SNAP: The World Unfolds (14 page)

Lisbit had laid out underwear and my second great personal shopper’s choice—a vertical stripe black and white silk with a full skirt and fitted bodice. A wide sash tied in the back, a look I normally wouldn’t wear, but the vertical stripes gave the illusion of height and with the last few pounds I lost, I had a decent waistline. I swept my hair up and slipped into a pair of black evening sandals. I sure wasn’t an Ice Princess, but I looked good and felt wonderful.

And when Jean-Louis knocked then opened the door, his appraising look told me that others thought I looked good, too.

“You’re ready?”

“Let me get a wrap.” I grabbed a narrow shawl and made a last make-up check. I was determined not to be under his spell tonight; he was just an escort. Granted, a lot better-looking and much smoother than the demons.

He gave me a slow smile and just the beginning of a glimmer as we headed downstairs. “I hear you had an interesting day. Sandor said you asked lots of questions on your way to the river.”

“I did. And he was full of information. It’s a little like Wonderland or the Looking-Glass, though. For every answer, it begs a dozen more questions. I still find it difficult to just accept the things I’m told.”

Particularly that Jean-Louis is only acting as a bodyguard. I thought I could pick up on a guys interest in me but I’d never been around a vampire. That apparently threw my intuition into park.

As we came into the salon, there was more chatter and everybody seemed a little looser. By the second night of a house party, alliances had been made and friendships were forming. The vampires were at their best again, glimmering and looking smashing.

Carola chose an ice blue, Pen was in a complicated draped and tucked print in shades of mauve and lavender, Mira looked Brazilian in a vivid jungle print open caftan over tight red toreador pants and high heels up to here. Maria, one of the stay-at-home family members, must not have stayed at home to shop. She was dressed in what was certainly couture from Paris, but I didn’t recognize the designer. It was an off-one-shoulder number in a peach colored sheer fabric that made her look like a Botticelli model. And tonight the three men were sticking close.

Jean-Louis handed me a glass of wine and than excused himself to go over and have a quiet conversation with the Baron that consisted of a lot of shrugging, eye-rolling and Hungarian hand gestures that I couldn’t read. I headed over to a clot of the regulars, including the two fishermen from this afternoon.

“My escort thought you two were crazy, catching fish and then throwing them back,” I raised my eyebrows.

The producers, who introduced themselves as Bruce and Rick, nodded.

“It’s important to get an invitation to one of the Baron’s house parties,” one of them—Bruce?—shrugged. “But most of the people who actually work for the Baron are tied up all day. You only see them at night, so it’s sometimes hard to find things to do during the day.”

“Yeah,” Rick chimed in. “There are always a few people who aren’t employees and don’t keep those crazy hours at these things, so we tend to get together. Bruce and I don’t fish at home. How do you manage?’

“Manage what?” I didn’t follow the shift in conversation.

“The hours. A lot SNAP business is done at night. Are you supposed to work all night and sleep all day?” He snickered. “But then, to work for the Baron I’d manage to stay awake for a 10 p.m. meeting.”

Suddenly, it hit me. They didn’t know. It seemed that I was the only regular at this house party who knew about the vampires. Some of SNAP’s employees were either vampires or donors and those who weren’t, including the support and technical staff, were carefully kept out of the loop. And night work made sense when you realized that SNAP was international, covering all time zones, with a nighttime program. Somebody, most somebodies, had to work “crazy” hours and overnight shifts so there was no reason to find it odd. Any more off than a host for a network early morning talk show to get up at 2 a.m. and be in makeup by 4 a.m. for a 5 a.m. show.

I smiled at Bruce. “Well, it takes some getting used to. You learn to sleep when you can. Probably like being a doctor or a cop, except most of our meetings aren’t emergencies so you don’t get waked up in the middle of the night. You’re already awake and at work.” I laughed. “And when you get your bank statements, you really don’t mind.”

“So, all the rumors about the Baron’s pay scales are true?”

“Hmmm...” Oops. I shouldn’t have brought money up. In a business where you were what you made, the rumor mills worked overtime. “I don’t know what the pay scales are, I just know that a lot of employees stay with SNAP and the Baron for a long time. And I’m happy with my salary.

“What else does everybody do here during the day? I was so jet-lagged that I slept late today.”

“There are stables, if you ride, and a pool, but it’s chilly for swimming. You can always scare up one of those spooky black-suit guys if you want to go into the town, or village, I guess. It’s not a big place, but there’re a few shops to get some souvenir stuff...coo-coo clocks and carvings.”

Rick gave me a speculative look. “I noticed that you came down to the river this afternoon with one of the black suits. Don’t they give you the willies? I understand bodyguards. It just seems weird to have them follow you around out here in the wild.”

Oh, boy. I had to get this conversation shifted before it got any further. “I just thought it was nice of him to show me the best path down the river,” I smiled gently, hoping to showing that I appreciated the attention. “It’s kind of a luxury, having your own tour guide who knows the place. I thought tomorrow I’d look through the library. There are a lot of books on local history, even some in English,” I laughed.

“We’re leaving early afternoon,” Brian informed me. “We’re meeting with some people in Budapest, then talking to some money people in London before we head back to the Coast. Even with a Baron invite, we still need to keep on top of stuff and this trip has been a way to get face time with people who matter. Are you leaving? We could share a ride.”

“I’m staying for a while. As senior management, my time is the Baron’s. You know what that’s like,” I pursed my mouth. “Maybe I’ll see you back on the Coast.”

As a ploy to show Jean-Louis that I could hold my own at a cocktail party, this effort with Bruce and Rick probably earned me a C-. As I came over to Jean-Louis, Josef announced dinner so we all filed into the dining room. Tonight I was seated between Carola and Janos, who spoke little English, making for a pretty one-sided conversation.
I did comment on the beauty of the countryside which got me a shy smile and an outpouring of Hungarian with Carola translating.

“Janos says ‘thank you,’ his family has been here for centuries,” Carola’s silvery laugh rang out. “I don’t know why that always amuses me, of
course
his family has been here. Like most of us, he’s proud of his homeland and so happy that they’ve made it through all the turmoil of the last two centuries.”

I was reminded that Carola had mentioned the Esterhazys where we first met and thought this would be a good time to ask about it.

“My, yes,” she said, her eyes twinkling. “I did kind of roll out a story for you. We all have cover stories for new people.

“I think anyone who’s been in this part of the world for as long as we have, believes that they have some Esterhazy blood somewhere in their background. We think we should be royalty just because we have the love of country and a kind of noblesse oblige in our blood. The Esterhazys were leaders in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which was around for a long time. Actually, though, some of us were here first. The Baron, for one, and Pen. Janos and Bela too, I believe.”

She leaned across me and spoke to my left-hand dinner partner. He answered back. Whatever she’d asked him, he was pleased. His eyes lit up and color washed his cheeks like a war hero coming home.

“He has been in the family almost as long as the Baron,” she said. “He’s proud to tell his story because he wasn’t in the upper classes. He was originally the head groom and when the Baron asked if he’d be an acolyte and manage the stables, he was astounded. He’s been grateful ever since, and now he’s invited every so often to the Baron’s table.”

There was so much I still didn’t yet know or understand. When I’d met Bela, Janos, Freidrich and Maria last night, I just assumed that all members of the family were roughly equal. Well, those who had stayed in Hungary weren’t as urbane as those who worked around the world, but I hadn’t realized there were still class differences. Europe was a class-based society for millennia and, when the vampire families began, was still practically feudal. Sandor has shown me that this afternoon and tonight, with Janos, it was much clearer.

I turned to Carola. “I’m only beginning to understand the gulf of difference,” I shook my head. “I thought it was that you were...ahhh...uhhh...a different species.”

“Well, I suppose we are,” she nodded.

“Yes, but now I realize that the cultural differences are a chasm. I’m a product of America, the United States, in the 20
^th
century. Two hundred years of a relatively classless democracy. Where, on the surface and politically, everybody is considered equal; at least has an equal chance.”

Carola nodded again and an uncomfortable look passed across her face. “Cultural differences have been terribly hard for us,” she acknowledged. “As long as we stayed in Europe, we had the same cultural base. Everybody knew, from your voice, your language, your dress, where you were from and where you fit.

“Those signs gave people around you enough information that they knew how to treat you. With the twentieth century, things changed. Multi-nationalism, international commerce, the explosion of technology—the world’s a different place. If people born in it had a hard time, imagine how it was for people who were born in the 17
^th
or 18
^th
century.

“My dear, I am so sorry,” she suddenly stopped. “I’ve done the unthinkable, I’ve monopolized the conversation and started a diatribe with a guest at dinner. Please forgive me.”

“Please, Carola, don’t apologize to me! I’ve enjoyed everything you’ve said. I decided last night that I wanted a future with your family. Knowing more about all of you will help me. And knowing more about you will also help me know more about Jean-Louis.”

Oh my God, I’d said it.

Carola sat back. “Let’s talk about that, but later. I’ll come to your room after the screenings.” This time her smile didn’t fully reach her eyes. Had I crossed the line? Beyond confusing, conversation around here was like a minefield, not knowing where to step.

“I’d like that,” my voice sounded false to me but she nodded and turned to Janos just as Pen rose to signal the end of dinner.

Tonight was a replay of last night. After-dinner coffee and chat until the screening room was ready for us to file in and watch tonight’s SNAP episodes. There were some comments, Chaz made some notes on the continuity and Jean-Louis was writing suggestions about the sets, all-in-all satisfactory shows from the U.S. and Brazil.

There wasn’t a formal family business meeting tonight. Jean-Louis came over and took my arm. “I know we can’t go outside,” he glimmered. “Several people are on conference calls and there’s a Skype meeting in the small drawing room. You want to go in the salon? There are a couple of bridge games going on with us and the regulars, or we can go into the library and talk.”

I was more uneasy with him then I’d ever been. At the beginning, it was two co-workers feeling each other out about interests, styles, management, turf. Then on the hunting forays to L.A. clubs—only now I understood the irony of that—it was business with a dose of pleasure. The pleasure gave me a warm feeling when I watched him working and then...the trip to the Baron’s.

What did I feel then? Certainly nervous, afraid, disoriented. Suddenly I had a chasm in front of me, but did I have the courage to get across? Everything I’d worked for over the years has culminated in my job at SNAP. Jean-Louis’ revelation that SNAP was owned by a vampire family—and that the Baron was the head vampire—shook my world. I was afraid for my life and for my lifestyle.

Then Jean-Louis’ tenderness, caring and just plain sexiness, plus the fact that nobody had gone for my throat except for the Huszars, put me on the edge of euphoria. Surrounded by luxury, in the midst of cultivated, beautiful people, lulled me and I decided that this was what I wanted, forever. Or at least as much forever as I had coming.

I thought Jean-Louis’ interest was in me, not in my value to the Baron and SNAP. With Sandor’s comments about keeping me safe, I came back to earth. Why would someone like Jean-Louis be interested in me? He was a vampire. He’d lived for what? two hundred, three hundred years or more? There must have been vampires, as well as regulars, over the years. For all I knew, there was someone now, stashed away in some Hungarian village waiting for him to drop in.