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She tried politics instead.
Enter the Senator. Twenty years older and twice divorced, at least he spent his time trying to make the world a better place.
He was nearly sixty. Almost old enough to be her father. This he informed her of within ten minutes of making her acquaintance at Joules. Within the next hour, he sadly revealed that he’d had prostate cancer. And he was still in love with his first wife, who had died of cancer. So she shouldn’t get her hopes up.
Pandy promised that she wouldn’t.
Other than that, he explained, his life wasn’t bad. He dined at only the best restaurants, where he was often comped. He lived in the most exclusive building on Park Avenue and named several billionaires as his closest friends. Indeed, he pointed out that while most people associated the Republican Party with billionaires, the Democrats actually had more billionaire supporters. This, Pandy said, was no doub
t due to the fact that if a man was smart enough to make a billion dollars, he must possess the intelligence to be a Democrat.
The Senator agreed, and invited Pandy to accompany him to Palm Beach for the weekend, where they would be hosted by his billionaire friend and supporter Steven Finiper and Steven’s wife, Edith, a Harvard Law School graduate.
“I think you’ll like Edith,” the Senator said. “When she found out I knew you, she wouldn’t stop bothering me. Monica is her favorite character, and you, my dear, are her favorite writer.”
“I’d love to come,” Pandy said, flattered.
* * *
They took a commercial flight from LaGuardia to Palm Beach. Walking through the airport with the Senator, Pandy was astounded by how popular he was. Every few feet, someone would come up and gush about how grateful they were to him and how he’d made such a difference in their lives.
“Wow,” Pandy said as they took their seats in first class. “Now that is something that’s never going to happen to me.”
“What, my dear?” the Senator asked, cocking his head. He was a little hard of hearing.
“People coming up to me, telling me how much I’ve meant in their lives.” Pandy raised her voice and realized how foolish she sounded.
The Senator smiled and patted her knee. “Oh, it will happen, my dear. Especially when you become a grandmother.”
Pandy smiled and rolled her eyes.
When they landed in Palm Beach, Pandy’s phone began beeping. She checked her messages: Page Six had called three times. During the two-hour flight, word had gotten out that she and the Senator were traveling together; now everyone was wondering if they were dating.
Pandy laughed and deleted the messages.
* * *
The Finipers’ Palm Beach home was a monstrosity of contemporary architecture: an enormous glass-and-brick rectangle with a helicopter landing pad made of the traditional coral and cement mixture.
Pandy wondered how long the structure would last. The house clearly didn’t belong there, but, given the scrub and the mangrove swamps, what did?
Pandy and the Senator were given separate rooms across the hall from each other. Showing Pandy her room, Edith informed her that the house had ten bedrooms, each with its own bath. Pandy noted the fancy monogrammed hotel-quality sheets and towels, the assortment of travel-sized toiletries in a basket on top of the commode, the generic furniture comprised of dark wood and beige linen. There was always something impersonal about these billionaire houses, as if they were merely comfortable resting places for the enormous amounts of money they cost. Perhaps the owners assumed that, like Monopoly buildings, these houses would soon be bought by yet another billionaire.
In the meantime, Pandy planned to enjoy herself.
The first evening passed without incident. The Senator and Steven had serious business, and so, it seemed, did she and Edith. “I’m such an admirer of yours,” Edith said, hugging Pandy as she came downstairs. “I just love Monica. You’ve changed how people see women.”
“Why, thank you,” Pandy said. Edith had a good, solid view of the world and a healthy dose of cynicism, especially when it came to men. She and Pandy discussed why there weren’t more women CEOs while the men talked Super PACs.
On Saturday morning, Pandy came down to breakfast to discover they’d been invited to tennis and lunch at the home of another billionaire couple: Pope and Lindsay Mallachant.
“Do you play?” Edith asked.
“Tennis?” Pandy said, helping herself to several pieces of bacon from the breakfast buffet. She hesitated and then gave her usual answer: “I learned when I was four, and never got any better.” This was not the complete truth. Having grown up with a crumbling tennis court in her own backyard, Pandy was a natural.
She knew better than to boast about her skills, however. For her, tennis was a purely social event. As teens, she and Hellenor had viewed it as a pleasant enough way to lure friends to the house, the deal made sweeter when accompanied by contraband: namely, cigarettes and airplane bottles of alcohol stolen from parents. If forced, she would play an actual game, but she could rarely be bothered to muster up the enthusiasm needed to win.
“Don’t worry about me,” she said to Edith. “I’m happy not to play. I’m much better on the sidelines, I promise you.”
