Arranged around the stove were a picnic table and two old Barcalounger armchairs that had started out a hideous orange but had now faded to a dirty tan.
Leaning against one wall was the tall, narrow mirror where she and Hellenor had checked themselves before they left the house. If Hellenor looked too strange, Pandy would make her change.
The mudroom and the den. Where Pandy and her family had spent most of their time. Because the TV was in the den, and the phone was in the mudroom. The phone was located on a small shelf next to an old answering machine, which still worked. Next to the shelf was a large corkboard where their mother had left herself notes. It still held an assortment of old birthday cards and photos.
Pandy sighed and picked up the receiver. Henry was going to kill her.
She glanced at a photo on the corkboard: her and Hellenor on one of the many Halloweens in which Hellenor had insisted on being Peter Pan and Pandy had been forced to be Wendy.
Pandy frowned. She hated Wendy.
She put down the receiver. She couldn’t tell Henry. Not
right this second
. She had to think. Henry was right; she needed to clear her head.
She looked back at the photograph. Hellenor, with her short boy-cut hair, green tunic, and bow and arrow. Hellenor, who had managed to avoid just the sort of trouble Pandy was in right now. Hellenor, who had chosen not to become emotionally encumbered by marriage, children, or even a relationship.
And now Hellenor was perfectly happy.
Goddamned
Hellenor
had no worries.
And boy, oh boy, wouldn’t she just love to be Hellenor right now
, Pandy thought bitterly as she marched back up to her room.
* * *
Several minutes later, having changed into a pair of baggy shorts and a T-shirt—her only old clothes that still fit—Pandy stuck her phone into her back pocket and headed down the path that led to the boathouse. The veined marble stones skirted the boxwood maze and ended at a set of wooden steps, at the bottom of which was an ornate Victorian structure with a cupola and a large teak deck.
At the top of the stairs, she paused. It was hotter than she had expected. The air was still. There would be thunderstorms later.
Pandy went down the stairs and around the boathouse to a dock where a shiny red canoe was always tied. She got into the boat, sat down, unhooked the rope, picked up the paddle, and pushed the boat away from the dock.
The lake was shaped like a gourd, with a narrow chute at one end, enclosed by marshes where all the little turtles bred in the early summer. It was to this marshy underworld that Pandy now made her way.
She paddled briskly for a minute or two, and then, exhausted, put the paddle back into the canoe and let the boat drift to the center of the lake.
The air was deadly quiet.
Pandy looked around. The sun had gone behind a cloud, and the lake was like a mirror. She remembered how her mother had always told them that the skating mirror under the Christmas tree was a miniature version of this lake.
She leaned forward, put her face in her hands, and began to cry.
* * *
She didn’t know how long she cried, but it was long enough that when she heard the first crack of thunder, she wondered if she had the strength to make it back to the boathouse. The whiteness of the cupola was suddenly in stark contrast to the gray-black clouds that had gathered behind it. Pandy noticed that there was a tinge of green to this now-rumbling mass.
She picked up the paddle and began rowing as a sluice of cold, hard rain blew across the side of the mountain. It was suddenly as dark as night; when she reached the dock, Pandy’s fingers fumbled with the rope until she gave up on tying up the boat. She stood cautiously, her arms outstretched as she attempted to balance on the tippy canoe. She had one foot on the boat and one on the dock when she felt an electric tingling and heard a deafening crack.
And then, just like in a movie, a jagged, bright white bolt of lightning split the boathouse in two. Suddenly she was airborne. She knew she was up in the air because the trees were upside down. And then they weren’t, and she was lying facedown in the muddy grass.
She must have blacked out, because she had the distinct sensation of being in a dream. Or rather, of being in the particularly nasty nightmare that she had all the time: trying to get onto the elevator, but the doors wouldn’t open.
And then, miraculously, her eyes opened, and she knew she was still alive.
She was lying on her stomach halfway up the hill. A spark must have hit the stairs, because now they were burning. Rising onto her hands and knees, she clawed her way up to the top of the hill. It felt like she was climbing the face of a mountain.
When she reached the top, she stood up and looked back. The front of the boathouse was an enormous bonfire; soon the whole thing would go up in flames. Moving as fast as she could, alternating between a brisk walk, a slow jog, and several moments when she had to stop altogether, she realized this fire was the last straw. She couldn’t imagine how much it would cost to rebuild the boathouse. Then she remembered that she was never going to be able to rebuild it, because she’d never again have the money.
The boathouse was gone. And pretty soon, other pieces of Wallis House that couldn’t be replaced would go, too…
Enraged, she stumbled into the mudroom. She picked up the phone, but it took her three tries to dial 911.
Finally, someone answered. “What is your emergency?”
“Fire,” Pandy said, hacking as if the inside of her throat had been burned as well.
“What’s the address?”
“One Wallis Road. The…big mansion on top of the mountain,” she choked out. She felt like she was going to black out again.
“Oh. That place. Hold on.”
The operator came back on. “It’s going to take them half an hour to get there. Is everyone okay?”
“Thirty minutes?” The boathouse would be nothing but ash by then. Pandy started to cry.
“Ma’am? Is everyone okay?” the operator repeated. “There isn’t a body burning in there or anything?”
Pandy found she couldn’t speak. Possibly she was going into shock.
“Ma’am?” The operator’s voice was suddenly sharp. “Hello? Is anyone hurt? Was anyone in the boathouse?”
Pandy’s insides squeezed shut as she tried to contain the shaking that was building up in her body like a pending explosion.
“To whom am I speaking?”
Pandy took a deep breath and, managing to stifle her scream, moved in front of the mirror. Her eyes widened in surprise. Her face and body were streaked with black soot and her clothes were in tatters. Her hair was burned off at the roots. Who
was
she, she wondered wildly. Her eyes landed on the photograph of Hellenor as Peter Pan…
“Ma’am? To whom am I speaking?” the operator demanded.
Pandy opened her mouth and, confused, nearly said, “Peter Pan.” But she knew, somehow, that that wasn’t right, because Peter Pan was actually…“Hellenor Wallis,” she gasped. It was the best she could do.
She let the phone drop from her hand as she heard the operator demanding to know the name of the person who was burning up in the boathouse.
She stumbled across the mudroom to a narrow cabinet. She reached up to the top shelf and took down a large bottle of whiskey. She unscrewed the cap, took a gulp, and then, as the whiskey hit her system with a jolt, she came to slightly and went back to the phone. She picked it up. “Hello?” she slurred. “It’s PJ Wallis.” And then the tsunami that had been building inside her suddenly came spewing out. Bile, black ash, and whiskey sprayed the floor.
The shock of this purge suddenly made Pandy feel better. The clamminess receded. She picked up the phone and hung it up, wanting to take advantage of this brief moment in which she felt slightly more mobile. She grabbed the bottle of whiskey and wobbled up the back stairs.
From where, only a short time ago, she had originated on some kind of mission. Unfortunately, she now had no idea what that was.
She wove down the hallway to her room, stripping off her garments as she went into the bathroom. Taking another gulp of whiskey, she sat down on the edge of the tub. Her hands were trembling as she turned the tap to run the hot water.
She got in, lying flat on her back in order to cover herself as quickly as possible.
As the hot water began to trickle in, her muscles began to relax slightly.
She sat up and took another sip of whiskey.
“There’s a body burning up in the boathouse,” she said aloud in the kind of silly voice that would have made Hellenor laugh. Hellenor. If she really had burned up in the explosion, Hellenor wouldn’t be laughing. She’d be sad. But at least she would inherit everything Pandy owned, including the rights to Monica.
Monica.
Pandy groaned. She put her head in her hands. And suddenly, she was stone-cold sober.
Now it was all going to come out. The truth about her marriage; how she’d given Jonny money. Everyone would say it was because she was so desperate to hang on to him, she gave him whatever he wanted. And then they’d whisper behind their backs that she’d deserved it. She’d made more money than her husband, and certainly that merited some kind of punishment.
She took another swig of whiskey, got out of the tub, and lurched for a towel. Whatever happened, she’d just have to deal with it. She dried herself off and then used a corner of the towel to wipe the steam from the mirror. She stared at her reflection. What she saw nearly caused her to go into shock again.
She was basically bald. Or would have to be, soon. What remained of her charred hair was a patchwork of crinkled, blackened strands of uneven lengths that would clearly have to be shaved.
For a brief moment, she could only shake her head in wonder at the viciousness of this particular run of bad luck. It wasn’t enough that her book had been rejected and she would have to explain to the world why she couldn’t write Jonny his check. She was going to have to do it as a bald woman.
Suddenly, she was exhausted. She dropped to her knees in a fatigue so deep, it threatened to overwhelm her. And in this fog, she remembered that she still had to deal with the fire department.
* * *
They arrived, having been informed that Hellenor Wallis had reported that her sister, PJ Wallis, was burning in a fire. Pandy took one look at the grim-faced volunteer firemen and realized she simply didn’t have the energy to explain the mix-up. She would take care of it in the morning.
It was so much easier to go along with the notion that it was vaguely true.
“And your name is Hellenor Wallis?”
“Yes,” she said.
“And your sister was in the canoe—”
Pandy tried to say no, but her teeth were chattering so much, she couldn’t get out another word. She pulled the blanket she’d wrapped around her head and shoulders closer as three more men came up the drive, shaking their heads.
They’d found what they presumed was Pandy’s cell phone, now a twisted, charred piece of unidentifiable material. They explained that they were truly sorry, but because the house was so remote it wasn’t technically in the jurisdiction of the township and they could only file a report.
And then the nice man with the gray mustache told her that she would need to make a citizen’s report to the local coroner. She could do it on their website.
When she haltingly explained that the house didn’t have an internet connection, the man must have felt sorry for her, because he offered to file a paper report instead, in which he would describe the fire. The coroner’s office would be out in a day or two to comb through the ashes when the site had cooled.
Pandy nodded, propping herself against the wall in utter exhaustion. By then, of course, it would all be sorted out. Finally they left, their red taillights flickering down the drive like fireflies.
When the last one had winked its red eye, she turned back to the house, determined to do what she’d been needing to do
forever
, it seemed:
Curl up into a little ball and go to sleep.
She stumbled into the mudroom, kicked off her boots, and fell onto the couch in the den. She pulled the acrylic comforter her grandmother had knitted over her. As the world slowly blinked out around her, her mind circled down into long-ago memories. Like the night twenty years ago. When she and Hellenor were sitting on this very couch. When they’d gotten the news. In addition to the house, she and Hellenor had each been left fifty thousand dollars.
“Spend it wisely,” the lawyer had said.
Pandy’s brain clicked off like a light jerked by a string.
She slept like the dead.
T
HE DREAM
was always the same:
It was Pandy’s birthday, and SondraBeth Schnowzer was there, her face pressed next to Pandy’s as they laughed in the flickering orangish light from the hundreds of birthday candles on Pandy’s cake.
The dream vanished as Pandy gasped and hinged upright, the afghan clutched under her chin.
Where was she?
She took in the gloomy atmosphere and sighed. She was in the den. In Wallis. Her book about Lady Wallis was dead, and now the boathouse had blown up.
Another great beginning to another fabulous day
, she thought bitterly as she went into the kitchen.
She filled the electric kettle and clicked it on. She opened the cabinet, and, from among several different types of tea, she and Henry being aficionados, removed a sachet of double-bergamot Earl Grey.
Strong tea. She had that tiny thread of Englishness in her bones that believed the right cup of tea might possibly make everything better, no matter what the situation. Catching a whiff of the still-burned strands of her hair, she realized that in this case, “the situation” was as simple as being alive.
And that has to be something, right?
she reminded herself as she poured hot water over the tea bag. In any case, for the first time in a long time, she was happy to feel her body. It actually felt like a bonus, as opposed to a large steamer trunk.
She sighed and dropped the tea bag into the garbage. She was alive, but the boathouse was gone. There had been an explosion. The volunteer firemen had come. And now she was supposed to go on some website to report that she was dead. Except, of course, she wasn’t.
It was just like life, she thought, meandering back into the den with her tea. Bad things came in threes.
What’s next?
she wondered, plopping down on the couch and absentmindedly pulling out the knob on the TV. As the old television sprang to life, Pandy gathered the afghan around her and wished she could go back to sleep.
Forever
. She yawned as her eyes slid toward the screen…
And once again, she was wide awake. And here came bad thing number three:
She
was dead.
For there, on the screen of the old black-and-white TV, was that old black-and-white author photograph of her from ten years ago, when—she realized with a start—she had been
so much younger
.
“PJ Wallis, a longtime Connecticut resident, has died at her home in Wallis,” said the announcer; the same announcer Pandy recognized from when she was a child. “She was known to many as the creator of the popular character Monica. She was forty-six years old—”
“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.
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 S
chno
wzer. 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.