at SondraBeth, who gave her a warning look as she held out her hand for the pile of twenties the proprietor was counting out.
Pandy tried to hold it, but a terrible eruption, an explosion, was rising up through her insides…She fell onto the glass door and swung out onto the sidewalk, convulsing with laughter.
* * *
Five minutes later, they were sliding up to the bar at McWiggins’s. The interior was shaded and, as most of these places were, somewhat gloomy.
Pandy looked around and wondered if this was indeed the best place to kill a couple of hours. The Pool Club would definitely be better. On the other hand, she was tired and thirsty. “I’ll have a beer,” she said to the bartender.
“What kind?” The bartender looked at her challengingly. Pandy wasn’t sure if it was because she was a bald middle-aged woman, or because she was a bald middle-aged woman wearing a blue wig and a tattered sequined dress.
“Two Heinies, draft,” SondraBeth said. “And two shots of Patrón. Silver.”
“Coming right up,” the bartender said in a surly tone of voice.
“What would you do if there were no more Monica, anyway?” SondraBeth asked, leaning over the bar to rest her head in her hand. “With that speech you gave at the Woman Warrior Awards, it sounds like you’re ready to move on.”
The bartender slid two shots and two beers in front of them. SondraBeth lifted one to her lips and, giving Pandy a thumbs-up, sent it down the hatch.
Pandy sighed as she held her own shot up to her lips. “I love Monica as much as you do, but while Jonny was trying to take me for every penny I’d ever made from her, I did create a new character.” She frowned, thought of Lady Wallis, and downed the shot, which caused her to cough into her napkin. “But because of Monica, no one wants her. And the weird thing is, she’s sort of like Monica. I mean, she’s pretty glamorous. She was friends with Marie Antoinette. Can you imagine what it would be like to find out that your best friend had her head chopped off?”
Pandy grimaced and motioned for another shot.
“I think it sounds fabulous,” SondraBeth said as the bartender gave them refills.
Pandy laughed. “In any case, Henry said that they would only publish it if I were dead. And since I’m not—” Pandy shrugged. “Having a book rejected is horrible. It’s like having a baby and when you show it to people, they tell you to stick it back in your uterus.” She snorted, realizing she must be feeling the effects of the shot. “What would you do if there were no more Monica?”
“I’d go live on my ranch in Montana.”
“Wha—?” Pandy said into her beer.
“That’s right.” SondraBeth nodded. “I wouldn’t even be an actress anymore.”
Pandy wrinkled her nose. “You wouldn’t?”
“Nah,” SondraBeth said, motioning for another round of shots. She emitted an ironic laugh. “Thanks to Monica, I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.”
“Really?” Pandy asked as the new round arrived.
“Sure,” SondraBeth said, taking a shot. “If it hadn’t been for you and Monica, who knows how my life would have ended up? But then Monica came along. And it was such a great opportunity. And then it was all about Monica…”
“But Montana?” Pandy asked, slurring slightly. “I thought you said you hated the place.”
“I did. But I went back a couple of years ago when my father died. And my mother and I kind of made up. Mom, as it turns out, loves Monica. And when I was finally successful…” SondraBeth put down her empty glass. “She kind of had to admit that she was wrong about me as a child. I wasn’t going to end up in jail after all.”
Pandy laughed. “You were never going to end up in jail.”
SondraBeth raised her eyebrows. “I got pretty close a couple of times. I ran away from home, remember? I became a stripper. It could have turned out that Mom was right.”
“I remember,” Pandy said gently. “You told me about it. That night on the Vineyard.”
SondraBeth laughed and sipped at her beer. “I was so afraid to tell you because I thought if you knew, you’d think there was no way I could be Monica.”
“You know better than that,” Pandy said. “Come on, sista. Remember how I told you I didn’t have the best childhood myself? How my sister tried to kill herself when she was sixteen? And then my parents died.