"Perhaps," Dina allowed. "But where is she off to now, may I ask? Mmm?"
Becky was silent.
"You heard her, sweetie. Why, to Vera Wang's for her bridal gown fitting! And who is she meeting there? Kenzie Turner!"
Becky sighed. "Cherie—"
"Every way I turn, I suddenly hear nothing except Kenzie Turner this and Kenzie Turner that! Kenzie Turner: roommate. Kenzie Turner: maid of honor. Kenzie Turner: new best friend."
Becky blew an obligatory kiss at new arrivals.
"So what am I?" Dina demanded. "A discarded piece of baggage? Why, Zandra would never have met Kenzie Turner if it hadn't been for me!"
"Chere amie. I know how you must feel. I want you to listen to me. However, what this calls for first," Becky decided, signaling for a waiter with a mere lift of a finger, "is a digestif."
"What this calls for," Dina murmured darkly, "is a hit man who will gun down Kenzie Turner."
"Quelle horreur," Becky said without much concern, and smiled at the approaching waiter. "Two Drambuies, Julian. Please."
"Yes, madame."
When he was gone, Becky said: "What you must do, cherie, is keep everything in perspective."
"Which," brooded Dina, "is easier said than done." Her wide-set, ice- blue eyes had turned even more glacial, as remotely and opaquely blue as frosted glass. She couldn't find it in her heart to let Zandra off easily. No: too many wounds had recently been sustained and rubbed raw.
"Quelle sottise! What utter nonsense," Becky said. "Of course it is easily done. Remember: until the marriage, Zandra will be a working girl."
"So?"
"So, have you forgotten that you lead a privileged life of wealth and power?"
"Of course I haven't. But I don't see what that has to do with anything."
"It has everything to do with it, cherie. Absolutely everything. You see, at this moment it is only natural for Zandra to gravitate toward Kenzie Turner. She has more in common with her than with you. However, it is hardly worth getting worked up over."
"Hardly worth—"
Dina fell silent as the waiter set down two cordial glasses of dark amber liqueur.
Becky looked up and smiled. "Merci, Julian."
"Mesdames." The waiter departed.
Becky lifted the little glass delicately. "Let us drink to the bride-to-be, shall we? You will see. Once the wedding is fini, everything will be back to normal."
"You're sure?"
Becky smiled knowingly. "Mais oui. Why should it not be?"
"And Kenzie Turner?"
"Shall no longer be Zandra's roommate, nor her closest confidante. She will become ... irrelevant."
Dina stared at her. "How can you be so sure?"
"Trust me, cherie," Becky said patiently. "In time, everything will sort itself out."
"And when everything's said and done," Dina continued thoughtfully, "and the vows are exchanged and Zandra's married, what happens then?"
"Why, then Zandra will have so many responsibilities within her own circle that she won't have time for Mademoiselle Turner. Bear in mind that these are the last few weeks she and Zandra will enjoy ... well, if not exactly equal social footing, then as equal as they will ever be."
A hint of malice touched Becky's Mona Lisa smile. "You do see my point, chere amie?"
Dina returned a broad smile. "Of course," she said.
Becky had not only put things into perspective, she had made everything beautifully crystal clear.
What would I do without her?
Dina really didn't know.
"Bon." Becky nodded with satisfaction. "Soon now, Zandra will truly be part of our circle ... financially as well as socially. Naturally, for friendship she will gravitate toward the one person she knows best. You."
It was just what Dina needed to hear, and she was thrilled to the very tips of her toes. "Sweetie, you wouldn't believe how much better you've made me feel! I'm so glad we could have this little chat!"
"Whatever are friends for?"
"And I treasure our friendship," Dina added warmly.
"Oui?" Becky looked pleased. "Alors. Then let us be profligate and celebrate with one last Drambuie."
"Now, Kenzie, I want your honest opinion," Zandra warned, sailing resplendently out of the changing room on the second floor at Vera Wang's on Madison Avenue.
Kenzie stared at her in wonder, and the coterie of staff stood back and sighed blissfully in unison.
Zandra was wearing a fairy tale gown with a thirty-foot train, a concoction which, veil included, must have required a good hundred-plus yards of antique, off-white Valenciennes lace, not to mention tens of yards of heavy white silk satin, and several thousand freshwater seed pearls.
"Well, darling?" Zandra demanded, hands clasped around a temporary, silk-flowered bridal bouquet. "I insist upon the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God."
"You look ... awesome," Kenzie managed, swallowing. "I I'm speechless."
Zandra eyed herself in the surrounding mirrors and frowned. "Awesome ... speechless ... Humph! It's awesomely frothy," she murmured. "It's hopelessly romantic and insistently bridal. Actually, Kenzie, let's cut the shit. If you ask me, it's awesomely awful."
The staff looked at her sharply.
"Zandra!"
Kenzie jumped up from the little chair and walked agitated half circles around her friend.
"It's mind-blowingly gorgeous! I really can't understand what you're complaining about. Why, it would do Princess Di proud. I mean, even the queen mum, bless her tipsy heart, would be hard-pressed not to approve."
"That's the whole point, darling. Kenzie, I do like it, I really do, otherwise I'd never have chosen it in the first place."
"Then what is it?"
"Well, for some extraordinary reason, now that it's made and on me, it ... it seems so frightfully stuffy, so ... so positively Elizabethan and un-me. And, to wear it just the once and hate it, I mean, that defeats the purpose, and doesn't begin to justify the cost, now does it?"
The staff exchanged pained expressions. How, they were wondering, could a wedding gown of such regal and incomparable beauty defeat any purpose? And if, as His Serene Highness Prince Karl-Heinz had assured Ms. Wang, money was no object, how could any bride not be nuts about the single most beautiful wedding gown ever created?
But Zandra, unfortunately, was not just any bride. She was a designer's nightmare, a reluctant princess bride—in short, as frustrating a client as ever walked through the door.
"Okay," said Kenzie slowly. "Out with it, kiddo. What don't you like about this gown? And I want specifics, because the longer you're going to take, the more miserable you're going to feel, and the more miserable you feel, the more miserable all of us are going to be."
"I know, I know," Zandra said in a meek little voice, worrying her engagement ring, the Pink Lady, 14.42 pear-shaped carats of the finest flawless pink diamond in the world.
"Then I suggest we get on with it. The gown fits, doesn't it?"
"Of course it fits," Zandra replied. "That's not the point I'm trying to make, not at all. Oh, Kenzie. Darling, why do I even need a wedding gown? Why can't Heinzie and I just pop by some justice of the peace and get the damn ceremony over with? Is that really asking for too much?"
"It is and you know it. Remember how you told me that the ceremony has to follow certain family traditions and dictates? That otherwise it wouldn't be considered legal?"
"God, Kenzie. You've a memory like an elephant." Zandra scowled prettily. "I see that in future I'm going to watch every word."
"Plus," Kenzie reminded her, "there's the small matter of publicity to consider."
"Oh, Kenzie," Zandra sighed. "I loathe publicity. I absolutely abhor the idea of being in the public eye."
"Well, you'd better get used to it, or else find yourself a different bridegroom."
"That's easy for you to say."
"Zandra, listen to me. I love and treasure my own privacy, so I have
a pretty good idea of what yours must mean to you. But good heavens! Your wedding is only one rung below a royal wedding in social stature! Surely there's no way it wouldn't attract attention."
"I know," Zandra said glumly, still worrying the giant, scintillating pink diamond. "How well I know it."
"And, since it will be attracting all that attention, how would it look if you went to the altar inappropriately dressed? Especially having to face photographers, reporters, television crews, guests, and God only knows who else?"
"Kenzie, you're frightening me. Frightening me lots."
"You'd feel silly, that's what!" Kenzie continued inexorably. "People would have a fine old time laughing and picking you apart."
"Stop it."
"Don't you see? Zandra, to coast through this ordeal as smoothly and easily as possible, and with the minimum amount of fuss, you have to look like a dream bride."
Zandra frowned thoughtfully. Perhaps Kenzie has a point. I never thought of a bridal gown in these terms before.
"Anything less," Kenzie added, "would only draw that much more attention to you. Besides—" She smiled smugly, neatly pulling out her ace "—there's nothing quite like a bridal gown when it comes to a disguise."
"Disguise?"
"Yes, disguise. Zandra, don't you see? It can make you virtually invisible! Did you hear me? Invisible! It's the outfit everyone will be looking at, not the woman beneath the veil!"
Zandra's ears perked up. Trust Kenzie, she thought, to be so practical and sensible. Yes. I was right in bringing her along instead of Dina, who'd have "oooooh-ed" and "aaaaah-ed" and never scratched the surface of the issue.
"Now, why don't we start over?" Kenzie suggested in a kindly voice. "Tell us exactly how you feel about this gown."
Zandra turned back to the mirrors and gestured at herself. "Well, for one thing, it's too ... too everything. You know."
"Pretend that I don't."
"All right." Zandra drew a deep breath. "It's too traditional, too romantic, too regal, and too ... well, too bloody bridal!"
"I see." Kenzie looked taken aback. "Anything else?" she asked wryly.
"Only that it's depressingly virginal." Zandra caught the expressions on the staff's faces. "Oh, dear, seems I've really put my foot in it now!"
"You haven't put anything anywhere," Kenzie assured her. "You're the bride. If you're not happy, no one else will be, either."
Zandra eyed her multiple reflections some more.
"You do see my point, darling, don't you? I mean, I want this to be my wedding—not this bloody gown's, but mine. Who wants to be upstaged by a dress?"
"Good." Kenzie smiled encouragement. "Now that you're ventilating, we're getting somewhere. Go on. Suggest away."
"Well, couldn't we ... you know . . . shorten this gown a wee bit?"
Kenzie eyed the floor-length hem. "Shorten it," she murmured.
Zandra nodded.
"Of course it could be shortened ... if that's what you want. But you do realize it would no longer be a gown, but a dress?"
"Really, Kenz."
"And that you are going to have an old-fashioned wedding? A sumptuous, old-fashioned cathedral wedding, with a cardinal, a prince of the Church, officiating?"
"Now you're being a prude. Darling, nobody said I can't be a rebel princess. Did they?"
Rebel princess? Kenzie looked startled. "What is that supposed to mean?"
"All it means, darling, is that I intend to have some fun. And if having fun means making Stephanie of Monaco look like a tame, trained lap-dog, then so be it."
"Then make sure the blame's not laid on me. So what do you think? Midcalf?"
"Kenzie, really!" Zandra scoffed.
"Higher?"
"Higher."
"But below the knee?"
"Above the knee," Zandra said adamantly. "Eight inches above."
"Eight?" Kenzie was so shocked that her voice squeaked. "Eight inches? Tell me you're only kidding. Please, Zandra, tell me you're joking."
"I want it eight inches above the knee," Zandra said obstinately. "Above the top of the kneecap," she added ominously.
"That's what I thought you said. What are you trying to do? Give the European Old Guard communal coronaries?"
"It's about time someone shook those stodgy old dinosaurs awake!"
"But all that bare leg! And in a cathedral!"
"Whoever said the legs have to be bare? What do you say to . . . white fishnet stockings?"
"No. Zandra, I forbid it. What do you want to look like? The hooker bride?"
"Well, then what about... lace," Zandra said dreamily. "Lace stockings? Yes. White lace. I love it. Kenzie, darling, now we're cooking!"
"If you say so." Kenzie sounded dubious.
"And, I want to wear high, very high white stacked heels," Zandra went on, getting into the spirit of it. "But nothing vulgar, like stilettos. Nor platforms. You know ... sort of like ... like Lotte Lenya shoes! Very, very ugly, with lots and lots of across-the-ankle straps? Or maybe laces? At any rate, they must be terribly ugly and terribly chic." She giggled. "You know, so they look almost orthopedic?"
"Zandra ..."
"And, darling, we'll puff this skirt out further. Like this." Zandra grabbed handfuls of the gown and demonstrated. "A kind of late 1980s pouf. But short-short. Without a train, and the veil reaching exactly to the hem of the dress."
"You'll ... Zandra! You'll look like a lace bell with legs!"
"Hmmm. Yes, I rather will, won't I? But it's different, right?"
"Oh, I definitely think so."
"And, most important, it's me! Oh, darling, do you realize, this is the most fun I've gotten out of this whole wedding thing so far ... Now, Kenzie, I want the truth ... how far should the skirt pouf out ... to here ... or all the way to here ... ?"
TARGET:
BURGHLEY'S
COUNTDOWN
TO TERROR
Off Grand Abaco Island, The Bahamas, February 12
Sunset at the 75th meridian.
After the troughs of the wintery North Atlantic, the six-foot chop in the Caribbean was like a placid pond in midsummer.
The small tramp freighter Beatriz, on her nineteenth day out of Marseilles, was one hundred twenty miles northwest of Grand Abaco Island when the captain ordered the engines shut down.
Purples and pinks and great chrysanthemum clouds of orange painted the sky and tinted the water. It was the kind of exuberant sunset which at Key West attracts crowds and applause.
Aboard the Beatriz, however, nature's fireworks went unappreciated. Four of the crew were busy on the foredeck, where the cargo boom was lifting a ten-meter sailboat from its cradle in the hold.
Across the boat's stern was the legend: ALOHA LADY HONOLULU.
The captain and his sole passenger watched from the bridge as the boom swung the sailboat overboard and lowered it slowly into the water. Two crewmen scrabbled down a rope ladder, unsnapped the blue canvas cover and raised and bolted the foldaway mast in place.
Aloha Lady was fully provisioned with stores, and its diesel tank had been topped off. All that remained was for the 450-square feet of furled canvas to be hoisted, and the trim little craft could sail off into the sunset.
The captain, a stocky Spaniard with skin as deeply tanned and weathered as the shell of a walnut, turned to his passenger.
"So we part here, amigo."
"That's right, capitan." Donough Kildare looked at him through cold, unsmiling Irish eyes. The minor facial cuts he had inflicted upon himself at Porston had healed, and his hair and eyebrows were dyed a yellow- white. "It was a most interesting journey."
The captain burst into jovial laughter. "Interesting! Por Dios, but that's the understatement of the year!"
The captain's eighteen-year-old son scrambled up the rope ladder from the sailboat and waved, signaling that everything was in readiness.
"Adios, capitan," Kildare said quietly.
"Adios, amigo."
The mate, a g
leaming black man with a shaved head, sidled up to the captain and watched Donough Kildare climb down the companion- way and cross the foredeck. "I still say we should kill him, mon," he said softly.
The captain shook his head. "He has done us no harm. And he has made us rich."
"I don't trust him, mon. His eyes are the eyes of death."
"Silencio! You and your voodoo rubbish. Eyes of death indeed! See, Marcel? There he goes. Now do you feel better?"
They both heard the steady put-put of the sailboat's inboard diesel, and watched the graceful craft motoring away, a black silhouette against the blazing sunset.
Perhaps, the captain thought, I'll use my share of the money to retire. His eyes followed the sailboat. Maybe I'll buy myself a boat like that one.
A voice intruded on his thoughts.
"Capitan?" It was the fat Greek cook.
"What?"
"All the soap powder in the galley is missing."
"So? Get more out of the stores."
"But there were four full boxes—"
"Don't bother me with it."
"Papa."
"Si?"
"I was just in my cabin. I noticed my alarm clock is gone."
"Don't you have work to do? You can look for it later."
"Capitan?" The radio operator.
"Now what?"
"The radios. They are both smashed!"
"Whatever is wrong can be fixed or replaced once we reach Grand Abaco."
"Capitan!" The engineer.
"What!"
"The barrel of gasoline for the launch. It is empty."
"Get down to the engine room!" the captain bellowed. "Now!"
"Si, capitan."
The captain felt a strong black hand clamp around his wrist.
"Listen to me, mon!" the mate whispered. "Something is wrong. Can't you feel it?"
The captain shook his arm free, went into the wheelhouse, and picked up a telephone receiver. "Start the engines," he commanded.
Soon he could hear the familiar noise as the big diesels were fired up and the decks began to hum and vibrate.
"See?" the captain said to the mate. "You are worse than an old wo—"
Too Damn Rich Page 48
