School of Fortune (36 page)

“Madam Walker is a legendary shopper. I will wait in the car.”

Leigh stared glumly ahead. Last night she had discovered a streak of lipstick on Moss's jockey shorts. He had attempted to explain it away as some sort of Magic Marker but eventually gave up. Another Tiffany lamp had been defenestrated, inflicting substantial damage on one of Rosimund's gondolas. “I'm leaving him,” Leigh said. “This marriage is a joke.”

“We're all under stress right now,” Pippa said, patting her knee. “Maybe Dr. Zeppelin can provide some further insight.”

“We've already determined that I prefer my dog to my husband. That's enough insight for me.”

Pippa drove over the drawbridge to Castilio Damonia. She had barely opened the rear door when Thayne skipped outside, ready to burn a little plastic. “Good afternoon, Madam Walker.”

Casting her a brief but foul glare, Thayne ducked into the rear seat. “Don't you look smashing, Leigh.”

“So do you, sweetheart.” Air kisses.

“I feel as if I'm escaping the Tower of London. Dusi has been a tribulation ever since she bought those breasts.”

Having bought only slightly less imposing breasts of her own, Leigh could not attack Dusi directly. However, she could in good conscience say, “Harlan is far beneath her dignity.”

“Honey, you haven't seen Caleb. He hasn't been home in thirteen years. He just keeps sending armor back to Las Vegas.”

“And I thought
my
marriage was in bad shape.”

“Dusi's infatuation with your—” Thayne raised her voice so that Pippa could hear everything. “Your eunuch is simply beyond belief.”

“I'm not so sure about that.” Leigh leaned over to whisper, “If Cosmo's gifts from his mistresses are any indication, he's a world-class stud.”

“What a revolting thought!”

Conversation turned to Thayne's brooch. Thayne was looking for a mabe pearl surrounded by rubies set in gold filigree. The pearl had to be at least the size of an egg yolk, set with proportionately large rubies. Matching earrings would not be frowned upon. “I will of course be wearing the diamond necklace you returned to me yesterday,” Thayne said. “To break up the monotony.”

Pippa dropped the ladies off at Kuriakin, a sumptuous boutique in the Trump hotel, and proceeded to valet parking. She cut quite a figure in Duesenberg, purple sombrero, and Saint Laurent glasses. Tourists, even other chauffeurs, kept asking for her autograph. She created such a traffic jam that the bellman finally came over. “I'm sorry, sir. You'll have to park over there.”

“Do you know who I am?” Pippa thundered.

“No, sir.”

“Neither do I.” Pippa pulled to a remote lot, where she kept an eye on the Trump entrance while phoning greengrocers, linen services, Porta Potti professionals, ice companies, and liability insurers. She was negotiating with Dr. Hogly Wogly's barbecue in Los Angeles when she saw an apricot Mercedes limousine pull up to the hotel. For a horrible moment Pippa thought that, fearing for his wallet, Moss was going to pull Leigh by the hair out of Kuriakin. Then she saw Moss step out with a beautiful Asian woman in a red dress and five-inch heels. She clung to him like peanuts on a PayDay bar. They went into the hotel together.

Pippa's mouth was still wide open when a severely curvy redhead in black leather approached the Mercedes and, without even knocking on the window, slipped into the front seat with Cole. They were not unfamiliar with each other, Pippa saw at a glance as he drove into the hotel garage. Speechless, her thoughts a whirlwind, Pippa waited for thirty minutes. Cole, alone, returned to the curb moments before Moss emerged, alone, from the hotel. He got into the back seat. They drove away.

Two-timing bastards!

Pippa slowly realized that the windmills across the street were Leigh and Thayne waving their arms at her. “Sorry, signora. I was tied up with the Persimmon Association.”

“Speak when you're spoken to,” Thayne snapped, diving in. “Take us to Fred Leighton's at the Bellagio.” Her voice softened as she turned to her new best friend. “I don't know. Should I get the cabochon ruby parure for two hundred fifty or the emeralds for two seventy-five? I hate to comparison shop but my circumstances have been reduced and I have to count pennies from now until the day they bury me in Crockett.”

“What happened to the mabe pearl brooch?” Pippa called over her shoulder. “That wouldn't have cost more than a hundred twenty tops.”

“My God, that is one cheeky servant you've got, Leigh.”

“I know.” Leigh caught Pippa's wink in the rearview mirror. “Don't you go falling in love with him now.”

Pippa waited for them outside the Bellagio. Then outside Kuriakin. Then the Bellagio. Thayne finally decided to go with the cabochon ruby parure at Kuriakin for two hundred and fifty grand. “Once upon a time I never would have batted an eyelash at twenty-five thousand dollars,” she repeated. “Now I have to worry about who will support me in my old age.”

“Your daughter will.” Leigh patted Thayne's hand. “Girls never leave their mothers.”

“Even when their mothers have disowned them?”

“You cut off your own flesh and blood? My God, Thayne! What did she do?”

“You don't read the newspapers?”

“I'm sorry. Redecorating Casa Bowes has taken every ounce of my energy for eight months. Well? Tell me what she did. I hope it was at least a triple murder.”

Thayne dabbed a handkerchief at her tears. “I spent months organizing a beautiful wedding for her. Two minutes before tying the knot she backed out.” Thayne was shocked at how innocuous that sounded.

“You mean she was a runaway bride, like Julia Roberts?”

“You could say that. But she also announced there was someone else.”

Leigh burst out laughing. “You disowned her for being honest?” “You had to be there, Leigh. I was very angry and hurt. Very betrayed.”

“I'd say she did everyone a favor by coming clean. That must have taken a lot of guts, although I suppose the timing could have been better.”

“Why does everyone sympathize with the criminal instead of the victim?” Thayne cried in exasperation. “I am so tired of being treated like Lady Macbeth. My sole concern was for the family honor.” Having provoked no further sympathy, she continued, “In any event, that mess is over. I must move on. Lately I've been thinking of having another child. Cedric, my majordomo, is giving me a run for my money.”

Both ladies screamed as the Duesenberg nearly drove off the road. “Cosmo! What's going on up there?”

“A bee in the front seat, signora,” Pippa wheezed. “I have killed it.”

Leigh didn't need Dr. Zeppelin to deduce that Thayne's self-inflicted wound was at the root of her depression. “Dear, why don't you repair bridges with the daughter you already have before you go about making another?”

Thayne hit her with an obelisk stare. “How many children do you have, may I ask?”

“Zero. I just have a dog named Titian. Moss took him away from me. That dog was the light of my life. I can barely face the day without his little black eyes shining at me in the morning.”

In the rearview mirror Pippa saw a tear creep down her mother's cheek. “I'll be honest with you, Leigh. I miss my girl. Every day I think about her and worry about her. I spend eons crying over old scrap-books. She was the best daughter in the world. She idolized me, God knows why.” Thayne looked morosely out the window. “Her betrayal was a death blow.”

“What betrayal? Death blow to what?”

“I've been trying to figure that out,” Thayne admitted. “How did we get on this dismal subject? I need a drink.”

Pippa passed a flask of scotch from the glove compartment to the back seat. “Madam.”

Thayne took a belt, shocked at the intimate conversation she had just had with a woman she barely knew, in the presence of an eavesdropping servant. She was even more shocked that she hadn't scratched Leigh's eyes out for suggesting she was a less than perfect mother. “I must be going soft in my old age,” she half laughed.

“It suits you, madam,” Pippa said.

“You must get rid of that fellow, Leigh. Do yourself a favor and unload him on Dusi.”

Leigh shook her head. “Not a chance.”

The shopping excursion ended when the Duesenberg's trunk could hold no more. Pippa was a wreck when she finally dropped Thayne back at Castilio Damonia. She had learned more about her mother in the last few hours than she had in the previous twenty-two years. Thayne had studied to become a criminal lawyer, maybe even a judge, but had put those aspirations aside after becoming a Walker. She had married Robert on the rebound; her previous suitor, a flamboyant rancher and the love of her life, had crashed his Cessna into the prairie on a clear summer day one month before their wedding. Robert Walker was a gentle man. Their marriage was serene. Yet Thayne had not felt vibrantly alive again until the moment Pippa was born. “I did not marry an alpha male,” she confessed to Leigh. “Perhaps if I had, I would not have focused every atom of my being on my daughter.” Thayne had had two miscarriages prior to Pippa and two following. She described how proud she had been at her daughter's debutante ball, at her sorority initiation, her first ride on a horse ... it was all Pippa could do not to rip off her glasses, mustache, and sombrero and dive into the back seat shouting, “Here I am, Mama!”

Get the damn diploma, Cosmo.

“That poor woman,” Leigh said after dropping her off. “Talk about blowing it.”

“You're her only friend in the universe, signora. If I were you, I'd urge her to swallow her pride and get her daughter back. I could certainly find the girl for you. Rumor has it she'd give anything to be reunited with her mother.”

Leigh, of course, had other priorities. “Let's get through the party first.”

Neither spoke for the rest of the journey home. As they approached Casa Bowes, a red Mustang shot out of the driveway, nearly hitting them. “Idiot!” Leigh shouted out her window. She saw her linens specialist standing in the doorway. “Who was that maniac, Kerry?”

“He delivered a case of Champagne. I've been answering the door all day.” One would think she had been asked to walk on hot coals.

Dr. Zeppelin was waiting in one of the ballrooms. Leigh had a brief consult with him before going upstairs with her seamstress. Meanwhile Pippa checked in on the kitchen. Rudi had acquired a megaphone, through which he was barking commands at his five sous chefs from Flamingo in order to be heard over the Marlachi music blazing from their radios. Since they barely spoke English and his accent was thick as mashed potatoes, the kitchen was, literally, a madhouse. Pippa walked to the backyard.

The gondola damaged by the Tiffany lamp had been repaired. A bill for two thousand dollars was taped to its hull. Stuffing that in her pocket, Pippa strolled through Rosimund's four tents, which had been arranged in four spokes around a central platform for the seventy-piece orchestra. Electricians on ladders were hanging lanterns and fleecy clouds. Fountains gurgled. Mechanical birds trilled from brass cages. Pippa was beginning to think that maybe, just maybe, Mas-queradia Dusiana would fly when the doorbell rang.

There stood the Asian woman she had seen with Moss that afternoon. Red vinyl raincoat and black vinyl boots caused her to sweat profluently. “I want Moss Bowes,” she demanded, waving a pistol.

Pippa snapped into Walker survival mode. “Is this a robbery, madam?” she asked, stepping aside. “The silver's in the second room to your right. Help yourself.”

“No silver! I want Moss Bowes.”

“He isn't home. Look.” Pippa pointed to the open garage. “No car. May I get you a glass of soy milk while you wait?” “You make fun of me, mister?”

“Not at all! You look thirsty. Please. Come in and make yourself at home.”

“You a big idiot.” The woman took aim at a French Empire porcelain vase and, with one shot, blew it to smithereens.”Next bullet for Moss.”

Pippa watched her black Miata rocket out of the driveway. It had all happened so fast that she hadn't been able to get properly terrified. To add to the surreality, Dusi's Bentley now rolled up to the portico.

“Yoo-hoo! Cosmo! I was just passing by on my way back from the membership meeting.”

“We're still here, as you can see. Feel free to continue passing by.”

“Actually, I was looking for Harlan. Has anyone seen him?”

“I don't believe anyone at Casa Bowes is taking croquet lessons.”

“Don't toy with me, Cosmo.” Dusi sidled inside then, two steps at a time, charged upstairs, splitting the back seam of her pants. “I know he's with Leigh.”

“That's impossible,” Pippa shouted, running after her. “We just got back from shopping.”

“I saw him leering at her yesterday.” Bashing open the door to the master bedroom, Dusi found Leigh standing in front of a mirror as her seamstress zipped up the back of a sheath plaited with thousands of yellow, black, and white feathers.

“Dusi! What brings you here?” Leigh managed to gasp.

“Where'd you hide him?” Dusi tore the duvet, ten pillows, and half the sham off Leigh's bed: nothing. She ripped apart Leigh's six closets, Titian's nursery, six upstairs bedrooms, and the master bath. Still nothing, but that didn't deter Dusi from stomping back to the bedroom.”You've been screwing Harlan!”

“The croquet instructor, signora,” Pippa reminded her.

To her credit Leigh didn't burst out laughing. “I'm afraid there's been a misunderstanding. The last time I saw Harlan was at lunch here.”

“He said you were pretty in pink!”

“I'm sure he was just trying to be sociable.” Leigh put an arm around Dusi's quaking shoulders. “It never crossed my mind he would find me
that
attractive. Particularly in comparison to you. That's simply unimaginable.”