York were sold out, so she settled on a plane change in Chicago. It didn’t get her to New York in time to see a Broadway show, but the agent did help her call ahead to get a room at the Waldorf-Astoria that night, with a flight to Berlin the next morning.
Once on the plane, she settled into first class, happy the seat next to her was empty, until she realized that the stewardesses in their light blue uniforms and flat round hats were serving drinks. Alcoholic drinks.
In her suit dress, Pagan knew she looked much older than sixteen. It would be so easy to wander over to the tiny, exclusive first-class lounge before takeoff and order a Bloody Mary. Later there would be caviar and toast served on bone china, with maybe a glass or two of champagne.
To distract herself, she pulled out the stack of magazines. She made a note to read the article in Time on the Cold War, then scanned the covers of the fun magazines. According to Screen Stories, Liz Taylor’s plans for life were Full Speed Ahead! Movie Teen Illustrated had a Special Elvis Issue, and TV Star Parade featured Annette Funicello’s Tips for Teens: A Miss Should Kiss.
No kidding, Pagan thought. How else are you supposed to have any fun?
Then she caught the names Nicky Raven and Pagan Jones in large print on the next magazine cover, and her heart stopped.
She dropped the other magazines on top to cover it up, and looked around to see if anyone had seen it, or noticed her. But the other first-class passengers were gathered in the lounge, clinking glasses. Adult laughter filtered down the aisle, and a stewardess passed, bearing a tray of canapés.
What was her name doing on a magazine cover? She’d been out of the public eye for months, and Devin had gone to great lengths to keep her release from Lighthouse under wraps. Whatever else he was, Devin Black struck her as someone who could keep a secret.
Which meant she’d have to look at the magazine cover again to see what was going on. One by one, she slid the other magazines aside until she revealed the Star Insider again.
Her heart leaped 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
