“Whoa, whoa. You trying to do my job? I know how to make Bambi Von Bizmark happy,” Chef said. Thank goodness someone does, Anna thought bitterly.
“Whadoyouthink?” A cheerful mumble behind her. Anna and Julie spun around to behold a very stoned, bright-red, puffy Mrs. Von Bizmark. She looked slapped around, the skin above the collar of her Lululemon jacket furiously angry. Worst of all, her lips had tripled in size. Surely they would deflate? Anna’s first thought was that she would have to push the STT lunch date as far into the future as possible. Her second was to slowly relax her upper lip and close her mouth to erase all signs of horror.
“Wow!” was all Anna could muster. Mrs. Von Bizmark’s face was a hodgepodge of out-of-place textures and shapes.
“It’llbegraybytheshoot,” Mrs. Von Bizmark said. Julie failed to neutralize her surprise; her lips quivered. “Cristina!” Mrs. Von Bizmark called. She appeared a moment later, openly ogling the mess the Mrs. had made of her face; her mouth fell open so quickly a little involuntary snort came out her nose. “This is photographic work, darling,” Mrs. Von Bizmark explained grandly, overenunciating so as to be understood. “Ice pack, please.” Mrs. Von Bizmark picked her way to the desk as if she were having trouble seeing the furniture past her enormous cheeks. Cristina presented the ice pack—teal gel encased in plastic shaped like a flattened face—on a tea towel to the Mrs. at her desk. She pressed it to her outraged skin and sighed with pleasure. Mrs. Von Bizmark’s eyes covered, Cristina crossed herself and disappeared.
“Redmellhrmph,” Mrs. Von Bizmark said from under the gel pack.
“I’m sorry?”
“What is going on?” she asked, which was as good an opening as any to explain how Anna had come to put a $12 million charge on her American Express card.
“Well, I was thinking,” Anna started brightly. Gulp. “What if we put the opera on your Amex card?”
“I already sent the check.”
“Yes, but I canceled it and got you fifteen million American Express points. You’ll never run out of gift cards again!”
“No!” Mrs. Von Bizmark said. It was unclear whether this was good or bad news. “The card Mr. Von Bizmark pays?”
“Yes, of course,” Anna said, a little confused. Mr. Von Bizmark paid all of her credit card bills.
“Oh, well,” Mrs. Von Bizmark said, as if resigning herself to something.
Anna charged ahead. “And Max had this great idea!” Anna said. “Let’s have Principal Sellers speak at the luncheon, and you could introduce her?”
“Fine by me,” Mrs. Von Bizmark said breezily.
“Also, Mr. Von Bizmark is home,” Anna said.
“What?” she squawked. “I can hardly let him see me now!”
“Well, that’s good because he went to the Peninsula.”
“Oh,” she said, the one syllable crammed with disappointment.
The back doorbell rang, and Cristina answered it. Just outside the apartment, Alfie spoke as if he were on a Broadway stage, projecting so that Mrs. Von Bizmark could hear him from anywhere on the bottom floor.
“Hello, Miss Cristina! I brought these copies of Park and Fifth magazine and marked the pages with Mrs. Von Bizmark.”
From her chair, face held up to the sky, mask applied, Mrs. Von Bizmark shouted, “Is that Alfie?”
“Yes, Mrs. Von Bizmark!” Anna could practically feel the breeze created by Cristina rolling her eyes at this particularly grotesque display of brownnosing. Still, this was how attentive porters like Alfie earned their tips. Which gave Anna an idea.
Cristina brought the magazines in and opened one to the page Alfie had carefully marked with a bit of newspaper. “Huh,” she remarked noncommittally, unimpressed, and rushed off. The Von Bizmarks, dressed to the teeth, stood together at the top of a red-carpeted stairwell at the annual gala to benefit Calling All Chickens, a well-funded group that “rescued” farm animals from certain death. Pippy and Charlie Petzer were also on this page, her consistent updo of unmovable hair and pointed eyebrows floating near the center of her over-Botoxed forehead. The effect was vampiric, particularly so next to Mr. Petzer, who looked embalmed.
One minute later, reclining in her chair, Mrs. Von Bizmark snored lightly even as the phones rang off the hook, all of New York’s most elite socialites clamoring for their seat on one of her helicopters.
NINE
January 25
Bambi wondered why people ever spoke to her as if she didn’t already know something that she did know perfectly well. It irritated that Max insisted on lecturing her about Samuel Thomas Thorndale, whom Bambi had of course obviously so very clearly been acquainted with quite well through the years, thank you very much. Still, Max insisted on pressing one of his briefing papers into her alligator-gloved hand. On a matter of principle she refused to look at it, immediately turning it facedown on her lap.
“Yes, yes, I have known Sam forever, Max, I promise.”
They crawled down Park Avenue in the Von Bizmark car, a sedate navy Mercedes with an enormous back seat that reclined slightly and allowed Mrs. Von Bizmark to avoid wrinkling any part of her bespoke Dior suit. No one, not even Pippy Petzer, had this in her closet: hot off the runway and made just for her. Bambi smiled internally with self-satisfaction and checked her glam in the rearview, tilting her chin toward the light for the most flattering angle.
Bambi noted the creaselessness of the fragile skin around her mouth and eyes—God, Westley was good! And now she had enough gift cards to last a lifetime—or at least the rest of the year. After the hot curlers, blow-drying, and multiple products, her shiny blonde long bob had the perfect amount of movement. The contouring and layers of foundation concealed any lingering redness from the laser. The downtown A-team glam squad had convinced Bambi to try something new for her nails—a khaki green she was no longer sure of.
“What do you think?” she said, holding out her hand for Max to comment on.
“Fabulous,” Max said, but before she could confirm that he was complimenting her manicure and not the oversize Graff emerald bracelet, Max was charging on with his tedious STT summary. “He majored in journalism at Columbia, apprenticed with Bill Cunningham, worked for thirty years at Vanity Fair . . .”
“Really? I had no idea,” Bambi muttered sarcastically, digging in her gray alligator envelope handbag for nothing in particular—just putting on a show of disinterest. As if she hadn’t been to these sorts of lunches a hundred times! This was her job! Her profession! Bambi knew all too well the critical importance of this lunch. She would have to project charm and accessibility while simultaneously scheming and strategizing. She would have to appear real but also vaguely awe inspiring. She wanted to be taken seriously and make him laugh. Basically, she had to be perfect.
“I think he’s going to want to talk a lot about Mercurion, and you should lead him back to PS 342 as much as possible. Here are some papers on the school Anna put together for STT.” He slipped those onto her lap. “The talking points are talented students, motivated principal, crap building.”
Bambi stopped fussing with her bag, having come up with a real question. “How much should I talk about Josefina and her daughter? I don’t want to sound imperial . . .”