Dearest Pole Hobbyists!
Don’t forget: The art of pole dancing was developed by strippers. Here at Pole Kisses Studio, many of us largely practice “pole sport.” But we do not consider pole sport to be superior to—or necessarily separate from—stripper pole dancing! We count among our beloved instructors sex workers who bring their professionalism and knowledge to their classes. We respect and are grateful to them for creating this art form and for paving our way in pole!
Love,
Your Friends at Pole Kisses
This put the group trip to the strip club in context. It was like a bunch of Christians walking the Camino de Santiago to pay their respects to the apostle James.
“Come out with us,” Layna cried, as she burst into the chill room. “Please!”
“I have needy kids to tend.” Lately that’d involved letting the twins play endless games of “Dinosaurs versus Baby Dolls” while I hid in my office (aka the pantry) to cry in secret while eating Nutter Butters.
“Can’t your husband watch them? Or better yet, do you have an Xbox? If you’ve got an Xbox, you’ve got a babysitter.” Layna leaned in toward a little vanity mirror to apply lipstick so red Rihanna’s pout now seemed understated.
“I don’t have a husband. Or an Xbox.” I pulled on my coat, a depressing L.L.Bean puffer I’d bought used at the Idaho Youth Ranch thrift store. Something about Layna’s inappropriate disclosures made me feel comfortable being open with her. “My babies are from the sperm of an eighteen-year-old donor I’ve never met.”
“Attagirl!” she said.
“I figured I needed to go young to counteract my dusty eggs.”
“See? You’re so funny! Just come have a drink with us.”
The warm golden flutter in my stomach that saidThis woman could be your actual friendwouldn’t let me say no.
My neighbor Emmylou answered on the first ring. When my mother was alive, Emmylou had beenherbestie. I’d loved Emmylou’s stories about her long-ago divorce in Mormon country, back when she’d bought a crossbow in the hopes she could turn her “no-good cheating husband” into a “man-sized Hollywood voodoo doll.” But now my mom was gone. I’d never again sit next to her watching old George Carlin videos and eating popcorn dusted with nutritional yeast and Tapatío. Meanwhile, Emmylou was trying with all her bossy might to shove me out of my grief rut.
“I knew you’d love it!” Emmylou crowed when I asked if it was okay if I went out for a drink with people from my class. “The twins and I are baking lemon crinkle cookies. Go have fun with your new friends.”
Phoebe shouted in the background, “Mommy, Emmylou said she’s paying for classes so you can learn to grind up on a pool boy.”
“We’re getting a pooooool!” Alice shrieked.
“We’re not getting a—” I started.
But Emmylou interrupted. “Stay out as late as you want—hopefully late enough to realize that even during hard times you can have some fun.”
Five
Monday, Presidents’ Day
Trying to have a lighthearted night out during an epic rough patch had somehow resulted in this—me, disturbingly hungover, with a dead man in my trunk, dragging my daughters back into the Boise Co-op to reclaim my bloody scrapbooking scissors. I figured the twins would make me look less suspicious. The cashier with the hot-pink feather earrings stood behind the customer service desk.
“Hello!” I said, brightly.
“Twins!” She leaned over the counter toward my girls. “Does it freak you out to think you were once a single cluster of cells that split into two? Because it freaks me out!”
What was freaking the twins out was this line of questioning.
“It’s all they know,” I explained, as Phoebe and Alice hurried away to investigate bags of snowman noses (aka carrots) next to a towering display of Annie’s Organic Green Goddess Salad Dressing.
“All bats know is sleeping upside down, but that doesn’t make it less weird,” the cashier insisted. “Twins have given me nightmares ever since—”
I interrupted. “Actually, I’m here because out in the parking lot, I dropped my—”
CRASH!
Phoebe lay sprawled in a pile of salad dressing bottles, glass fragments and oily green puddles all around her.
