“OK, but it’s not really done yet!” she said, more emphatically. “We still need over one hundred and fifty thousand dollars!”
Josefina smiled, all pink cheeks and twinkling eyes, like a coquette. She winked. “Ilana says she’s not worried.”
“Excuse me,” Julie said to the ladies from the office door. They scattered when they saw both Von Bizmarks right behind her. Anna stood up to prepare for the firing squad. She considered taking off her bag, but why? Then she caught Julie’s eye—a glint of mischievousness punctuated one of her wacky indiscernible expressions, a sort of palsied smile. Julie took her seat at her desk while the Von Bizmarks stood together at the doorway. Mrs. Von Bizmark looked rather pleased with herself, smiling beatifically at Anna while one arm warmly circled her husband’s back. Mr. Von Bizmark could barely breathe through his rage.
“Anna!” Mrs. Von Bizmark chastised. “You didn’t tell me that you and Adrian were having trouble.” Anna darted her eyes at Julie, perturbed and thankful at the same time. “We’re in a very stressful time here, dear. We can’t have you sleeping on a mattress of cat fur, can we?”
Anna’s eyes widened. Oh God, she prayed they would not try to make her move into the apartment: talk about boundaries collapsing, worlds colliding, and the general end of life as she knew it.
“Also, Julie tells me it was her mistake ordering the wrong wine?” Anna looked at Julie, who still had that goofy half smile on her face. “But Mr. Von Bizmark has agreed to come home so you can stay at the corporate apartment!” she said, beaming at him. Mrs. Von Bizmark gave her husband a teensy elbow to the ribs. He stepped forward, wordlessly extending an old-school hotel key, large and metal. Anna reached out to take it. Their eyes met, and he held on to the key for just a split second too long before releasing it.
“Jenny, get the car, please,” he said, turning to go.
“It’s Julie!” Mrs. Von Bizmark corrected, but he just glared at her as he stormed past. “See you here tonight, Peter!” she called after him, still smiling like an angel. She put one bony hand on Anna’s shoulder. “Better?” she said, wanting with this generosity to erase any lingering bad feelings associated with both Anna’s messy breakdown and the nasty assault that had catalyzed it. Forgetting both immediately was the cost of using the apartment. Anna had felt a twinge taking the key from Mr. Von Bizmark, the breadwinner and rightful inhabitant, but then she couldn’t refuse without crossing her employer. Plus, she was dying to get away from Julie’s cats.
“Thank you!” Anna said brightly.
“Because we have a lot to deal with today.” Mrs. Von Bizmark took her seat at her desk. “First, we must reach Pippy Petzer. Apparently her lawyer called Avi this morning.” The thought of trying to reach Pippy Petzer again by phone was enough to throw Anna back into emotional turmoil.
“About what?”
“Apparently she wants to sue us.”
“For what? Getting drunk?” Julie asked.
“And in any case, she signed a waiver,” Anna said, quickly scanning a copy to make sure it covered “any and every possible event, including acts of God, for the duration of the event until off heliport property in Manhattan.”
“No kidding!” Mrs. Von Bizmark said, tickled to death. With the unpleasantness of the morning behind her, she could bask in the glow of (mostly) positive publicity, her husband’s return to the hearth, and getting something over on Pippy Petzer. If Anna could reach her on the phone. Meanwhile, Julie dug up Mrs. Petzer’s signed waiver.
From all those times dialing it, she still knew it by heart, and as Anna’s fingers flew over the buttons, she said, “I should warn you, Mrs. Von Bizmark, that she never answers the phone.” Sure enough, her voice mail clicked on.
“Try from my private line. And, Anna, stay on with us, please.”
Anna switched over, and Mrs. Petzer picked up on the first ring. “Kissy?” she hissed.
Mrs. Von Bizmark winked at Anna and said, “Yes, darling, you rang?”
“Listen, I know that wasn’t just plain old wine. My private physician tells me I may have permanent liver damage. I could have died. My neurologist is in Brazil, but when he’s back . . .”
“What are you saying, darling?”
“I’m going to have to sue you. For one billion dollars. For my family.”
Mrs. Von Bizmark forced herself to laugh. “You must be joking,” she said.
“Not in the slightest.”
“Even after the pool house?” Mrs. Von Bizmark said cryptically.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” This seemed to surprise Mrs. Von Bizmark more than anything else.
“But, Pippy, darling . . . ,” Mrs. Von Bizmark said, hesitating as if she truly did not want to be the one to break the news to Mrs. Petzer. “You signed a waiver.”
To her credit, Mrs. Petzer did not hesitate in her false denial. “I most certainly did not.” She insisted so emphatically that Anna started to panic about the possibility of having missed her somehow. After all, there were a lot of women and helicopters and two cameras and . . .
Julie slipped a copy of Pippy Petzer’s signed waiver under Mrs. Von Bizmark’s nose. “Pippy, dear, I have it right in front of me.”
“Then it’s forged. I never signed anything.”
Anna mouthed, “We have video.” Julie dialed Avi.
“Listen, Pippy, I think you must still feel awful, so let’s talk about this a little later when we’ve both had time to think about it, OK? I have to run to a meeting.” As soon as she hung up, Mrs. Von Bizmark said, “Get the video,” as if they were on an episode of CSI. But instead of running to a crime scene or a courtroom, Mrs. Von Bizmark rushed out for a different kind of full day: the gym, lunch with Sophia Bronwenmiller, and then Westley for a peel.
Julie gestured for Anna to sit. The freeze-frame was Pippy Petzer herself, midblink, yesterday, at the heliport. The video was only thirty seconds long; what could possibly happen?
Play.
Mrs. Petzer chatted with another waspy, old-money patron of the opera who drifted in and out of frame. In the video, Julie slid in between them and handed Mrs. Petzer a waiver. “I need you to sign this, please,” she said, which Mrs. Petzer acknowledged with the slightest twitch. Without looking at Julie, she sidled up to the counter, seamlessly continuing her conversation.
Julie held out a pen, which Mrs. Petzer grasped while still listening to her friend, who was hard to understand since she was far from the tiny camera. Anna leaned in as Mrs. Petzer started talking. The first part was obscured, but then she turned toward the lens. “Kissy . . . just tries too hard. I mean, helicopters? Doesn’t get more nouveau than that,” Pippy Petzer muttered directly into the microphone as she signed the waiver and handed it back without ever looking Julie fully in the face.
Julie grabbed Anna’s desk chair, and they sat right next to each other, mesmerized, watching the video again and again. Anna raged at Pippy Petzer, whom she had detested all along. How dare she come to a party, take the prime seat, and bad-mouth the hostess to another guest. Talk about tacky! Anna dreaded showing Mrs. Von Bizmark the video, which would invoke an emotion she hardly ever experienced: shame. After all, the helicopters had been Anna’s idea.