School of Fortune (15 page)

The girl began buffing Pippa's face with what felt like a petrified starfish. She applied an astringent to the raw flesh before coating Pippa's face with melted chocolate. “Close eye,” she commanded, covering Pippa's eyes with rank, dripping cotton balls.

“What is that?”

“Tea from strong root. Good for you.”

The chocolate quickly hardened to a bulletproof mask. Pippa surrendered to the scrubbing mitts as random paragraphs from the Texas Drivers Handbook floated through her mind. She dreamt she heard Thayne's voice, clear as a bell, say,
Don't come near me with those filthy mitts,
before a bucket of warm water sloshed the hallucination away. Pippa slid into a relaxing coma illustrated with hundreds of road signs. Soft Shoulder. Grooved Pavement Ahead.

“What do you mean you don't have a kimchee and volcanic mud facial? I didn't drive all the way over here to take a steam bath.”

Pippa's eyes snapped open so quickly that both cotton balls fell to the floor. She turned her head very slowly. Thayne was lying on the next table. Unlike everyone else in the room, she wore an orange silk robe, pale orange mules, and her usual half pound of diamonds. Her hair was wrapped in a turban from Thibiant, her favorite Beverly Hills spa. She clutched a large Fendi handbag, obviously not impressed with security in the locker room.

“What are
you
looking at?” Thayne snapped, failing to identify the naked female with black hair, tattoos, and chocolate-shellacked face as her daughter. She turned to her attendant. “Don't tell me you don't have any volcanic mud on the premises. Every reputable spa in Dallas has volcanic mud.”

“Why you not go to republe spa then? Why you come here and make me trouble?”

“I thought I'd give you a try,” Thayne said, albeit with a little less wind in her sails. “All right, forget the mud. Surely you have kimchee.”

“Kimchee to eat. Not good for face. It burn face.”

“That's why you mix it with the volcanic mud, you stupid twit.” Thayne looked over at Pippa. “You there! What's that on your face?”

Pippa didn't dare respond in recognizable English. She raised her voice a few notches. “Sho. Clate.”

“Chocolate? How disgusting. Miss! Did you say something about clay and seaweed?”

“That for body wrap,” came the sullen reply.

“You don't consider the face part of the body?”

“It expensive.”

“Just do it,” Thayne said with a dismissive flick of the wrist. As her attendant went off to mix the clay and seaweed, Thayne looked around the room with a shudder. “Doesn't all that scrubbing hurt? I've never seen such rough handling. Or such a shocking lack of privacy.”

“Is Korean style.” What was Thayne doing here? Same thing she was, Pippa realized: avoiding recognition, poor thing.

The attendant returned with a ceramic pot. Thayne took one whiff and said, “I hope you don't intend to put that on my face.”

“Excellent fo' you!” Pippa cried, terrified that: her mother would get up and leave. “Must try!”

The desperation in her voice somehow got Thayne to relent. “Since I'm already here, you may as well go ahead,” she told the girl. “Just try not to get any of that muck on my robe.”

Pippa caught Thayne looking oddly at her as the clay was slathered on her face. She desperately wanted to reach across to her mother's table and hold her hand.

“Would you mind telling me what those tattoos are all about?”

“Ancient Korean symbols.”

“They look like sexual organs to me. I'm surprised you haven't been taken for a prostitute. Forgive me if you are, of course.”

All those stares Pippa had been getting for the last few days now made perfect sense. She blushed almost hot enough to melt her chocolate mask. “Fertility signs. For good luck.”

“Fertility is luck? I have news for you. Children are a curse,” Thayne whispered as the attendant mounded two wads of seaweed over her eyes.

While the girl scrubbed her breasts as if they were stains in the carpet, Pippa racked her brain for a way to proceed. She had pretty well painted herself into a corner by pretending to be a Korean. When Thayne discovered who was hiding beneath all that chocolate, her outrage would be heard in Kilgore. For the umpteenth time Pippa cursed herself for pretending to be someone she was not.

A young Korean woman in jeans entered the room with Nori Nuki. She had a camera. To Pippa's horror she pointed it at her. Pippa's first impulse was to play possum. Maybe it was a publicity shot; she happened to have the best-looking body in the room. Then it occurred to her that the woman could be pointing the camera at Thayne, who was lying on the next table.

“Be right back,” Pippa said as the attendant began scrubbing her tattoos.

She marched over to the photographer. “Excuse me. What are you doing?”

“You be daughter of Thayne Wokker.” Nori proudly exhibited Thayne's ankle bracelet as proof. She pointed to the mudpacked figure in the orange robe. “We believe that woman Thayne Wokker. You drive car own by Lance Handrison with license
PUDDLE.
We earn thousand bucks reward to find you.”

“May I have my jewelry? Thank you.” Pippa slipped her ring, watch, and ankle bracelet on then tossed the woman's Rolleiflex into the pot of melted chocolate. “Go fish.”

“Bad lady! You destroy camera!”

Pippa ran to the locker room and zipped herself into her new red dress. She grabbed the little shoulder bag containing all her valuables. She was one step out the front door when a green VW skidded into the lot. Its driver was the jackal Officer Pierce had spun off the road yesterday. Pippa jerked back inside, locked the door, and ran to the body scrub room. Nori, the photographer, and Jung-Bo were yammering over the pot of chocolate, trying to fish the camera out with tongue depressors.

Pippa darted to Thayne's table. “Sorry to disturb you, Mama,” she whispered, removing the seaweed from Thayne's eyes. “The paparazzi have found us.”

Thayne stared at the chocolate-covered face bending over her. “Are you that Korean?”

“It's me. Pippa. Really. We have to go.”

“Are you crazy? I can't go outside with my face under an inch of mud.”

“Leave it on. For your own protection.”

As Pippa dragged her mother past Nori and Co., Thayne regained sufficient presence of mind to shout, “You'll be hearing from my lawyer, you worthless lychee nuts!”

Pippa dragged Thayne out an emergency exit to the parking lot. “Is Lance here?” Thayne cried, seeing his car. Her hands flew to her face.

“Leave the mud on! And the turban. He gave me the car.” Pippa shoved her mother inside and fired the Maserati into reverse. They shot out of the parking lot, but not before the little bald guy banging on the front door saw them. He rushed to his VW.

Pippa hit the gas. “How have you been, Mama?”

“Let me out of this car immediately!”

“You prefer to be picked up in Las Colinas in a bathrobe? They'll have a field day with that.” “How dare you stalk me.”

“Wrong. I got there first.” Pippa zipped around a corner. “Listen,

I know this isn't the ideal time or place, but I'd like to talk.”

“If you're trying to get yourself undisinherited, don't waste your breath.”

“There's a rational explanation. I was trying to protect Lance.” “How asinine! Rosimund can protect him far better than you ever will.”

“Ah! Then you know?” “Know what?”

What if she told her mother Lance was gay? Thayne would broadcast that throughout the solar system. Any mother would. Though sorely tempted to spill the beans, Pippa tried to open a back door to the truth. “I think Lance is sterile.”

“So what?”

“I mean impotent.” Pippa thought of Officer Pierce as she ran her second red light.

“Count your blessings. You would have had carte blanche with the chauffeur.”

This conversation was not going the way Pippa intended. “Maybe he's neuter.”

“Haven't you left out castrated and a transvestite? How about gay as a pink flamingo?”

“He might be that, too. Lance definitely might be that.”

“Let's not forget serial killer and pedophile.”

Pippa realized she may have overplayed her hand. “Do you think I'm making all this up, Mama?”

“Do not call me mother! Of course you're making it up. Let me scrape a little more mud off my face for you to fling at that poor boy.”

“Leave it on!” Pippa shrieked. “I don't want anyone recognizing you.

“It's extremely uncomfortable.” “Believe me, chocolate feels worse.”

Thayne sat in morbid disapproval as Pippa made an illegal left turn. “That awful Volkswagen is right behind us,” she said, finally appreciating the gravity of the situation.

“Thanks. That's very helpful.” The floor was beginning to burn Pippa's bare feet. Roughly shifting into fifth gear, she tried to think of a way to ditch her pursuer, drop Thayne off, and get herself to class in the next ten minutes. Just maybe, if she could whip into the Happy Hour parking lot before the VW made that last corner, she might get away with it. They were only a few miles away.

“Are you trying to kill me?” Thayne screeched as Pippa smoked around an island in the middle of the road. “You still won't get my money.”

“Keep your stupid money. I would have liked Grampa's spurs, though.”

“And I would have liked a son-in-law, so let's call it even. What you did was unforgivable.”

“It was desperate and silly. Not unforgivable. I'm really, really sorry. How can I make it up to you?”

“Just like that? How dare you add insult to injury. You've desecrated the Walker name forever. Who is this Superman you spurned Lance Henderson for? It had better be Prince William or one of the Hunts.”

“There is no one, Mama! I just made it up to call off the wedding!”

“To spite me,” Thayne moaned, going limp. “You are truly evil.” She gasped melodramatically as Pippa made a series of wild turns. Finally, exasperated, she said, “Didn't Lance carry a gun in the glove compartment? Can't we just shoot this fellow? “

Thayne didn't find a gun but she did locate a dozen condoms, “Aha!” she cried, waving a few in Pippa's face. “Does this look like the property of an impotent Dallas Cowboys quarterback?”

Unable to see, Pippa missed the turn into the Happy Hour lot. For the first time in her life she swore at her mother, shocking Thayne silent. It was six minutes before nine. Desperate, Pippa decided to cross the grass median and try again. If the Beetle was still behind her, she'd floor the Maserati into the lot of the Happy Hour Motel and make one of those J-turns Officer Pierce had taught her. Once she left the Volkswagen in the dust, she could drop Thayne off at the Days Inn to wash up while she jogged to class on time. Now that was thinking like a Walker!

Pippa cut across the grass median twice, with great success. Unfortunately, so did the Volkswagen. “Hold on,” she told Thayne, zooming into the lot of the Happy Hour Motel at ninety miles an hour. “We're almost home.”

Officer Pierce arrived early for class. He had taken a swing by the Days Inn up the road and called Perdita's room to see if she'd like a ride. The receptionist told him that she had left around sunup in a blue Maserati. Kicking himself, Pierce drove back to the Happy Hour Motel. He checked that the SUV was still safe and out of sight. He waved to the guys who were replacing the chain-link fence around the pool. Then he went to his car to await Perdita's arrival, obviously with her ex-boyfriend. Pierce was morbidly curious to see if they had made up.

At two minutes to nine he heard the whine of a highly taxed engine. Sounded Italian. Seconds later a blue Maserati blasted into the lot. Inside sat two bizarre-looking people with dark ski masks. The passenger wore an orange turban. Terrorists? Pierce watched in disbelief as the Maserati went into a dizzying 360-degree spin. Without once hitting the brakes, the driver floored the car through the gap in the chain-link fence and shot directly into the swimming pool.

Perdita! Pierce was running toward the splash when a green Volkswagen careened into the lot. In order to miss him the driver stomped on the brakes, swerved, and rammed Pierce's car with an earsplitting crash. Recognizing yesterday's paparazzo, Pierce left him to the airbags. He dove into the pool. The Maserati was about four feet underwater and sinking fast. Presuming the ex-fiance was at the wheel, Pierce set about rescuing the passenger. He opened the door and unbuckled ... it looked like a woman . . . feisty minx . . .
mud
all over her face? Fortunately the turban and most of the mud came off as he pulled her to the surface. She was wearing huge rings, like Perdita's. Good-looking blonde. Excellent body. Then she opened her mouth.

“What an awful little sinkhole.”

“You're welcome.” Pierce dove back underwater. Seeing the driver's tattoos, he had the worst adrenaline rush of his life. Nearly beside himself, he motioned Perdita to roll down her window. She wriggled out. They clung gasping to the ladder as the Maserati hit bottom.

Some of the stuff on her face had gotten into his mouth. “Is that chocolate?”

“Yes.” Pippa peeled it off in waxy sheets. “Guess I need a little more practice with that J-turn.”

“You over there! Recover my handbag at once. Chlorine is hell on leather.”

“Who is that woman?”

“My ex-mother.” Pippa had another calamity on her mind. “Did I just fail driving school?”

Correct. Pierce noticed that every student in class had gathered around the VW in the parking lot. No one had a clue there was a Maserati in the swimming pool. “Was he chasing you again?”

Pippa nodded miserably. “Can you arrest him?”

“Sure. If he's alive.”

Thayne was now ranting at the grounds crew to fetch her purse. “She can't be here when the police come. Officer Pierce, you've got to help. She's just an innocent bystander.”