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 the couch and nap throughEncantoandInside Out 2. When the FedEx delivery man arrived with the fake pistol, I unwrapped it in the bathroom and ripped off the orange tip. 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 fromGhost?”
“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 ofThe 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.”
