cautiously, then exhaled. The place was largely unchanged from all those years ago, when she and SondraBeth used to shop there for vintage clothing that they could turn into party dresses. Pandy looked up at the shelf over the glass case that held the cash register. Even that old stuffed toy monkey was still there, dressed in his dusty red felt shorts.
“Hey,” Pandy said, grabbing SondraBeth’s arm. “Look. The monkey in the moleskin.”
“PandaBeth!” SondraBeth hissed, looking around for the proprietor. Dressed in a frayed Japanese robe and smelling strongly of cigarettes, he was the sort of New York City person who has seen better days, and yet continues on in a determined time warp.
SondraBeth slipped past him, and motioning for Pandy to follow, began piling various items on her outstretched arms. A glittery skirt, a denim shirt. Two feather boas. “Whatever happened to PandaBeth, anyway?” she asked.
“Well, I’m not the one to say,” Pandy said, frowning at the growing pile, especially when SondraBeth added a blue wig. “You were the one who ran off with Doug Stone. Who, by the way, had the temerity to inform me that you hated me.”
“Ha!” SondraBeth snorted. “He told me you were trashing me all over town. He was more like a girl than I was. He was constantly in front of the mirror. He would go over his schedule every evening and plan his outfit for the next day!”
“Asswipe,” Pandy exclaimed, yanking back the curtain to the dressing room. It contained two rusty folding chairs and an old mirror propped up against the wall.
“When our engagement ended,” SondraBeth continued, lifting her arms and wriggling out of the burka, “there was so much bad press, I didn’t even know if I should play Monica anymore.”
“I know,” Pandy said, completely distracted by the act of trying to squeeze herself into a tattered sequined party dress and a pair of ancient silver dancing shoes.
“But of course, I knew that was never going to happen,” SondraBeth went on. “And I thought about calling you then, but you seemed to be so happy with Jonny.” SondraBeth slid her feet into a pair of cowboy boots. “I knew there was no way you’d ever want to be friends again—I mean, what girl wants to be friends with the girlfriend who told her that her husband was a shit?”
Pandy frowned at the blue wig SondraBeth had tugged onto her head. “But why didn’t you call me after? When Jonny and I did split up?”
SondraBeth clapped a cowboy hat onto her head. “Why didn’t you call me?” she asked. She met Pandy’s eyes in the mirror. Pandy suddenly felt guilty.
“I didn’t think you’d want to hear from me.” Pandy frowned at the blue wig. “Because of the stupid way I’d acted with Doug. And then, according to the press, you and Doug were the ideal couple. And then after you guys split up, you were so busy. With Monica. And Doug said you hated me.”
“I never said I hated you.”
“Then what did you say?” Pandy asked, thinking about what Doug had told her about how without Monica, SondraBeth would have been nothing. “After all, if it was only about Doug, why didn’t you get back in touch?”
“Because I guessed Doug had said something about what I said about you.”
“Which was?”
“Nothing,” SondraBeth snapped. “But you have to remember, I was the one who was working her ass off for Monica. And meanwhile, you never even came to the set. You had Monica, but you still had a life. Even if Jonny was a scumbag, at least you had the chance to act like you were in love with him.”
“Act like it?” Pandy asked.
“Don’t you understand?” SondraBeth glared at her. “Because of Monica, you were the last girlfriend I had. The last girlfriend I had time to make. And after that…” She shrugged. “I had no time. I was scheduled. Am scheduled.”
She tossed Pandy a couple of feather boas as she yanked open the curtain and went out.
Pandy took one last glance at herself in the mirror before she hurried after her.
The proprietor was standing behind the glass counter, his gaze focused on the small TV above his head. “And how are you going to pay?” he asked, briefly tearing his eyes away from the screen.
“With these,” Pandy said, heaving Monica’s shoes onto the counter.
The proprietor glanced at the shoes and looked back to the news loop. He picked up one of the shoes and asked casually, “Is Monica dead?”