After I made Phoebe a snack, I asked her to stay in her room for a few minutes to think about ways to express feelings of sadness that didn’t involve sinking her teeth into another kid’s flesh. Twelve forty p.m. Fifty minutes. I shut myself into the pantry and pondered babysitting options as I stress-ate potato chips. My pants wouldn’t fit soon if I didn’t stop eating like this. At the very least I needed to start going to the gym.
The gym! That was it! My emergency babysitting solution.
The price to pay for entering the Boise downtown YMCA was a Stop-and-Chat with the front desk attendant, Wendy Lou, my mom’s former coworker and frenemy, who wanted to ooh-and-ahh over Phoebe, and perhaps compare her unfavorably to her own progeny. (“To hear Wendy Lou tell it,” my mom would say, “one of her grandkids is Simone Biles, the other Greta Thunberg.”)
After waving a cheery goodbye to Phoebe—who was already starting a round ofJust Dancewith the YMCA Kids’ Club attendant—I ducked into the women’s locker room, where I stripped off my workout gear and pulled on tights and a sexy little black dress. I topped it all off with the Little Mermaid wig and managed to sneak out the front door without being recognized by Wendy Lou.
Behind the wheel of the Impala, I yanked off the red wig. One p.m. I had thirty minutes to rush to Best Buy on Franklin, buy a GPS tracking device, zip downtown, park, and hustle to Bar Gernika to meet the Receiver. He’d be waiting for Idaho Connor. But hopefully I could spot him, chat him up, get him to buy me a beer, and slip the GPS tracking device into his pocket. A tall order but not impossible.
The icy wind nipped my flesh as I hustled down the Basque Block at 1:39 p.m. in my short black dress, so it felt good to slip through the side door into the warmth of Bar Gernika.
The place hadn’t changed—the Basque dive was still dishing up croquetas and lamb grinders greasy enough to stop a triathlete’s heart. Agroup of university professors shared a boozy lunch while making eyes at a gaggle of co-eds obliviously giggling into midday beers. But at the long bar, two rough-looking guys sartorially inspired by lumberjacks perched on stools. One had a stern face dominated by a massive unibrow that would put Frida Kahlo to shame. The other sported a raised scar along his temple, shiny and pink as a newborn hamster. One of them must be the Receiver, the other his muscle.
They studied me like a juicy pork chop in a meat case, and I flashed a smile I hoped was dazzling. I hadn’t expected to have to try to charm two men, but that also gave me more options for where to slip the quarter-sized GPS (ostensibly designed to track errant suitcases).
That’s when I spotted Miranda’s awful mother, Mrs.Carson, sitting alone at a table in the corner, looking prim and mean as ever, if a little frail. Shit! I absolutely could not stand a Stop-and-Chat with Belinda Carson. Not after I’d accidentally framed Miranda for blowing up two snowmobiles with a hand grenade!
A woman hustled out the front door, head ducked, as if to avoid being recognized. Under her unzipped navy peacoat, she wore one of those front-facing dog slings, so popular in LA. But with her red hair, she was unmistakable. Miranda Carson! Why in the hell was she rushing out of here without her mom? Nate told me he’d be tailing Miranda. Last thing I needed was him seeing me bellied up to the bar with a couple of arms dealers. Mrs.Carson glanced my way and, panicked, I rushed out the side door.
Heart pumping with adrenaline, I ran full tilt down the Basque Block, darting across Sixth and cutting down an alley to the side street where I’d parked the Impala.
One hour and nine minutes after I’d dropped Phoebe off, I raced into the YMCA dressing room. My half-baked mission to plant the GPS on the Receiver had been a total failure and now I was late to pickup my kid. After stripping off my disguise and yanking my workout clothes back on, I hustled to the Kids’ Club to find Phoebe shaking it to RuPaul’s “Sissy That Walk.”
“Workout went long?” the Kids’ Club attendee said, pursing her lips.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, wiping actual nervous sweat from my forehead. “I was on the treadmill and got into the zone.”
Thirty-Two
Late that afternoon, the twins huddled on the couch with Little Sister, watchingThe Parent Trapagain 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. Itwas 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 ofThe Parent Trapinterrupted 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.Thispretty lady brought you presents!”
