by Amanda Brown
Leigh was nearly beside herself. “I have to give this my best shot, Cosmo. Moss is counting on in it.”
Pippa pulled into the driveway of Casa Bowes behind the Zappo Pool Sanitizers truck. The apricot Mercedes was parked under the portico. Pippa smiled: Cole was home. Unfortunately, so was Moss. “What the hell’s he doing here at this hour?” Leigh demanded.
Pippa groaned: in her rush to dress Leigh for lunch, she had neglected to put the bills for Titian’s party on Moss’s desk. “Leave everything in the car, signora. If we’re going to talk him into another party, the last thing he needs to see is ten Armani bags.”
They parked in the garage, where Cole was polishing a black Porsche. “Hello, ladies,” he called. “Excuse me. Lady and gentleman.”
“What are you two doing home?” Leigh repeated.
“I believe you and Mr. Bowes are meeting your biggest Lurex supplier for five o’clock cocktails.”
Leigh had forgotten all about that. “Yoo-hoo,” she twittered as she and Cosmo crossed the threshold. “Titian! Where are you, darling?”
Nowhere. They found Moss in his library inspecting a mound of black feathers under a halogen light. “Have you seen Titian?”
“I just sent him to obedience school. Caught him chewing on my best Turdus merula.”
“You sent my dog away without telling me? Damn you!”
“He’ll be back in a week.” With a few bruised ribs. “Where have you been?”
“At a long, productive lunch with Dusi,” Pippa said. “She lives in a spectacular castle filled with coats of armor. She showed us her doll collection and her—”
“Where are the bills from the pooch fest?” Moss cut in.
“I’ll get them for you, signor.”
When Pippa returned with her folder, Moss had commandeered Leigh’s wallet and was calmly totaling all the credit card receipts from that afternoon’s shopping excursion. “Eighteen thousand six hundred ninety-eight dollars,” he remarked. “Was that before or after Dusi showed you her doll collection?”
“We only bought absolute necessities,” Pippa reported as bravely as possible. “Signora Bowes seriously needs a new look.”
“Shut up, Cosmo. Give me that folder.” Moss again went to work with his calculator. He added everything twice then strolled to the window. “Forty-eight thousand bucks and change,” he mused, staring pleasantly outside as if Botticelli’s Venus had just stepped out of a clam shell onto his patio. Without warning Moss grabbed a globe and hurled it at Leigh. “For a dog’s birthday party!” he screamed. “Are you out of your mind?”
Pippa, an experienced soccer player, made a diving catch, sparing both the globe and Leigh’s costly nose. “Really, Signor Bowes,” she said, brushing herself off. “That was beneath your dignity.” She replaced the globe in its stand. “Now you sit down and shut up. I have something to say to you.”
Moss was so surprised that he obeyed. Pippa proceeded exactly as Thayne had over the last twenty years whenever her spouse got tetchy over operating expenses. “You are a very successful man, blessed by marriage to a beautiful and loyal woman who chose you out of all the eligible, handsome, and extremely generous men in Dallas.”
“Buffalo,” Leigh whispered.
“Wherever. Your wife must reflect your success or she is not fulfilling her sacred duty to your name. In exchange you must provide her with the means of maintaining a superior social position.”
“Says who?” Moss shot back.
“Please don’t interrupt!” Pippa regretted that last warm martini at Dusi’s; it was causing her to forget the most persuasive paragraph of Thayne’s speech. “A few thousand dollars here and there are peanuts to a man of your good fortune. Furthermore, this isn’t a matter of money. It’s a matter of respect for the woman who has given you every ounce of her life and blood. This is your opportunity to be truly gallant.” That was all Pippa remembered of Thayne’s “Burn Me at the Stake” monologue. If Moss was anything like her father, he’d be slamming doors any second now, so she plunged ahead. “You wish to become a member of the Las Vegas Country Club. You have put your wife in charge of that Mission Impossible. You must now back her up.”
“What’s impossible about it?”
Pippa sighed as if she were explaining “two plus two equals four.” “This afternoon we ran into four women who were also trying to become members of the club. Each had spent between three and six hundred thousand dollars to that end. Each woman received a handwritten letter of rejection this morning.”
Moss sat very still. “What went wrong?”
“They were blackballed.”
“What does that mean? Something like bushwhacked?” “Someone wrote an anonymous letter to the committee raising objections.”
“Anonymous, my ass. Who?”
“It’s a secret meeting. The vote must be unanimous.”
“The Stoutmeyers got in,” Leigh blurted. “Can you believe that?”
“Shhh!” Pippa turned to Moss. “To date you have spent a measly eighteen thousand on clothing plus forty-eight grand on one party plus a few thousand for entertainment.”
“Don’t forget the sixty-five grand for yourself.”
“Fine,” Pippa snapped, her brain crunching the numbers. “That still only totals one hundred and thirty thousand dollars, which to be blunt, is barely enough to buy you two votes out of six. You can’t afford to look cheap now, Signor Bowes. How badly do you want this membership?”
He mulled that over. “You’ve got something up your sleeve, you little runt.”
“Moss! I’ll not have you speak to Cosmo that way.” Pippa shrugged. “Call me what you will. I propose a masquerade ball. Two hundred thousand dollars.” “I’ll give you thirty.” “One hundred forty.” “Ninety.” “Done.”
“Now you tell me something, Cosmo,” Moss growled. “Where does the membership committee meet?” “At the club, I would presume.” “When’s the next meeting?”
“Why do you need to know? You can’t attend. You can’t even pretend to care when they meet.”
“You do it your way. I’ll do it mine.”
Pippa’s upper lip tickled. Running her tongue over the offending itch, she was chagrined to feel bristle. Her mustache was sliding off: it had been a long, sweaty day. “Excuse me,” she said. “Ill begin organizing the ball at once.”
“Wait! What will I wear tonight for the Lurex people?” Leigh cried as Pippa headed for the door.
“The yellow Herrera with the raspberry pumps. Pearls and a hair-band if you’ve got one.” Pippa dashed to her room, there to verify that her mustache was barely hanging on by a few cross weaves. Worse, this morning she had left her tube of glue uncapped and most of it had oozed onto her dressing table. She ran into the bathroom to get a Q-tip and rescue some of it.
Cole stood naked at his sink, shaving. “Omigod!” Pippa shrieked. “I thought we agreed to knock, Cosmo,” he said, not particularly concerned.
“I thought you were out washing cars!” Pippa stumbled back into her bedroom and slammed the door. She had never been so mortified in her life. For a moment Cosmo vaporized and the old, traumatized Pippa resurfaced, ready to bawl. She was about to fling herself on her bed and soak the pillowcases when she heard Cole whistling “What a Wonderful World.” She held her breath, listening. He sounded happy. Really happy.
The whistling eventually stopped. “I’m done, Cosmo,” he called through the door. “Bathroom’s all yours.”
Snapping out of her trance, Pippa phoned Olivia Villarubia-Thistleberry to vent. She got Cornelius informing her that Olivia and her lawyers had gone to Colombia to buy off a judge. Next Pippa called Dallas. “I’m so happy to hear you’re back in the office, Sheldon.”
“Most of me is back,” he corrected her. “I’m seeing a hair regeneration specialist about the part that isn’t.”
“You’ll be happy to know I’m still in school.”
“That chambermaid camp?”
“I’m inter
ning now. I’ll be graduating in a week if a big party goes well.”
“I’ll believe that diploma when I see it.” “I need you to do me a tiny favor.”
“I just sent you a Maserati, a phone, ten thousand dollars, and the lighter that singed off my eyebrows. You have about eighty thousand in your discretionary account. Don’t tell me you’ve spent that on starch for your aprons.”
“I need you to send four mustaches,” Pippa said. “Overnight. Morning delivery. Nice ones. You know Inspector Clouseau? Like his, but light brown. Plus extra glue formulated for the desert. Hypoaller-genic if you can find it.”
“Desert? I thought you were in Aspen.”
“Were you listening? I’m interning in Las Vegas. Toupees and mustaches are part of my routine here.”
“What sort of employer would want his chambermaid to glue a mustache on him? Sounds like sexual harassment.” Sheldon’s voice lifted. “Maybe you should sue.”
“The mustache is for me. I’m now a majordomo named Cosmo du Piche.”
Sheldon didn’t speak for a long moment. “Why don’t you just quit shaving your legs and call it a day? Or move to Lesbos?”
“I like being Cosmo.” Pippa had to spell the name three times. She gave Sheldon the address of Casa Bowes. “How’s my mother doing?”
“She’s in London. The BBC is thinking of doing a documentary about her. I advised her not to go but she didn’t listen, as usual.”
“At least she hasn’t been in any fistfights for the last couple weeks.”
“Nothing major,” Sheldon replied vaguely. “You concentrate on that diploma now.”
Another shouting match erupted in the library. Pippa went to her window just in time to see a soapstone owl smash through a window and land on the patio. She saw Cole walk to the garage and back the limousine out to the driveway. Moss hustled Leigh, attired head to toe in gold sequins, into the rear seat. As the Mercedes pulled away, Pippa’s phone rang.
“Could you call Painless Panes, Cosmo?” Cole’s voice was barely audible over the shouting. “Five on the house speed dial.”
“No problem.”
“Would you like to raid the kitchen with me later?”
That depended on how much mustache adhesive she could scrape off her dresser. “Maybe.”
“Hey, Mo!” Kerry was pounding on her door. “The Zappo guys are leaving.”
“Gotta go.” Pippa rescued enough glue to hold her mustache in place for a few more hours. She signed the pool cleaners’ receipt and waited for the same glass crew who had been there yesterday to come back and fix the broken window in the library. Kerry and Rudi left to play the slots, leaving Pippa alone at Casa Bowes. She toted the booty from that afternoon’s shopping spree upstairs. On the fifth trip to the garage, obeying an impulse, Pippa went to the black Porsche parked next to her Maserati. She opened the door and sat in the driver’s seat, inhaling Cole’s vapors. She was sure this was his car, not Moss’s. The keys were in the ignition. Pippa started the engine and cruised once around the block. Her secret ride felt as exhilarating as a stolen kiss. Cole had given the Maserati a thorough washing and waxing, she noticed. For the first time in weeks she wondered how Lance was doing. Training season would start any day now. Pippa laughed, shocked: she really didn’t care.
She washed her jogging bra and, on another impulse, shaved her legs with Cole’s gold razor. At midnight, hearing the front door slam, she felt her whole body quiver alive. She heard Leigh and Moss go upstairs, drunk but mostly yelled out for the evening. Their bedroom light went on, then off. Her phone rang. “Sorry, Cosmo,” Cole said. “Something’s come up. I won’t be able to make it.”
“No problem,” Pippa lied.
After she heard his Porsche roll down the driveway, she consoled herself with leftover flank steak and some grand cru burgundy. Halfway through, Rudi and Kerry entered the kitchen, twenty bucks ahead of Flamingo for the first time in history. They finished off the bottle and a tray of Rudi’s eggplant lasagna. Eventually Kerry burped in porcine satiety. “Hey Mo, where’s Cinderfella?”
“Excuse me?”
“Cole. His Porsche is gone.”
“I believe he’s running an errand for Signor Bowes.” “Don’t wait up for him,” Kerry laughed. Pippa did anyway. He never came back.
Nineteen
Chippa had been a fixture of Cole’s imagination ever since she’d whapped him in the face at the Phoenix Ritz-Carlton. Next morning he had blown her a kiss across the lobby; if anything, that speeded her escape to a limousine waiting outside. Hoping to reconnect with her, Cole had gone to lunch with an inebriated psycho named Marla, who would only reveal that Chippa loved pickles and garlic and had a Polish lover who couldn’t play poker to save his ass. Marla had then tried to grope him under the table. Cole left Phoenix that afternoon; he had been there picking up an Airstream doghouse for Titian. He never thought he’d see Chippa again.
He found her reincarnation as Cosmo both amusing and unsettling. Normal women didn’t hop around the country using aliases. What was she really doing here? It was a serious issue because, in addition to valeting Moss and keeping all motor vehicles in pristine working order, Cole was in charge of security at Casa Bowes. After a rash of letter bombs in the neighborhood, Moss had ordered him to inspect any incoming packages that did not come from known sources. Cole happened to be parking his Porsche in the garage when a FedEx van pulled into the driveway at eight the next morning. “You got a Cosmo du Piche here?” the driver asked.
“Yes.” Cole signed for the small, light package from a law firm in Dallas. Then he opened it. Cosmo had received four mustaches in a velvet case, six tubes of hypoallergenic adhesive, a pair of silver mustache-trimming scissors, a tiny comb, mustache wax, a brochure for villas in Lesbos, and twenty thousand dollars cash.
Frowning, Cole resealed the box. He was quite sure she had taken his Porsche out last night while he was squiring Moss, Leigh, and the Lurex people around Las Vegas. The car hadn’t been parked anywhere near straight in its slot in the garage. Was she spying on him? If so, she was colossally inept. Maybe that was part of a larger deception. “Incoming package, Cosmo,” he called, knocking on her door. “Would you like me to open it for you?”
“Absolutely not!” Her door cracked an inch. “Please push it into my room.”
“What’s inside, tassels for your cap?”
“None of your business.” The lock clicked.
She sounded peeved. Cole found that a poor way to start the day. “Are you okay?”
Of course not! Pippa felt like screaming. The past eight hours had been hell. In Phoenix, when she had asked Cole how his love life was, he had immediately replied, “Fine.” The rational side of her argued that of course a guy like Cole would have a girlfriend with whom he would have fantastic sex seven nights a week. Of course the woman would be madly in love with him, and vice versa. Of course Pippa’s jealousy was childish and petty, if not downright stupid, considering he didn’t even know she was female. The irrational side of Pippa just wanted to find this woman and kill her. Mostly she was furious at herself for dreaming impossible dreams.
Kerry had not helped Pippa’s insomnia by groaning through several bouts of sexual congress, either with Rudi, Moss, or herself. Maybe all three.
On the plus side, Pippa’s new mustache glue worked like a champ. Shortly before nine, after she saw Cole and Moss leave, she dragged herself to the kitchen. Rudi was there making johnnycakes. Dressed in a peignoir with lots of feathers, Leigh sat at the window nursing a cup of coffee and calling every dog obedience school in Las Vegas. She had yet to locate Titian.
“Good morning, signora. Did you have a nice time with the Lurex people?”
“I don’t remember. Thanks for fixing the window.” Leigh’s bloodshot eyes settled on Pippa’s upper lip. “You did your mustache. It’s lighter. Hike it.”
“Thank you. I devoted several hours to personal grooming last night.”
“Poor thing, you’ve bee
n working too hard. You look exhausted.”
The doorbell rang. Pippa went to the foyer. Dusi’s Bentley stood in the driveway. Her butler, Horatio, sweating buckets in tuxedo, white gloves, and wool cap, presented her with an envelope. “Good morning, sir. I bring word from Castilio Damonia regarding the Bentley Ball.”
“Come in,” Pippa said. “Have some pancakes. Rudi’s on a roll.”
Horatio hesitated; his normal breakfast at Dusi’s was a day-old baguette. “I would be grateful for a glass of water,” he answered carefully.
Pippa dragged him to the kitchen. “You boys relax while Signora Bowes and I read our marching orders.” She and Leigh adjourned to the formal dining room. Pippa opened an envelope with Castilio damonia embossed in such huge gold letters across the top that there was no room for stamps, which was the whole point: Horatio was Dusi’s postal service.
Pippa cleared her throat. “‘Dear Leigh, I think that a masquerade ball in honor of my induction into the Frequent Bentley Society is a marvelous idea, considering all that I have done for you. A masquerade is a festive and fanciful event, therefore I would like the men to come dressed as chauffeurs circa 1930, driving vintage Bentleys (they can be rented anywhere for a song), and I would like the women to come dressed as cars such as Pintos, Mustangs, Jaguars, and the like. You must have Rudi prepare a supper similar to that served to King Edward the Seventh, another member of the Frequent Bentley Society. The menu will include pressed beef, snipe, lobster, partridge, oysters, ptarmigan, truffles, quail, grouse, jellied eel, and lamb tongue; eight varieties of Persian melons; nectarines in French Sauternes; a selection of fruit jams and cream biscuits; four varieties of gently steamed vegetables, with their blossoms; and toasted almonds. For dessert you must offer persimmon flan, steamed quince pudding, and fruitcake (without walnuts, please! I’m allergic) soused in heirloom rum; and of course, have a generous quantity of alcoholic beverages on hand. Decor: I do love gondolas and harlequins! If you can get hold of a few tigers (on leashes, of course) to roam the grounds, that would be so exotic and stunning. I leave the music to you, but please hire at least a seventy-piece orchestra so that we can hear it. Have tons of gardenias, my very favorite flower. You may dispense with the relay races in the swimming pool, but please make the bowling alley available again for valets and personal attendants. Do not serve pepperoni pizza to them this time. Barbecue flown in from Dr. Hogly Wogly’s in Los Angeles would be ever so much better, with Pilsner Urquell in kegs. Please have the Delta Force snipers back in the trees for our protection, as there will be major jewelry in attendance. Following is a guest list. I have been up all night winnowing this down to four hundred. You should have no problem hand-delivering the invitations, as everyone on it resides within two hundred miles of Las Vegas. I advise you to construct a raised dais with soft lighting so that we may have an appropriate ceremony at the stroke of midnight. As you know, I will be joining Caleb in Normandy tomorrow as he purchases Ethelred the Unready’s suit of armor. I will be back in Las Vegas only briefly before leaving for a long-overdue vacation to Algeria. Therefore my only available date for Masqueradia Dusiana will be seven days from now, at eight in the evening. I so look forward to seeing how you fare with this large-scale effort, Leigh, and hope that with Cosmo’s help, you will be not only the toast of the town, but also the newest member of the Las Vegas Country Club. With affection, Dusi. P.S. Very important: this must be a surprise party!’“
