Eighteen
There’s nothing like serving tea to the former queen bee of your high school to make you feel like you’ve never actually grown
up. Add the irrational fear that said queen bee was there to snatch your children or expose the murdered corpse in your yard
and you’d have my mental state.
“Low-stress chamomile,” I said, casually scooping up Connor’s mail and dropping it in the recycling bin with a prayer to sundry
pagan goddesses that Miranda hadn’t noticed his name on the envelopes. Miranda did not know, could not know, I had a mansicle
on the property. But why was she here? My only hope was she’d joined a twelve-step program and wanted to make her ninth-step
amends for letting me take the fall for her teenage misdeeds.
“Is it that obvious I’m stressed?” Miranda said. She actually did look tired and anxious. “After this I’m headed to one of
my mom’s scented-candle parties where she’ll neg me about my looks and all my life choices.”
“Your mom’s still that hard on you?”
“She could have a side hustle training abusive Marine Corps sergeants.”
“Ugh! I’m sorry,” I said. “My mom told me your mom complained you wouldn’t carry a handgun. Your mom said the taser she gave
you as a stocking stuffer wasn’t going to cut it.”
What I didn’t say was that, according to my mother, Mrs. Carson’s television had gotten stuck on Newsmax, turning her into
a full-fledged right-wing extremist. It had made me feel a tiny bit sorry for Miranda. But right now I needed to feel sorry
for her from a distance.
As if she could read my mind, Miranda walked to the sliding glass door. She gazed in the direction of the playhouse; I grabbed for my phone and typed an SOS.
“My mom worries about me because of my job,” Miranda said. “When it’s necessary, I remove kids. So plenty of people in this
town aren’t happy with me.” She paused. “It’s kind of nice talking to you about my mom. You’ve known her since forever so
you get it.”
“I’ve hardly seen her in twenty-five years, but I remember how she was,” I admitted.
“If I tell you something about her, promise you’ll take it to the grave?” she said.
Don’t confide in me, Miranda. I don’t like you. “Pinky promise,” I said, eyes on my phone. Send. Phone down.
“She’s started making deepfake candle labels with her Cricut Joy Xtra.”
“Her what?” Maybe I’d been on the Best Coast so long I no longer understood the basic vocab of your average Boisean.
“It’s a design and cutting machine for making labels, tickets, stickers, you name it. Even the founder of D.S. & Durga wouldn’t
be able to tell my mom’s Big Sur After Rain label from an original. My mom sells them at her candle parties at a ‘deep discount.’
For sixty bucks each!”
“Damn!” I said. “Does her Big Sur After Rain candle really smell like Big Sur after rain?”
“It actually does.”
“So it’s almost a victimless crime?”
Miranda shrugged. “These guys she hires to haul her candles around, you would not believe how dodgy they are.” She turned
and spotted the Pole Kisses studio brochure Emmylou had stuck on my fridge with a magnet. “Pole Kisses?”
“Wait, do you do pole?” I asked, hoping she’d say no. The last thing I needed was Miranda horning in on my forced hobby.
But she crinkled her face as if I’d suggested she lick my garbage can. “No way. Like, don’t strippers teach some of their classes? That’s what I heard.”
Heaven forbid a professional pole dancer should teach people trying to learn how to dance on a pole, I wanted to say. But I couldn’t afford to get on the bad side of a CPS worker. So instead I said, “Miranda, it’s interesting
to catch up. But can I ask why you stopped by?”
She glanced at me nervously—maybe she was here to make a ninth-step amends! Little Sister let out a happy bark from the living room, which was followed by a rush of
whispers and giggles.
“What happened to your dog’s ear?” Miranda said, clearly stalling.
Well, Miranda, the thing is: I have a dead white supremacist in my kids’ playhouse, and I went to his house to find clues
as to who actually murdered him. When I was there, I stole his dog. “I’m not sure. He belonged to a friend of a friend of a friend who couldn’t keep him.” I leaned in and whispered, “We’re
not keeping him either.”
Phoebe and Alice and the dog collapsed into a pile in the kitchen doorway, all of them panting and smiling from exertion and
the comfort of being part of a pack.
Miranda glanced from them to me. “Good luck with that.”
“Can we let Little Sister out into the backyard, Mommy?” Alice asked.
“No!” I said. Visions of the dog dragging the corpse out of the playhouse danced through my head. “The fence isn’t secure
enough. We can’t have the dog in the backyard. At all!”
Disappointed, the twins wandered back to the living room, trailing the dog.
“What I need to say is,” Miranda began, “people make mistakes.”
The rooster doorbell crowed.
The sight of Emmylou on my doorstep brought a wave of intense relief. Little Sister stared at her curiously, sniffing and
backing slowly away. The dog didn’t have an instant crush on her, like it had with Miranda. But at least Little Sister wasn’t
jumping on a senior citizen.
“Whose adorable puppy is this?” Emmylou demanded, bending down to pet the dog.
“Long story,” I said, suddenly worried Emmylou was going to lose track of the assignment.
“I’m having an emergency!” she cried, sounding so convincing for a moment I believed her. “Can you and the girls take me to
Rite Aid? I’m out of insulin and not feeling so great.” She spotted Miranda. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you had company.
I’ll go home and slip into a diabetic coma alone.”
“That’s okay,” I said. “Miranda was just leaving.” I felt the slightest twinge. If Miranda had come to apologize for her twenty-five-year-old
misdeeds, I was almost sorry to miss it.
But Emmylou was already handing Miranda her purse and hustling her toward the door. “My blood sugar. It’s a mess,” she said.
“You understand, dear.”
With the front door shut tightly behind Miranda, I collapsed onto the couch, feeling unsettled. “Thanks so much for saving
my life,” I said. “Again.”
“I saw your text and came right over,” Emmylou said. “Who was that anyway?”
“A mean girl I went to high school with.”
“She’s got that look.” Emmylou waved her hand around her head to indicate Miranda’s flawless hair and makeup.
The dog flipped onto its back in hopes of a tummy rub and Emmylou obliged.
“Her name is Little Sister,” Phoebe said.
“Should be called Little Brother by the looks of it,” Emmylou said.
“We hope Mom lets us keep her,” Alice said.
“Otherwise, our hearts will break,” Phoebe chimed in.
“No one can emotionally blackmail like a child can emotionally blackmail,” I murmured.
“Having a dog would be good for these girls,” Emmylou said.
This input was annoying, given that Emmylou wouldn’t be the one caring for the dog. “Last thing I need is to be responsible for another creature,” I managed, trying to keep my tone light. “Mind hanging with the kids for a few? I’m desperate for a shower.”
“Sure thing, toots.”
Behind the locked bathroom door, hot water blasting, I sobbed silently as I rubbed my skin raw with lavender salt scrub, my
favorite witchy remedy for clearing energy. Normal single motherhood was hard. But this . . . all this was too hard.
Back in the living room, my hair wrapped in a towel, undereye masks slapped on to hide the fact that I’d been crying, I sank
down next to Emmylou on the couch. She was still talking with the twins about the dog.
“You should definitely take him to the dog park.” Emmylou said. “Single men galore! And in ten days, it’ll feel almost like
spring!”
A sense of foreboding descended, and not just because Emmylou was being bossy. “What do you mean, ‘it’ll feel like spring?’”
“I just saw the extended forecast,” Emmylou said. “A week from Saturday, highs will be nearly seventy! And it’ll stay warm
for days!” The clock was now officially ticking. I had ten days to get the corpse out of my yard, before it started to rot.