When Monica, Mark at her side, came toward them, Mary Lisa thought The Bold and the Beautiful, and laughed at herself.

Monica air-kissed each relative, and paused when she got to Mary Lisa. She winged up a dark brow, and her expression tightened. It was the look Mary Lisa remembered from her earliest childhood, the one that promised violence, or at least bad karma. Why, for heaven’s sake? The thing was, Mary Lisa hadn’t been here long enough to earn the look. Monica was the queen of this kingdom. Mary Lisa was only a short-term semifamous interloper in her sister’s realm. And wasn’t she here precisely to let Monica exploit her?

She gave her sister a sunny smile. “You’ve a lovely home,” she said, and nodded at Mark as she spoke. “The views are spectacular.”

Mark stepped forward, looking ready to hug Mary Lisa, as he had her mother and Kelly, but the death ray in his wife’s eyes stopped him in his tracks. He shook her outstretched hand instead, but he held it a bit too long, and so Mary Lisa backed up, forcing Mark to release hers or be pulled toward her.

“All the Beverly women are gorgeous,” he said, and looked straight at his wife. It sounded fairly sincere, a good thing for Mark’s sex life.

George Beverly laughed, nodded to his son-in-law, and said to Monica, “My dear, this looks like a splendid party. However did you get everything together on such short notice? And a ton of A-list people too. Well done.”

“She’s got pull, sir,” Mark said, and hugged his wife. “She can do anything. Heading committees in the state house will be child’s play for her.”

“Since they behave like children in the state house, that’s exactly what it will be,” George said. He pecked his eldest daughter on her cheek, his smile robbing his words of insult.

“Nincompoops, Dad, that’s what you called politicians,” Kelly, the born pot stirrer, said. “Are they children now too?”

A waiter approached with a tray of champagne. Everyone latched on to a gleaming crystal flute. Monica said to Mary Lisa, “Since this party is in your honor, you need to come with me so I can introduce you to everyone.” Her eyes surveyed her sister’s borrowed little black dress before she turned on her strappy, three-inch slides and motioned everyone to follow her.

There were so many people to greet, people Mary Lisa hadn’t seen in three years, and many new faces as well, but everyone seemed to recognize her. She wondered if they really believed Sunday Cavendish was simply a role she played or if they felt they were in the presence of the Goddess Bitch herself. She smiled and spoke and nodded as Monica pulled her in her wake, taking time to express support and admiration for her sister to anyone who seemed to expect it. When they reached the front of the room, Monica gestured her up onto the small dais. She stepped toward Mary Lisa, close enough so no one else could hear her, and whispered pleasantly, still smiling, “By the way, Mary Lisa, I’d appreciate your keeping away from Mark. I won’t have you looking at him like you want to tongue his tonsils.”

Mary Lisa, nonplussed only briefly by what sounded like a script line to her, said after a little pause, “Hello, Earth to Monica, listen up-I don’t want him. The truth is, I don’t even like him anymore. I’ve been grateful for a very long time now that he married you. I hope you’re happy with him, but let me make it official: Thank you.” She leaned forward and kissed her sister’s cheek. Monica froze, but she knew guests were watching the show of affection and briefly hugged Mary Lisa to her. She pulled away and tapped her French-manicured fingernail against her champagne flute to draw everyone’s attention, and those few people who hadn’t been watching them already turned to face them. She thanked everyone for coming on such short notice, then smiled at Mary Lisa and thanked her for coming to help kick off her sister’s political campaign.

Mary Lisa didn’t so much as flare a nostril at that fine lie. She glanced at her father, and smiled at the look of amused tolerance on his face.

Monica continued, “As most of you know, Mary Lisa left Goddard Bay three years ago to live full-time in Los Angeles where her television show is shot. I hope all of you will join me in welcoming her home to Goddard Bay for this lovely, but alas, too short visit.”

The guests stared at her as if mesmerized. If wasn’t as if she was wildly famous and beautiful like Sandra Bullock or Nicole Kidman, neither of whom, she was certain, had much of a clue who she was nor cared a whit that she was on the same planet with them. She’d run into them occasionally in Malibu, but then again, you ran into everyone in Malibu at one time or another. Mary Lisa was a comfortably sized fish in a big pond in L.A., nothing more. But here in Goddard Bay, she wasn’t simply the homegrown girl, she was the Big Kahuna.

Mary Lisa kept it short, very careful of what she said since she knew some people here would dine out on her every word, her every expression, as if they were niblets of gossip gleaned from People magazine. She was relieved that Beth Goddard Sumter’s little black dress was glamorous enough so that people who expected her to look like a movie star weren’t disappointed. On occasions like this, she willingly gave them the actress they wanted to see-the big smile, the full makeup, the glittering personality. Several men eyed her like she was a sex goddess, nearly salivating in their canapés. She was used to that too.

How very odd it all was, like dredging up an ersatz memory. She knew that most Hollywood celebrities felt this crazy disconnect, unless they actually bought into the glowing lie, and got lost in it.

She smiled, accepted compliments, and listened patiently when a wealthy older woman told her she’d always wanted to act, that she thought she might have had it in her to get her own star on Hollywood Boulevard if only she’d made it to L.A. to be seen. Mary Lisa’s smile never slipped. She had a writer friend who’d told her that more than one person she’d met had told her matter-of-factly that they could write a bestseller if only they had a free weekend or two.

And there were the inevitable slights about soap operas, from “Of course, I’d never watch tripe like that,” to “I’ve got a life, I don’t have time to waste on that stuff,” to “It’s all so silly and so melodramatic. No one looks like real people, they’re all too beautiful.” Yeah, and your point would be? Her romance writer friend said that everyone, when asked what they read, stated categorically that they read only nonfiction and biographies, which made her wonder where all those lovely royalty checks came from.

It seemed to Mary Lisa that most people never had a single clue they’d been rude. But their obliviousness still astounded her, even though it was no longer a surprise.

“I’ve never seen your show, Ms. Beverly, too busy during the day, I’m afraid, but I’ve certainly heard of you since your family lives here. A small town, isn’t it? Nothing much exciting to talk about.”

Mary Lisa turned slowly to face a striking woman, with dark bobbed hair, blue eyes, and lovely skin. She was showing a mile of leg attached to feet balanced on four-inch heels. On those stilts, she was nearly Mary Lisa’s height. Now, who was this?