I’ve been dying to see it ever since it came out in Architectural Digest. But someone needs to get in touch with Henry. He’s probably at Wallis House by now—”
“Shhhh,” came a soft whisper.
“Excuse me?” Pandy said.
“Breathe with me, Hellenor.”
“I am breathing.”
“No. I mean, really breathe with me. Inhale through your nose and exhale through your mouth.”
“SondraBeth,” Pandy said, in a panic, “is this a yoga thing? You know how much I hate yoga. I can’t even touch my toes!”
“You sound just like your sister. I have to go now.”
“But—”
SondraBeth clicked off, and Pandy was left staring at a blank screen. She handed the phone to Judy, slid down in her seat, and crossed her arms. For a moment, she was truly speechless. How long was she going to have to play this game?
Pandy looked back out the window and glared. The SUV was now on the Henry Hudson Bridge. Down below, the water was twisting and shining like a Mardi Gras snake. Then it disappeared behind a hump of green, and they were turning a corner.
And once again, there it was: the Monica billboard.
Judy leaned across the seat and held up several strings of glittering gold, green, and purple beads.
“San Geronimo festival,” she said as she lowered the beads over Pandy’s head. “Welcome to Manhattan.”
“Thanks.” Pandy turned her head to stare at Monica until she once again disappeared.
She fingered the beads around her neck.
Monica was still missing her leg.
* * *
Twenty minutes later, the van arrived at SondraBeth’s townhouse: a white cube famously designed in the 1960s by a now-forgotten architect. Located on East Sixty-Third Street, it could be reached via a parking garage a block away, thereby allowing its resident to avoid detection by the paparazzi. It was this route that the van took, pulling into a space under the townhouse marked PRIVATE.
Judy led Pandy to an inconspicuous metal door with a code pad. The door opened into a short cement corridor. At one end was another door; across the landing was a flight of steps leading up to the first floor of the townhouse.
“The basement,” Judy said, pressing a metal card onto the lock.
The door buzzed open, revealing what appeared to be a sort of bachelor pad. The carpet was an industrial gray, as was the fabric on the large, squishy couch and two overstuffed armchairs. On the wall was a large-screen TV; neatly arranged on the shelves below were a variety of clickers and gaming consoles. Two heavy glass ashtrays were stacked next to a digital clock.
“I think you’ll be really comfortable here,” Judy said. Her headset beeped. “SondraBeth will be back in fifteen. In the meantime, Peter Pepper would like a word. He’s the head of the studio.”
“I know who he is,” Pandy snapped. “And in the meantime, I would like to use the facilities.”
Annoyed once again by this Hellenor business, Pandy stomped down the hall to where Judy had pointed. She passed through a bedroom with the requisite king-sized mattress and even larger TV and into a bathroom the size of a small spa. Good old PP, Pandy thought, looking around at the sunken Jacuzzi tub, steam room, and separate his-and-hers toilet stalls.
Now he was an interesting development, she decided, going into the “his” stall. She supposed his presence made sense. Naturally the head of the studio would need to be on-site to stage-manage any potential situations concerning Monica. On the other hand…
Pandy went to the sink and washed her hands. Patting her face with water, she shook her head.
He might be here because of the clause in her Monica contract.
It stated that in the event of the death of PJ Wallis, the rights to Monica would revert back to her sister, Hellenor. It had been Henry’s idea to insert the clause, his worry being that if Pandy happened to die young, like her parents had, there would be no preventing someone from someday being able to do whatever they wanted with Monica—including using her to sell soap.
She and Henry had dubbed it “the Golden Ticket.” But in any case, it didn’t matter. Because she wasn’t dead. And she certainly wasn’t Hellenor.
“Hellenor?” Judy asked, knocking on the bathroom door. “Are you ready?”
“I guess so,” Pandy said, glaring at her still-unfamiliar reflection in the mirror.
Now all she had to do was convince everyone else.
* * *
PP was waiting for her upstairs, seated on a stool in front of a long island in the center of an open-plan kitchen.