She knew how disappointed he would be in her if he did find out.
“Judy?” she said. “It’s Hellenor. I’m ready.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
SHE WAS more than ready an hour and a half later, when the SUV was speeding down the West Side Highway on the way to the Woman Warrior of the Year Awards. Having put herself into the capable hands of the in-house Monica wardrobe and makeup team, she was now wearing a black leather jacket, black pants, and black patent leather loafers.
Judy was seated next to her in the third row. In the second row were SondraBeth and PP. In the first row, meaning the operational part of the operation, were a bodyguard and a chauffeur who could double as another bodyguard if necessary.
“Meaning he carries a gun,” PP had informed her.
Pandy had nodded solemnly. Normally, this sort of information would have upset her. She would have had to ask what sort of person she was, to allow herself to be transported around Manhattan with two men bearing arms. There seemed to be something ethically off about it. But she was in no position to ask questions. Indeed, she ought to be grateful she was around men with guns, after that threat Jonny had made on TV.
Which hadn’t gone unnoticed by the team. “Hellenor?” Judy asked, looking down worriedly at her device. “What’s this thing on Instalife about Pandy’s ex-husband looking for you?”
“Jonny is a real scumbag,” SondraBeth replied smoothly, jumping in before Pandy could answer. Ever since Pandy had gone up to wardrobe and makeup as Hellenor, SondraBeth had barely let her out of her sight. She seemed to have her ear tuned to any potential conversation in which Pandy might inadvertently reveal the truth.
“It’s just that he seems like a real crazy person. Like an actually insane, psychologically challenged kind of person,” Judy said.
“Well, he is. Wouldn’t you say so, PP? After all, you were friends with him,” SondraBeth said smugly.
“I wasn’t exactly friends with him,” PP said. “We were friendly. I was just doing business with him, that’s all. Trying to make some money.”
“And how’d that work out for you?” Pandy asked snidely.
SondraBeth snickered under her breath. “Exactly.”
“Frankly, if you were any kind of man at all, I’d think you’d want to punch the fucker,” Pandy said, just loud enough so that SondraBeth could hear and PP probably couldn’t.
“Har har har,” SondraBeth laughed loudly. Dressed in her full Monica regalia, she could barely turn her head. She was so decorated with hairpieces and layers of Spanx and silicone cutlets that she might as well have been a marquess in the court of Louis XIV. “Hellenor didn’t mean that,” she added. “She’s totally against violence. As we all are.”
She shot Pandy a warning look. “In any case, I’m sure karma will get Jonny. No one can escape from it.”
“Actually, it’s the tax man,” Pandy said. “No one can escape from the tax man.”
“Which reminds me,” PP said, scrolling through his device. “Thanks to that little stunt you two pulled this morning—that rolling-in-the-mud thing—you’re going to have to be sure to emphasize that Monica is very much alive.”
“Of course she’s alive,” SondraBeth tittered. “Why would anyone think she wasn’t?”
“The Instaverse is claiming that when you rolled in the mud, you said, ‘I buried Monica.’”
“What? Like John Lennon and the White Album?” Pandy snorted derisively.
“‘I buried Paul.’ Very good, Hellenor,” PP said approvingly. “Maybe you can be a studio head someday.” He turned back to SondraBeth. “When you give Hellenor the award, be sure to state specifically that Monica is alive.”
“She is alive. She lives!” SondraBeth called back to Pandy jokingly.
The light turned green and the car started forward with a jerk.
“Ow.” Pandy touched the bump on the back of her bald head and winced.
Twenty minutes later, the SUV was at last pulling in through the gates of Chelsea Piers. After being stopped by several guards, they were told to wait. The event didn’t begin for another hour, but there were already hundreds of photographers on the bleachers along the carpet, sitting like Hitchcock’s black crows on the telephone wires outside the children’s school. Cordoned off behind metal barricades was a bigger mob of fans, some, Pandy noted, with plastic champagne glasses strapped to their heads.
This was going to be interesting.
Eager for a glimpse of Monica, a splinter group had broken through the barricades and was now approaching the car.
Sensing danger, the bodyguard got out and stood with his arms crossed in front of SondraBeth’s door.
“What do we do now?” Pandy asked.
“Wait,” SondraBeth said.
“For what?”
“For someone to come and get us.”
Pandy looked out the window and grimaced. The group was now surrounding the car. A face was squished up against her window for a second before it was swept away by the bodyguard. Pandy almost thought she’d imagined it, but for the greasy smudge left on the glass.
The horizon began tilting as Pandy started to feel the beginnings of a panic attack. Big crowds scared her; she always imagined being trampled.
“Hellenor? Are you all right?” SondraBeth’s voice seemed to be coming from too far away.
“Have some water,” PP said, handing her a bottle.
“It’s all the fans,” SondraBeth said, turning a quarter of the way to address PP. “I used to feel that way, too, remember? Like a fraud. I’d be in the car, my heart pounding, sweat pouring from my underarms, and I’d think, what if I get out there and they see that I’m a fraud? That I’m not really Monica? What if the crowd thinks they’re getting Monica, and discover they’re getting SondraBeth Schnowzer instead? What if—”
“They tear you limb from limb?” Pandy asked, half jokingly. The question wasn’t necessarily facetious. Another group had squeezed between the metal barricades and was now approaching the car.
Plink! A plastic champagne glass hit the rear window.
Pandy screamed.
“Check your face. That’s what I always do,” SondraBeth advised, looking in the vanity mirror.
And then the police came and shooed the crowds away, directing the driver to a guardhouse where the backstage entrance was protected by a metal gate in a chain-link fence. Pandy breathed a sigh of relief as the SUV pulled up to a loading dock that led to the backstage area. The water she’d chugged had made its way to her bladder, and now she had to pee. She sat up in anticipation of bolting from the car.
The door to the SUV swung open. SondraBeth rose slightly on bent knees and, ratcheting herself around to face the open door, assessed the situation.
“I’m going to need a ramp,” she said.
“She needs a ramp. Someone get her a ramp,” came the sound of male voices shouting from below.
Pandy sighed deeply and pushed back into her seat, squeezing her thighs together. This was annoying. SondraBeth was blocking the door. Pandy couldn’t go forward or backward until someone got that damn ramp.
This was why she hated showbiz.
“Maybe you could change your shoes?” Pandy asked, wondering how much longer she could hold out for the bathroom. “Maybe if you had on different shoes, you could get the hell out, and then we could all get the hell out.”
“No,” SondraBeth hissed angrily. “This is it. This is the outfit. I can put it on once, and then it has to stay on as is until I take the whole thing off. Get it?”