Pandy sighed as she held her own shot up to her lips. “I love Monica as much as you do, but while Jonny was trying to take me for every penny I’d ever made from her, I did create a new character.” She frowned, thought of Lady Wallis, and downed the shot, which caused her to cough into her napkin. “But because of Monica, no one wants her. And the weird thing is, she’s sort of like Monica. I mean, she’s pretty glamorous. She was friends with Marie Antoinette. Can you imagine what it would be like to find out that your best friend had her head chopped off?”
Pandy grimaced and motioned for another shot.
“I think it sounds fabulous,” SondraBeth said as the bartender gave them refills.
Pandy laughed. “In any case, Henry said that they would only publish it if I were dead. And since I’m not—” Pandy shrugged. “Having a book rejected is horrible. It’s like having a baby and when you show it to people, they tell you to stick it back in your uterus.” She snorted, realizing she must be feeling the effects of the shot. “What would you do if there were no more Monica?”
“I’d go live on my ranch in Montana.”
“Wha—?” Pandy said into her beer.
“That’s right.” SondraBeth nodded. “I wouldn’t even be an actress anymore.”
Pandy wrinkled her nose. “You wouldn’t?”
“Nah,” SondraBeth said, motioning for another round of shots. She emitted an ironic laugh. “Thanks to Monica, I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.”
“Really?” Pandy asked as the new round arrived.
“Sure,” SondraBeth said, taking a shot. “If it hadn’t been for you and Monica, who knows how my life would have ended up? But then Monica came along. And it was such a great opportunity. And then it was all about Monica…”
“But Montana?” Pandy asked, slurring slightly. “I thought you said you hated the place.”
“I did. But I went back a couple of years ago when my father died. And my mother and I kind of made up. Mom, as it turns out, loves Monica. And when I was finally successful…” SondraBeth put down her empty glass. “She kind of had to admit that she was wrong about me as a child. I wasn’t going to end up in jail after all.”
Pandy laughed. “You were never going to end up in jail.”
SondraBeth raised her eyebrows. “I got pretty close a couple of times. I ran away from home, remember? I became a stripper. It could have turned out that Mom was right.”
“I remember,” Pandy said gently. “You told me about it. That night on the Vineyard.”
SondraBeth laughed and sipped at her beer. “I was so afraid to tell you because I thought if you knew, you’d think there was no way I could be Monica.”
“You know better than that,” Pandy said. “Come on, sista. Remember how I told you I didn’t have the best childhood myself? How my sister tried to kill herself when she was sixteen? And then my parents died. And then—” Pandy inhaled sharply, catching herself before she said more. Just like that time on the Vineyard, she’d almost spilled her biggest secret. Which wasn’t hers to tell.
“You never told me that story about Hellenor,” SondraBeth said.
“It was nothing,” Pandy said quickly, waving it away. “It was a long time ago. She’s fine now.”
SondraBeth shook her head musingly. “I always thought it was going to be you and me, you know? That somehow, we’d be the ones steering this Monica thing. How’d we lose control?”
“Men,” Pandy said.
“Men.” SondraBeth’s eyes narrowed.
And then they both looked up at the bar’s TV.
This time, they didn’t look away. It was the same news loop, but now it was all about Hellenor.
“Last seen with SondraBeth Schnowzer—” A shot of SondraBeth in her black wedding dress, staring blankly into the camera, then a close-up of Pandy, looking terrified—“An outbreak of chaos”—wide shot of hundreds of women shouting into their devices, handbags swinging, ankles buckling, tablecloths torn from tables as they ran toward the exit…
And then another close-up of Pandy at the Woman Warrior Awards: “Authorities seeking information about the woman who claims to be Hellenor Wallis—”
And then to Jonny again, in a new clip: “I’m onto you, Hellenor. I’m looking for you—”
And finally, a live shot of the Monica billboard. “Due to the mysterious disappearance of SondraBeth Schnowzer, the studio is considering canceling the Shoe Unveiling.”
“Now that really would be a shame,” said the announcer.