Killing Monica

She was expecting it to be bad. But this?

Who was she?

No one. Without her hair, she looked anonymous. She could be anyone, really. She could even be a man.

Grabbing the towel, she pulled it over her head. This was the final indignity. “Bad thing number four,” she howled aloud, throwing herself onto her bed.

She rolled into the dip of the old feather mattress. And then, as generations of little girls had no doubt done before her, she cried and cried and cried.

* * *

Sometime later, she sat up and dried her tears.

She’d had her emotional indulgence. Like every Wallis child, she’d been taught that feelings, no matter how bad, were unlikely to change reality. Meaning, don’t just sit there feeling sorry for yourself. “Take action,” her father would have said.

Besides, it was relatively simple: She was bald. She needed hair.

It was possible that in the jumble of old costumes in the Victorian theater there was a wig. Possibly several. But they would be like Old Jay’s bed: You wouldn’t want to sleep in them.

She would have to wear a hat instead. The best selection of hats could be found in one of Hellenor’s old rooms; specifically, in the room Hellenor had once dubbed “the lab.”

Panting slightly—a reminder that she was in terrible shape—Pandy made her way down the long second-floor corridor, then up another flight of stairs to the children’s wing, where she opened the door to the schoolroom.

At one time, if something was burning, exploding, or boiling over, chances were it was coming from this room. Pandy would burst in screaming to find Hellenor, dressed in a white lab coat and wearing safety glasses, holding a smoking test tube.

“Yes?” she would ask curtly.

“Mom’s worried you’re about to burn down the house.”

And Hellenor would say, “Maybe someday I will.”

Back in the days when Hellenor was so angry.

And maybe, because of Hellenor, Pandy had been angry, too. Because of Hellenor, she didn’t see the world the way little girls were supposed to—all sugar and spice and everything nice.

Indeed, while the other girls at school were busy learning how to be girls, she and Hellenor were busy learning how to be feminists. They were determined to rail against a world in which being a woman meant being a second-class citizen, without proprietary rights over your body, your thoughts, your soul, or your very being.

They hated what they would come to know as sexism so much that after “Monica,” Pandy had begun another series called “World Without Men.” But then she discovered boys.

Hellenor didn’t. Instead, she decided to annoy everyone and dress like a boy. Hence the collection of men’s hats for nearly every occasion, along with an assortment of other “manly” garments she’d dug up from one of the attics and hung from a pegboard on the wall.

Pandy picked out a gray fedora and put it on. She wandered over to Hellenor’s lab table and picked up a pair of safety glasses. Trying them on, she glanced in the mirror and frowned, reminded that her clothes were burned and she was going to be reduced to wearing not just one of Hellenor’s hats, but her clothes as well.

Walking to the closet, she extracted a flannel shirt and a pair of the men’s black suit pants Hellenor used to favor. Hellenor had been a little taller, so Pandy had to roll the trouser legs up over her knees. Discovering an old pair of Hellenor’s construction boots, she figured she might as well put those on as well. They’d be useful when Henry arrived and they went out to inspect what was left of the boathouse.

Once again, she looked in the mirror. And here was more irony: Now she really did look like Hellenor. Or what Hellenor might look like now.

This was the final insult. She hoped Henry would get there soon.

She marched into the library and, standing in front of the painting of Lady Wallis Wallis, shook her head. People were stupid. How could someone not want a book about Lady Wallis? She had all the courage—if not more—of a modern-day heroine, but her life had been real, and she’d actually had a hand in shaping the future of America.

And she was beautiful. That still wasn’t enough?

The whole world sucked, she decided. No one had any imagination anymore. Feeling impatient for Henry’s company, she decided to go up into the cupola to see if she could spot his car.

She went up three flights of steps, around a landing, and then up another flight. Above her dangled a white rope with a carved wooden pull. Pandy tugged it, and a wooden ladder unfolded.