by Amanda Brown
Moss and Cole finally made an appearance. Enraged to see one hundred dogs in his pool, Moss stomped to the library and slammed the door. Pippa hustled Cole to the grill. “Just where have you two been all day?”
“Meeting with Mafiosi, scumbags, and shysters.”
“That’s not funny.”
“I wasn’t joking.”
Whatever. Pippa pointed to the three tuna lying in large vats of ice. “Get grilling.”
He turned off the gas. “I’ve been thinking, Cosmo. There’s a better way to do this.”
“And that would be?” “Sashimi.”
Of course that was the way to go. “Good thought.”
Cole knew his way around big fish. By the time Pippa had distributed prizes and presented Phelps with an oversized check for one hundred and sixty thousand dollars, the first tuna was arrayed in paper-thin slices over Leigh’s Meissen platters.
“Beautiful,” Pippa said. “Where’d you learn that?”
“Previous yacht,” he said with a wink.
Lunch lasted forever. The ladies devoured every ounce of sashimi.
They nibbled their salads one grain at a time. Zombies disappeared as fast as two bartenders could make them. Pippa finally figured out why: no one was about to leave the ballroom while Phelps was visiting tables in his Speedo bikini. After he left to catch a plane, Pippa coaxed everyone into the tent. The mock Westminster dog show began. It was a huge success, marred only by the poor sportsmanship of Dusi Damon, furious that Kappa lost Best in Show to a pug named Studs. Dusi regained a partial will to live after being awarded one of the fiberglass fire hydrants from the Luxor as consolation prize.
Out came coffee, sorbet, and chocolate cookies. Shocked at how quickly the afternoon had gone, Leigh’s guests made a final pass around the gift exhibit, the Poussin, Rudi, and the rococo harpsichord. Pippa knocked on the door of Moss’s study. “Sir?”
“What can I do for you, Cosmo?” he called with chilling insincerity.
Pippa peered around the heavy door. Moss was seated at his Louis Quatorze sen ban studying an ancient encyclopedia of birds. “Your guests are leaving. Would you care to see them out? It would be a very gracious gesture from the man of the house.” He didn’t move. “I’m sure Signora Bowes would appreciate it.”
“I’m sure she would.” He carefully turned a yellowed page. “Come here, Cosmo. I need your advice.”
Pippa brightened. “Of course, signor.”
“Which bird do you like better?” Moss flipped between two pages. “The red or the blue?”
“The blue one has a beautiful beak.”
“I’m not talking about the beak, you dope. I mean the feathers.”
Realizing Moss would exterminate fifty thousand of whichever bird she picked, Pippa said, “I really couldn’t say. They’re both so adorable.”
“They’re quite rare.” He chuckled. “About to get rarer.” Pippa was aghast. “May I ask, have you considered synthetic feathers?”
“No, I haven’t.” He returned to the book. “Go away. You’re useless.”
Pippa stopped at the library door. “I thought you were interested in joining the country club, signor.”
“That I am. It’s just that I’m not terribly interested in standing anywhere near my wife at the moment.” He stared at Pippa’s uniform for an uncomfortable length of time. Pippa was sure he was studying her flattened boobs and was about to ask her to remove her jacket. To her relief, when Moss opened his mouth, it was merely to say, “That silk captures pigeon green perfectly.”
“Thank you.” Pippa waited a moment. “Please, Signor Bowes. Without you we’re doomed. All your good money would be wasted.” Thayne always used those lines to great effect.
They worked on Moss, too. He stood with Leigh as three hundred exiting guests raved about her stupendous, fabulous, delightful, truly magnificent party. Best of all, they meant it. Only Dusi Damon, first to arrive, last to depart, seemed less impressed. “Well! That was quite a show.”
“Did you enjoy it?” Leigh asked, instantly anxious. Pippa could have kicked her.
“Certain elements were well done. Other elements could have been finessed.”
“You’re not suggesting we bribe judges from the Westminster Kennel Club,” Pippa cut in. “That’s a valuable fire hydrant, by the way. I’m told Frank Sinatra urinated on it.”
Dusi opened her mouth, thought about what to say, and went with, “Congratulations on the Poussin, Moss. It goes perfectly with the gold drapes.”
“Yes. I always try to match my paintings to the drapes.”
As usual, Dusi couldn’t tell if he was serious or not. For someone who desperately wanted to get into the Las Vegas Country Club, Moss displayed shockingly little respect for her power to make or break his dreams. He was the only man in Las Vegas who hadn’t noticed her new DDD breasts; even now he preferred to ogle the tassels on Cosmo’s jacket rather than Dusi’s stunning décolletage. He would have to be disciplined immediately.
Dusi extended a gloved hand to Leigh. “Come to my home for lunch tomorrow, both of you.”
“Are you free, Moss?” Leigh asked.
“Forgive me, I meant you and Cosmo. Twelve sharp.” Dusi couldn’t help but shake her head one last time at Leigh’s rosewood doors. Noses high in the air, she and Kappa left.
Pippa immediately slammed the doors. “We don’t need to wave goodbye.”
Leigh looked agitated. “What did she mean, ‘certain elements could have been finessed’?”
“Absolutely nothing. Thank you for making an appearance, Signor Bowes. I’m sure it’s tedious pretending three hundred strangers are your friends.” Pippa’s father always had the good sense to drink half a bottle of sherry before stumbling downstairs. “Especially that woman.”
“Cosmo!” Leigh gasped. “We owe Dusi everything.” “Or so she’d like you to think. When are they going to decide on your membership?”
“Within the next two weeks.”
“About time.” Moss trained his hard blue eyes on Pippa. “I want every invoice from this pooch fest on my desk tomorrow. Get the pool drained and disinfected. Whose idea was the dog bath?”
“Mine,” Pippa admitted. “It was a swim meet, not a bath.”
“We’ll deduct the cleaning from your fee.”
“You ass!” Moss’s wife cried. “You should be on your knees thanking Cosmo for such a brilliant idea. People will be talking about it for years.”
Pippa thought Moss would punch both of them. Her suspicion was confirmed when he asked, “Where’s Samson?” “I fired him. Cosmo’s my bodyguard now.” “At no extra cost,” Pippa bowed.
“Such a deal.” Moss got a walkie-talkie from his belt. “I’ll be in the car.” He left.
Pippa closed the front doors. “Does he understand that getting into a country club is only slightly less expensive than running for president?”
“He understands. I’m not sure he wants me as his running mate, though.” Leigh was on the verge of tears. “Excuse me. I need a drink.”
Pippa was left alone in the foyer with Titian chewing her shoelaces. Cole appeared, wearing his driver’s cap. “Great show, Cosmo. You got everyone here but the guys from E!”
Pippa shuddered: she’d had enough of E! for the rest of her life. “Thanks for slicing the fish.”
“At your service.” The way he said it made her blush.
In two hours all traces of Titian’s party were expunged from Casa Bowes. Pippa found Kerry in the bowling alley, sleeping off the river of beer she had consumed with the bodyguards. They set to work dismantling the gift table. Moss maintained an enormous wine cellar, Pippa discovered as she carted case after case downstairs. Kerry kept note of all incoming stock in her BlackBerry. “Are you the somme-lier?” Pippa asked.
“The what, Mo?”
“Wine steward. My name’s Cosmo. Two syllables. What are you writing there?”
“I just like to keep records. For my own protection.”
Kerry nearly dropped a case of Viognier. “Are you spying on me? I’ll break your faggot jaw.”
“Get a life. There’s one of you in every house. In case you’re screwing Signor Bowes, be aware that the market’s already flooded with kiss-and-tell memoirs. Written by nannies who majored in English.” Encouraged by Kerry’s dismay, Pippa took a long shot. “Signora Bowes already knows about you and Samson. I’d worry about my own jaw if I were you.”
“Holy Mother of God! Does she know about Rudi, too?”
“Can I give you a piece of advice? If you’re going to hit on everything that moves, get a job with Howard Stern.”
Pippa went to the kitchen. She hadn’t eaten all day and had a thrashing headache. Rudi was tautening Saran Wrap over every container in the refrigerator, muttering about escaping odors. Seeing Pippa slumped at the table, he brought over a crock of shrimp salad. “You did a great job today, Rudi.”
“Zose ladies zink I am zat Schweinehund Wolfgang Puck!”
“They loved you.” Pippa watched Rudi stack leftover cookies in a tin. His devotion to his art reminded her of Slava Slootski, the greatest clown on earth. How was that poor man doing? And Pushkin? Suddenly she missed them terribly.
“My shrimp salad iss bad?”
“It’s wonderful.” Pippa stood up. “I’m just really tired. Good night.” She went to her room, kicked off her leaden nubucks, and unpeeled her mustache. She hung up her uniform and moved on to the high point of her day, unzipping the jogging bra. Pippa checked in the mirror to see that neither breast had gangrened. She flopped on her bed and dialed Olivia. “The party was a huge success.”
“Yes, yes, I heard. Leigh was on the phone with me for an hour.” Dead drunk but coherent enough. “She adores you.”
“She’s a nice person. May I have my diploma now?”
“Now?” Olivia repeated with exaggerated surprise. “I don’t understand.”
“That was the deal, wasn’t it? Get Leigh through the party?”
“I believe the arrangement was that you would get her through the week, Lotus. Perhaps more.” Olivia had just wheedled an extra twenty grand out of Leigh if Cosmo stayed on until Labor Day. “Have some pity. You know I desperately need the money.”
The answer would have been no were it not for the beguiling presence of Cole. Pippa had had another naked dream about him last night. “Okay. One more week.”
“You’re a dear girl. If I had a daughter like you, I’d be the happiest woman alive.”
Olivia’s comment nudged her into melancholy. Pippa fell blankly asleep, only to be wakened by another altercation in the Jacuzzi. She couldn’t believe that Leigh and Moss could hurl such crippling words at each other and still live under the same roof. Even her parents in their vilest moments had the good sense to keep their mouths shut, get into separate cars, and hit the golf course or Neiman Marcus. It always blew over because silence expressed both everything and nothing and, at the end of the day, most arguments were about nothing. Nothing that could be fixed, anyhow. Pippa winced as the fight escalated to four-letter words containing u’s.
A soft knock on her door around midnight: Cole. “Cosmo? May I use the bathroom?”
“Of course,” Pippa called from the bed.
“Did I wake you?”
“Hardly.”
“Have you had dinner?”
Pippa crept to the door. “You haven’t eaten?”
“We just got back from a meeting with a snakeskin exporter.”
“That sounds gross.”
“It was. Come on, let’s raid the kitchen. I’m starving.”
Now that he mentioned it, so was she. “Why don’t you bring some food back here? I don’t want to run into Leigh or Moss in their present state.”
Pippa made her bed. She squished back into the sports bra and glued her mustache on. She had just finished buttoning her jacket when Cole returned with two of Rudi’s salads, a bottle of wine, and a huge crock of pickles. “Gee, Cosmo, you didn’t have to get all dressed up for me.”
“All I brought were uniforms. I hadn’t planned on staying longer than the birthday party. Now it seems I’m stuck here another whole week.”
That news made his day. Cole handed her the bowl of shrimp salad. She looked cuter than ever with the mustache on upside down. Beneath the mousy-brown dye job, he suspected she was a blonde. “Are we that bad?”
“It’s a long story.” Pippa realized she was sweating profusely: she hadn’t sat on a bed with a heterosexual male since Prague. Cole hadn’t exactly placed himself in the far-off corner, either. “How long have you been here?”
“Six months.”
“You worked on a yacht before then?” “That’s right.” Thanks for reminding me.
Pippa waited for further details: none forthcoming. “How’d you end up here?”
“I answered an ad. It went something like ‘International businessman seeks valet. Must be discreet and fond of birds.’ I thought ‘birds’ meant ‘girls’ so I sent my resume.”
“There must have been a million applicants,” Pippa frowned.
“I actually do know something about birds. My mother belongs to the Audubon Society.”
“I’m sure she’d be delighted to know what Moss is doing to the worldwide avian population.”
Cole didn’t answer. She wore a Patek Philippe watch: that was a lot of buttered toast. Settling on the pillow, he dug into a bowl of chicken salad. “Tell me about yourself, Cosmo.”
“What would you like to know?”
Why are you pretending to be a guy, for one. What were you doing at the Phoenix Ritz-Carlton, two. Do you have a boyfriend, three, four, and five. “Where’d you get the Maserati?”
“Oh, that,” Pippa laughed, cursing the day its paint dried. “It’s a gift from my—” Oh, boy. “Previous employer.”
“For services rendered?”
Pippa blushed fiercely enough to ripple the wallpaper. “I got him over a little hump. Actually a big hump.” That sounded worse. “It’s not the sort of hump you’re thinking of.”
“Sounds illegal.”
“No, just impulsive and stupid.”
As Cole poured her a glass of cabernet, he caught her looking at his watch. “A gift from my previous employer. No humps involved. Cheers.”
She tried not to stare too blatantly at Cole’s throat as he sipped his wine. “Is this from the cellar? It’s excellent.”
“Moss told me to help myself. He doesn’t drink and Leigh prefers Gallo in gallons.”
“Is he a nicer guy when he’s not around her?”
Cole tore his eyes away from her mouth. He was already fantasizing about peeling the mustache off. “You’ve got to understand where Moss is coming from, Cosmo. He grew up in a tenement in Buffalo. He doesn’t like to see his money evaporate.”
“Then he should join the Masons, not the country club.” One of Thayne’s favorite lines. “So what do you do all day? Sit in the car and wait for Signor Bowes to need a ride?”
“Something like that.”
“That sounds pretty boring.”
“It beats organizing birthday parties for dogs.” Winking, Cole refilled her glass. “Where’d you get the idea to call the Westminster Kennel Club?”
“My previous employer was a party girl. She thought big and just picked up the phone. You’d be amazed at the insane things people would do for her.”
Odd that Cosmo never mentioned who these previous employers might be. Majordomos were normally the crassest name-droppers. “So she had private dog shows and swim meets?”
“No, those were my idea.” Pippa sighed. “Signor Bowes is going to hit the roof when he gets the bills tomorrow.” “Maybe he’ll just hit Leigh instead.”
“You think those fights are funny? I couldn’t imagine treating my husband like that.” Aghast, Pippa realized her mistake. Damn wine! “I mean my wife.”
C
ole couldn’t resist teasing her a bit. “Which is it, Cosmo?”
Pippa tried to think. If she said “husband,” Cole would think Cosmo was gay. If she said “wife,” he’d think Cosmo was a guy. “Whatever,” she mumbled. How lame! Pippa crashed the bowl of shrimp salad onto her night table. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll say good night before I make a complete fool of myself.”
“No pickles?” Cole chomped the tip off the largest of them. “They’re delicious.”
“I hate pickles.” Pippa sprang off the mattress, caught her foot in the bed skirt, and fell flat on her face. Yves Saint Laurent’s eyeglasses shot under the chair. “Whoa!” Cole picked her up. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pried like that. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” Actually Pippa felt much worse after he let go of her.
Cole swished his hand under the chair, trawling for her eyeglasses. To Pippa’s horror he found not only the glasses but her jewelry roll. “What’s this?” As she stood petrified, he untied the ribbon and emptied the contents into his hand.
They both stared at Pippa’s magnificent diamond necklace from her grandfather, her diamond earrings from Lance, and her diamond bar-rette from Rosimund. Pippa knew that he knew the rocks were real. “A going-away gift from my previous employer,” she explained. Sadly, that was very close to the truth. “When I get a chance I’ll sell them on eBay.”
Cole quietly replaced everything in the jewelry roll. “That must have been one hell of a hump, Cosmo.” He gathered the empty bowls from the night table. “Would you like to keep the wine?”
“I’ve drunk enough for one evening, thank you.”
At the door he paused. She looked so pale and deflated that he felt like reading her a bedtime story. “I’m glad you’re here. Hope you stay awhile.”
She didn’t move for quite a while after the door shut behind him. Cole was no ordinary chauffeur.
