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“Oh, Peege,” SondraBeth said, sitting down next to her. “Monica isn’t dead. Or won’t be in a couple of hours, when she comes back to life at the leg. And in the meantime, we should be celebrating.”
Monica’s shoe suddenly came away from her foot and Pandy smiled victoriously. “Because now the mob goes after Jonny!”
“He’s gonna get his!” SondraBeth set the phone down and gave her a high five.
“Excellent,” Pandy said, picking up the phone to check the headlines.
And then all of a sudden, it was out of her hand and SondraBeth was running pell-mell toward the end of the pier, the phone banged into her splayed left hand like a ball in a catcher’s mitt. She came to an abrupt halt, and winding her arm behind her back, she hurled it into the river. It sliced through the air for a good forty feet before reaching its apex and plunging unceremoniously to its watery grave.
“What the fuck?” Pandy shrieked.
“The tracking device. How do you think the paparazzi followed me to Wallis?” SondraBeth shouted as the he
licopter roared overhead. “We’re too visible here. Come on.”
SondraBeth pulled the hood of the burka over her head as she knelt to help Pandy get Monica’s boot back on.
Pandy’s feet were screaming. “Are we going to have to run again? I should have changed back into my own shoes,” she shouted, glancing up at the helicopter. Apparently they hadn’t been recognized, as it began spinning away.
“No. This time we walk,” SondraBeth said. “Keep your head down and don’t look anyone in the eye.”
A cavalcade of police cars came racing down the West Side Highway toward Chelsea Piers, flashing blue, white, blue, white, blue, like a flag. Pandy froze. She had a vision of herself being arrested dressed as Mother Teresa. There would really be no explaining that one.
“Are we going to be arrested?” she gasped, drawing back.
“What are you talking about?” SondraBeth said as the police cars sped by. “I’m a very valuable asset. But I’d like to keep the paparazzi off our trail. So far no one is looking for Mother Teresa and her burka friend. Not yet, anyway.”
And glancing quickly over her shoulder, she hustled Pandy across the West Side Highway.
Unfortunately, Pandy wasn’t able to get far. She managed to make it half a block, to the loading dock of one of the storage joints, before she had to pull up short to catch her breath.
“I don’t understand,” Pandy said, loosening the laces on the shoes again. “We have no money and no cell phone. And I cannot walk any farther in these goddamned Monica shoes. Can we please borrow a phone from someone and call Judy?”
“Don’t worry. We will. Hey,” SondraBeth said. “Remember the Alamo? Remember Jonny? We should be painting the town red.”
“Now?” Pandy asked, looking around. This part of Manhattan was so deserted, there wasn’t even a deli.
“Not here.” SondraBeth laughed. She walked to the corner of Tenth Avenue and put her hands on her hips. “Someplace no one will know us. What about one of those Irish bars?”
“You mean one of those places where they use that stinky rag to wipe the bar? And the peanuts contain traces of male urine?”
“That’s the ticket, sista,” SondraBeth said, slinging her arm around Pandy’s shoulders. She looked down at Pandy’s feet. “But first, we need to get rid of those shoes.”
And with Pandy wincing along, they passed through three long blocks of crumbly brown buildings standing stubborn against the sea of change. At last reaching Seventh Avenue, they headed south, hugging the storefronts that offered everything from homeopathic remedies to tandoori specialties. SondraBeth stopped suddenly in front of a store with two dusty mannequins in the window, one wearing a 1950s ball gown and the other a sagging silk peignoir.
* * *
Pandy held her breath as they entered the slightly humid air of the shop. She looked around cautiously, then exhaled. The place was largely unchanged from all those years ago, when she and SondraBeth used to shop there for vintage clothing that they could turn into party dresses. Pandy looked up at the shelf over the glass case that held the cash register. Even that old stuffed toy monkey was still there, dressed in his dusty red felt shorts.
“Hey,” Pandy said, grabbing SondraBeth’s arm. “Look. The monkey in the moleskin.”
“PandaBeth!” SondraBeth hissed, looking around for the proprietor. Dressed in a frayed Japanese robe and smelling strongly of cigarettes, he was the sort of New York City person who has seen better days, and yet continues on in a determined time warp.
SondraBeth slipped past him, and motioning for Pandy to follow, began piling various items on her outstretched arms. A glittery skirt, a denim shirt. Two feather boas. “Whatever happened to PandaBeth, anyway?” she asked.
“Well, I’m not the one to say,” Pandy said, frowning at the growing pile, especially when SondraBeth added a blue wig. “You were the one who ran off with Doug Stone. Who, by the way, had the temerity to inform me that you hated me.”
“Ha!” SondraBeth snorted. “He told me you were trashing me all over town. He was more like a girl than I was. He was constantly in front of the mirror. He would go over his schedule every evening and plan his outfit for the next day!”
