“Forty-five!” Pandy shouted automatically.
And then her image was gone, replaced by a package of Depends.
“That did not just happen,” Pandy said aloud.
She stood up, uncertain about what to do. Surely, what she’d just seen had to be a mistake. Otherwise, Henry would have called.
Or would he? As she went into the mudroom to pick up the receiver, she remembered that the TV only got the local station. Apparently that nice fireman had filed his report, but perhaps the news hadn’t spread. Henry likely didn’t know she’d been declared dead.
She dialed Henry’s number. He answered with his usual drawling “Hellooooo?”
“Hello?” she demanded. “Have you noticed that I am dead?”
“Now why on earth should something that convenient happen to you?” Henry asked. “I saw a tweet from Publisher’s Daily that the author PJ Wallis has been reported dead by her sister, Hellenor…”
“And?” Pandy continued.
“That was it. Since we both know that Hellenor is in Amsterdam, I could only conclude this particular ‘Hellenor Wallis’ was actually PJ Wallis playing dead.”
“And why would I do that?” Pandy asked archly.
“To remind me of how wonderful you are, and how terrible it would be if you really had died.”
Pandy laughed. And then she remembered the boathouse. “Actually, Henry, there is a tragedy. The boathouse. It was struck by lightning, and now it’s burned to the ground. I know how much you loved that boathouse. Remember that scene in The Philadelphia Story?”
“That’s one of your favorite movies, not mine. In any case, the boathouse doesn’t matter. The important thing is that you, my dear, are alive.” Henry gave a low chuckle. “Although I can’t say your publishers feel the same.”
“What do you mean?” Pandy’s eyes narrowed.
Henry cleared his throat. “Based on their reactions, it’s rather a shame you’re not dead. Your demise seems to have caused a small stir. One actually called at seven this morning to discuss it. Of course, he expressed his condolences. But he also pointed out how good it would be for your sales.”
“And what did you say?”
“I didn’t see the need to get into the details about Hellenor’s likely identity. I simply said that I’d get back to him when I found out more about the accident. It won’t hurt him to think you’re dead for a few hours.”
“You’re such a sneak,” Pandy said admiringly. “Of course my death would be good for my sales.”
“Now, darling. Don’t get too excited. You’re not actually dead—yet.”
“It’s almost a shame I’m not,” she said, reminded of Jonny. She glanced in the mirror and sighed. She seemed to have aged two decades overnight. She was literally gray. Her skin was still smeared with soot, and her hair—her hair—
She turned quickly away from the glass. She had worse things to worry about than her hair. “I need money, Henry. And fast.”
“You have money.”
“No, I do not. I need money desperately.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Oh, Henry.” She grimaced at the mirror and noticed that her teeth were also sooty. She sighed. She was going to have to tell Henry the truth: She hadn’t made Jonny sign a prenup, and Jonny had lost all the money she’d given him in a bad restaurant deal.
Henry would be furious. And it would turn out that he would have been right about Jonny all along.
“Pandy?” Henry coaxed.
“It’s just…” Pandy took another look in the mirror and noticed her charred bra strap was showing through where her T-shirt had torn. “I’ll tell you all about it when you get here, okay? And can you please bring up my clothes? I can’t fit into my old ones, and the clothes I’m wearing have been literally turned to ash.”
With a grim goodbye, she hung up and made her way up the back stairs to her bathroom. She plugged the sink and ran the hot water, grabbing a washcloth and soap and scrubbing her face and head until all the blackened clumps came away.
The sight of her once-beautiful hair, now charred and smeared on the damp washcloth, almost made her cry. She threw the washcloth into the trash, and spotting the bottle of the whiskey next to the tub where she’d left it the night before, picked it up and took a swig.
She dried her head and looked in the mirror.
A charred sort of frizzle stood up along the top of her head like a rooster’s comb.
She took another slug of whiskey. The second shot made her fight down the urge to vomit.
When that passed, she opened the cabinet and took out a can of shaving cream and a razor. She aimed the can at her head and pressed the button.
The shaving foam made a cap. A clownish kind of cap that reminded her of the Marx Brothers. If she added Hellenor’s safety glasses, she’d look just like Groucho. She took another swig of whiskey. She ran the water, picked up the razor, and began shaving.
As the razor drew lines in the foam, she realized that the first thing she would have to do when she got back to New York was to buy a wig.
She put down the razor, tipped her head, and splashed water over her scalp. The slick surface under her hands nearly made her sick again. She dried the top of her head.
And lifting her face while she mentally braced for the inevitable, she looked in the mirror.
She gasped.
She was expecting it to be bad. But this?
Who was she?
No one. Without her hair, she looked anonymous. She could be anyone, really. She could even be a man.
Grabbing the towel, she pulled it over her head. This was the final indignity. “Bad thing number four,” she howled aloud, throwing herself onto her bed.
She rolled into the dip of the old feather mattress. And then, as generations of little girls had no doubt done before her, she cried and cried and cried.
* * *
Sometime later, she sat up and dried her tears.
She’d had her emotional indulgence. Like every Wallis child, she’d been taught that feelings, no matter how bad, were unlikely to change reality. Meaning, don’t just sit there feeling sorry for yourself. “Take action,” her father would have said.
Besides, it was relatively simple: She was bald. She needed hair.
It was possible that in the jumble of old costumes in the Victorian theater there was a wig. Possibly several. But they would be like Old Jay’s bed: You wouldn’t want to sleep in them.
She would have to wear a hat instead. The best selection of hats could be found in one of Hellenor’s old rooms; specifically, in the room Hellenor had once dubbed “the lab.”
Panting slightly—a reminder that she was in terrible shape—Pandy made her way down the long second-floor corridor, then up another flight of stairs to the children’s wing, where she opened the door to the schoolroom.
At one time, if something was burning, exploding, or boiling over, chances were it was coming from this room. Pandy would burst in screaming to find Hellenor, dressed in a white lab coat and wearing safety glasses, holding a smoking test tube.
“Yes?” she would ask curtly.
“Mom’s worried you’re about to burn down the house.”
And Hellenor would say, “Maybe someday I will.”
Back in the days when Hellenor was so angry.
And maybe, because of Hellenor, Pandy had been angry, too. Because of Hellenor, she didn’t see the world the way little girls were supposed to—all sugar and spice and everything nice.
Indeed, while the other girls at school were busy learning how to be girls, she and Hellenor were busy learning how to be feminists. They were determined to rail against a world in which being a woman meant being a second-class citizen, without proprietary rights over your body, your thoughts, your soul, or your very being.
They hated what they would come to know as sexism so much that after “Monica,” Pandy had begun another series called “World Without Men.” But then she discovered boys.
br /> Hellenor didn’t. Instead, she decided to annoy everyone and dress like a boy. Hence the collection of men’s hats for nearly every occasion, along with an assortment of other “manly” garments she’d dug up from one of the attics and hung from a pegboard on the wall.
Pandy picked out a gray fedora and put it on. She wandered over to Hellenor’s lab table and picked up a pair of safety glasses. Trying them on, she glanced in the mirror and frowned, reminded that her clothes were burned and she was going to be reduced to wearing not just one of Hellenor’s hats, but her clothes as well.
Walking to the closet, she extracted a flannel shirt and a pair of the men’s black suit pants Hellenor used to favor. Hellenor had been a little taller, so Pandy had to roll the trouser legs up over her knees. Discovering an old pair of Hellenor’s construction boots, she figured she might as well put those on as well. They’d be useful when Henry arrived and they went out to inspect what was left of the boathouse.
Once again, she looked in the mirror. And here was more irony: Now she really did look like Hellenor. Or what Hellenor might look like now.
This was the final insult. She hoped Henry would get there soon.
She marched into the library and, standing in front of the painting of Lady Wallis Wallis, shook her head. People were stupid. How could someone not want a book about Lady Wallis? She had all the courage—if not more—of a modern-day heroine, but her life had been real, and she’d actually had a hand in shaping the future of America.
And she was beautiful. That still wasn’t enough?
The whole world sucked, she decided. No one had any imagination anymore. Feeling impatient for Henry’s company, she decided to go up into the cupola to see if she could spot his car.
She went up three flights of steps, around a landing, and then up another flight. Above her dangled a white rope with a carved wooden pull. Pandy tugged it, and a wooden ladder unfolded.
Pandy climbed up and looked around. Old Jay’s lookout, as they used to call it, was built inside the enormous eight-sided cupola. Posted in front of each large round window was a telescope.
The views were amazing. Through one telescope, you could see two states away, to the still-snowy tip of a mountain. You could also see down to the gas station, which was handy, because then you knew if anyone was coming up Wallis Road.
Pandy lowered her eye to one of the telescopes.
She froze.
Coming from between two pine-covered hilltops were what appeared to be helicopters.
She lifted her head and took a step back. That was strange. No helicopters ever came to Wallis. There was no place for them to land.
Perhaps there had been some kind of terrorist attack?
She bent down to look through another telescope. Several cars and what looked like two white news vans were pulling into the parking lot of the gas station.
And then she saw SondraBeth’s custom navy-blue Porsche coming up the drive.
* * *
Monica.
In the frenzy of trying to deal with her own problems, Pandy had forgotten about Monica. She’d forgotten about SondraBeth Schnowzer. But apparently they hadn’t forgotten about her. And just like Frankenstein’s monster, here came disaster.
Apparently word of Pandy’s death had spread after all. SondraBeth—Monica—in mourning, paying her respects to the family of the deceased, would make for a dramatic photograph and, without having to speak a word, would send the proper message: She was grief-stricken over the death of her creator, PJ Wallis. Which would have been enormously flattering—if PJ Wallis actually were dead.
Pandy hurried down the staircase, and reaching the second floor, peeked out the front window. A cameraman and a woman with a device in her hand were standing in the middle of the rose garden. Now, this was just too much. Henry would be furious. Incensed, Pandy went through the French doors that opened onto a deck shaped like the prow of a ship. She walked to the edge and shouted down angrily. “Excuse me!”
“Yes?” The woman looked up.
“You’re standing in my rose garden.”
“So?” the cameraman asked, resting his camera on his shoulder.
“So you’re standing on at least two hundred years of history. Now will you please move.”
The woman gave Pandy a dismissive look and rolled her eyes.
“Hello?” Pandy repeated sharply. “I asked you to get out of my rose garden.”
The cameraman swung around, and out of habit or aggressiveness, took several shots of her in rapid succession, as if Pandy were the target in a video game.
“We’re trying to get a photograph of Monica,” he said pointedly, lowering his camera.
The woman looked up at Pandy curiously. “Are you PJ Wallis’s sister? Hellenor Wallis?”
Hellenor? For a second, Pandy could only gape at the woman. Then she felt the breeze on the back of her neck. She’d forgotten she was bald. No wonder they hadn’t recognized her. “No,” she snapped. “I most certainly am not Hellenor—”
She broke off and frowned past the intruders to the hill beyond. A squad of cameramen and reporters were now pounding up the rise like soldiers about to plant a flag on enemy territory.
And then the Porsche swung back into view. The mob suddenly organized, pointing their lenses at SondraBeth’s car and snapping away until the car disappeared around another hillock. Then they lowered their cameras and relaxed.
Pandy, on the other hand, didn’t.
She was going to have to greet the world looking like this?
She ran into the bathroom and peered again in the mirror. Was this fate’s ultimate insult?
And suddenly, she was furious. She pulled the fedora over her ears and strode out into the corridor. Now, thanks to SondraBeth Schnowzer and Monica, the whole world, including Jonny, was going to see her looking like this. The photos would be everywhere—and Jonny would laugh his head off.
And then, word would get out about the truth regarding their marriage, and the whole world would jeer about that as well…
Christ. Where was Henry when she needed him?
“Hellenor Wallis?” she heard a voice call out.
Pandy jumped. She hurried to the window at the end of the hall and yanked it open. Leaning out, she spotted SondraBeth’s navy-blue Porsche parked in the kitchen lot reserved for family and deliveries.
Unlike the press, SondraBeth knew where to park. Back when they were friends, Pandy and SondraBeth used to come up to Wallis and have a ball.
Pandy banged down the back stairs, went through the den, and flung open the door to the mudroom.
Sure enough, SondraBeth was already in the mudroom, on the phone. She was wearing a tight-fitting black T-shirt and skinny black jeans. Slung over her shoulder was some kind of loose, baggy, unconstructed garment that swirled behind her like a shadow. Wrapped around her face like insect eyes were multifaceted iridescent sunglasses.
“I wish I could fire someone for this. I really do,” she was saying.
Pandy cleared her throat. SondraBeth turned her head and raised her dark glasses. She looked briefly at Pandy and quickly held up one finger. She went back to her call. “Can you hold on for a second? Pandy’s sister, Hellenor, just walked in. Thanks.” She turned back to Pandy and put her palm over the receiver. “I’m so sorry, Hellenor. I probably should have called to let you know I was coming, but I wasn’t expecting to be followed by all this press. Apparently my phone has a tracking device. I’m just trying to clear a couple of things up. I won’t be more than five seconds.” She nodded at her assistant, who was standing respectfully at the other end of the room.
She went back to her call. “I need to speak to PP, okay?” she said sharply, and hung up.
SondraBeth looked Pandy up and down and smiled. Stepping forward, she took Pandy by the shoulders. Bending her knees slightly to stare into her face, she said, “Hellenor. I’m so honored to meet you, and so sorry about your sister.”
Pandy’s jaw dropped. Was she jokin
g? SondraBeth didn’t recognize her?
Pandy moved her face closer. She squinted at SondraBeth. “Squeege?” she asked cautiously.
“Squeege!” SondraBeth exclaimed. “That’s what Pandy used to call me. And I used to call her Peege. But of course you would know that. I’m sure she’s told you everything.”
SondraBeth looked straight at Pandy as her eyes narrowed knowingly. Pandy wondered if SondraBeth was trying to give her a message. Trying to somehow hint to Pandy that she recognized her but couldn’t acknowledge it.
SondraBeth smiled grimly. “In that case, I suppose you know all about Jonny.”
“Jonny!” Pandy said, emitting a harsh laugh. Her lips drew back into a tight line, and in a voice that insinuated that she understood, she said, “You could say I do.”
SondraBeth paused, again peering at Pandy closely. Seeming satisfied by what she saw, she nodded briskly. “Then you know what a bad guy Jonny is.”
“You could say that.” Pandy followed SondraBeth out of the mudroom and into the kitchen.
“I tried to warn Pandy before she married him that he was a bad seed.” SondraBeth swung open the refrigerator door, took out a bottle of water, and unscrewed the cap. “But you know how stubborn she could be when it came to men. And now she’s gone, and it’s too late. I’m never going to forgive myself for letting a stupid fight over a guy get in the way of our friendship.”
“SondraBeth?” the assistant was now cautiously standing in the doorway.
“Yes, Judy?” SondraBeth asked.
“PP in three.”
“Thanks.” SondraBeth began walking back to the mudroom. “The upshot is that all kinds of awful shit is going to come out about Jonny. I know you can handle it, but I just want you to be prepared. Pandy always said you were the kind of woman who would never get taken in by a man. And you’re exactly as Pandy described you.” SondraBeth gave Pandy another quick up-and-down look, reminding Pandy that she was dressed in Hellenor’s clothes. “A true individual.” SondraBeth picked up the phone. “PP?” she barked.
Did SondraBeth really think she was Hellenor? Pandy frowned and went past SondraBeth to the fuzzy orange armchairs. She sat down with a plop and stared through the back window at the makeshift camp that had been set up outside. She glanced back at SondraBeth, who was still on the phone with PP. PP, she remembered, probably knew a ton of stuff about Jonny. And recalling what SondraBeth had just said about her ex-husband…She looked up to find SondraBeth’s assistant leaning toward her with an outstretched hand.