School of Fortune

by Amanda Brown

  “I’ll see what I can do. It depends on Moss’s schedule. I’m his valet, not Leigh’s.” Cole removed his mitts. She really had the most adorable neck. He was dying to take a small bite out of it. “I’m also the referee,” he said as the backyard shouts amplified. “See you later, Cosmo.”

  Pippa went upstairs to the study in search of the guest list. All she could find on Leigh’s desk was a sheaf of handwritten pages, each containing four columns. The first column listed names like Harriet, Cornelia, Ardelle, Golda, Miri. The second list contained names like Tata, Checkers, Puzo, Oshkosh, and Nutkin. The third listed breeds like dachshund, pug, Portuguese water hound, bichon frise, and shar-pei. The fourth column listed numbers with long tails of zeros. Many entries were marked with asterisks, arrows, highlighter, and “very important.”

  “Cosmo?”

  Pippa nearly shrieked in fright. “Hello, signora. I was just looking for the guest list.”

  Leigh had changed into a flimsy Karan wraparound. The jewelry and metallic high heels didn’t add much gravitas. Neither did the fluffy white dog in her arms. “Have you met the star of the show? Say hello to my adorable Titian.”

  Leigh’s bichon frise tried to bite Pippa’s hand. He hated mustaches.

  “Bad boy! He’s always so irritable when he gets back from the stylist.”

  Pippa rubbed the jagged scratch on her thumb. “As I was saying, signora, I’m looking for the guest list.”

  “You’re holding it.” Leigh passed a slender finger over the columns. “Name of guest, name of dog, breed of dog, guest net worth. I’ve been studying it for weeks.”

  “What do the asterisks mean?”

  “Those women belong to the Las Vegas Country Club. I have to pay particular attention to them. It’s very important I make a great impression or they’ll blackball me. That would be a catastrophe.”

  “Are you sure? Very few people with shar-peis are even worth knowing. And how many people are actually coming? Where’s your RSVP list?”

  “It was regrets only and I haven’t gotten a single one.” “You really have three hundred friends?”

  “Let’s just say three hundred women are curious to see my house. Do you think they’ll like it, Cosmo? I’ve been decorating for months.”

  “Of course they’ll like it. It’s a knockout.” Pippa handed Leigh the list for further study. “I presume you have a decent sponsor at the club.”

  “Yes, yes. You’ll meet her tomorrow. She’s wonderful. Knows everyone. She helped me make the guest list.” Leigh was thrilled to hear what Pippa had planned in the way of entertainment. She didn’t ask what anything had cost and, after that fight in the kitchen, Pippa didn’t dare tell her. “I’m so glad you’re here, Cosmo. You’re a pro.”

  “I was recently involved in a large-scale event. By comparison this is a walk in the park.” Door prizes, Pippa wrote to herself on a nearby notepad. Personalized pooper scoopers studded with Swarovski crystals.

  Leigh had to rush off to a luncheon followed by a tea party, cocktail party, and dinner party, all with various members of the country club. At the door she abruptly stopped. “Is this dress okay?”

  “You have excellent legs. No one will notice anything else.”

  Leigh got the message. “Would you help me pick an outfit tomorrow?”

  “I’d be delighted. Go enjoy yourself now, signora.”

  Pippa was awakened at seven the next morning by shouts, a splintering crash, and a splash. She threw on her clothes and mustache and rushed to the kitchen. Rudi was cranking out hundreds of teeny-weeny chocolate cookies. Cole was calmly reading a newspaper. “What happened?” Pippa cried.

  Cole looked up from the Money section. “Leigh threw a chair through a window into the Jacuzzi. With Moss in the Jacuzzi.”

  “And you’re just sitting there?”

  “I’m his valet, not his force field.” Cole tried not to stare at her very nice calves. “Sleep well, Cosmo?”

  “Yes, thank you.” Pippa had conked out around eight. “Why did she throw a chair through the window?”

  “She found an earring in Moss’s shirt pocket.”

  “How’d it get there?” A shrug. “You’re with him all day long. You should know.”

  “I drive his car, Cosmo. I don’t follow him inside.”

  Pippa ran to the Jacuzzi. Moss was still in the water. So was a Bie-dermeier chair. There was glass all over the patio. “Are you all right, Signor Bowes?”

  He ended a cell phone chat. “Heads up. She’s not done yet.”

  Another chair flew out the bedroom window. This one landed on top of the tent in just the right spot to dislodge a critical support pole. Pippa watched in dismay as the whole thing collapsed to the ground. “Nice shot, darling,” Moss called, stepping out of the pool.

  “Sir! Please!” Pippa averted her eyes. “You’re naked!”

  “What’s the problem?” Moss didn’t understand. If Cosmo were a straight guy, sight of another naked guy would mean nothing. If Cosmo were a gay guy, he was getting a great peep show for nothing.

  “We’re expecting deliveries,” was all Pippa could say.

  “I presume the doorbell works.” Moss shook the glass out of a pair of clogs and sauntered into the house.

  Pippa fished the Biedermeier chair out of the roiling Jacuzzi, then returned to the kitchen. “Where’s Kerry?” she asked Cole, annoyed. He had told her this place was totally fine.

  “She never gets up before ten. It’s in her contract.”

  “She knows damn well that twenty people are showing up at ten.” Pippa went and pounded on her door. “Kerry!” No answer. She tried the doorknob. Kerry lay in bed, snoring robustly. Pippa shook her doughy shoulders. “Get up.”

  “Wha’ you wan.’“

  “I need your help.” Snore. “Five hundred bucks if you’re in the kitchen in five minutes.”

  A porcine eye opened. “You’re a pain in the ass, Cosmo.”

  “Thanks. I knew I could count on you.” On the threshold Pippa stepped on something round and hard: a pearl earring. She tossed it onto Kerry’s dresser. “Four minutes.”

  She removed the second Biedermeier chair from the lake of canvas and briskly swept the patio. Thousands of last-minute details were streaming through her brain; she should have gotten up at four to tend to them all. The moment Kerry made an appearance Pippa herded her, Rudi, and Cole to the backyard and told them which ropes to pull: the tent juddered upward. Pippa replaced the main pole and bashed the stakes into the ground with an All-Clad skillet.

  “Where’d you learn that?” Cole demanded.

  “Girl Scouts.” Damn! “Boy Scouts. Are you going to grill the tuna or not? The party starts at noon. We eat at one.”

  “I’ll be here.” Cole left to drive Moss to work.

  Doorbell: HVAC for the tent. The sous chefs and place setters arrived. The florists and three judges from the Westminster Kennel Club arrived. Every few minutes someone delivered a case of wine, a massive bouquet, a basket of soaps, a tin of caviar, chocolates, a Smithfield ham, and so on: “For Titian” from Wooki, Pepper, Oodles, and so on. Pippa set up a gift exhibit in one of the ballrooms. The set designer from the Luxor arrived with a dozen fiberglass fire hydrants; Pippa put him to work making review stands and a replica of Hyde Park. For three hours she ran around in a frenzy, then suddenly realized she hadn’t bought any game prizes. She tore upstairs. “Signora Bowes! How are you doing?”

  Leigh had been in seclusion studying the guest list. Her cramming had not been assisted by the crew of six installing a new bedroom window. “Everything is mush,” she moaned.

  “Don’t worry about it. We’ve got name tags for the dogs. I’ll get the women so smashed on zombies they won’t remember their bra size. Where did you get Titian combed out yesterday?”

  “Canossal.”

  Pippa got them to deliver ten five-hundred-dollar gift certificates. “Okay. Let’s take care of you.” Pippa dragged Leigh into her suite of closets
. “Show me what you’re thinking of wearing.”

  A skintight white leather jumpsuit with fringe, red sequin sling-backs, red sequin cowboy hat. “That’s a bit much,” Pippa said. Leigh looked so hurt that she quickly added, “For midday.” Pippa swished through hundreds of outfits. Nothing in the closet didn’t involve sequins, feathers, snakeskin, or rhinestones: Moss must have singlehand-edly skinned all the snakes, birds, and cows in the Third World.

  “Have you got a pair of jeans? Plain jeans?” Yes, thank God. Pippa raided Moss’s closet and found a white silk shirt handmade in Milan. “Here’s your top.” For the feet, a pair of pink Capezio T-straps.

  “But those are dancing shoes,” Leigh cried, horrified.

  “You’re a good dancer, aren’t you? Flaunt it.” Pippa looked at her watch. “I’ve got to change. Choose your own belt. Make sure it fits in the jeans loops.”

  “What about my hair?” Leigh cried.

  “Ponytail and baseball cap at most. Not more than one necklace, one bracelet, and one ring. Not more than two-carat earrings. You want to show you have nothing to prove.”

  “But I have everything to prove,” Leigh whimpered.

  “Stop it! Trust me. The doorbell’s going to start ringing in half an hour.” Pippa charged downstairs. Cole was out with Moss, so the coast was clear in the bathroom. She hastily showered and changed into a fresh uniform. She noted with concern that her mustache was beginning to fray around the edges, not to mention that the glue was beginning to irritate her upper lip. Fortunately Olivia had packed her a wide sombrero made by Yves Saint Laurent, for summering in Bogota. It would provide shadow cover.

  Pippa tore through the ballrooms at Casa Bowes: tables set, balloons aloft, Poussin lit. Gifts ready for viewing. Zombies mixed. Dog show, Hyde Park, pawprint studio set up in tent. Canapes and caterers ready in kitchen. Bowling alley set. Nine thousand bucks of tuna on ice. Pippa called the Olympic Committee: buff swimmer en route. Kerry had managed to comb her hair and change into a fresh polo shirt. Leigh came downstairs looking like a million bucks despite the apricot sequined belt. Even Titian looked happy. Pippa smiled: this was almost as good as being back at Fleur-de-Lis. “I’m nervous,” Leigh said.

  Pippa brought her a sip of zombie. “You drink nothing but water until the last labradoodle leaves, understand? Now come to the door and greet your guests. I’m right behind you.”

  At the stroke of one the doorbell rang. “Hi, darling!” Leigh said, embracing a woman in a Miu Miu suit and matching maize hat, gloves, shoes, and purse. She wore more jewelry than had Queen Elizabeth at her coronation. “You look beautiful.”

  The woman couldn’t bring herself to return the compliment. She and her English bull terrier on a titanium chain leash stepped inside. “Those doors are too dark, Leigh. You should have done the birch stain, as I recommended.”

  Pippa felt the wind go right out of Leigh’s sails. Who was this insufferable bag? “Birch stain is generally considered inappropriate for Bolivian rosewood, madam.”

  The woman gasped. “And who might this be?”

  Leigh remained paralyzed so Pippa replied, “Cosmo du Piche, majordomo and personal bodyguard to Signora Bowes.”

  “Do you know who I am, young man?”

  What a bore. And what a grotesque face-lift. “I believe you are one of three hundred guests who will be enjoying a wonderful afternoon at Casa Bowes.” Pippa took the leash from the woman’s gloved hand. “I see that both you and General Patton have similar taste in dogs.”

  “Well, I never! Is this the best that woman in Aspen could come up with, Leigh?”

  Leigh shivered to life. “Cosmo, I’d like you to meet my sponsor and the woman who has made this afternoon possible. Dusi Damon.”

  Seventeen

  Dusi Damon! Thayne’s college roommate! Pippa couldn’t have been any more stunned had Leigh introduced her to Lucrezia Borgia. She hadn’t seen the Damons in years. Dusi looked nothing like the broad-bummed, ball-nosed brunette Pippa remembered. Dusi was now a whippety blonde with gigantic breasts, high cheekbones, and the ghoulishly bisque complexion of the Heubach Koppelsdorf dolls that she flitted all over the world collecting. Pippa kicked herself for not recognizing Dusi’s famous pink diamond ring sooner. “Enchanté.” She bowed as condescendingly as possible: Thayne had always maintained that Dusi respected nothing but bullion and bullies. “So you are Signora Bowes’s sponsor.”

  “Yes. I am chair of the membership committee at the Las Vegas Country Club.” One would think she had just split the atom.

  “Allow me to accompany you to the bar. You look parched.”

  “And my Giorgio?” Dusi’s bodyguard.

  “We’ve organized a luncheon for the bodyguards in the bowling alley. You’ll be quite safe without him. I’ve placed five Delta Force snipers in the trees surrounding Casa Bowes.” Pippa did not light the cigarette Dusi had just stuck in an Art Deco holder. “Or if you prefer,

  Giorgio can go back to your car and wait in the hundred-degree heat for the next four hours.”

  “Oh, go to the bowling alley,” Dusi grudgingly told the man. “Consider it vacation time.”

  “I’ll be right back, Signora Bowes,” Pippa told an aghast Leigh.

  Dusi needed a few moments to compose herself as Cosmo chaperoned her down the hallway. Hermaphrodites had always fascinated her. This exotic creature looked like a cross between Truman Capote, Elle McPherson, and Ali Baba. Within twenty-four hours of arrival, he was obviously very much in charge of Casa Bowes, and he knew it. Cosmo had not remotely attempted to address her deferentially, or even as an equal, but as her superior! Not even Caleb, Dusi’s husband, had the temerity to try that. “Where did that woman find you, Cosmo?”

  “Are you referring to my great friend Olivia Villarubia-Thistleberry, whose name you’ve obviously forgotten?”

  “Of course, who else?” Chagrined, Dusi repeated, “Where did she find you?”

  “That is privileged information.” Pippa collected a glass of punch from the bartender. “Salut.”

  Hypnotized, Dusi not only failed to remind Cosmo that she drank absolutely nothing but martinis, but drained the zombie in one go. Pippa refilled her glass. “I suggest you see the new Poussin in the fourth ballroom before the crowds get too thick. What is the name of your English bull terrier?”

  “Kappa.”

  “As in Kappa Kappa Gamma? By the way, smoking is only permitted outside on the patio.” Pippa left Dusi openmouthed at the bar. She unhanded Kappa to one of the Westminster Kennel judges and returned to the front door. “How’s everything holding up, signora?”

  “Cosmo, I admire your bravado, but Dusi is not to be crossed. Without her, I’m toast.”

  “You might think this odd, but she loves getting slapped around. I have decades of experience with the personality.”

  “Do we really have Delta Force snipers in the trees?”

  “There’s nothing up there but locusts.” Vehicles were beginning to congest the driveway “Make sure you fuss more over the dogs than you do over the women, And don’t neglect the bodyguards.”

  “Omigod,” Leigh quivered. “Look. They’re all wearing suits and pearls. I’m wearing jeans and a baseball cap.”

  “Perfect! This is a birthday party for a dog, not the Mayflower Ball. Don’t introduce me to anyone. Don’t even look at me. I’m wallpaper.”

  “That’s a stretch, Cosmo.”

  “Shhh! Don’t even pretend to know their names. Let them think their names weren’t important enough to remember in the first place.” Pippa hung around the front door for the first hundred or so arrivals. Leigh eventually got the hang of antipretension. Where was Cole? Moss? They should have been here at noon, schmoozing and grilling their butts off. Someone will always let you down. Have a Plan B.

  Pippa strolled through the chattering crowd, happy to see that Leigh’s guests appeared well on the way to zombosis. The bodyguards in the bowling alley were already cracking their second keg. There was a g
reat fuss around the three Westminster Kennel judges and Big Bird in the pawprint atelier. Way more women had lined up to see the three gigantic tuna on ice than did to see Moss’s Poussin in the ballroom. Rudi was playing to the crowd, opening oven doors to a chorus of oohs and aahs as he removed sheet after sheet of tartlets. “Not for you!” he kept shouting, slapping away gem-cluttered hands. Everyone thought he was kidding.

  Pippa again returned to the front door. Most of the guests had arrived; Cole and Moss had not. “Where’s your husband?” she asked Leigh.

  “I couldn’t care less where he is. Does that bastard really expect me to believe he has no idea how an earring got into his shirt pocket?”

  “Maybe he picked it up off the sidewalk.”

  “And it was such a cheap pearl stud! So common!”

  “You would prefer it was a sapphire? Cole promised to grill the tuna. My timetable is edging into Code Red.” Pippa whipped out her phone. “Dial your husband, signora. Now.”

  Moss answered on the first ring. “Yeah?”

  “Where are you, Signor Bowes?”

  “Trying to earn your fee. Sixty-five grand, if I remember correctly.” “If you don’t get here in ten minutes, we’re going to steam three large bluefin tuna in your Jacuzzi. I mean it.”

  Pippa hung up as a taxi braked beneath the portico. A sleek young man in an Izod warm-up suit skipped up the steps. “I understand there’s a meet here today.”

  Pippa blanched. She had not expected the winner of about twenty gold medals at the 2004 summer Olympics. “Thank you for coming, Mr. Phelps. I see you have a sense of humor.”

  “What happens here, stays here.” Pippa didn’t get the joke so he continued, “Actually I was in town, so the committee sent me over.”

  Pippa decided to start the swim meet. She brought Phelps to the pool, explained the situation as honestly as possible, and promised to finish in an hour. It didn’t take long for word to get out that Michael Phelps happened to be paddling around Leigh’s pool and would be available to sign autographs at a thousand bucks a pop after the swim meet. For two thousand a pop he would pose for pictures, all proceeds to benefit the Olympic Committee. He was a wonderful sport. The dogs were wonderful sports. After an hour, Phelps had raised a hundred grand and was still going strong. The ladies were beside themselves.