School of Fortune (25 page)

Unable to stand the silence any longer, she called Sheldon's office. He still hadn't returned to work. “Did you get my diploma?”

“We did get an overnight letter billed to recipient,” Gwendolyn-Sue replied. “Attorney Adelstein left instructions not to open anything from you.”

“For Pete's sake, it's not a bomb, it's my diploma! It's critical that you open it. I'm down to my last fifty bucks. Please. I can't hold out much longer.” That didn't cut much mustard. “If anything happens to me here, I'll have no choice but to sue you. Really major sue you.”

Pippa was put on hold for a long while. “I've opened the envelope,” Sheldon's assistant finally informed her. “Now I'm unfolding the paper inside.”

Pippa waited an eon. “Well? What do you see?”

“A large brown stain.” Accusing voice: “It smells like fecal matter.”

“That's Pushkin's pawprint. It's the official seal of the school. What you smell is insect repellent used as ink. Very effective insect repellent, I might add.” Pippa sensed she was not closing the deal. “Surely you see Slava Slootski's name on the bottom of the page. He's the most revered clown in the history of circuses. His signature alone is worth thousands of dollars.”

“I see a centipede on the bottom of the page. Dead.”

“Look, the diploma got soaked in the Delaware River by mistake. If you take it to an expert, I'm sure you'll see the signature.”

“Expert or no expert, it'll take a miracle to convince a judge there's anything here but centipede guts.”

“So you're telling me this isn't going to fly?” Pippa's voice began shaking. “I give you my word it's genuine. I have three witnesses.”

Gwendolyn-Sue swore her fingers were beginning to itch from the damp, possibly bubonic paper. First explosives, now sewage. What next? “Pippa, you need professional help.”

“No kidding. That's why I called Sheldon.”

“I'm not talking about legal assistance.”

“Are you calling me crazy?” Pippa screamed. “I'll tear your head off!”

“You're sounding like Thayne now.”

That cooled Pippa's jets. “Is she out of jail?”

“It wasn't cheap, but she's out.”

“Where is she now?” Nothing. “Please tell me. I'm not going to contact her. I just want to know where she is so I can worry about her better.”

Gwendolyn-Sue sighed. The two of them were pathetic. If Anson Walker were alive today, he'd march Pippa and Thayne to the woodshed before you could say
Five percent executor's fee.
“She's traveling with an old friend from college. That's all I can tell you.”

“Not that awful Dusi Damon!” The silence only confirmed her suspicion. “Give my regards to Sheldon. I'll call when I'm enrolled in another school. That will be soon because I'm really, truly, out of money.”

Gwendolyn-Sue tried not to laugh. When people like Pippa said they were broke, that meant they were down to their last fifty grand. “Keep us in the loop.” She hung up.

For a long while Pippa watched a fly crawl around the sole screened window in her cabin. A couple of days ago the fly had been full of energy and anger, bashing against the screen, sure it would find a way out. Now it was becoming lethargic. It no longer buzzed, it just wandered around the screen, an easy target for anyone with a swatter. Tomorrow its wings wouldn't be able to lift it off the sill. The next day it would be dead. Pippa understood completely.

You are not a victim.
Jerk is pretty damn close, though.

Leave nothing to fate, your soul mate awaits.
Yeah right. Hope you had a nice lunch with him.

You must suffer for your art.
I've suffered enough and I miss Pushkin.

Pippa morosely sniffed her bottle of Thayne. There being only a half inch of perfume left, she didn't dare use any more of it. Around midnight she wandered across the street to the convenience store for a can of ravioli. As she was counting out a dollar and thirty-nine cents, the cashier asked, “Want a lottery ticket, hon? It's up to a hundred and thirty million.”

Pippa laughed harshly. Her chances of winning the lottery were far better than her chances of acquiring a diploma. She picked a phone card off the floor. “Someone dropped this.”

“Loser weepers, finders keepers. Call your mother.” Seeing Pippa's face, the cashier said, “Call your boyfriend.” The frown got worse. “Girlfriend.”

Pippa handed over her last four pennies. “I don't have any friends.”

“You found that card for a reason. There's a phone on the porch.” Poor kid had eaten a whole shelf of Ravioli-O's and was looking more desperate each day. “Pick up that phone, you hear me? Someone's got to be worried about you.”

Pippa inserted the phone card and dialed Ginny, whose number was one of the few she could remember. She got the answering machine. “Hi. Are you still in Costa Rica? I'm at—” She looked at the sputtering neon letters across the street. “Taj Mahal Cabins in Bushkill, Pennsylvania. Call if you feel like it.” Pippa almost hung up. “Oh! Ask for Lotus Polo,” she said before the card expired.

“There. Doesn't that feel better?” the cashier called.

“Tons.” Pippa looked in all directions for an elephant. Then she dashed back to her cabin.

After the fly died, Pippa's only companions were the termites eating through the wall behind her headboard and the nearly empty bottle of Thayne perfume. Between recurring nightmares about Pushkin crying himself to sleep, Pippa became morbidly fixated on her black eye: like the fly and her ambitions, it had started out strong and was inexorably fading. It had almost disappeared when the phone rang.

“Lotus Polo.” Ginny guffawed. “That's really scraping the bottom of the barrel.”

When Pippa checked in at Taj Mahal Cabins, the proprietor's wife had been watching a polo match. Behind her was a statuette with ten arms in the lotus position. “It was the best I could do on the spur of the moment. Are you back in Dallas?”

“No, Aspen. There was nothing doing in Texas. Without the SUV, anyway.”

“Sorry. I should never have let my mother drive.”

“It's okay. I'll get the replacement soon. What have you been up to?”

Within three sentences Pippa's saga of the last few weeks degenerated into such weepy incoherence that Ginny feared for her friend's sanity. She couldn't believe that Pippa Walker, no matter how desperate, would sleep anywhere for eighteen bucks a night. “I've got an idea,” she interrupted when Pippa started hallucinating about wild elephants and Cub Scouts. “Why don't you come out to Aspen? Get back into circulation?”

“I'm broke,” Pippa wailed. “Thayne's cut me off. I have to go to school in order to get pocket money from my grandfather's estate. I won't be totally independent until I graduate.”

“Hey! There's a school right down the street that would be perfect for you.”

“What sort of place is it?” Pippa asked suspiciously.

“The Mountbatten-Savoy School of Household Management.”

“Isn't that where Cedric came from? That stupid wedding planner who replaced Wyeth?”

“Think about it. You already know how to do a cream tea and ring a dinner bell. You'd breeze through.”

“How long is the course?”

“I think it's two weeks. Like a vacation. I'll take care of your plane ticket and tuition. You can pay me back when you get your hot little hands around a diploma.”

“Are you making fun of me?” Pippa shrieked.

“No! Get your butt out here. You need serious rehab.”

The next day Lotus Polo received a FedEx box containing two thousand dollars, a pound of Schmidt chocolates, a Nike sweatsuit ensemble, and a book called
Rockies Unbuttoned.
She called a cab and checked out of Taj Mahal Cabins.

G
inny Ortlip prowled her brand-new BMW along the Arrivals curb, searching for a shapely blonde in a red Nike sweatsuit. She was sure Pippa's flight had arrived twenty minutes ago. Most of the passengers had already dispersed and Ginny was getting worried: her old friend had sounded none too coherent on their last phone call. Weeks of living like a fugitive had minced her reason. Thayne had accelerated the insanity by disinheriting her. Now Pippa was trying to validate her existence with some harebrained quest for a diploma.

On Ginny's third loop past the terminal, what appeared to be a Yeti flung open the passenger door and jumped in. “Whew, that was close! Let's get out of here.”

A helmet of rough yak fur encased the intruder's head and most of her face. The four-inch sunglasses were postcataract-surgery specials. A floor-length Swiss cavalry coat smothered the Nike sweatsuit. What really threw Ginny, however, was the fake mustache. “Pippa?”

“It's Lotus.”

“Where's your luggage?”

“I'm wearing it.” Pippa tore the yak hat off. “I think my brains are stewed.”

Ginny stared at Pippa's hair. Even soaking wet, its color was several shades brassier than a new trumpet. “Cute.” “It wasn't intentional.” “You wore that hat on the plane?”

“You better believe it.” Aspen was one of Thayne's favorite playgrounds. Pippa peeled off the mustache and stuffed it in the ashtray. “I don't believe I spent the last two weeks in a honeymoon cabin in Bushkill.”

“No wonder you're delirious.” Ginny opened her window, trying to dispel the overpowering stench of yak. “Where'd you get the coat?”

“An army-navy store in Philadelphia. No one on the flight recognized me. In fact, the guy sitting next to me asked to switch seats.”

Ginny patted Pippa's knee. “Still pretty wound up, aren't you.”

“Wouldn't you be? I'm an orphan. There's a fifty-thousand-dollar price on my head. You're not going to turn me in, are you?”

“Honey, I'm going to turn you
out.
Shopping. Skiing. Parties.”

Pippa had no appetite for any of that now. “How was Costa Rica? See any kinkajous?”

“A ton. And I've got videos.” Ginny ramped onto Highway 82. “After the jungle I had a craving for snow so I went to the Italian Alps and took skiing lessons with Alberto Tomba.”

“He's a serious hunk.”

“No kidding. That inspired me to come here and hit the Nordic Track.” Ginny's family's lodge in Starwood contained a huge gym. “I love Aspen in July. Much more room in the clubs.”

“I really need to graduate from that school.” How many damn times did she have to say it? “The thought of meeting ski bums and Arabian princes does nothing for me.”

“Oh, right. There's someone else.” Silence. “Isn't there?”

“If you insist. His name is Pushkin.”

That bear: Ginny thought Pippa was joking. “Why don't you give an exclusive interview on prime time? Tell your version of events, then get on with your life.”

“That would never work.” Pippa remembered Officer Pierce's words. “I am a very bad liar.”

“My God, didn't Thayne teach you anything? Sorry, bad joke.” For a moment Ginny thought Pippa was going to punch her. “I think separation is going to be very good for you.”

“Have you read one newspaper in the last month?” Pippa erupted. “Separating was the worst thing we could have done. My mother's been staggering from jail to sanatorium to fistfight ever since the wedding blew up. God knows what she's up to now with her friend Dusi.”

“Calm down, Pippa! It's not your problem. Thayne's an adult. A very spoiled one. She's had everything go her way since the day she was born. She never developed a mechanism for dealing with adversity.”

Pippa's mechanism for dealing with adversity hadn't fared much better. As the BMW pulled onto Main Street, Ginny called out on her cell phone.

“Olivia. Hi. Would four o'clock work? Great.” She hung up. “You can't possibly go to school looking like counter help from Tulsa. You can't wear that yak rug, either.”

“Would a scoutmaster uniform work?”

Ginny stopped in front of a hair salon. “Step one. You become a mousy brunette. Maid school, remember? Leave the coat in the car.” She introduced Pippa to Kendra, a squat hairdresser with a fierce handshake. “This is my dear friend Lotus. The yellow has got to go.”

Kendra sifted a bit of Pippa's hair between her fingers. The nicest thing she could say was, “There are whole clumps missing.”

“I got caught in the trees. Hang gliding.”

“I'll have to trim the ends.”

“Again?” Pippa cased the salon. Short cuts seemed to be all the rage. “Whatever.”

Ginny disappeared to shop while Kendra snipped away, chatting about ski conditions. Pippa's hair came out a lot browner and a lot shorter than she would have liked. “Quite a draft back there,” she commented, rubbing the nape of her neck.

“Wear turtlenecks.”

Ginny returned with a boxy pantsuit and shoes for Pippa. “You look adorable! Like Little Lord Fauntleroy.”

Scowling, Pippa searched the bottom of the littlest bag for blush or eye shadow. “That's it?”

“Maids don't wear makeup. Go change in the back.”

Even as a dull brunette in a unisex suit, Pippa turned heads. “No one's going to recognize me here, right?” she asked anxiously.

“No. Stop being paranoid.” Ginny took her to Syzygy for lunch. She let Pippa vent at length about some Polish poker game. When dessert arrived, Ginny dropped a little velvet bag on the table. “You left these at my place.”

Pippa stared at her diamond earrings, her grandmother's choker, Rosimund's barrette, and her Patek Philippe watch. They seemed less like jewelry than evidence from a crime scene.

“You can always pawn them.” Ginny threw forty bucks on the table and moved Pippa outside. “Here's the scoop. Olivia claims to be an impoverished contessa. She married some Colombian drug runner and is in the middle of a nasty divorce. They both want the dogs.” She took Cemetery Lane up a grand hill and pulled into a cul-de-sac, at the end of which stood a colossal edifice trying hard to pass for a log cabin. Heavy rattan chairs lined the front portico in case guests wanted to sit outside and watch the mountains move. Ginny confidently lifted the iron knocker. “Just follow my lead. You're supposed to be my butler taking a refresher course.” The door swung open. “Hello, signora.”

“Good afternoon, Miss Ortlip. Welcome, Lotus. I am Olivia Villarubia-Thistleberry, director of the Mountbatten-Savoy School of Household Management.” Pippa was swept into the embrace of a five-foot-three, raven-haired bombshell struggling to take off those last ten pounds once and for all. As if to gird herself for the ongoing battle, which ended in defeat every day around sundown, Olivia wore black slacks and a black cashmere sweater that had fit perfectly on her honeymoon. She sported a towering bouffant and eyebrows penciled thick as macadam. “Quiet, Reed! Down, Barton!” she chided two white teacup poodles barking furiously at her feet.

Pippa and Ginny followed her into a room jammed with so much furniture that only the little poodles could navigate in a straight path. As they took their seats, Olivia's cell phone played cancan music. “Excuse me. That's my private investigator.” Her smile faded. “Nothing in the safe-deposit box? Tap his phone, follow his car, and find those certificates. Or return every cent I've paid you with interest.” She hung up. “My ex has fled back to Colombia with all our assets. Thank God

I have the school.” As Olivia seated herself next to Pippa, two more teacup poodles bounded in. They were black. “Villeroy! Boch! Come, my darlings.” Olivia gathered the four dogs to her lap. Approximately the size of Beanie Babies, they all fit. She rang a little bell and focused on her newest student. “I understand you've been managing Miss Or-tlip's household for the last three years, Lotus.”

Pippa tried not to laugh. Ginny was already diving for a handkerchief. “That's right, ma'am.”

“Where did you receive your initial training?”

The four dogs in Olivia's lap gave Pippa an idea. “At the Ēcole des Chiens Doméstiques in Switzerland.”

“I don't believe I'm familiar with that school.”

No kidding. It was for Saint Bernards. Thayne had spent months on the phone with the breeder before deciding to go with a French bulldog. “It's very exclusive.”

“I'm sure of that. Was Miss Ortlip your first placement after graduation?”

“No,” Ginny interrupted. “I stole her from Gloria von Thurn und Taxis.”

“Is that so! How did you like Gloria?”

Two of the poodles migrated to Pippa's lap and stood on their hind legs, attempting to breast-feed on her buttons. She patted their heads while keeping her eyes fastened on Olivia. “I'm not at liberty to discuss that.”

“Bravo. Discretion is the soul of servitude. Look, my little dogs like you.” Olivia's diamond rings clicked as she gathered four butterscotch chips from a silver dish. She was dropping them one by one into the poodles' mouths when a young woman entered with a silver tray. The ruffles on her apron, if laid flat, would reach from Aspen to Denver. The uniform and hat were hot pink. “This is Brenda,” Olivia announced. “She works for the Pitts of Columbus. They own one of the largest sand and gravel concerns in the country. You may pour tea, Brenda.” Olivia watched in silence as Brenda filled three cups. “What was wrong with that service, Lotus?”

Wrong? Pippa stared at the tray. “There appears to be a sixteenth-inch more tea in the first cup.” Further commentary seemed expected so she said, “The steam is rising very haphazardly. If you pour slightly left of the handle and create a clockwise flow, you will get a perfect cloud of steam rising like a genie from the center of the cup.”

“Excellent, Lotus! They certainly trained you well in Switzerland.”

Pippa managed an apologetic smile at Brenda, who looked ready to kill her.

“Go to the kitchen and practice clockwise pouring, Brenda.” As Olivia stirred heaps of sugar into her tea, two more micropoodles wandered in. They were brown. “Sub and Zero! Bad boys!” Olivia added them to the writhing commotion on her lap. “Why is Lotus here, Miss Ortlip?”

“She's generally good but she needs more finesse in dusting antiques and starching collars. Also more imagination in drawing baths. I would say an all-around refresher course would be appropriate, at the end of which I would like to see a sheepskin diploma suitable for framing. Two by three feet would be adequate.”

“How long do you think this refresher course will last, Signora Villarubia-Thistleberry?” Pippa asked anxiously.

In Olivia's pocket was a check from Ginny for eight thousand dollars. She desperately needed two more checks just like that in order to finance her paramilitary divorce war. “That will depend on your progress. There may be a period of internship at the end of your course work.” That way Olivia could charge both Ginny and the temporary employer for the extra week. “Lotus will be boarding here, I presume?”

“I would prefer she stayed with me. Now and then I require a toe massage in the middle of the night.”

“Are you sure? Classes start at six in the morning.” Olivia ignored little Boch, whose efforts to chew a hole in her cashmere sweater finally succeeded.

“Lotus stays with me,” Ginny repeated.

“As you wish.” Olivia's phone tinkled the toreador theme from
Carmen.
“Could you see yourselves out? Be here bright and early tomorrow, Lotus. No, he's not getting the dogs,” she snarled into her phone. “Not one paw! Do not ask again.”

“And you're sorry you didn't marry Lance?” Ginny asked when they were outside. “In six months you would have been haggling just like Olivia.”

“Maybe,” Pippa sighed. “Maybe not.”

Ginny reversed the BMW out of the driveway. “You'll be happy to know your wedding is no longer front-page news. Without statements from you, Lance, or your mothers, the whole fiasco is dead in the water.”

“What a nice way of putting things.”

“You'll be fully rehabilitated in six months. Look at O.J. Simpson and Ted Kennedy.”

“If only Thayne had as short a memory.”

“She'll come around. You've immortalized her. Before the wedding she was just a generic Dallas social climber. Now she's a Texas legend.” Ginny drove across the Roaring Fork River and headed up the mountain on the other side. “Let's not talk about her anymore. You came to forget.”

Good luck with that one. Pippa rolled down her window to inhale the pure mountain air. “I'm beginning to feel a flicker of hope.”

Ginny proceeded to a mammoth lodge and three outbuildings with a spectacular view of the Rockies. The Ortlips used it maybe two weekends a year; once Ginny's mother blew a couple million bucks decorating a place, she lost interest in it. “Want to watch my kinkajou videos? I have plenty of Cristal in the fridge.”

“Perfect.” Pippa showered and changed into camouflage pajamas, Ginny's favorite at-home attire. Outside the cathedral windows, late afternoon sun gilded the snowy peaks. Everything seemed unbelievably peaceful and permanent.

Downstairs, logs blazed in the fireplace. Ginny was setting out a platter of tapas. “Phew! What is that odor?”

“Thayne perfume. I've permanently borrowed your bottle.”

“Keep it.” Ginny raised her glass. “To Lotus. Aspen. Diplomas.”

They settled on a couch to watch endless videos of Costa Rica and catch up on Dallas gossip. With each passing hour, each glass of Champagne, the fallout from Pippa's unwedding seemed increasingly comical. Apparently two of her bridesmaids had managed to snag engagement rings from two of the groomsmen; Wyeth McCoy was handling both weddings, which was probably why Thayne had decked him in Kalamazoo. Pippa was even beginning to laugh about Rosimund's lawsuit when the doorbell rang.