Pandy shook her head and laughed, having no idea what the woman was talking about.
“The party the mayor’s throwing in honor of
Monica
?”
Pandy’s smile stiffened. “Oh, yes,” she said quickly. “
That
party.”
“What are you going to wear?”
Pandy’s head was spinning. There was a party for
Monica
? Given by the mayor? And she hadn’t been invited?
“Chanel is going to dress SondraBeth for the party. They should dress you, too,” the woman continued blithely. “After all, you’re the original Monica, right?”
Pandy’s smile grew larger as she dipped her head in acquiescence.
“What the fuck?” she hissed to Doug as the woman walked off. “Let’s go,” she snapped.
“I don’t get it,” Doug drawled, dawdling behind her as she marched furiously ahead to the street. She looked back over her shoulder and sighed in annoyance. Reaching for her cell phone, she called Henry.
“Hello,” Henry said brightly.
“Do you know anything about a party the mayor is throwing for
Monica
?”
Henry paused. “Actually, I don’t,” he said, sounding distracted.
“Well, apparently he is. And I haven’t been invited!” Pandy’s voice rose to a shriek.
“Why not?” Henry asked.
“You tell me,” Pandy stormed. “Christ, Henry. This is the kind of thing you’re supposed to know about.”
“I thought parties were your department.”
Pandy held her cell phone away from her ear; she was so enraged, she considered throwing the phone down and stomping on it. She took a deep breath. “Can you find out about it? Please? And call me back?”
“Hey,” Doug said, catching up with her. “What’s happening?”
“Nothing.” Pandy turned on him, still angry. She willed herself to calm down. “I’m sorry. It has nothing to do with you. It’s just that the mayor is throwing a party for
Monica
, and I haven’t been invited.”
“So?” Doug laughed.
His lack of understanding only fueled her anger.
“Forget about it,” she snapped, wondering how this party was happening without her, and what it might possibly imply. “It’s just that I created Monica. It’s like you said; without me, there would be no Monica. But everyone seems to have conveniently forgotten this fact.”
“How do you know they’ve forgotten?” Doug asked.
Pandy stopped and gaped at him. She inhaled sharply as the realization hit her. “They’re trying to cut me out.”
Doug raised his eyebrows. “You really think so?”
Pandy pounded her fist into her palm. “Of course they are. Because they think they don’t need me anymore. They have SondraBeth Schnowzer. And she’s the perfect Monica,” she said sharply.
“Aw, come on,” Doug said. “I’m sure it’s not what you think.”
“If it isn’t, then why didn’t SondraBeth tell me about it? A party with the mayor? It’s not the kind of thing you forget about. And she tells me everything.”
“I doubt that,” Doug interjected.
“What do you mean?”
Doug shrugged. “She’s an actress. I’m sure she doesn’t tell
anyone
everything.”
Pandy’s eyes narrowed. “What were you talking about while I was off fighting with the director?”
Doug shrugged. “We were talking about Monica. And how much she loves playing her.”
“Of course she does,” Pandy hissed. She veered away and went to stand in front of a display of handbags in a designer shop window.
“Oh, I get it,” Doug said, coming up behind her. “You’re jealous.”
Pandy grimaced and shook her head.
“You think she’s taking away attention that belongs to you.”
Pandy’s phone rang: Henry. She hit
ACCEPT
and strode around the corner to take his call.
“Well?” she demanded.
“The party is for the film industry,” Henry informed her.
“So?”
“It’s for the film industry only. Some kind of celebration about Monica bringing the film industry to New York.”
“But Monica didn’t bring the film industry to New York,” Pandy wailed in frustration. “And if it weren’t for me—”
“Pigs would fly,” Henry cut her off. “You need to stop behaving like this. It isn’t attractive.”
Pandy hung up. She saw Doug standing on the corner, watching her, his eyes going back and forth as if he was trying to make a decision.
She dropped her phone into her bag and strolled over. She sighed. “Henry says it’s an industry party. For the film business.”
Doug nodded.
“Well?” Pandy said.
“It’s a fucky business, okay? A big fat fucky business. Where people get burned. Where people steal ideas and credit. Where they don’t even pay you if they can get away with it.”
“Okay. I get it,” Pandy said miserably.
“Actually, I don’t think you do.” Doug looked bummed, as if Pandy had disappointed him. “This is the reason why I don’t want to be with an actress. I don’t want to deal with this shit day in and day out. You’re a writer. I thought you were different.”
Stunned, Pandy took a step back. Her chest felt swollen and achingly heavy, as if her heart were drowning in sorrow.
“I’m sorry, Doug. Please,” she said plaintively. “I don’t know what came over me.”
She must have looked truly distressed, because Doug suddenly softened. “It’s okay,” he said, holding out his arms and pulling her close for a hug. “Let’s forget about it, okay? I’m leaving soon anyway.”
“Shhhh.” Pandy put her finger to his lips.
Doug slung his arm over her shoulder. They strolled slowly down Fifth Avenue, shuffling their feet like the saddest old couple in the world.
They reached Rockefeller Center, where they stopped to watch the skaters.
“Want to go skating?” Doug asked.
“Sure,” Pandy said with false enthusiasm.
She stared down at the awkward forms below. With a small sigh, she thought of how different they were from the perfect cast-iron figurines her family had placed under the Christmas tree when she was a kid. The skaters had been part of a traditional Christmas scene that included miniature houses and a church clustered around a reflective piece of old glass that formed a skating pond. She remembered how she and Hellenor had been fascinated by the “pond.” The glass was more than a hundred years old and contained mercury, which their mother claimed could poison them if the mirror broke. Every year, she and Hellenor would hold their breath as their mother carefully unwrapped the ancient glass and gently placed it on its bed of white cotton batting under the tree.
Then they would all breathe a sigh of relief.
Hellenor said that if the mirror broke, they would have to use a speck of mercury to chase down the loose droplets. Mercury was magnetic; if they could herd the specks, they would miraculously join together, and then technically the mirror wouldn’t be broken anymore.
Unlike what had happened to her family.
Pandy shuddered. She just couldn’t lose SondraBeth, too.
* * *
Doug left for Yugoslavia the next afternoon.
He promised to call, but as he stepped up into the white van waiting for him at the curb, Pandy sensed that he was beginning to morph into someone else—Doug Stone, movie star—and had already forgotten about her.
The van pulled away. Pandy walked beside it for a moment, willing Doug to catch her eye but getting only his profile.
I’m never going to see him again
, she thought as the van disappeared around the corner.
She went back up to her loft. The echoing space felt gray and cindery, as if she were trapped inside a cement block.
And at last, exhausted, frustrated, and miserably alone, she began to cry.
Two days later, when she was still dragging around in a funk—feeling “wounded,” as she explained to Henry, who told her to buck up—she went out to buy the tabloids. There was a photograph of her and Doug in every one, taken by a sneaky paparazzo while they’d held hands strolling up Fifth Avenue.
They were smiling and laughing, staring into each other’s eyes, entranced.
The photos must have been taken while they were on their way
to
the set. Back when they were still “happy.”
DOUG STONE FINDS LOVE WITH THE CREATOR OF MONICA
, read one caption, while another proclaimed they were “hot and heavy.”
The words, all so untrue, were like shards of glass piercing her heart.
Pandy peered closely at the photographs, looking for clues to explain what had gone wrong, why the pictures and words showed one thing while the reality was so different. But no matter how hard she examined the photographs, she still felt like she was missing something.
Her own life, perhaps?
The next day, she called Henry. “I don’t want to write another Monica book. I need to move on,” she said bravely.
Henry told her to quit acting silly and reminded her that even without Pandy, Monica could go on for as long as she liked. Unless, he added jokingly, Pandy were to die. In which case, the rights would revert to Hellenor. And Hellenor, of course, was in Amsterdam.
* * *
Two more weeks passed. Shooting for Monica wrapped, and SondraBeth went to Europe—“on business,” she said, being uncharacteristically vague. Another month passed without a word from either her or Doug. Doug had mentioned stopping off in New York for a few days when he finished his movie, but when Pandy didn’t hear from him, she figured he’d gone straight to LA. After all, it was only a fling. Why should she care?
And then SondraBeth called.
F
INALLY
, P
ANDY
thought, seeing SondraBeth’s number at last. It was one of those blue Sunday evenings, one of those anxious nights in which the future looked inexplicably bleak, when it felt like nothing exciting or good would ever happen again.
“
Yarl?
” Pandy answered slowly, with one of their silly made-up expressions.
“Peege? It’s
meeeeeeee
,” SondraBeth squealed joyfully.
“Where have you been?” Pandy scolded, as if she couldn’t live without her. “I’ve missed you.”
“Me too. But now I’m back. How are
you
? You sound down.”
“No. I’m just…” Pandy broke off. What was she? “Bored,” she said.
“I am, too.” SondraBeth spoke into the phone with a salty languor. “I’m so fucking bored.”
“Where
are
you?” Pandy asked.
SondraBeth laughed, as if Pandy ought to know where she was. “I’m on ‘the island.’”
“The island?” Pandy frowned. “What is that? Some kind of location?”
“Silly!” SondraBeth squealed. “I’m on a secret vacation. At that private island I told you about. In the Turks and Caicos? Where my ex-boyfriend and I used to rent a house?”
“Which one?” Pandy asked, rolling her eyes.
“You’ve got to come down and stay with me,” SondraBeth insisted. Pandy could hear waves crashing in the background.
“Really?” Pandy got up and looked out the window. It was March, and the weather was depressing: blustery one minute, rainy the next. She didn’t have anything on her schedule that couldn’t be moved. The thought of that lusciously warm Caribbean air was suddenly
irresistible
—and so, too, was the prospect of seeing SondraBeth.
“I think I could come. But when?”
“Tomorrow! You don’t have to stay long. Three days, maybe four.”
“Tomorrow?” Pandy’s heart sank. She looked around. “I can’t get myself together by tomorrow.”
“You don’t understand,” SondraBeth said, sounding like she was strangling a scream. “I can fly you back and forth by
private jet
.”
“Are you
kidding
?” Pandy had to put her hand over her mouth to keep herself from screaming as well.
“No. I mean, yes. I’m serious. Gotta go. My assistant will call you in two seconds to make the arrangements.”
Like clockwork, SondraBeth’s new assistant, Molly, called right after SondraBeth hung up.
In a voice as natural and sweet as the hay in the heartland itself, Molly informed her that a car would be picking her up at nine the next morning to take her to Teterboro, New Jersey, where she would fly directly to the island by private jet. The whole trip, including the ride to the airport, would take a mere three hours. “You’ll be there in time for lunch!” Molly exclaimed.
Bliss
, Pandy thought, looking out at the rain.
She hung up the phone, happy again.
Thank God for Monica
, she thought. As she quickly began packing, she realized how foolish she’d been to get upset about that party. And how silly she was, telling Henry she wouldn’t write another Monica book. What was she thinking? Monica
still
had her golden touch.
She could change rain into sunshine any old time.
* * *
SondraBeth met Pandy’s plane at the airstrip, waving madly from a golf cart while pointing to a colored drink in a plastic cup. “Cheers!” SondraBeth shouted over the noise of the jet’s winding-down engines. She handed Pandy a cup. “The bartender here makes the best rum punch on the islands. It’s a requirement!” She stomped on the gas and the cart took off with a jolt, spilling Pandy’s drink down the front of her shirt.
“Oops!” SondraBeth screamed as they took off bouncing along a rutted dirt road.
Pandy laughed, guessing that this trip would probably end up like that crazy weekend in Martha’s Vineyard.
The villa was right on the beach, on an isolated strip of land with views of the turquoise ocean stretching all the way to the horizon. A housekeeper took Pandy’s bags to her room: king-sized bed, giant-screen TV, French doors leading out to her own private balcony. It was glorious.
SondraBeth hovered while Pandy unpacked, talking a mile a minute about how she’d gone to a spa in Switzerland and how Pandy should go, too. Pandy went into the bathroom to change into her bathing suit; when she came out, she found SondraBeth lounging by a small pool that was set into an incongruous patch of hardy green grass. SondraBeth had removed her blousy cover-up to reveal a string bikini. As Pandy went to lie down in the chaise next to her, she took a good look at SondraBeth and gasped.
“You’ve lost weight!” Pandy exclaimed.
“Can you tell?” SondraBeth asked proudly.
“You’re so…skinny,” Pandy said cautiously. She snuck another look at SondraBeth’s slim physique and wondered if she’d had something done to her thighs and stomach; liposuction perhaps.
“Come on, Peege,” SondraBeth said lightly. “You’d weigh exactly the same if you were a couple of inches taller.”
“You know that’s not true—”
SondraBeth shot Pandy a warning look. “I have to be thin. To play Monica. It’s part of the job. If I gain two pounds, the wardrobe people are all over me. They get really pissed off if they have to keep altering the clothes. They said I have to weigh myself every morning. If I gain a pound, it means I’m supposed to skip dinner.”
“What?” Pandy screamed. “That’s outrageous. This is Monica, not Dickens. Maybe I can call someone.”
“Who?” SondraBeth grinned playfully. “PP? He’s a man. All he cares about are the numbers. He’s probably the one who came up with the idea.”
“That’s terrible, Squeege.”
“That’s the business.” SondraBeth rolled onto her stomach, resting her chin on her hands. She turned her head and looked over at Pandy, her eyes a startling green. “Besides, it’s not that bad. Not for me, anyhow. I’m like a racehorse; I like being in shape, and I like winning.”
“Ha!” Pandy said.
“In any case, I’m not going to apologize for having a good body,” SondraBeth continued, pulling herself forward and leaning over the edge of the chaise. She stared down into the turf. “People are always telling women to lose weight, and then when they do, other women attack them for it. It isn’t fair.”
SondraBeth picked at a short blade of grass. “This whole weight thing is like a conspiracy against women.”
“Blah, blah, blah.” Pandy made her fingers into a talking puppet shape, then made the puppet try to bite SondraBeth’s nose.
SondraBeth swept this aside like an annoying fly. She rolled onto her back and gazed at a cloud. “Seriously, Peege. If every woman exercised, just a little, and ate healthy, there would be no need for diet products. And who do you think is getting rich from those diet products?
Men
.”
SondraBeth suddenly sat up. “Ohmigod. Did I tell you about
Doug Stone
?”
“What?” Pandy squeezed a tube of sunscreen too hard, causing a glob of lotion to shoot out and land on her thigh. “Did you see him? In Europe?”
“No. But somebody else did.” SondraBeth’s eyes narrowed. “You remember that girl? That
other
girl.”
Pandy shook her head.
“You know, the actress? The one who wanted to play me? I mean, Monica. And then
I
got the part?”
“Lala Grinada?” Pandy gasped.
“That’s the bitch. Well, she must really hate you, because guess who’s been seen all over Paris with
Drug Stoner
?”
“Lala Grinada?”
“You got it, sista.”
“Oh.” Pandy listlessly rubbed the sun cream into her skin, trying to digest this information. She lay back and sighed. Doug had been too good to be true after all. “I guess that explains it, then. He’s with Lala Grinada.” She sighed dramatically and got up to pour herself another glass of rum punch from the pitcher in the refrigerator. “Meanwhile, I am once again alone. And fat. Because I was so upset when Drug Stoner dumped me, I ate ice cream with whipped cream five nights in a row. And that was after the pepperoni pizza!” she shouted through the kitchen island to SondraBeth.
“I hate her!” SondraBeth shouted back. “I hate her for what she’s done to you.”
“Her?” Pandy asked, strolling back outside. “What about
him
? He’s the one who swore he’d never be with another actress again.”
SondraBeth raised one eyebrow. “Obviously, he lied. Fucker.” She held up her empty cup for a refill.
“Dickwad,” Pandy seconded, taking the cup and returning to the kitchen for the pitcher. It felt good to swear; to be juvenile in the face of rejection. Indeed, it felt so good that she had to do it again. “Rotten rat bastard son of a pimp-nose!” she shouted.
“Ha! What is that?” SondraBeth called back.
“Joseph Heller.
Catch-22
. My sister and I memorized it when we were kids. I mean, come on!” Pandy poured more punch into SondraBeth’s glass. She looked at the pitcher, thought,
Fuck it
, and brought the glass and the pitcher back to the terrace. “Lala Grinada? Pleeeeeze. She literally has three hairs on her head. And she’s not even a good actress.” Pandy put down the pitcher and took a sip of SondraBeth’s drink before handing it over. “Even if she were okay, he still wouldn’t respect her. He basically told me he couldn’t stand to be around any actress.”
“He said that?” SondraBeth’s eyes widened as her expression froze.
“Oh, come on, Squeege. I’m sure he didn’t mean
you
.”
“I wouldn’t care, except that you don’t know what it’s like. You really don’t know.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You never even come to the set.” SondraBeth sounded hurt. “I would think being the creator of Monica would be like being a parent. Going to the set would be like going to watch your kid’s baseball game.”
“Except that going to a baseball game isn’t usually considered work.”
“And writing is?” SondraBeth scoffed. “Of course, I understand that you have better things to do, but you never come at all.”
“It makes me uncomfortable, okay?”
“But why?”
“It’s all those people. ‘People, touching other people. It’s the creepiest thing in the world,’” Pandy sang out goofily.
SondraBeth pointed her finger. “Aha! I knew it! That’s the reason you never come to the set. You secretly want to be an actress.”
“What?” Pandy laughed. Where the hell had SondraBeth gotten that idea?
“That little thing you just did. That is what people do when they think they can maybe act. They try it out.”
“No,” Pandy countered cautiously. “I only ever wanted to be a writer. I swear.”
Even to her own ears, she didn’t sound convincing, probably because SondraBeth was right: She
had
fantasized about acting when she was a kid. Who hadn’t?
“I’ll bet you practiced monologues. With your sister,” SondraBeth posited cleverly.
“So?” Pandy said.
“So, I want to see. Show me your monologue.”
“Now?”
SondraBeth parroted the island’s pet refrain: “Do you have something better to do?”
Pandy scratched her arm. “You want me to perform? In front of you? I’d rather show you my vagina,” she joked.
“Come on, Peege,” SondraBeth wheedled.
Pandy sighed. SondraBeth knew her too well. Or at least knew her well enough to know that given the chance to show off, Pandy needed little encouragement.
“All right,” Pandy said as she quickly cleared away some of the deck furniture to make a small stage.
Getting into the spirit of things, SondraBeth took a seat behind a table as if they were at an actual audition. “We’ll pretend that you’re the actress and I’m the writer.” She cleared her throat and, squinting at an imaginary piece of paper, asked, “Pandemonia James Wallis?”
“I go by PJ,” Pandy said.
“And what are you going to do for us today?” SondraBeth gave her the sort of fake smile Pandy had no doubt worn when she was auditioning actresses for Monica.
“Gwendolen’s monologue from
The Importance of Being Earnest
,” Pandy said.
SondraBeth shrieked with laughter. “That old thing? That’s what every rookie chooses. Well, go ahead.”
Pandy gave her a dirty look. She took a deep breath and began: “You have admired me? Yes, I am quite well aware of the fact. And I often wish that in public, at any rate, you had been more demonstrative. For me, you have always had an irresistible fascination—”
“Stop!” SondraBeth howled. “It’s too awful. If you continue, I shall burst apart with laughter.”
“I told you I couldn’t act,” Pandy grumbled good-naturedly.
“Oh, Peege.” SondraBeth grinned. “You’re hilarious. I’ve never seen anyone be so squishy and so elbow-y at the same time.”
“And what, exactly, is that supposed to mean?”
“You keep wriggling around. Like a worm. Acting is all about being
still
.”
* * *
Pandy awoke early the next morning to find that SondraBeth had already left the house. Pandy hadn’t slept well, thanks to Doug Stone and Lala Grinada. She kept picturing them together, wondering what Lala had that she didn’t.
Goddamned Squeege
, she thought.
Wondering vaguely where SondraBeth had gone, Pandy made tea and perused a guidebook to the island’s flora and fauna. There was a rare silver heron that could be found in one of the island’s marshy coves just after sunrise.
Why not?
Pandy thought, changing into a bathing suit. Why not chase down this elusive heron? After all, as SondraBeth kept pointing out last night before each shot of tequila, they didn’t have anything better to do.
She winced slightly as she clapped a canvas safari hat onto her head. She picked up a towel from the floor, found her cell phone, and set off on the golf cart.
The air was warm but soothingly dry. The golf cart kicked up a small cloud of sparkly white dust on the pretty manicured roads made of ground shells. She passed several iguanas, the island’s main residents, and a few wild chickens that had escaped from the workers who came to the island by small planes. The island felt blissfully deserted. This was twenty-first-century luxury, Pandy thought: no people.