“Phil, don’t you have people for that?” she said, gesturing at the sad empty Juice Press bag deflating on the counter. Upstairs, another series of thumps. But before he could answer, she added with more urgency, “And what is that noise?”
“What noise?” Phil said, blinking. There it was again, pound-pound-pound.
“That noise!” Bambi insisted. Did he think she could not hear? They were in a large house with only one distinct sound in it, and she wanted to know what was causing it.
“That’s the new maid.”
“Is she an elephant? What the devil is she doing up there?”
“Mrs. Von Bizmark, she’s running. From the linen closet in the south corridor to your bedroom in the east wing. It’s about an eighth of a mile round trip . . .”
Bambi cocked her head at him and sighed. “Phil, dear, it does seem like things are a smidge out of order,” Bambi observed, her eyes ticking off the expired bulb, the empty vases. She shivered a little to underline her point.
“Well, we are making all good haste to have everything ready for you.”
“What does that mean, Phil? Is the house somehow not ready?” It was a building made out of rocks full of inanimate objects. What on earth did anyone have to do to “get it ready”? And it was their home! Sometimes it seemed like people forgot that Bambi and Peter were two human beings with those sorts of basic needs: warmth, light, sustenance.
“Of course, Coolwater is always ready for you, Mrs. Von Bizmark!” he enthused, even as observable facts suggested otherwise. Sometimes staff could be so . . . evasive!
Bambi’s eyes narrowed. “Why is it so cold in here, then?”
“The system takes a good forty-eight hours to get up to speed . . .”
“Peony can’t come here, then! Forty-eight hours! The little dear will freeze to death. Call Nanny and tell them to turn around, please.” Phil pulled out his mobile phone and dialed, but before it could start ringing, it occurred to Bambi that she herself was still cold and destined to be so for at least two full days. “Wait!” she said. “What about us?”
“I lit a fire in your bedroom, the east library, the upstairs and downstairs sitting rooms . . . ,” Phil began as Nanny’s phone rang.
“Not the corner room?”
“I’ll light that right now.” Phil hustled off, barking into the phone at Nanny to “Turn around! Right away!”
Peter looked longingly after him and said, “I have to make some calls,” trying also to escape. Everyone always scattered when Bambi was even the slightest bit cross. Did no one wish to soothe her?
Before Peter had made it out of the kitchen, Bambi asked, “What would you like to eat tonight, dear?”
“Whatever you like, dear.”
“Phil! Phil!” Mrs. Von Bizmark called, and Phil came running back, down two flights of stairs, through the great room and dining room, and into the kitchen. He caught his breath as subtly as possible.
“Who do we have to cook for us?” Bambi lobbed this, knowing it would stump him, but she was tired of Phil yessing her all the time. Plus she longed for Chef’s slimming delights. Only in her hands could Bambi truly relax and just enjoy her food in still-tiny but calorically safe quantities.
“Ahhhhh . . .” Phil stalled, pained by his own lack of an answer. “How about the new steak place in Southampton?”
“Steak, dear?” Bambi called.
“Yes, dear,” Peter responded. “You know I like steak.” Yes, of course Bambi knew this, just as Peter knew she never ate red meat. But no one cared. Sigh. Not the way she did, always sacrificing for her kids, her husband, and the demands of their lives together. Would Bambi herself never get exactly what she wanted? There was still the opera to discuss, and after all the sacrifices she had made recently, all the indignities, she had it coming to her.
The steak restaurant was far too loud and public for such a conversation. Their meal was interrupted every half hour by people, some reasonably well known to them, others just wanting to kiss the Von Bizmark ring. It was tedious; it prolonged the meal and called attention to Bambi’s sad, vaguely gray and pasty-looking steamed vegetable plate. Peter had outrageously ordered the rib eye for two and had somehow managed to saw through two-thirds of it before she stayed him with a hand on the wrist.
“Think of your heart,” she murmured, which she knew did not endear her to him, but enough already. She’d hoped to ask him over his customary bottomless cognac back at the house, but instead of going to the bar, which was about as warm and welcoming as a meat locker, they’d gone up to the bedroom, where two fires had burned all day. Peter disappeared into the bathroom to come out a moment later with his disgusting mouth guard, a customized plastic item that he required in order not to grind his teeth to dust in his sleep. He showed it to Bambi—yellowing and crusty. She shivered in disgust.
“This thing is too old,” he said. “Where is there another one?”
“You’re asking me?” Bambi responded.
“Who else?” Peter asked.
“Phil?” Bambi suggested.
“Darling, it’s nearly eleven p.m. Do you mean to tell me this is the only one of these we have here, when we literally have at least two of everything else?”
“I suppose it is,” Bambi said primly.
“Literally, dear, this is the one thing I require. I will have a tremendous headache tomorrow if I do not wear one, and this thing is unusable.”
“I can have another one sent up tomorrow.”
“Yes, do that, will you,” he said, throwing it in a wastepaper basket and storming down the hallway to “make some calls.”
True, he conducted business all over the world, but surely he didn’t need to do so at every possible moment, she pouted to herself in their bedroom.
The next morning, Bambi woke up agitated, and it took no time at all to determine why. The house was still freezing. Freezing! Bambi slipped into her terry cloth slippers and thin cotton robe—garments utterly inappropriate for the refrigerator her house had become. She crossed the room to squint at the digital thermostat: sixty-seven degrees! Freezing!
“Phil, why is the house so cold? It’s practically uninhabitable,” she said without a hello into the phone.
“Well, it takes a few days for the system to—”
“A few days? A few days?” She was so tired lately. “Phil, love, I am freezing right now at this very moment. Do you see our problem? Here’s a thought . . . how about you upgrade the system to something that actually works. I may just like coming out here in the winter.” Which couldn’t be further from the truth. The house, the Hamptons, the beach, all so dreary out of season, with nothing to do and only one or two excessively large parties to decline. She didn’t have her hormone patch or any of her favorite yoga pants. She could hardly even remember how they had agreed to go out East in the first place.
Bambi tied up her robe and went to find her husband, who no doubt was still working. But no, not in his office. Not in the TV room. Not in the gym, obviously. Finally she found him in the sunroom, a blanket over his shoulders, drinking coffee. Someone had gotten pastries and a Wall Street Journal, which he did not look up from. There was her plate of sliced papaya, her mineral water and vitamins. It was a few degrees warmer in here, which explained why both she and Peter were in the sunroom together for the first time ever. The window seat, encased in glass and lined with pillows, did look rather inviting, situated as it was facing the ocean.