CHAPTER TWENTY
WATER. I need water!” Pandy gasped minutes later, lurching after SondraBeth. They were in one of those new parks that had seemingly sprung up overnight on the Hudson River. “What the fuck?” Pandy said, slowing down to a laborious clop.
She looked around. The grass was fresh and clean, as were the hard plastic forms molded into table and chair configurations. Lowering herself onto her hands and knees, she attempted to crawl across the grass to the chair forms, but gave up halfway and flopped down on her stomach instead.
“I need water,” she groaned.
SondraBeth was standing above her, the top of the burka pulled back from her head like a priestess’s robe. “We did it!” she shouted.
“We did?” Pandy sat up.
“We killed Monica!”
“Are you sure?” Pandy asked. The knob of pain on the back of her head was pulsating again, as if it had a life of its own.
“Give me my phone,” SondraBeth commanded.
Pandy struggled to her feet and reached into her front pocket. “Water?” she asked, holding out the phone in exchange for information.
“Drinking fountain—that way,” SondraBeth said, grabbing the device and pointing in the direction of the Hudson.
“What the hell just happened back there?” Pandy asked, making her way to the fountain. “The audience was loving us. And then you said Monica was dead…and all of a sudden they went wild. We could have been killed back there.”
Pandy pressed the button on the stand. The fact that water came out at all felt like a small miracle. She drank thirstily.
Directly ahead was the Hudson: a sparkling expanse of greenish brown. On the other side were the gleaming high-rises of Hoboken. It was a warm enough day for a large sailboat to be making its way down the river, skimming over the wake of the clanging Circle Line ferry, its passengers arranged like wooden toy people in the top. Then one helicopter passed overhead, while another rose up from behind the George Washington Bridge. Tilting forward with mechanical determination, the second one began speeding its way down the Hudson.
Pandy turned back to SondraBeth. “It’s a good thing we’re really not killing Monica. I don’t think either one of us could survive the bad news.” She patted her face with Mother Teresa’s head scarf. “Was that supposed to happen?”
“What?” SondraBeth asked, not looking up from the device.
“That mayhem,” Pandy said as the helicopter flitted down to Chelsea Piers and then turned around, heading back in their direction.
“I hope you’re calling Judy,” Pandy said anxiously, hurrying to SondraBeth’s side.
“Judy knows where we are,” SondraBeth said distractedly. “The phone has a tracking device.”
“Then what are you doing?” Pandy demanded.
“I’m checking the Instalife feed.” SondraBeth grinned wickedly as she read the headlines aloud: “‘Real-Life Monica Missing: Possibility of Foul Play’…‘Is Monica a Feminist?’…and wait for it…” She held up her hand. “Here it is: ‘Monica Declared Dead!’”
She held the phone out to Pandy. There was the classic shot of Monica striding over the skyline of Manhattan, but someone had cleverly drawn a coffin around her. And for the first time in her life, Monica didn’t look so happy.
“Ding-dong, the witch is dead! The wicked old witch. The Monica witch,” SondraBeth sang out.
Pandy frowned and handed the device back to SondraBeth. “Do you have to be that happy about it?” she asked, sitting down to loosen the laces of the booties.
“What do you mean?” SondraBeth asked.
“I don’t know. Monica is dead. I sort of feel like we should be sadder.”
“Oh, Peege,” SondraBeth said, sitting down next to her. “Monica isn’t dead. Or won’t be in a couple of hours, when she comes back to life at the leg. And in the meantime, we should be celebrating.”
Monica’s shoe suddenly came away from her foot and Pandy smiled victoriously. “Because now the mob goes after Jonny!”
“He’s gonna get his!” SondraBeth set the phone down and gave her a high five.
“Excellent,” Pandy said, picking up the phone to check the headlines.
And then all of a sudden, it was out of her hand and SondraBeth was running pell-mell toward the end of the pier, the phone banged into her splayed left hand like a ball in a catcher’s mitt. She came to an abrupt halt, and winding her arm behind her back, she hurled it into the river. It sliced through the air for a good forty feet before reaching its apex and plunging unceremoniously to its watery grave.
“What the fuck?” Pandy shrieked.
“The tracking device. How do you think the paparazzi followed me to Wallis?” SondraBeth shouted as the helicopter roared overhead. “We’re too visible here. Come on.”
SondraBeth pulled the hood of the burka over her head as she knelt to help Pandy get Monica’s boot back on.
Pandy’s feet were screaming. “Are we going to have to run again? I should have changed back into my own shoes,” she shouted, glancing up at the helicopter. Apparently they hadn’t been recognized, as it began spinning away.
“No. This time we walk,” SondraBeth said. “Keep your head down and don’t look anyone in the eye.”
A cavalcade of police cars came racing down the West Side Highway toward Chelsea Piers, flashing blue, white, blue, white, blue, like a flag. Pandy froze. She had a vision of herself being arrested dressed as Mother Teresa. There would really be no explaining that one.
“Are we going to be arrested?” she gasped, drawing back.
“What are you talking about?” SondraBeth said as the police cars sped by. “I’m a very valuable asset. But I’d like to keep the paparazzi off our trail. So far no one is looking for Mother Teresa and her burka friend. Not yet, anyway.”
And glancing quickly over her shoulder, she hustled Pandy across the West Side Highway.
Unfortunately, Pandy wasn’t able to get far. She managed to make it half a block, to the loading dock of one of the storage joints, before she had to pull up short to catch her breath.
“I don’t understand,” Pandy said, loosening the laces on the shoes again. “We have no money and no cell phone. And I cannot walk any farther in these goddamned Monica shoes. Can we please borrow a phone from someone and call Judy?”
“Don’t worry. We will. Hey,” SondraBeth said. “Remember the Alamo? Remember Jonny? We should be painting the town red.”
“Now?” Pandy asked, looking around. This part of Manhattan was so deserted, there wasn’t even a deli.
“Not here.” SondraBeth laughed. She walked to the corner of Tenth Avenue and put her hands on her hips. “Someplace no one will know us. What about one of those Irish bars?”
“You mean one of those places where they use that stinky rag to wipe the bar? And the peanuts contain traces of male urine?”
“That’s the ticket, sista,” SondraBeth said, slinging her arm around Pandy’s shoulders. She looked down at Pandy’s feet. “But first, we need to get rid of those shoes.”
And with Pandy wincing along, they passed through three long blocks of crumbly brown buildings standing stubborn against the sea of change. At last reaching Seventh Avenue, they headed south, hugging the storefronts that offered everything from homeopathic remedies to tandoori specialties. SondraBeth stopped suddenly in front of a store with two dusty mannequins in the window, one wearing a 1950s ball gown and the other a sagging silk peignoir.
Pandy held her breath as they entered the slightly humid air of the shop. She looked around cautiously, then exhaled. The place was largely unchanged from all those years ago, when she and SondraBeth used to shop there for vintage clothing that they could turn into party dresses. Pandy looked up at the shelf over the glass case that held the cash register. Even that old stuffed toy monkey was still there, dressed in his dusty red felt shorts.