Then it picked up the press: ANOTHER CELEBRITY MARRIAGE ON THE ROCKS!
And then it picked up paper: endless requests for bank statements, contracts, emails, and texts. And on and on, and back and forth about what was or was not relevant, and who’d said what to whom. She had managed to live through it only by escaping from it as often as possible. Specifically, into the eighteenth century and the mind of Lady Wallis Wallis when she arrived in New York City, circa 1775.
At the time, Pandy didn’t know if what she was writing was literary or historical. It might have been YA. All she knew was that trying to tell Lady Wallis’s story was what had given her courage.
What she’d never imagined was that it could fail.
Now, Pandy looked out the window of the town car Henry had arranged to drive her from the Pool Club and saw that she was nearly back in Wallis. Where she’d been only once since that long, awful day when she had told Jonny she wanted a divorce.
Through the endless dealings with Jonny’s lawyers and demands for money, Pandy had assumed that Lady Wallis would make it all okay in the end.
Except she hadn’t.
The driver hit the brakes. “Which way?”
“That way,” Pandy said, pointing to the narrow rutted track that was Wallis Road.
And right there, at the last outpost of cell phone service, her phone began fluttering those happy notes from Monica’s theme song.
Pandy picked it up.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
HENRY?”
Her voice came out thickly, like she was speaking through clotted cream. She had to take a sip of water before she could continue. “Please tell me what I think happened two hours ago back at the Pool Club didn’t happen?”
“I wish I could, my dear,” Henry said with firm sympathy.
“You mean, it did happen?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?” Pandy began to protest as she became aware of a terrible poisoned feeling. Her body felt stuck between a blackout and a terrific hangover, in a sort of alcoholic purgatory.
It was all that champagne she’d drunk. At the Pool Club. With her friends.
She shook her head, trying not to remember too much. If she did, she might very well become sick. In fact, she probably would be sick.
And yet, there was something in Pandy that still wanted to resist reality, especially when it was this bad. She took another gulp of water. “Are you absolutely and completely sure about the book?” she asked.
“Yes. They rejected it,” Henry said.
“Lady Wallis?” Pandy sat back in her seat, still reluctant to embrace the truth. “Are you sure you sent them the right manuscript?” she asked desperately.
“Was there another one?” Henry asked drily.
“But why?” Pandy moaned softly, like an animal in pain.
“They didn’t like it,” Henry said simply. “They said the book didn’t sound like you. They said it wasn’t a, quote, ‘PJ Wallis book.’”
“And what did you say?”
“I said, ‘Of course it’s a PJ Wallis book. How can a book written by PJ Wallis not be?’ And then they said, ‘But PJ Wallis doesn’t write historical fiction. So people who are looking for a PJ Wallis book will be angry. Disappointed.’ I said that begged the question as to their publishing it under another name. Which they’d likely do, but not with your current advance. So if you want to keep the advance, you’ll have to give them their PJ Wallis book. And they want it to be about Monica. They suggested that Monica get divorced. Try online dating. The thought, I agree, is terrifying. I told them, ‘We’ll see.’”
He paused. He must have realized that Pandy hadn’t interrupted him. “Pandy?” he asked. “Are you there?”
Pandy looked out the window. They were just starting up the driveway.
“What happens if I refuse to write another Monica book?” she asked.
“Let’s not worry about that now,” Henry said firmly. “Right now, I want you to take a deep breath and relax. Go for a walk through the pine forest. Take a swim in the pool. Or better yet, canoe around the lake. And then have a nice hot bath. Get a good night’s sleep, and call me in the morning.”
“So this means I won’t get the money.”
“You will get the money. When you deliver the next Monica book. If you work really hard, I’m sure you can knock one off in six months. After all, you do know all about ugly divorces now.”
“Thanks, Henry,” she sniped.
Henry sighed. “I did warn you about historical fiction. Most editors won’t go near it these days. It’s not popular.”
She lost Henry when the driver slammed on the brake and her phone dropped to the floor. They had reached the final switchback to the house, and the driver turned around to gape at her. Then he slowly turned his head and looked back at the house, as if trying to put two and two together.
“You live here?” he asked.
Pandy sighed, gathering her things. “It’s not what it seems.”
She got out of the car and started briskly up the path to the house, pausing for a moment to admire the rose garden. The S. Pandemonia and S. Hellenor, the two roses for which she and Hellenor were named, were in full bloom.
This situation—the looming divorce settlement and the book’s being rejected—was going to be a huge problem, she realized as she went hurriedly up the stairs and into the house. Without pausing to wind the clock, she went right into the kitchen.
She placed her sack of groceries on the counter, opened the refrigerator, took out the container of milk, and threw it in the trash.
The milk was from the one and only time she’d been back to Wallis House since that terrible scene with Jonny. It had been nearly a year since the night when she’d secretly moved all her papers to Wallis House.
All the files and contracts; the tax returns, the old phone bills, drafts of manuscripts and Monica scripts; a copy of the will she’d just signed that left everything to Hellenor—including the rights to Monica—on the off chance she might have something to leave behind when Jonny’s lawyers got through with her. In short, anything and everything that Jonny might get his hands on and could then use against her.
He’d already tried to claim that Pandy had attempted to murder him when she’d pushed him into the pool.
Pandy sighed and began unpacking the groceries Henry had shoved into the back of the car at the last second. If she’d known then what she knew now about Jonny, would she have let him slide under the water, watching those last air bubbles rise to the surface—a series of small ones, then a pause, and at last that final balloon-shaped burst of air as the water rushed in and forced out the last molecules of oxygen?
She would have only had to wait fifteen minutes for Jonny to be brain-dead and dead-dead. And then, for the sake of authenticity, she would have retraced her steps, hurrying down the path as if she’d just discovered he wasn’t in the house. When she spotted him floating in the pool, she would have splashed in, lifting him under the arms and laying him flat in the grass. She would have pulled back his head and pinched his nose.
She would then have performed textbook-perfect CPR. After ten minutes, she would have given up. She would have run back to the house, called 911, and waited the thirty minutes it would have taken for the volunteer fire department to arrive.