by Amanda Brown
Judy had met Edward Kirkland in Chatham, on Cape Cod, last summer at the MSPCA Shag, an event honoring lifesaving pets of the beach patrol. A former art history major from Connecticut College, Judy honed in on museum events, where she could impress attendees with her depth of analysis. She had dated Edward only once since they met, but felt intensely connected to him on a cultural level. She thought he possessed a deep and sensitive soul, and with his Harvard degree she was sure he would make an excellent lifemate for someone as intelligent as she.
Judy was a D-cup, probably a size thirty-eight even after the reduction. She had trouble finding an Armani to fit, but lucked out when she found his Orient collection at Bergdorf’s. A luxuriously embroidered evening jacket and wide-legged pants suited her perfectly, and she walked around the gallery as physically and psychically comfortable as if she were wearing her pajamas. Cradling her chardonnay in a neatly manicured hand, she turned her knowledgeable gaze around the rotunda, deciding which feature of the permanent collection cried out for Italian ceramics as a backdrop. Her eye caught her college classmate, Bunny Stirrup.
“Bunnykins!” she called out, with the false note of sisterhood.
“Jude!” Bunny embraced her.
“You look beautiful,” said Judy. “But I didn’t know it was a costume party!” She laughed, pointing at Bunny’s princess crown.
“Well, why did you dress like a majarishi then?” Bunny said through her teeth.
Judy’s face fell.
“It’s from Armani’s Orient collection,” Judy began. She paused to remind herself—I am valuable—as she had learned in her assertiveness training class.
“The maharajas inspired his fall collection, dear,” Judy said, gaining confidence as she took a scholarly tone. “With their great spiritual wealth.”
“Yes, yes,” Bunny chirped. “Blessed are the meek! I’ve got to run along. Give my best to…”
She paused, waiting for Judy to answer.
“Hmm?” she prompted.
“There’s nobody,” Judy answered at last. She shrugged, looking at the floor.
“I’m so sorry,” Bunny said, smiling viciously. “Ta ta!”
She hurried away with a dazzling smile. She thought she remembered a shrimp cocktail was set up in one of the tower galleries. No doubt Edward had found it by now.
She found him surrounded, as usual, by attentive ladies whom he charmed and flattered in turn. On the wall just behind him, Vasily Kandinsky’s colorful modernist painting Several Circles was on display. Bunny smiled with satisfaction. She knew what to say.
Secretly, and under cover of a red wig, Bunny had attended a series of lectures on the Guggenheim’s architecture and permanent collection in the eerie Peter B. Lewis amphitheater, a puffy auditorium that felt like the inside of a jewelry box. She had intended to drop her choice bon mots about the museum for Edward’s benefit.
“Hello, darling,” she said, elbowing through the hen party to kiss Edward’s lips.
“Hello, Bunny.” Edward smiled affably.
“You know Deb Norwich, Tina Volley,” Edward said, smiling at each in turn. Bunny nodded, her face set in a frozen smile.
“And Babs Stern—of course you know Babs,” he added, indicating the woman who stood closest to him.
“Dear of you to come and support us tonight,” Bunny said. She gathered Babs’ hand in her own to give her a little squeeze, then moved the woman away from Edward as she slid next to him, showing her back to Tina and Deb.
“Oh, the Kandinsky frames you wonderfully,” she said to Edward, edging backward to behold him in front of the painting, a move that caused the other women to shuffle back a bit further.
“It’s so appropriate here in this sensational building! The circle motif is ingenious, don’t you think? Geometric, but so supple, with such elegant plasticity.”
“You would know plastic,” said Tina, turning to leave.
Ignoring her, Bunny beheld Edward with adoring eyes.
“What do you think of the Kandinsky, darling? Those circles put me in mind of champagne bubbles, rising in a clear, chilled flute. Of course the thought of champagne always leads me to you! We have so much to celebrate,” she concluded, fluttering her lashes over a delighted gaze.
“It’s nice,” Edward said, turning to the painting. “It reminds me of a Lava Lamp.”
“A Lava Lamp?” Bunny repeated. Her voice had a scolding tone. Michael Straub, assistant curator for research, said nothing of Lava Lamps.
Babs and Deb, who lingered with their eyes on Edward, giggled.
“I like Lava Lamps,” Edward said.
Babs and Deb raced each other to agree.
Bunny smiled.
“That’s dear, Edward. We’ll put one in your playroom.” She stared coldly at his lady friends, who showed no signs of moving. She would have to move first.
“We’re clear for departure, darling,” said Bunny. She gripped Edward’s elbow, and flashed the women a lofty smile.
“We have a little part in the program tonight,” Bunny explained, running her free hand around Edward’s back, the better to steer him.
Babs and Deb rolled their eyes at each other.
“Ta ta, my darlings,” Bunny chirped, “we’ll wave from the podium!”
She led Edward out of the gallery, moving with quick steps down the spiral ramp that descended through seven floors of the museum. In the grand, open space of the atrium, more people would see them together.
“Bunny,” Edward said, stopping in the hall. “What’s the hurry?”
“How could you stand there with that disgusting Babs Stern?”
“What’s wrong with Babs? She’s a nice girl. I’ve known her forever. Listen, she’s racing her little Boston Whaler this weekend. She invited us out to Newport for the regatta.”
“Us?”
“Where I’m invited, you’re invited,” he said, sidestepping the question with grace. As he had told Alice, Edward knew how to handle Bunny. He put his hands on Bunny’s shoulders, and turned her to face him. She looked up into the calm of his eyes.
“Relax, Bunny.” He massaged her shoulders with his fingers. “You did a great job putting this all together. Time to declare victory! Settle down, okay?”
She sighed, stretching her neck like a cat. He stroked her shoulders gently.
“I’m just nervous, that’s all.” She peered up at him, and his smile reassured her.
“You look beautiful, Bunny.” Edward’s appetite had returned with a vengeance. Ordinarily he would have grabbed something before the party, since it wasn’t a sit-down, to tide him over, but he hadn’t felt hungry this afternoon. Now all he wanted to do was shake a few hands and then run out to get some dinner.
He left his hand on Bunny’s shoulder as his mind scanned the menus he knew by heart from restaurants on the Upper East Side. “Let’s just accept the award, stay a few minutes, and skip out together for a bite to eat,” he said to her. “Just you and me.”
He turned her face to his, smiling with the pleasure of asking too much and expecting to get it, like a boy with his eyes on the dessert cart.
Bunny’s heart beat quickly. A tête-à-tête with Edward was nice, but she much preferred to show him off. She had to find a way to keep him here.
“I think we’d better stay,” she said. “There was some talk of Giorgio coming in for this himself, and if he does, I promised we’d hand the award over to him. All impromptu, no need for big speeches, but it would be appropriate to recognize him.”
She used the magic word. Edward always did what was appropriate.
“Well, I suppose that makes sense,” he agreed. With a smile, he drew her close to him. “So where are you pulling me? Is there a private room?”
He was so damned private, it drove her insane. She shook her head and coyly pulled back.
A telephone rang in his tux.
“Edward!” She glared at him. “Don’t you dare answer that!”
Edward had no reason to
carry a phone when she was with him. He had a reputation, which though it was of considerable authority, Bunny tried to ignore, of being an inveterate ladies’ man. Bunny gamely insisted that Edward’s charitable work compelled him to socialize, and the ladies he dated were merely, needless to say, friends of the family.
“It wouldn’t be polite to use the cell phone here.”
“All right,” he said, his easy shrug consoling Bunny that the call was a surprise to him. “The voice mail picks up anyway.”
“Bunny, darling, can we get a picture?” Mitch Beluga, Quest’s photographer, pulled Bunny in front of a headless group of gauzy, beige-draped Armani mannequins. “You two are the stars of the night, and we’ve hardly seen you!”
Bunny took her position a half-step in front of Edward and smiled modestly, her head tilted, her eyes turned upward with tenderness. The flash of the camera brought joy to her heart.
The museum lights flickered off and on, giving Bunny a cue that the program would commence in ten minutes. She grabbed Edward’s hand to tug him along to the rotunda. Incredibly, she felt him resist.
“Come on, Edward.”
“Bunny,” he protested, “I’m starved.” He had only gotten to a couple of shrimp in the Thannhauser gallery before the ladies got to him. “I’m going to go grab a few appetizers before we get started with this thing.”
“Edward!” She looked at him suspiciously. How could he think about wild mushroom pastries at a glamorous opportunity like this one? She gasped to think that something else might be going on. Was it the phone call? That little shrimp Bitsy French was behind it, she thought. She had noticed Bitsy’s painted eyes trailing after Edward at too many parties. Behind her smile, she ground her teeth.
She darted toward him and grabbed the phone from his tux.
“No time for calls!” Bunny sang in a pleasant voice. She smiled and teased him, waving the phone in front of him like bait.
Edward shrugged, walked toward Bunny, and kissed her cheek.
“I’ll meet you down on the stage in ten minutes,” he said before leaving.
Bunny nodded. She knew when not to push him. She swung her hips as on a catwalk down the undulating ramp, rehearsing her acceptance speech.
“Still have work to do, changing people’s lives, making the world a better place, dignity through fashion…”
She was shocked to hear the phone in her hand ringing.
Stepping back into a shadow behind the display of ladies’ accessories, Bunny answered the phone. By now she was positively sure it was a call from Bitsy French.
Before she heard anyone on the line, Bunny hissed, “You little slut, if you think about calling Edward again you are over!”
She hung the phone up and turned it off. Edward would receive no more calls tonight.
A glimpse of the podium magnificently centered under the skylight gave Bunny a rush of energy. Her stage was set, and her curtains were opening. She smiled and fluttered toward George Weston and Clifford Chase, Edward’s friends from the Union Club. Accepting compliments from them both, she evaluated the cut of their tuxedos to determine whether she’d approve of them as groomsmen.
CHAPTER 4
The Chosen
Thirstan Heston had been trying to reach the concerned parties all night. A wills lawyer has, by and large, a comfortable practice, largely concerning avoidance of federal and state taxes. Unlike his corporate peers at Stearns & Fielding, Thirstan was able to take long and comfortable vacations with his wife and their two children. But the unexpected “death event” was the heart of his business, and when this occurred, professional ethics required his prompt attention to the matter.
When, as in the death of Arthur Stearns, there was a minor child involved, mercy and law joined hands to require his swift action. Under the code of the state of New York, legal guardianship of his client’s minor child, whether designated by will or supplied in default by statute, would be established at a hearing within thirty days of the death event. If he got his ducks in a row, he could move the whole estate into probate at the same time. But the child’s needs were immediate; she had to come first.
Thirstan had hurried into town from the Vineyard, where his family was enjoying the last weekend at their cottage before they closed it for the season, the children returned to Groton and Miss Porter’s, and his life, like that of a closing flower, entered its autumn phase in the city.
At first he had trouble understanding the nanny who had called him to report the death of her employers. She was frantic, and spoke in torrents of French, spattered with halting and incorrect English that confused him even further. Thirstan’s French was sufficient to order any dish that Alain Ducasse prepared, but it was not enough for him to interpret the nanny’s outburst, until she got to the heart of it. I work for Arthur Stearns, she had told him in English. He and Emily’s mother are dead.
Thirstan went immediately to Arthur’s apartment, still dressed in the ancient white sweatpants and sweatshirt with its Yale Law School moniker. He had practiced law with George Stearns, Arthur’s father, before Arthur joined the firm as a corporate associate. In the beginning of the young man’s tenure, he was skeptical about Arthur’s work ethic, for, having prepared his trust instrument, he knew that Arthur would come into hundreds of millions of dollars at the age of thirty-five. But the young man had turned out to be a promising young lawyer who would someday on his own merit achieve partnership.
Would have achieved, Thirstan corrected himself. What a shame. He heard details of the crash on the local news, which he watched in the back of his car to keep from falling asleep on the drive into the city. Prominent environmental activist Amy Kolasky and her partner, the lawyer Arthur Stearns, were presumed dead after the crash of their small plane into the side of mountain in the Alaskan wilderness, where they had gone on a ten day fly-fishing expedition.
Tragically, the couple’s death left orphaned a beautiful four-year-old girl, a golden-haired whippet by the name of Emily, whose picture had thankfully not been acquired by the television stations, because it was obscene to feed this lovely child to the voyeuristic public.
The crash had been big news on the Anchorage stations right away, since the airplane’s pilot, Joe Francis, was considered invincible. It had been said of the decorated Vietnam pilot that he could fly between two raindrops and not get wet. He was as good a pilot as ever flew over Alaska, the local broadcasters mourned, before mentioning three other casualties: a young couple on a fishing trip, and their guide. The high winds of a sudden snowstorm had eliminated all visibility; the pilot could not have seen the mountain until the plane struck it. The end, at least, was merciful; all passengers died instantly, according to the salvage crews, who were not even able to search the location until two days later when the storm subsided.
Thirstan had stopped at the law office to collect Arthur Stearns’ trust papers from the vault. He had to review the language of the trust to see whether Arthur had forfeited his inheritance or whether any provision was made for his death before the age of thirty-five. Thankfully for little Emily, Thirstan noted, there was an alternate provision that made immediate distribution, in the case of his death, to any children of his blood. He was pleased to see that she was well provided for, and, all the better for tax avoidance, that it was done through the trust, avoiding the slow and taxable will.
He did need to locate a will to determine Emily’s guardian, however. When he arrived at the building Thirstan tactfully talked his way past the doorman and put his copy of Arthur’s key in the lock only to be startled by a pull on the door from the inside. The nanny was up and already helping the child to dress—or this was what Thirstan discerned from the babble of French mixed with English-as-a-second-language, rapid-fire hysteria. Once inside he began to hunt. He was practiced at finding the location of such papers in the houses of his deceased clients, and had to look no farther than the top drawers of the matching nightstands in the master bedroom before finding, in sealed envelopes, the
two separate wills of Amy Kolasky and Arthur Stearns. The wills were simple, handwritten instruments, witnessed by the nanny and perfectly valid, leaving everything to the couple’s only child.
Each will named a legal guardian for Emily. Arthur’s will named Edward Kirkland as the child’s guardian. Amy’s will named Becca Reinhart. They were identified as residing at different addresses and they had different home phone numbers.
Thirstan paused, staring at one paper, then another. Did they mean to do this? Though unusual, the twin designations were perfectly valid. Arthur and Amy had never married, and separate wills in that context bore no caution flag. They would be presumed to have died at the same time, and both of their wills would be enforced as written, unless they were in conflict. It was common to name two legal guardians for a child, so the designation of these two individuals presented no difficulty. They simply needed to be notified at different locations.
Though he quickly arrived at what would seem a simple answer, Thirstan’s stomach bunched into knots of anxiety. In all his years of practice he had never seen two unrelated guardians named to care for one child. It was distinctly odd. Thirty years of practicing trusts and estates law had not instilled in him any desire to execute something unique and original. As a result he shuffled around the apartment, alternately preparing the tax filing and calling the home and office numbers Emily’s guardians-to-be to get the matter settled.
He had tried Edward’s mobile phone last night but gave up trying after the strange experience he had. He thought he had reached the right number, but twice a woman answered, once calling him a slut and hanging up on him. He had tried again a time or two, in frustration, but the phone seemed to be turned off. Fundamentally cautious, especially in his professional capacity, Thirstan declined to leave a voice mail message for Edward under those peculiar circumstances. He was assuming he might leave word for Becca Reinhart to call him, but her secretary had transferred him to Dick Davis’s line. Thirstan and Davis knew each other the way all of a certain caste of global professionals knew each other—distantly but with enough history to allow Thirstan to tell Becca’s partner about the accident.