School of Fortune

by Amanda Brown

  At the stroke of five the bridal entourage convened in front of the hotel. Since Thayne had forbidden pantsuits for the rehearsal, each young lady now sported a skimpy cocktail dress and very high heels. Their attire delighted the crowd gawking from the veranda. As onlookers cheered and flashbulbs exploded, the girls ducked into the first of three stretch limos waiting at the curb.

  “Debbie Buntz offered me four thousand dollars for an A-list invitation,” bragged Chardonnay, passing around her flask of vodka. “I said there was nothing I could do. That old bag didn’t invite me to her Sadie Hawkins dance last fall.”

  “Roxie Hooper offered me ten grand and a week at Canyon Ranch.” Francesca rapped on the window separating her from the driver. “Do you have a pair of scissors up there? This is an emergency.”

  A hirsute hand passed a pair of nail clippers through the aperture. Francesca snipped the spaghetti straps off her lime green cocktail dress. She disposed of the straps and the clipper whence it had come. “Where’s Pippa? And Kimberly? Traffic is horrible on Friday night.”

  Hazel could not take her eyes off Ginny, who looked scrumptious in a teal taffeta frock that hugged her every curve. “Is that a wig?” she finally asked.

  “No, I’ve been drinking Rogaine,” Ginny replied pleasantly.

  Pippa finally arrived wearing a vintage yellow chiffon princess gown. She looked pale but totally exquisite. “Thanks for waiting.”

  “Where’d you find that fantastic dress?”

  “It was my mother’s.” That went over like a pie in the face.

  “Where’d you get the necklace?” Steffani asked with a slight note of accusation. She had always wanted a choker of graduated diamonds. “Lance again?”

  “It was my grandmother’s.” Pippa looked around the white leather seats. “Where’s Kimberly? She was in my room five minutes ago, all set to go.”

  “Omigosh, here come the Hendersons,” Cora squealed.

  The limo almost tipped over as nine bridesmaids surged to one side to get a better glance at Lance, his parents, and little sister Arabella boarding the vehicle behind them. “Pinch me. I must be dreaming,” Leah murmured as her nose left a smudge on the glass.

  Outside, several scantily clad women broke through the restraining barriers as Lance walked by. “You’re going to put up with that the rest of your life?” Ginny asked as he stopped to sign autographs.

  Seeing the disdain in Lance’s smile as he scribbled in their football schedules, Pippa felt infinitely better. “If he can, I guess I can.”

  The Henderson entourage had all boarded the second limousine when Thayne emerged from the hotel, cell phone at her ear. She was accompanied by husband, Robert, back from a few last holes at the golf course. Robert held his wife’s Judith Leiber handbag, a second cell phone, and a Ferragamo tote stuffed with emergency supplies. Kimberly walked at Thayne’s right side.

  “Is she trying to sneak someone onto the A list?” Charlotte frowned.

  In fact, moving some third-rater onto the A list was far down Kimberly’s list of priorities. Five minutes ago Pippa had told her Wyeth

  McCoy had been replaced; Kimberly had immediately seized her chance to rearrange the bridal procession. She had contrived to bump into Thayne in the lobby and was now waiting for her to get off the phone. Finally Thayne did so. “What a pretty dress, Kimberly,” she said. “Outrageously short, however.”

  “The cleaners must have shrunk it.” The dress was brand-new. “Could I have a word with you about the procession, Mrs. Walker?”

  “Is there a problem?”

  “I just wanted you to know that I can move twenty-two inches a second like clockwork. I guess that’s because I have a lower center of gravity than the other girls.”

  “Yes, we’re quite aware of that.” Kimberly’s lack of height had almost eliminated her from the bridal party. Thayne ripped the other cell phone out of her husband’s hand. She had four missed calls on that line. “Please get to the point.”

  “I think it’s crucial that I lead the procession. Ginny’s sense of coordination may not be as sharp as it was at lunchtime.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “Well, maybe she can walk a straight line after drinking a bottle of cherry vodka. I know I couldn’t.”

  Thayne’s cell phone rang. It was Cedric reporting that the organist had just fallen off the stage extension and sprained his wrist. They were calling replacements but so far had gotten nothing but answering machines. “Get into your limo, Kimberly,” Thayne snapped. “I’ll sort this out later.”

  “A few of the other bridesmaids have been drinking, too,” Kimberly added for insurance. Thayne would have thirty minutes en route to Meyerson Center to chew this distressing cud. “Only Pippa and I are totally sober, and Pippa certainly can’t go in first.”

  Mission accomplished, Kimberly dove into the bridesmaids’ limo. “Sorry, guys! I forgot to spray myself with Eau de Thayne.” Unscrewing her flask, she swallowed several ounces of vodka.

  As their limousine transported them through Dallas, the bridesmaids fixed their makeup, drank, and grilled Pippa about her honeymoon to a secret location: first one to snitch to the newspapers would earn several thousand dollars. Pippa revealed nothing, but she didn’t even know where she’d be spending her honeymoon. She and Lance would be boarding the Henderson jet and taking off for destinations unknown. A gift from Rosimund.

  Engrossed in discussion, no one noticed Thayne’s limo shooting ahead of them in traffic. By the time the bridesmaids arrived at Meyerson Center, Thayne had already been there ten minutes. The young ladies were met in the lobby by a tall, humorless chap in tails who introduced himself as Cedric, the new wedding coordinator. A forty-year veteran of drunken orgies, Cedric could immediately see that the bridesmaids had arrived even more inebriated than had the groomsmen.

  “Where are the boys, Cedric?” Leah asked, tottering ever so slightly (or so she thought) on her high heels.

  “In the rear lounge, madam. Drinking coffee as fast as they can swallow it.” Cedric eyed the shortest woman in the entourage. “Kimberly?”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Please walk from here to there at twenty-two inches per second.” Cedric assessed her progress. “Attention! Mrs. Walker has requested a change in the order of procession. Bridesmaids will now enter the auditorium beginning with the shortest and ending with the tallest. Kindly rearrange yourselves as I fetch the gentlemen. We will pair up and proceed with the rehearsal.”

  Cedric disappeared for ten long minutes. He had not foreseen that one third of Lance’s friends would be seriously passed out.

  Meanwhile, affairs were not proceeding well in the auditorium. The replacement organist was there but had forgotten reading glasses in his rush to leave home. Thayne had ordered the back lights turned down so low that the orchestra couldn’t read their music, either. The officiating Reverend Mark Alcott, who owned four evangelical television stations and was considered the Protestant equivalent of a cardinal, had a bad cold and would have to confine his mellifluous baritone to a whisper. Only one brass quintet had arrived, dressed in jeans and scruffy T-shirts instead of the dark business suits Thayne had requested. As the two boy pages played a rough game of tag, the ring bearer was frantically crawling under the auditorium seats trying to find the ring that had just rolled off his satin pillow. The bell choir was rehearsing, badly, a twenty-second intermezzo Thayne had commissioned John Williams to write for that magical moment when Lance would kiss his new bride.

  Thayne was ricocheting between mishaps, shouting into a bullhorn, as Rosimund and Lyman Henderson made their way up the aisle to the front row of the auditorium. After a few seconds in her seat, Rosimund raised her hand. “Thayne! Oh, Thayne, dear!”

  Thayne walked swiftly over. She was dismayed to find Rosimund wearing a tiara with her red pantsuit. “Yes, Rosimund? What can I do for you?”

  “I’m afraid this seat is unacceptable. I’m so close to the extension that I’l
l have a terrible crick in my neck by the end of the ceremony.”

  “Would you rather sit halfway back in the auditorium?”

  Rosimund pointed to the first tier of boxes, where visiting Windsors or Ross Perot would be placed. “I think that would be a suitable location for the mother of the groom.”

  “I’m so sorry. I’ve put a brass quintet there.”

  “Is that so? Who are those five ruffians with tubas on the edge of the stage?”

  “One of the quintets. There are two.”

  A tremendous crash nearly caused Thayne to drop her bullhorn. A chorus riser had just collapsed, flooding the percussion section with sopranos. The orchestra manager hurtled onstage to tell Thayne that, due to union rules, the rear of the stage had to be evacuated while the risers were repaired. Everything should be back in position in fifteen minutes. “You don’t understand,” Thayne screamed into her bullhorn although the man was not an arm’s length away. “We’re already thirteen minutes late. The entire bridal party must be at Texas Stadium in one hour for a nationally televised broadcast on E!”

  The manager merely shrugged: no one argued with the union.

  Outside in the lobby, Cedric had finally rousted the groomsmen from the lavatory and herded them upstairs. He was pairing them off with the bridesmaids according to a list Wyeth had bequeathed to him. Kimberly’s euphoria at being first was deflated by the discovery that she would walk up the aisle with the homeliest guy in sight, a middle-aged turkey with a mangy mustache and potbelly. His name was Woody and he appeared to be completely, disgustingly, sober.

  “And what might be your relation to the groom?” she asked.

  Woody gazed with pity at Kimberly’s cleavage. She had freakishly large breasts for a woman of her height. “I’m Lance’s physical therapist,” he replied.

  “So you’ve seen him naked, you lucky shit.”

  He pretended not to have heard. “I haven’t seen so many French twists since Gigi.”

  Kimberly looked desperately around the lobby. Ginny, now tenth instead of first in line, would process down the aisle alone since Rosimund had provided only nine groomsmen. Too late Kimberly realized that entering last, in solitary splendor, would have been infinitely better than walking down the aisle with Woody. Worse, the eight other couples were chatting comfortably arm in arm. Half of them looked like they were already going steady. Kimberly felt like killing someone. “Excuse me, Woody.”

  She went to the ladies’ room and finished every last drop of vodka in her flask.

  Four

  The worse the rehearsal, the better the performance: if that axiom were true, Pippa’s wedding would be flawless. Despite her bullhorn, Thayne was nearly hoarse by the time the chorus, symphony, bell choir, and brass quintets had regrouped following the collapse of the risers. When the musicians were finally tuned and ready to go, she repaired to the vestibule with Rosimund. Sight of the two matriarchs marching down the aisle toward them struck terror in the bridesmaids. Within seconds drunken strumpets became demure damsels standing in a line. The groomsmen apishly followed suit.

  Thayne paused to sniff the air in the lobby: was that beer or her perfume? Madame Ricci had advised her it would smell different on other people, and she was absolutely right. Thayne’s frown deepened as she observed the indecently exposed flesh on parade.

  Rosimund didn’t help by commenting, “I feel as if we’re in a bordello.”

  “At least they’re not wearing crowns with pants. Are we ready to process, everyone?” “Yes, Mrs. Walker!”

  Thayne sensed something odd about the young couples. They seemed to be propping each other up. Aha: the high heels. The girls hadn’t eaten since lunch and were probably feeling dizzy. “We’ll be at dinner in no time,” she announced. “Where is Pippa?”

  “She’s getting her train reattached,” Kimberly replied. “One of the harness straps broke.”

  “Are we ready to begin back there?” Cedric’s voice boomed from the front of the auditorium.

  “Yes,” Thayne shouted back through her bullhorn. The music began. “Tommy! Come here.”

  Tommy, the ring bearer, was a professional child actor. After scouring every possible cousin in the Walker family and failing to find a boy four feet tall with curly blond hair and excellent deportment, Wyeth McCoy had called a talent agency in Hollywood. Although he looked six years old, Tommy was actually thirteen. He had been smoking heavily for the last few years in order to stunt his growth. Thayne told everyone he was a third cousin once removed.

  “Where is the groom’s ring?” Thayne cried in horror, spying only one band on the pillow.

  “It got lost.” Bored with all the waiting, Tommy had tried it on. That’s when it had slipped through his fingers and rolled away.

  Rosimund clucked in disappointment. A Henderson would have chopped off his right arm before letting go of that ring. “Wherever did you find this boy, Thayne?”

  Thayne knelt beside the lad. Was she hallucinating or had he been smoking? “Where did this accident happen, Tommy?”

  “Somewhere around there.” He pointed.

  “Where is the f-ing mother of the groom?” Cedric fulminated from the other end of the hall. “You’re fifteen seconds behind the music.”

  Rosimund clamped her hands over little Arabella’s ears. “Such language! Please tell that man to control himself!”

  “Cedric, we’ve lost a ring,” Thayne called.

  “I don’t care if you’ve lost your f-ing cat, send the mother of the groom out NOW.” Cedric instructed the orchestra to start over again.

  Rosimund rehearsed walking from the rear of the auditorium to her front row seat on the groom’s side while gazing beatifically at her son, Lance, who was waiting onstage with the Reverend Alcott. It was a very heady experience. Then Cedric shouted, “Thayne! Get your ass on the carpet! What’s taking so g-damn long?”

  “Is that man insane?” Rosimund fumed to her husband. “This is a holy occasion.”

  Lyman put aside his Robb Report devoted to motorcycles. “He’s working with raw recruits, darlin’. Cut him a little slack.” Lyman returned to the magazine.

  Thayne now paraded up the aisle and seated herself in the front row, bride’s side. She was breathless with excitement and had to restrain herself not to ask Cedric if she could try that once again, just to be sure she got it right.

  “Ring bearer! Where’s the little prick?” Cedric barked into his bullhorn.

  “I just fired him,” Thayne called upstage.

  A voice across the aisle intoned, “You fired your own third cousin once removed?”

  “Yes, Rosimund, I did.” Thayne returned her attention to Cedric. “Let’s keep moving.”

  “Pages! Flower girl! Where’s the flower girl?”

  Back in the lobby, Kimberly roughly pushed little Arabella into the auditorium. Besides being saddled with the homeliest groomsman, Kimberly had just discovered that the cutest girl on earth, Lance’s wee sister, would be preceding her up the aisle. Rosimund had been rehearsing Arabella for months because this wedding was, in a sense, her daughter’s debut in society. Arabella instinctively rose to the occasion; when she dug her little gloved hand into her basket of rose petals and strewed them in the air, she could have stolen the show from Judy Garland, Shirley Temple, and the Olsen twins combined.

  “Bridesmaid one! Come out!”

  Kimberly could only smile, pretend her escort was George Clooney, and concentrate on walking toward the stage at a steady twenty-two inches per second.

  “Are you intoxicated?” Woody whispered as they were halfway into the hall. “You seem to be having difficulty keeping to the middle of the aisle.”

  “Shut up, you disgusting troll.”

  “I detect hostility in your voice, Kimberly. Are you unhappy with some element of your life?”

  “Silence,” shouted Cedric from a distance. “You’re not at the f-ing movies.”

  “Where did you find that chimney sweep?” Rosimund asked
Thayne in a stage whisper heard above the entire Dallas Symphony. “If he continues using such foul language, I will have no choice but to take Arabella home.”

  “Cedric, please!” Thayne rasped. “Do dukes and duchesses talk like this?”

  “Where do you think I learned it, madam? Attention! Rear of the hall! Where is the next pair of attendants?”

  That would be Cora, currently sharing her first kiss with partner Denny. They finally separated when Cedric threatened to perform an instant clitorectomy with the Leatherman in his pocket.

  “Thayne, really,” Rosimund reprimanded. “You must dismiss that beast at once.”

  “And replace him with?”

  “We know several generals at Fort Hood. Any or all could be here within the hour.”

  “This is Dallas, not Baghdad. Continue, Cedric. Please temper your language.”

  Cedric continued to issue marching orders amid avalanches of shocking profanity. Unable to stand it anymore, the Reverend Alcott finally tore the bullhorn from Cedric’s mouth and stomped it to an electronic pancake, to show Cedric what would happen to him in the afterlife if he continued using F, G, and C words. He then held Cedric in a viselike grip and commenced quite a long private prayer that was broadcast throughout the auditorium thanks to the microphone on his lapel.

  Cedric finally broke loose. He was pleased to see that the entire bridal party had arrived during the Reverend Alcott’s tête-à-tête with the Almighty. “Pippa! Up the aisle!” he shouted.