School of Fortune

by Amanda Brown

  While he was putting a few miles between them and the carnage, Ginny located two sets of tank tops and cargo shorts in her duffel. She had only one pair of hiking boots; for the moment Pippa would have to navigate in her white Blahniks. “It’s not the presidential suite,” she said, unzipping Pippa’s wedding dress. “But our options are limited.”

  As the cab circled Dallas, they changed into camping gear. “As I see it, you have two choices,” Ginny said as she compacted the soft, white mountain that used to be Pippa’s gown into a tight roll. “You can stay at my place while I’m in Costa Rica or you can come with me to Costa Rica.”

  “Can’t I just go home?” Pippa wanted nothing more than to crawl into her nice warm bed and hibernate for six months. “I feel really sick.”

  “I’d rather face a mauled tiger than your mother. You presume she’ll even let you in the house.” Ginny looked at her watch. “My plane leaves in two hours.”

  “You know I can’t just run off,” Pippa moaned. “It wouldn’t be right.”

  Ginny gave the driver an address in Wellington on the Creek. With a wry smile, she leaned back in her seat. “You’ve got to admit, it was fun while it lasted.”

  “It wasn’t fun at all. I’m never going through that again.”

  Ginny appraised Pippa through half-open eyes. “So who’s the third wheel?”

  Pippa’s first inclination was to admit the story was a farce. Then she realized that further clarification could ruin Lance. “I can’t say.”

  “Is it Andre?”

  “What? No!” Why did Ginny automatically presume she was the one with the third wheel?

  Ginny patted her hand. “You were brave to come clean. The most eligible bachelor in Texas will never live it down, though.”

  “Yes, I’m sure he won’t be dating any more cheerleaders for a long, long time.”

  “Wow, that was bitchy.” Ginny rolled down her window at the security gate of Wellington on the Creek. “This is my friend, Stanley. She gets carte blanche.”

  “No problem, Miss Ortlip.”

  The cab driver braked in front of Ginny’s palatial home. “Wait for me,” Ginny told him.

  She unlocked the door to her villa, which Pippa had visited many times before. “You’ll be safe here.” Ginny tossed their wedding gear into a chair. “I’ll be back in two weeks. On the fridge is a list of restaurants that deliver.”

  “I can never thank you enough.”

  Ginny handed over her car and house keys. “SUV’s in the garage. Sorry I can’t stay.”

  Pippa was sorry, too. From the balcony she watched Ginny’s cab speed off. After the roar and confusion at Meyerson Center, the calm here was surreal. Where’d everyone go? Shouldn’t she be slicing wedding cake with Lance about now? Her insides felt like rope. Settling numbly into a couch in the home theater, Pippa turned on the sixty-inch LCD television. What should appear but Fantasy Weddings. The bride looked obscenely happy.

  “Go away!” Pippa screamed, hitting the remote. Now she got Weddings of a Lifetime. Wyeth McCoy was giving an interview. In horror Pippa heard him explain that he never took on weddings he didn’t think would last, even if it meant resigning in midstream. “You knew!” she cried, jabbing the remote. On came My Big Fat Greek Wedding. “No!” Pippa shrieked, flying off the couch. She attacked Ginny’s stack of DVDs, searching for anything not involving a man, a woman, a wedding, or romance of any kind.

  She watched The Hunt for Red October as she robotically consumed a few boxes of crackers and a half gallon of milk. Why didn’t

  Lance call to see if she was okay? Why didn’t a bridesmaid call? Her grandfather? She checked her cell phone: full batteries, in ring mode. Surely people must wonder where she had gone. Someone must be worrying. Someone must want to hug her and whisper, “There there, it’s not your fault. You’ve been more than noble about this.”

  Dream on. At wit’s end, Pippa speed-dialed her ex-fiance. “Lance? Are you all right?”

  “Pippa?” he managed to squeak. “Where—”

  “If you dare come near my son again,” Rosimund thundered, “I will have you prosecuted to the full extent of the law. You are evil!” The line went dead.

  “You sniveling turd!” Pippa screeched so loudly that her tonsils nearly blew out. Somehow she was not surprised that Lance hadn’t told his mother the truth. Alas, his cowardice was exceeded by her own stupidity. She should have gone through with the wedding, as he suggested. They could have chastely cohabited for an interval, then split. There would have been gossip, but nothing like the firestorm she had now generated all by herself. Pippa stared morosely at the huge diamond ring on her left hand. Rosimund would demand it back, of course.

  Thank God the Walkers took care of their own! Once Thayne heard the real story, Pippa would be forgiven and protected. Venerated as the saint she was. She called star one on her speed dial: Thayne.

  The number was no longer in service.

  Pippa called Fleur-de-Lis: ditto.

  Traumatized, she hit mute and went into a semivegetative state, her jaws slowly grinding caramel popcorn as talking heads occupied the television screen. Weather. Sports. Pippa saw but didn’t immediately comprehend when her grandfather’s picture appeared on the screen. When two four-digit numbers appeared under his name, she snapped back to life. With trembling fingers she grabbed the remote and toggled mute.

  “Anson Walker, the legendary oil billionaire, collapsed this evening at a family gathering. He was rushed to Baylor Medical Center and pronounced dead upon arrival. The cause was cardiac arrest. According to unconfirmed reports, Walker was attending his granddaughter’s wedding, although a family spokesperson has denied that a wedding took place. Our investigative reporters are on the scene. Stay tuned.”

  Spoons and popcorn went flying as Pippa leaped off the couch. A minute later, barefoot, she was in Ginny’s SUV, driving home as fast as she dared. Her tears nearly blinded her. Grampa dead? How was that possible? He had the heart of a bull. Just last night he was dancing with her. He was the only one who understood!

  Traffic began knotting up a half mile from the Walker mansion. Pippa plowed over lawns and curbs, between limousines and news crews, barely missing gawking pedestrians and bicyclists who loved a good show despite the late hour. Cutting off a Bentley, she screeched to a halt at the front gate and rolled down her tinted window. “Charlie! It’s me!”

  The guard peered at her. “Hello, Miss Walker.” He didn’t make a move to open the gate.

  “What’s the problem? Open up.”

  “I’m sorry. Your mother has given orders not to let you in.” Charlie tried not to stare at her Day-Glo camouflage T-shirt. “Never to let you in, as a matter of fact.”

  “She’s not feeling well! You know that!”

  Charlie removed an envelope from his jacket. “Your father asked me to give you this.”

  With shaking fingers, Pippa read the terse note.

  My dear girl,

  This has been a very sad night for the Walkers. Your mother is prostrate with shock and grief. I suggest you allow her sufficient time to regain her spirits before making further contact. Someday I hope she will come to you.

  Love, Daddy

  P.S. I wish you had let us know.

  Inside the envelope was an inch of crisp C-notes. Pippa stared at the wad of bills for a moment before dangling half of them in front of Charlie. “Please let me in.”

  “Can’t do it, Miss Walker. I suggest you turn around.”

  Pippa stared through the heavy iron gates. Fleur-de-Lis looked as if it were being looted. Workmen were dismantling tents, long barbecue grills, floral arrangements, Porta Potties, tables, chairs, and loading them onto trucks as fast as possible. Caterers were streaming down the front steps with trays of food and shoving them into vans. All the housemaids were standing on the porch helplessly wringing their aprons and crying. Every light in the house was on except those in Pippa’s bedroom.

  The Bentley behind her honked i
ts horn. “We have an invitation to the party,” the driver called.

  “The party has been canceled,” Charlie called back. “Please go home.”

  “I beg your pardon! We have come all the way from Kilgore.” “That’s where you should return.”

  “How very rude, sir! Thayne will hear about this!” The Bentley slowly reversed and joined the traffic stuttering in the opposite direction.

  Charlie listened to his headset. “The trucks are coming out,” he told Pippa. “You’ve got to move.”

  “What if I don’t?”

  “You’ll be towed. I’m sorry, Miss Walker. Those are my orders. After all your mother has been through, I think it would be better to go quietly.”

  Defeated, Pippa put the Lexus into reverse. “I’m at Ginny’s, if anyone cares.”

  If he heard her, Charlie did not reply.

  Cringing as she passed dozens of people she knew, Pippa crawled Ginny’s SUV back to Wellington on the Creek. She returned to the couch in the home theater. For hours the only moving parts of her body were her occasionally blinking eyelids and her right hand tirelessly working the remote as she surfed for news. As the next morning progressed, her grandfather’s life and death received increasing air time, as did the circumstances surrounding his collapse. Adding to the excitement, each person interviewed by crack local telejournalists seemed to have a different version of events at Meyerson Center.

  In horror Pippa watched her bridesmaid Leah say, “We were all so worried about Pippa. She was unnaturally quiet all week. Her mother was obviously forcing her to get married. Thayne Walker is like the godfather. You do what she says or you wake up with a dead horse in your bed. Don’t be surprised if I’m found floating in the Rio Grande for saying this.”

  Cedric the substitute wedding planner was interviewed next. Impeccable in a dark blue blazer and ascot, laying on the upper-crust British accent with a cement trowel, he presented quite a different picture than had Leah. “Mrs. Walker is a brilliant and sympathetic woman. Family means everything to her. While she deeply mourns the passing of her father-in-law, her daughter’s happiness is paramount. If Pippa loves someone else, even though she may have chosen a less than optimum moment to make the announcement, Mrs. Walker fully supports that.”

  The interviewer looked skeptical. “So who’s the lucky guy?”

  “Mind your own bleeping business, you lowlife bleep!”

  Lance, of course, was declining any interviews. About an hour later scandalmongers unearthed Pippa’s old flame Andre in Prague. “Pippa and I lived together for a year,” he announced nonchalantly. With each syllable, the cigarette in his mouth bobbed up and down like a needle in a polygraph machine. His eyes were as blue and languid as ever, Pippa noticed.

  “Have you been seeing her?”

  “No comment.”

  Pippa threw a pillow at the television. “You schmuck!”

  Kimberly was interviewed next. “I think Pippa acted in a truly hideous way. Lance Henderson intended to marry her yesterday. She has caused him major humiliation and she has caused me major inconvenience. I personally spent about ten thousand dollars to participate in the wedding.”

  “Will you sue?”

  “My only concern is that Lance will find a more suitable wife.” “He already has, you rat!” Pippa shouted.

  Another news station had set up camp outside Fleur-de-Lis. Their cameras followed the parade of trucks leaving the grounds of the Walker mansion in the dead of night. “This feels like a funeral,” a reporter intoned. “And in fact it is the first of two funerals this week for the Walkers. The family remains in seclusion.” He walked to the guardhouse. “What can you tell us about last night, sir?”

  Charlie shut the glass window in his face. Undeterred, the reporter walked to a white Mercedes idling nearby. “Excuse me.” The window rolled down. “Are you a friend of the family?”

  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.