Nancy’s Theory of Style (41 page)

She was able to escape from Gigi’s next
question when one of the guests began coughing violently after taking too large
a gulp of his drink.
Nancy
moved to the end of the bar and signaled the bartender. “What is that stuff?”
she whispered.

“GP had it made specially from an old
formula. It’s grain alcohol sweetened up with cooked sugar, a kick of cayenne
and some chewing tobacco. It’s the genuine thing.” The bartender picked up a
shot glass from the back of the bar and tossed it back. “It goes down easier if
you shoot it, not sip.”

“You’re not supposed to be drinking on
the job.”

“I’m just following directions,
sweetheart. If you want, I can make you a champagne flip and we also got
blackberry wine.”

“I’m the boss here and I want you to
stop drinking and stop serving that paint thinner.
Champagne
flips and wine only.”

As she left the music hall, she noticed
that guests were arriving quickly. More actors appeared in grimy costumes. A
contingent of hookers sashayed by and tall one said, “Cute shoes,” in a deep
voice.

“Thanks,”
Nancy
said automatically.

The actress said to one of her…or his
companions, “I know a couple of these rich johns. Ooh, crab legs!”

Nancy
hurried down the wooden sidewalk so
quickly that one heel caught between planks and she teetered into the roughhewn
boards of a hitching post. She regained her balance, but her dress snagged on a
board and ripped at the seam. She tried to hold the seam together while
greeting incoming guests.

She had reached the door and was going
to go to the staff trailer and repair her dress when Mrs. Bentley Jamieson
Friendly, in a floor-length silver and black beaded gown, entered on the arm of
a silver-haired man in tails. For the special occasion, the Museum’s
benefactress was wearing a towering wig of curls and she had new oversized
glasses.

“Mrs. Friendly, welcome!”

“Hello,
Nancy
. I decided I should have an escort, and
the Ambassador stopped by so I told him to put on his fancy duds and see how
this town throws a party.”

Nancy
had no idea if this man was, but his
jacket was so beautifully cut, she would have let him in even if he was
dragging a dead body behind him. “Mr. Ambassador, so delighted that you could
come. We’re honored.”

“This is something!” Mrs. Friendly
exclaimed. She tapped at the frame of her glasses. “I had my cataract surgery
and I can see swell. What happened to your dress?”

Nancy
hoped that Mrs. Friendly’s improved
vision wouldn’t spot the desperation behind her smile. “I hope you’ll find that
the party conveys the authentic spirit of the
Barbary
Coast
.”
Nancy
spotted Sloane approaching and said, “One moment and I’ll have your escort.”

She intercepted Sloane and said sotto
voce, “Sloane, will you please take Mrs. Friendly to the poker parlor and give
them enough chips to keep them occupied for a little while? Her date is an
ambassador, so find out his identity, so we can give him a welcome during the
program.”

“Happy to do it.”

“Oh, and make sure to give them
champagne flips because the house whiskey is poisonous. Thank you!”

Guests kept pulling
Nancy
aside to talk. She knew she must have
responded, but she couldn’t recall one conversation as she moved to the next. The
party grew loud as the hall filled up and more guests discovered the music
hall.

When
Nancy
spotted GP, she waved him over and
said, “I told the bartender in the music hall to stop serving that evil whisky
concoction, but I have a feeling he’s still doing it.”

“It’s an authentic recipe.”

“I appreciate your dedication to
historical fact, GP, but I don’t want any of our guests to get authentically
poisoned.”

“You’re right,” he said, abashed. “I’ll
go check on him.”

Later
Nancy
would remember the first crash. She was
talking the catering manager, saying, “Bring out as many hors d’oeuvres as you
can because we need something that will soak up the whiskey,” when she saw a
young men dressed as a street tough shove another too enthusiastically. The
second actor bumped into a waiter carrying a tray of champagne glasses.

The silver tray teetered momentarily and
then fell. The huge clang and the shattering of a dozen glasses cut through all
the cacophony and everyone stopped talking to turn to the noise. Then one of
the actors guffawed, an uninhibited, crazy laugh, another followed, and the
rest of the crowd joined in.

The catering manager said to
Nancy
, “I’ll get that
cleaned up and expedite the next rounds of canapés and what the hell is that?”

Nancy
turned to see where he was looking and
saw something dark and hairy with white teeth lunging through the crowd after a
chicken. “A dog,” she said. “What’s a dog doing here? What’s a chicken doing
here?”

The chicken flew with a squawk onto a
sign that said Frisky and Sporty Entertainment for Full-Grown People, and the
mangy dog started yelping madly and leaping at it, and another dog appeared and
joined in the attempt at poultricide.

Nancy
was frozen in place, unsure of whether
she needed to call her doormen, but people were laughing. Then an actor,
dressed as a lumberjack, shouted, “Dirty, lying, no ‘count son of a bitch!” and
threw a punch at an actor dressed as a dandy. The dandy retaliated with a blow,
shoving the lumberjack back into a cluster of actresses dressed as ladies of
the night.

Suddenly all the performers were
brawling, fists hit flesh, bodies crashed against one another, but it looked
much too real and confused guests moved away from the fighting.
Nancy
, desperate to
salvage the situation, shouted, “Wonderful performance! Bravo!”

She put her clipboard on a table and
began clapping wildly, hoping others would join in when someone put a hand on
her arm.
Nancy
turned to see Bailey.

He was wearing a three-button, notched,
black tuxedo jacket with a white shirt, and pleated trousers, and he was doused
with a sport scent. His expression was concerned and he leaned toward her, a
handsome man who was always calm because things always went his way.

“Nance, what’s going on?” he said over
the din as the actors tumbled against tables and guests shouted, “Watch out!”

Nancy
looked of the pleated pants and smelled
the sports scent and thought of how she hated to be called Nance. “I was going
to ask you the same thing. Are you teaming with Todd’s to break my pre-nup? Was
it planned that Junie see me at your house?”

He opened his mouth, shut it, waited and
then smiled. He bent down to speak close to her ear. “I was helping out a bro
in a tough situation, but it became obvious that Todd never deserved you.” He
stroked her arm. “We’re two of a kind, Nance. We can recognize when a better
opportunity comes along.”

“So you’re willing to shift sides?” she
asked incredulous.

“Absolutely, babe. Say the word and I’ll
throw Todd under the bus. No worries about Junie saying anything. She’s been in
the palm of my hand ever since she lived in that crappy apartment with a nylon
rug.”

 
“You were the one who gave her the nickname,”
she said.

“What nickname?” he said with a grin. He
dropped to one knee and said, loudly because the noise had gotten ever louder,
“Nance, will you do me the honor of becoming Mrs. Bailey Carson Whiteside, the
Third?”

Nancy
didn’t consider strategy and she didn’t
consider public appearance. She didn’t calculate whether Bailey was still a
viable option. She didn’t bask in satisfaction that she had conquered one of
the City’s most eligible bachelors.

Instead, she emulated the lumberjack
actor and cried, “Dirty, lying, no ‘count son of a bitch!” as she shoved Bailey
Whiteside, the Third, off the walkway. Someone shouted in a falsetto, “Got to
be real, girlfriend.”

Nancy
was reveling in her act of violence
when the crowd gasped. She looked around and followed gazes to the focus of the
attention. A man in western garb had pulled out a big, gleaming gun and pointed
it at the ceiling. He screamed, “Yahoo,” and an earsplitting blast went off.

Guests screamed and everyone moved like
a herd away from the sound.

That’s when the men in black pajamas
crashed through the windows, swinging in on ropes, and delivering blows to all
in their way. The sight of them was so astonishing that everyone stopped
talking, fighting, and drinking as Mrs. Friendly’s elite security force swept
through the warehouse, swarmed around the heiress and the Ambassador and
carried them outside and away from any threats real or amateurishly
choreographed.

An actor in seaman garb beside
Nancy
said,
“Motherfucking ninjas!” and gave her an elated, gold-toothed smile, “That’s the
most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

Before anyone could gossip about this
amazing development, a woman shrieked “Fire!”

Nancy
sniffed and smelled the smoke. In a
second she saw a thin gray plume rising from somewhere in the corner. It didn’t
look like much, but people began screaming, “Fire! Fire!” and rushing to the
entrance.

Nancy
yelled, “Please calm down! Calm down
and exit in an orderly fashion!” No one listened.

GP was suddenly beside her. “It wasn’t a
real gun,
Nancy
!
It was a prop.”

“It’s okay. Help people get out safely. Keep
them outside in case it’s nothing and we can bring them back in for dinner.”

The crowd shoved her forward. She saw
Sloane being jostled up ahead and then she didn’t see her anymore. “Sloane!”
Nancy
pushed people aside
and she found her friend crouched against a wall. “Are you okay?”

Sloane nodded and
Nancy
helped her up. She looked back and saw
that the room was almost empty. “Call nine-one-one and wait for me outside!”

Nancy
dashed back toward the smoke and saw
flames licking u from a kerosene lantern had fallen over, setting a tablecloth
on fire.

For all the fuss, the flames weren’t
much worse than Todd’s barbecue attempts. The actress with the deep voice had
already found a fire extinguisher, and
Nancy
ran to a nearby table of appetizers. She grabbed a bin of ice and oysters
tossed them on the small fire. She ran back to get a tub of ice with shrimp.

“It’s going out, sugar,” the actress
called to her. “Don’t waste those crab legs!”

That’s when the firemen rushed in,
jostling
Nancy
aside, wielding axes with unnecessary enthusiasm at the smoldering table.

“Don’t use the water!”
Nancy
pleaded as the firefighters turned on a
hose and doused the remnants of the fire.

The stench of burned seafood and smoke
permeated the room and
Nancy
thought quickly. If she could find the catering manager and her staff, there
was a chance she could relocate the party outside. She remembered to grab her
clipboard before she ran down the wooden walkway. Her heel got caught again, so
she left it there and kicked off the other.

Outside, guests were milling and
chatting excitedly. People called her name, but she wove through the crowd,
looking for one of her assistants.

“Nancy Carrington-Chambers!” an
imperious voice barked, but this time the sound of her name wasn’t confirmation
that she’d done everything right in her life.

The crowd fell silent and parted to
allow Mrs. Friendly, her towering wig askew, to make her way slowly to
Nancy
.

Nancy
smiled and said, “A lantern fell over
and the fire was minimal. Everything is fine now. We’ll have the tables brought
outside and dine al fresco!”

Mrs. Friendly’s glare was especially
frightening since her recent surgery allowed her to focus her gaze like a
magnifying glass focuses a beam of light on an unfortunate insect. “The
Ambassador has already left,” Mrs. Friendly said. “You’ve embarrassed me and
tarnished the reputation of the
Barbary Coast
with your sloppy execution of a simple party.”

“I can explain. The gun was a prop and
we were going for the authentic experience, revitalizing this event just as you
asked…”

Nancy
looked around for GP and saw him at the
edge of the crowd struggling to hold up the drunken bartender and dance hall
girl.