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.