Fifty-Three
Two Weeks Later
Miranda and I sat at my kitchen table drinking hibiscus tea and eating from a big bowl of watermelon. Even though I was back
at work at the Capitol Grill and busy as a cat at a laser show, I’d been easing off my cookie, chip, and coffee diet and feeling
better for it. Miranda wore Tater in what I now thought of as her dog sling, the baby girl snuffling and snoozing against
her chest. The twins were in the backyard giving Little Sister a tour of the playhouse, which they were interested in again
now that it was warming up.
“It’s insane, Tilly!” Miranda said. “Insane. I mean, I knew my mom had crazy political ideas and that she was counterfeiting
D.S. & Durga. But I had no idea she was involved in arms trafficking. And the fact that she was going to have those thugs
literally slit your throat. It’s insane!”
I shuddered as one hand rose to touch the gash on my neck that had finally scabbed over. “Don’t remind me.”
“I mean, I know some people would think that outfit you were wearing was a capital offense, but still.”
“Ouch!” I said. “Holy MGM!”
MGM stood for Mean Girl Miranda. She’d asked me to call her out when she reverted to her old ways.
“Oops!” she said, digging a dollar out of her purse and tossing it into the Therapy Jar, which was for me these days. Because
I’d started seeing a grief counselor about losing my mom. “I mean,” she continued, “can you believe my mom wanted to actually
blow up the state capitol?”
I’d heard this rant a few times already, but I was committed to listening to Miranda vent for as long as she needed.
She had a lot to process. When the ATF had raided Belinda Carson’s property, they’d found a monster cache of explosives and firearms along with her counterfeit candle supplies.
Mrs. Carson was still in police custody, her bail set at some astronomical figure.
She’d been charged with illegal possession of explosives, attempted kidnapping, and plotting an attack on the capitol.
D.S. & Durga was filing a civil suit for copyright infringement too.
Miranda inhaled and let out a shaky breath. “And it makes me realize how I ended up mean—because that’s how my mom taught
me to be. And now that I’m a mom too . . .” She trailed off. “I really realize that my mom didn’t mother me the way I needed.
I mean, I kind of got it before. But now I really get it. So I’m going to do that for myself.”
“If anyone could totally figure out how to reparent themselves, it’s you,” I said.
The rooster doorbell crowed and Emmylou and Oat Willimena blew in with a flurry of hugs and red lipstick kisses and oohs and
aahs over Tater and declarations that Miranda was the most natural mother they’d ever seen. Miranda perked up visibly under
the floodlights of their Big Loving Maternal Energy. We all need mothering, I realized. But it would be a mistake to think
we can only get that from our own actual mothers. Mothers are, by nature, flawed. Mothers are, by nature, mortal. But the
world brims with loving people willing to give us a dollop of Mother Love, if only we remain open to the gifts on offer.
The rooster doorbell crowed again. This time Layna breezed in rocking waist-length sky-blue extensions and a white cowboy
hat. “Attention! Attention, please! I have big news. I’m going to beauty school!”
“Really?” I asked.
Layna said she’d realized her true calling wasn’t to become an investigator.
Clearly she didn’t have the stomach for it.
(Even learning that the ATF had located Baylee in an apartment in McCall—down a pinkie finger and ready to turn federal witness against Errol and Ralphie—hadn’t revived Layna’s interest in detective work.) Her new goal wasn’t even to become a man-eater.
At least not yet. Despite her breezy affect about her divorce, she needed time to heal.
To get to know herself. Her true calling, she’d decided, was to make women feel gorgeous.
“And that isn’t even my biggest news!” Layna said once we were all done congratulating her. “Salma Hayek convinced me to sign
up for the beginner division of a pole sport competition in Tampa!”
While Salma Hayek would be queering Beyoncé’s “Jolene” in the advanced division, Layna planned to perform to “Chim Chim Cher-ee”
from Mary Poppins. “I’ll be in a sexy chimney sweep uniform,” she said. She did a body roll on the edge of the kitchen doorframe to celebrate.
It was equal parts awkward and cute. Layna would literally attack a gun-wielding criminal for me. And I knew I’d do the same
for her.
“I really did like pole class,” Miranda said wistfully.
“If you want to go to Pole Kisses with Tilly and Layna, we’ll watch that adorable little nugget,” Oat Willimena said.
“Ooh, yes!” Emmylou chimed in. “You’d be a dream on the pole.”
Miranda’s eyes lit up at the encouraging words.
“Salma Hayek is letting us into the studio an hour early tonight so Layna can film me for some funny social media reels,”
I said. “I have a new Vagina Monster bit I want to debut.” I’d used construction paper to make a big toothy open mouth and
googly eyes. The mouth would go on my crotch, the googly eyes on the soles of my feet so that when I did the Vagina Monster
I’d really look like a monster.
“Ooh! Spicy!” Oat Willimena said.
“I have big news too,” I said. “I turned in my two weeks’ notice at the Capitol Grill.” Jaws dropped around the room and I
rushed to explain. “My new Substack, Make It Funny, is up to five thousand paid subscribers. Each one of those people is shelling out two bucks a month.”
Miranda clapped her hand over her mouth. Layna shrieked: “Way to bury the lede!” Oat Willimena whooped, and Emmylou said,
“I like that math.”
“I’ve decided to say ‘Eff you’ to the comedy gatekeepers,” I said. “‘No manager, no gigs, no problem’ is my new artistic philosophy. I’m funny as hell and I’ve got something to say. So watch out, world!” My old manager had been calling and emailing, but I wasn’t taking those calls. Not ever again.
“Glad you figured out how to monetize the millions of views those festival videos racked up,” Layna said. “What do you have,
like a hundred thousand Insta followers now? It must help. I mean, your jokes will never again be going out into a void.”
“On all my platforms combined, I’m up to 250K,” I said. “And yes, it absolutely does help.”