Twenty-Eight
Sunday
A lifelong Johnny Cash fan, my mom taught me from an early age there’s nothing half as lonesome as a Sunday. But this one
was worse than usual. I was too bone-tired from the previous day’s terror, hypothermia, and guilt to do anything but lie on
It wouldn’t pass close inspection, but from a distance or in a chaotic situation, it might do the trick. I put it in my purse
alongside the spare bear spray from Layna.
By the time Emmylou arrived to babysit, I’d barely managed to don my clothes for pole class. As tired as I was, I couldn’t
miss a chance to see if anyone at Pole Kisses knew the true identity of a pole student named Pumpkin Spice. Besides, if Salma
Hayek showed up, I needed to be there to grill her.
Before I could leave for class, I listened to Emmylou’s tale of drinks with Oat Willimena, which apparently had ended with
a walkthrough of Oat Dub’s pottery studio.
“So she did actually give you a tour of her hot dark kiln?” I said, doing my best to make my usual jokes.
“She’s very talented,” Emmylou said primly.
“You should get her to give you a lesson,” I said, raising an eyebrow. “Maybe reenact the pottery scene from Ghost?”
“Stop it!” Emmylou swatted me. But she was smiling.
It actually felt good to walk into Pole Kisses. Despite everything, this had become a safe place for me, full of familiar faces. But more even than I needed the release of a good pole class, I needed information.
Cheyenne sat behind the front desk, absolutely rocking an orange one-shoulder bra with matching booty shorts. Behind her,
I spotted stacked boxes of shoes with her name on the label.
“Are you ready to buy your pair of Cheyenne’s Sentient Strippers?” she asked. “I think pink patent leather six-inchers might
be your speed.”
“Currently furloughed,” I said. “But I promise I will, as soon as I’m getting paid again. Question for you. Any chance there’s
a master list of Pole Kisses students? You know, with like their real names and pole names?” I put my folded hands under my
chin and batted my lashes.
“Still trying to track down Pumpkin Spice?” Cheyenne said. Clearly this was not her first rodeo. She stood, grabbed her ankle,
and casually lifted her leg so high in the air she was basically doing standing splits. For a second I thought she’d tuck
her ankle behind her head. “I only taught her a couple times, but I promise you, she’s not the type to key your car.”
“But she might’ve seen who did,” I lied. Or she might have seen me kill someone.
Through the door to the chill room I spotted Layna talking to Shade and Gucci. She’d texted to say she was running late and
couldn’t give me a ride. Yet I clung to the hope that after a good night’s sleep she’d realized she was still up for being
my criminal sidekick. I desperately needed help moving the corpse out of my yard before the weather warmed up in six short
days.
As the other Pole Virgins headed toward the studio, I hurried to catch up to the only student who’d been around Pole Kisses
longer than I had. From behind, I could see the dragon tattoo on her calf in all its glory.
“Zhang Xiu, wait up,” I called. “I love your tat. Are you a fan of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo?”
“It’s an homage to that book!” she cried. “I love that you get that.”
I raised my hands to the roof. “Totally random question: When you were taking Pole Virgins the first time, did you meet a woman with the pole name Pumpkin Spice?”
Zhang Xiu shook her head. “Sorry, Nikita.”
“You sure?” I pressed.
“I’m always counting the days till the pumpkin spice latte drops. So, yeah, I’d remember.”
During our warmup, my mind raged against investigative dead ends as my cold muscles protested against jumping jacks. It wasn’t
until Cheyenne taught us a pole move called the martini spin that I finally dropped out of my overthinking head and into my
body. The spin involved flying around the pole with one leg bent and the other pointed up at a sixty-degree angle. My attempts
made me look less like a martini glass than an out-of-shape suburban mom suffering from the delusion she’s a Hollywood stunt
double. But damn, it was fun.
My mood lifted with every spin around the chrome. Gucci swore pole reconnected her to her sexuality, but using pole to try
to tap into my eroticism felt like buying what patriarchal capitalism was peddling instead of what actually made me, Tilly
Turner, feel sexy. In class, I was more giggling dork than gyrating sexpot. What pole dancing reconnected me to was my sense
of humor.
After class, Gucci came up and said, “I owe you to the moon for mashed potato wrestling with me. I paid off my whole Pole
Virgin series—I don’t know what I’d do without this class for my stress relief.”
“Sure thing,” I said. “I was glad to do it.”
“Now I’m off to study,” Gucci trilled. “Big drug toxicity exam tomorrow!”
Once everyone else had trickled out, Layna and I convened on the sidewalk.
“You feeling better?” I asked. “You look better.”
“Mentally, better. But I was so tired today. Like Taylor-Swift-after-an-entire-Eras-tour-concert tired. Are you so tired?”
“Exhausted,” I concurred.
“I’m so sorry to bail on you,” Layna said. She let out a shuddering breath. “I just can’t help with anything else. Not after
yesterday. Not with anything criminal. Not with anything remotely to do with guys like that. That was just too close.” That
glassy-eyed look again. Like part of her was somewhere else.
I didn’t blame Layna. But I didn’t have the luxury to tap out. And facing this alone felt monumental, overwhelming.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I get it.” And I did. But as I watched Layna climb into her Porsche and drive away, I felt more alone
than I’d ever been in my whole life.
Back inside the Impala, I needed to cry again, but no tears came. I was empty, numb, hollowed out. I wracked my brain for
someone, anyone who could help me move the mansicle. Emmylou was an obvious no-go. She didn’t have the requisite brute strength
or tight lips—I didn’t need her entire Silver Sneakers aerobics class knowing where I’d dumped a murdered corpse.
A phone vibrated. Idaho Connor’s, not mine.
Natty Lite: Any chance you know about some recent happenings at Burgdorf Hot Springs?
My heart squeezed like Phoebe’s fist around the last Jolly Rancher. The phone rattled again with even more unwelcome news.
A quick Cricket reminder! Your month of Cricket service is up in less than twenty-four hours. To continue your service, please
make your payment of $40 before 4 PM Mountain Time tomorrow.
Once Cricket turned off Idaho Connor’s phone, surely people would notice he’d gone dark.
My crimes—and culpability—were adding up.
I couldn’t deal with this madness on my own.
And I needed to find out how much the ATF knew about the explosion at Burgdorf.
So in a moment of weakness or clarity, I pulled out my phone and invited over a federal agent.
Perhaps staring down the barrel of a prison sentence had spiked my libido because as I carried tumblers of whiskey to the
living room, I couldn’t help but notice Agent Nate Duran looked distractingly sexy in jeans and a scotch plaid flannel. Now
that he was actually sitting on my couch, it was hard to know whether I’d invited him over to pick his brain about the law-enforcement
investigation at Burgdorf, warn him I’d heard rumors of an attack on the state capitol in sixteen days, or merely experience
adult companionship and a whiff of his pheromones. I suddenly suspected it was the latter.
I’d closed the blinds against the darkness, the cold, and Emmylou’s prying eyes. The twins and Little Sister slept in their
room. Nate’s arrival hadn’t woken them, which confirmed my suspicions Little Sister might not be a natural watchdog.
Nate thanked me for the whiskey. “After the day I’ve had I could use a drink.”
“Stressful?” I asked, sitting next to him. Every ounce of my attention went to the square inch where our knees touched. That
was the thing about pure attraction. It could blot out every trying thing in this world—at least for a little while. And I
was desperately in need of a break from darker realities.
“Very.”
“Like busting-down-doors stressful?” The whiskey was going down too easy.
“More like interviewing-an-outraged-suburban-lady-about-possible-federal-crimes stressful.”
“Yikes,” I said. “Sounds worse.”
“For me? Definitely worse.”
I wondered if I could get Nate to reveal how close law enforcement was to identifying me and Layna as the women who were at
Burgdorf. But I hadn’t found my in yet. “Tell me more,” I said.
“I was following up a lead about this woman who maybe blew up a couple of snowmobiles yesterday with a hand grenade,” he said.
My heart rate spiked to the heavens. “What?” I said. “People are crazy!” That was another of my go-tos. Like “Boise is made
of spiders.” I downed another slug of whiskey. “What’s the lead?”
Nate picked up a piece of the Doggyland affirmations jigsaw puzzle off the coffee table. “She paid cash to rent a snowmobile
up in McCall, but used her real driver’s license at the rental place.”
I’d forgotten about using Miranda’s license! Even though she may have karmically deserved it, I didn’t actually want to get
Miranda in trouble. She was a CPS worker. If she found out I’d implicated her in a crime, she could take my kids!
Nate leaned over a partially assembled section of puzzle that so far read: My Feelings. “She said she lost her ID a few days ago. But she doesn’t have an alibi. Said she was snowshoeing alone on some trails up
by Bogus Basin to clear her head.”
“So what’ll you do next?”
“If she has the grenades, she’ll likely try to sell them. I’m gonna tail her to see if it might lead to bigger fish.” He snapped
the puzzle piece into place with a satisfying click. My Feelings Matter.
Relief that the ATF wasn’t onto me swirled with guilt that I’d made Miranda a suspect in a federal crime. Those were my feelings.
But Nate and his ATF buddies could tail Miranda Carson for a year and all they’d see her do was drink rosé at her mom’s fake
designer candle parties.
“What would some suburban lady be doing blowing up snowmobiles?” I said.
“You know how radicalized so many people have become,” Nate said. “But that’s enough about my work.” He set down his whiskey and turned to face me. I couldn’t tell if my every cell was electric with lust or confession nerves. “How about you? What’d you get up to today?”
I couldn’t bring myself to say I’d been trying to recover from hypothermia incurred after blowing up the aforementioned snowmobiles.
So I told him about pole class and my comic attempt to master the martini spin.
A lesser man would’ve made a salacious comment, but Nate just listened. When I was done, he said he’d read an interview with
Seinfeld once where Seinfeld said he knew lots of rich people, and you’d think they’d be happy, but they’re all miserable.
According to Seinfeld, the key to happiness isn’t money. The key to happiness is trying to master a skill. “That’s why he’s
always working on his jokes,” Nate said. “Even though he’s insanely successful and—at this point—kind of old.”
“But I haven’t written any jokes for months,” I said.
“No, no. I meant you’re learning an entirely new skill. Pole dancing.”
“A month ago I would’ve laughed in your face if you said I’d be learning pole.”
“Why?” he said.
Looking into his eyes was disconcerting. “Because it’s ridiculous!” I said.
“I think I might like ridiculous,” he said.
There was a gravitational pull to this gorgeous, smart, sexy man who seemed to really see me. An elemental chemistry bubbling
between us. And if I failed to figure out who murdered Idaho Connor (or worse, if I discovered I was the culprit), this might
be my last opportunity for an evening like this. At least for a long, long time.
That’s when I leaned in and kissed Nate. And, oh! That first kiss! It was like eating gelato in the sun after a lifetime of
only ever having Froyo under gray skies. Suddenly I was ravenous for him, this lover from a past life. I peeled his flannel
from his muscular arms. My hands ran over his strong bare shoulders. He was saying, “Are you sure?” And I was saying, yes, yes, yes.