“I don’t understand. What just happened?” Portia demanded, talking over Pandy as if she weren’t there.
“I think her book just got rejected,” Suzette said in a stage whisper.
“What?” Portia gasped.
“Her new book,” Suzette hissed. She made a slicing motion across her throat.
“Ohmigod,” Portia screeched. She paused, then added, “Is that all?”
“What do you mean, is that all? Isn’t that enough?” Suzette’s voice rose.
Portia shrugged. “I thought maybe Jonny wasn’t going to give her a divorce. Or he wanted even more money.”
Pandy struggled to sit up. “He’s giving me the divorce!” she shouted.
“Well, then. There’s no problem, is there?” Portia continued blithely as she draped a towel over Pandy’s shoulders. “If it’s only the book—you can just write another one, right?”
“Oh, good. Here comes Henry now,” Suzette exclaimed with false cheer.
“Pandy?” Henry asked, leaning over her.
Pandy was now frozen in place, her hands soldered over her eyes.
Henry peeled back her little finger and then slowly pulled her hands away.
“The book?” Pandy gasped.
“I’m sorry,” Henry said, as Pandy’s throat closed in terror.
* * *
It took a stiff slug of vodka before Pandy was able to speak again.
She swayed on her barstool, alternating between sobs of grief and valiant reassurances. “It doesn’t matter!” “It’s all for a reason!” And most of all: “It will all be all right.” In between these statements were longer moments that felt like some sort of punctuation that would never end: a very long dash, for instance.
She wanted to crawl into the deepest and darkest of holes; to tunnel lower than she’d ever gone before—where, naturally, she would curl up and die.
But as the people around her wouldn’t allow that sort of behavior, Pandy went along with their plan:
Yes, she did agree that it might be a good time to take a couple of days off.
Yes, she had been holed up for a very long time.
And yes! She had been dealing with a huge amount of stress. Particularly with Jonny. People couldn’t believe what he had put her through.
So, yes, she would go to her house in Wallis to recover, especially after these last few months in New York. Henry would join her tomorrow morning at the latest.
And so she went willingly into the town car Henry had hired to transport her to Wallis.
She didn’t ask Henry how or why all this seemed to have been arranged in advance, being too confused to ask questions.
“Goodbye!” She waved out the window to her friends.
She raised the window and leaned back against the seat. The blast of cold air-conditioning in the car met the day’s heat, and a cloud of steam began to form. Pointing her finger, Pandy briefly held it to her temple. Then she lowered it. Aiming it at the foggy glass window instead, she wrote two words:
HELP ME.
Rescued by Suzette, her device came back to life and began vibrating, releasing those buoyant Monica notes into the air like happy-face balloons. Pandy put her hand over the machine to silence it. She looked past the angry line of cars on the other side of the West Side Highway. A sleek white boat, sails trimming the wind, raced across the spackled surface of the river.