“Judge you? You’re incredible,” I said.
“Honestly, learning about the decomp field, it’s how I fell in love with—” Gucci didn’t finish, because right then Salma Hayek rocked up to our table with a cluster of tequila shots and a pile of lime slices in the bend of her elbow.
“It’s time to seal your bond as Pole Virgins,” she said. “And to celebrate that I just got Cheyenne’s number!”
Everyone grabbed a shot and lifted it to the heavens. “To Salma Hayek. Our fearless leader and a girl who has game!” Shade said. He paused, suddenly noticing one lonely shot still on the table.
Everyone looked at me.
“I hate tequila and I’m drinking mine,” Zhang Xiu said.
“I’ve gotta drive home,” I protested.
“You can Uber,” Layna said.
“These shots are the equivalent of slicing our palms and mingling our blood,” Shade said. “If you’re sober—respect.” He gestured at my beer. “But you’re not sober.”
“So much peer pressure!” I said. But it actually felt nice. When was the last time someone had wanted me to be a part of their group?
We downed the shots together, bit into lime slices, grimaced. My spirits lifted on the wings of alcohol. I’d forgotten how this worked. You had a shot, you felt better. You had another shot, you felt close to everyone around you. You became deeply convinced alcohol could never make you feel anything but more and more happy. More and more connected to others. More and more like your true self. Maybe alcoholwasthe solution to everything.
With a second tequila shot down my gullet, I couldn’t understand why I didn’t drink more often.
“You said you just moved here?” Layna asked.
Newly chatty, I told everyone I grew up in Boise, but had lived in Westside LA for twenty-five years. LA was my spiritual home, I said. Comedy my religion. “But as soon as I got my big break, my career imploded,” I said. This was something I’d be loath to mention sober, but seemed imperative to share now.
“What do you mean?’” Layna said.
“You’ve heard of Mickey Larynx, right?” I said.
“Of course,” Shade said. “He was one of my favorite comedians. With an emphasis on thewas.”
The others nodded solemnly.
“Who is he?” Layna demanded. “Sorry. Not a pop culture vulture.”
It was rare to meet someone who hadn’t heard the whole sordid story. “He is... well, hewasa big deal in comedy. Asked me to open for him on a fifty-city tour.” I’d heard the rumors about Mickey Larynx. But I’d waited so damn long for my time to shine, and I’d worked it all out. Me, my mom, the twins, we’d drive behind Mickey Larynx’s giant tour van for three months while my mom homeschooled Phoebe and Alice. The first couple nights—Oakland, San Francisco—I had the audience rolling! On the third day of the tour, I got an email from a Netflix exec saying they were interested in having me do my own special—an unheard-of bit of good fortune for an unknown like me.
“Netflix!” Layna cried.
Shade heaved a great sigh. Gucci, Zhang Xiu, and Salma Hayek looked similarly mournful. Only Layna didn’t know how this snakebit tale would end. I wanted so badly for it not to be my story.
“But then, the morning of the fourth day, I had all these alerts fromThe New York Times, theLos Angeles Times,The Hollywood Reporter. Mickey Larynx had been wanking it in hotel hot tubs full of unsuspectingpeople. The tour was canceled. Mickey Larynx was canceled. And I lost forty-seven cities’ worth of pay.”
I paused to take a fortifying gulp of beer.
“After he was busted?” I continued. “My manager never returned my calls. The Netflix execs definitely never returned my calls.”
“Oh my god,” Layna said. “What a disaster!”
I’d tried to bounce back professionally. But when I did my first show at Dynasty Typewriter, it seemed the whole audience had come to heckle me about being a Mickey Larynx enabler. Memes of the two girls in the front row with a handmade sign that readWOMEN LIKE TILLY TURNER ARE THE REASON MEN LIKE MICKEY LARYNX GET AWAY WITH IThaunted my nightmares—and all my social media pages—for months.
Then the worst thing ever happened: my mom died. Three weeks later, my appendix threatened to burst like a water balloon. Cue the emergency appendectomy to the tune of sixteen grand and a massive babysitting bill to boot. I’d assumed I could sell my mom’s duplex to keep myself afloat. But an estate lawyer explained my mother had taken out three mortgages on the property. That’s how she’d been able to send me all that cash over the years. The duplex was almost underwater. But paying those three mortgages every month would be way cheaper than my LA rent. That’s when I just gave up. It was time to let go of my childish hopes and dreams. Time to finally grow the hell up.
“Then a duplex came available here in Boise,” I said, skipping over the fact that it had belonged to my mom, because if I talked too much about her, I would cry.
Emmylou had known how desperate I was for health insurance. She’d helped me land a job as an assistant manager at the Capitol Grill, which provided a middling salary and amazing benefits. In a slow-motion collapse, I’d dragged everything that wouldn’t fit into my minivan to the curb and drove the twins to Idaho.
