The Notorious Pagan Jones. Nina Berry
into her throat when she saw Nicky on the cover. He wore a morning coat and top hat and was running down the steps of a church holding the hand of a pretty blonde girl in a long white dress and veil while people on either side of them threw rice.
That’s me, she thought. That’s us.
But it couldn’t be.
Nicky had stopped calling after the accident. She hadn’t heard from him in nine months. So what the hell…
She looked at the cover again and the words on it came into focus. Nicky Raven Marries Pagan Jones Look-Alike! Exclusive Photos and Interview with Bridesmaid Inside.
Pagan’s heart was running a crazy race inside her chest. Images fought for space in her head. Nicky kissing her naked shoulder. Nicky singing “I love you,” in her ear, soft and low. Nicky shouting “Hey, beautiful! I’m gonna marry you!”
She forced herself to look at the cover, to really see it.
Nicky was married.
To someone who wasn’t Pagan.
To someone who looked like Pagan.
Hands shaking, she picked up the magazine and riffled the pages till she saw a photo of a convertible Rolls-Royce pulling away. Nicky was waving from the backseat with his other arm around the blonde woman in white. The Rolls had a sign on the back that said Just Married, and strings of tin cans fixed to the bumper.
Pagan squeezed her eyes shut, trying to come up with some other explanation. Nicky was starring in a movie where his character got married; Nicky was doing a photo shoot to advertise a particular designer or tailor; Nicky’s new album had a song about getting married, and these were possible photos for the cover.
She forced her eyes open and ran them over the print of the article. The information didn’t register at first, until she saw a phrase in the interview, spoken by the bridesmaid: “People need to stop comparing Donna to Pagan Jones. Donna’s much prettier and sweeter, and she certainly never killed anyone. Nicky loves Donna for who she is, not who she looks like.”
Pagan stared into the accompanying close-up photo of Mrs. Donna Godocik Raven. She was taller than Pagan, as tall as Nicky in her heels. Her eyes were blue instead of brown, her nose more upturned, her face more heart-shaped. But otherwise, she did look like Pagan.
Probably a nondrinking version with no deadly car crashes on her résumé.
According to the chipper magazine copy, Donna was nineteen and an up-and-coming actress, with a few small supporting roles in Paramount films to her credit. She and Nicky had met “thanks to mutual friends.”
Friends. Ha! More likely their mutual publicists.
Nicky’s reputation must have been tarnished by his association with Pagan after her conviction. It could only help him to be seen dating a clean-cut young woman who wasn’t Pagan.
But did he have to marry her? Pagan had last spoken to Nicky a few hours before she’d crashed the Corvette. His last words to her had been, “I love you, Pigeon.”
Pigeon, his pet version of Pagan. She hadn’t liked it at first. But later she’d basked in the way his smooth baritone caressed its vowels. Love could change anything. While she’d been in Lighthouse, she would’ve taken a month in solitary just to have heard him say those words again.
But he’d never called, never visited.
There were no quotes from Nicky in the article. It was mostly fluff about the wedding dress and statements from Donna’s friends and family. Then Pagan caught sight of Nicky’s mother Octavia and his three older brothers clustered in the back of a photo, and the stone in her chest turned into an anvil. The wedding was real. Mrs. Randazzo was a warm, no-nonsense Italian-American widow, and despite Nicky’s success, she still lived in the family’s same small apartment in Brooklyn. Nicky visited her three or four times a year without fail. The family was very close, and Pagan had loved becoming part of it once she’d started dating Nicky.
If Mrs. R and Nicky’s brothers had traveled all the way to the Church of the Good Shepherd in Beverly Hills to attend this wedding, it was the real deal.
Pagan threw the Star Insider aside and tore through the other gossip magazines, looking for more coverage. She found it in three other places, each with very similar photographs, but no further information other than how well Nicky’s new single was doing on the charts. So he did have a new song out. Finally, in the fourth magazine, she found the date of the wedding: August 5, 1961.
Just three days ago.
While Pagan and Mercedes were planning their escape from Lighthouse, Nicky had been getting married.
What if she’d escaped one day earlier and called him? Would he have gone through with this marriage?
She shook her head at herself. Don’t be thick. Nicky would never have taken her call. Immediately after the accident, she had called him a hundred times. He’d never answered his phone or called her back. Why would it be any different now?
It was still hard to believe that he hadn’t had the guts to formally break up with her after all they’d been to each other. It was unlike the Nicky she’d thought she knew. She couldn’t help being angry about it, but she always came back to the horror of what she’d done. How could anyone want to see her or speak to her, let alone be her boyfriend, after that?
“Champagne, miss?”
A blue skirt and jacket swayed into her peripheral vision, and a pretty dark-haired young woman bent her knees to lower a tray bearing several flutes buzzing with champagne.
Pagan automatically took one of the flutes and sipped. Bubbles tickled her nose. The faint burn of the alcohol singed her tongue.
So delicious. So familiar.
So…wrong!
She abruptly set the glass back down on the tray so hard, some of the golden liquor sloshed out.
The stewardess caught the edge of the tray to keep it from tipping. “I’m sorry. Can I get you something else?”
“No,” Pagan said. “No, I’m sorry. Thank you.”
See, she still had everything under control. She could find out the boy she loved was married and even accidentally taste alcohol without giving in to temptation.
Further proof A.A. was unnecessary. She was cool.
She tried to smile at the stewardess. The woman turned her own lips up with professional grace, then her gaze ran over Pagan’s face, and the smile faded. Her eyes widened in recognition. Her mouth, professionally lacquered in coral lipstick, parted, then closed, then parted again.
“How about a Coke, honey?” she asked, low and kind. “Or we carry Sprite now, too. It’s like 7Up.”
Pagan swallowed. The pity in the woman’s face came close to undoing her self-control. “A Coke would be great. Thanks.”
This time the stewardess’s smile was small and real. “Coming right up.”
She strode away, and Pagan took a tissue out of the beautiful black patent leather Chanel bag and quietly blew her nose. Very quickly, the stewardess brought the Coke in a bottle with a glass full of ice on the side, as well as some crackers and cheese.
“Eat a little something, too, maybe?” she said. “We won’t be taking off for another ten minutes or so.”
“Thank you.” It came out very low, almost a whisper.
The stewardess patted Pagan’s shoulder. “Just let me know if you need anything, mmkay?”
Pagan nodded, and the woman left her alone. She managed three crackers and a square of cheese before she set the food on the empty seat beside her, got up with studied composure, walked down the aisle, and locked herself in the tiny lavatory to cry.
*