Thirty-Two
Late that afternoon, the twins huddled on the couch with Little Sister, watching The Parent Trap again while I curled up in the recliner. Darkness had fallen outside and we were a cozy unit of four. How many more sweet
quiet times like this would the girls and I have together before something finally gave? The corpse couldn’t stay in the playhouse
forever—a big thaw was coming in four days!
I needed some relief from this sense of impending doom. Before the Mickey Larynx debacle, taking notes on joke ideas had been
my most reliable form of escapism—better than booze, or ice cream, or even online shopping. Even though my comedy ambitions
were both ferocious and stymied, actually working on comedy had always been my happy place, my flow state, my communion with
the divine. Nuns prayed the rosary. Buddhist monks chanted and meditated and swept floors. I wrote raunchy jokes.
But once my fledgling career imploded and my mom died, I’d stopped jotting down ideas. I’d always believed we need comedy
precisely because life can be so cruel. But sorrow had turned off my creative tap. Now pole dancing class—of all things!—seemed
to have twisted it back on. It had jarred loose the stuck part of my brain that used to notice humor everywhere.
Before I could think twice, I flipped open my laptop and started typing up some of my funniest bits about being a Pole Virgin.
I told myself it was just a way to think about something, anything, other than the mess I was in.
I didn’t let myself admit I might be writing a stand-up set.
It was better to squint and look away, to pretend what was happening wasn’t happening, so as to not scare off the Muse.
But the climax of The Parent Trap interrupted my flow. A fully clothed Dennis Quaid climbed out of the Stafford Hotel pool to find himself reunited with the
identical twin daughter he’d raised, the identical twin daughter he hadn’t seen since she was a baby, and their mother. My
own twins’ lips moved along with Lindsay Lohan as she said: “Well, I’m quite grown up now, and quite without a father.”
“Life,” I bellowed, “is not a Nancy Meyers movie!”
Before I could snatch up the remote and turn off the television, the rooster crowed. A peek through the blinds revealed Layna
stomping her snow-booted feet in the circle of porch light. I threw open the door and the twins crowded around as Little Sister
approached Layna, sniffing warily.
“My divorce mediation sucked and my yoga session with Magnus was a total disaster,” Layna said. “I need advice. Can I come
in to talk now, before pole?”
“Pole!” While writing jokes about pole, I’d forgotten all about my actual class. “I can’t go! I’m down a babysitter.”
“Little Sister seems shy,” Phoebe informed Layna. “But he liked the other lady.”
“Which lady?” I said, distracted.
“The pretty one,” Phoebe said. “From the grocery store.” The last thing I wanted to hear was Phoebe carrying on about how
beautiful Miranda was. Freaking Miranda Carson! Thanks to her and her horrid mother, my mission to plant a GPS on the Receiver
had been a total bust.
“Little Sister liked her because they already knew each other,” Alice said.
“Miranda said she met a dog that looked like Little Sister, it wasn’t actually—” I began.
Layna interrupted, reaching into her bag for stuffed animals. “Forget that other rando. This pretty lady brought you presents!”
Instead of giving Layna my undivided attention, I headed into the kitchen and started unloading the dishwasher. The sudden
impulse to resent her was childish, but I couldn’t help it. My afternoon escapade had taken its toll on my emotional maturity.
And Layna seemed to have forgotten the horrible mess I was in—she’d already launched into her anecdote of romantic dejection
without even asking how I was doing.
“I’m so mortified. There are no words for how mortified,” she said as she sat down at the kitchen table. “There I was in downward
dog. When Magnus started adjusting me from behind, I thought he was being suggestive!”
I paused with a coffee mug outstretched toward the open cabinet. “Oh no—you didn’t.”
“Crabwalk right back into his crotch? I did! Only he was horrified instead of turned on. And then the session was over and
I paid him a hundred and fifty bucks.” She moaned and dropped her face into her hands. “It was awful. How do men in strip
clubs do it?”
“I think it makes the men feel baller to pay. Like they own their very own sexy girl, even just for a song or two.”
“I did not feel like I owned Magnus! I felt like he was pitying me for being desperate when he really just wanted to help
me improve my mountain pose! How did I get this so wrong?” She started to sniffle. “And the mediation. It was awful. I’m gonna
have to go to Portland and put our vacation home in Lake Oswego on the market. I want to be divorced from the douchebag. I
really do. But it’s like I’m so angry and my feelings are so hurt that he didn’t think I was sexy or desirable. He just wanted
me to be his chaste personal assistant while he had sex with his actual personal assistant, like at work!”
“Oh, Layna,” I said, abandoning the half-empty dishwasher to sit across from her.
My phone rang. Miley O’Riley.
“Not again.” I swore, sending it to voicemail.
“Who’s that?” Layna asked, seeming glad to be distracted from her woes.
“This girl I went to high school with. She’s trying to get me to do a stand-up set at the Winter Will Never End Festival on
Saturday.”
Layna smacked both palms so hard on the table my long-abandoned coffee jumped in its mug. “You should do it!”
“You think I don’t have enough on my plate?” I said. But if things weren’t going so terribly, maybe I’d want to. My new jokes
about pole dancing were pretty funny. It would feel good to try them out, even in front of a dinky hometown crowd.
“Fair,” Layna said. “Maybe Shade could perform instead.”
“Stand-up?”
“No! Drag! Send me that woman’s info. I’ll ask her if she’d be interested.”
It wasn’t a bad idea. While I was forwarding Miley’s contact info to Layna, my phone dinged.
Nate: Tilly! Me again. Want to chat?
Inside me, hankering and lust muddled with sadness for what might’ve been. It was quite the feelings cocktail. I flipped my
phone face down.
“Everything okay?” Layna asked.
If I shared my suspicions about the twins’ paternity with Layna and she insisted I tell Nate, it would make me furious at
her. Then I’d be more alone than I could bear. Before I could decide whether to give her an edited version of my hookup or
not mention it at all, a scrabbling clatter sounded behind me.
Little Sister’s rump was sticking out of the open dishwasher—the rest of the dog had vanished inside. He thrashed and flailed
and yelped pitifully, stymied by the dish rack.
By the time I was on my feet, full-scale pandemonium had erupted.
As the dog’s nails scrabbled against clean dishes, the twins stampeded into the kitchen to investigate the hullabaloo.
I grabbed onto Little Sister’s hind end and yanked as a foul-smelling fluid reeking of rotten fish sprayed out of the dog—and all over me.
I cursed and stumbled backward, dragging the dog with me. We landed in a fetid heap.
“I think his anal glands expressed,” Layna said, pinching her nose.
“We are not keeping this animal!” I shouted, and the twins burst into tears.
Layna saved the day, entertaining the kids in the living room while I cleaned the kitchen. An anxious Little Sister stuck
close by while I mopped. The repetitive motion calmed and distracted me, giving my brain free range to linger on my petty
annoyance that the twins thought Miranda was pretty. I leaned the mop against the wall, and grabbed for my phone, searching
Instagram for Miranda’s profile, which was public. Her grid featured carefully curated shots of her interior decor sprinkled
between outdoor selfies with her handsome husband. In each photo she seemed to be saying:
Look at how good my hair looks when I’m snowshoeing!
Don’t you wish you had a hot husband who would chop down your Christmas tree by hand?
Don’t you wish you could be me?
Then, in a photo of Miranda in workout gear, I spotted it: a tote bag slung over her shoulder, printed with the Pole Kisses
logo.
That liar! Miranda had told me to my face—in this very kitchen—she didn’t go to pole classes!
Even further back on her grid, a smiling Miranda held up a giant Starbucks cup. The caption read: “The pumpkin spice latte
has dropped! My favorite day of the year!”
And just like that I’d found her: Pumpkin Spice.
Cheyenne had seen Miranda Carson heading down the alley behind Huckleberry’s the night Connor was killed. Which meant Miranda
might’ve been the last person to see him alive.