Killing Monica

There was the faintest whirring as the mechanism went round and round. The middle doors opened, revealing a carousel of lords and ladies going up and down on their brightly colored hobbyhorses. Several went by, until the twelfth lady passed on her miniature steed. Then the top doors flew open, and out sprang the wooden bird himself, two mechanical wings unfolding as he called out that familiar refrain: cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” she heard Jonny swear behind her. “Did you really grow up here? It’s like a fucking museum.”

Pandy decided she’d better take him straight to the kitchen.

Inhaling deeply, as if he were literally absorbing the enormous bare space into his body, he then released a howl of agony. “How the hell am I supposed to cook”—he paused clownishly—“in here?”

“What do you mean?” Pandy asked nervously. She knew the counters were bare and the appliances dated. When she and Henry were there, they ate simply: fried eggs and bacon, or heated-up cream of mushroom soup. On the other hand, you could roller-skate across the linoleum floors, which was something Pandy and Hellenor had done as children.

“Where’s the garlic press? The meat grinder? The double waffle press?” Jonny demanded, determined to play out his charade. Taking in her expression, he swatted her on the butt. “Come on, babe, I’m just kidding.”

Pandy gasped out a laugh of relief. Of course he was kidding. For a moment, all she’d been able to think was that her worst fear was about to come true: Jonny was going to try to do the same thing to Wallis House that he’d done to her loft; turn it into Jonny House. But of course that was impossible. “Jonny,” she began.

But Jonny had moved on. He was circling the kitchen, holding his cell phone aloft as he searched for a signal.

“Oops,” Pandy said apologetically. “There’s no service here. Except by the boathouse. Sometimes you can get a bar or two there.”

Ugh. She hated having this conversation with guests. Some people couldn’t tolerate the lack of service and headed back to New York early, while others spent the entire weekend trooping back and forth to the boathouse. Pandy hoped that this weekend, possibly one of the most important of her life, wasn’t going to end up being one of those weekends.

“Come on, Jonny. You’re supposed to be seeing my history,” she said firmly. At the very least, she was determined to do what the shrink had suggested.

She led him past the smoking room, through the music room, and into her favorite place in the house: the library.

Pandy smiled proudly as she began the grand tour, pointing out the first editions, adding that the library also included signed books by Walt Whitman and F. Scott Fitzgerald, both of whom had been guests at the house.

With the flair of a teenage tour guide, she explained that the marble fireplace was made from local stone that had been sent to Italy, where special craftsmen had done the ornate carvings. And recalling again how the shrink had encouraged her to tell Jonny about the most important people in her life, she attempted to speak to Jonny about the woman who had been her inspiration growing up.

But Jonny was no longer with her. Jonny was by the bar cart in the opposite corner of the room, examining bottles.

“Yeah?” Jonny asked, looking up.

“There’s something I want to show you.”

“Sure.” With a reluctant glance back at the cart, Jonny ambled across the forty-foot Aubusson carpet to join her in front of a large oil painting. “This is a portrait by Gainsborough of Lady Wallis Wallis, painted in 1775, when she was sixteen.” Pandy gazed reverently up at the painting of a young woman dressed in a period riding costume. The cloth of her habit—a powdery grayish-blue—was cut in a military style. The girl’s skin was very white; on her cheeks were perfectly shaped pink circles. Her powdered hair, decorated with tiny flowers and silk butterflies, rose a foot and a half above her forehead.

“Weird hairstyle,” Jonny remarked.

“She was considered not only the most beautiful woman in the Colonies, but one of the best educated,” Pandy continued in a slightly schoolmarmish tone. “She was a spy for the Patriots during the American Revolution—”

“Seventeen seventy-six,” Jonny said by rote. He smirked.

Pandy suddenly felt foolish. “Well, she’s my great-great-great-something-grandmother. And she was supposedly a writer—maybe the first female novelist in the Colonies. When I was a kid…” On the verge of explaining how she used to stare up at this portrait of Lady Wallis Wallis, wishing she could magically be her instead of herself, she realized that Jonny was no longer by her side.

He was back at the drinks cart, uncorking one of the ancient bottles of alcohol.

Pandy stared in shock. No one had ever opened one of those bottles. She’d kept them for authenticity only; at close to a hundred years old, the contents must be suspect. Pandy took a step forward to stop him, but it was too late.

“Check this out,” Jonny said. He stuck his nose into the top of the bottle and took a deep sniff. His head drew back with a snap as if he’d inhaled something sharp and potent, then he cautiously took another sniff.

“It’s gin,” he said, with a sudden air of authority. At last, here was something he understood. “Possibly genuine bathtub gin.” He poured the liquid into a tumbler and took a sip, pressing his lips together to test the flavor. “Yep,” he said, with the confidence of an expert. “That’s pure 1920s bathtub gin. Maybe even made in one of the bathtubs in this place, huh?”

He took another sip and jerked his head at the painting. “Who did you say that was?”

“My inspiration. Lady Wallis Wallis.”

“Not her. The painter.”

“Gainsborough,” Pandy replied.