School of Fortune (10 page)

Mrs. Bingo Buntz IV, resplendent in a sapphire-blue suit with matching hat and feathers, glared at the reporter. “I am here to ask for my wedding gift back. Obviously a wedding did not take place.”

Barely suppressing a grin, the reporter glanced at the forty or so vehicles waiting behind Mrs. Buntz. “Is this the returns line, then?”

“You could call it that.”

“May I ask what your wedding gift was?”

“Approximately fifty thousand dollars in gold coin.”

“Ha ha! Sure it wasn't a fondue pot?”

Her window rolled shut.

Pippa staggered to the bathroom and swallowed a handful of aspirin. If she thought Thayne's wedding was a media circus, this was ten times worse. She took every cereal box out of Ginny's kitchen cabinets and returned to the sofa. Her eyes burned.

“Where is Pippa Walker?” an anchorwoman asked. “No one's talking.” She held up that morning's newspapers. Pippa gasped as she read the headlines. QUARTERBACK SACK. WORDS KILL BILLIONAIRE GRANDFATHER. “One can't blame her for disappearing.” She shared a chuckle with her coanchor. “What do you think, Harvey? Mata Hari or Runaway Bride?”

“Mixed-up kid,” was all he said. Anything else was a lawsuit.

The stations had a field day with Thayne, then made a show of balancing that with long obituaries of Anson. Psychologists gave interviews about wedding jitters and why wealthy people married at all. Wyeth McCoy, while not divulging financial details of Thayne's extravaganza or even letting on that he had been fired, gave a self-serving talk on the cost of society weddings and how Happily Ever After, Inc., made those dreams a reality. Legal experts wondered if a prenuptial agreement had been signed. Experts on etiquette explained how couples went about returning their gifts in the event of a meltdown. The blather was endless. In a trance, Pippa listened to every word.

Finally, late in the afternoon, the phone rang. It was Ginny. “Holding up?”

“No. My grandfather died.”

“I'm so sorry about that. You didn't kill him, in case you were wondering.”

“I tried to go home,” Pippa sobbed. “Thayne doesn't want to see me, maybe forever.”

Sorry, bad joke.” “I want to go to the funeral.” “Pippa, you can't. Think about it.” “I could wear a disguise.”

“Every paparazzo in the country is looking for you. Security will be tighter than at a presidential inauguration. The press will be there in droves. Can you imagine the fracas if they discover you there in a costume? You've got to put your own feelings aside and let your grandfather be buried with dignity.”

“Maybe I should kill myself,” Pippa whispered.

“Fine, just not in my house, okay?” When Pippa didn't laugh, Ginny said, “Don't forget to turn the GPS on your cell phone off. It can be traced.”

When the press nicknamed her Balker Walker, Pippa collapsed in bed and remained there for two days, sobbing. How could such a bad thing happen to such a good person? Through her tears she watched news of the funeral and infomercials. She rummaged obsessively through Ginny's kitchen in search of trans fats. The phone rang day and night as reporters offered Ginny zillions for an exclusive interview. Pippa intermittently turned on her cell phone to check messages. The same reporters offered her the same zillions. Wyeth McCoy called once to say he knew all along that something was wrong and he'd be happy to give her a thirty percent discount on the second wedding. Kimberly had the gall to ask if Pippa had returned Lance's engagement ring. Not a word from Thayne. The silence was making Pippa ill.

On the third day, as she was finishing the last of Ginny's frozen pizzas, the doorbell rang. Pippa nearly gagged on her pepperoni but made no move to answer it. The caller remained, patiently ringing every thirty or so seconds, until she tiptoed to the door and put her eyeball to the peephole. On the stoop was Sheldon Adelstein, her grandfather's lawyer, holding a briefcase and a grocery bag. Sheldon had been considered a member of the family for at least fifty years. In fact, he was Pippa's godfather.

Never so glad to see anyone, she unlocked the door. “Sheldon!” She hugged him so hard his Stetson hat fell off. “How did you find me?”

“Charlie at the front gate mentioned you might be here.” The rest was a matter of paying off the guard out front. Sheldon stepped back
and
observed Pippa with some concern. Last time he had seen her, she was a perfect vision in white. Now she looked uncombed, unwashed, and unhinged. The Day-Glo T-shirt didn't help. “I take it you haven't ventured outside.”

Pippa's eyes welled with tears. “Where would I go?”

Antarctica was an option. “I brought cookies from Margarita. Let's have a cup of tea, shall we?”

They went to the kitchen, where Pippa put water on to boil. Sheldon placed a tin of lemon snaps on the table. “Are we alone?”

“Yes. Ginny's in Costa Rica.”

“I was referring to the Other Man.”

The other man was with Lance! “As I said, we're alone. How's my mother doing?”

“Not terribly well. This wedding meant a lot to her, as you may imagine. To have that go up in smoke and lose Anson the same day has been a severe blow. Fortunately Thayne responds well to medication.” Juniper berries, in the form of gin.

“She'll recover. Embarrassment is different than guilt.” Pippa shut off the screeching kettle. “I killed my grandfather, Sheldon.”

“Nonsense. Anson was eighty-four years old. He had been partying hard for a whole week. He could have died during a normal wedding, for all we know.” Sheldon cleared his throat and straightened his string tie. Had Pippa known him better, she would have realized he was about to utter a monumental lie. “As they put him in the ambulance, I was at his side. Do you know what his last words were? Tell Pippa she didn't do this to me. Tell her I love her and understand completely why she called off the wedding.'“ No point in saddling the poor kid with a lifelong guilt complex.

Pippa's eyes brightened. “Did he really say all that?” It seemed a lot of words for someone who had just suffered a catastrophic heart attack.

“Yes. I swear on a stack of King James Bibles.” Easy for Sheldon to say: he was Jewish.

“That is such a relief. I feel like a huge rock has been lifted off my heart.”

“One reason I came here was to tell you that relatively good news.” Sheldon opened his briefcase. “We also have a few legal matters to discuss.”

His tone of voice did not bode well. Pippa brought the tea and sat opposite Sheldon at the kitchen table. “You must understand that your mother is not quite herself,” he began. “That said, she is mentally alert enough to have had papers drawn up this morning.”

Pippa tried to remember what all those lawyers on the talk shows had been jawing about. “Is she suing me for breach of contract?”

“No, dear. She intends to disown you.”

Pippa trembled. What a cruel word! “What does that mean?”

“That means you will no longer be considered her daughter. Her fortune will not be passed on to you. You will no longer be able to consider Fleur-de-Lis your home. Legally, you should consider yourself an orphan, like David Copperfield.”

“What about my father?” Pippa croaked. “Does he want to disown me, too?”

“As of yesterday, he was playing golf in Morocco. Your mother ran him out of the house with an antique candelabra. He feared for his life.”

“I have to call him,” Pippa said. “He'd never agree to this.”

Sheldon's silence suggested that this could be a misassumption. “Pippa, some decisions are very difficult to understand. You are no longer a child. You must assume responsibility for your actions. Thanks to you, Thayne is in a precarious social position, perhaps for the rest of her life. You can hardly expect her not to be furious and a little vengeful.”

“You call disowning me a
little
vengeful?” Pippa shrieked. She dropped her head into her hands. “I'm sorry, Sheldon. This is a bit of a shock.” Out on the streets! No college degree. No roof over her head. No allowance. No professional skills. Pippa didn't even know if she was capable of operating the cash register at Taco Bell. “How will I survive?”

Sheldon somberly sipped his tea. “Destiny works in strange ways. Your grandfather always believed you had great potential. He encouraged you to follow your dreams, be it making movies in Prague or marrying a Henderson.” Sheldon tactfully refrained from mentioning that neither of these endeavors had amounted to a hill of beans. “He always wanted the best for you, but he wanted you to earn it. To that end he put a trust fund in place, effective upon his death.” Sheldon took a few papers from his briefcase and donned a pair of reading glasses. “You will receive an allowance of sixty thousand dollars each month.”

“Thank God!”

“There's a catch. ‘This trust shall provide for you so long as you are in school.'“

“What kind of school?”

“That is your choice.” Sheldon continued reading. “‘If and when you earn your diploma, you will receive the remainder of the trust.' Since that's somewhere in the neighborhood of a billion dollars, I suggest you try to pass final exams.”

“How can I go back to school? I'm infamous.”

“The wording is ironclad. You've inherited most of Anson's estate, Pippa. He has left a mere pittance, fifty million or so, to your father. Which is why Thayne may have attempted to kill him with that candelabra.”

“I don't understand! Why did Robert get barely anything?”

“We can't question the dead. I suspect Anson feared your mother would fritter away the Walker fortune. Her lavish tastes are well documented. Whereas he had complete faith that you would do something more meaningful with the money.” Sheldon removed his glasses. “Any questions?”

“Sorry. I'm in shock.”

“I'm afraid we all are. Would you mind if I made one suggestion that might make life easier for everyone? Change your name immediately. Go to school and begin a new life.”

“That's three suggestions.”

“Just change your name then. I can draw up the paperwork immediately.” Sheldon uncapped his Montblanc pen. “Henceforth, you would like to be known as . . . ?”

“How am I supposed to know? It's not as if I've been thinking about this for the last few years.”

“Yes, of course.” He put a business card on the table. “That's my private line. Call anytime, day or night. There are more cookies in the bag.”

Pippa stopped him at the door. “Do you think Thayne will ever speak to me again?”

“You've got to give it some time, child. You have inflicted a deep wound.”

“But there's more to the story. I haven't told her everything.”

Sheldon shuddered. “I'm not sure her constitution can withstand any more revelations. Goodbye, dear. Think about that new name. And where you might like to live, not necessarily Dallas.”

After he left, Pippa poured herself a good shot of scotch, her first strong drink since the wedding. She would soon be rich beyond her wildest dreams, at the price of losing her family and reputation. That was not a good bargain. Pippa would gladly have traded every last cent for the chance to turn back the clock to Saturday afternoon, shortly before five. If money couldn't do that for her, what good was it?

Nevertheless, for Sheldon's benefit, she began paging through Ginny's
Town & Country
magazines in search of a suitable alias. How about Starlene? Bertha? Binky? Each was worse than the last. How about last names? Pippa rearranged the letters in Walker: Krelwa. Lawrek. Wrakel. Everything sounded like a Latvian terrorist. Forget names, how about a new place to live? New York. San Francisco. Paris. Shanghai. Maybe she should stick to Texas, hide out in Hico or Flato-nia, someplace so dusty and lifeless that no one would ever think to look for her there. She could lie on a couch, tube out, and nosh all day like Gilbert Grape's mother.

That was beneath a Walker's dignity, so Pippa tried to figure out what she might like to study. Shopping 101 was not offered at any university. Media studies? She was great at watching television. Once upon a time Pippa had wanted to teach kindergarten. A month's internship, dealing with irrational parents, had changed her mind. After Prague she had no further interest in making movies. Law, science, business, medicine: way too cutthroat. Back to square one.

As she finished the tin of lemon snaps, Pippa listed her strong points: listens well, kind person, neat appearance. Sighing, she put down her pencil. To be completely honest she did have a career, and that was Daughter of Thayne. That's what she truly excelled at. Where she felt at home. She wistfully toyed with the gold chain around her ankle. Her mother had given it to her for the wedding so that she would be wearing something borrowed. It was all she had left of her now.

Once again Pippa collapsed in tears on the couch. She would never again walk in the garden at Fleur-de-Lis, never wake up in her canopied bed to the aroma of fresh coffee, all because she had tried to help a condemned man. Where the hell was he now? Where was his mother?
Anybody?
The walls were closing in on her. Pippa had to get out before she slit her wrists in Ginny's Hydro Spa. Neiman's to the rescue!

Pippa shot to her feet. After a fairly violent scrubbing in the shower, she faced the problem of what to wear on her excursion. None of Ginny's clothing fit, nor did she have much of a mascara collection. Pippa couldn't possibly go out in that camouflage T-shirt and white Blahniks. Defeated before she had even begun, she slumped into the chaise longue by the cathedral window.

A hard cushion lodged against the small of her back. It turned out to be her rolled-up wedding gown. Sight of her lovely dress now wrinkled and abandoned almost precipitated a fresh fit of sobbing; then Pippa realized she was holding the only clothing here that was her size. She found a pair of scissors and snipped three feet of material off the hem, turning her Vera Wang gown into a strapless frock with a short but extremely full skirt. Pippa located her Lipo in a Box and her four-inch Blahnik heels under the bed. She had never taken her engagement ring off. Now she added the yellow diamond earrings Lance had sent her the morning of the wedding and the diamond choker her grandfather had given her as an engagement gift. She looked in the mirror. There stood a young woman wearing a fortune in gems, an abused dress, and six-hundred-dollar shoes: perfect Texan shopping attire!