School of Fortune (3 page)

The bridesmaids sat stonily processing Ginny's information. The bad news was that her haircut made her look sexier than ever. The good news was that she was disappearing immediately after the wedding. “Maybe you should leave a little early,” Kimberly said hopefully. “Security and all.”

Ginny patted Pippa's hand. “I'll stay as long as I can.”

Their second helpings arrived. Ginny easily convinced the waiter to supplement lunch with buttermilk biscuits and two bottles of Belvedere vodka. When all of that was gone, the waiter brought dessert, an artful arrangement of five strawberries and another waferlike object.

Pippa glanced at her watch. Thayne was now an hour late. “Something awful must have happened,” she whispered to Ginny.

“Relax. A Sith Lord couldn't stop Thayne from getting here.”

Kimberly unsteadily rose to her feet and cultivated a warm smile. “I'd like to propose a toast to Pippa. Congratulations on snagging the most eligible bachelor in Texas. Without even trying.”
Sneaky bitch,
she added under her breath, softly enough so that only her side of the table heard her.

“Thanks, everyone, for being my bridesmaids,” Pippa replied, raising her glass. “I appreciate the huge effort you made to be here.”

Obviously she was referring to her mother's mini Miss America competition. “No problem,” Tara said. “We all had the pictures lying around anyway.”

Thayne burst in, resplendent in a pink linen pantsuit, matching pink top hat, green leather gloves, and a Milky Way of pearls. She looked less like a Mad Hatter than a transvestite version of Mr. Peanut. Thayne's two favorite society reporters entered with her. “Sorry I'm late, girls,” she called, sweeping past the maître d'. Thayne placed two Coach totes and her laptop on an empty chair. “How was lunch?”

“Delicious, Mrs. Walker! Thank you so much!” chorused ten suddenly modest, sober young ladies.

“Did you get enough to eat?”

“More than enough! Thank you so much!”

Pleased, Thayne looked around the table. She spotted Ginny's hair, or lack thereof, at once. “What have you done with your hair, Virginia?”

“Tucked it into my hat, ma'am. It got seriously knotted up in the gym this morning.”

“Thank God we've got Brent upstairs.” Thayne placed a small fuchsia box with a purple bow in front of each bridesmaid. As she did so, her perfume saturated the room. Its floral overtones were heavier than a state funeral. Only Leah was stupid enough to sneeze.

Kimberly astutely rushed into the void. “What is that fragrance you're wearing, Mrs. Walker? It's delightful.”

“I'm so glad you like it.” Thayne beamed. “Do open your gifts.”

The girls had a bit of trouble with the tight purple bows but eventually everyone managed to unwrap a bottle of perfume with
THAYNE
etched in the glass. “Maison Ricci has created a special fragrance for the wedding,” the honoree disclosed. “Perhaps you'd be kind enough to wear it tomorrow.”

“Of course, Mrs. Walker! We love it!”

As she circled the table distributing another small box to her bridesmaids, Thayne told the two reporters about the thousands of scents she and Madame Ricci had tested before creating Thayne, a fragrance unique in the universe. She gave each reporter a precious bottle as a keepsake before rounding back to her seat. “Pippa and I are thrilled to present these small tokens of appreciation to you, our bridesmaids.”

Each young lady screamed with delight upon unwrapping a pair of diamond and Tahitian pearl pendant earrings from Mikimoto. “These will look lovely with your gowns.” Thayne described her search for the perfect ten-millimeter pearls as the reporters scribbled in their notebooks and took even more pictures. After presenting each reporter with a lavish gift box and an invitation to lunch elsewhere in the hotel, Thayne dismissed them: she and the bridesmaids needed to review tomorrow's top-secret plans.

Once the door shut behind the reporters, Thayne ordered the waiters to clear the table of everything but the centerpiece. As she opened her Vaio, the maftre d' set up a picture screen. He attached Thayne's PC to a projector. “Pay close attention, girls,” Thayne announced, inserting a CD into her laptop.

Emboldened by the four ounces of vodka in her veins, Cora reiterated her burning question. “Wasn't Mrs. Henderson coming with you, Mrs. Walker?”

“I'm afraid she has a touch of upset stomach. She's nervous about the rehearsal dinner tonight, poor thing.”

“Will Mr. McCoy be coming?” asked Kimberly. She was going to try one last time to get him to switch the order of the bridesmaids' walk down the aisle.

“He is indisposed as well. Turn down the lights, Lorenzo.” Thayne pressed a key on her laptop. Onscreen flashed a head shot of a model with a perfect French twist. “As you know, Brent has arrived from New York to do your hair. For the wedding rehearsal, everyone will wear this style.” Consumed by the image onscreen, Thayne did not see the grimaces passing between Ginny and the other bridesmaids. “Tomorrow we'll go with a more romantic look. I just love this, half swept up, off the face, secured with a gorgeous barrette, and down in the back. You all have such lovely long hair and this style will show it to perfection.” She paused. “Were Mrs. Henderson here, you would have your barrettes. They are her gift to you. I hope she doesn't forget to bring them to the rehearsal dinner tonight.” “Is that style our only choice?”

“Yes.” Thayne didn't have to look to know who had asked: Ginny, of course. Pippa had threatened to elope if her SMU suitemate wasn't in the bridal party. Thayne had acquiesced but considered Ginny her second serious mistake, after Wyeth McCoy. “Moving on to undergarments.”

Onscreen flashed another model wearing a knee-length body suit attached to a bawdy push-up bra. “They don't call this Lipo in a Box for nothing. Has everyone purchased a set?”

“Yes, Mrs. Walker,” chorused the angels.

Onscreen flashed a pair of pink slingback shoes. “Everyone has virgin Manolos ready to go?”

“Yes, Mrs. Walker,” responded the chorus, even louder.

Thayne thought she heard a giggle in the dark. She decided to ignore it. Onscreen appeared a pink Gucci clutch. “And your purses?”

“Yes, Mrs. Walker,” the chorus nearly shrieked. This time Thayne definitely heard three people laugh. Pausing in her presentation, she glanced imperiously at the faces beneath the Mad Hatter hats. “May I remind you that looking perfect at a wedding is a very serious business?”

No kidding. Each bridesmaid had shelled out over eight thousand dollars for gown, handbag, shoes, fur, and girdle, and that was just one outfit in a week of special events. Add Mad Hatter costume, gifts, dermabrasions, hair coloring, luggage, cocktail dresses, jewelry, airfare and whatnot, and the bottom line edged close to fifteen thousand dollars per bridesmaid. Fortunately each girl's parents recognized that this wedding was a critical investment in the family pedigree. No one was about to complain when Thayne was spending four times that much on each bridesmaid.

“Quiet, girls!” Kimberly hissed. “I don't know what's gotten into them, Mrs. Walker.”

“Thank you, Kimberly. You're such a grown-up. Had Wyeth allowed a maid of honor, you would have been it.” Thayne returned to the last slide, showing a model in a white fox stole. “Everyone has purchased her Maximilian?” “Yes, Mrs. Walker!”

Was that a hiccup? “Hopefully this is what you will all look like tomorrow evening. Fabulous doesn't even begin to describe what I see.”

A Russian supermodel sashayed down a runway in the gown, shoes, purse, stole, earrings, hairdo, and presumably undergarments that Thayne's ten bridesmaids would be wearing tomorrow. “I'll let you dream about that overnight,” Thayne said, swiftly packing up her laptop.

“Where are you going, Mama?” Pippa whispered in the dark. “Last-minute details.” Thayne kissed her daughter's cheek. “The perfume was a huge hit, no?” “Definitely.”

Thayne paused at the door. “Your limo will be at the hotel at five sharp to take you to the rehearsal. Wear your prettiest dresses, please.” With that, she rushed off to her next appointment.

“Something's wrong,” Pippa whispered to Ginny. “She didn't stay to yell at the waiters about poor service.”

The flasks of vodka resurfaced immediately. Kimberly nodded to Lorenzo, who went behind a screen and emerged with a cart piled with gifts. “Pippa, we all wanted to give you a little something for your wedding night. Of course we're all terribly jealous and wish we were screwing Lance ourselves.”

Pippa blushed, thinking Kimberly was joking. “Is this a staglet party now?”

“Whatever.” Kimberly read the first card. “From Charlotte.” That was an edible teddy. From Francesca: crotchless silk panties. Tara: illustrated book of top one hundred sex positions. Hazel: cream formulated to heat up on contact with sex organs. Steffani: black lace garter belt and fishnet stockings. Cora: white peignoir. Kimberly: a pound of See's chocolates. Leah: silver handcuffs. Chardonnay: large vibrator for when Lance got tired. Ginny: season ski pass to Aspen.

Kimberly frowned. “What does a ski pass have to do with Pippa's wedding night?”

“Nothing. That's where I'll be after Costa Rica, in case the newly-weds want to visit.”

A
knock: Harry, Rosimund's majordomo, stood in the doorway. He held a silver tray mounded with small boxes. “Mrs. Henderson sends her apologies for missing the luncheon.” Harry pretended not to see the pile of feathers, garters, and other unmentionables in front of Pippa. “She hopes you will accept these small tokens of appreciation for participating in her son's nuptials.”

Harry distributed ten little boxes. Inside were platinum barrettes containing subtly larger diamonds and two Tahitian pearls slightly larger than those on the earrings Thayne had just given everyone. Harry receded while the bridesmaids were still gasping in shock and awe.

Pippa tapped her water glass with the silver handcuffs. “Sorry to break up the fun, but in ten minutes we're expected in the presidential suite for a final fitting. Thanks for all these incredible gifts! Each of you can expect a personal thank-you note from Lance.” That didn't get as big a laugh as she would have thought. Pippa loaded her presents into the Coach totes as all the bridesmaids save Ginny left the room. “That was strange,” she said.

Ginny shrugged. “They can't decide whether they love you or hate you.”

“Hate me? I thought I was doing them a big favor.”

“You snagged the top dog.” Ginny picked up the heavier of the totes. “Where is he anyway?”

“Drinking tea with his mother. Playing rugby.” Pippa was not amused. “I haven't seen him in days. I hope he's not getting cold feet.”

“Let's find him. Make sure he knows where to go tomorrow.”

Pippa hesitated. “What about our fitting?”

“We've had five this week. Come on. You need fresh air.”

They tossed the totes and their hats into Ginny's Lexus SUV and drove around Dallas. She was right: it felt great to get away from The Event and pretend this was just another lazy Friday in June. “Bet they're here,” she said, pulling into the SMU campus.

Sunbathers stared as they crossed the lawn. One even called out, “You guys clowns?”

“Maybe we should have ditched the costumes,” Pippa said, her eyes raking the field for Lance.

“Nah. Good cover.” Ginny had no interest in Lance's groomsmen: between expeditions she was seeing a rookie on the Miami Heat. Fortunately, since both Rosimund and Thayne frowned on interracial couples, the NBA finals precluded him from offending either of them this weekend.

“There they are.” Pippa headed for a softball game near the athletic center. “Hi, guys. Where's Lance?”

“He and Woody went shopping for cummerbunds.”

Pippa immediately hit the speed dial on her cell phone.
Hi. Leave a message and I'll call back.
“Do you know where?”

“No idea.”

“Does anyone have Woody's number?” Ginny asked. The guys just stared at her like parched sheep so she steered Pippa back to the SUV. “You okay?”

“The groomsmen had their cummerbunds months ago. I bet Woody took Lance to a whorehouse to enjoy his last hours of freedom.”

“Come on! They would have done that last night at the stag party.” That went over like toads in a bra. “They're probably at NorthPark.”

As Ginny was driving to the mall, Pippa's cell phone rang: Thayne. “How's the fitting, baby?”

“Perfect. Now we're all going to see Brent for our hair.” Pippa thought she heard a voice in the background announce a flight to Vancouver. “Where are you, Mama?”

“At the florist.” Click.

Pippa stared glumly out the windshield. “Why is everybody lying to me today? Do I look really stupid or something?”

“Excuse me, but didn't you just lie to your mother?”

“I'm protecting her. She sounds overwhelmed.” Pippa frowned at her friend. “Couldn't you have waited one day before getting that damn haircut?”

“No. Look at the schedule. Anyway, in twenty-four hours you'll be Mrs. Henderson and I'll be on a plane to Costa Rica.”

Pippa's stomach catapulted with terror. “Pull over,” she whispered. “I think I feel sick.”

R
osimund Henderson was not accustomed to taking second place to anyone, anywhere, ever. On her home turf, the superior city of Houston, she was considered royalty. Her family fortune originated in the earliest days of Texas oil, when her great-great-grandfather Enoch Hicks had uncapped a ninety-thousand-barrel-a-day gusher in the Spindletop field. Rosimund was the product of four generations of magnificent breeding and she had preserved the line by marrying Lyman Henderson, scion of an equally illustrious Houston clan. Rosimund and Lyman produced Lance and, eighteen years later, a surprise they named Arabella.

Lance was the apple of his mother's eye. For twelve years, until he went to boarding school, they were inseparable. Rosimund instilled in her son a sense of chivalry toward women, respect for his elders, social grace, and civic obligation. Her heart burst with pride as he grew into a young man who regularly made the dean's list and the varsity team. Although he could have gone on to grad school, Lance chose to play football after becoming a first-round draft pick for the Dallas Cowboys. Rosimund wasn't happy about the Dallas part, but she recognized that once Lance led his team to Super Bowl victory, he could easily become governor of Texas and from there president of the United States. She had a game plan and Lance subconsciously knew it.

In most respects, Rosimund thought, Lance could not have chosen a better wife than Pippa Walker. She was his social equal, not some gold-digging tart. Pippa would produce gorgeous children. She was loyal to a fault: look at her devotion to Thayne. Rosimund only wished that Pippa had finished college and had some sort of career that she could give up for Lance. He was not terribly forthcoming about why she had not graduated from SMU. The rumor mill hinted that Pippa had followed some sort of Marxist auteur to Prague; Lance assured his mother that this sordid episode in his fiancee's life was over and not as bad as she had been led to believe. He had even gone on to suggest that he, too, had had a few episodes in his life that Rosimund would not be thrilled to hear about. She had dropped the subject there and then.

Upon reflection Rosimund had to admit that she had no problem with Pippa. It was Pippa's mother who seriously threatened her peace of mind. Furthermore, no amount of money in the bank could erase the blot Dallas from the Walker pedigree. It was always, and would forever remain, downscale to Houston. Although the Walkers had struck oil a mere twenty years after the Hendersons, Rosimund considered Thayne nouveau riche. In fact, Rosimund had detected symptoms of lowerclassitis as soon as Lance had announced his engagement last Christmas. She had phoned a discreet inquiry to Dallas's finest hotel, the Mansion on Turtle Creek, only to be informed that Thayne had booked the upper four floors of the hotel just an hour before! Rosimund had immediately summoned Lance to her chambers and asked if he
absolutely
wanted to go through with this marriage. Truth be told, he had proposed to Pippa not one month after the girl had returned in disgrace from Prague. For a moment Rosimund thought she saw a flash of terror in her son's eyes. Then he had said, “Mother, it's what I want more than anything in the world.”

For the next six months Rosimund could only watch helplessly as Thayne created an extravaganza meant to delude people from Houston into thinking that people from Dallas were their equals. For Lance's sake Rosimund maintained icily cordial relations with her co-grandmother-to-be. However, she missed no opportunity to discreetly obstruct or trump Thayne whenever possible.

Like her idol Nancy Reagan, Rosimund wore nothing but red. She was also fond of astrology. After realizing with a shock that once Lance married Pippa he would be lost to her forever, Rosimund had sought the consolation of numerology. As luck would have it, not one week after her seer instructed her to avoid anything to do with the number ten, Thayne announced that there would be ten bridesmaids at the wedding. She hoped Rosimund would be able to produce ten groomsmen. Still smarting from the theft of all those hotel rooms, Rosimund had flatly refused. Her son would be attended by nine groomsmen and two pageboys. Little Arabella would be a flower girl. Thus war was declared.

Six months later Rosimund still had no intention of attending a luncheon for
ten
bridesmaids. That would be like asking lightning to strike her in the head. She planned to call in sick at the last minute and was even practicing a demure cough when Thayne called to say that she'd be late.

“Exactly how late?”

Thayne could not answer with any degree of certainty: diarrhea was an affliction with its own timetable. “Hopefully not more than fifteen minutes. It depends on traffic.”

Rosimund had let a damning silence elapse. “Please arrive as close to the scheduled hour as possible. As you may recall, I have a ball to oversee this evening.”

“You never hired a planner?” Thayne crowed. “Good Lord! You're doing all that grunt work yourself, Rosimund?”

“My dear woman, an event as vital to me as my son's rehearsal dinner is not something I would ever entrust to outside help. By the way, did you read the newspaper this morning?” There had been a lengthy article purporting that Rosimund's rehearsal dinner cost as much as Thayne's entire wedding.

“No. Robert told me there was nothing of interest.” Thayne hung up.

Annoyed that she had not been able to edge in the last word, Rosimund returned to the bed in her parlor suite, the largest room available to her after Thayne's usurpation of the presidential, terrace, master, and executive suites. Across the bedspread Rosimund had arranged forty disks the size of dinner plates, each representing a table for tonight's rehearsal dinner. She was attempting to distribute four hundred one-inch Velcro tabs, each inscribed with a guest's name, ten to a table. Red tabs represented her friends, blue were Thayne's, green were Pippa's and Lance's. Rosimund had been working on the seating plan for months and had yet to feel secure that the red tabs were arranged in slightly superior position to the blue tabs. Engrossed in place setting, she barely noticed an hour slip by. Her phone rang again.

“I'm on my way.” Thayne felt no need to apologize.

“Take your time. I've made other arrangements for lunch.” Rosimund hung up.
Touché!

After two hours of hell, she settled on the final seating configuration for the Henderson Ball, as she liked to call tonight's rehearsal dinner. She phoned her majordomo, whom she had brought from Houston along with her entire household staff. “Harry? Is everything all right over there?”

“Totally under control, madam.”

In keeping with her numerologist's reading of four as her lucky number, Rosimund's ball would take place in four sumptuous climate-controlled tents that had been erected in Texas Stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys. The Hendersons considered Texas Stadium “family” since Lance would be working there come September. “Send someone to my room for the seating chart. I've finally finished it.”

“Right away, madam.”

After carefully stacking the disks and their Velcro tabs on her desk, Rosimund ordered jumbo shrimp with dandelion greens from room service. She was famished and a bit exhausted. Her personal attendant would arrive at four to help her bathe and dress. Until then, she needed to rest. As she was wrapping herself in a red silk robe, Rosimund heard a soft knock on her door. “Pippa!” She had been expecting room service or, even better, her peerless son. “Please come in.”

“Are you feeling better, ma'am? I brought some hot and sour soup.” While at the mall, Ginny had forced Pippa to consume a second lunch to replace the one she had just barfed.

“How kind of you.” Robe fluttering about her long, slim legs, Rosimund took the tray into the living room. She moved with the grace of a purebred stallion; from certain angles her face even looked equine. No question Lance had inherited his athletic prowess from his mother. “I'm sorry to have missed the luncheon, Pippa. Perhaps in Dallas it is customary to make a respectable woman wait over an hour. In Houston it would be scandalous for me to keep the appointment after such an indelicacy.”

“I see.” Pippa tucked yet another rule of Houston etiquette into her memory bank. “I'm afraid my mother was suffering a touch of jitters herself.”

“Thayne may have bitten off more than she can chew, poor dear.” Rosimund opened the white carton. “This smells divine. Tell me about the luncheon.”

Pippa related a few innocent highlights as Rosimund tucked into her soup. “The girls are so excited at meeting all those eligible bachelors.”

Dallas hussies! “I do hope they will concentrate tonight. I fear this rehearsal will be extremely difficult to coordinate.”

Pippa's wedding was to take place in Meyerson Symphony Center. Workmen had constructed a marble-covered extension to the stage in order to accommodate the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and chorus, a bell choir, two brass quintets, the bridal parties, and last but not least, Pippa's bridal train, a confection embossed with what Thayne claimed to be her family crest. When fully extended, the train occupied its own zip code. In an attempt to work out the complex logistics before the wedding rehearsal, Thayne and Wyeth had twice rented Meyerson, musicians, thirty-one actors, and tried a few dry runs. Wyeth had reached a peak of frustration when, even on the fifth go, the small army of attendants was still receding from the hall when the Hallelujah Chorus ran out of notes. He finally calculated that everyone had to walk at a pace of twenty-two inches per second in order to evacuate the auditorium by the time the brass quintets opened fire.

“The bridesmaids have been practicing their paces for months,” Pippa said. “They should be able to march up and down that aisle in their sleep.”

Rosimund smiled thinly. She had been young once herself. She knew that the moment the bridesmaids set their eyes on Lance's retinue, all training would go out the window. “We shall see.”

Room service appeared bearing Rosimund's shrimp and dandelions. She ate that, too, with gusto: it would be eons before dinner and she had played two sets of tennis with Lance this morning. “Did the bridesmaids like my gift?” she asked, refilling her glass with Evian.

“They loved the barrettes. Thank you so much.”

“And Thayne's gift? I hope they didn't notice her pearls were smaller than mine.”

“I didn't see any calipers at the table.” Pippa waited until Rosimund finished her shrimp before asking, “How's Lance holding up?” She and Ginny had never located him.

“We had breakfast followed by tennis. I believe he's off playing rugby now. I hope you will forgive me for taking him away from you today, Pippa. It was my last chance to have him all to myself.”

“That's perfectly all right.” Actually it was perfectly infuriating, but Pippa tried to put herself in Rosimund's satin mules with the little red pompoms. “I'm sure I would only bore him with my tempests in a teapot.” She stood to leave. “I'll be so glad when this wedding is all over.”

Pippa burst into tears, surprising herself as much as her mother-in-law-to-be. Rosimund gathered her in her arms. “There there, dear. Courage!” Rosimund cursed Thayne for making Pippa's nuptials a nightmare instead of a fairy tale. “Would you like me to call my nu-merologist? She's excellent at jing luo massage.”

“That's okay,” Pippa sniffled. She needed Lance, not a massage. “I'm sorry to be bawling like this.”

“I was exactly the same the day before my wedding.” Rosimund's husband and his groomsmen had spent the day at the racetrack. “But I did what I had to do. And tomorrow so will you.”

“I haven't heard from Lance in days.”

“My dear, that is completely normal. Between you and me, all men view marriage as half prison, half death sentence. You must not be simpering now. You must wait for Lance to come to you. Do not appear weak or he will despise you forever.”

That sounded pretty asinine. “Who's this groomsman Woody?”

“My son's physical therapist. He has a large clientele on Fifth Avenue. Why do you ask?”

“He and Lance were shopping for cummerbunds this afternoon. That's rather bizarre, seeing as the groomsmen already have them.”

Rosimund's eyes flared then went quickly still. “I asked them to purchase one for Harry, my majordomo,” she lied.

“That's such a relief. I was thinking much darker thoughts.”

“Shame on you, dear.” Rosimund rose to her full six-foot-two height. “Now go make yourself beautiful for my boy. Thank you for the soup.”

Pippa took the elevator upstairs. Stress was making her paranoid.
Of course
Rosimund would want her majordomo's cummerbund to match the groomsmen's.
Of course
Lance would want someone to go shopping with him.
Of course
Woody, a New Yorker, would have the most fashion sense.

Her calm was momentary. As she opened the door of the presidential suite, Pippa heard Brent shriek, “You slut! How am I supposed to make that gopher fur into a French twist? How how HOW?”

Pippa rushed inside. There stood Ginny, arms folded, calm as a Cheshire.cat while Brent ranted at her pixie. The hairdresser had had a trying afternoon. Repairing Kimberly's split ends had put him an hour behind schedule. He had never imagined that she would be followed by six bridesmaids with long blond hair the texture of last winter's hay. What was it with Texas girls and big blond hair? Farrah Fawcett and Linda Evans had been on the trash heap of hairdo history for almost two decades. And what was the attraction of having breasts as large as their heads? Physically and mentally these women were just one step away from mooing. He had been out of his mind to come to Dallas. To think that tomorrow he'd have to comb out the French twists and start over again!

“Is this some sort of joke?” he shouted at Pippa. “Your mother's going to pulverize me if I don't get ten twists on that runway tonight.”