The Viennese Waltz(69)
Meanwhile, Vicky had become something of a wine snob. The truth was that Vicky had had exactly one glass of up-time wine since the Ring of Fire but between that and more liberal experience with down-time wines, she was fully aware that the vintners’ art had improved over the centuries. The very best down-time wines were way better than the wine in her teak case, but ninety percent of the wines of the seventeenth century weren’t nearly as good. Trudi had never had so much as a sip of up-time wine and frankly preferred beer. The comment, while probably true, was mostly to get the attention of one of the upper servants. Ah. Here he comes now.
“And you are?” in that snotty Viennese Austrian accent.
“Gertrude von Bachmerin.” With this sort, so her mother had always told her, it was best to establish authority right from the start. “Administrative Assistant to Millicent Anne Barnes von Up-time.”
And so it proved. The guy’s accent lost some of its snootiness. “Ah . . . what is an Administrative Assistant?”
So Trudi went into her spiel on up-time socioeconomic ranks. It was guaranteed to leave a down-timer at least as confused as most up-timers were in dealing with German ranks of nobility. It also left the impression that the girls had quite a lot of rank in the up-timer system and so, by extension, did Trudi. She mentioned that Judy had been a junior varsity cheer leader just like “Baroness Julie Sims Mackay, yes, the one with the rifle.”
* * *
A few hours later, Trudi hid a grin as Vicky started to complain.
“I’m going to raise some serious hell when we get back to Magdeburg.” Vicky kicked off her high heels. “That shoemaker didn’t get these right yet.”
Millicent sniffed. “Maybe if you weren’t trying to wear four-inch heels, your feet wouldn’t hurt so much. It’s not like you aren’t five seven in your stocking feet, anyway. You and Judy, both.”
“You’re just jealous, Shorty.”
Before the conversation could degenerate any further Susan apparently decided to step in. “I’d expected Vienna to be a lot more . . . well, more. It’s tiny. And crowded. Did you see all those shacks built up against the walls? I wonder who lives there?”
“Everybody without any money,” Hayley put in. “And that’s almost everyone who isn’t a noble, as near as I can tell.”
“When the maid came in, I got her to talking about the place,” Trudi said. “She is quite proud of being in the Liechtenstein service. People must be desperate for work here.”
“They are,” Hayley said. “You would not believe the things I’ve seen here, Trudi.”
Since Millicent was the chief administrative officer of the Barbie Consortium, that made Trudi the Barbie Consortium’s administrative assistant. It also meant she won the contest to see who would fly to Vienna and who would ride. More servants and assistants were following by less expensive transport, but what they would need in the first days here was an office manager. It also helped that she was the daughter of an imperial knight. Susan, as usual, put it bluntly. “Rank matters to down-timers.”
The reason that the daughter of an imperial knight was acting as servant to the Barbie Consortium had to do with the fact that not all imperial knights were idiots and most of them weren’t all that wealthy. Trudi’s dad had seen the writing on the wall fairly quickly and put Trudi in Grantville High, where she had met the Barbies. Grantville was a whole other power structure, one that depended a lot less on what your parents were. It was a power structure that the members of the Barbie Consortium were totally plugged into. That had allowed the Consortium to help her family out of what amounted to penury, while making a nice profit on the deal.
Papa, who was already interested in up-timers, became a firm supporter of up-timers in general and the Barbie Consortium in particular. While ranks in the up-timer social structure were less clearly defined, they were still quite real. With the full support of her father, Trudi had attached her wagon to the BC’s rising star. She insisted on becoming what she called their “lady in waiting.” Meanwhile, she’d also learned English, learned typing, and the basics of bookkeeping. As well, she’d taken up calligraphy and answered any invitations in various elegant scripts.
“What I’m worried about right now is Sarah,” Judy said. “I mean, I’m just as glad not to have to attend a formal dinner after that plane ride, but you guys know Sarah. If anybody can open mouth and insert foot, it’ll be her.”
“I don’t think the Ken Doll’s uncle liked any of us much,” Gabrielle said. “He didn’t give me any dirty looks, but the one he laid on Millicent was a lulu.”