School of Fortune (24 page)

“Does this thing have training wheels?” Pippa asked after her tenth crash landing. “I don't need another black eye.”

“Keep trying. You'll get the hang of it.”

Pippa shot around the side of the trailer and plowed into the picnic table. “Ever hear of brakes?” Lulu screeched, retrieving her squirting flower from the grass.

“Ever hear of a mouthful of knuckles?”

“Down, girls.” Vik offered Pippa his arm. “I'll run alongside.”

Pippa pedaled into the field. Each time she wobbled Vik caught her, invariably near a sex organ. She couldn't really complain since it was either that or a grass facial. If nothing else, Vik's groping motivated her to learn unicycling in record time.

“You've got the hang of forward.” He sauntered off. “Now try ninety-degree turns.”

Her classmates laughed each time Pippa fell. She thought she had broken every bone in her body when Pushkin swooped out of nowhere and suavely lifted her onto his back, all the while pedaling his own unicycle. “Thank you, darling,” she whispered, clinging to his furry neck.

A force that she could not explain inspired Pippa to kneel on Pushkin's shoulders. It felt fantastic to be so high off the ground with the wind in her hair.
I have a diploma under my belt!
Sensing her elation, Pushkin went into an amazing series of pirouettes, hairpin turns, and seesaws, never once losing his center of gravity or his precious burden. Pippa laughed with delight. Pushkin was better than a flying carpet. Much better than Lance!

Through her euphoria she was dimly aware of rumbling. A thick, gray hose suddenly coiled around her waist, plucked her off Pushkin's shoulders, and vaulted her even higher into the air.
Hmmm! Mitzi has me in her trunk,
she thought calmly.
Those tusks look really sharp.
She relaxed as Mitzi shook her like a rag doll and unleashed a series of bellicose shrieks. Pippa saw her cell phone fly into the trees. Branches scratched her legs and ripped out her hair as Mitzi rampaged up a hill. The animal suddenly stopped short and unfurled her trunk.
I must he the first Walker flung off a cliff by an elephant,
Pippa observed, hurtling through space.

She had the presence of mind to hit the water feet first. Pippa torpedoed far down before her boots hit reedy muck. That shook her out of her reverie: she stroked wildly upward, breaking the surface as the last teaspoon of oxygen in her lungs expired. “Gaaaaaa!”

“Gaaaaaaa!” twelve Cub Scouts in canoes screamed back, terrified by the eruption in their midst. A few of the bigger ones began swinging their oars at Pippa as their counselors barked,
“SIT DOWN RIGHT NOW! I SAID RIGHT NOW!”

“It's a mermaid! Don't let her in your canoe!”

“It's a pedophile!”

An oar whacked her in the head. Pippa saw meteors.
I'm going to drown,
she mused, sinking.
Thayne's going to sue the crap out of someone.
She sensed an overhead splash then felt a pair of arms cinching her waist. The touch was nowhere near as gentle as Pushkin's.
Thanks for that last ride,
Pippa thought, letting the Delaware swallow her.

S
omeone with wonderfully sweet breath was kissing her passionately. Trouble was he pinched her nose before each kiss. As her mind cleared, Pippa slowly realized that she was on the receiving end of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and she was lying on a couple of sharp rocks. She let another kiss go by, then coughed and opened her eyes.

“Look, Mr. Flores!” a Cub Scout squealed. “She's alive!”

Pippa sat up. A dozen inner-city boys gazed at her in fear and fascination. The two adult leaders were also looking at her with mixed feelings: on one hand, she was gorgeous. On the other hand, anyone who jumped off a cliff into the Delaware River was probably on drugs. They had taken the Cub Scouts on a canoe trip precisely to get away from that sort of garbage.

“Are you a cavewoman?” one of the boys asked.

“No. This is just a costume.” Pippa's eyes found her rescuer, a dashing Hispanic with great lips. “Sorry. I didn't mean to intrude on you like that.”

He was almost disappointed that she had awakened: kissing this unconscious woman back to life was way more exciting than kissing his wife half to death. Aware that he was supposed to be a role model, Mr. Flores suppressed his lust beneath a fit of indignation. “Sorry?

You took one heck of a flying leap right in front of our canoes. That's not what I'd call showing a lot of concern for the safety of others. Not to mention yourself.” He frowned at her sodden faux fur. “And where's your life vest?”

“I didn't think I'd be swimming,” she replied feebly.

“A good Scout plans ahead,” Mr. Flores preached to one and all.

“An elephant threw me off the cliff,” Pippa snapped, relieving her boots of heavy water.

“Woooow! A real elephant? That is so cool!”

“That is anything but cool,” Mr. Flores disagreed. Scouts were supposed to be truthful at all times. “In the first place, Pennsylvania is not a natural habitat for elephants. In the second place, elephants don't generally use their trunks as slingshots.” He tore his eyes from Pippa's lovely throat. “What color was this animal, ma'am? Pink?”

“Gray. Her name is Mitzi.” What was his problem? “Let's forget about her, okay? She's wanted to kill me from the moment we met.” Pippa rubbed her aching scalp. She wouldn't be surprised if half her hair was still in the trees. As she touched the lump on the back of her head, it began to throb. “Would there be any aspirin in that first-aid kit? Four or five would hit the spot.”

Mr. Flores made a show of reading the label. At last night's campfire he had been lecturing the boys on substance abuse. “Two is the recommended dose. Just this once I think we can make an exception. It's not every day you get thrown into a river by an elephant named Mitzi, is it?”

“Thanks.” Pippa chewed five and drank from a proffered canteen. “You saved my life.”

“Do a good turn daily. That's our slogan. Right, Scouts?”

“Right, chief!”

“My name is Geraldo Flores,” he said, shaking her hand. “You are . . . ?”

Pippa needed a long, suspicious moment to respond. “Wilma.”

Mr. Flores watched, perplexed, as she suddenly lunged for some paper in her belt and unfolded it as if it were the Magna Carta. “My diploma! Thank God it's okay!”

It looked more like used toilet paper. Wilma was definitely off her rocker. “Congratulations,” Mr. Flores said. “That represents a lot of hard work, I'm sure.” Now what was he supposed to do? Invite her to join them? The older boys were already agog at her endless legs and off-the-shoulder fur bathing suit. Even the six-year-olds were riveted by the red thong peeping beneath her hem. Once she got into a canoe, nobody would be paying the least attention to birds and clouds and trees, himself included. “Now that you're feeling better, Wilma, may we escort you home?”

To his chagrin she threw herself at his feet. “Please, Mr. Flores! Don't make me go back to the circus.” She forced some cash from her bodice into his hands. “I'm happy to pay you.”

None of the boys had ever seen one, let alone four, hundred-dollar bills before. “Wow! Can we have a look?”

“Sure,” he sighed, handing them over. He helped Wilma to her feet. Much as he enjoyed a half-clad woman prostrate before him, this was not the right time or place for such mercies. “May I introduce you to Cub Scout Pack 35 from Philadelphia. We're canoeing to the Delaware Water Gap.”

“That would be perfect. Thank you.”

“Let me get you some warmer clothing.” That was a joke, the temperature having shot well past eighty. “I mean longer clothing.” Mr. Flores gave Pippa shorts, shirt, and cap from his own camp roll. As she went into the woods to change, the other scoutmaster pulled him aside.

“Is this a good idea, Geraldo? Chicks don't just fall out of the sky with four hundred bucks in their pocket. Maybe she robbed a gas station.”

“In that outfit? Did you see the black eye? Scratched legs? I think she's escaping someplace bad. Maybe she was kidnapped.”

“Could have been an act. She obviously made up her name.”

“She's scared. Come on, this is a perfect lesson in helping a fellow citizen.”

It helped when the fellow citizen was a hot blonde. “She doesn't think we believe that elephant crap, right?”

The words were no sooner out of his mouth than a feral shriek froze his blood. The boys clutched each other in fright: it sounded awfully close. Pippa burst out of the bushes with Mr. Flores's shirt half unbuttoned. “That's Mitzi! She's coming after me!”

“Into the canoes, boys,” Mr. Flores commanded, unnerved by a second shriek. “No crying. Scouts do not cry. Scouts are brave.”

Pippa didn't help the situation by whimpering, “Elephants can swim like fish. And they've got really sharp tusks.”

“Zip it, Wilma!” Mr. Flores herded his charges back to the river. “Look sharp, everyone.”

Pippa grabbed an oar from one of the taller boys. “Do you mind? I was on a rowing team.” She planted herself in the rear seat and, energized by terror, paddled furiously out to the strong current. Pippa was dimly aware of Mr. Flores behind her screaming something about rapids. Canoe and Cub Scouts made horrible noises as they scraped over a patch of submerged rocks. “Hold on, guys,” Pippa shouted. “We're doing fine.”

They shot over a waterfall into a series of robust eddies. By some miracle Pippa's canoe remained upright. “Paddlepaddlepaddle!” she screeched to the kid in the front seat.

He didn't need to be told twice: every few seconds one of the smaller boys would look over his shoulder and scream, “I see the elephant!”

Pippa kept them going at maniacal speed for what seemed like miles. Only when they had rounded a bend in the river did she dare look backward. In her wake were three canoes but no Mitzi.

“Pull ashore, Wilma,” Mr. Flores yelled, practically hoarse. “Over there.”

Pippa steered the canoe onto the sand. “Nice rowing,” she told the boy in front as they waited for the others to catch up. “You were awesome.”

First thing Mr. Flores did upon alighting was march up to the lead boy and snap, “You call that safe rowing, Sancho? You nearly drowned half the pack.”

“There was a man-eating elephant behind us! What was I supposed to do?”

“As for you, Wilma, if you weren't a woman, I'd beat the tar out of you.

Pippa hung her head. “I'm sorry, Mr. Flores. I must have panicked.”

He gave her the four hundred dollars back. “There are some motels right down the road. I suggest you go there and contact—whoever people like you contact.” He belatedly realized that this was not the greatest example of samaritanism on record. “Unless we can be of further assistance.”

“You've done more than enough.” Pippa pulled her sodden boots back on and began walking toward the highway. She turned to see twelve boys and two men staring at her in various stages of bewilderment. “Thanks for rescuing me. I'll never forget that.”

“Will you be all right?” the littlest one called.

“I'll be fine.” She gave a snappy salute and kept going: exit as gloriously as you enter, Thayne always said. Pippa's confidence waned as she got to the highway. What if Slava had a pickup truck and was already conducting a demented search-and-rescue mission? What if Mitzi was just a few yards away, ready to charge? If ever, this was the time to hitchhike.
Illegal in the state of Texas,
she heard Officer Pierce say.

Pippa stuck out her thumb. The third car pulled over. The driver, an obese woman about her age, was on her way to Bushkill. Pippa had no idea where that was but said, “Perfect!”

A self-help cassette was in progress. “Remember, only YOU can take charge of your life,” a man's honeyed voice assured those of lesser mettle. “Only YOU can—”

The woman ejected the cassette and offered Pippa half a bag of Chips Ahoy. “I really shouldn't be eating these but I'm nervous.”

“About what?” Pippa took six dry cookies. They were an exquisite change from Masha's fare.

“I'm going to a wedding. Seeing guys from my high school.” The woman started to cry. “Why did I ever say yes? This will be so humiliating. There's my bridesmaid's gown. I can barely fit into it.”

In the back seat was a pink monstrosity in a plastic bag. “Beautiful,” Pippa chomped.

“We copied the design from that wedding in Texas. You know, the one that blew up?” Despite the absence of an affirmative, the woman continued, “If I was a bridesmaid at that horror show, I'd sue.”

With difficulty Pippa swallowed half the cookie stuck in her throat. “I'm sure some of them already have.”

“At least the mother went to jail.”

The other half of the cookie sprayed all over the dashboard. “Jail? What for?”

“Disorderly conduct. She got into a fistfight with some guy named Wyeth.”

Pippa forced herself to stay calm. “I thought she was resting in Kalamazoo.”

“So was Wyeth. She broke his nose. The judge put her bail at a million bucks because it was her third incident in a week.”

“Third?” Pippa barely eked out the syllables.

“The first was with a Korean masseuse. The second was with the mother of the groom. On the steps of the Dallas courthouse! Can you believe that?”

“Absolutely.”
Way to go, Mama!

“That was after she drove a Maserati into a pool. Covered with chocolate!”

“It was mud, not chocolate, and she wasn't driving.” Pippa felt ill that some lardo in Pennsylvania knew more about her mother's tribulations than she did. “How far is Bushkill?”

“Ten miles. You all right?”

“Just anxious to get there.”

The woman returned to her cassette. Pippa endured a self-help sermon so inane that even the narrator chuckled. Meanwhile the woman demolished the rest of the Chips Ahoys and cracked a bag of Pecan Sandies. Pippa inwardly groaned as they passed a huge billboard. WELCOME TO BUSHKILL, HONEYMOON CAPITAL OF THE POCONOS.

The car veered into the parking lot of a tacky motel. “Well, here goes nothing,” the woman said.

“Thanks for the ride. Hope you catch the bouquet.” Pippa walked down Route 209 and checked into the first dive that didn't advertise heart-shaped bathtubs. She handed the Junior Service Associate two hundred bucks. “I'd like a room for tonight.”

A former Eagle Scout, he frowned at her blatant desecration of the uniform. “Would you have two forms of identification?”

Sure, except they didn't match. Pippa returned to the highway. She finally found lodging in a flophouse run by dour Indians. They took two hundred bucks and told her not to smoke in bed. Pippa's cabin was barely larger than the mattress it housed. Once inside, she lunged at the phone. By some miracle it produced a dial tone. “This is Pippa Walker. Connect me with Sheldon. It's an emergency. I've heard the most awful things about my mother.”

Sheldon's personal assistant Gwendolyn-Sue replied, “I'm afraid Attorney Adelstein can't come to the phone. He's in the hospital.”

“My God! Did Thayne break his nose, too?”

“He received a bomb in the mail. It was made to look like a cigarette lighter.”

Pippa nearly collapsed. MatchMace! “Is he all right?” “It's too soon to tell. His eyebrows and nose hairs got singed right off.”

Pippa winced: Sheldon's intimidating eyebrows were his pride and joy. “Who could have done such a thing?” she asked innocently. “He's not telling.”

“Which hospital? I'd like to send flowers.”

Gwendolyn-Sue took a deep breath. “Attorney Adelstein has specifically instructed me to tell you—and here I quote— ‘not to communicate with me in any way, shape, or form until my burning desire to strangle her ebbs into merely a desire to chop her legs off at the knee.'“

“What does that mean?” Pippa wailed. “I'd say he's mad at you, honey.” “Wait! I have a diploma.”

“Why don't you take a little vacation until he feels well enough to contact you?”

“I'll send my diploma for verification. And I won't budge from here until he calls.” Pippa gave Gwendolyn-Sue her cabin number. “Is my mother really in jail?”

“Please, Pippa! Give everyone a rest!” The phone went dead.

Pippa spent two miserable weeks in her cabin waiting for Sheldon to call. Following its plunge into the Delaware, her Chippa Flushowitz debit card quit working. Afraid to venture outside lest Mitzi was still hunting her, Pippa lived on canned ravioli, Grape-Nuts, and old fruit from the convenience store across the street. She wore an increasingly grungy scoutmaster uniform or her Wilma Flintstone costume. She passed the time watching Bollywood films on in-house cable. She obsessed about Thayne, who seemed to be bouncing around the country from disaster to disaster in tandem with her. Following an erotic dream about Cole taking a naked moonlight swim with her in the Delaware, Pippa made a list of every boyfriend she ever had from the age of eight. The list was not only short but also discouragingly shallow .. . just like her. Lance was far better material than anyone who had preceded him. She should have married him. It would have been a tolerable nunnery; she would have spent the whole year unpacking wedding presents, and at the end of it, Pippa would be divorced but still a Walker. Ready to scream, she balled up her list and threw it at the television. She was far too depressed to even think about ways to spend a billion dollars.