“Anna, the ball is tomorrow. I want to see the final seating scheme when I get back.” Anna did some quick math: fiveish. That would give them about six hours to confirm the most elusive guests on the list and get Max a final count.
Anna generated a quick spreadsheet of phone numbers and time zones so she and Julie could tag-team harassing Mrs. Von Bizmark’s friends and associates. Their list of hardest-to-pin-down glitterati included a woman without citizenship who roamed the world in her enormous yacht with a rotating cast of attractive, jobless men and the TV personality Martha Miller, who was famous for trotting out a list of excuses (her husband’s eczema, an early flight the next day, a great-godniece’s favorite doll’s tea party) to avoid confirming until the very last minute. The mayor’s chief of staff no longer answered her phone when Anna called. Then there was the unreachable prince.
In the midst of this, Florence called to inform them she’d messengered over Mr. Von Bizmark’s anniversary present for the Mrs.
“What is it?” Anna asked.
“I can’t even remember. I think a bracelet this time.”
“Oh, Florence, you’re such a romantic.” Anna sighed.
“I’ve done as I was asked. No more, no less. Five hundred at Harry Winston. No emeralds.”
“Don’t forget to get him home by seven for a briefing.”
“Don’t you think you might be overstepping?” Florence asked. As far as Anna was concerned, Florence was an obstructionist dinosaur whose advice always came at the worst possible time and therefore felt exactly like the jab it was.
“I guess time will tell.” Anna hung up. Would this be, as Phil had predicted, Anna’s funeral?
“We’ll be returning that bracelet or whatever it is immediately,” Julie said. In two decades, the Mrs. had kept not a single piece of jewelry Florence had purchased, an inevitability Mr. Von Bizmark had never noticed. Mrs. Von Bizmark was essentially impossible to shop for, and Mr. Von Bizmark had given up long ago. For years she had been collecting credit at Harry Winston for the mythical lariat, an office unicorn. Other than that, there was nothing she wanted. “Maybe we could do something?” Julie said. “Something thoughtful?”
To throw oneself into the certain failure of shopping for a gift for Kissy Von Bizmark seemed anathema, even to Anna. “Maybe you’re in the midst of a psychotic break?”
Julie pulled out a beautiful wooden photo album from under her desk, substantial and leather bound. On the cover, hand-painted in tangerine, it read, Twenty-Five Years. The first picture, a retouched and blown-up print of the Polaroid taken of them the first weekend Mr. Von Bizmark had met the Verhuvenvels at their North Fork estate. The Mrs. sat on the Mr.’s lap in an adirondack chair on a lawn like the one at the Castle, sloping, flawless grass as far as the eye could see. She smiled beguilingly at the camera, but his eyes stayed on her, in adoration.
Page after page of photos of them together, through the years: vacations, pregnancies, the kids as tiny babies, all the good family fiber-of-life stuff. So many pictures of them had been taken in public, but these were all the intimate, private moments. The book itself was so beautifully assembled and well curated it brought a tear to Anna’s eye. Mrs. Von Bizmark would melt.
Julie took the book to the gift-wrapping alcove by the laundry room to select the exact right paper and ribbon for Cristina, the resident wrapper, to use. When the caller ID showed a row of asterisks instead of an incoming number, Anna assumed it was some sort of solicitation.
She answered the phone curtly. “Hello?”
“Hello?” a male voice shouted over the wind in the background.
“Yes?” Anna said, struggling to hear.
“Ciao! This is Salvatore Valdobianno.” It took Anna a moment to match this name with the title prince; plus, she could hardly understand him over the noise.
“Prince Valdobianno!” she finally said.
“Please! Call me Salvatore!”
“OK, Salvatore! Thank you for calling me back.”
“I’m sorry, I’ve just been all over . . . doing so many things . . .”
“I get it,” Anna said. “So the Von Bizmarks look forward to seeing you—”
He continued his train of thought. “I don’t always listen to voice mail, you know? It’s so boring!”
Anna laughed, forgetting for a moment why she’d called him in the first place as his image—full lips, thick hair—flitted across her mind. “But you are coming to the opera and the ball afterward as the Von Bizmarks’ guest?”
“Yes, of course! I would not miss Kissy and Peter. The Marriage of Figaro—great choice! I have to go—my friends are arriving. Arrivederci!”
“Wait, Salvatore! Are you bringing a . . . date?” But it was too late. He was gone to fetch his guests, probably on the dock behind his Sag Harbor home as they stepped off the vintage wooden cruiser the prince was frequently photographed piloting, always in sunglasses, showing some new starlet or supermodel all the sights. Anna called him back on his mobile and tried texting him in Italian.
Per favore dimmi—farai un ospite?
She stared at her phone, willing it to buzz. Max would not be pleased.
“How am I supposed to do seating without a clue about who will actually show up?” Max asked Anna as he stood later that afternoon poring over the array of place cards.
“Max, you know as well as I do that these people can be difficult.”
“That’s right! And our job is to make them comply.”
“Actually, that’s neither of our jobs, Max.” He studied the map and the cards in his hand. Moisture developed at his hairline, which he dabbed at with a lavender handkerchief. “It’s going to be fine! We just have to find someone to sit in the box, right?”
“No Petzers, no prince, no Martha Miller . . . you’re not giving me a lot to work with.”
With only a few minutes until Mrs. Von Bizmark was due back for the meeting to review seating, Max finally came up with a scheme that hinged on everyone showing up. He put Martha Miller and the prince in the Von Bizmark box, which was dicey. Where would their date and husband sit? Anna didn’t dare say anything.
Mrs. Von Bizmark breezed in from her lunch, meeting, workout, and facial, drinking from her second 1.5-liter Fiji water bottle of the day. After the extra training, focus on green juices, relentless hydration, and trips to the aesthetician, hairstylist, and brow shaper—and all those afternoons with Dr. Westley and her fountain-of-youth supergadgets—she looked airbrushed, even in the flesh. On the other hand, she radiated displeasure. No one all day had said anything about the Von Bizmark anniversary. In Anna’s belly, a little flip of anticipation for the evening ahead.
Mrs. Von Bizmark’s wan hello begged someone to say, What’s wrong? Only no one would. She looked over the seating chart, fixating immediately on the Von Bizmark box and its odd inhabitants. She pointed at the cards for the prince and Martha Miller, her index finger traveling back and forth.
“Are they together now?” she asked, perplexed.
Max forced himself to laugh, his eyes pointedly on Anna until she, too, chuckled a little. “No, of course not! But I thought they were the best people to share the spotlight with you and Mr. Von Bizmark.”