“Has this room always had a window seat?” she asked Peter, joining him at the table.
“I have no idea,” he said without looking up.
Bambi knew she should be canny about approaching the opera topic when Peter was so distracted. But priorities mattered too. It was always about his job or some obligation or the kids, never about Bambi. So she dived right in. “You said we would talk about it when we got here, Peter.”
“Talk about what, Bambi?” He folded his paper finally and tucked it under his plate.
“The budget. For the opera,” she said, sulking a little because he did not even remember something so important to her.
“Well?” he said.
Bambi paused, suddenly reticent. Was she the tiniest bit embarrassed, maybe, to want to spend so much money on one evening? But then, Richard had had no shame in asking for it, and the Petzers would never balk.
“What is it?” he asked.
Bambi mumbled something that sounded like twaffle.
“Speak up, darling!” Peter snipped like he was addressing a poorly behaved child.
“A bit over twelve,” she said more clearly.
Peter flushed with outrage. In earlier days, Bambi used to tease him, saying that you could tell Peter’s mood by the amount of red in his face. He rapidly approached ripe tomato. “Absolutely not, no,” he said through clenched teeth. “Do you not remember coming home from Aspen for the security issues? Remember? And the business problems?”
Peter had always been so insecure! Bambi could never understand it. She kept thinking that as his company and their bank account grew exponentially each year, eventually the numbers would get big enough that he could sit back, relax. But instead, the mass of his achievements had made him focus like a laser on every deal that might lose money, reflect badly on him, be the beginning of the end.
“Yes, dear, I remember why my vacation, which I look forward to all year, was cut short. Because you may be having some . . .” Bambi tried to find the exact belittling word for it. “Snafus.” That was why they had come to the Castle, she remembered. She had complained about being stuck in the city for the holiday, and somehow the beach had seemed better, but only because she had never been to Coolwater in winter before. She looked out the window at the shrubs, which seemed at least still mostly leafy, until she realized they were wearing little plastic jackets decorated with faux greenery to protect them from the harsh winter. The sky was that unpromising gray that just added pressure rather than snow.
“Snafus!” Peter exploded. “Snafus?! Bambi, use your brain, love! We are way overextended in real estate. If the city backs out of this deal, we are totally screwed. I could be out.”
On the inside, Bambi trembled momentarily before getting a grip on herself.
Peter Von Bizmark ousted as the head of the Von Bizmark Organization? It fell somewhere on the spectrum between highly unlikely and legally impossible. “Sweetheart,” Bambi countered icily, “aren’t you being just a touch dramatic?” How could they, the Von Bizmarks, be facing any real financial problems?
“This fucking communist mayor could really, really screw us on this,” he said loudly. “It’s just not the time to take on another nine-digit expense, and the way things are shaping up, we won’t even need the deduction this year.”
“But, Peter, I’ve already agreed.”
“You want to support the opera, you pay for it,” Peter said. “You have the money, remember?” Which was true, of course: she did have the money. In a trust that Bambi strongly preferred never to touch. It was her emergency fund, not a party budget. And anyway, the principle was important, and the principle was that she was entitled to spend her husband’s money. Everyone knew that. Peter stormed out and headed down the hallway to the left but quickly realized this was not the way to his office and stormed back, passing the open doorway at full tilt.
It’s too cold to eat papaya, Bambi thought dolefully. Instead, she figured she might as well take a pill to quell the unusual fluttering in her stomach. What was bothering her exactly—arguing with her husband? That nonsense about “security issues”? Certainly not money!
The house phone rang. Bambi thought about ignoring it, but the little screen said it was Phil. “Please send over that new person to make me some oatmeal,” she said without a hello.
“Will do! And great news! The heating will be replaced with a new White House–grade heating system. You will never be cold again. And I got Chef!”
“Oh goody! Will she be here for lunch today?”
“Well, she’s coming from Colombia, so probably not until tomorrow.”
“Oh, OK.” Another disappointment. Chef could have been on the jet yesterday if Phil or Anna or anyone on their personal staff had thought it through more carefully. “I suppose that will have to do.”
FOUR
December 31
Anna had been ignoring her sister for days. Sometimes it just felt too much like acting to pick up the phone and pretend like she was still killing it, still the cool one, still so brave and creative. Lately it seemed like she could only tap out texts that sounded defensive and unconvincing; she’d had to erase most of them. But now that Anna had a plan, however skimpy, for her art, she felt finally ready to take Lindsay’s call during the contained space of time walking from her apartment to the subway.
“We have champagne!” Lindsay announced straightaway. “Two cases!”
“Linds, sorry, I’m—”
“Don’t say it. Don’t tell me you’re not coming.”
“We just like to spend the holiday—”
“Alone! I get it. Just come for drinks then . . .”
A small voice in Anna’s head said, This is nice. Lindsay’s being nice to me. But a much larger part of her felt like her sister just wanted to rub Anna’s nose in her champagne flutes—sixteen pristine crystal vessels from Tiffany—and her friends, lawyers and bankers in nondescript couplets of suits and little black dresses. Anna, in her snug hand-me-down couture, would have to answer the same two questions all night, always with air quotes: “But what does it mean to ‘be an artist’?” “But what does it mean to ‘be a private assistant’?”
“The thing is, Linds, I’m doing a show of my work, like, tomorrow,” Anna said. “The space just came through, and I have so much to take care of.”
“No way!” Lindsay said, instantly excited. “A, that’s great! What can I do to help?” Was Lindsay patronizing her? Just the fleeting thought of this left Anna rankled. She was the older sister, after all.
“I’ll let you know, thanks.” Anna was about to hang up—she had arrived at the station—when she heard Lindsay say, “Happy New Year, A!” Guilt stabbed her in the kidney.
“Happy New Year, Linds.”
At work, the day of New Year’s Eve kicked up a whirlwind of sending things to the Castle that had been forgotten due to the unusual circumstances of the weekend. They had, for example, only a few cold-weather clothes there, stashed in the safe room. The Mrs. needed her hormone patch, the Mr. his mouth guard, as the one there was “too old for him to put in his mouth.” Of course he had at least a half dozen brand-new ones stashed away at Coolwater, somewhere, but the new maid had no idea where and sounded too terrified to poke around. This told Anna that Phil could not find or compel the housekeeper or three longtime maids to come. Phil himself was probably running all over the Hamptons sourcing the food and beverages they would need for New Year’s Eve.