“Well, aren’t you lucky. You never have,” Pandy replied. Now it all made sense. This wasn’t about Jonny. It was about Monica. SondraBeth had believed she was Hellenor and, knowing that Hellenor had the rights to Monica, had obviously brought her here to convince her to make more Monica movies. Just like PP.
“Either way, what difference does it make? Because I’m alive.” Pandy took a mournful drag. “Why should you care about what happened between me and Jonny anyway?” she asked suddenly. “After all, you certainly didn’t care about me and Doug.”
SondraBeth took a step back and sniffed. Looking as if she was recalling that terrible moment on the island when they’d fought about Doug, she said, “Oh, I get it. You’re still mad.”
“About what?”
“Doug Stone?” SondraBeth said tauntingly.
Pandy laughed snidely in return. “Of course I’m still mad. It’s not the kind of thing I’d ever forget.”
“Of course it isn’t,” SondraBeth said.
Pandy laughed this off. “Why did you do it?”
“You really want to know?”
“As a matter of fact, I do.” Pandy crossed her arms.
“Oh, Peege,” SondraBeth said. “You always made these things bigger than they were. There was no conspiracy, nothing. I was just jealous. Don’t tell me you haven’t been jealous of me.” She tossed her head.
“When?” Pandy challenged.
“The mayor’s party? When I was invited and you weren’t?”
“I guess Doug told you,” Pandy said. “Well, so what? Maybe I was jealous. But that doesn’t mean you’re entitled to steal my guy.”
“Of course not,” SondraBeth sneered. “Because as usual, you, PJ Wallis, are a far better person than I am. Because you grew up with all the manners.”
“Not this again,” Pandy said warningly.
“Listen, I made a mistake,” SondraBeth said. “I honestly didn’t think you’d be that angry about it. You said that you were done with him. I thought you felt the way I did. Like he was kind of a PandaBeth toy.”
“What?” Pandy screeched.
“Oh, calm down, Peege,” SondraBeth said. “I’m joking. Haven’t you learned to stop being such an idealist? Surely you know that these kinds of things happen in life. You just hate it when they happen to you. Anyway, I was never in love with Doug.”
“I thought you two were supposed to be soul mates,” Pandy sneered.
“Well, I found out pretty quickly that we weren’t,” SondraBeth said, marching back into the bedroom as Pandy followed her. “Especially when I discovered that my so-called soul mate was fucking everything, everywhere, and everyone was covering up for him. And then, it was too late. It was all over the tabloids that we were together. And then you went and married Jonny.”
Pandy frowned. “What’s that got to do with it?”
“Nothing,” SondraBeth said, leaning back on the bed. “It’s just that when you and Jonny got married, the studio decided it would be a great idea if Monica got married as well.”
“Are you saying your getting engaged to Doug was the studio’s idea?”
“Did you think it was mine?” SondraBeth asked.
“Why didn’t you say no?”
“Because I liked having sex with him, and it was good publicity. For Monica. In fact, I almost went along with it—for Monica. But in the end, I couldn’t do it. I didn’t love him, and I couldn’t go through with that much of a lie.
“Why did Monica have to get married, anyway?” SondraBeth continued in exasperation. “What happened to the old PJ Wallis? The PJ who said Monica would never get married, because she’d never get married.”
Pandy winced. “I fell in love, I guess. And now, because of Jonny and his debts, I have to write another Monica book. And now that I’m divorced, Monica is going to have to get divorced, too. And then she’s going to have to try online dating.”
“Dating again? She’s forty-five, for Christ’s sake,” SondraBeth said. “How much more of her life does she have to devote to dating? The woman who plays her certainly doesn’t have time to date. She doesn’t even have time to pick her teeth with a toothpick.”
“I fucked up. Okay?” Pandy snapped.
“How?”
“I can’t say,” Pandy said between gritted teeth.
“What did you do?” SondraBeth demanded.
“Something incredibly stupid.” Pandy glared. “I never made Jonny sign a prenup, and then I gave him hundreds of thousands of dollars for his restaurant in Vegas. And now I’m broke and will probably have to sell my loft and write a million more Monica books.”
“Why did you give him all your money?” SondraBeth said as Pandy began to cry.
“I knew I shouldn’t have, but I felt guilty,” Pandy sobbed. “Because my career was going great, and Jonny’s…well, it should have been going great, and he was acting like it was going great, but it wasn’t. He was losing money. And then, when he couldn’t pay it back, I was forced to write another Monica book. And then Monica had to get married, and now she’ll have to get divorced…” She hiccuped as she glanced at the TV, which was running the news loop of PJ Wallis’s death again. “Or worse. Maybe now that I’m dead, Monica will have to die, too.”
“So this is all Jonny’s fault.”
“And now I still can’t do anything about Jonny. Because I’m not dead,” Pandy said, shaking her fist at the screen.
SondraBeth looked at the monitor and back at Pandy.
And then she got that look in her eye.
“Peege,” she said in that familiar wheedling tone of voice that had been the beginning of so many misadventures. “You don’t know how badly the union guys want to teach Jonny a lesson.”
“SondraBeth?” Judy’s voice came over the intercom. “I need you to get ready.”
“Thanks, Judy,” SondraBeth called out gaily as she pressed the button.
She picked up her phone and smiled. “I’m going to call Freddie. I think I know how you can still be Pandy and get back at Jonny.” And as she pressed his number, she gave her the old PandaBeth grin. “All you have to do is stay Hellenor for a few hours.”
* * *
Five minutes later, they were still arguing.
“No.” Pandy got up and stubbed out her cigarette. “It would never work,” she added sharply. “Besides the fact that it’s ka-ray-zee, I could never get away with being Hellenor.”
“But you already have,” SondraBeth pointed out. “Even I thought you were Hellenor, until you mentioned that snaky thing coming out of my head.” She paused and looked at Pandy sympathetically. “Sista, you’re bald. Do you know how different that makes people look? It totally changes the proportions of the face. Even the photographers didn’t recognize you.”
“Which was annoying,” Pandy admitted. She crossed her arms. “On the other hand, even if I were Hellenor—”
“Freddie said the union guys have a big surprise planned for Jonny at the leg.”
Pandy moaned and flopped into an armchair. The leg. In addition to the Woman Warrior of the Year Awards, which Pandy had forgotten about, given her rotten last few months, the unveiling of Monica’s shoe was also today. It was a new thing the studio was trying. According to SondraBeth, this was the reason Monica’s leg had been late:
It was getting its own day.
“SondraBeth.” Judy’s voice came through the intercom. “We need you to get ready.”
“We don’t have much time,” SondraBeth hissed. “All you have to do is go to the Woman Warrior of the Year Awards as Hellenor, accept the award, announce that you’re killing Monica, and then, while the mob grabs Jonny, we’ll go to the leg event, where you go back to being Pandy.”
Pandy groaned.
“You, PJ Wallis, have picked a very good day to die,” SondraBeth said, sounding as if Pandy were the one who had hatched up this plan in the first place.
“Can I at least call Henry?” Pandy asked.
“Sure.” SondraBeth
tossed her the phone. And in her very best Wicked Witch of the West voice, she added, “Remember, you only have five minutes to decide.”
And then she was gone.
* * *
Fucking Squeege, Pandy thought, stomping back to the bedroom. This was perhaps the real reason they hadn’t seen each other for so many years: When they did, crazy things happened. Bad things. Embarrassing things. Things that almost made you glad you didn’t have a mother to tell.
She plopped down on the bed and looked at the packages. At least they hadn’t done any cocaine. So all in all, nothing was that bad, yet.
And then she quickly pawed through the packages, just to make sure SondraBeth hadn’t hidden a little “surprise” in the bag. After all, she had just seen Freddie the Rat, and it was the kind of thing…
But she was happy to see that the bags only contained more of those luxuriously soft workout clothes.
“Hellenor?” Judy sounded more urgent this time. “We need you upstairs in three.”
Right, Pandy thought. She stripped off Hellenor’s clothes and pulled on a set of navy-blue workout gear with MONICA outlined in silver on the back.
And then she heard Jonny’s voice. It was coming from the TV. There he was, again, in front of her building. But this time he was talking to a reporter.
“Who is Hellenor Wallis?” he asked. “That’s what I want to know.” Turning to face the camera, his still-handsome face arranged into his trademark sneer, he added, “I know you’re out there, Hellenor. And I’m looking for you.”
Jonny was looking for Hellenor? Well, he was about to find out that some people were looking for him, too.
Pandy clicked off the TV. She was going to pocket the phone when she remembered Henry.
She had to call Henry. At least to let him know where she was. She tapped in his number, preparing to lie her ass off.
* * *
While the phone rang and rang, Pandy found herself praying that Henry wouldn’t answer. But he picked up just before it went to voice mail.
“SondraBeth?” he asked cautiously.
“Henry! It’s me,” Pandy squealed with, she realized, way too much enthusiasm.
“You’re kidding,” Henry said drily. “I thought you were dead.”
“So does everyone else,” Pandy chortled. “It’s all been a huge, huge mistake.”
“Yes. So I can see from the devastation at Wallis. No wonder you fled. As you’re calling from SondraBeth’s phone, I assume she’s in the vicinity?”
“Oh yes,” Pandy said reassuringly. “She’s upstairs. And I’m downstairs in the guest suite of her townhouse.”
“And does this mean you and SondraBeth are once again fast friends?”
“What makes you say that?” she asked casually.
“That misadventure the two of you had in the mud this morning? Just like two little pigs.”
“You saw that?” Pandy acted surprised.
“How could I not have seen it? It’s been broadcast all over Instalife. SondraBeth Schnowzer rolling in the mud with you standing behind her, dressed like the construction worker from the Village People.”
“I had to wear Hellenor’s clothes. Because I couldn’t fit in my own,” Pandy said, beginning to get annoyed. “Not to mention the fact that I am bald.” She took a breath and added contritely, “In any case, I did try to tell everyone I was Pandy. But no one believed me. It was like one of those really awful what-if games. Like what if everyone thought you were dead, but you weren’t?”
“This day just gets worse and worse, doesn’t it?” Henry said. “I have only just left Wallis. It took me an hour to get the paparazzi off the property. Can you imagine what it would be like if you really had died?”
“I’m beginning to have a very good idea.”
“Hellenor?” Judy’s voice came over the intercom.
“Sorry, Henry, but I have to go.”
“Sit tight,” Henry said. “And don’t do anything until I get there.”
“I won’t,” Pandy said as he clicked off. She felt bad about lying to him, but hopefully it would all work out and Henry wouldn’t have to know how foolish she’d been about Jonny.
She knew how disappointed he would be in her if he did find out.
“Judy?” she said. “It’s Hellenor. I’m ready.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
SHE WAS more than ready an hour and a half later, when the SUV was speeding down the West Side Highway on the way to the Woman Warrior of the Year Awards. Having put herself into the capable hands of the in-house Monica wardrobe and makeup team, she was now wearing a black leather jacket, black pants, and black patent leather loafers.
Judy was seated next to her in the third row. In the second row were SondraBeth and PP. In the first row, meaning the operational part of the operation, were a bodyguard and a chauffeur who could double as another bodyguard if necessary.
“Meaning he carries a gun,” PP had informed her.
Pandy had nodded solemnly. Normally, this sort of information would have upset her. She would have had to ask what sort of person she was, to allow herself to be transported around Manhattan with two men bearing arms. There seemed to be something ethically off about it. But she was in no position to ask questions. Indeed, she ought to be grateful she was around men with guns, after that threat Jonny had made on TV.
Which hadn’t gone unnoticed by the team. “Hellenor?” Judy asked, looking down worriedly at her device. “What’s this thing on Instalife about Pandy’s ex-husband looking for you?”
“Jonny is a real scumbag,” SondraBeth replied smoothly, jumping in before Pandy could answer. Ever since Pandy had gone up to wardrobe and makeup as Hellenor, SondraBeth had barely let her out of her sight. She seemed to have her ear tuned to any potential conversation in which Pandy might inadvertently reveal the truth.
“It’s just that he seems like a real crazy person. Like an actually insane, psychologically challenged kind of person,” Judy said.
“Well, he is. Wouldn’t you say so, PP? After all, you were friends with him,” SondraBeth said smugly.
“I wasn’t exactly friends with him,” PP said. “We were friendly. I was just doing business with him, that’s all. Trying to make some money.”
“And how’d that work out for you?” Pandy asked snidely.
SondraBeth snickered under her breath. “Exactly.”
“Frankly, if you were any kind of man at all, I’d think you’d want to punch the fucker,” Pandy said, just loud enough so that SondraBeth could hear and PP probably couldn’t.
“Har har har,” SondraBeth laughed loudly. Dressed in her full Monica regalia, she could barely turn her head. She was so decorated with hairpieces and layers of Spanx and silicone cutlets that she might as well have been a marquess in the court of Louis XIV. “Hellenor didn’t mean that,” she added. “She’s totally against violence. As we all are.”
She shot Pandy a warning look. “In any case, I’m sure karma will get Jonny. No one can escape from it.”
“Actually, it’s the tax man,” Pandy said. “No one can escape from the tax man.”
“Which reminds me,” PP said, scrolling through his device. “Thanks to that little stunt you two pulled this morning—that rolling-in-the-mud thing—you’re going to have to be sure to emphasize that Monica is very much alive.”
“Of course she’s alive,” SondraBeth tittered. “Why would anyone think she wasn’t?”
“The Instaverse is claiming that when you rolled in the mud, you said, ‘I buried Monica.’”
“What? Like John Lennon and the White Album?” Pandy snorted derisively.
“‘I buried Paul.’ Very good, Hellenor,” PP said approvingly. “Maybe you can be a studio head someday.” He turned back to SondraBeth. “When you give Hellenor the award, be sure to state specifically that Monica is alive.”
“She is alive. She lives!” SondraBeth called back to Pandy jokingly.
The light turned green and the car starte
d forward with a jerk.
“Ow.” Pandy touched the bump on the back of her bald head and winced.
* * *
Twenty minutes later, the SUV was at last pulling in through the gates of Chelsea Piers. After being stopped by several guards, they were told to wait. The event didn’t begin for another hour, but there were already hundreds of photographers on the bleachers along the carpet, sitting like Hitchcock’s black crows on the telephone wires outside the children’s school. Cordoned off behind metal barricades was a bigger mob of fans, some, Pandy noted, with plastic champagne glasses strapped to their heads.
This was going to be interesting.
Eager for a glimpse of Monica, a splinter group had broken through the barricades and was now approaching the car.
Sensing danger, the bodyguard got out and stood with his arms crossed in front of SondraBeth’s door.
“What do we do now?” Pandy asked.
“Wait,” SondraBeth said.
“For what?”
“For someone to come and get us.”
Pandy looked out the window and grimaced. The group was now surrounding the car. A face was squished up against her window for a second before it was swept away by the bodyguard. Pandy almost thought she’d imagined it, but for the greasy smudge left on the glass.
The horizon began tilting as Pandy started to feel the beginnings of a panic attack. Big crowds scared her; she always imagined being trampled.
“Hellenor? Are you all right?” SondraBeth’s voice seemed to be coming from too far away.
“Have some water,” PP said, handing her a bottle.
“It’s all the fans,” SondraBeth said, turning a quarter of the way to address PP. “I used to feel that way, too, remember? Like a fraud. I’d be in the car, my heart pounding, sweat pouring from my underarms, and I’d think, what if I get out there and they see that I’m a fraud? That I’m not really Monica? What if the crowd thinks they’re getting Monica, and discover they’re getting SondraBeth Schnowzer instead? What if—”