School of Fortune (9 page)

W
hen Pippa came to, she was lying on a backstage couch at Meyerson Symphony Center. Ginny was daubing her forehead with a cool, damp cloth. A cacophony of brass, bells, tympani, and organ muddled the air. Far-off people were shouting. Pippa looked down at the big white dress she was wearing. “What happened?” “You blew the wedding.”

It all came rushing back to her. “What a nightmare.” “Seriously.” Ginny winged her wig into the shadows. “Would you like to come to Costa Rica with me?” “Now?”

“I suggest leaving Dallas for a few days. You really stepped in it.”

Pippa recalled Thayne sinking to the floor. “Is my mother okay?”

“She's indestructible. The paramedics took her away. Along with your grandfather.” Ginny didn't elaborate on that.

Pippa's head swam. “Where's Lance?” she wailed.

“Last I saw, he was sniveling down the aisle after his mother. Count your blessings, girl. You did the right thing. There's only one woman in his life, and it ain't you. Sorry.”

“Rosimund left?”

“The Hendersons all marched out. The Walkers rushed the stage.

The bridesmaids took off with the groomsmen. I carted you back here. Hey! Scram!” Ginny shouted at one of the photographers before slinging an enormous duffel bag over her shoulder. “Think you can stand up? I've got a cab waiting.” She had booked it weeks ago to take her to the airport. “You've got to disappear.” “Dressed like this?”

Ginny took her firmly by the arm. “Now.”

They retrieved Pippa's cell phone from the deserted dressing room. Before hustling Pippa into the cab, Ginny disposed of two paparazzi outside the artists' entrance by tossing their cameras into oncoming traffic. “Drive until I tell you to stop,” she told the cabbie. He didn't understand much English so she twirled a finger in the air. “Drive! Circles!”

While he was putting a few miles between them and the carnage, Ginny located two sets of tank tops and cargo shorts in her duffel. She had only one pair of hiking boots; for the moment Pippa would have to navigate in her white Blahniks. “It's not the presidential suite,” she said, unzipping Pippa's wedding dress. “But our options are limited.”

As the cab circled Dallas, they changed into camping gear. “As I see it, you have two choices,” Ginny said as she compacted the soft, white mountain that used to be Pippa's gown into a tight roll. “You can stay at my place while I'm in Costa Rica or you can come with me to Costa Rica.”

“Can't I just go home?” Pippa wanted nothing more than to crawl into her nice warm bed and hibernate for six months. “I feel really sick.”

“I'd rather face a mauled tiger than your mother. You presume she'll even let you in the house.” Ginny looked at her watch. “My plane leaves in two hours.”

“You know I can't just run off,” Pippa moaned. “It wouldn't be right.”

Ginny gave the driver an address in Wellington on the Creek. With a wry smile, she leaned back in her seat. “You've got to admit, it was fun while it lasted.”

“It wasn't fun at all. I'm never going through that again.”

Ginny appraised Pippa through half-open eyes. “So who's the third wheel?”

Pippa's first inclination was to admit the story was a farce. Then she realized that further clarification could ruin Lance. “I can't say.”

“Is it Andre?”

“What? No!” Why did Ginny automatically presume
she
was the one with the third wheel?

Ginny patted her hand. “You were brave to come clean. The most eligible bachelor in Texas will never live it down, though.”

“Yes, I'm sure he won't be dating any more cheerleaders for a long, long time.”

“Wow, that was bitchy.” Ginny rolled down her window at the security gate of Wellington on the Creek. “This is my friend, Stanley. She gets carte blanche.”

“No problem, Miss Ortlip.”

The cab driver braked in front of Ginny's palatial home. “Wait for me,” Ginny told him.

She unlocked the door to her villa, which Pippa had visited many times before. “You'll be safe here.” Ginny tossed their wedding gear into a chair. “I'll be back in two weeks. On the fridge is a list of restaurants that deliver.”

“I can never thank you enough.”

Ginny handed over her car and house keys. “SUV's in the garage. Sorry I can't stay.”

Pippa was sorry, too. From the balcony she watched Ginny's cab speed off. After the roar and confusion at Meyerson Center, the calm here was surreal. Where'd everyone go? Shouldn't she be slicing wedding cake with Lance about now? Her insides felt like rope. Settling numbly into a couch in the home theater, Pippa turned on the sixty-inch LCD television. What should appear but
Fantasy Weddings.
The bride looked obscenely happy.

“Go away!” Pippa screamed, hitting the remote. Now she got
Weddings of a Lifetime.
Wyeth McCoy was giving an interview. In horror Pippa heard him explain that he never took on weddings he didn't think would last, even if it meant resigning in midstream. “You knew!” she cried, jabbing the remote. On came
My Big Fat Greek Wedding.
“No!” Pippa shrieked, flying off the couch. She attacked Ginny's stack of DVDs, searching for anything not involving a man, a woman, a wedding, or romance of any kind.

She watched
The Hunt for Red October
as she robotically consumed a few boxes of crackers and a half gallon of milk. Why didn't

Lance call to see if she was okay? Why didn't a bridesmaid call? Her grandfather? She checked her cell phone: full batteries, in ring mode. Surely people must wonder where she had gone. Someone must be worrying. Someone must want to hug her and whisper, “There there, it's not your fault. You've been more than noble about this.”

Dream on. At wit's end, Pippa speed-dialed her ex-fiance. “Lance? Are you all right?”

“Pippa?” he managed to squeak. “Where—”

“If you dare come near my son again,” Rosimund thundered, “I will have you prosecuted to the full extent of the law. You are evil!” The line went dead.

“You sniveling
turd!”
Pippa screeched so loudly that her tonsils nearly blew out. Somehow she was not surprised that Lance hadn't told his mother the truth. Alas, his cowardice was exceeded by her own stupidity. She should have gone through with the wedding, as he suggested. They could have chastely cohabited for an interval, then split. There would have been gossip, but nothing like the firestorm she had now generated all by herself. Pippa stared morosely at the huge diamond ring on her left hand. Rosimund would demand it back, of course.

Thank God the Walkers took care of their own! Once Thayne heard the real story, Pippa would be forgiven and protected. Venerated as the saint she was. She called star one on her speed dial: Thayne.

The number was no longer in service.

Pippa called Fleur-de-Lis: ditto.

Traumatized, she hit mute and went into a semivegetative state, her jaws slowly grinding caramel popcorn as talking heads occupied the television screen. Weather. Sports. Pippa saw but didn't immediately comprehend when her grandfather's picture appeared on the screen. When two four-digit numbers appeared under his name, she snapped back to life. With trembling fingers she grabbed the remote and toggled mute.

“Anson Walker, the legendary oil billionaire, collapsed this evening at a family gathering. He was rushed to Baylor Medical Center and pronounced dead upon arrival. The cause was cardiac arrest. According to unconfirmed reports, Walker was attending his granddaughter's wedding, although a family spokesperson has denied that a wedding took place. Our investigative reporters are on the scene. Stay tuned.”

Spoons and popcorn went flying as Pippa leaped off the couch. A minute later, barefoot, she was in Ginny's SUV, driving home as fast as she dared. Her tears nearly blinded her. Grampa dead? How was that possible? He had the heart of a bull. Just last night he was dancing with her. He was the only one who understood!

Traffic began knotting up a half mile from the Walker mansion. Pippa plowed over lawns and curbs, between limousines and news crews, barely missing gawking pedestrians and bicyclists who loved a good show despite the late hour. Cutting off a Bentley, she screeched to a halt at the front gate and rolled down her tinted window. “Charlie! It's me!”

The guard peered at her. “Hello, Miss Walker.” He didn't make a move to open the gate.

“What's the problem? Open up.”

“I'm sorry. Your mother has given orders not to let you in.” Charlie tried not to stare at her Day-Glo camouflage T-shirt. “Never to let you in, as a matter of fact.”

“She's not feeling well! You know that!”

Charlie removed an envelope from his jacket. “Your father asked me to give you this.”

With shaking fingers, Pippa read the terse note.

Inside the envelope was an inch of crisp C-notes. Pippa stared at the wad of bills for a moment before dangling half of them in front of Charlie. “Please let me in.”

“Can't do it, Miss Walker. I suggest you turn around.”

Pippa stared through the heavy iron gates. Fleur-de-Lis looked as if it were being looted. Workmen were dismantling tents, long barbecue grills, floral arrangements, Porta Potties, tables, chairs, and loading them onto trucks as fast as possible. Caterers were streaming down the front steps with trays of food and shoving them into vans. All the housemaids were standing on the porch helplessly wringing their aprons and crying. Every light in the house was on except those in Pippa's bedroom.

The Bentley behind her honked its horn. “We have an invitation to the party,” the driver called.

“The party has been canceled,” Charlie called back. “Please go home.”

“I beg your pardon! We have come all the way from Kilgore.” “That's where you should return.”

“How very rude, sir! Thayne will hear about this!” The Bentley slowly reversed and joined the traffic stuttering in the opposite direction.

Charlie listened to his headset. “The trucks are coming out,” he told Pippa. “You've got to move.”

“What if I don't?”

“You'll be towed. I'm sorry, Miss Walker. Those are my orders. After all your mother has been through, I think it would be better to go quietly.”

Defeated, Pippa put the Lexus into reverse. “I'm at Ginny's, if anyone cares.”

If he heard her, Charlie did not reply.

Cringing as she passed dozens of people she knew, Pippa crawled Ginny's SUV back to Wellington on the Creek. She returned to the couch in the home theater. For hours the only moving parts of her body were her occasionally blinking eyelids and her right hand tirelessly working the remote as she surfed for news. As the next morning progressed, her grandfather's life and death received increasing air time, as did the circumstances surrounding his collapse. Adding to the excitement, each person interviewed by crack local telejournalists seemed to have a different version of events at Meyerson Center.

In horror Pippa watched her bridesmaid Leah say, “We were all so worried about Pippa. She was unnaturally quiet all week. Her mother was obviously forcing her to get married. Thayne Walker is like the godfather. You do what she says or you wake up with a dead horse in your bed. Don't be surprised if I'm found floating in the Rio Grande for saying this.”

Cedric the substitute wedding planner was interviewed next. Impeccable in a dark blue blazer and ascot, laying on the upper-crust British accent with a cement trowel, he presented quite a different picture than had Leah. “Mrs. Walker is a brilliant and sympathetic woman. Family means everything to her. While she deeply mourns the passing of her father-in-law, her daughter's happiness is paramount. If Pippa loves someone else, even though she may have chosen a less than optimum moment to make the announcement, Mrs. Walker fully supports that.”

The interviewer looked skeptical. “So who's the lucky guy?”

“Mind your own
bleeping
business, you lowlife
bleep!”

Lance, of course, was declining any interviews. About an hour later scandalmongers unearthed Pippa's old flame Andre in Prague. “Pippa and I lived together for a year,” he announced nonchalantly. With each syllable, the cigarette in his mouth bobbed up and down like a needle in a polygraph machine. His eyes were as blue and languid as ever, Pippa noticed.

“Have you been seeing her?”

“No comment.”

Pippa threw a pillow at the television. “You schmuck!”

Kimberly was interviewed next. “I think Pippa acted in a truly hideous way. Lance Henderson intended to marry her yesterday. She has caused him major humiliation and she has caused me major inconvenience. I personally spent about ten thousand dollars to participate in the wedding.”

“Will you sue?”

“My only concern is that Lance will find a more suitable wife.” “He already has, you rat!” Pippa shouted.

Another news station had set up camp outside Fleur-de-Lis. Their cameras followed the parade of trucks leaving the grounds of the Walker mansion in the dead of night. “This feels like a funeral,” a reporter intoned. “And in fact it is the first of two funerals this week for the Walkers. The family remains in seclusion.” He walked to the guardhouse. “What can you tell us about last night, sir?”

Charlie shut the glass window in his face. Undeterred, the reporter walked to a white Mercedes idling nearby. “Excuse me.” The window rolled down. “Are you a friend of the family?”