It wasn’t until I’d parked the Impala behind my house that I remembered to turn my phone back on. Text messages buzzed and dinged. Fora second, terror that something had happened to the twins seized me, followed by the certainty Miranda was blowing up my phone about her mom. But the messages weren’t from Emmylou or Miranda.
My friend Patzi, who worked at House of Intuition in West Hollywood, had texted:Damn, girl! You did it! Headed toward viral.
Miley O’Riley:T&A and great jokes! Perfection!!!!
Layna:That outfit I gave you looks hawt xo
As my agitated mind tried to make sense of the digital onslaught, a link Layna had sent burst open. A fifteen-second clip of me onstage at the Winter Will Never End Festival, talking about how being a mom and being a stripper both involve telling someone else not to put their hand down their pants.
The Winter Will Never End Festival had seven thousand followers on Instagram. But the video already had 75,000 likes. It took some digging to figure out Patzi had posted it on her grid. All the hot LA influencers hire Patzi to do their birth charts and tarot readings. Some of them had reposted the reel, which was what was giving it so much traction.
Another clip, of me lying on the ground doing leg lifts while joking about the genius Cookie Mueller, already had 50K likes. I was too overwhelmed to go down the rabbit hole of who had posted it and why.
OnAmerica’s Got Talent, when a contestant performs with such undeniable genius that one of the judges hits the Golden Buzzer, the contestant always bursts into tears as the golden tickets rain down. Sometimes she collapses onto the floor of the stage, so overwhelming is the sense of finally being seen and recognized for her talents.
I’d always thought if this moment ever came, that’s how it’d be for me. But instead, I had a feeling like when you’re at a party and you get stuck in the bathroom. You can’t unlock the door, and right when youreally start to panic, the lock unlocks and the door swings open, and you step back out into your real life. That was the feeling: a profound and nearly cellular relief.
I hadn’t found my audience because I’d gotten the backing of a powerful but sexually deviant comic or a fickle manager at a fancy agency. Not even because some network executive had reached down from on high and anointed me a Queen of Comedy. I’d done it because a high school pal I’d long neglected had offered me a humble slot at a dinky festival.
And, despite threats to my person and my dignity, I’d taken a risk.
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’trevived 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” fromMary 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.
