Little Pink Slips by Sally Koslow Page B

her nails, not too long, square with rounded edges. The Satur
    day afternoon opera played quietly on a boom box.
    "Needs time to think," Abbey reported.
    "Code for 'I will take my own sweet time to fuck around while you
    squirm and writhe,' " Magnolia said. She couldn't remember the last
    time any woman benefited when a man got to thinking. "What are
    you going to do?"
    "Throw myself into work," Abbey said. "Become the world's most
    prolific jewelry designer. I was up all night sketching. I'm seeing
    lizards, lizards everywhere. Lizards with slinky diamond bodies.
    Lizards with cowardly topaz stripes. And strangely, these lizards have
    no balls."
    While Abbey and Lily debated the anatomy of scaly reptiles, Mag
    nolia tried to ignore the fleeting thought that Abbey might actually produce one of these critters for her birthday—preferably in a size big
    enough to make a statement around her wrist. "Did you read your
    husband the riot act?" Magnolia asked.
       "My estranged husband?" Abbey asked. "Not in so many words. I'm such an ass. I was actually relieved to hear from him."
    "Did you e-mail back?"
    "Told Tommy to get his butt home," Abbey admitted.
    Magnolia thought Abbey might have asked a few more questions.
    Like where was he? Who was he with? What were his intentions?
    Why did he think he could treat her this way? She knew it would be up to her to play rottweiler. "If he writes back—correction: when he writes back—give him a deadline."
    "I hope you never put his name on the lease," added Lily, ever the
    pragmatist, as she warmed Magnolia's hands with a steamy towel.
    When they married, Tommy had moved into Abbey's rent-stabilized
    apartment. For the cost of a Queens studio, the couple luxuriated in six
    rooms and nine-foot ceilings capped by dentil moldings, a butler's
    pantry, enough closets to hide a family of fugitives, and a view of the
    park. The desire to keep a real-estate jewel of this caliber had kept
    many a faltering New York marriage together forever. Lily had clearly
    hit a nerve, and Abbey gave both of them her look that telegraphed:
    "Back off. This isn't a drug intervention. I am not the idiot wimp you
    think I am." Directed toward Magnolia, the look seemed to also say,
    "I'm married, even if my husband's not exactly around. You, on the
    other hand, are single. Perhaps terminally."
    "Enough," Abbey said.
    "Natalie loves your jewelry—especially the pieces she heard
    Bergdorf's commissioned" was all Magnolia could think to say.
    "But of course Mrs. Simon would know this," Abbey said. "Is there
    anything she doesn't know?" She could not forgive Natalie for never
    remembering her name.
    "She doesn't know who I am bringing to her party next week,"
    Magnolia said. "Because I don't know myself." Magnolia's social life
    had gone into remission five months before when she broke up with
    Alec the architect, who had long black hair and an inability to hit an ATM. When he asked for her to pay his car leasing bill, Magnolia
    ended it, finally accepting the fact that he'd been as stingy with emo
    tion as he had been with cash. "If I don't come up with someone—
    and you know she'll harass me about it all week until I do—Natalie
    will remedy the situation herself." As a matchmaker, Natalie believed
    in the classic combination of beautiful women and rich, ugly men,
    although for her, another rule applied: Natalie's husband happened to
    look like Jeremy Irons's baby brother.
    "In that case, we need to be creative," Abbey said. "What about
    Cameron in your office? I've always loved him."
    Everyone did. "Next," Magnolia said.
    "J-Date," Lily insisted. "You need Jewish man." She gave the same
    advice to her own daughter.
    "Find a guy online?" Magnolia responded. "What kind of loser do
    you think I am?"
    "The kind who got no man," Lily said with a laugh. Lily and her
    manicurists were always cracking up. Either they found the world
    infinitely amusing or their customers, imbeciles.
    "You shrews take it down a