“
Whadhesay?
” Pandy screamed.
“He’ll be here any minute. He’s hired a car.”
“A car?” Pandy asked in confusion. Black and white squares began pinwheeling in front of her.
“I don’t understand. What just happened?” Portia demanded, talking over Pandy as if she weren’t there.
“I think her book just got rejected,” Suzette said in a stage whisper.
“What?” Portia gasped.
“Her new book,” Suzette hissed. She made a slicing motion across her throat.
“Ohmigod,” Portia screeched. She paused, then added, “Is that
all
?”
“What do you mean, is that all? Isn’t that
enough
?” Suzette’s voice rose.
Portia shrugged. “I thought maybe Jonny wasn’t going to give her a divorce. Or he wanted even more money.”
Pandy struggled to sit up. “He’s giving me the divorce!” she shouted.
“Well, then. There’s no problem, is there?” Portia continued blithely as she draped a towel over Pandy’s shoulders. “If it’s only the book—you can just write another one, right?”
“Oh, good. Here comes Henry now,” Suzette exclaimed with false cheer.
“Pandy?” Henry asked, leaning over her.
Pandy was now frozen in place, her hands soldered over her eyes.
Henry peeled back her little finger and then slowly pulled her hands away.
“The book?” Pandy gasped.
“I’m sorry,” Henry said, as Pandy’s throat closed in terror.
* * *
It took a stiff slug of vodka before Pandy was able to speak again.
She swayed on her barstool, alternating between sobs of grief and valiant reassurances. “It doesn’t matter!” “It’s all for a reason!” And most of all: “It will all be
all right
.” In between these statements were longer moments that felt like some sort of punctuation that would never end: a very long dash, for instance.
She wanted to crawl into the deepest and darkest of holes; to tunnel lower than she’d ever gone before—where, naturally, she would curl up and die.
But as the people around her wouldn’t allow that sort of behavior, Pandy went along with their plan:
Yes, she did agree that it might be a good time to take a couple of days off.
Yes, she had been holed up for a very long time.
And yes! She
had
been dealing with a huge amount of stress. Particularly with Jonny. People couldn’t believe what he had put her through.
So, yes, she would go to her house in Wallis to recover, especially after these last few months in New York. Henry would join her tomorrow morning
at the latest
.
And so she went willingly into the town car Henry had hired to transport her to Wallis.
She didn’t ask Henry how or why all this seemed to have been arranged in advance, being too confused to ask questions.
“Goodbye!” She waved out the window to her friends.
She raised the window and leaned back against the seat. The blast of cold air-conditioning in the car met the day’s heat, and a cloud of steam began to form. Pointing her finger, Pandy briefly held it to her temple. Then she lowered it. Aiming it at the foggy glass window instead, she wrote two words:
HELP ME.
Rescued by Suzette, her device came back to life and began vibrating, releasing those buoyant Monica notes into the air like happy-face balloons. Pandy put her hand over the machine to silence it. She looked past the angry line of cars on the other side of the West Side Highway. A sleek white boat, sails trimming the wind, raced across the spackled surface of the river.
For a moment, she pretended she was in Miami.
The fantasy was short-lived. Looming ahead was a second Monica billboard—another reminder of her disastrous failure.
What no one knew was that without her new book, she couldn’t pay Jonny.
Meaning she, PJ Wallis, was finished. Monica had won after all.
And then she frowned. Like the first billboard, this Monica also lacked her leg.
Despite the circumstances, the sight caused her to convulse with mad, wild laughter. She suddenly had a crazy urge to call SondraBeth Schnowzer to tell her that Monica’s leg was still missing.
SondraBeth was the only person in the world who would have appreciated the hilarity of the situation.
The car rounded the corner, and Pandy took one last look at the billboard as her laughter turned to tears. And for the first time in a long time, Pandy remembered how different it had once been, nine years ago when it was new and fresh and exciting…
And how it had all started when she’d said those four fateful words:
“I want that girl.”
I
WANT
that
girl!” Pandy had exclaimed.
She was in Los Angeles, sitting in the backseat of a town car, when she’d seen the billboard. It was hanging over Sunset right near the Chateau Marmont, where Pandy was headed after another dispiriting round of auditions for the lead role of Monica.
All of a sudden, the car had come around the curve after Doheny, and there she was: masses of hair fluttering behind her like the American flag; shining green-gold eyes looking out over the flattened landscape of the universe. In her arms was a golden wolf pup.
Then the tagline:
WHAT IF DOGS CAN SEE STARS, TOO
?
“Her!” she screamed, pointing up at the billboard as they passed by. “That girl.”
The driver laughed. “She’s a model.”
“So what?”
Handsome and genial, the driver laughed again. “It’s the same old story. Everyone who comes to Hollywood has the same dream. They think they’re going to discover some unknown talent. Some gorgeous model who turns out to be a movie star in disguise.”
Pandy smiled. “And isn’t that your story, too? A movie star in a gorgeous male model’s body?”
The driver glanced back at her in his rearview mirror. He laughed toothily, appreciating her humor. “I guess you could say that.”
For a second she could see The Girl’s reflection in his mirrored shades.
And then she was gone, and in the next moment, the driver was pulling into the driveway of the Chateau Marmont.
The studio had flown Pandy out to Los Angeles for the casting of Monica, and Pandy had been given the star treatment: a car and driver at her disposal, and bungalow 1 at the Chateau. Bungalow 1 may or may not have been the room where John Belushi died; the staff was vague on the particulars. In any case, the large, dark apartment was enormous. It included two bedrooms, a kitchen, and a terrace shielded from the pool by a chain-link fence woven with thick greenery. Not surprisingly, given its history, there was something unsettling about the place. The first evening, sitting in the front room on the orange fuzzy-caterpillar couch, the TV an arm’s length away, Pandy had thought,
You could go crazy here
.
Well, she wouldn’t be the first, she thought now, getting out of the car and slotting her key into the private door that led to the pool and the bungalow. Throwing her stuff onto the caterpillar chaise, she rushed upstairs and flung open the windows, looking past the brown haze on the horizon and trying not to think about the word “no.” A word that was to showbiz as smog was to LA.
“No.”
“No?”
“Noooo.”
And, of course:
“NO!”
That last “no” had been hers. Delivered just that afternoon at the end of another fruitless casting session, when the studio people tried to convince her to let Lala Grinada play Monica. Lala had the limpest blond hair Pandy had ever seen, and she looked like someone who would starve herself under the slightest bit of pressure. And she was British.
No, Pandy thought. Lala Grinada was not going to play Monica. She leaned out the window and, by craning her head sharply to the left, discovered that she could just catch a glimpse of The Girl on the billboard.
And then, as if it were a sign from the Hollywood gods themselves, the buzzer rang and Pandy rushed downstairs, breathlessly opening the door to discover a waiter holding a tray with a bottle of champagne. Propped against the glittering condensation on the silver ice bucket was a gray envelope bearing the name
PJ Wallis
. Written in block letters and underlined twice.
Pandy shook off the droplets and ripped open the envelope. Inside was a single heavy card, on which a note was written in the same block lettering:
Hope you’ve enjoyed your stay in LA so far. Looking forward to our meeting tomorrow!
It was signed with two letters: PP.
Peter Pepper, the head of the studio that was making
Monica
.
Who calls himself PP—
Pee-Pee
?
Pandy wondered as she slid the letter back into the envelope.
PP, she knew, wanted to talk about casting.
This was good. She wanted to talk about casting, too.
The part of Monica had been offered to several well-known actresses, all of whom had turned it down for various reasons. One claimed she didn’t understand the character. Another was worried that Monica wasn’t likable. Yet another insisted she couldn’t use bad language, take drugs, or be rejected by a man on-screen.
No actress who was any good wanted to play Monica. And the ones who wanted to play her weren’t good enough.
Pandy picked up the phone. “Can I have two vodka cranberries with ice and a bacon cheeseburger, medium rare?”
“Just one person,” she clarified. Then: “
One
person.
Two
drinks. I’m thirsty.”
Pandy put the phone down.
“I need that girl,” she said aloud.
* * *
The next morning, before the meeting with PP, Pandy risked her life crossing Sunset to get to the newsstand across from the Chateau. The road forked oddly, and anything in the intersection was potential roadkill. Pandy darted, stopped, darted. She imagined herself as John Belushi in
Animal House
.
She bought a pile of magazines and two packs of cigarettes, just in case.
* * *
“I hear you haven’t liked anyone so far,” PP said, leaning back in his conference room chair.
PP was a squarish man with a squarish head and smooth dark hair that resembled the sort of plastic coif favored by action figures. He had thick, blocky thighs that strained against the fine fabric of his black suit pants. He always sat with his legs apart.
“If you’re referring to Lala Grinada, you’re right,” Pandy said boldly.
PP—Pee-Pee—scanned the faces around the conference table, taking his time to pause at each one before he said, “Lala Grinada would never be right for this. Whose bad idea was that?” He tilted back in his chair.
“The agency,” someone said.
“Actually, there
is
someone I’d like to see,” Pandy interjected. “She looks right for the part, anyway.”
“Looks are something,” agreed one of the other executives—a second- or third-in-command, Pandy guessed. “Who is it?”
“Her.” Pandy laid out the array of magazines, turning to the pages that featured The Girl in a variety of ads—lingerie, fine jewelry, and perfume.
“
Her?
” someone asked incredulously.
“Is she the one with the—”
“The name? Yes. That ridiculous name that no one can remember.”
“SondraBeth Schnowzer.”
“How would that look in the titles?”
“Terrible.”
“What kind of name is that, anyway?”
“Austrian, maybe. Like Schwarzenegger.”
“
Schnowzer
,” someone said in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s voice.
There was benign laughter around the table.
“Sorry, darling,” someone said to Pandy.
“Hold on.” PP raised his hands from behind his head as his chair’s front wheels dropped to the floor. His dark eyes caught Pandy’s.
“It’s not that crazy,” PP said, addressing the room. “I happen to know she’s taking acting classes. Roger?”
Roger quickly looked down at his BlackBerry and tapped out a message. In a moment there was a light rap and the blond wood door opened a crack.
“Come in,” PP answered.
“I just wanted to give this to Roger,” a young woman said, making herself invisible as she handed Roger a piece of paper.
Roger scanned the document, then raised his sparse eyebrows as if impressed. “She has some real credits here. Mostly indie movies, but lots of them.”
“Indie movies. Meaning she’s a relative unknown. I love that.” PP pushed back from the table and stood up. “Interesting. Okay. Go,” he said, shooing them all away with his fingers.
Pandy lingered a moment as the others left the room.
“Thanks,” she said.
“You are just terrific!” PP suddenly exploded, and before Pandy had a chance to react, he embraced her in a bear hug.
* * *
Roger was waiting for her on the other side of the door.
“That was it,” he said, walking her down the hall. “You got the hug.”
“The hug?” Pandy asked, clutching the magazines to her chest.
“It’s a sign. PP likes you.”
“And that means what, exactly?”
“You’ve got a meeting with SondraBeth Schnowzer.”
Pandy stopped and stared at him as he paused to hold open the heavy glass doors that led to the elevator bank.
“I don’t even know what that means.”
“You’ll meet her, get to know her a little. If you still think she’s right, PP will make sure she gets an audition.”
“Wow,” Pandy said. “That’s it? It’s that easy?”
“Hollywood is an easy place when you know the right people.”
“Great!” Pandy enthused. “So when can I meet her?”
“Right now,” Roger said, pressing the button for the elevator. “The car will take you to a salon near the Chateau. SondraBeth will be there. She wants to get her hair done or something.”
A disturbing thought occurred to Pandy. “Is she high-maintenance?”
Roger shrugged and gave an exaggerated smirk. And in that moment, Pandy’s heart sank. She suddenly understood that this so-called meeting with SondraBeth Schnowzer was merely an indulgence, the studio’s way of making the author of the book feel special. When the meeting led nowhere—as they apparently suspected it would—the studio would go back to doing whatever it was they planned to do from the beginning. They would do it with impunity, and they wouldn’t think twice about doing it without her.
As Pandy got into the elevator, she decided that wasn’t going to happen.
* * *
The salon was in a small shopping center on Sunset, a few blocks from the hotel. When the car pulled up, Pandy spotted SondraBeth on the sidewalk, head bent over cupped hands.
She was lighting a cigarette.
She was wearing a fringed suede jacket that looked expensive, possibly Ralph Lauren.
She had on a pair of men’s pea-green trousers. She’d rolled the waist down to reveal the silver-gray lining and the tops of her hip bones.
As Pandy got out of the car, SondraBeth glanced over hopefully. She was still looking hopeful as she took in Pandy’s appearance: her long, swinging hair, stylishly short yellow skirt, and fancy black-and-white patent leather heels. A front tooth pulled back the edge of SondraBeth’s lower lip as a look of dismay crossed her face. It was quickly replaced with a grin. “Hey,” SondraBeth said, as if she, too, were in on the joke. “I’ll bet you can’t even get me this job.” She tossed her head as if it didn’t matter.
Pandy laughed. “I’ll bet I can.”
SondraBeth got the cigarette lit. She exhaled a stream of smoke without taking those topaz-green eyes off Pandy. She shrugged. “If you can’t, it’s not your fault. I deal with this bullshit every day.”
“Listen,” Pandy said quickly. “I hate salons—and my hotel’s right up the street.” Sensing a skittishness on the part of The Girl, she tried to make the invitation sound casual. “I’ve got a bottle of champagne in the fridge.”
She needn’t have worried. At the word “champagne,” SondraBeth suddenly relaxed, dropping her cigarette and grinding it under a gray-and-white snakeskin cowboy boot.
“Now, that sounds like a plan,” SondraBeth replied eagerly. “Champagne. It’s the best offer I’ve had all day.”
“I’m at the Chateau.”
SondraBeth smirked. “I figured.”
“Bungalow One,” Pandy added.
She got back into her car. When she went to close the door, her hands were shaking.
* * *
“D’you mind if I wash my face?” SondraBeth asked as she entered the bungalow a few minutes later.
“Not at all.” Pandy went into the hallway that led to the kitchen and opened the door to the powder room. “In here.”
“I just want to wash off my makeup.” SondraBeth stepped inside the bathroom.
“No problem.” Pandy smiled broadly as if to reassure her. “I’ll open the champagne. PP sent the bottle last night.”
“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” SondraBeth stuck her head out, emitted a loud “HA!” and slammed the door shut behind her.
Pandy went into the kitchen. She took PP’s bottle from the refrigerator and carried it and two glasses out to the terrace, placing them on a filigreed metal table with an umbrella poking out of the top.
“Hey!” SondraBeth reappeared, rubbing her face with a hand towel. She walked toward Pandy, a ray of sunlight illuminating the reddish freckles marching across the bridge of her nose like ants. “Sorry for using the bathroom. It’s just that I didn’t get a chance to take my makeup off.” She laughed and carelessly dropped the towel onto an empty seat. “I left a shoot early so I could get to meet you.”
“Oh.” This, Pandy wasn’t expecting. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“Oh, yes I did.” SondraBeth raised her glass of champagne. “To meeting you. Fuck Hollywood.”
Pandy laughed and sat down. “Is it really that bad?”
SondraBeth hooted, plopping into the chair next to Pandy and resting her boots on the table. “It’s just like in the movies,” she said with a sneer.
“How do you know PP, anyway?” Pandy asked casually.
“You mean…” SondraBeth leaned back in her chair, and suddenly she
was
PP, right down to the way he yawned ever so slightly before he dropped his arms from behind his head.
“You mean
that
PP?” she asked.
“How do you do that?” Pandy cooed with appropriate awe.
SondraBeth shrugged. “I can imitate anyone. Always could, ever since I was a kid. When you grow up on a cattle ranch in Montana—” She broke off and chuckled, waggling her fingers at Pandy. “For a while, I actually wanted to be a stand-up comic. Like Ellen. Can you believe it?” She raised her eyebrows, as if this idea was now impossible to contemplate. “But then I discovered it’s a helluva lot easier to stand in front of a camera, where all anyone wants you to do is look ‘purty.’ Besides, the first thing you learn as a woman when you come to Hollywood is that you’ve got to choose: pretty or funny. Because no one will let you be both.”