And by then, it would have been far too late.
Jonny would be dead—an accident! He had taken a nap in Old Jay’s bed, been attacked by chiggers, and had run into the pool to escape them, where, unfortunately, he had drowned.
And what a happy widow she would have been! Free of Jonny without the bummer of becoming another middle-aged divorcée in New York. Instead, her reputation would have grown as that of a tragic figure.
She would have had what her English friends called “the black wedding.” The black wedding was what you wished for ten years after you’d had the white wedding. After you’d produced a couple of children and had had enough time to realize that yes, indeed, your husband was totally useless. You wished for the black wedding—your husband’s funeral. You’d get the money and the lifestyle and the children, without the hassle of the man.
Of course, when it came to marriage, the English had always been far more practical than the Americans.
Fuck, she thought, extracting a package of Cheddar cheese.
The pathetic fact was, Jonny had managed to get so much money out of her during their marriage that when it came time to talk about a settlement, she’d had no cash left.
Neither, unsurprisingly, did Jonny. In fact, it turned out that technically, Jonny didn’t own anything at all.
As a matter of fact, Jonny owed money. And that meant she owed money, too. This, at least, was the gist of it. This, and the fact that Jonny did, indeed, own something, after alclass="underline" half of everything she owned.
She’d had to promise to pay him her entire advance—the very same advance she’d been expecting her publishers to pay her when she delivered the book.
And now, because her publishers had rejected her book, she would have no money to pay Jonny after all.
She wandered into the library, looked up at the portrait of Lady Wallis Wallis, and cringed.
On the other hand, it would be easy enough to pay Jonny off. All she had to do was sell the portrait. It was probably worth millions.
Pandy emitted a harsh laugh. Forced to sell a painting that had been in her family for three hundred years to pay off Jonny Balaga? Never. What would Lady Wallis say?
Disgusted with herself, Pandy went upstairs to her room. There, she sat down at her desk and looked at her pile of old Monica notebooks. Of course she didn’t have to sell Lady Wallis Wallis. Not when she still had Monica.
And people still wanted Monica.
Which meant there was absolutely no excuse for her not to write another Monica book. She would agree to it, and her lawyers would make some kind of arrangement with Jonny’s lawyers as to a payment schedule. Nevertheless, Jonny’s settlement would be delayed; to compensate, Jonny’s lawyers would attempt to up the amount. And then, it wouldn’t be just one more Monica book that she needed to write, but two or three.
If, indeed, Monica even lasted that long. Eventually, people would grow tired of Monica. And then Monica and PJ Wallis would end up back here. Back where they started. And eventually the cats would come…
Pandy picked up one of the notebooks.
It was the first Monica story, entitled “Monica: A Girl’s Guide to Being a Girl.” She’d created the perfect imaginary little girl—Monica—who knew everything about being a girl, for the instruction of Hellenor. By seven, Hellenor was becoming what her teachers deemed “a problem child.” She refused her mother’s and then Pandy’s entreaties to dress like a girl, act like a girl, be a girl, and so Pandy had created Monica and the Girl’s Guide to help her. She had used the Girl Scout Handbook as her inspiration.
Pandy picked up another notebook. Dated 198–, it was the last installment of Monica. She flipped to the back page. It was blank, save for the small lettering written in Hellenor’s hand. Pandy held the page away to read the tiny block letters painstakingly formed in red ink:
KILL MONICA. PLEASE.
And for a brief moment, Pandy laughed. Hellenor had always hated Monica.
Until she hadn’t. Once Monica started making money…
She snapped the book shut and replaced it on the pile.
She should have put her foot down after the second Monica book. She should have said, “No more.” But how was she to know what the future would hold? When she’d reinvented Monica ten years ago, she’d made her a more perfect version of herself. Bad things might happen to PJ Wallis, but only good things happened to Monica. In Monica’s world, everything always worked out.
And then, some of Monica’s stardust rubbed off on Pandy herself, because suddenly good things were happening to Pandy as well. And for a while there, it seemed she really was Monica…
Until she wasn’t. Because the bad things that were now happening to PJ Wallis were not the kinds of things that were supposed to happen to Monica.
The audience wouldn’t like Monica if she were the way Pandy was now: destitute, on the verge of a breakdown; a pathetic woman who’d dared to believe in herself and had lost everything.
And it wasn’t just about the money! Indeed, it wasn’t really about the money at all, but the fact that in taking her money, Jonny had robbed her of her creative freedom. He’d stolen her opportunity to take a chance on herself, and in doing so, had enslaved a piece of her soul.
Collapsing onto the typewriter, she sobbed and sobbed. What was the point? She might as well destroy Monica, and she would start by burning the original notebooks. Wiping her cheeks with the backs of her hands, she picked up the last notebook and once again examined the page where Hellenor had written KILL MONICA.
And then, like a drunk who instantly feels sober when faced with a crisis, Pandy felt her tears dry up. Without the advance, Jonny would certainly take her loft, but it wouldn’t be enough. And then he’d try to go after something else: either Monica or Wallis House—most likely both. He probably couldn’t get them, but he was nevertheless free to make her life miserable by trying. He could file suit after suit. Because, as her lawyers had explained again and again, she’d never signed a prenup, and was therefore “vulnerable.”
Which meant that in order to prevent Jonny from attempting to take Wallis House, she might have to produce the one person who stood in his way: Hellenor.
And that would not be good.
Once they started looking, who knew what they might find out?
Fucking Hellenor, Pandy thought with a start. Now she had to tell Henry how she had foolishly managed to put everything at risk.
She pushed back from her desk with a grunt. The call to Henry was inevitable. She might as well get it over with. Her cell phone didn’t work here, so she would have to use the landline.
She walked to the end of the hallway, past the eighteenth-century French wallpaper that Jonny would undoubtedly rip out, to a small door set into the paneling. She yanked it open and, feeling for the light switch, went down a set of steep, enclosed stairs. When she got to the bottom, she kicked the door. As always, it was stuck.
She kicked it again and it opened. The stench of something slightly rotten rose up into the air. Pandy coughed. Dead mice. She leaned across the couch and unwound the two windows. They opened smoothly, but brought in a handful of dead leaves. Pandy brushed the leaves away and looked around.
The den, as usual, was in its gloomy half-light. The windows in this room were small and high, meant to save on heating. She went to the wall and flipped on the light. The gloom could be explained by the dark plastic paneling that someone had stuck on the walls in an attempt at renovation.