by Amanda Brown
Pippa’s cell phone rang. “Start lunch,” Thayne commanded. “Is something wrong?” Pippa asked. Her mother sounded unusually stressed.
“Damn traffic!” Thayne hung up.
Pippa instructed the waiters to bring on the meal. The first course consisted of tiny mounds of buffalo tartare on transparent wafers. Each bridesmaid received two. The second course was a pair of rather small lobster tacos.
“Will Lance’s mother be coming?” Cora asked, still hoping to gather critical information on the groomsmen.
“Of course,” Pippa said. “Mama’s probably picking her up this minute.”
“Who else isn’t here?” Cora persisted, staring at the six empty seats. “Besides Ginny.”
“Two reporters. And Wyeth McCoy.”
Across the table, Kimberly shuddered: Wyeth, her archenemy. She should have brought some arsenic for his wine. “Maybe his Hummer fell into a sinkhole.”
Now that they didn’t have to behave like proper ingénues for Mrs. Henderson and Mrs. Walker, nine bridesmaids miraculously located flasks of vodka in their purses. The table was acquiring a nice buzz when the doors swung open and Ginny, the missing bridesmaid, entered. Despite her black and white striped top hat, red polka dot bow tie, and wild orange plaid jacket, she looked as elegant as Greta Garbo. “Sorry I’m late.” She found her seat next to Pippa. “Getting nervous?”
Pippa laughed. “I’m too busy to even think about it.”
“That’s the whole point.” Ginny snickered at the costumes the nine other bridesmaids were wearing. They looked like a coven of demented Freemasons. “Whose Mad Hatter idea was this anyway?” She turned to Kimberly. “Yours, I bet.”
Kimberly kicked herself for not bringing two doses of poison. “Thank you.”
Ginny stared at the two buffalo crackers on her plate. “This is lunch?”
“That’s your starter.” Steffani couldn’t take her eyes off Ginny. Something was wrong, even in the flattering light of the dining room. “May I ask what you did to your hair?”
“I got it cut.” Ginny beckoned a waiter. “Whatever you just served for the main course, could you bring me two plates of it? I’m starving.” “So are we,” nine voices chimed in.
“In that case bring nine more plates. My treat. And bring it fast, before Thayne gets here.”
“Ginny! Take off your hat!” Steffani called.
Ginny obliged, revealing a pixie that showed off her neck to perfection. “Something wrong?” she asked, amused at the surrounding looks of horror.
“Omigosh, Thayne’s going to kill you. Six inches minimum was in the contract! You signed it!” “Oops. Guess I forgot.”
Even Pippa looked worried. Ginny had always been a free spirit, but this was pushing the limits of independence. Hopefully Brent would think of a fix before Thayne saw the damage.
“Are you making some sort of statement, dear?” Hazel drawled.
“No, I’m leaving for an expedition right after the wedding.” Ginny loved taking trips to jungles and deserts and other horrible places with giant bugs and no electricity. Although a triple legacy to Kappa Kappa Gamma, she hadn’t even rushed, an aberration that made her little above a leper in the bridesmaids’ eyes. After her first debutante ball, she had never been seen in a gown again—until now. No one could understand what Pippa saw in Ginny.
“You mean you won’t make it to the reception?” Cora asked.
“Correct. My plane leaves at eight and flies directly to Costa Rica. I have to be at camp by midnight to see the kinkajous feeding in the trees.”
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.”
Three
Rosimund 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.