are." Wally let the phrase roll off his tongue.

" 'I like the way things are.' Now we're hot."

"I'm not the first woman Jock's tried to hara.s.s at work," Magnolia added quietly. "He's the matinee king. If you could get to Elvira, his secretary . . . She keeps his calendar, makes his reservations, pays the hotel bills. . . ."

Magnolia heard a knock at the door. "Just a minute," Wally said as he took notes. The knocking became a pound. "Coming," Wally shouted. "Coming."

Wally got up to open the door as Whitney Fleigelman flew through it, blond hair flying.

"You f.u.c.king creep, Wally," she said, slapping him in the face.

"Not again! 'I like the way things are,' " she mimicked. "How many times are you going to use that old line? And you!" She jabbed Mag nolia with her finger, which had a long nail tip manicured the pink of a baby's tush. "You! 'I like us as a couple,' " she whined. "You had your nerve to call my home. You piece of dreck. And you come to my home in f.u.c.k-me jeans. Get out!" she ordered. "This minute!"

"Whew, Whitney, honey," Wally said, grabbing his wife by her nar row shoulders. "Calm down. You heard things wrong. And there's no need to insult Magnolia."

"Magnolia!" she said. "Like I care. And what kind of a bulls.h.i.+t name is that?"

"It's her name, Esther Rose!" Wally said. "Oh, excuse me, Whitney, the mother of Morgan and Harper. And what were you doing eavesdropping anyway?" His voice was as loud as Magnolia remem bered it could be.

"Wally, I'll f.u.c.kin' listen to anything I want to in my own house, thank you very much," Whitney screamed, her face as red as her slinky sweater dress. Magnolia wondered if Whitney got a dis count at Tse Cashmere or had just scored at the pre-Christmas sample sale.

"Magnolia! You've never gotten over that tramp, have you, Wally?"

"Get a grip, you crazy b.i.t.c.h," Wally said. "We have guests. You know, I shoulda stayed with Magnolia. At least she doesn't sit on her fat a.s.s all day."

"You're saying my a.s.s is fat?" Magnolia and Whitney asked the question in unison. But neither of the Fleigelmans heard Magnolia.

They were too busy dismembering each other.

Magnolia left the study. "I'll call you," Wally yelled as she shut the door. "I've got an idea or two about your case."

Magnolia went downstairs. Guests were cheering in the media room, and the box of chocolates she'd brought was still sitting on the table where she'd left them.

"I forgot something," she said to the intern-turned-waitress, who just then walked through the foyer en route to the kitchen. Magnolia opened the box, offered a truffle to the waitress, and took one for her self. She closed the box, put it under her arm, and left.

Chapter 3 3.

Yesterday's History, Tomorrow's a Mystery.

"You're getting a what?" Magnolia asked Abbey as they trolled the Sunday flea market two weeks later.

"Getting a get," Abbey said. "A Jewish divorce."

"You're only half Jewish."

"My mother's Jewish-that's what counts." She rummaged through a box of old coins, examined one, and deemed it unfit for her new collection of chokers and charm bracelets.

"Tommy's conversion was pretty lightweight-you weren't even married by a rabbi." Magnolia had been the maid of honor at the wedding, which featured an officiating judge who couldn't have pa.s.sed a breathalyzer test.

"Immaterial," Abbey said. "If a Jewish woman remarries without a proper religious divorce, any kids she might have in a second mar riage are considered illegitimate," she recited, as if she were being tested on the answer. "Didn't you get one with Wally?"

"I refused. If his kids are b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, I take no responsibility, and he's not going to hear it from me-not when he's been providing such excellent pro bono work on my behalf." "How's that going?" Abbey asked.

"Scary caved some, but Wally's holding out for more," Magnolia said, putting down an art deco bracelet as soon as she saw the price tag. "Back to you-where's Tommy with all this?"

"In Australia with his new honey but willing to get it done,"

Abbey said. "He's flying in tonight, and I don't want to lose track of him again."

"But you certainly aren't getting any pressure from Cameron, that crusty old WASP," Magnolia said. "Are you?" She wasn't sure if she even wanted the answer.

Abbey grimaced, which with her delicate features managed to look enchanting. She struck some people as fragile, but Magnolia knew she was a waif built of t.i.tanium. "You're spending too much time with a lawyer-what's with the third degree?"

"Something's off," Magnolia said.

"What may be off is Cameron and me," Abbey said. "I like him- he's smart and makes me laugh and is a G.o.d under those flannel s.h.i.+rts and baggy jeans-"

Magnolia closed her eyes. "Too much information."

"-but I met someone on my trip to Paris. Someone Juif. "

"Juif ?"

"French and Jewish. Gorgeous in that dark, brooding, existentialist way. He's been e-mailing, but he's very traditional and won't go out with me until I get a get."