“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.
She sped quietly past the airstrip and through a low, thick forest of scrub bushes and cacti, which she’d been cautioned not to attempt to cross on foot. The road curved along a point of land that sheltered a shallow inlet, where the rare heron could supposedly be found. Pandy parked the golf cart and made her way along a small path to the rocky beach. The vegetation was sparse, and she situated herself between two bushes to wait.
She heard a crisp snap, like laundry flapping in a breeze, and looked up to see two enormous herons navigating a landing in the shallow water in front of her. Pandy picked up her cell phone and took a few hasty shots. The birds stood stock-still in the water, their heads slightly cocked, waiting for the bonefish fry on which they survived. Finding the pickings slim, they began to move around the rocky point.