She would have only had to wait fifteen minutes for Jonny to be brain-dead and dead-dead. And then, for the sake of authenticity, she would have retraced her steps, hurrying down the path as if she’d just discovered he wasn’t in the house. When she spotted him floating in the pool, she would have splashed in, lifting him under the arms and laying him flat in the grass. She would have pulled back his head and pinched his nose.
She would then have performed textbook-perfect CPR. After ten minutes, she would have given up. She would have run back to the house, called 911, and waited the thirty minutes it would have taken for the volunteer fire department to arrive.
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 all: 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…
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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…